Setting the Bar is Available Now!
Available in Hardcover, Paperback, Ebook, or Audible format
“If you’re a parent, an educator, or a coach, this book is essential reading. Shane Trotter takes unflinching aim at how we’re pacifying our children with technology, enfeebling them through slipping standards, and failing to teach them lessons worth learning. Then he lays out a better blueprint for equipping the leaders of tomorrow to become principled, competent, and confident change makers. Setting the Bar is brutally honest, big-hearted, and broad minded—in short, the wake up call our youth development system so desperately needs.”
—Phil White, Emmy nominated author of The Leader’s Mind with Jim Afremow
Listen to Part of Chapter One.
Criticizing the newest generation is a tradition as old as time. But there is truly something worrisome about the trends we are seeing in today's kids.
You’ve likely had this intuition yourself as you side-eye that family across the restaurant—kids and parents alike hunched over their individual devices. Or maybe you’ve bemoaned the decline of childhood hallmarks like pick-up games and biking across town—replaced by the allure of infinite entertainment and the growing expectation that parents manage every aspect of their kids’ lives. Or perhaps you’re a high-school teacher who has watched firsthand as students grow less comfortable socializing, less energized, less responsible, and less capable of setting out into the world, much less thriving in it.
It sounds progressive to dismiss these concerns, equating them with the typical brand of back in my day rhetoric. But that forgoes the opportunity for course correction at a time when it is most critical. Kids these days, like the societies they grow up in, are increasingly unhealthy, depressed, anxious, and plagued by a sense of meaninglessness. They are protected, entertained, and celebrated, but starved of something much more essential to their fulfillment.
With his diverse perspective as a decade-long educator, a respected voice in fitness coaching, and a writer featured everywhere from Quillette to Spartan, Shane Trotter synthesizes the most timeless wisdom and the most timely research to craft a unique vision of how we can adapt to create a generation that has the tools to thrive in an era marked by unprecedented change.
Blending philosophy, psychology and bold, honest storytelling, Trotter takes us on a journey to discover what has gone wrong and how we can turn the tide, both individually and collectively. Setting the Bar is an investigation into the human condition—who we are, what we need to flourish, and where we are going as a culture. This is a book for every concerned parent, teacher, or coach, and every conscientious citizen who cares about our kids and our future.
“Once in a while a book comes along that has all the elements of a masterpiece—the vitality of truth, a ring of wistfulness, and most of all, the power of hope. Setting the Bar is such a book. As such, it is Mandatory reading for all who care about the future of the country.”
Table of Contents
Section I: These Days
1. Kids These Days
2. A Failed Youth Development Paradigm
3. Antifragility
4. The Danger of Overprotection
5. Having More vs. Being More
6. Flying to Our Own Demise
Section II: The Cost of Utopian Delusions
7. The Cost of Utopian Delusions
8. The Beauty of the Ideal
9. Judge Thy Neighbor
9b: An Aside on Parenting Mentally and Physically Healthy Kids
10. Enlightenment or Bust
Section III: Education and Reform
11. Modern Education: The Land of Smoke and Mirrors
12. Six Practices that are Ruining Education
13. Towards a Better Educational Philosophy
14. The Lost Tools and Other Possible Reforms
15. Master Thy Self
16. A New Vision for Schools
17. Is College Still Worth It?
Conclusion
I. The Transition to Adulthood