It seems like competition has gotten a bad rap these days. We've gone away from keeping score. We've introduced mercy rules. High schools don't give out awards for the top male and female athletes of the year. We don't hand out finishers medals but instead everyone gets a participation medal. Sorry but this got a laugh out of me. But the truth is we now give out awards simply for showing up. And sometimes you don't even need to show up but pay the registration fee. Are we going in the right direction? Is this helping us as a society? I'd argue that it's not. And here's why. I guess we eliminate acknowledging the best athletes at the end of the year because there can only be one winner. And therefore to protect the feelings of those who don't win we just do away with the award altogether. I'd suggest that this fails on two levels. First, the best athlete is robbed of the award they worked hard to achieve. Secondly, the athletes that don't win don't feel they are equal to the one that should have won. Instead I'd suggest the ones that don't win feel worse because now we're also hoping they'll buy into the idea that all the athletes are equal. So not only do they not have the same athletic ability but we're also hoping they're dumb enough to believe it. Life is not fair. And because two athletes aren't equal has nothing to do with value. When we play this game we set young athletes up for a rude awakening. They will be surprised when they aren't selected for an interview. They will be incredulous they weren't hired for the job. And they won't understand why they were passed up for the promotion. Business tycoon Jimmy...

One thing we put a high priority on at Okanagan Peak Performance is education. We have summer interns who come work with us during the summer. We subscribe to relevant journals and trade publications. Staff are paid for the journals and articles they read each week.We put on seminars for our clients every few months. And of course we travel far and wide to learn from the best.So how do we improve on that?We bring the best to us, that's how.And who do we mean by the best anyway? Well bringing in 5 top level speakers from across North America. This list includes:Dr. Charlie Weingroff - I first saw Charlie speak last year in Seattle and I was immediately impressed. He stole the show. His presentations are a great mix of both interesting and useful. He has a great sense of humour and fields questions from the audience like a pro. Besides the fact he is one super smart dude he is also an accomplished powerlifter putting up a 1915 lbs total for his squat, deadlift and bench. Unbelievable!Want more? How about the fact he was the strength and conditioning coach for the Philadelphia 76ers of the NBA, has his doctorate in physical therapy and trained the special forces the United States Marines. Wow!Dr. Martin Gibala -In our industry there are a number of research papers that constantly get quoted by those of us who want to appear really smart and show what we know. Just kidding. But Dr. Gibala's research is commonly referenced when you are talking about high intensity exercise, EPOC and other exercise related topics. As well, it turns out Olympian Adam vanKoeverden thinks pretty highly of this guy as well. I still can't believe we're going to have him here.Joel Jamieson -Have you heard of this thing called...