Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
In northern California, fires are fairly common.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
This psychology PhD student Michelle Hasty Thompson.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
And so when I heard that there was a fire,
it didn't seem that close, and so was nothing that
caused me any concern. It's like, oh, okay, another fire, whatever,
that's what we do here.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
But Michelle's calm attitude on that fateful November morning in
twenty eighteen wouldn't last. She was getting her son Rome
ready for his usual daycare drop off when she noticed
that the sky was a bit darker than usual. With
her husband already at work on the other side of town,
Michelle called to compare notes and figure out how concerned
they should be.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
You know, do I need to evacuate? Is this serious?
He said, no, I'm on my way to you. You
stay there fires on this side of the town, so
you're fine.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
But then Michelle got an unexpected notification's daycare was closing
for the day because of the fire.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
I was like, well, this must be serious that the
daycare close, And then I looked outside. It was about
nine am and it was black as midnight. I mean
there was no light in the whole sky and it
was eerily quiet.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Home alone with her two dogs and a young toddler.
Michelle began to panic and.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
All I could hear was pro paane tanks exploding. But
there was no sirens, there was no evacuation warnings, there
was no text coming through, there was no communication as
to what was going on. But my body kind of
said you need to go.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
She called her husband back and he's like, I'm on
my way.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
I said, I don't know. I don't feel safe. I'm
just going to take Rome and the dogs and get
out of here. And so he said, just, you know,
grab the contents of the safe and grab some of
my paintings because he's an artist. And that is literally
all I grabbed, nothing else, and I got out of
there as quickly as possible. It was very scary.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Michelle corrowed the dogs into the car, buckled in her son,
and began driving out of town.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
I'm at the bottom of the town and I looked
up and it was just straight cars as far as
you can see. My sister in law was only thirty
minutes behind me, and she sent me a picture and
the fire was on the road. What I just drove on,
traveling that quickly turns out the fire completely trapped everybody
in the town, so I was very lucky to get
out when I did.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
The fire would later become known as the Campfire, the
deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history. It burned
for two weeks straight, destroying nearly all of Michelle's town
of Paradise, California. More than fifty thousand people were displaced,
and over eighty people lost their lives.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
I got out and I was safe, but my husband
and my in laws were all trapped all day. I
had no idea if they were going to make it out. Luckily,
everybody did and we were all safe. But we did
lose everything. We lost all of our homes. We were renters,
so no insurance because they don't give you insurance and
fire towns, and it was a really difficult process to
rebuild from that.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
How do you cope when you and all your family
and friends have lost everything, when the town that you
loved and called home is now gone, when you need
to start life over and build a totally new community
from scratch, would you turn to religion or philosophy. Well,
Michelle turned to an unexpected solution, one that she knew
could help her find connection and community during this tough time.
(03:25):
What was Michelle's unexpected coping mechanism. Well, it was cornhole. Yes,
you heard that right, cornhole.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Beanbag sas beedbag tas Okay, yeah, and so it really
is like there's a board with a hole and you're
trying to get the bean bag in the hole.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Michelle, who goes by the Instagram handle of cornhole Niche,
is more than just a fan of cornhole. The lawn
game is also the topic of her psychology PhD dissertation.
In her thesis, Michelle argues that cornhole is a surprisingly
powerful way to create connection and community, a benefit she
experienced firsthand long before she lost everything in that Paradise fire.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Cornhole was the thing, Like our garage was open, everybody
came over, we threw bags.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Cornhole was Michelle and her husband's go to activity for
bonding with old friends and connecting with new ones.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
It just breaks the eyes, you know, not just sitting
staring at each other hoping conversation comes up. And so
it made it easy to kind of invite people, Hey,
you want to come over and throw some bags? And
so I've really found it to be that sort of
connector in all different aspects of life.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
And so with a new home to settle into, a
new routine to adjust to, and a new community to
get to know, Michelle and her husband knew they could
rely on this one familiar tool.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
We built new boards and got some bags, and then
when we would be out, we would invite people to
come play cornhole with us. And then ultimately we decided
to start our own club because there wasn't one in
our county.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Turns out, Michelle wasn't the only person in the area
who was stoked about cornhole.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Our very first night of our very first cornhole club,
where we don't have a big community here that we know,
we had sixty people. We were like, WHOA, that's a
lot of people that came and they don't even know
who we are. We built that club up to over
one hundred people on a Wednesday night weekly, so it
got really big and it created this entire family. We
(05:14):
definitely felt like we had our people very quickly after
our very tragic situation where we completely lost everything, and
it would be really easy to get stuck in that
and isolate yourself and just feel like, why did this happen?
To me and why was my town taken? And why
was my community taken? And it was easy just to go, Okay, well,
this is our new friends, our new family, our new community,
(05:35):
and we're thriving.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
All thanks to an outdoor game with a goofy name.
But is tossing bean bags really all that different from
any other social activity? Michelle certainly thinks so, and in
this final episode of the Happiness Lab season on Creative
Ways to Cope, we'll find out why. If you've ever
been to a backyard barbecue or college tailgate, you might
(05:56):
already know how cornhole works. For those of you who haven't,
here's a quick rundown. The game involves a pair of
wooden boards, each with a circular hole near the top,
and a set of four square bean bags. Are simple
tassa bag toward the board, aim for the hole, and
score points if the bag lands on the board, or
even better, if it falls through the hole. The name
(06:18):
cornhole comes from what used to fill the bags. Yes,
back in the day, it was dried corn kernels. I
don't know they still sell like that, but they did.
When we first started. We would lean them outside and
the rats would eat them. And we have to keep
replacing them over and were and over. It was a
whole thing. The origin story of cornhole is still hotly debated.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
There are so many stories. I honestly have no idea
which one is true.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
One popular theory traces cornhole back to fourteenth century Germany.
Some even suggest the game's roots go all the way
back to antiquity, but the version of cornhole we know
today seems to have emerged from Cincinnati, Ohio in the
mid nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
You're going to find it in the places that have
a lot of land and maybe not a lot of
stuff to do.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Michelle's entry into the sport that would later change her
life started off unremarkably enough. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
I think I started just like everybody else, at someone's backyard,
just at a barbecue or a party, and never really
thought much of it because I was horrible, So you
don't think, oh, I'm gonna like make this my career.
It's just this fun thing that you do, right, And
I didn't really get into it until my husband was
really into it and I realized if I didn't start playing,
I was never gonna see him. So that's when I
(07:24):
actually started competing. Was to connect with him, and also
it was something to do in that sort of elusive
five to eight pm right like after work you just
mostly would watch TV or something like that, but he
would want to go outside and throw bags, and it
got us in that, you know, side by side type
of configuration to have conversation. So that was a way
(07:47):
that we really connected.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
At first, Michelle just played casually, but a few tips
from her spouse got her thinking more competitively, and.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
I saw an instant change in my results, and I thought, wow,
if I can see an improvement that quickly with a
little tweak, that means I might actually be able to
get good at this.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
And it turns out some people are really good at cornhole.
One of the things I did not realize, embarrassingly maybe
until I get interested in your work, is that this
isn't just like the kind of thing people do in
their backyards. This is actually a professional sport.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
You're not alone, and I'm not alone. Okay, Yeah, I
travel all the time, so I always talk to people
at the airport and they're like, I'm sorry, what you're
going to be on ESPN? Excuse me.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
The game started getting a lot of attention in twenty
twenty for a rather obvious reason.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
So the boards are going to be twenty seven feet apart,
so that's quite a distance of ways. So this really
sets it up to explode during COVID because it's naturally
socially distanced. So it was one of the only sports
on TV in twenty twenty for a period of time there,
which is how it grew so fast. It was just
the four players out there, and then you have your
two broadcasters obviously set aways, and that's the only people
(08:54):
in the room. Really.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
The big leagues of beanbags, as it were, are run
by the ACL, the American Cornhole League ACL. Pro players
earn sponsorships and compete in tournaments all over the world.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
What it elevates to that next level is when you
start to see all the craziness these pros can do.
They push, they cut, they roll, they air mail.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
For the uninitiated like me, these are all just advanced
techniques for getting the bag into the hole.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
I mean they block. And I think what's fun about
the game in terms of a spectator is it does
have defense. You can play an entire defensive game. You
can just try to force your opponent to miss, and
I think that's a fun way that the game gets
really interesting to watch and you get to see all
the different strategy.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
And Michelle was especially excited to help cornhole players master
one particular aspect of strategy, the psychological side of the game.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
I did food psychology. I worked with the mental part
of weight and food, so obviously coming from the world
of psychology, it didn't take long for me to realize
that this was more mental than physical once you get
past the initial mechanics. Similar to golf, right, it's a
slow paced game, and as you know, the more time
you have to think, the more dangerous the mind can be.
(10:05):
As opposed to a reactionary sport. Right, you're playing football,
basketball time to think. You completely rely on training. You
don't have a choice. Well, as much as I tell
my cornhole players to rely on their training, their brain
can take over and be like, well, I better make
this bag. If I don't make this bag, it's gonna
be bad. I'm gonna lose like all that stuff. So
the mental perspective became really interesting to me, and I
(10:28):
basically started just applying the same things I was teaching
people with Weight and Food to cornhole. It's about presence,
it's about mindfulness. It's about breathing, body awareness. You're thinking,
you're limiting beliefs, all of that. All the things I
taught there, I just brought over here.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
And so your path to taking part in the sport
was not just kind of helping cornhole players play better
at using your psychology training. You also became a cornhole announcer.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Tony steps up to the board. He looks like he's
going to start off with a block. That's a perfect
block right in front of the hole. It's funny because
you know, as a kid, I did musical theater as
a seven year old. I wanted to be a singer
that died quickly, but I definitely loved being in front
of a microphone. So it's going to make it harder
for Mark to be able to slide his bag in
(11:13):
and could kick off right. Bag kicks off right. Tony
should be able to clean this up, get to I
like to perform like that's the theater geek and me still,
and so I always saw myself being on a mic
or in front of people. I like to speak things
like that. Never did I think to be a commentator.
But I had started a girl's cornhall podcast and acl
(11:36):
heard it and then asked me to come on board
because they need a female voice, and that's kind of
where it went from there, and the sideline reporting came
after that.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Seems like you've become a bit of a big celebrity
in a very tiny world.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
That's exactly it, in a very small world.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
But Michelle got more than small world glory out of
her love of the sport. When we get back from
the break, we'll dig into the surprising psychological benefits of
cornhole and why what looks like a simple lawn game
might be the key to greater presence play and even
self compassion. The Happiness Lab will be right back. A
(12:15):
recent poll from the American Psychological Association found that seventy
six percent of US adults are so stressed that it's
affecting their health, leading to things like headaches, fatigue, anxiety, depression,
and trouble sleeping. I know that when I hit a
point of extreme stress, I just want to shut off
my brain, and that's when I tend to reach for
mindless scrolling, even though I know that it usually amplifies
(12:37):
my stress rather than fixing it. But researchers have found
that there's one powerful way to reduce stress that we
often forget about. That stress remedy is simply having fun.
Professional American Cornhole League announcer Cornhole Niche aka Michelle Thompson
is writing her PhD dissertation on the psychological effects of
cornhole and fun is something that she thinks about a lot.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
So going back to when I was in the wellness community,
I would work with mostly middle aged women and they
came to me because they were struggling with weight and
they try everything and nothing was working. They were eating healthy,
they were moving the weight wooden budget. And I would
work with them and I would immediately notice what was
lacking was play, hobbies, social, all of that. It was
like their life was just about maybe their families, their work,
(13:24):
and the obsession with their bodies and being thinner and
being fit. It's so easy to get sucked into that
external world when you don't have all that passionate stuff happening,
the soulful hobbies, if you will. But I didn't have
a solution back then. I just knew they needed it.
So that's why when I first started cornhole, I was like,
(13:45):
this is it. Instead of focusing on every calorie you
burn and everything you eat and what your body looks like.
You're going into a room with people and you're just
having fun on a Wednesday night. Don't put all your
energy into obsessing about your body. Go have some fun.
Put all the energy to trying to throw the bag
in the hole, fly out theer.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
It makes sense that Michelle made this connection. Psychologically speaking,
the most effective fun activities tend to be ones that
are social, a little physical, maybe a tad thrilling. Our
usual mindless scrolling doesn't qualify as fun in any of
these senses, And unlike screen time, true fun tends to
get us out of our heads. That low stakes challenge
of trying to land a beanbag into a hole can
(14:27):
help us snap out of negative self talk. Michelle seemed
so confident that cornhole was the ultimate solution to stress,
I had to check it out myself. My husband Mark
and I drove to Burlington, Massachusetts, where the Boston Cornhole
group was having their weekly tournament. All right, look at this, Oh,
this is like where it's happening. There's a bunch of
(14:48):
people here.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Yeah. I don't know about our chances.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Mark and I did end up playing more on that later,
but we also had the chance to speak with some
of the local competitors, and a lot of them mentioned
that stress relief was their main reason for showing up
week after week. Some players even used cornhole to cope
with big life changes. Take one guy, Matt. He started
playing cornhole after joining the military and moving very far
(15:14):
away from home, all the way to Kuwait.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
So I was deployed overseas with the army and the
USL ran cornwall tournaments every Thursday. It was a great
like reliever. It's honestly probably what I looked forward to
every week. It was very hot, the boards are very sticky.
It was like one hundred thirty degrees, so a little
bit different playing back in New England, but but yeah,
that's how I got into it.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
So the stress relieving fun of the game is one
big psychological benefit. But Michelle argues that cornhole can also
make players more present.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
You cannot play your best game if you're not present.
Probably my favorite part because I was a yoga teacher
for many years now. Let's not beat around the bush.
There is a component of cornhole that is connected to alcohol.
I know, we can't pretend that's not there. I know
that's not the healthiest component of cornhole.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
I heard it's called throwing juice is the stressing aiming juice.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Aiming juice a juice, that's what my co collitator calls it.
So that's there, and I always tell people, Look, the
mindless state is going to be when you're consuming alcohol
and that's okay, that's what you want to do that night,
and you don't care about throwing your best. You just
want to have a few beers and throw bags, and
that's the night you want. You can have that. But
if you want to really compete, you cannot successfully do
(16:26):
that if you are not in the flow or the
play state, and both of those states require presence. You
have to be in the body. You have to be
aware of when your nervous system changes because it impacts
your physiology. And when you're in a game, an accuracy game,
if your physiology changes by a teeny tiny amount, your
bag is going to go somewhere else, not center.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
You've also talked about how cornhole can be a way
to practice being kinder to ourselves. What do you mean
by that?
Speaker 2 (16:54):
You know, as humans we're sort of meaning making machines.
So I use cornhole as a way to teach my
players not to make so much meaning out of things,
because immediately what they do is they, let's say they
miss a bag. Ugh, that means I'm off. That means
I'm horrible at this. Oh, that means I lost it.
And so I've taught them don't make meaning out of it,
(17:14):
because the truth is, even our top pros don't make
every bag in the hole every game. You're not going
to make every bag in the hole. But once you
make meaning out of it, well, that means I'm off,
and then they can spiral. So if we can stop
making meaning out of everything, we're going to play a
lot better. And guess what, that's pretty helpful for life
as well.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
I got to see this helpful aspect of cornhole firsthand,
because even with the addition of a little aming juice,
I was pretty bad at my first cornhole attempt. I
played three rounds of games and hit the board like twice,
which was embarrassing enough. But cornhole tournaments aren't played solo.
When you show up, you get randomly paired with another player,
(17:52):
and my unfortunate first partner was George, who happened to
be a very very experienced player. As I continued to
with shot after shot, my meaning making mind went into overdrive.
It kept shaming me, saying that George was going to
be pissed. But when I chat with him afterwards, I
learned that all that self criticism was completely unfounded. George,
(18:14):
as it turns out, was totally chill about it. Thanks
for you, my partner.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
Sure help you to do any comments on my cour
just you know, it takes some practice, and you know,
like anything else, it's you get to kind of feel
like it's going to go in, as opposed to when
you get too stressed, and I think it's very psychological.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Psychologists called these kinds of irrational thoughts cognitive distortions, things
like jumping to conclusions, catastrophizing, or all or nothing thinking,
And when you're thinking distorted thoughts like these, it's very
relieving to realize that your brain is lying to you. Eventually,
I switched from George to other partners, and I continued
to play like crap, but it quickly became clear that
(18:56):
no one seemed to care about my performance as much
as my inner critic did, And with that realization I
could finally relax and start having some fun. My husband
had a similar takeaway how'd you do.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
Well?
Speaker 5 (19:09):
I won the game I played against you, But other
than that, I've had a great learning experience.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Yeah, oh yeah, good.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
And so it's not just making meaning though. We can
also use cornhole to kind of watch how we change
over time. You've talked about how cornhole really is a
growth sport and that can help us promote something that
we definitely know is good for happiness. This idea of
a growth mindset, like I might not be perfect, but
I'm getting better over time. I have time to improve.
Is this something you've seen in the players that you've
worked with.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Yeah, So if you come into the room and you
think I'm never going to be good at this, then
you're basically going to be set up for failure, right,
But then you walk into this room and every single
person in the room says, I was there, that's how
I threw too. You're good, You're fine. Hey, just try
kind of doing this with your hand and you see
those immediate changes and you realize, oh, my goodness, if
(20:02):
I actually put time into this, I might actually get better.
And if I can get better, then I can get
to a point where at least I can compete with
the people in this room, and I think as humans
we love that opportunity for quick growth.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
And this idea of competition I think gets to another
benefit of cornhole, which is a kind of healthy way
to exert our competition muscles a little bit. Yeah, definitely.
I am someone who dreams big and dreams often. Maybe
other entrepreneurs can relate to this. I was like, obsessive
about competing in my business.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
How going to be better? I can get more clients,
I can make more money, like just obsessive about it.
But it can be very toxic and unhealthy for me
to have a goal and then obsess about that goal
so much that I can't be present. I can't be
with my family, I can't stop thinking about achieving, and
that is not a healthy place for my mind, or
my body or the people around me.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
But cornhole is a spot where you can kind of
get that kind of competition in a healthier way.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Yeah. I think the reason why it works for cornhole
is because it's easy to keep it to that space,
at least for me. So if it's a you know,
a Wednesday night and I'm playing in a competition, I
can channel all that there if I want, And then
when I get home, it's over, a.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Healthy form of competition, a form of stress relief through
play and fun, an evening activity that gets you outside
and keeps you mindful and present. All of these features
of cornhole can offer a meaningful boost to our well being,
especially when times are tough. But there's still one huge
benefit of cornhole that we haven't touched on, the one
Michelle says matters most. We'll hear about that benefit, plus
(21:38):
a few more takeaways from my own cornhole adventure, when
the Happiness Lab returns. If you're a fan of the
Happiness Lab, you've probably already heard that social connection is
vital for happiness. The Harvard Study of Adult Development, a
longitudinal study of human health and well being that's been
(21:59):
ongoing for eighty six years, has found that strong relationships
are the single biggest predictor of long term mental and
physical health. Unfortunately, building those strong relationships in the modern
world can feel pretty tough, but not if you show
up at a cornhole tournament. When I visited that Boston
cornhole group, I quickly realized just how easy it is
to strike up a conversation with a total stranger when
(22:22):
you're tossing bags. Right beside them. I mean, there's not
a lot of spaces right now where I can show
up and just meet people, you know, from all of
the Massachusetts with all kinds of different backgrounds.
Speaker 5 (22:32):
It's almost like networking, but you don't have to put
the effort in because you're next to somebody, so you
kind of are forced to do it, but not in
a bad way, in a good way. And chatting you
just chatted, Yeah, because you're next to each other for
ten fifteen minutes at a time.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
I have had more interesting conversations with more interesting people
at cornhole than I'd had in a while, which made
me especially surprised to hear that lots of the folks
I spoke with at the event the bottom themselves as introverts.
This is my opponent who demolished me, ruined my score.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
On the bottom for something like this.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Yeah, I'm sorry, but even after expressing his reserve, this
player stuck around and chatted with me for a while.
There's something about cornhole that makes connecting with total strangers
feel easier. Academic cornhole expert Michelle Thompson has seen this
benefit play out across all kinds of players.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Probably my favorite thing about cornhole is the way that
it connects people, but I didn't realize how powerful it
could be. And there was a player. He was a
teenager who would come to our club and he was
very shy, and he would come with his dad every
single week. And in terms of the average cornhole player,
he didn't necessarily fit the mold of what you would expect.
(23:41):
He was a little bit eccentric, and when he started playing,
he got fairly good, fairly quickly. And then he pulled
my husband aside and he told him that cornhole saved
his life. And the story that he shared was that
he didn't have a lot of friends, and he wasn't
super connected to his dad because they didn't have a
lot of things in common. And when they started coming
(24:03):
to this club, not only did he connect more with
his father, he found this family that completely accepted him
exactly as he was. It didn't matter that he's interested
in other things that we're not interested. It didn't matter
that everybody there was probably twice his age. None of
that mattered. And now it's really fun to watch him
because he's older now, so he's taken jobs out of
(24:24):
town and he'll come back and play whenever he's in town,
and he's just a completely different person. He's won one
hundred percent himself. It just seems like he's so comfortable
in his skin, and that was not the way it
was when he first started.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
And the seems in part because cornhole is this unique
sport when it comes to kind of connecting with other individuals,
talk about the ways that cornhole uniquely allows us to connect.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
The way that most of these clubs set it up
is it's a swap, which means you're randomly paired with
four people and you play a game with each person,
and so you have four different partners. That's four different
connections that you build and you're working together. Now you
also have your opponent directly next to you that you're
probably talking to as well. And so now you've met
(25:06):
eight people, right, your partners and these different opponents. And
then you have a partner going into bracket and that's
another person. Now you're playing multiple games with this person,
so you build this relationship, this connection, not to mention
all the time in between games that you can connect
with these people. So you have to make friends, even
if you're sort of shy and sit in the corner
(25:27):
in between games. You have to play with and against
someone every time you walk up to the board, and that,
to me is what makes it so special. Is so
much time to connect in an environment. And so many
people have said, you know, I have social anxiety, I
am uncomfortable in these environments, and it still works. With cornhole,
They're able to overcome that.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
And it seems like being able to overcome that allows
for something else to develop that super good for happiness,
which is the sense of community. Talk about the kind
of community that gets built, especially when people have cornhole clubs.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
The community is like nothing I've ever seen. Once again,
as is someone who geeks out on psychology, this is
the stuff that like I can't help, but notice this
community comes to get there for everybody. I mean, we've
done cancer fundraisers, like someone who's in chemo, and the
people in the room don't even know the person and
they're more than willing to contribute to make this person
(26:20):
have an easier time and that really tough time in
their life. My brother in law unfortunately passed away a
couple of years ago unexpectedly, and the entire cornhole all
the clubs in the area came together to raise money
for his kids, my nephew, my niece, and my in
laws showed up to this tournament and they were blown
away at the amount of people that were in the
room and how they were all coming together to support
(26:42):
them and us. And I've just never seen anything like it.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
We know that doing nice things for other people and
having these communities like especially during really tough times, can
be so important, but so many of us just kind
of lack this community, you know, so if something bad happens,
we don't have anyone to support us. But also means
if other people are going through tough times, we don't
have as obvious mechanisms to support them either. It seems
like one of the things that Cornhole is doing is
it's creating the kind of thing that the political scientist
(27:07):
Robert Putnam talked about, is a place right this place
that's not home or work, where you can get together
and form these relationships that cut across so many different things,
but kind of become a really serious community in your life.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Yeah, not just local communities are super important. There's a
lot of research on that, but I have found that
it extends so far beyond the local, and I know
that I could literally move anywhere in the US, and
I would have an instant family everywhere I go, and
it makes it so that there's no fear. It's like
we can move anywhere and we would have friends no
(27:40):
matter where we go.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
This idea of a family, I think gets to another
social benefit of cornhole, it seems, which is that, in
a funny way, it really promotes belonging. The slogan of
the American Cornhole League is anyone can play, anyone can win.
Like it's just a like super inclusive sport.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Yeah. That's another thing that's super unique about it is
the inclusivity because the rule is just get the bag
to the board. You don't have to be athletic, you
don't have to have any experience playing any other I've
never played sports ever, so I'm a theater girl, right.
I had no athletic training and was able to pick
up this game. The cool thing is because it is
(28:18):
a one pound bag, there's no limitations to who can play.
So we have, for example, under eighteen players competing in
the pro field against adults. I've seen players throw on crutches.
I mean, we have players that have no arms throw
at their feet. Dayton Weber is a quadruple amputee. He
was a pro for many years. He's that good. So,
(28:39):
I mean, what sport can you think of where a
quadruple amputee you would be competing with people with no
disabilities at the same level. Literally anybody can play, So
now all of a sudden, you get to compete and
there's no limitations or boundaries to that.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
It might seem cheesy, but I did get that feeling
of inclusivity. At the Boston Cornhole tournament. There were people
of all ages competing with totally different backgrounds, education levels,
political affiliations, but everyone just seemed to get along.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
It has a different socioeconomic demographic then maybe some other sports. Right,
A set of boards you can get very inexpensive or
you can make them yourself. And bags are very inexpensive
if you don't want to go pro level, if you
just want any bags to throw. And so it's just
very easy to get started in it, and it doesn't
have the same barriers that I would say like golf does.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Right, several of the players I met in Burlington made
the same point.
Speaker 5 (29:33):
Maddie g who plays are usually here, what is he like? Fourteen?
He's better, He's like one of the top players and
wait till he grows up and like I don't gain
some muscle and strength. But yeah, all ages can play.
All you need is some grass, but a lot cheaper
(29:54):
than a set of golf clubs. For sure.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Cornhall was starting to sound like the world's most ideal sport,
but Michelle is willing to admit they're like everything else.
It has its flaws.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
You know, it's not always perfect. I don't want to
make it sound like every person that plays cornhole is
the best ever, right. I work really hard to make
sure that our club is inclusive and that we're so
warm and welcoming to new players. And I know that
a lot of club directors feel that same way because
we want to continue growing. We're all so nerdy about
cornhole that we want the entire world to play it
(30:26):
with us, because we're like, you're missing out. You got
to get over here and play with us. It's too
fun for you not to. We're trying to tell everybody
you're screaming from the rooftops, come play cornhole with us.
I promise you're going to fall in love.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
What's some advice that people can use to get started?
If this discussion has peaked their interest in sort of
being a cornhole beginner.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
I hope it has, and if it has, whether you're
going for a local tournament or you just want to
get equipment, I definitely recommend the acl dot com so
you can put in where you live and it'll show
you all the different events there. There's also a forum
called Addicted to Cornhole and you can go in there
and say I live here, is or any clubs nearby?
You'll get tons of comments. Is an extremely active community,
(31:06):
and obviously you can build your own boards if you want,
you know, on a budget, and I've even seen people
make their own bags, so you know, whatever you're got
to do to get to get started, I'd recommend giving
it a go. And it gets kids off screens, it
gets couples playing together, it brings families together. It's a
way to make friends because you could, like I said earlier,
you can bring them over to your house. Let's throw
(31:26):
some bags. It's an easy way to get started.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
I hope today's episode inspired you to give this long
game a chance. My husband and I had such a
blast at Boston Cornhall that we're planning to go back,
and we're hoping to bring some friends. If you're in
the area, you should drop by. Just promise not to
be annoyed if you get stuck with me as a partner.
But if you're still not convinced that an elevated beanbag
toss competition is for you, there's still plenty to take
(31:51):
away from today's show. First, having fun is one of
the most powerful tools we have for reducing stress and
doom scrolling doesn't count. Get outside with other people and
do something that's a little thrilling. Second, try to recognize
when cognitive distortions are holding you back and find ways
to counter your inner critic. My throwing partner George wasn't
(32:12):
mad at me for missing, and the people you're convinced
are judging you, odds are they're not either. Third, acknowledge
the little wins and celebrate your personal growth, whether that's
small improvements with a new hobby or simply making it
through an event that triggered your social anxiety. And finally,
find a third place somewhere that's not work and not home,
where you can spend time and build community. It doesn't
(32:34):
have to be a cornhole league in Burlington, Massachusetts. It
could be a community theater a yoga studio, or a
Dungeons and Dragons group, whatever it is, try to carve
out time each week to show up and get to
know someone new. This marks the end of our series
on creative coping, and since it's summer and I've got
a new game to play, the Happiness Lab will be
(32:55):
taking a bit of a break, but not to worry
because we'll be back in a few weeks with our
next season of The Happiness Lab would be doctor Laurie
Santo's