#comparingyourselftoothers

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SUMMARY:

It’s a great myth that we should never compare ourselves to others. How would we gain perspective, values, standards, ideas, ambition, or growth if we removed ourselves from our social context? The truth is there are healthy ways to compare yourself to others:

1. Compare for creativity, not looks: 

It’s demoralizing to compare yourself to others at surface levels like appearance or outward success. Instead of asking how you can be like others, ask how you are different; compare to discover creative distinction not to conform. You can't make any major contribution in life without understanding how you are distinct. You’ll access a new creative edge when you start looking outward and asking, “How would I go about that differently? What’s my perspective and how is it different? How could I add even more value in a unique way?”

2. Compare for vision, not followers:

Never evaluate yourself on the size of your friendship base or fans. If you do, you’ll always feel down noticing others have more than you. Instead, look to how others are serving, about how they’re shaping and moving towards a vision. When you meet people who want to make a big difference, it makes a big difference. You learn. You stretch. You grow and want to give big.

3. Compare for growth, not achievement:

The highest achieving people in the world aren't lucky; they hustle and build their success. Even if they start out a little more abundant, they outlast their peers because they keep going and honor the struggle. When you see talented people achieving the remarkable, it should inspire you to level up. If you can look at someone who is doing something better than you and it inspires you to grow, you have humility and you have a chance. If their success threatens you or causes you bitterness, you’ll never ascend. 

Look at greatness, be inspired to go big and reach your full potential, and you will experience what we call The Charged Life! Get the mp3/podcast of this episode free on iTunes. Get high performance resources here.

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Hey everybody, it's Brendon. In this episode, let's talk about one of the great myths out there and that is, that "you should never compare yourself to others."

>I say, “Oh no, you should absolutely compare yourself to others but in the right way, in the healthy way, in the way that helps you grow or see new ways about living, being, serving, achieving.”

But there are some ways you should certainly not compare yourself to others. Let’s talk about all that.

1.The first way you should not compare yourself to others is in terms of (especially today) their fans, their fame, their followership, their audience.

Never do that.

In my industry that's very, very popular to do and it's ruined a lot of people's lives who don't ever rise up to serve because they think they're not “popular” enough.

It's like you write your first book and you don't have as many sales as other people and you think, "Oh, well I don't have the audience." Or you go to someone's fan page and you see, "Oh my gosh. Look at their followership. Look at how many Instagram followers they have. How many Twitter followers they have?" And because you see them so big, you think, "Oh, I could never be that". So, you don't even begin.

A lot of people do that. They say, "Oh I'm not that big". So they never start. But as I always say, "No matter how small you start, start something that matters. Begin it."

If I began my career looking at my heroes, looking at Wayne Dyer or Tony Robbins or Marianne Williamson, Deepak Chopra, Jim Rohn back in the day or looking at people like Og Mandino who has sold millions of books or even the famous books that you saw—millions and millions and millions of copies. If I had gaged myself to that and thought, "That was the expectation." I would never begin.

So, you can't expect to start out with tons of people. Some people say to me all the time, "Well Brendon it's so easy for you because you got millions of people on your email list and you have millions of people on Facebook and tens of millions on YouTube.”

I say, "It doesn't make it any harder for me.  I still show up and shoot this video."

And the reason I have the followers and the fans and the audience is because I showed up and I started when there was only 1 dude, 10 dudes, 100 dudes, a thousand dudes watching us.

My first seminar that I ever did, we only had 22 people in the room. Now we fill up seminars 9 times a year often from people from 46 countries around the world flying, paying thousands of dollars of ticket. And what did I do?

I started with 22 people in a room and most of those people didn't even pay. Every time the guy walked in with water, I counted him as one of those 22. I had no followership.

It's never about how big you start. It's that you start and you get big by staying at it. Because what people do is they put out the first video, they write their first book, they try their first thing online and nobody follows, nobody watches and they quit.

They get disappointed and where there's disappointment, there was too high of an expectation on achievement versus learning versus process versus beginning.

What you want to do is never be disappointed and the way that you're never disappointed is you understand:

Every single step counts.

Every single step is learning.

Every single step gets you going.

But if you have the aspiration or the attention that's only focused on their followership and meeting that, you'll never begin. Don't compare your followership to anybody else's. Instead, just compare your work ethic. 

Be there, show up, work, get it done.

2. The second thing I don't want you to compare yourself to is other people's achievements.

That means their wealth, their sales number, their big house, their big car, their whatever else. Their fancy clothes, their whatever they got.

Don't look at other people's achievements and what they have because if you do that it's also, you think, "Well I'm not famous enough" and then you think, "Well I'm not lucky enough, blessed enough, rich enough," whatever your excuse becomes.

You got to be get very, very, very careful of that and I know you know that but lately have you been looking at other people's stuff and feeling demoralized because of that?

Well I, you know, "They had a silver spoon in their mouth" or "They're so lucky." Those types of things stop us from even trying because we feel like the game is unfair. Well, it's not.

Most wealthy people, especially all the billionaires I've met. I've been blessed to meet lots of them and coach a few of them. The megastars that I get to work with, the Olympians I get to work with. The highest achieving people in the world, they, it's not luck and most of them didn't have unbelievable lucky family connections.

What they did is they hustled, they worked, they built it and even if they started a little more abundant than other people. They outlasted their peers who also started out abundant because they gave, they worked, they struggled through and we got to keep going.

3. The third thing, don't compare yourself ever in terms of looks, appearances, beauty.

I know if you're somebody who opens up those fashion magazines or those celebrity gossip magazines, you're always looking, "Oh she is cuter than me. Oh he is better looking" and then again you have the excuse. Soon as you compare yourself to other people:

You have the excuse to never begin.

You have the reason to be demoralized.

If I looked across YouTube when I started doing my episodes or my videos or iTunes or podcasts, I would have never begun. Because you got all these people out there, they're like, they are amazing. They look so good, they sound so good and I sucked. I couldn't talk like this before.

Now as you know, all of our videos and every episode I've ever done has been unscripted.

No notes, I got nothing. I'm looking right at you, there's nothing in front of me. I just go and they're all in one single take, majority of them. I think 99% are one take. That came from practice.

Where for years and years and years, years and years and years, I tried to be able to just speak extemporaneously without using notes, without using a script. I taught myself to do this.

If I had compared myself to other people who were so polished and looking good and every word was precise, I would have never gotten to where we're at today with literally hundreds of millions of views and from our posts to our videos.

It came because I didn't worry about the polish of looking like everybody else. I was just doing my thing.

So, what should you compare?

Why should you be comparing yourself to others?

For growth reasons, learning reasons.

I mean the first reason you should always compare yourself to others is for creativity.

To get ideas not to steal and not to compare but rather to go, "Oh, how would I do that?" In comparing yourself to others, it brings in self-awareness to say:

Oh look, this is how I'm distinct.

This is how I'm different.

This is how I could approach this in a different way.

If I didn't research the market I would never know how I could be different. If I didn't know how it could be different, I could never have a business.

You cannot build a business or have a real career or make any major contribution without understanding how you're distinct.

Steve Jobs knew that when he built the phone it was different and that thinking differently is what made him an icon. It's the same for everything that we do. Compare so you know what is out there, so you know how you can bring a new creative edge to it.

Second reason to compare is to compare for vision because as you get self-awareness and you understand how you're distinct, sometimes you see someone doing something amazing and you're like, "Wow, I got a bigger vision for myself."

When I started seeing people posting videos back in 2007, I got a bigger vision for myself. I mean 2007, I saw people posting longer videos online, I thought, "Wow, I never saw myself doing video but look at how I'm watching these and I'm relating with these. I got to do some video" and by comparing myself to others, other people I followed or researched or read their books and I saw they had a podcast. I'm like, "I'm going to get a podcast."

It opened up my vision for the vehicles, the mediums, the ways that I could serve and give and I want you to do the same.

The last piece, the reason to compare yourself is for growth.

There is an amazing amount of talent in this world and when you see them it should inspire you to level up.

It inspired me to learn how to do video.

It inspired me to learn how to speak extemporaneous.

It inspired me to get over my fears of public speaking and step on a stage.

And now it's in front of thousands and thousands of people to inspire the world. I never thought I could do that but seeing other people, sometimes achieve the remarkable, you get inspired. It's not about, if you can look at someone who's done something better than you and it inspires you; that means, you have humility and you got a chance.

If you look at other people who achieve more, have more, look more, feel good or are more amazing than you, and you get bitter or upset that means you're small and you are destined to smallness.

But if you can look at greatness and be inspired you're on track. You're going to live an extraordinary quality of life, the kind of life that we call, The Charged Life.

Like this? Please share it with your friends so that your loved ones can start comparing themselves to others in a healthy way that inspires them and helps them grow starting now. - Brendon