Short motivational talk by Andy Neary (YouTube video) urging listeners to stop comparing themselves to others and instead focus on doing the work—time and effort matter more than money, equipment, or looks. Uses the author's experience as a competitive triathlete as the central analogy.
Chapters
Will you just stop comparing yourself to other people, please? Listen, I thought of an analogy this morning that actually made me laugh out loud in the car. About 10 years ago, I was a very competitive triathlete. I raced in the sprints, the Olympics, the half Ironmans, the full Ironmans, and I was pretty good. I was competitive. One thing that's so funny about triathlon is it's an individualized sport. So every triathlete is comparing himself or herself to the other triathletes. Swim times, bike times, run times. But the one comparison that always made me laugh the most was this. You show up on race day, you're putting your equipment together and you look around at all the other racers and you inherently think because somebody has a good body, an expensive bike, or an expensive wetsuit, they must be good. But it couldn't be farther from the truth. One thing I love more than anything in racing, this is my competitive nature, is sitting on my tri bike, which was a third of the cost of many of the other bikes in the race, and looking at the guy on that seven, eight thousand, nine thousand dollar bike that I was passing. Guys, here's the deal. It's not about resources. It's not about the fancy equipment you're using. It's about the time and energy you're putting into making yourself better. I knew I had put the time in the pool, on the road, on the track and on my bike to get better. Didn't matter what my equipment was, it didn't matter. People had more resources than I had. And the same holds true for you. Will you quit comparing yourself to your competition? It's holding you back from actually making yourself better. Yes, they might have more money, they might have more resources, they may look better, but it doesn't mean that they can stop you from getting better yourself. Put the time, put the effort in. Because I promise you, if you focus on just what you can control and block everything else, it won't be long before you're beating those folks with the resources, the looks and the money. So do me a favor, get out today, block out what everybody else is doing and just focus on making yourself better.
