In this episode of Evan Carmichael’s Believe Nation, host Evan (Speaker A) and guest Sophia Amoruso (Speaker B) discuss the concept of competing with yourself as a pathway to personal growth. Sophia emphasizes that anyone can leverage the internet and their own resources to achieve greatness, and that self‑competition keeps her motivated. Evan shares how he tracks his YouTube channel’s performance—subscribers, views, likes, comments—and uses day‑to‑day, week‑to‑week, and month‑to‑month comparisons to gauge progress. They both caution against unhealthy comparisons to others, noting that while external benchmarks can inspire, they can also discourage if the gap is too large. The conversation highlights the importance of setting realistic, stretch‑but‑attainable goals, whether in content creation, fitness, or other pursuits, and encourages viewers to reflect on the metrics they use to measure their own improvement. The episode ends with a call‑to‑action for the audience to share the metrics they track and how they compare themselves over time.
Good morning, Believe Nation! Today's message is compete with yourself. Over to you, Sophia Amoruso. I wake up every morning with espresso to keep me going.
I think anyone, if they're smart and resourceful, can like use the internet and use the resources that, you know, that they have or that they create for themselves to do great things, whatever the magnitude of greatness is for you. You know, just because I'm on a stage or because I have a platform and wrote a book doesn't mean that your level of greatness is like any less than mine. I think that's important for people to understand because we live in a culture where celebrities are idolized and I talk in Girlboss about being your own idol and competing with yourself. I do my best work when I compete with myself.
I think it's super healthy to see yourself as your biggest competitor. I look at my YouTube channel and I want to do better than I did the day before, right? I did better than I did yesterday. You know, I have almost 200,000 subscribers on the channel. Whatever I did, whatever I do today, I want to do more tomorrow. I want to do more the next day. I want to have more comments, I want to have more likes, I want to have more views. And I'm constantly comparing myself to how I was last month, last week, last year at this time. And one, it shows growth, right? It's good to see that, hey, wow, look how much I've grown in the past year or past month. And two, I think it also helps me stay motivated to want to continue to do do better. On, on the flip side, I think that there's a fine edge that you need to walk when you're comparing yourself to other people. I think it can do one of two things. I think it can really help you, it can motivate you. That's sometimes what I do with my YouTube channel as well. For a while, uh, at my agency that I'm with, I was the number 2 guy and said I want to be number 1, right? I wanted to pass that guy who was number 1, and it motivated me to want to do better. But I think sometimes it can also maybe seem like it's too big a goal, too far away. You know, if you're just starting up a YouTube channel right now and you try to compare yourself to where I'm at right now, that's not a fair comparison, right? Like, if you're tracking your growth versus mine, I'm gonna outscale you, and that might discourage you. And so that may not be a great target to follow. And so I think that's sometimes a bit of a disconnect where you want to pick people to compete with who you can reach, right? In the short term, in the medium term, the long term, people who who motivate you and don't bring you down. I think that's the biggest thing where, you know, we do a workout class here that I'm a part of, and we're all at different stages, right? I do it, Nina does it, there's a couple other people, right? Men, women, different body types. Some people can do things faster than others. Some people can do more reps or more weights than others. And comparing, you know, comparing myself to somebody else isn't great, right? What I want to do is I want to do more reps than I did the day before. I want to do more weights than I did the week before, right? What if I'm tracking how much I weigh or how much muscle I have? There's no point comparing myself to Nina. I'm comparing myself to where I was the week before, the month before, or the day before potentially. And so I think one, yes, compare yourself to yourself and always try to get better and try to suck a little bit less every day until you get good and try to get better every single day. And then when you're comparing yourself to others, try to find somebody that you respect, you look up to, but it's not so far out of reach that when you compare yourself you just see the numbers going out of control, that you see somebody that, hey, I can, I can catch this person. And that gives you the fire, the motivation, because when the goal seems too big, it can be daunting and it can actually discourage you. Where if it seems a little more realistic, still stretch, but realistic, feel like I can, I can catch that person, I can catch that competitor, then that can also serve as inner fire to help you get going. So the question of the day today is, I'm curious, what do you compare yourself on Today's version of you versus yesterday, this is last week, was the last month, the last year. What metrics are you looking at to compare yourself to where you were before? And if you're comparing yourself to somebody else, what are you comparing yourself on? Again, what are the metrics? What are you trying to get better at? I'm really curious to find out. Leave it in the discussion below. I'm gonna join in. Thank you guys so much for watching. Have an amazing day. Continue to believe, and I'll see you again tomorrow morning for another shot of Evan's best—
