Mike Andes explains why comparing your success to others damages your progress. He argues you should focus on your own growth and potential instead of measuring yourself against external benchmarks.
What's up, everybody? It's Mike Andes here. Day two of the Palm Springs vlog. Down here for the weekend, trying to get some stuff done. Catching up on a lot of work after the conference. Right now I'm on a run this morning. I was. I started calls early, and then it's about 1:30 right now. So I got a bit of a gap, like 30 minutes right now until my next call. So had to get. Had to get a quick jog.
Go like two miles. And then I'm talking to Chuck, our new general manager out in North Carolina. So I want to talk to you a little bit today because I don't have any material. I'm going to be doing. Working all this evening late tonight, so I'm not going to be able to make much of a vlog. Probably what I want to talk about, though, is something I talked about at conference.
About how people judge themselves trying to create work, life, balance.
Judgment is caused a lot of times because they're comparing themselves to other people. For example.
If I'm comparing myself to Eugene Bolt while I'm jogging here, it's gonna be really, really depressing. I'm gonna be really hard on myself because I can't run 100 meters in probably twice as fast as him. And I'm way, way, way slower.
When it comes to business, work, life, balance, etc. The reason so many people are depressed or feel unworthy or.
Beat themselves up is because.
They'Re comparing themselves to other people and what that person would do. I'm not going to compare myself to LeBron James if I'm trying to play pickup basketball. I'm not going to compare myself to some Olympic lifter if I'm doing bench or curling dumbbells or in this case, that I'm running to make this point.
I'm not gonna compare myself to Usain Bolt and say, oh, no, I've got to run 30 miles an hour, otherwise I'm a loser. I'm slacking off. I'm so inadequate. But for some reason, when it comes to business, comes with money, success, work.
Somehow we give ourselves.
Attitude to judge ourselves based upon what other people are doing.
For example, like this weekend or this week here in Palm Springs, I will work 16 hours a day.
Now, some people hear that and think, oh, man, like, I don't do that. If I want a vacation, I'd be.
Enjoying myself or whatever. And I'm. I'm just not a business person. That's not true. It's not.
Because the same can be said the Other way. And that is if I'm constantly comparing myself to other people.
There'S gonna be a time when I look in the book and it tells me I can only run five miles an hour.
100 years ago, 200 years ago, they never thought they could drive a car at hundreds of miles an hour. Didn't think it was.
If you were looking at the science books back then, there's no way it would have been possible. But we prove it can happen. I think a lot of people, not only do they compare themselves to the greats in their specific field, sports, business, money, etc. They also compare themselves and really limit what they can do because of what other people have done.
So because no one else has ever drove a vehicle 100 miles an hour, why would we try to waste our time trying to build a car that can do that?
Hey, look what everyone else is doing. All their other competitors compare themselves to the rest of the people in the industry.
Everyone else hires people by the hour.
Everyone else struggles during the winter for work work.
Everyone else has a big fancy truck.
With big payments on it. So I should too.
I think one of the most dangerous things we can do in business is compare ourselves to other people.
Keeps you from realizing your true potential, which might be so much greater than what anyone else has ever done before. And if it's not, if you don't have that skill at talent, if you can't dunk like the LeBron James, if you can't run like Usain Bolt, it doesn't mean you can't play basketball. Doesn't mean you can't have a fulfilled life in your business, working only six or seven hours a day, only working a few days a week.
Stop comparing yourself to each other. Stop comparing yourself to other, your competition, to your family members. There's no reason in business.
We should be comparing ourselves to each other and thinking that the success or failure of others somehow has any impact on what we can do in life. If you can get past that, if you can get past the self judging society that we live in, compariting the comparative analysis we always like to do on each other, on each other's businesses, how big a car we drive, how big a house we have, and we just focus on us, ourselves, our lives improving, our businesses, be much more fulfilled, much more content, and honestly, you build bigger, better business. If I compared myself to Zayn Bolt, I got so depressed that I couldn't run 100 meters in five seconds. I wouldn't be out here jogging at seven, eight miles an hour.
Why so many people give up in their business. They burn out. Leads to depression, leads to anxiety, leads to broken relationships, leads to failed businesses. They're constantly looking in the textbook, the textbook of what everyone else is doing, comparing themselves against it. Stop doing that. You only got one life. Live it to the fullest and live it on your own terms.
