Every time I get caught in a thinking trap about what I’m thinking I “should” be doing or am supposed to be doing, it’s because I’ve fallen into comparing myself with other people.
I’ve never sold a company. I don’t know how to “exit”. Everything I’ve ever done in the past I ran until I was complete and I moved on and did something else. I abdicated instead of delegated and reduced my role with my webinar business to zero. I receive monthly dividends, for as long as my partner wants to run the company or sell it. I don’t have some sexy story to peddle for the masses about my big sale.
I don’t know how to attract investors. I don’t know how to be funded. I don’t know how to be an investor in anything other than myself. I don’t know how to run a money-losing business for years.
All I know is how to create businesses with no investors and create a profit from day 1, because I had to to survive.
There’s no point comparing myself with the headline stories on the websites I read.
And yet… I’m living my dream life. A life filled with gratitude. Every day I get up to do the things I find important and give me joy. I work on myself primarily. I show up powerfully in the communities I’m a part of, and I give the best I’ve got every week to you and the rest of the Frolic 100.
So what does it matter if I don’t have some sexy sales story?
On all my major life metrics, I score myself highly. Who am I comparing myself against and why would I want to let my impression of them reduce my own life satisfaction?
I put immense value on the freedom with my days – I often have zero things scheduled. I try and limit my Zooms to a single meeting per day, at the most. In a world that preaches “crushing it” and worships overworking, that type of schedule just isn’t spoken about. I create more like an artist, when it strikes me. Just as I’m writing this article at 4pm on a Sunday, because that was when I was inspired to write it. Not when I scheduled it.
That is the solution for me – to remind myself I’m running my own race. Stop comparing myself with anyone. If I’m hitting my personal benchmarks, it ends with that.
Someone is always going to have “more” than me. My personal race doesn’t involve chasing that.
Someone is going to get more attention than me. Well, I like being a “Sage on the Mountain”. That’s the race I’m running. I have a private email list with 100 subscribers. And that’s it.
I don’t chase followers, Likes, or subscribers. Well, if that’s the race I’m running, then I need to remember that’s the race I’m running! I can’t be in 2 races.
And the beautiful thing about running my own race? I always win.
So how about yourself? Who’s race are you running? What can you do to start running your own race instead?
