Stop Comparing Yourself to Other Founders

Comparison is one of the fastest ways to lose momentum as a founder.

In this Post Bag episode, we unpack why it happens, why it’s misleading, and how to stay focused on your own path.

From the “swimming” analogy to the reality behind LinkedIn success, this is a practical conversation on cutting through noise and building with clarity.

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Connect with James on LinkedIn or at peer-effect.com 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to the Peer Effect Post Bag. I'm James Johnson, joined by Freddie Burley. We ask for your questions, and Freddie and I are gonna tackle them together. These aren't theoretical case studies, it's the stuff keeping you up at 2 a.m. Let's get answering. So welcome to the Peer Effect post bag. I'm James Johnson.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

And I'm Freddie Burley. So how's your week been?

SPEAKER_02 0:22

It's been pretty good. It's been pretty good. I got to do something that from work today actually brought me quite a lot of joy. So off uh I worked with a client and did like a strategy day. And it was a new client, but I forgot how much I love doing that with a new client because I think I find coaching like you bring you're really creating space. And I think something about strategy ties back and like almost like nourishes a different part of me and flex a different muscle more, like really getting into the numbers, really getting to the business, doing the prep from it, building the business model, looking like and you can just it's almost like a puzzle for me. Like I said, it all fits together into a puzzle, and like you again go, oh that's and then you s you sit down with the client and you get some more information, you put out it's like you can really see a difference between how someone looks at their business before it and often often they come in feeling quite cloudy, and then you're like, actually, if we just do these three things, this is a route to something else. And it's also a really nice opportunity to experience someone and see how they react to that. It's quite it's quite challenging, like having someone it's quite vulnerable, like you don't really know someone, you're putting out sort of all the things you've done over the last three to five years, going, Okay, don't judge me, but feeling that you might get judged or criticized or and you had to be quite open in order to get the benefit from it. And to do that with someone you don't really know is difficult, I think. So I just always acknowledge the sort of client's bravery in doing that. And at the end of the day, you can just go, was that worth it? And they're like, Yeah, it was worth it.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Oh, amazing. And also having that like tangible output and action plan. And I feel even with strategy, it often confronts you into being prioritizing and having to let go of other things you're kind of either secretly hoping to do, but you're realizing when you actually look at the map, you're like, we don't have time for those things, and we need to actually make sure that we focus on like these three things and those three things only, and let go of the other projects, and that can be quite hard, I found, for clients too.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

Yeah, and I think even as a coach, like I think if you're coaching someone, often it's an hour or hour and a half sort of bursts, and you can get deep, but it can be quite and and you see that change over time. But I think to be given the gift of an a day of someone's time, and also to give yourself that gift of time in advance to prepare, so you're spending like sort of a day, two days, like really getting into sort of the numbers and the materials and stuff. Yeah, yeah. It feels like a diff it's a different challenge, and it's kind of like a partly variety, but partly just the the depth you get to go into it. It's kind of saying last week sort of with the going having time to sort of spend the time reading or going deeper into a model. Yeah. For me, almost like diving deeper in that way is kind of like the same thing. I find it very nourishing.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Amazing. Oh, that sounds so good. That sounds so so good. So, question this week from Maya. I feel like I'm comparing myself a lot to other founders and their success. How do I stay in my lane?

SPEAKER_02 3:33

Maya, stay off LinkedIn. Tip one.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

Yeah, exactly. Tip number one, don't listen to LinkedIn headlines.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

Um so I th I mean w we see this a lot, don't we? In terms of it's it's very and it's very hard not to do. Yeah. Because it's very human, as well. So human.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:50

Um I think the big one here, so the example I often use in this is uh swimming, which is a weird, very weird thing to do. But when you do a swimming race, the idea is like you you option one is you just put your head down and just blast it out, which as I discovered in the first time I did it, is a really bad thing in a lake, because you can quite easily veer off track and end up in complete the wrong part of the part of the lake. Not not a good strategy. Um but on the other side, if you sight, so when you swim, if you put your hand down, you push your head out of the water and you sight, it's good because you can check you're going on track. If you do it too often, what you do is you pull your whole body up, which stops you swimming. So if you're sighting every sort of two strokes, you're really not going anywhere. And I think that's sometimes something we do as founders is we sight too often. Like we're sort of the blinkers aren't on, we're looking around and we're going, Am I on track? Am I not on track? Am I on track? Am I not on track? What's going on over there? And actually, it's very hard to execute. I mean you compound that with all the other ideas that you can have as a founder of like that that noise both internally and externally can be overwhelming. So I think for me, what I encourage fans to do is get in sort of a a site and execute routine, whereas I think like a quarterly cadence is a really good opportunity to like dedicate a m sort of a week each quarter to review, to think, to challenge new ideas, and then put your head down for the next quarter. And new stuff will come up, but just put it into a list and go, okay, we'll come back to these ideas at the end of the quarter, and unless they're so blindingly obvious and critical and something's going wrong, have the discipline to like not examine them in too much during the execution phase and then come back to them. Because often what you'll find is half of them are we're just sort of transitory ideas or external noise, which you're also not hearing the reality. I think that's the big big thing here. Often you're getting your news from non-reliable sources. If you're hearing it from the person, there's probably some slight game going on. How many people will be truly honest with you? If you're hearing it on LinkedIn, it's almost certainly not true. Or you don't know what the outcome is. Like, just because someone's hired twenty announced 20 hires does not mean they're gonna have 20 hires in their business in three months' time, or they've just opened a big new office. Like what we see as success online or when we hear it does not necessarily correlate to actual long-term success.

SPEAKER_00 6:16

It's so true, and so much of it is noise, and it's it's a it's a tough one because also what I see internally is often not just um what people are achieving business-wise, but it's people assume that their internal experience um or they compare their internal people experience to people's external experience. So you'll see all these positive signals and signs, and they'll assume that because they're feeling very anxious or out of control or like they're moving through a lot of uncertainty or out of their depth, all of they'll then equate to I'm not doing well. And I often think, like, don't compare your internal world to the external world. And honestly, that was one of my biggest takeaways from coaching over the last five, six years is we are all so similar. Everyone has all of the human emotions. There's there's no one that, even if you see them in a context of their life where they're hypercompetent, you then assume that they're inflappable in every context of their life. And it's just it's so not true. Um, and even a helpful question right at the beginning, I often say with comparison to um on a human level, like would would you swap your entire life for their entire life?

SPEAKER_01 7:20

Very nice.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

Because if the answer is yes, I would swap my entire life for their entire life, then A, you must have a lot of data on their life, which is is helpful, or you need to get more data on their life. Um, and B, it gives you then a like a map or an inspiration map to be like, oh, that's what I truly desire. And at the moment I'm living out of congruence or incongruently. And so that gives me a really helpful map for what I want. I have asked so many people that question, I've never heard anyone say yes. Swap your entire life for their entire life. Um so I think that's also often just a bit of a helpful, you're often comparing one dimension of your life to one dimension of their life, and um and either you've then found yourself a role model or you've got to like reframe and come back into your lane so that you can create what you're uniquely placed to do to.

SPEAKER_02 8:05

I think it was Elon Musk that's I think so like people often say they want my they would like to be successful with me, but they would I can guarantee they would not like to be me.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 8:15

Which seems to be truer and truer the more we read.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 8:18

Now we understand what he meant.

SPEAKER_02 8:21

But I d I do think that what you you often there's this feel of, oh well, these founders or this person is just kind of they're playing the game in a whole different way. They're like so much smarter, so much more in control, so whatever. And anytime you get any of these release of people's emails or behind the stuff, everyone is the same. They're like in control, they're out of control, they're kind of like they're smart, they're stupid. Like that there's just there there is not there is not this sort of like this level of human that is just so much more on it, so much more put together, so much just better.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:56

We're all flawed.

SPEAKER_00 8:57

100%.

SPEAKER_02 8:58

And I think just flawed in different ways.

SPEAKER_00 9:00

Completely. And that what I when I find comparison detrimental is when it's they're this and I'm not. So that often in comparison it can be they're that, I'm not that, and therefore it keeps people stuck, as opposed to I see that that person is either incredibly eloquent or very smart or really interesting or really funny or whatever the trait it is that you admire in them. And to remember that you are as well, and often in your areas of competence, you will demonstrate those traits more easily. But equally, um, it it's a it's a a a mindset that's it's what's the word? It's unwise and it's it's lacking awareness and perspective because you are all of those traits too, just in other contexts. And so it's also an opportunity to be like, oh, where do I need to own those traits? Where do I need to own that I am what they are? Because what you when you see it in yourself as well, it it can be like rocket fuel for remembering your brilliance. Um, and it not in an arrogant way, in a you just don't want to see less than, because it often prevents us from acting and and speaking kind of like an equal or like a level of the eyes, and it means we're looking up at someone kind of like a child, and in other contexts of our life, maybe then we look down on people and judgment and and that equitable way of showing up I find to be the most empowering but also the most malleable, and it allows you to grow more.

SPEAKER_02 10:17

I think it's a more mature way of looking at life. I often often talk to clients about moving out of like child into adult because we do, I think we often we do need to grow up more than we realise, and part of that is there's a childish view of I ought to be better, and there are these kind of adults around who've just got it all sussed out, and then you actually become an adult and you're like, Oh, that's true, we're all we're all figuring it out. Yeah, and actually we also you then don't judge other people as harshly because like you don't have this expectation that there are these sort of perfectly perfect adults wandering around and got it all under control, and we can we can like we have to be our own adult. It's so true. Which is also quite freeing once we have that realization.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

Yeah. It allows you to just be in reality and to learn from your mistakes, but equally to own what you desire and own the ways in which you want to grow and then go after those areas because you know you can. You just it's just a matter of actions away from where you are now, as opposed to in comparison, it's like they're that and I will never be, is often the kind of subtext as opposed to they're that, what do I need to do to get there if I truly want it.

SPEAKER_02 11:21

Yeah, and I think the point made it earlier, but it's almost a combined thing. Like you're choosing to do one thing, that probably comes comes at the expense of something else. So you can't go, oh, I want their house, their work-life balance, their business, their six-pack, their whatever. It's like there's a consequence of choosing that, and you're not getting that.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

Yes. And that's like so, so, so true. And that's generally how comparison works. It's one part, and and then you want to piecemeal together all of these people's kind of spikes and put them into one person as opposed to being, it's just unrealistic, right? What what are our spikes and and what are the things that are most important? And how do we create progress in those areas and prioritize it so that it it can actually happen?

SPEAKER_02 12:06

I always think we're quite tough on ourselves. Often it's like, oh, what I should be able to do this. Why can't I be 100% motivated all the time? Why can't I get up at four o'clock in the morning like Mark Wahlberg and exercise? Or why can't I do it's like often even people that say they're doing that aren't doing that. Like I used to these Sunday Times have a thing called How I Made It. And I used to read it as a kid. Oh, these people are so impressive. That's why people are just talking complete nonsense in there.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

It's like I think that's really important to remember. It's so true.

SPEAKER_02 12:37

Everyone's like, oh, I get up at six o'clock in the morning, and first thing I do is exercise, and then I go and eat a healthy program. Then it's like, no, you don't. You're probably you went out the night before, you had a client thing, you had too much to drink, you stayed in bed, really resent like it looks like this this is kind of like if you s if you patch together the ev the best part of the best day you had, separate is like this is the amalgamation of like a hundred days, the optimized version of a hundred days.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

So, so true. And I think it comes back to just know that that's often how humans humans are, and so just like let your actions speak louder than your words. And I think often the people that shout the loudest, um it's not always true, but often when you're shouting the loudest, it there's it's like compensating for something. And so if if you just allow like the value that you create in the world to speak for itself, or the way that your actions demonstrate like what you do really well to speak for itself, um, often it just keeps you focused on like how do I focus on value creation, how do I focus on what's essential, how do I focus on what's important, as opposed to the the story around it. Um, and then you'll see that compound and that pay dividends over time. But sometimes, exactly as you're saying, we're getting lost in like comparing ourselves so much to the stories and not to the reality, because the reality is often very different from the the theory and what people share.

SPEAKER_02 13:58

Yeah, so I think the takeaway here is just run your own race.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

Totally.

SPEAKER_02 14:01

And be kind to yourself. Like you're you're enough.

SPEAKER_00 14:05

Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_02 14:08

Well, I love this chat today. Um, we will see you next Monday for another Pure Effects post bag. Uh hit subscribe and we uh happy listening.