I have noticed that people on the professional hamster wheel have been trained to compete. There are so many people on Facebook selling their get rich quick seminars, business models, and working hard to achieve greatness. Everyone wants to make more money, have more stuff, and win the race. How can I market myself more? How can I bring in more clients? How can I close more deals? They are looking at the people around them comparing their own performance with that of the top producers, the influential people in their industry, and the famous inspirational figure heads pushing to reach the top. Everyone has a measuring stick that reinforces their mediocrity and a need and desire for more. This mentality of lack and competitive nature starts to slowly erode one’s sense of self.
Awards and incentive trips are provided to “top” performers to stroke the EGO and get them to drive even harder and faster in the quest for more money, creating a little edge of panic that they might not make that next President’s Club trip, which might mean the first time was a fluke, or worse yet, that they actually are a fraud and not measuring up. It is a culture that we have all at one time or another experienced and bought into. One of separation, of disempowering thoughts, of winners and losers. Regardless of what the consensus is around this modus operandi, I can tell you that it creates division and a feeling of inferiority. It’s a distinction of class, telling some people are better and more deserving of success, and telling others that didn’t hit the mark, good luck next time sucker. It creates division and self-doubt which in turn creates a fear in people that they aren’t enough, when in fact we are all worthy and more than “enough”.
I’d like to talk a little bit about the EGO. The EGO is that voice that keeps us all running scared. It’s the voice that creates anxiety that we aren’t making enough money or achieving enough. It tells us that the person over there is more than we are because they have more clients, they have a full calendar, they are more important or successful or influential. When we are looking and comparing ourselves to others, we are doing a disservice to ourselves because we will always fall short. There is always going to be someone out performing you, making more money that you, better at their marketing or job than you. Paying constant attention to those markers is only going to create a feeling of being unworthy and less than, a feeling of panic and sort of desperation as you fight even harder to prove you are worthy and better than everyone else. It is a hollow pursuit.
We owe it to ourselves to stay in our own lane, and do what we need to do to be the best version of ourselves. Life is not a race. Life isn’t about winners and losers, although we have been programmed to believe this. Life is about having the full spectrum experience of emotion, of connection or disconnection, of power or disempowerment, of love or fear. It’s about overcoming challenges. It’s about mastering our mind and the negative stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. It’s about realizing our personal innate value is not determined by external things. It’s about the character and integrity we are building within ourselves for ourselves. If that character building results in making a lot of money, congratulations! If it results in not making a lot of money but being happy, congratulations! Why are we so fixated on comparing ourselves with others? We did not come into this life, to be anyone but ourselves. We did not come into this life to be someone else, so why the constant measurement? We are here to be the best version of ourselves because that is who we do best. The desire to win, takes us so far from the authentic self. We can be financially rich and spiritually bankrupt. We can have the bank account and mansion and be completely depressed and alone. We can have it all, and have nothing at all.
Once we realize that finding inner peace is happiness is not based on external numbers or things or people or titles and awards, we will experience a wealth far beyond measure. That wealth is something no one can take away from you. You carry it within you regardless of external circumstances. You no longer need the approval from anyone. It is the most empowering feeling to know that you are worthy and loved and it has no correlation to anything anyone around you is doing. There are people around me working so hard to win personally, but it’s a moving target when you haven’t mastered yourself and your EGO. Stay in your own lane, run your own race, keep your head down and focus on being the best version of you. It may not look shiny on the outside, but on the inside you win the gold.
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