The Stars On The Team

I’m not good at giving engaging presentations yet. I’m not good at asking powerful questions yet. I don’t know how to write persuasive emails yet. Once you’ve written three down, go back and highlight or underline the word yet. Really let it sink in. You are capable of improving at anything. If a person can drive with no limbs, you can definitely improve your communication skills. At Microsoft, executives spent most of their time talking about what Apple was doing and how they could beat their rival. At Apple, the executives spent all of their time talking about how they could improve themselves and better serve their customers. After the Microsoft conference, Simon was gifted a Zune, Microsoft’s answer to the iPod. It was a much simpler time. So, let’s get back to the story.

The Art Of Dying

According to Simon, the Zune was a great device. Slick and attractive with many more features than the iPod. The only drawback was that it couldn’t connect to his iTunes account. The man shrugged and responded with a simple, I know. And that was the end of the conversation. Simon explains that Apple didn’t care that the Zune was better than their iPod because the company didn’t compare itself to Microsoft. Instead, the Apple team’s focus was only on doing better than they did the day before. And that’s why Apple was more successful than Microsoft. The iPod may not be around anymore, but that’s because the iPhone replaced it. Microsoft’s Zune went extinct with the dodo birds and was replaced by nothing. What does all this have to do with changing your mindset to become a better communicator? Well, it reveals a prominent theme in our society. We are taught to compare ourselves to others from an early age, and that behavior only gets reinforced as we get older.

Don't Let It Break Your Heart

Have you heard a teacher praise their best students and treat them differently than the kids with lower grades? Or how about coaches telling their players they should be performing as well as the stars on the team? It’s a constant barrage of comparisons to other people until it almost becomes a reflex. You got a promotion. That’s nice, but your friend Emily from college got a larger promotion six months before you. Your hair is the same length, but hers is real, and you have extensions. Oh, and she also just got engaged. You got a new job with a substantial bump in salary. It feels good, but your cousin Brad is three years younger and still makes more than you. He barely works out anymore but can still squat, deadlift, and bench more than you can. No matter how successful you are, if you’re always comparing yourself to others, it’s hard to be truly happy achieving anything because there will always be someone better than you. To make it tougher on ourselves, we rarely look beyond the surface. We don’t ask ourselves how much work Emily put in to get that larger promotion six months earlier. We don’t think about what Brad has done differently to have a higher income.

One Jump Ahead Of The Storm

We just assume it’s something innate that we don’t have. The media plays a role in this as well. Advertisements are cleverly designed to take advantage of our insecurities, and they do it sneakily too. They never explicitly tell us we’re not good enough, so you won’t see an ad that says, Hey, you! You’re not worthy of success, love, or happiness. But if you buy what we’re selling, you will be! It’s totally worth it! Instead, they show us the life we could have if we buy their product or service. Everywhere you turn, from television and billboards to YouTube and Instagram, there’s always an image of someone living a fantasy life that could be yours, but only if you buy into what they’re selling. In reality, you might feel better on a surface level for a brief period before eventually falling back into your usual comparison thoughts and behaviors. If you’re anything like me and the many professionals I work with, you want to develop powerful communication skills while also eliminating any stress and emotional turmoil caused by the idea that you’re not good enough. And to do that, you’re going to shift your comparison mindset. Compare yourself to the person you were yesterday and strive to be better. Just like Apple is always competing against Apple, you should always be competing against yourself. By shifting your focus from other people to yourself, you will find it easier to stay motivated. You’ll be happier throughout the entire learning process and more likely to stick with it until you get the results you want. When you think about it, comparing yourself to other people doesn’t even make sense. Even if you’re the same age or have the same job, everything else is different. They have different parents and genetics, were raised differently, and their brains are wired differently. Despite logically knowing that you’re different, you still put yourself on the same playing field just because of a few similarities. Why is this so important? And if you don’t change your mindset now, it won’t be long before you’re comparing yourself to others more than ever before, which will diminish your progress in your mind and make it a lot tougher to keep going. Because humans have such an innate desire to compare, I don’t expect you to stop altogether. Specifically, your past self from the day before. I compete against yesterday’s Ty. Competing with yesterday’s you is a game you can win every day, as long as you’re taking some type of action to improve yourself. Doing a little bit every day will ensure that today’s you will always be better than yesterday’s you, and tomorrow’s you will always be better than today’s you. I’ll stop there, but if I were back in college writing an essay and trying to reach a certain length for the professor, I would definitely keep going.