Good Vs. Bad Comparison

The cars were impressive — Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Rolls-Royces — and Morgan Housel, like many, dreamed of owning one.

Instead, he just parked them while working as a hotel valet.

But his envy of the finest luxury cars on the planet also led to a realization: Very rarely does anyone actually look at the driver and think he/she is cool. Instead, they just believe outsiders would think they’re cool if they had one.

With that came a key leadership paradox for Housel, the best-selling author of The Psychology of Money, that we might want to keep in mind:

“People tend to want wealth to signal to others that they should be liked and admired," he writes. "But in reality, those other people often bypass admiring you, not because they don’t think wealth is admirable, but because they use your wealth as a benchmark for their own desire to be liked and admired.”

It's a key reminder for us as coaches, executives and leaders.

We often find arbitrary benchmarks to measure our success against. We look at another coach’s age and win total, another executive’s resume and net worth, the prestige of a competitor's organization.

Frequently, though, we don't actually admire who they are — just their accolades that we think might improve our self-image.

This mindset is often extremely counterproductive and just adds unnecessary pressure to our already hectic lives.

It's important that we keep in mind that there are good comparisons and bad.

Good comparison:

-Examining a practical strategy that’s worked for someone else-Measuring our progress over a specific period of time-Analyzing relevant options and coming to a decision based on facts and data

Bad comparison:

-Looking at an individual attribute of another person and wishing we had it-Broadly viewing ourselves as disappointments because we make less money, work for a less-prestigious organization, etc.-Focusing on what we don’t have and believing we won’t be successful unless we get it

The key to getting to the destination more efficiently isn’t staring over our shoulders at the competition and being envious.

Frequently, it’s just keeping our eyes on the road ahead.