How to Make Comparison Your Teacher
You just learned about the first type of comparison, which feels like self-torture. Now let’s talk about the second type: comparison that is teaching you something. And here’s how you know that comparison is good: You’re looking at aspects of someone else’s life or success that you could create for yourself.
With time and consistent effort, these aspects of your life, career, or health could be changed.
The list of things you could change is endless: from your job, to creating a better friend group, to finding your purpose, to spending more time with your kids, to vacations, to creating financial freedom; getting up earlier, finding and creating the greatest love story of your life, being an amazing cook, or getting in the best shape of your life; buying a huge ring, a fancy watch, or a sports car; renovating your kitchen, building a second home, creating a better relationship with your stepparents, developing healthier habits, writing a book, healing your trauma, gaining more social media followers, having better boundaries and more time for yourself, launching a business, or developing a better reputation.
I wrote a long list on purpose. The fact is, 95 percent of the things that you want in life are things that you can create if you are willing to work hard, be consistent and disciplined and patient. Very little about your life is fixed in stone.
If someone has done something better, and bigger, and cooler than you could ever imagine, Let Them. Let Them have their success. Let Them beat you to it. Let Them do it in the smartest and the coolest way. Their success gives you the formula. Remember my story about not posting on social media? Whatever it is that you want, someone else can give you the formula. Let Them lead the way.
For most of my life, I didn’t understand this. If someone achieved what I wanted, I told myself they had beat me to it. I looked at people around me and saw other people’s wins as my losses. And when you see other people’s wins as your losses, it will make you feel defeated before you even start.
If you’re not careful, comparison can become the reason why you doubt yourself, procrastinate, and continue to stay stuck. You’re capable of achieving the same success, but instead of working to create it, you’re actively arguing against what you want. This is an example of how you’ve turned other people into a problem, and they don’t need to be.
There is enough happiness, success, and money to go around for absolutely everyone including you. It is in limitless supply.
No one is taking anything from you. Happiness, success, and money are waiting for you to get serious about creating them. I will say this again: No one else’s wins are your losses. That’s why you have to change the way you look at other people’s success.
The truth is, there are more than 8 billion people on this planet. If you are looking for evidence that someone else makes more money, has the coolest wardrobe, has the best friend group, went to a more prestigious school, is in the best shape, sold their company, is a New York Times bestselling author, has traveled the world, or quite literally has anything you could ever want. . . you’ll find it.
The problem isn’t the tendency to compare. The problem is not using comparison to your advantage. Using the Let Them Theory, you will learn how to flip comparison from a major problem in your life into your greatest teacher.
Recently I was talking with a friend of mine named Molly. Molly is an extremely talented interior designer. She has built a successful business, has a number of employees, and does beautiful work for her clients.
The last few times that she and I have connected, she always asked me for advice about social media, asking questions like, “Mel, how can I get myself out there? I know I need to be doing more on social media, and doing a better job marketing my business and work online, but I don’t know where to start.”
For every business, there’s a formula, so I gave her a simple list of things she could do: Start posting every day. Create videos explaining your projects. Post before-and-after photos. Hire an intern that creates a library of short videos for you. Take a free online course to learn more about the social media platforms, and pick one to focus on.
Just like in the example I gave you earlier, from when I wanted to build my speaking business years ago, the steps you need to take are always very simple. The problem is not doing them.
Molly called me the other day, and immediately I could tell something was off. “Molly, you don’t sound like yourself. Is everything okay with the kids?”
She said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. The kids are fine. I’m not.”
And I said, “What happened?”
She said, “Well, I saw something the other night that sent me into a spiral. And I’ve been freaking out ever since.”
And so I’m listening and I’m thinking, What the heck could have happened? My gosh. This is really serious.
It turns out that there is someone in Molly’s neighborhood that she’s known for a long time. She is not exactly Molly’s favorite person—you know, the kind of person who is always drawing attention to themselves and just rubs you the wrong way. The energy between them has never clicked.
This person has no interior design experience or background. And now, they’ve gotten into the “design” business, started posting on social media, and suddenly their posts are blowing up. This person is getting thousands of likes on her posts, and what really burns Molly up is that everyone in the neighborhood is now talking about how “talented” this other woman is.
As Molly vented to me, “These are just photos of her own house, and she didn’t even design it!”
The night before, after a long day of work dealing with her design clients, Molly had put the kids to bed, sat down on the couch, and started scrolling. Guess who was all over Molly’s feed? This irritating woman.
She couldn’t help herself. She read every single comment and she stalked the woman’s website. The website looked modern and clean, whereas Molly’s hasn’t been updated in three years. The way in which the other woman was marketing herself was so impressive. It made her look very professional, like she’d been doing this for years. And that sent Molly into a downward spiral.
She is going to steal my clients! Everyone is going to think she is better than me. How does she know how to do all this? Why didn’t I do this sooner? Argghhhhhhhh!
She then took a breath, and said, “Mel, what do you think I should do?”
I’m going to tell you the same thing I told my friend Molly, and I want you to remember this the next time you find yourself burning up with comparison or anger about what someone else is doing:
No one should feel sorry for you. If you are jealous right now about someone else’s success, GOOD. I’m happy for you. Jealousy is an invitation from your future self. It is inviting you to look more closely at someone else—not to make you feel inferior, but to show you what is possible.
This woman was not stealing any success from Molly. She was not preventing Molly from changing her website or focusing on social media. This woman’s wins online were not Molly’s losses. Because other people are never going to stop you from achieving what’s meant for you. They can’t. Only you can stop yourself from achieving it.
This woman is a reminder to Molly that social media matters. She is a teacher who is leading the way. Let Them wake you up. Let Them be successful. Let Them dazzle you with their beautiful web design.
Maybe you’ve been so caught up in your day-to-day that you’ve ignored what’s right in front of you. Maybe you’ve been playing so small that you can’t see how big and beautiful your life could be. Maybe you’re so used to doing things the way you’ve always done them, you’ve been reluctant to try a new way.
Other people show you what’s possible. When you see comparison as a teacher, you’ll realize other people aren’t taking anything from you; they are giving something to you. Other people have this beautiful capacity to show you pieces of your future that you cannot fully see for yourself yet. They show you possibilities that you didn’t realize existed or told yourself you are incapable of achieving.
Whoever or whatever is making you jealous, GOOD. Their success and their wins don’t shrink your chances of creating what you want. They expand it. Let Them lead the way. Flip your jealousy to inspiration. See what’s possible through their example. The people you compare yourself to act as mirrors, reflecting back bigger possibilities—or in Molly’s case, the formula and the work she was avoiding. And that’s what I said to Molly. Let Them lead the way.
That brings me to a very important point: There’s an important reason why this woman got under Molly’s skin. The truth is, it had to be this irritating person. In life, if you’re not motivated to do something, it’s going to take something painful to force you to change.
In Molly’s case, she had been watching famous interior designers for years. She had been talking about “doing social media” for years. She had every excuse in the book for why she didn’t make it a priority.
Until now. . . all of a sudden, this irritating woman comes along, with no prior design experience, and Molly sees her doing all the things deep down she knew she needed to do years ago.
Molly knows that this woman from the neighborhood has no special advantage, talent, or resources. That’s why she’s so mad. This irritating woman is shoving a simple fact in Molly’s face: If I can do it, you can do it too.
This is where comparison gets really interesting. These types of people in your life force you to look in the mirror and call yourself out.
So, Let Them make you mad. You need to be thanking this person that makes you mad, because you’re not actually mad at them. That anger that is burning you up inside is you being mad at yourself, because you know that you could have gotten to work sooner, and you know you are capable of figuring this out. You just didn’t. This was me in the speaking business. That’s why I say this kind of comparison is your greatest teacher.
Not because it shows you what you need to be doing, but because it galvanizes your power and awakens your anger. And you need your anger as the fuel to get you going.
So whoever it is that’s triggering you, Let Them. Let Them irritate you. Let Them burn you up. And Let Them show you EXACTLY what you want and what you need to be doing to get there.
How do you turn these moments of jealousy and frustration into something good? How do you flip comparison into inspiration? Simple. Say Let Me and look at the data other people’s successes provide.
Anytime you find yourself playing the game of comparison, there is something really important happening.
Comparison shows you the areas of your life that need more of your attention.
It means the time for thinking and excuses is over. Let Me get to work. Put in the reps. It’s a phrase my buddy bestselling author Jeff Walker always says, “Success is about putting in the reps.” What’s that mean? Simple: To be successful, to lose weight, to write a book, or to become a YouTuber, you have to show up every day and do the boring, irritating, and uncomfortable work. You’ve got to put in the reps.
Think about any change you want in your life, like going to the gym. How do you build muscle? You show up every day and you put in the reps. The famous quarterback Tom Brady recently said about success, “The truth is you don’t have to be special. You just have to be what most people aren’t: consistent, determined, and willing to work for it.”
All these people who stir up your jealousy are here to show you the simple fact that while you have been making excuses, they’ve been putting in the reps, slowly chipping away at the boring, hard stuff.
In the words of Tom Brady, they aren’t special; they’ve just been what you aren’t: consistent, determined, and willing to work for it. That is 1,000 percent the secret to my success.
That brings me back to my friend Molly. She knew in her heart that she needed to start prioritizing this several years ago. Part of the reason it’s so painful right now is that she’s seeing the fruits of someone else’s efforts. This will keep happening if you don’t start to move on the things that you want.
That beautiful website that Molly was so mad about—it didn’t pop up overnight. That woman had been working on it for months. The social media strategy that was burning Molly up didn’t magically happen. While Molly was making excuses, the other woman was researching, studying, learning, and creating all of the posts that Molly now sees.
The reason why these people make you so angry is because you know you could do it too. And you are just mad that you didn’t start doing it a long time ago. The fact is, inspiration is not enough to get you motivated to do something.
This is why anger is important. This is why comparison can be one of your greatest teachers, and I am willing to bet when it happens, it will likely be someone you know who makes you mad. It will be Aron down the hall. All of a sudden he’s quitting his job and he is working full-time on his custom boat business that he’s been building in the dark on the weekends while you’ve been busy going out with your friends.
That’s why it makes you jealous when you see him walk out the door. Because when the people that you know do it, it means that you can’t make excuses for why you can’t. If you’ve been sitting next to Aron at work for a year, you know there’s no superpower, trust fund, or upper hand. They just started working on it. And now they’re quitting. That makes you so jealous. That’s why it had to be them.
It’s perfectly normal to be upset as you see someone’s beautiful website, or as you watch a colleague walk out the door to a new life, or as you step into your friend’s beautiful new home. But if you’re serious about being successful or healthy or achieving your goals, you have no time to be upset, and you cannot afford to waste your energy being jealous. You need that energy, because you have work to do.
These moments are really painful, and they are going to happen a lot in your life—so get ready for it. Using the Let Them Theory, you’ll be able to recognize when comparison is trying to teach you something. Jealousy is a doorway to your future cracked open, and it’s your job to recognize when it happens, kick the door open, and walk right through it.
When you let other people lead the way, you’ll realize that beneath all the fear and excuses and time wasted is the life you’ve wanted all along. Right now the only things that are holding you back from taking control of your life are the excuses, fears, and emotions that we have been discussing throughout this entire book.
This is where you go from trying to control what everyone else thinks, feels, and does, and you take your time and your energy and use it to create the best chapter of your life. This is so important I’m going to give you one more example from my life.
The point of this story is that it’s not always obvious what your jealousy is teaching you. In my 40s, back when we were struggling financially and before I had built any of the career I have today, I had a friend who was doing a huge house renovation.
Every time we went out to lunch or on a walk, I wanted to hear all about the renovations and see all of the progress photos. It was so fun to follow along. However, every time I left and went back to our house, I just felt. . . discouraged and sad.
I will never forget the day that Chris and I pulled up my friend’s long, winding driveway when their renovations were complete and my mouth dropped to the floor. The house was beautiful.
As my friend led a bunch of us on a tour of the house, I found myself going down a comparison spiral. HOW the heck do they have so much money?! I remember thinking.
Of course, I was happy for her, but I was also so damn jealous. She absolutely deserved this, and she and her husband had both worked so hard for years. And they had earned every right to build it, to talk about it, to enjoy it, and to be proud of it.
I knew this deep down, but I did not know how to genuinely feel happy for my friend without feeling insanely jealous and insecure at the same time. When she swung open the doors to the playroom, I almost combusted.
“This is the upstairs play loft with the pool table and hangout area for the kids to enjoy now—and responsibly, when they are older, with friends,” she told us.
With that, she gave us a wink, and we all laughed.
“And then here is the bunk room for all the kiddos and their friends to have sleepovers in. And my kids love it so much, they don’t even want to sleep in their own rooms now.”
My jaw dropped. No wonder my kids always wanted to go to my friend’s house and didn’t want to host friends at ours. Queen-size bunk beds? A playroom above the garage? Hello. . . this was a kid’s dream, and it had always been my dream to have “the house” where all the kids hung out too.
At this point in the tour, I was ready to go downstairs, steal a bottle of wine, and crawl into one of these queen-size bunk beds—that’s how sorry I felt for myself. I felt like such a horrible person for letting my jealousy sour my true happiness for her. Not only is she an incredible friend, loved by everyone, and gorgeous inside and out, she now has my dream home.
As the night went on, I tried to push the pit in my stomach down. I tried to act like I was completely unbothered by it all. But once I was in the car with Chris and on our way home, I didn’t have to stifle the jealousy. . . so I threw it at him.
So like a typical eight-year-old, I had a full-blown tantrum in front of him.
“We’ll never have a house like that,” I snapped. “Why did you have to go into the restaurant business?”
Chris didn’t know what to say, so we drove home in tense silence.
I can share this story with such detail because we have unpacked this moment in marriage counseling so many times. It would be easy to think this story was about a house. It wasn’t. The truth that I needed to discover was so much deeper. Comparing myself to my friend and the anger that I felt was teaching me a life-changing lesson.
I wasn’t mad at her. I wasn’t even mad at my husband. I was mad at myself because I had given up on my own ambition. I had counted on my husband being successful and providing me with the financial support to have the things that I wanted in life. The truth is, your life is your responsibility. If you want financial success, it is your responsibility to create it. If you want a house that has queen bunk beds and a renovated kitchen, it is your responsibility to work for it.
I had been avoiding that responsibility for a decade. This experience forced me to look in the mirror and be honest with myself about what I wanted. Jealousy was in fact a message from my future self. Seeing my friend win allowed me to see bigger possibilities for me winning too.
And I kicked the door open, and I got to work. I am not special. I just did what I was unwilling to do before. I got consistent, determined, and willing to work for what I wanted. I started putting in the reps. It took 15 years of hard work to get my queen-size bunk beds. But I did it and so can you.
The Let Them Theory will help you dig deep and get to the truth of what jealousy is trying to teach you, and where you have let yourself down. If all you ever do is stay on the surface wasting your time and energy on other people and on things beyond your control, you will never discover the deeper meaning and possibilities in your life.
You have a beautiful and amazing life to live. You have potential beyond your imagination. You are not limited by where you live, or the circumstances you are facing, or the aspects of your life that you believe are limitations.
If you can be honest with yourself about what you truly want, and take responsibility for creating it, you will. You don’t have to be special. You just have to get up every day, put one foot in front of the other, and work hard to do a little better, and be a little better, than you were yesterday. And one of these days, you are going to wake up and realize that you not only changed yourself, but you are in the middle of living the life you were once jealous of.
So let’s summarize what you have learned about overcoming chronic comparison. Until now, you have allowed other people’s success to paralyze you. The Let Them Theory teaches you to let others have their success while also using it as inspiration to build the life you want.
When you say Let Them, you learn from other people’s success and Let Them lead the way. When you say Let Me, you focus on playing the cards in your hand, turning inspiration into action, and winning by playing with others, not against them.
It’s time to play your hand and win the game of life.
You’ve just finished the first half of this book, and by now, you’ve felt the power of the Let Them Theory starting to work in your life. You’ve learned how freeing it is to stop wasting energy on what you can’t control—other people’s behaviors, opinions, and expectations—and instead focus on yourself.
The more you say Let Them and Let Me, the more you’ll free up mental space, emotional energy, and time you never knew you had. With that freedom, you can now show up differently for yourself and in your relationships—the areas where Let Them will have the deepest impact.
In the next section, we’ll explore how to use the theory to navigate the delicate dynamics of adult relationships. Whether it’s friendships, family, romantic relationships, or co-workers, you’ll discover how to set clear boundaries, strengthen bonds, and finally release the exhausting need to manage everyone else.
Right now, you might feel frustrated, lonely, or unsure if the connections you want are possible.
But here’s the truth: The best relationships of your life are still ahead of you. The most fulfilling friendships, the most beautiful love stories, and the most incredible bonds with family members are waiting for you if you learn to accept people for who they are and stop trying to force a relationship to be something it’s not.
The more you release your expectations, control, and the need to fix others, the more your relationships will flourish. It’s never too late to find amazing friends, make amends, strengthen family ties, or create the love you’ve always dreamed of.
How exciting is it that the most meaningful moments of your life and the deepest connections are just around the corner?
If you apply the Let Them Theory, they are. So let’s get started.