Speaker 1: I always felt stuck behind and late until I did this.
Speaker 1: If you're starting this year already feeling behind, you are
Speaker 1: not alone, and more importantly, you are not behind. Let
Speaker 1: me tell you a fact most people don't know. Studies
Speaker 1: show that nearly seven out of ten adults feel behind
Speaker 1: on their life timeline, behind in love, behind in their career, behind, financially,
Speaker 1: behind where they should be by now. And here's the twist.
Speaker 1: Everyone is comparing themselves to everyone else, and everyone thinks
Speaker 1: they're losing. People fascinate me. The married people envy the
Speaker 1: single people. The single people envy the married people. People
Speaker 1: with careers envy people who are entrepreneurs, people who are entrepreneurs,
Speaker 1: envy the people with stability. No one feels ahead. Everyone
Speaker 1: feels behind. How many of you listening right now feel
Speaker 1: like you're behind in one of these areas. You're starting
Speaker 1: the year and you're already thinking, look at that person
Speaker 1: they got promoted last year, Look at that person they're
Speaker 1: making a difference. Look at that person they've got their job.
Speaker 1: Look at that person they've got a few more followers
Speaker 1: than me. Today, I want to show you number one,
Speaker 1: why you feel behind psychologically and culturally. Number two why
Speaker 1: your timeline is not late statistically and scientifically, and number three,
Speaker 1: how to stop letting comparison ruin your year. I also
Speaker 1: want to give you the steps to rebuild confidence, momentum,
Speaker 1: and purpose all in this episode. This episode might be
Speaker 1: one of the most important ones you hear all year.
Speaker 1: Let's begin. Let's talk about the truth about why you
Speaker 1: feel behind. There are three main reasons we feel behind,
Speaker 1: and none of them are your fault. Reason Number one,
Speaker 1: we compare our insides to other people's outsides. There's something
Speaker 1: called the highlight bias. You see people's weddings, promotions, vacations, homes, milestones,
Speaker 1: but you never see their breakdowns, their failures, their doubts,
Speaker 1: their setbacks, or their insecurities. Statistically, people overestimate how happy
Speaker 1: others are and underestimate how happy they are. You're comparing
Speaker 1: your confusion to someone else's filter. Now wonder you feel behind.
Speaker 1: Stop comparing yourself to others. You don't know the battles
Speaker 1: they hide or the bridges they had to burn to
Speaker 1: get there. Stop comparing yourself to others. Your timeline is
Speaker 1: custom made. Theirs was never designed to fit you. Stop
Speaker 1: comparing yourself to others. Success looks different on everyone, and
Speaker 1: so does the struggle. Stop comparing yourself to others. Your
Speaker 1: progress is happening quietly internally, in ways no photo or
Speaker 1: post can capture, and stop comparing yourself to others. You're
Speaker 1: not here to match anyone. You're here to become the
Speaker 1: person only you can be. So the reason we compare
Speaker 1: ourselves is because we don't know enough context. If you
Speaker 1: only see someone's post and assume you know them, you
Speaker 1: know nothing. If you only see someone's tweet and assume
Speaker 1: you know them, you know nothing. If you only see
Speaker 1: someone's status update and think you know them, you know nothing.
Speaker 1: When you envy someone, you have to learn to study them.
Speaker 1: When you study someone, you get context. And when you
Speaker 1: get context, you realize you're more likely in the same
Speaker 1: place or even better off. Robin Roberts famously said if
Speaker 1: everyone throw their problems into a pile, that immediately he
Speaker 1: grabbed theirs back. We compare the worst of our lives
Speaker 1: to the best of everyone else's. Of course, you feel
Speaker 1: behind when if you were actually able to get to
Speaker 1: know people deeply. This is one of the reasons why
Speaker 1: having a shallow understanding of lots of people is so
Speaker 1: harmful because when you have a shallow understanding of everyone,
Speaker 1: you think everyone's doing better. When you have a deeper
Speaker 1: understanding of everyone, you recognize you're all kind of going
Speaker 1: through the same thing. Reason number two. You were sold
Speaker 1: a timeline that doesn't exist. Graduate by twenty two, career
Speaker 1: by twenty five, married by thirty, kids by thirty five,
Speaker 1: successful by thirty seven, fulfilled by forty. This timeline was
Speaker 1: invented in the nineteen fifties and hasn't been real for decades. Today,
Speaker 1: the average age of marriage is the highest it's been
Speaker 1: in history. Most people change careers three to seven times.
Speaker 1: People find their purpose in their thirties, fifties, even sixties.
Speaker 1: The average age of a successful entrepreneur is not twenty one,
Speaker 1: it's forty five.
Speaker 2: You are not late.
Speaker 1: The timeline you're comparing yourself to is outdated. You're not late.
Speaker 1: You might be moving slower because you've had more to carry,
Speaker 1: not because you're doing something wrong. You're not late. Half
Speaker 1: the people you think are ahead of you just feel
Speaker 1: as confused inside. You're not late. You're taking a real path,
Speaker 1: not the imaginary one you thought you'd be on at eighteen.
Speaker 1: You're not late. You're building your life while figuring yourself out,
Speaker 1: and that takes time for everyone. See this idea that
Speaker 1: there was a perfect time to have kids, a perfect
Speaker 1: time to get married, a perfect time to win it.
Speaker 1: Life isn't real. Everyone's timeline is absolutely different. And when
Speaker 1: we tried to live our life based on what the
Speaker 1: people around us are doing, think about how life would
Speaker 1: go for a second, if you did everything at the
Speaker 1: time everyone around you did it, how would that feel.
Speaker 1: That means you'd have to rush getting married to someone
Speaker 1: you don't love because you hadn't found them yet. You
Speaker 1: had to rush having children because everyone else was having
Speaker 1: them and you felt behind. If you do things that
Speaker 1: you don't want to do just because you feel behind,
Speaker 1: you will never be happy in your life because decisions
Speaker 1: should be made when you're happy, when you're ready, when
Speaker 1: you're peaceful, when you're content, when you're excited, not when
Speaker 1: you're scared or anxious or nervous. Reason number three is
Speaker 1: our brain is wired for falling behind anxiety you're Scientists
Speaker 1: found that humans experienced something called temporal comparison stress. We
Speaker 1: don't just compare ourselves to other people, We compare ourselves
Speaker 1: to the person we thought we'd be by now. Think
Speaker 1: about that for a second. You don't just feel behind
Speaker 1: because of other people. You feel behind because of the
Speaker 1: pressure you put on yourself. We feel behind not because
Speaker 1: life is wrong, but because our expectations were unrealistic. We
Speaker 1: feel behind because we thought we'd be in this position
Speaker 1: by now, and everything else is just a reminder of
Speaker 1: our inadequacy. But remember when you made that timeline, you
Speaker 1: didn't really know that much. How many of us at
Speaker 1: eighteen thought we knew when we were getting married. How
Speaker 1: many of us at twenty five thought we knew when
Speaker 1: we'd have kids. How many of us at fifteen thought
Speaker 1: we knew when we'd be successful. But what was that
Speaker 1: based on. It wasn't based on reality.
Speaker 2: It was just an.
Speaker 1: Imaginary, made up version of what we thought life was
Speaker 1: going to be. Like, here's the truth. No one predicts
Speaker 1: their life accurately, not one single person. Your plan wasn't wrong,
Speaker 1: It just didn't account for the fact that you're human, right.
Speaker 1: Your plan wasn't weak. It's just that you didn't realize
Speaker 1: there was so much more to life. Your plan wasn't
Speaker 1: slow or unorganized, it was just you learned so much
Speaker 1: more about yourself moving forward. Maybe you knew exactly what
Speaker 1: you wanted to be at eighteen, but then when you
Speaker 1: actually became it and you did that job, you realized
Speaker 1: there was nothing like what you wanted. There's nothing wrong
Speaker 1: with that. You didn't make a mistake, you didn't go
Speaker 1: off track. You actually just discovered what that passion felt like.
Speaker 1: In reality. I grew up in my teens thinking I
Speaker 1: may want to be a graphic designer or an art
Speaker 1: direct I loved it. I never actually did that for work.
Speaker 1: I used it a lot as a hobby. I never
Speaker 1: actually did it for work, But I think if I
Speaker 1: would have, I would have figured out quite quickly that
Speaker 1: that wasn't me. I ended up becoming a consultant. That
Speaker 1: was definitely not me. But if I sit there and
Speaker 1: I go wow, and I was there at this point,
Speaker 1: I was twenty six years old. I was a consultant.
Speaker 1: It wasn't what I wanted to do. And if I
Speaker 1: thought to myself, I messed up, I'm behind. What can
Speaker 1: I do now, I'll never be here today. I'm here
Speaker 1: with you today because at twenty eight I decided to
Speaker 1: move in the direction of what I cared about.
Speaker 2: And you can too.
Speaker 1: Let me give you some real evidence. Most people arrive
Speaker 1: later than you think. Research shows that the average person
Speaker 1: finds career clarity in their mid thirties. The average person
Speaker 1: hits financial stability in their late thirties to mid forties.
Speaker 1: Creative breakthroughs often happen around age forty to fifty. Emotional
Speaker 1: maturity peaks around forty five to fifty five. If anything,
Speaker 1: you might be ahead of the schedule, but you're definitely
Speaker 1: not behind. The evidence shows that just because we hear
Speaker 1: a couple of stories of a twenty one year old
Speaker 1: billionaire and a thirty year old who's really mature, and
Speaker 1: a thirty five year old who saved the planet, we
Speaker 1: start measuring ourselves against these one percent or even less
Speaker 1: than not recognizing the majority of people are in exactly
Speaker 1: the same space we are. Here's some more evidence life
Speaker 1: satisfaction has a use shape. Studies across one hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty countries show a consistent pattern. Life satisfaction dips in
Speaker 1: your twenties and thirties, then rises in your forties, fifties,
Speaker 1: and sixties, Meaning feeling lost now isn't a flaw. It's universal.
Speaker 1: It's part of the human curve, and the reason why
Speaker 1: I say that is because your twenties and thirties are
Speaker 1: also when you put so much pressure on yourself. You
Speaker 1: care more about what people think, You think you should
Speaker 1: be somewhere else, You care more about what other people
Speaker 1: are doing. As you start to lose that as you
Speaker 1: get older, it just has less of a hold in
Speaker 1: control over you. But if we were able to step
Speaker 1: back and go, I want to put positive pressure on
Speaker 1: myself but not break myself. It's almost like being in
Speaker 1: the gym and lifting weights. You want to lift enough
Speaker 1: to challenge yourself and push yourself, but not to hurt yourself.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the pressure we put on our mind is hurting us,
Speaker 1: not helping us. And here's even some more evidence late
Speaker 1: bloomers are more common than the early ones. Oprah got
Speaker 1: her show at thirty two. Vera Wang became a designer
Speaker 1: at forty. Tony Morrison published her first book at thirty nine.
Speaker 1: Ray Krok franchised McDonald's at fifty two. Success is not early.
Speaker 1: Success is aligned. You're not behind you unfolding. If all
Speaker 1: of those people just felt they were behind the whole time,
Speaker 1: they wouldn't have been present enough to capture the opportunity
Speaker 1: at that time. Your goal is not to think about
Speaker 1: whether you're ahead or behind. And here's the scary thing.
Speaker 1: Here's actually the biggest mistake we make. If you believe
Speaker 1: you're a head, it means you'll fall behind one day,
Speaker 1: And if you feel you're behind, you'll always want to
Speaker 1: be ahead, but then scared that someone else will get ahead.
Speaker 1: It's a slippery slope to think that everything is a
Speaker 1: ranking system. It is a slippery slope to live that way,
Speaker 1: to think that you're ahead or behind, because then you'll
Speaker 1: feel worse when you're behind. You'll feel insecure when you're
Speaker 1: at the top. If people feel that life is a race,
Speaker 1: you'll feel insecure and anxious at the top, and you'll
Speaker 1: feel depressed and disappointed at the bottom. When you realize
Speaker 1: that life is not a race, it is simply your path,
Speaker 1: you don't feel the insecurity of being number one, and
Speaker 1: you don't feel the depression of being lost. You recognize
Speaker 1: you a where you're meant to be doing what you're
Speaker 1: supposed to do. Because we have to recognize that feeling
Speaker 1: behind can be dangerous. When you believe you're behind, you
Speaker 1: do three things. Number One, you rush decisions you should
Speaker 1: take slowly wrong jobs, wrong relationships, wrong priorities. Number two.
Speaker 1: You quit things too early. You assume slow progress means
Speaker 1: wrong direction. Number three, you stop enjoying the life you
Speaker 1: actually have. You live inside imaginary pressure instead of real possibility.
Speaker 1: Feeling behind doesn't speed you up. It steals your piece
Speaker 1: and sabotages your progress.
Speaker 2: So what do we do?
Speaker 1: How do you stop feeling behind? Here are the practical
Speaker 1: frameworks that actually work. Framework number one. Compare less, connect more.
Speaker 1: Don't ask where where are they compared to me? Ask
Speaker 1: where am I compared to yesterday? Your only real competition
Speaker 1: is the person you were twenty four hours ago. This
Speaker 1: is one of the best mindsets I could possibly give. You.
Speaker 1: Only measure yourself based on how you're growing compared to
Speaker 1: where you want to be and who you are. Stop
Speaker 1: living your life thinking about where everyone else is or
Speaker 1: what you thought you'd be at fifteen and now you're
Speaker 1: thirty years old. Have you grown since yesterday? Have you
Speaker 1: grown since last week? Are you taking the steps to
Speaker 1: do that? That's where your focus should be. Framework number two.
Speaker 1: Rewrite your timeline. Take a piece of paper and write,
Speaker 1: my life is not late, it's layered. And now ask
Speaker 1: yourself what did I survive? What did I learn? What
Speaker 1: did I build internally that no one can see? When
Speaker 1: I lived as a month for three years, it wasn't
Speaker 1: available to everyone else. Everyone thought I was behind, Everyone
Speaker 1: thought I was lost. Everyone around me moved forward, but
Speaker 1: I was making real internal progress that no one else
Speaker 1: could see. That was progress. It was invisible, but real.
Speaker 1: And most of your growth happens before anyone sees the results.
Speaker 1: So just because everyone can't see what you're doing, it
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that it's not valuable. And not everything that
Speaker 1: is valuable can be seen, and not everything that is
Speaker 1: seen is valuable. Just because you can see what someone's
Speaker 1: doing in the success they're having, that doesn't mean they're ahead,
Speaker 1: because you could be growing underground and you're about to grow.
Speaker 1: I met so many people when I first started creating
Speaker 1: content who are far ahead of me and followers far ahead,
Speaker 1: and they didn't take me seriously because they didn't think
Speaker 1: that I would take it seriously. I wanted to collaborate
Speaker 1: with them, I wanted to work with them, but they
Speaker 1: didn't want to do that with me because I wasn't
Speaker 1: big enough, not realizing that if we think we're bigger,
Speaker 1: or better or ahead or behind will never grow? Framework
Speaker 1: number three, identify your season. You're not behind, You're in
Speaker 1: a season. Are you in a season of healing? Are
Speaker 1: you in a season of rebuilding? Learning, transitioning, p resting, experimenting.
Speaker 1: You can't compare your season one to someone else's season seven. Also,
Speaker 1: all of these cycles have a different pace. Healing has
Speaker 1: a different pace to transitioning. Transitioning has a different pace
Speaker 1: to performing. Performing has a different pace to growing, learning, building?
Speaker 1: Which season are you in? Get really clear about what
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six is about for you? Is twenty twenty
Speaker 1: six about healing, because then that's going to look very
Speaker 1: different to someone who's building. I've had years when we
Speaker 1: have been planting seeds, and I won't see the success
Speaker 1: of that in this year. I'll only see it in
Speaker 1: the year after. Is my year of failure? Because I
Speaker 1: didn't see it? Definitely not. Framework number four. Define progress
Speaker 1: as consistency, not speed. If you take one step every
Speaker 1: day this year, you'll be three hundred and sixty five
Speaker 1: steps ahead by next January. That's transformation, quiet and consistence.
Speaker 1: Progress is a direction, not a deadline. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about speed. Let's say for one month you're at a
Speaker 1: speed ten out of ten, but for the rest of
Speaker 1: the year, you're at a zero out of ten. Guess
Speaker 1: what you were at five out of ten for the
Speaker 1: whole year. But if you are just a consistent six
Speaker 1: or seven, you're already beating the speed of one month
Speaker 1: at ten out of ten. Consistency beats speed. If you'll
Speaker 1: eventually run out of speed, if you'll run out of
Speaker 1: speed and run out of steam, consistency is always going
Speaker 1: to win. Framework Number five. Ask the question that changes everything.
Speaker 1: Instead of asking why am I behind? Ask what is
Speaker 1: this season preparing me for? The answer will change the
Speaker 1: way you see your timeline. You have to reframe it.
Speaker 1: You have to look at it from a different angle.
Speaker 1: There have been so many years where everyone else could
Speaker 1: think I haven't achieved anything, and I'm not moving forward,
Speaker 1: but we're planning the seeds for next year. There are
Speaker 1: times in my life where I thought I was falling behind,
Speaker 1: but now I realize I was actually falling into place.
Speaker 1: I want to share with you the five practical steps
Speaker 1: to take this year. Number one, make a this is
Speaker 1: my season statement. Define where you are and own it.
Speaker 1: Don't worry about anyone else's season. What season are you in?
Speaker 1: Number two remove three social media accounts that trigger comparison.
Speaker 1: Protect your mind. If you keep comparing yourself to everyone,
Speaker 1: you will always feel behind. It is not your fault,
Speaker 1: it's how we're wired. Number three set one goal for
Speaker 1: ninety days, not the year. Shorter cycles equals more wins,
Speaker 1: more progress. Number four track actions, not outcomes. We often
Speaker 1: think the outcome decides whether we did something right. Let
Speaker 1: me give you an example. Let's say you work really
Speaker 1: hard on something and the result goes badly. Were you wrong?
Speaker 1: Because let's say you didn't work hard at all and
Speaker 1: the result went well, were you right? We have to
Speaker 1: focus on our action, not just the outcome, because if
Speaker 1: you did everything right and you continue to do that,
Speaker 1: you will get the right outcome. But if you rely
Speaker 1: on chance or hope or luck, you can't make that impactful.
Speaker 1: Outcomes belong to time. Actions belong to you, and this
Speaker 1: one celebrate invisible pro. I was giving a talk at
Speaker 1: my company's holiday party recently, and I shared this with them.
Speaker 1: I shared that I recognize all the things that they
Speaker 1: do that I see, but more importantly, I want to
Speaker 1: honor all the things that I don't see. I believe.
Speaker 1: There is so much invisible work that you do, that
Speaker 1: I do, that we all do, that is never seen,
Speaker 1: and it's your job to try and celebrate it for yourself.
Speaker 1: Your internal transformation will always come before external results. Always.
Speaker 1: Let me leave you with this. You are not behind.
Speaker 1: You're learning lessons now that others will have to learn later.
Speaker 1: You're not behind. You're doing your best in a life
Speaker 1: that hasn't always been easy. You're not behind. Everyone's figuring
Speaker 1: things out privately while pretending they're ahead. You're not behind.
Speaker 1: You're just on a timeline no one has ever lived before.
Speaker 1: Stop punishing yourself for not being where you thought you'd be.
Speaker 1: Start appreciating yourself for not giving up, because one year
Speaker 1: from now you won't be behind. You'll just be grateful
Speaker 1: that you got started. Your path is not delayed, it's deliberate,
Speaker 1: and this is your year to walk it with confidence.
Speaker 1: I'm wushing you all the best for the year ahead.
Speaker 1: Remember forever in your corner and always rooting for you.
Speaker 1: If you love this podcast, you love my episode with
Speaker 1: Lewis Hamilton. Lewis and I talk about why you should
Speaker 1: stop chasing society's definition of success and how to be
Speaker 1: more intentional with your goals. You don't want to miss it.
Speaker 2: Like it's not about being perfect. It's about just every day,
Speaker 2: one step at a time, trying to be better, trying
Speaker 2: to do more. I'm learning a lot about myself. I
Speaker 2: have to break myself down in order to be out
Speaker 2: to be better.