CHAPTER 5

FEEL JEALOUS TO FIND GENIUS

She strutted out onto the stage wearing a skin-tight, black leather, long-sleeved jumpsuit with over-the-knee, sky-high, black boots. She rocked a swingy blond bob and spoke eloquently in a clipped British accent. If she had said her name was Lady Catwoman, I wouldn’t have been surprised in the least. Less than a minute into her talk, Lady Catwoman had the hundreds of typically “tough crowd” marketers attending this serious business conference laughing, clapping, and sitting on the edge of their seats, hanging onto her every word. Her real name? Cindy Gallop. Her superpower? In her exact words: “Blowing shit up.”

The conference was taking place at a Walt Disney World resort, but in that moment, Cindy was taking us on a more exciting ride than anything Walt could have ever dreamed up. Amid presentations on digital trends and web analytics, she was talking about how the ubiquity of hard-core pornography had distorted young men’s sexual education. In front of this majority male audience, she detailed her mission to improve healthy conversations around sexual behavior. She was the consummate definition of an awesomely audacious woman.

I was inspired; I was shocked; I was enthralled; I was . . . jealous. Jealous? What? I’m all for girl power! I’m all for sisters supporting sisters! How dare I feel jealous of Lady Catwoman doing what she was clearly born to do? Guilt and shame immediately replaced my envy as I joined the rest of the crowd in a thundering standing ovation for her brilliance and, quite frankly, balls.

Jealousy. The green-eyed monster. Most of us are taught from childhood that this terrible creature is to be slayed at all costs. And, yes, of course, jealousy that incites malice or spite or robs us of our contentment or gratitude for our blessings is the most poisonous of all emotions. “Thou shalt not covet” and those other nine rules from Above offer a rather solid road map for a life well lived.

And in certain moments, like Cindy’s Wild Disney Ride, my jealousy was also my “genius.” Genius in reference not to book smarts or intelligence but to intuition. That unconscious, unexplainable side we all have in us that just knows better. And in that moment, my genius was telegraphing a momentous message. Like it had just ripped a quick shot of jealousy juice, my conscious brain lowered its inhibitions and started shouting, Hey! Quit trying to not feel what you feel! What Cindy just did up there on that stage? Yeah! You’re meant to do that! Have you ever felt like that? And I don’t mean like a liquid courage–induced competition with your coworker who just slayed “Lose Yourself” Eminem style at the team karaoke night.

Fast-forward five years, and my Lady Cindy Catwoman jealousy came in handy—big time. I was at a conference in Vegas that my agency was managing. Everything was going smoothly, until suddenly the client ran up to me fighting back tears because her social media speaker didn’t show up for a breakout session. She was panicking because the session started in 30 minutes and the room was packed, and she asked would I please just get up there and talk to them?

Instead of melting down (OK, well, I fully melted down in the bathroom right after), I remembered Cindy Goshdarn Gallop. I remembered my jealousy. I remembered that genius feeling of just knowing. And I said yes. (Side note: Cindy Gallop would never, ever be uncool enough to use the word goshdarn in a sentence. Ever.) And while my J. Crew blazer and boring trade-show flats weren’t exactly her Catwoman ensemble, I strutted to the front of that room, and I channeled my inner Cindy. I borrowed her attitude as I preached passionately about the esoteric, transformational topic of . . . Instagram profile design. And when I finished, the people in the audience rose to their feet—and left.

While I did not receive anything even remotely resembling a standing ovation, I received something even better: a handful of invites to speak at a few other events. One thing led to another, and before long, my full-time job somehow evolved into speaking on stages around the world—just like Lady Cindy Catwoman herself.

Can you imagine what could be possible if you allowed yourself to acknowledge the scandalous reality that maybe, maybe, your jealousy is actually not completely reprehensible? That maybe it’s actually your genius speaking to you loud and clear on what you want? On who you were really meant to be?

If you’ve been saying to yourself, I don’t know how to do that! or I don’t even know what I want! or I could never do that, then as Lady Cindy Catwoman would say, Bullshit. Yes, you do. You do know how. You do know who. You do know where. In fact, as intuition is individual, you’re actually the only one who knows how and who and where. The real question is, will you audaciously authorize yourself to receive what your jealously genius is air-dropping you? What are you “healthily jealous” of? A place? A job? A person? A mission? A mindset? A skill set? A lifestyle? What if you allowed yourself to scandalously recategorize a flash of envy as something to be honored, instead of a shameful emotion that “should” only be ignored?

As strange as it sounds, oftentimes that disgraceful, desirous feeling is actually a perfectly precise path to uncovering what it is your soul truly seeks. Allowing yourself to feel and dissect your jealousy? I know; it’s almost as scandalous as talking porn at a professional convention. And just as worthy of a standing ovation when you do.

Now obviously there are plenty of times jealousy does not lead to discovering your true calling, and that’s when you know you’re dealing an emerald emotion of the poisonous variety.

UNHEALTHY JEALOUSY VERSUS HEALTHY JEALOUSY

So how do you know whether you should categorize your covetousness as super-Shero inspiring or just plain catty? Simple: whether it’s a one-off or a recurring visitor, are you competing or are you comparing? Maybe you’ve never really given the question much thought, but it’s a distinction that makes all the difference.

Healthy competition can be an incredibly powerful motivator for getting you up off your butt or back in the saddle. Healthy competition is the fire you need to push yourself that last mile to transform your most audacious dreams into your new reality. On the other hand, unhealthy comparison is straight-up lethal poison to your mind, body, and soul. Unhealthy comparison will swallow you whole and completely rob you of every opportunity to relish in deep, true, lasting joy. You might think that sounds a tad dramatic, but I assure you it is without a shadow of doubt 10,000 percent accurate. And this dream destroyer, this joy stealer, this best-life blocker is precariously prevalent thanks to the normal pressures of not just your work life and home life but your digital life as well.

Let me ask you this: Do you really, truly, genuinely want to start inviting more joy, passion, and contentment into your everyday existence? If you said yes, I’d like to invite you to really rethink how you’re (consciously or unconsciously) playing the world’s most unwinnable games of keeping up with the Joneses. Or the Kardashians. Or the entire TikTok community, LinkedIn universe, or whatever corner of the internet you stack up your dance routines, family photos, or professional accolades against. You and I (and the rest of humanity) find ourselves involuntarily(ish) ensnared within the confines of an extremely risky social experiment at a global scale. If you haven’t established a way to actually stop measuring your real life against everyone else’s highlight reel, versus just saying “You know their posts aren’t the whole story”—you will continue to feel less than, empty, and not enough, no matter how much other work you put in. Full stop.

Now, I’m not going to sit here and tell you exactly how to stop comparing against another person’s promotion, salary, tenure, golden parachute, or Pinterest-perfection home—that’s something only you can decide to do. Only you can resolve to once and for all stop measuring yourself by the world’s yardstick and start to measure yourself by your own. Competition can be a terrific power source, but comparison will almost always drain your battery.

So how do you know whether or not your jealousy is actually a genius way to prompt yourself into a little healthy competition?

HEALTHY COMPETITION IN ACTION

You’ll know healthy competition is in action when you find yourself quite literally mouth-open exhilarated by someone else’s success—filtered or unfiltered. You see the person’s wins, and you’re fired up to go chase down some points for your own board. When you see that person crushing the project, the workout, the fund-raiser, or the quota, your organic reaction is some version of “Go, you!” immediately followed by a hearty, energized “Now, let’s go, me!” If you had to explain healthy competition in a text to yourself, it would be the emoji love child of “hands clapping” and “cool sunglass face.”

You know it’s healthy competition when someone positively provokes you to work harder, dig deeper, and go beyond your current stretch point. When the person has affected you to level up your everyday efforts in ways you just weren’t doing solo. When you find yourself undoubtedly galvanized to pick up your pace a tad from where you were yesterday.

A little competition can help raise more money for cancer research. A little competition could mean seeing that super-fit 65-year-old with the rock-hard triceps in Orangetheory Fitness who inspires you to press that + button on your speed or incline. A little competition can propel you forward for that one last sales call or help you show up with extra BDE for that one last meeting to finish the quarter stronger than you thought possible.

When it comes to unhealthy competition, you’ll know you’re veering off in the wrong direction when you find that you’re comparing yourself to others in a way that amplifies your deepest, darkest, “not-enoughness.” You may not even realize that you’re inviting in such a toxic, self-worth-decimating behavior. It’s sneaky like that. What might happen if you paid closer attention to those occasions when you’re feeling insecure, when you find your self-talk crossing over from positive reinforcement (OK! Let’s see if I can improve a bit here!) to negative reinforcement (Ugh! I look/feel/sound vile today.)?

One evening my neighbor Margot and I were walking together after work and she confided that she was in total awe of two of our other friends. Was it because of their new subway tile backsplashes? Their shiny new Beamers? Nope. She was in awe of something much more valuable, much more luxurious, much more precious: a standing one-hour coffee-talk date that transpired every weekday morning at 10:30 a.m. Why was something as basic as a coffee date so jaw-droppingly, awe-inspiringly fabulous? Well, Margot worked a nine-to-five corporate HR job that required her to be in the office, in a cube, working on a dusty old PC, every weekday, no matter what. From where she sat, chained to the comfort of her paycheck and 401(k), a midmorning coffee-talk break seemed like a luxurious privilege reserved for the überwealthy stay-at-home moms with nannies, personal trainers, and fur-and-diamond-encrusted toilet paper.* When the two friends would burst out laughing later recalling one of their coffee talks, Margot always found herself biting her lip in an attempt to curb the flow of FOMO. She was curious. She was wistful. She was way jealous. She found that she couldn’t help but wonder what that kind of flexible work schedule would be like, what that type of professional freedom would feel like, what that kind of coffee would even taste like!

Her two gal pals were both small business owners. Maybe you know one; maybe you are one. Either way, picture two typical, classic, mad-respect, rise-and-grind entrepreneurs. One owned a small digital marketing shop, and the other ran a mobile hair-removal/spray-tan business. They both worked their butts off to get their companies off the ground, and they both worked like maniacs in the mornings and afternoons—and most evenings. But like smart entrepreneurs who know it’s a marathon and not a sprint, 10:30 to 11:30 in the morning was blocked off for their sacred recharge sanity time.

Now, Margot could have caved into her caveman comparison impulse to determine her hierarchy within the tribe. She could have stayed wallowing in the safe yet sucky pond of “poor me–why not me” jealousy. She could have sloshed around feeling sorry for herself being stuck in the tedious, buzzword-laced meetings she abhorred at that exact time every single day. She could have easily snuggled into that same-old, cozy-old, familiar, negative “wahhh” narrative.

Instead, she chose to look at her two friends as her own personal supply chain of healthily competitive energy. She noted how they were operating, Blue Steel–stared at herself in the mirror, and said Let’s go, me! Instead of making excuses for why they could do it and she couldn’t, she got radically real and leveled with herself. Her mantra became “Well, if they somehow figured it out, why can’t I?” She started researching what might be possible for her and how she might start her own venture in the future. Did she have a burning desire to solve a specific problem? Not really. Did she have a Shark Tank idea she was totally obsessed with? Nope. All she knew was that her definition of success was not the money, the fame, or the challenge—it was the freedom. Success to her was attaining the simple goal of having the freedom for a 10:30 morning coffee talk with her friends. She didn’t want to choke down one more cup of corporate drip sludge. Her dream was to level up to a vanilla latte with almond milk and a sprinkle of cinnamon on top, thank you very much.

Fast-forward two years, and there was Margot, sprinkling that cinnamon on top with a huge BDE smile on her face. She was now the one saving the best table at the coffee shop for the three of them. Of course, before and after coffee talk, she is working her tailfeather off with her new HR/payroll consulting firm she launched. She doesn’t have dreams of blowing it up to make billions and be acquired. She doesn’t want the headache of payroll and staff. She’s not trying to disrupt the hiring process for the next generation. She’s just building a small, manageable, enjoyable lifestyle business that supports her dream of Starbucks ladies gab time on her own terms. But the beauty of Margot’s approach is how she chose to process, observe, and leverage her friends’ success. She transformed what could have been an audacity blocker into an audacity activator. She took her jealousy juice, ran it through the purifier, and chugged it. Was she scared? Overwhelmed? Worried? Lost? Did she second-guess herself? Yes! Of course! Duh! But for her, all of that faded away when she woke up in the morning without the feeling of prisoner reporting for trash pickup.

So . . . what about you? When you look at the Starbucks sisters in your life who are crushing it—at work, love, health, mindfulness, stress management, sales goals, or whatever haunts you—do you feel more Why not me? or Let’s go, me?

Now, of course, your answer is likely a blend of both, depending on the person, the situation, and whether or not Mercury is in retrograde. (Why is it always in retrograde?) Your answer might depend on how full your emotional bank account is at that particular moment. If the truth is that you find yourself feeling like “you’re behind” or “you’re not as successful/skinny/wealthy/[insert whatever adjective comes to mind here]”—first of all, don’t judge yourself on top of feeling your feelings. Nothing is wrong with you. You are not crazy. You are not insecure. You are just a typical, regular, “look around to see what’s up” human like the rest of us.

Nothing is wrong with you; you’re just succumbing to the classic complication of living in this new, hyperconnected world like pretty much everyone else. Without an intentional digital health strategy, it’s almost impossible not to fall into a caveman comparison conundrum as our default. If my cave neighbor has Fire 2.0, I must have Fire 3.0! But just because that’s how most of today’s carefully curated newsfeed cave people are scrolling through life, that doesn’t mean you have to get sucked in too.

Look, I’m not asking you never to compare yourself to anyone again for the rest of your life. Let’s be honest; that’s just not realistic or feasible. What I am asking you to do when you feel this comparison crap start to cramp your style is to remind yourself of your BDE. Remind yourself that you rock. Remind yourself that your life rocks right now and that it will rock even more in the future. Remind yourself that you rocked your day with all the fierceness, fire, and fab you could muster and you totes crushed it. And when you’re swimming with that spirit of “yay, you!,” you’ll find it much easier to drastically reduce the time you spend playing the world’s most unwinnable of games and dramatically increase the time you spend keeping your eyes on your own paper and being stoked by what you see there. Basically, be a little bolder when it comes to telling yourself that you really are a gem. That you already have exactly what it takes to pull the trigger on at least the first step toward chasing down what it is you long for.

EVOLVE FROM COMPARING TO COMPETING

Now, I know what you’re thinking: Erin, I’ve seen the Pinterest “Comparison is the thief of joy” posts. I’ve liked “The only person you should compare yourself to is you” stories. I’ve sipped from that glittery coffee cup reminding me “Don’t compare your beginning to someone else’s middle.” I have, too. So I’m not going to sit here and retweet these same tired adages at you, for three very specific reasons. (And no, one of the reasons is not that you can just go buy the preceding platitudes artfully burned into old barnwood in my Etsy shop. Although if that is one of the businesses you’ve been jealous of, this is your “sign” to start your shop.)

First, when you hear someone say “Stop comparing yourself to others,” it’s like when someone says, “Stop thinking about Liam Hemsworth shirtless.” What do you think of? Exactly. (And you’re welcome.)

A few years ago, I was backstage watching a super-fit keynote presenter before me give a fantastic talk encouraging us to stop comparing ourselves so much to our peers. Guess what happened next? Yep, in that less-than-ideal moment, I started comparing myself to her. And my speech to her speech. And my “taco lover” triceps to her “these guns haven’t seen a carb since 01” ones. Cue the comparison spiral. You’ve been there, right? Like Alice in GunShowLand I went down the “hate myself” hole. And the more I told myself to stop, it was like it was having the opposite of the Liam Hemsworth effect. Instead of preparing my best “place of service” headspace with prayer, music, and more prayer—I went to the ladies’ room and started doing that thing where you pinch your arms back to imagine what they would look like without those little lunch-lady wing things. Not exactly the smartest way to get pumped up. (Pun intended.)

So as you might imagine, when I took the stage, my takeoff was bumpier than a flight leaving the Windy City. Long silences where I usually got laughs, stuttering where I usually articulated clearly. My triceps and I were tanking. It took me almost half of my talk to shake off that insecure turbulence, get back in my zone, and focus on fulfilling the mission at hand. Thanks to one hype girl in the front row who was nodding her head enthusiastically (always find your hype girl!), I ended up working it out in the end, but let’s just say my upper lip sweat sheen was definitely visible from the back row of the conference center.

Have you ever had that happen? When you told yourself to “stop” something, and it manifested and magnetized that exact behavior? Stop saying like! Stop buying crap you don’t need from Amazon! Like all I want now is like all of Amazon.

Second, just telling yourself to “stop comparing” isn’t the end-all, be-all vaccine to combat comparison because of how the world of social media is scientifically engineered. Social media is literally architected for voyeuristic comparison. It’s strategically designed and continually optimized to be irresistible when it comes to seeing how we stack up with the rest of the world. It’s “innocent limited human powers you” taking on the “not-so-innocent robot powers algorithm.” If you’ve ever gotten that itch to check your phone when you know you shouldn’t, you know the addiction is real. (Did you just think about it?) Who has more likes? Looks the best? Has the most followers? Endorphin hit! Pleasure ding! Serotonin shot! Don’t think you have a problem? What’s the first thing you do when you open your eyes in the morning? Hmmm . . .

Sure, social media can be a digital lifeline to combat loneliness when used appropriately to open new offline relationships and nurture long-distance ones. But even when you’re using social platforms with the healthiest of intentions to simply stay connected, it still takes a mammoth effort to protect your headspace and heart space from the endless black hole scroll of curated perfection. One way to increase your chances of reprogramming your relationship with technology is to replace a stop with a specific start. When it comes to habit swapping, the magic really does lie in mapping out the details. For example, if you’ve ever tried to quit your nighttime snack, dessert, or glass of wine, you know it’s much easier to stay the course if you have a healthier alternative on deck like that herbal tea or sparkling water mocktail. Rising above the power of the smartest minds in Silicon Valley calls for a much more specific course of action than just a sparkly coffee cup quote.

Finally, when you say “Stop comparing and just be grateful for who you are and what you have,” how does that impact the line between comparison-fighting gratitude and lame old complacency? If you are just “doing you”—aka being so grateful and content with where you are now; no matter what everyone else is up to, you’re good, thank you very much—do you just drift into the waters of complacency? Do you just suddenly wake up one day and find that you are the captain of the USS Mediocrity? We’re advised not to compare ourselves, but at the exact same time never to be complacent. Well, how do we maintain our edge professionally if we don’t keep an eye on what’s new and what everyone else is doing out there?

So, if both are unhealthy extremes, how the heck can we optimize toward living our best lives, especially in these complex times? Being candid, it is challenging, but it is not impossible. You can eradicate the negative and bear-hug the positive. Here are four specific techniques that pretty much always work for me and for my clients. It’s my hope one of them might work for you too, or at least trigger your own version of comparison closure.

MIX YOURSELF A “GRATITINI”

This is one of my go-to strategies to halt comparison in its totally life-limiting tracks. When you scroll across something that ignites that feeling of “I’m not as [whatever] as she is,” or you hear that inner gremlin start talking down to you—you turn your phone over, or throw it in a drawer, or put it under a pillow, and you physically walk away from your phone. You socially distance yourself from your device. You then close your eyes, and mix yourself a mental gratitude martini—a gratitini. Here’s the recipe: it’s three parts radical gratitude and one part eye-roll “Yeah, right. Insta is so fake” reality check.

While I’m optimistic that if you’re reading this book, you already possess some type of gratitude practice in your daily routine, I’d like to invite you to level up from your typical thank yous to an intentional appreciation of the radical variety. What does this mean? Well, it means going galaxies beyond just writing or saying one of the go-to gratitude classics: I’m so grateful for my partner, parents, children, health, job, house, shoes, coffee, breakfast, sunny day, and so on. Where things get radical is when you don’t move on until you feel the gratitude. The feels are essential to activate the awesome here.

I don’t know about you, but for me, I had gotten to a point where my gratitude practice was like a to-do checklist where I brushed my teeth, threw in some laundry, or remembered to pluck that rogue black chin hair I saw in the rearview at that red light yesterday. (Pro tip: always keep tweezers in your glovebox. Stoplight natural lighting reveals all.) Where things got radical was when I started sitting with the word that I’d written or spoken until I felt the grateful feels. For me, either it’s a shiver, or I start to feel a little choked up, like I could fully turn on the waterworks. For you, maybe it triggers a smile, a sense of calm, or a little flutter of excitement in your heart.

And the difference in this gratitude practice is remarkable. We’re talking more patience with my husband, more creativity with my clients, and more thoughtfulness with my friendships. We’re even talking better sales numbers because prospects can feel your radical gratitude good vibes. (You know when you like certain people, want to hire them, work with them, or just be their friend, but you can’t put your finger on exactly why? Yep. Radical gratitude gal right there.) The secret here is you have to wait until something physical transpires. Sit with your thankful emotions until your body literally shows you that radical gratitude has transpired.

So you repeat this for three things. Why three? It just seems to be a manageable yet magic number for me, but if you’re pressed for time, you can do one; or if you’re feeling Tibetan monk–like, you can do it for ten or more. For me, it’s three smiles, three shivers, or three fluttery heart moments. Your response is yours, but you will recognize when your personal “gratitude completed” notification comes through. You then flip your newly Zen mind back to the original perpetrator that made you feel less than and finish off the gratitini with a splash of eye-roll reality check. As in, “OK, you and I both know that pic was filtered and FaceTuned to the high heavens.” Or “OK, yes, she got that job, but let’s be real; she’s going to have zero social life for the next three years.” Or “OK, they look really happy, but you know for a fact that there’s always more to the story of that ‘perfect relationship’ that’s being projected.”

Maybe you can’t see behind the scenes of what is really happening, but you are getting only one small glimpse into what that person’s reality is really like. So you bake this reality check reminder in with a super-immature and not so Zen (but highly effective) eye-roll. Or however you brush things off in a good-natured way. Sometimes, I’ll sip a few gratitinis a day. Even before noon. It’s a silly little mind trick that I use to release the very human and very natural yet simultaneously treacherous negativity. You mentally swirl, sip, and savor your gratitini until you feel yourself start to fill your energy back up with enough good vibes to go back to living positively with a stronger focus on your own mission. When you feel the audacious buzz of a gal back on track, then you can go retrieve your phone. And remember to smile at it in a “Nice try, but a Big Deal babe like myself knows better than that” kinda way.

YOU DO YOU

Have you ever had a moment where you were so embarrassed at how you behaved that it kept haunting you? Where every time you think about it, you just want to bury your face in a pillow and bargain with the universe for a do-over? And I’m not talking about that time in middle school when you laughed so hard you accidentally tooted in front of your crush. I’m talking a grown-up life “never live it down”–er.

I have.

Last year, I was at a dinner party at my friend Andrew’s family home where he grew up in Laguna Beach. It was one of these super-unique, artsy, “if these walls could talk” abodes. I remember right before we scooted over there being so excited because my Instagram followers had finally hit 10,000, aka I had access to the “swipe up” feature! Now before you roll your eyes at this vapid achievement, if you are someone like me who relies almost 100 percent on social media to engage with your customers and clients, that is, to pay your bills, then you know the game-changing impact of being able to directly link to your products and services so you can monetize all your hard contenting work online. And you can only do this when you have reached the coveted 10,000-follower mark. So when I finally hit that delicious digital milestone, I was on Insta cloud nine!

After a few glasses of wine, I found myself humblebragging (just kidding, I was straight-up bragging) to one of Andrew’s friends whom I had just met. His name was Dan, and he was soft spoken and very humble, and politely congratulated me on my newfound “mini-influencer” status. (Not that I needed any more congratulations, as I was doing a fairly good job of patting myself on the back.) Later, Dan and his equally humble and ridiculously cool wife, Sonny, had to leave early to relieve their babysitter. After they left, another one of Andrew’s friends came up to me, not knowing what we had been talking about, and said, “You should really follow him on Instagram.” Looking him up, I saw that humble, kind, under-the-radar Dinner Party Dan had almost a million followers. One. Million. I spit out my Malbec and had a “Cameron from Ferris Bueller after he wrecks his dad’s fancy car” moment and just stared unblinkingly. I could not even speak.

It turns out when Dan told me he was a creative director for a “cool company in LA,” that company was Marvel Comics. Dan was an incredibly talented artist who had amassed a huge diehard fan base of his work, with each post having hundreds of thousands of likes and comments! I felt like such a self-obsessed, absurd, pompous eejit; I wished one of Dan’s superheroes would swoop down and just carry me away. Not in a romantic “Save me” way but in a “Please remove me from here and drop me into the nearest out-of-the-way dumpster” one.

Upon this ego-murdering discovery, the wind left my sails. My shoulders slumped and I began to annihilate the charcuterie board. All of my joy completely vanished. (Well, not completely; the baked brie was pretty all-time.)

Seeing my nonverbal defeat and sadness, the guy who had unmasked Dan’s literal superhero identity said, “Hey, cheer up! If you want to know the truth, I’m jealous of you. I have only 500 followers! I would kill to have 10,000. You’re so lucky!” And in that moment, I was struck with really understanding a truth that most of us know in our heads, but few of us really know in our hearts. The 500-follower guy would love to be the 10,000-follower gal, who would love to be the 1 million-follower dude. And Dinner Party Dan is probably chasing down someone else online who has 5 million followers!

What I realized and have never forgotten since that moment is whether we are talking about followers or anything else we value, we are all only human and there is and will always be someone who is [insert adjective: better, richer, prettier, skinnier, smarter, more talented, better traveled, more successful, whatever] than you. The world is a really big place. You know that, but do you really, really know that? And more important, do you know with even more conviction that there will also always be someone who is not as gifted as you? There will always be someone who doesn’t have your gift of gab, your ability to think strategically, navigate conflict, crush the race, show tough love, radiate empathy, simplify the complex subject, or make even the Grinchiest of grumps burst out laughing. There are millions of people in this massive world who will never come close to possessing your special and unique and mind-blowing Big Deal talents.

The older you get and the more you travel and, yes, even scroll, the more you realize there are a dizzying number of successful humans doing grand, mind-blowing things, and yay for them! They are doing them, and you are doing you, and there is one thing that we all have in common: on our deathbeds, whether we changed the whole actual world or just the ones we created for ourselves, none of us will give two Marvel superhero bam-pows! about Instagram. (I invite you to pause and reread that sentence. And like radical gratitude, I encourage you to keep reading it until you physically feel it and know it in a way you can take this truth off these pages and into your life starting right now.)

The second thing I (days later) realized from my dinner party bragfest is that when we mere humans compare ourselves or allow ourselves to feel unhealthy jealousy, we are fighting thousands of years of programmed evolutionary behavior from all the way back to Fire 1.0 trying to figure out if our chances of survival were higher if we fought or backed down. So when you do it, give yourself a break. Know that we all slip up. And commit to sipping a gratitini to do better the next time.

When you choose to replace comparison with healthy competition, you unlock your chained-up inner audacity like Aladdin and his magic lamp. Your superpower is Robin Williams saying to you: “Oh to be free, such a thing would be greater than all the magic in the world!” When you dare to free your audacity, it roars into your life ready to turn your words and wishes into a new reality that’s fit for a Disney movie. It is actual, real-world magic. And it’s at your disposal. It’s on demand. It’s lying there dormant just crossing its fingers waiting for the day you’ll discover it and put it to work.

Of course, it’s one thing to know this and another to feel it. Luckily for you there is one other way to trick your heart into feeling what your head already knows. You simply don a pair of bestie blinders.

DON YOUR BESTIE BLINDERS

I learned about bestie blinders from my friend Kim (we’ll learn more from Kim in Chapter 7) back when I was living in Baltimore in my early twenties. Facebook had been out for only a few years, and I remember being over at her apartment and making a catty comment about a guy I had dated on and off who had posted a photo with his new babe of a girlfriend. (Who also happened to be a doctor. Seriously?)

This was back when The Secret by Rhonda Byrne was hugely popular, and Kim sagely advised me, “E! You need to be super-careful about the energy you put out in the world—even online. Vibes are like boomerangs. Whatever you put out there is exactly what you will attract back to yourself—times 10!”

Kim continued: “Just pretend that girl in the photo is me, and that I had found happiness with a new guy. Wouldn’t you look at that photo and say, ‘Good for her!’ and mean it?”

“Yeah, of course,” I grudgingly responded.

Kim, my annoyingly sage Yoda friend closed with, “Remember, happy people are happy for people.”

At that moment her refusal to let me be a straight-up brat was extremely irritating, but looking back now, I’m beyond grateful for her advice. I never forgot that little mental switch to reroute my vibes from awful to abundant. That little flip of the script has saved me more times than I can count, and it will do the same for you.

The next time you come across someone, online or offline, who makes you feel those “I’m not good enough compared to her/him/them” feelings, Why not me?, you immediately—I mean right away—call to mind your absolute favorite person. If you find yourself having these feelings often, decide on who that person is right now, so the next time you start to feel the ugly feelings, you literally snap your fingers and call to mind that person you love. Who is it for you? Put that person on deck right now, so the negative comparison crap doesn’t stand a chance of getting a solid foothold inside your audaciously prepared self. Maybe it’s your best girlfriend, your sister, your mom, your cousin, your child, your partner. Whoever it is, visualize that one person you would literally die for. Then whatever is happening, being posted, or said, dare yourself to pretend that it’s happening to your favorite person.

You pretend that the promotion, the new house, the vacation, the award is being experienced by your favorite person on earth. And you begin to trick your feelings into evolving from a negative Why not me? to a positive good for her. Because whatever wonderful thing, person, place is happening to your bestie, her joy is your joy. Her success is your success. And you’ll be shocked as you watch how fast those negative comparison feelings will dissipate. You will find that, instead of biting your lip, picking your nails, or sighing with sadness, you’ve tricked your mind into smiling. You’ve tricked your mood into lightening. You’ve tricked your emotions into laughing.

And after you feel your emotional tide start to crash toward that healthier direction, you move on. You don’t look back over your shoulder to dig anything back up—whether old pain or posts. Remember, like Kim said, vibes are like boomerangs. What you send out is what you attract back times 10. If you really want to reprogram these types of Ugh! Why do I do this? thoughts and feelings, bestie blinders will get you there every time.

DECIDE: TEAM ABUNDANCE OR TEAM SCARCITY?

Making sure your squad is packed with members of Team Abundance is yet another way to reroute your vibes from awful to abundant.

Prior to COVID, my everyday was hotel and airport hopping, going from keynote to keynote. Many of my dear girlfriends also live this unique, not-for-everyone “digital nomad” lifestyle. We spend hours on FaceTime, brainstorming everything from new speech material we’re thinking about adding to our next talk to how to optimize status and points programs. When we’re pumped post-keynote, we cheer, laugh, and support. When we’re lonely on the road, we confess and cry. One crew in particular is a squad we call the SheNoters (a foursome composed of myself, Neen James, Tami Evans, and Tamsen Webster).

As you can imagine, a big part of how we grow our online tribes so we can increase our ability to influence change in the world is to introduce each other to our audiences (case in point with the previous SheNoters intro—notice how I plugged each of them?). We share each other’s content, interviews, shout-outs, recommendations, and so on. This retweeting, reposting, and resharing comes from a steadfast belief in the “rising tide lifts all boats” mindset. Maybe your crew came to mind when I mentioned my SheNoters. If so, it’s likely that your invisible girl power jersey would indicate that you are a member of Team Abundance. Sounds fab, right? It is. And most women on the planet, whether they realize it or not, are on one of these two teams: Team Abundance or Team Scarcity.

Team Abundance is stacked with audacious gals who hang with other audacious gals who are obsessed with helping each other live bigger, bolder lives in a way that we probably couldn’t (or at least wouldn’t want to) do alone. We are playing the game of life in a healthily competitive way. We’re cheering each other on from the sidelines and then tagging each other back and forth into working our butts off out on the field. Yes, when you’re on this team, you want to contribute your goals and assists just like the other team members did—if not more!—but all the efforts, energy, and enthusiasm count toward the same collaborative winning result. Your stats and their stats are all in the name of the collective win. There’s an abundance of victory and glory to go around for everyone. Go team!

The other team is Team Scarcity. What’s this team’s deal? Well, this is a team that plays dangerous and dirty. Team Scarcity players talk trash. Every goal you score is one that should have been theirs. They aren’t competing to see who is the better player; they’re comparing to see who is the better person. Their style is ruthless, demoralizing, and divisive. After the game is over, let’s just say they don’t exactly shake hands with one another and say “Good game.” Boo.

If you’re dealing with some of these Team Scarcity players, I have an idea for you: take a look at those you surround yourself with or those you follow on social media and remove them now. Block and bless. Delete their number. Get rid of those bad vibes. And what do you do next? Replace them with new people to join your very own Team Abundance.

Making space to consume content from Team Abundance players who would elevate our “everyday,” is anything but minuscule, absurd, and insipid. It is audacious. Is it “Bethany Hamilton going back out surfing after a shark ate her arm” audacious? Not even close. But removing those BDE suckers will make you feel so much lighter and happier and more grateful to be on your own path without them. Stop wasting energy comparing someone else’s path so you can protect and project your BDE.

So as you mentally shuffle through the women in your life, sometimes it will be obvious which jersey certain women are rocking. Other times, not so much. And sometimes, you’ll even encounter a Team Scarcity player in sheep’s clothing. No matter the case, let’s navigate the playing field. Let’s assemble your best defense against Team Scarcity to ensure you’re focused on your first-draft picks for Team Abundance.

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