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cover of episode Your only competition is YOU - stop comparing yourself to other people

Your only competition is YOU - stop comparing yourself to other people

2024/3/4
logo of podcast Date Yourself Instead

Date Yourself Instead

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Liss: 本期节目的核心观点是,你唯一的竞争对手是自己,而不是他人。与其关注他人的成就和生活,不如专注于自身发展,提升自我价值。Liss 强调,他人的成功不会降低你的价值,将自己与他人比较只会让你自我贬低。她鼓励听众停止拖延,努力追赶未来的自己,将精力集中在自身目标上,屏蔽外界的干扰和噪音。Liss 认为,真正的竞争对手是未来的自己,只有专注于自身提升,才能获得成功。她建议听众写下自己想成为的样子,并每天努力朝着目标前进,提升自我爱和尊重,建立清晰的界限。Liss 还指出,你不需要向他人证明你的价值,默默努力,专注于自身目标,才能最终获得成功和尊重。她以自身经历为例,说明了专注于自身目标的重要性,以及如何处理与他人的比较心理。她分享了在创建播客过程中,如何克服外界质疑,专注于自身热情,最终获得成功的故事。Liss 鼓励听众将他人的成功视为积极的动力,而非竞争的压力,并建议听众培养积极的心态,为他人成功感到高兴,从而吸引更多积极的能量和成功。她强调,只有当你与自己和解,专注于自身发展时,你才能摆脱与他人的比较,专注于自身目标,最终获得成功。Liss 还分享了如何处理与朋友之间的比较和竞争,以及如何选择积极向上的朋友,远离那些试图破坏你成功的人。她以自身经历为例,说明了如何处理与朋友之间的竞争和比较,以及如何选择积极向上的朋友,远离那些试图破坏你成功的人。她认为,真正的朋友会为你的成功感到高兴,并互相支持,共同进步。Liss 最后总结道,人生不是一场与他人的竞争,只有专注于自身,充满自信,才能吸引到正确的人,最终获得成功。

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You are not in competition with anyone but yourself. It is time to focus. It is time to put all of the attention you're giving to other people, comparing yourself to other people in their lives, take all of that energy, and it's time to put it back into you.

It's easy to look at other people's success and what they're doing and their achievements and their accomplishments. And it's easy to get stuck in this rabbit hole that you're not good enough or you're not doing enough or you're not capable enough of doing whatever it is that you're hard to sit out to do. But the truth is, that is all just one big distraction.

The truth is in any aspect of life, no matter what it is, it could be pertaining to your relationships, it could be pertaining to your career, it could apply to your social life, your fitness levels, your talents, literally any area of your life, no matter what,

You're not actually in competition with anyone. Your brain will create a comparison because maybe you're just a little insecure about the next steps of your life. Maybe you're insecure about who you are and where you're going. And that's okay, and that's human, and that's normal. But just because someone else is doing something that you might want to be doing, or just because someone else has something that you don't, it doesn't take away from you or your value at all.

It's easy for our brain to jump to this idea of putting us side by side next to what someone else is doing and then comparing it. And suddenly you feel like it's taking away from your life and it's taking away from your own self-worth. And somehow that lowers your value. But the truth is, that's not true. That is simply a construct that your brain created and something that you made up to devalue yourself.

because you're not totally confident in what you're doing or who you are or the direction that you're going in. When you are so insanely confident in the person that you're becoming and what you're working towards, there is no fucking competition. The only competition is you versus your future self. You are competing against you. You are competing against the future version of you. Your higher self is battling your current self and where you want to be.

Your higher self is communicating to you. Whenever you go through a period of time where you feel like you're in this energy of comparison and you're not good enough, it's really just your higher self saying, wake the fuck up and let's fucking go. Stop.

delaying the process of your life. Stop procrastinating your goals. Let's achieve this together because I'm already there, but you're not. The future you is already there. Once you process that and you realize that the only competition you have is your future self, the world opens up for you because there's no intense energy where you feel like, oh my God, this person is better than me. This person has more than I do. No, because that

Only person that you're focused on now is you and your higher self. So that's what you should be working up against to meet your higher self at their level. Not some random person you see on social media, not your best friends, not the influencers or celebrities you follow who probably don't even have that amazing of lives as they portray because everything is, you know, for show online anyway. Not your co-workers. Stop comparing yourself.

Stop comparing yourself to everyone else and focus on you. The ultimate key here is to tune out the noise and truly fucking focus. If you want to be unstoppable in your life, if you want to get to the top of your game, if you want to achieve all your goals and get to where you actually want to be in life, you have to block out the noise and the distractions and tune out the fucking garbage and the people around you.

This can range from turning off the news and not scrolling online on Instagram and not getting immersed in other people's lives and stories to people you know personally in your life. Sometimes...

We can even get competitive or feel jealous of our friends because they might be doing more or they might be having more success in one lane that you want success in. Or they might have just found their dream partner and you're still single and you're feeling stuck and blocked. And you have this little bit of envy within you because you're like, okay, they seem happier than I am.

And this is my friend and I'm supposed to be supportive, but I can't help but feel defeated because the person closest to me is getting everything they want and I feel like I'm not getting any of it. Listen, we've all been there. We've all compared ourselves to people we know. We've all compared ourselves to people on social media. And as I said, it's easy for your brain to go there. It's easy for your brain to take what someone else has and compare it next to what you have and be like, wow, my life fucking sucks.

But the key is to block out the noise and any doubts about yourself and your future. This is an internal issue, okay? This isn't anyone else's problem. If someone's doing more than you, that's not their problem. That's your problem if you feel shitty about it. And it's your sign and your wake-up call to take control, to take charge of your life, and to say, okay,

This is my opportunity to get to that level. This is my opportunity to improve myself and recenter the focus back onto me and to stop comparing and to just fucking grind and go. This needs to be addressed so you could snap the fuck out of it and give yourself a wake-up call and step into your power and say, F everyone else. I wish them well, no matter who it is, no matter what the circumstances are.

I hope they succeed because it does not take away from my success. When you spread good energy to people too that are maybe in a better place than you, quote unquote, better place, it only propels you further in a better direction. If you're bitter, if you're jealous, if you're angry, that will block you from achieving your goals and that will block you from seeing the bigger picture.

And that will also prevent you from getting to where you need to be because negative energy doesn't do any good for the situation. When you are actually genuinely happy for other people's success, you attract more happy energy and success into your own life. So stop wasting your energy, pouring it into other people's lives and journeys and wishing you had a better life and wishing you had their life and what they were doing.

Because they are not your competition. You are your own competition. When you truly embrace that no one is actually competing against you, and it's just your thoughts getting the best of you, that's when everything starts to shift and get easier because now you're just up against one single person, which is yourself. And that's easy to compete with yourself because you can fight yourself no problem. It's you. You know yourself the best. You can compete with yourself easily.

easily. All you have to do is each day take another step closer to becoming who you want to be. You have to write down who it is exactly who you want to be and then take steps each and every day to move towards that. All you have to do is love yourself more, respect yourself and show up for yourself more and create boundaries with yourself in order to get to where you need to be. It has nothing to do with anyone else. Your success is completely irrelevant to everyone else.

You're also not here to prove anything to anyone. You're not here to prove to the world that you're the best, even though that can be healthy at times to motivate you and say, you know what, I want to be the best in my career field, which is fine. And it's a good mindset to have. But there needs to be a balance. You shouldn't be forcefully trying to prove shit to everyone else all the time. You shouldn't be trying to do all these things to make sure people know that you are valuable as a person.

I sent a message to my group chat on Instagram. I have this broadcast channel. And the message I actually sent today was, it is not your job to prove your worth to other people.

Because it's not. Stop wasting your energy trying to prove your value and compete with everyone else and try to show everyone that you're the best. It's a waste of fucking time and energy. When you truly are just staying in your own lane, keeping quiet, focusing on your goals and moving in silence, that's when the magic happens. You don't need to throw your energy out into the world to prove that you're someone because people will see that you're that person when you move in silence.

And they'll respect you more because they're like, oh, this person is actually climbing to the top in this really respectable, grounded way. They're not desperately trying to seek attention from everyone else.

Getting to your goals isn't about showing your ex-boyfriend how valuable and amazing you are and they lost the best thing that's ever happened to them. Although that can be a very rewarding and empowering feeling and it can be initially motivating, the end goal is to be so unstoppable because you're doing this for you and you're building your self-worth and your self-respect and you're not going to care about anyone else. You're not going to care about your ex. You're not going to care about anyone that brought you down in the past.

You're not going to care about the people who don't see your value because you know how to value yourself so deeply and you're doing everything

for you and showing up for yourself. And that's what builds the ultimate confidence when you're working for you and not for anyone else around you. I'll give you a perfect example. When I was starting my podcast, I had a manager at the time who is shitty and would tell me that there's so many podcasts out there. And it was so competitive. And I had so many people say to me, oh, it's such a competitive industry. There's so many podcasts out there. There's 5 million podcasts right now. Tons of people have them.

People have been doing this for years already. People are past the point of starting a podcast. It's not really a good idea because it's just too competitive. And to get to that level is going to be a real challenge. If you're stepping into the space now, it's almost like the ship has sailed type of thing. I heard this from...

a variety of people in different industries and in the podcast space, especially people were telling me that it was going to be a challenge and it was going to be like this uphill battle to grow the podcast. And it was discouraging at first because I didn't know anything about the podcast industry, first of all.

And second of all, that's the last thing you want to hear. When you start a new career path or you're trying to do something different with your life and people are telling you it's going to be really difficult and there's so many people and you're going to be up against all these other podcasters. So many people are in the podcast space for sure. But at the same time, that's such a negative mentality to have. And if you think about it,

No one would say that if you were going into the medical field, right? If you were saying, I want to be a doctor, no one's going to be like, well, there's enough doctors. You don't need to be a doctor because there's plenty of doctors to go around and you're going to be competing against all these other doctors. It just sounds so ridiculous, right? Or if you're planning on becoming a teacher.

Right? There's millions of teachers in the world. So is someone going to tell you, oh, you shouldn't be a teacher because there's already enough teachers? No, because you're actually going into a line of work where you're helping other people. You want to make a difference. You want to make an impact.

Whether it's in the medical field, whether it's being a teacher, whether it's being a lawyer, whatever. Those type of professions, people aren't really going to come at you and say, there's enough of those. So you're going to be in competition and there's no point. But when it comes to maybe doing something in the creative space, that's when people have shit to say.

Or if you're doing something for you, if you want to start your own business, if you want to step outside the box and do something a little more out there, people are very quick to jump and judge and say, oh, you know what? It's going to be a real challenge. Yeah, of course, there's a million content creators out there now. There's a lot of podcasters out there now. But at the same time,

You're following your fucking passion. You're doing what you love. You're doing what makes you happy. And that's the most important thing of all. Above the competition, above all the noise, if you're truly passionate about something and you're happy and you love what you're doing, who the fuck cares who else is doing it? Who cares how many artists there are? Who cares how many musicians there are? It's really ridiculous when you look at it from that angle. You're like,

There's enough to go around for everyone. There's a space for everyone and there's a space for me and you too. And you don't need to make it a fucking competition. After I decided to finally take the leap and start my podcast, I knew that if I compared myself to anyone else and I was looking at how many subscribers other people have or who was charting on the top of Spotify, and if I was focusing essentially on all of their success, I knew it was going to take away from my momentum. That's

That's why I didn't even listen to anyone else's podcast in the year I was building mine. I rarely would check my numbers or anyone else's stats or the charts or anything like that. I wasn't focused on those things. I was focused on making a difference. I was focused on my passion. I was focused on going to the studio and creating good content for people. And I was focused on being happy and really doing what made me happy. This is what makes me happy. It

It's not about other people. It's not about being better than anyone. It's not about competing or putting myself side by side with other people in the industry. It's literally, I'm doing this because I'm driven because I love it so much. And you'll also notice you will burn out really fast if you're not super passionate about something anyway. So there's no competition there. If you hate what you're doing, it's really hard to compete with anyone if you're not passionate about what you're doing. And...

For me, I am genuinely so passionate about it that I don't see anyone as competition because it's not a competition. I'm just doing what I love. I'm just waking up every day and doing what I love to do. It has nothing to do with anyone else. And that is what you have to remember.

If I spent the last year and a half focusing on everyone else's success, I would not be in a place where I am today. Seeing other people's success can be used in two ways. You could either be super happy for them and be happy for their accomplishments and turn it into this positive motivation and say, okay, if they could do it, I could do it too, which is the mentality that I like. But then there's another mentality that a lot of people will fall into the trap of, which is

comparing themselves to other people's success and hard work, and then they end up losing the drive to get anything done because you fall into this trap of, oh my God, it's too late. I'm not good enough. I don't have what it takes. All these people are ahead of me. Fuck that. No one else is ahead of you. No one else is in back of you.

If you don't compare yourself to anyone, none of this matters. None of it's relevant. And that's what I always try to tell people too. Stop looking at who's ahead of you and your definition of ahead. You don't know their journey. You don't know their story. You don't know how long they were working and what they were working on. Let them do whatever it is they need to do. Stay in your own lane. Keep quiet. Channel all that energy into yourself. Focus on what you need to get done and block out the noise.

A great way that I've learned how to put myself as the focus is

is in all of the tactics that I use in my masterclass Dare to Detach. I know you guys have heard about the masterclass before on the podcast. I talk about it a lot because it's integrated into the podcast. I feel like it's very relevant to the podcast. And for those of you listening, I think it can really benefit anyone who listens to Date Yourself Instead frequently. In order to become unstoppable in your life and succeed, you need to cultivate an unwavering sense of self-love and respect. And that is what Dare to Detach is all about. And

And it's a class that's designed to empower you and make you more confident and make you more grounded in the person that you are becoming. Someone in our community recently shared after taking the first half of the course, their ex reached out completely out of the blue. And this is because when you learn how to step into your power and respect yourself and honor yourself and detach in a way that's filled with self-love and not bitterness or resentment...

That's when the magic happens. There's so many energetic shifts that happen in such a profound way that people cannot help but notice. People start getting drawn to you. People are intrigued by the positive changes in your life. And yes, they come crawling right back because you are working so deeply on yourself.

And if you're interested in taking the masterclass, remember you could always use the code selflove for a discount at checkout. The course goes straight to your email. You could start it right away. And once you have access to it, it's yours forever. This is a course you can revisit time and time again. And if you decide to join us, you could find the link in the podcast show notes or on the Instagram at Dare to Detach, as well as my podcast account at Date Yourself Instead. And now let's dive into the next part of the episode, which is all about getting to the peak of your success and your powers.

In order to get anywhere successful in your life, you have to stop looking at other people's success as a competition. What they're doing has nothing to do with what you're about to create and put out into the world. No one is you and that is your power. That is one of my favorite quotes of all. 99% of the time,

It has nothing at all to do with you. Whatever someone else is doing, whatever actions they're taking to better their life has nothing to do with you. And it's not going to weigh in on your life negatively or positively. There is no competition in life. We make the competition. We create that construct. And as much as people want to pin other people against each other in the world of social media and the news and on TV and on television and reality TV, whatever it is,

Nothing is actually fucking competition when you're so at peace with yourself and you're just in your own lane. What you're doing and what you're trying to accomplish has nothing to do with what anyone else is doing. Tying this into a relevant personal experience with my podcast, there are tons of dating advice podcasters out there. There's tons of dating advice YouTubers out there. There's tons of dating advice TikTokers and Instagrammers out there. But there was an inner voice in my head that said,

There's nothing like me and my experiences and what I've been through personally. This is my life and no one can replicate the exact experiences that I've been through. No one's been through the exact shit that I've been through. I'm sure people have had similar experiences, but...

My experiences are unique to me. And I knew that they were different because I have a different type of voice. I have a different personality. I'm me. I'm unique. And it's the same as anyone else. Everyone else is unique in their own way. Everyone else is special in their own way. And I wasn't going to...

Start looking at everyone else with a dating advice brand and be like, oh, there's enough out there. So I shouldn't take the steps to become that as well. I wasn't going to hold myself back just because other people are doing what I wanted to do. That doesn't make any sense. Why wouldn't I follow what makes me happy and what I'm passionate about?

People can try to be you, but no one can actually be you because you are you and no one can get inside of your physical body and soul and replicate, not even your fucking twin, okay? You have nothing to lose. There's nothing to be afraid of by taking a leap and capitalizing on who you are and taking a bet on yourself. Who knows you better than you do? Don't make it about anyone else. Stop focusing on everyone else.

How can you contribute to society in a meaningful way and, you know, put the focus back onto you and what you could contribute and how you could provide value? This is your life. You have one life to live. Life is short. Why are you worried about what everyone else is doing? It doesn't matter. It doesn't fucking matter. And if you are looking at other people's accomplishments and it's motivating, great.

But just use that as positive fuel. Use that energy as fuel and more motivation to continue working hard and continue focusing on yourself and continue focusing on you because you are valuable. You have a lot to offer the world and you're unique and no one can beat you.

Another thing I've noticed is people pitting against each other, especially in female friendships. I've had a lot of female friends come in and out of my life because they were jealous of things that I was doing and I would feel their jealousy and it would be so fucking awkward and uncomfortable for me to share any types of achievements that I had because I didn't want to make them feel bad. And it was the weirdest energy. And I would have to cut people off because if I did anything good or beneficial for my life,

It felt like I would have to tone down my success in order to make other people feel comfortable around me.

And that's no way to live your life. Your friends should be happy for your success. If they're the ones comparing themselves to you and resentful or bitter or jealous, that's on them to deal with. And that's either a conversation you have to have with them to clear the air and maintain the friendship if you really want them in your life, or you have to walk away because you're not going to get to the top of your success if you have to diminish your power to please the people around you.

I'll give you an example when I was in college. I had this one girl that was a part of my life. And anytime I did anything that was just for me to focus on myself, she labeled me as being very selfish and a horrible friend. And the truth is, I was being selfish, but I wanted to be successful so badly. In the world of social media and what I was doing, I knew that there was an opportunity. And...

I stopped focusing all of my attention on our friendship and I started putting it into myself a lot more because I knew when I graduated school, I wanted a job that truly made me happy. And I saw an opportunity on Instagram. I started monetizing my Instagram account. I can make a separate episode about this if anyone's interested in the world of social media and how I'm able to monetize and how I was able to jumpstart my career. But

There was a lot of work and energy that went into it. It's a full-time job. It's a full commitment. And I'm not saying it's like the hardest job in the world, but you have to devote your time and energy to it if you want it to be a job. And when you get a taste of what your future could look like and you're actually passionate about something and you're working towards it, you don't want to fuck it up and go off track. So...

I was coming from a place of being maybe slightly selfish because I knew that I needed to work really hard and devote my time to doing that in order to get to where I am right now. And...

I don't think I was being a bad friend. I just think I was allocating a lot more time to working and putting more attention onto myself versus into the friendship and hanging out with her. And suddenly, I was this horrible friend when in reality, I was just trying to work my ass off to have a really fun career path when I graduated. And that was all it was. It didn't take away from the fact that I cared about her or loved her or whatever it was. It was just I knew that I needed to really focus.

And some people in your life, once you start to shift your energy into yourself more and try to prioritize your goals, they're not going to be okay with you taking time away from them to focus on your needs. And that's, once again, either a conversation you need to have with them if they're holding you back in any way,

Or you have to cut the friendship off. I truly believe it's one or two options. Either you're going to work through it and they're going to understand that you're not going to be there at all times. Or...

You got to move on because you can't have people trying to hold you back from focusing on yourself. True friends are going to be so supportive of you and lift you up and make you even more successful. And I truly believe that. Now, in total contrast, I have my best friend Haley now, who I've posted on my Instagram before. You guys have seen her before. She's going to come on the podcast soon.

Haley is such a good influence on my success and my career. And she's motivated me to be better. She's the one who helped me take certain career steps. She's the one who pushed me to also take the leap and do my podcast and my masterclass. And I was so afraid to take certain steps at a point because I had come from a place where people were trying to hold me back all the time. And whenever I come to her with an issue with my work, she helps me, she guides me, she gives me really good advice.

And I would do the same for her in any situation. Whenever she comes to me with something, we mutually help each other. And I'm always happy to be there for her. And she has her own

shit going on, right? And so do I. So the friendship works. Anything related to my goals, she wants to know more about it out of a genuine care for my happiness and success. And it's vice versa. It's not out of competition. It's not out of jealousy. It's not out of bitterness. It's just a healthy dynamic where we're both supportive of each other. And that's what everyone deserves. Everyone deserves friends like that where you're happy for each other's success. You want to see each other thrive. And

You don't want to be around people who are trying to low-key sabotage your success. There's such a huge difference. And after experiencing both ends of the spectrum in friendship, I'm happy to say, at this point, I don't have anyone in my life that feels like a competition or a threat or toxic in any type of way.

The point is you really need to surround yourself with positive, uplifting, confident people that are going to inspire you, that are going to support you, and that are going to cheer you on as you're building a name for yourself and a life for yourself. Nothing should feel like a competition. No one needs a toxic, bitter friend or person in their life who's secretly jealous of you, who's secretly trying to sabotage your happiness and your success, and who...

low-key kind of wants to do what you're doing and in turn will try to bring you down in the process and steal your thunder. That is the worst feeling in the world and it's so obvious when someone's intentions are not in a good place. If you're currently dealing with someone like that in your life, just really evaluate, take a little step back and really assess if you need this person in your life. Either you have to have a very honest conversation with them to try to figure out that dynamic or

Or you need to cut ties because the only way you're going to get to the top is when you're surrounded by good people and supportive people. And yes, sometimes it's really hard to find those people. But even if you have one person who believes in you, that is more than enough. Another example was when I was in high school. Okay, so I want to preface this by saying my mom was just looking out for my best interest. But moms can be moms. And I feel like...

This is a really funny situation, actually. I was much younger. This was many years ago. But this situation just popped into my head because I feel like it's really relevant. So I was in musical theater. I used to do musical theater. I was in a bunch of the shows in my high school, my middle school. And I love to sing. I love to act and all that fun stuff. But there was this one girl who also was a singer. She sang opera and I sang opera.

I don't think I've ever mentioned this publicly, but I used to sing opera for 10 years. I have to find some childhood videos and post them. But I was classically trained. I was doing all these competitions and performing at these venues. It was a whole thing. And there was this girl who also sang opera. She was getting these awards, performing. We were in a very similar line of work, I guess you could say. And...

I feel like it was the battle royale of the moms. So my mom was, like, representing me. This girl's mom was representing her. And our moms were, like, pitting us against each other. And I don't know if anyone else is actually going to be able to relate to this, but it was like my mom was competing with her mom in a sense because we...

as their daughters were in the same line of work. And I told my mom at a point, I was like, I don't give a fuck about this girl. And it was nothing against her. She's a sweetheart. I wish her the best and I wish all the success and happiness for her. But I'm saying that in the sense of like, I don't care about what she's doing or what song she's singing or what concert she's performing at or what award she's getting. I really don't give a fuck. I'm in my own lane. I have a totally different voice. I have a totally different style. I have a different coach. I have a different sound.

And I'm me. I'm unique to me. I don't need to be competing or feel this energy of competition with another girl who sings opera. And it's so silly and ridiculous. And my mom was like, oh my God, I didn't realize that's how you felt about it. You're right. You're like totally right. There's no need for competition. And then we laughed about it and we made this whole joke about it because...

Honestly, who the fuck cares about what someone else is doing? Let them do whatever it is they want to do. Let them be your competition if that's how they want to see it. But for you, if you don't look at it as a competition and you're just genuinely happy for people and you're focused on yourself and confident in your abilities, nothing fucking matters. And it's just a waste of energy if you're trying to pit yourself up against someone else.

The best part of all is neither of us, like me and that girl, never ended up pursuing opera full time. So none of this even mattered in the future anyway. I ended up going in a different direction with my life. I started doing social media. I have no idea what she's doing. I haven't seen her or spoken to her in years. But none of it ended up mattering anyway. And none of it was a big deal anyway because...

We didn't even end up doing... We weren't opera singers. I wasn't going to become a professional opera singer. She wasn't going to either. And that's why you have to take everything lightly and just have fun with it. If you are enjoying an activity, if you're enjoying something that you're doing, just have fun with it. And there's no reason to compare yourself to anyone else. There's no reason to define someone as better or worse than you. Nothing fucking matters. And...

Part of the reason I stopped singing opera was because my coaches were also pinning me against other people. And my coaches were making it this competitive big deal and spitting negative energy at me all the time and making me feel shitty all the time. And I remember it felt like emotional abuse because I was like, this is really toxic.

I don't like comparing myself to other people because it makes me feel like shit. It makes me feel like there's some sort of hierarchy and ranking here, which is not the case. And it makes it less enjoyable and less fun. And I want to be happy. So I ended up quitting. And yeah, I just felt like the competitive side of it made things so difficult and it just made things feel toxic and not enjoyable.

There's also the strangest thing that happened to me and also one of my best friends when we were dating more feminine energy type of men. And we had such a similar experience going on at the same time where... So the men we were seeing were basically jealous of our success. And...

They wouldn't want to applaud us for any accomplishments. They just wanted to one-up us. And if we were doing something, it was like that guy had to also be doing it to some degree and take this weird form of what we were doing and make it about them. So I'll explain in more detail. When I was talking to this guy pretty briefly, he knew about my podcast. He knew what I was doing. And I'm sure he did a deep dive on my career, all that stuff. Out of nowhere...

He just starts talking about how he wants to start a podcast and how he thinks that I could be the perfect first guest. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. Hold on a fucking minute. So you're seeing my success with the podcast. You're prying all this information. You're prying for all this information, trying to get information out of me about the podcast.

Learning more about me and my career. And now you're saying you want to start a podcast. I just thought it was weird and bizarre energy. It felt like he was trying to do something that I was doing and take it upon himself to do what I was doing in this weird, low-key, jealous, competitive way.

Because he also had mentioned that he wasn't fulfilled at his job and whatever. And I would understand if this man was like deeply in love with me and cared about me and my well-being and we were in a relationship for a while and he wanted to be a guest on my podcast and whatever. That makes sense. But to the whole context of it was just like, I don't know, it just felt so weird and out of line. And I was like, this is just weird energy.

And a similar thing happened to my friend where she would tell this guy her achievements and he would like completely shut down and either ghost the messages. She'd say, okay, I'm going to make this up, but it's a made up scenario because I don't want to get too specific on here. But I want to keep it fairly anonymous because I want to protect everyone here. But I'm going to try to paint the example for you. She would text him something like, oh my God, I just received this offer.

award at work. And he would be like, okay, cool. Anyways, here's what I did today. And he would gloss over her achievements and then flip the conversation back into him and focus the attention back onto him and what he's done with his life. And I'm like, that is just so weird. Like, why can't you be happy for someone that you're interested in or seeing because you're low-key insecure and jealous of what they're doing?

Very weird energy. Anyways, none of those situations obviously panned out well. And it was just fucking weird. So...

The key is to just surround yourself with good people who are happy for your accomplishments, who want to see you thrive, and find those people that you could be successful around and they're going to be happy for you and vice versa where you could be happy for them too. And you have this like warm, loving, solid relationship or friendship and you just feel good about growing together. That's the best type of dynamics.

You have to understand that life is not a competition against anyone else. And by focusing on yourself and being truly confident in your abilities and what you're doing, you will eventually attract and be surrounded by the right people if you just focus on yourself long enough.

And yeah, I think that really concludes today's episode. Thank you so much for listening. I hope that was helpful and resonated with some of you. If you've experienced this before, I would love to hear your feedback. You could always DM me on Instagram at Liss or on the podcast account at Date Yourself Instead. And be sure to check out the masterclass Dare to Detach. You won't regret it. I would love to have you there. Use code selflove for a discount at checkout.

I love you as always. Thanks as always for supporting me and listening to Date Yourself Instead and stay tuned for next Monday.