Stop Comparing Yourself to Others

Hello, rock stars. I'm your host, Reggie Daughson, and once again, welcome to Being On Stage. This is episode six. Thank you so much for sticking with it. Thank you for listening. I appreciate it. I'm going to dive right in, and today I'm going to say something that might disturb you, and it's going to sound a little cruel, and it's going to sound a little mean, but I think it's something that every entertainer is going to have to learn to live with.

Diving right in, everyone needs to be okay with this. It's not something that you need to be upset about. It's just something that you need to understand. There will always, always be someone that is better than you. There will always be someone that gets better pay. There will always be someone that has better outfit. There's always going to be someone that has more bookings, that gets called more.

There's always going to be someone that is genuinely better than you. I'm not just talking about the people that get lucky and have those things. I'm talking about people that are genuinely better than you, and I think you have to be okay with someone being better than you, and you have to be okay with also being better than other people. We all learn and we all grow at different rates, and we all have something amazing inside of us that we're trying to get out, but it's not a competition.

It's not a competition. It's about art. It's about the audience. It's about being on stage. It's about that exchange of energy back and forth between performer and audience. It's not a competition, so you have to be okay with other people being better than you. You have to be okay with other people getting more than you because it's going to happen, and it's going to continue to happen because every time you climb higher, there's still going to be someone that's higher than you.

You can't judge yourself based on other people's success. You can't say, well, I'm not. I guess I'm just not good because Joey's getting more than I am, or, you know. And this is one thing that kills me is I'll never be as good as, insert name here, I'll never be as good as. I'm never going to get to the point where they are at. These things are things that just drag you down and put you in a place that as an artist and as a performer, you just can't afford to be if you're going to continue to grow.

You have to judge yourself based on you. You have to judge yourself. You have to judge yourself based on the work that you've done, the things that you've accomplished, the things that you've earned. That's the only way that you're going to be able to continue to grow is, you know, take the feedback that you're offered, but don't judge yourself based on someone else's success. I said in the last episode I had some opportunities to be mentored and things, and one of the reasons I passed up on those opportunities was because I had too much spite of people being better than me.

I didn't want to take any advice from someone that was better than me. I wanted to admit that they were better than me to take their advice, and that's something that we have to be okay with. We have to be okay with admitting, "Hey, listen. You're amazing. I can learn from you. What tips can you give me? What can you tell me about this? What can you tell me about that?" We have to be okay with them being better than us because otherwise we're not going to ask the questions that we need to ask to grow as an artist.

And I'm not going to say it's always going to come out good because there's always going to be people that, I mean, let's face it, there's always going to be people that kind of have their noses in the air. And they don't want to help us, but we still need to be okay with, in ourselves, not to judge ourselves based on them. If they want to judge us and they want to act snooty, that's on them. Theirs will come.

I promise. I'll talk about ego on another episode, but theirs will come, but we need to be okay with people being better than us. We need to be okay with asking questions and getting that feedback and getting that mentorship because there's always going to be someone out there that is. There's always going to be someone out there that's better than us. There's always going to be someone out there that's better than you.

You have to be okay with that. There's going to be someone who has better choreography. There's going to be someone who has a better singing voice. There's going to be someone that can hit a higher note. There's going to be someone that can spin faster than you. There's going to be someone that tells funnier jokes. There's going to be someone that speaks clearer. There's going to be someone who doesn't use as many ums and uhs.

And there's always going to be someone out there that's better than you. There's going to be someone out there with better makeup. There's going to be someone out there with better outfits. There's going to be someone out there with better hair. There's always going to be someone out there that is better than you or does something better than you. You have to be okay with that because it's not going away.

I'm going to pivot for a minute. In the same scenario that I've just spoken about and kind of preached about of there's always someone better than you, you're also always better than someone else. There's always someone else out there that is going to look at you the way that you look at someone else. It's going to say, "I wish I was. " and they're talking about you. That's why you have to be okay with someone being better than yourself.

Say this with me. Use the name of the person that you look up to. Use the name of the person that you're never going to be as good as. Say it. "I will never be as good as. " insert their name. "I'll never be as good as them." So now I want you to kind of turn the corner and I want you to think about maybe someone who's not quite as good as you. They'll never be as good as me. Say it. Say it.

"I will never be as good as me." It feels awful, doesn't it? Doesn't it feel awful to say that? You can't do it. You can't say that about someone, but you're okay with saying that about yourself. You're saying the same thing, but you won't say that someone else is not as good as you, but you're okay with saying that you're not as good as someone else. You're doing to you what you won't do to someone else.

It just doesn't work that way. You have to be okay with that because you would never go to someone and say, "Hey, listen, you're never going to be as good as me." You don't do that. Instead, what would you say to them? You would build them up. You would make them feel good about themselves. You'd give them confidence. You would boost their confidence, but you also need to spend time boosting your own.

Stop thinking about someone who you're never going to be, and quite frankly, why would you want to be them? Their success is their success for a reason. Think about their success. What did they have to do to get there? What sacrifices did they have to make? How hard did they have to work? How many extra rehearsals do you think that they had each week? Are you really at that level? Because I can tell you, in order to get at that level, if you keep thinking, "I'll never be as good as them," you're not going to work to get there, because they worked to get there.

If someone is at the level of you saying, "I'll never be as good as them," their success has not come easy. I guarantee they didn't just walk through the door and be handed everything; they had to work for it, and so will you. If you continue to beat yourself up and you continue to drag yourself down, saying that you're never going to be as good as someone else, you never will, because you'll never let yourself be. You'll never work to get yourself there, because you've convinced yourself it's impossible.

Nothing is impossible if you work hard. There's a saying, and it's, "Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard," or when talent fails to work hard. And it's true. Hard work will beat any talent if that talent doesn't work hard. There's a saying, and it's, "Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard." But when you're telling yourself that you're never going to be as good as them and you're never going to get there, you never will, because you will not put in the hard work.

Your talent will just fail to work hard. And you have the talent, but you still have to put in the work. You can't just have talent and not work at it. Everybody has to work at it. Look at professional athletes, professional singers, professional dancers. I have seen it. But Michael Jackson, the movie that Michael Jackson had, I guess they made his tour into a movie, This Is It, that came out shortly after he passed, that movie kind of shows, and everyone in that movie that was interviewed talks about how hard Michael Jackson worked at his career, how much sacrifices he made.

And yes, there was a lot of scandal and there was a lot of drama surrounded by him, and I'm not going to get into that, but the fact is, when it comes to his art and to his shows and to his performances and what he put in front of his audience, he was a great actor. He worked his butt off. So anyone that says, "Well, I'll never be as good as Michael Jackson," granted, that's probably true, but what you're really saying is, "I'm never going to work as hard as he did," because it is going to take the hard work. You have to put in the work to advance your talent.

If you don't put in the work, you're just going to be average. You're just going to be exactly where you're at. It happened to me. I've been there. I've been at that point where I've thought, "You know what? I'm never going to be as good as them. I'm too fat to be as good as them. I'm too slow. I don't dance good enough. I don't spin fast enough. I can't break dance like they can. I can't sing like she can.

I can't speak like he can. I can't tell jokes like her." You say these things about yourselves, and I've said them about me, and the truth be told, I never was because I never put in the work to be. And that's why I'm doing this today is because, you know what? I'm never going to be as good a podcaster as some people out there. I'm never going to be as good. I'm never going to be as good at coaching people as other people, but you know what?

I'm unique, and I have what I have, and that's what I'm here for. with other people being better than me because I still have a message to deliver. I still have words to share and I still have an impact to make. And so do you. You still have your art to share. You still have an impact to make, but you cannot let other people's success and other people's hard work bring you down. Work hard to get where they're at because I guarantee there's someone looking at you in the same way.

There's someone looking at you saying, man, I wish I could be like her. Oh man, he is cool. I wish I could do that. Even if you're someone who only gets on stage once a month in front of a small 20 to 30 crowd, there is someone in that crowd saying, man, I wish I had the nerves to get up there and do that. I wish I could dress like that. I wish I could do my hair like that. I wish I could move like that.

I wish I had the confidence to get on stage. There are people thinking that about you. So, be okay with other people being better than you because you just have to work hard. Focus on you. Focus on developing your talents. Focus on developing your performances. Focus on developing your shows. And everything else will come. Success will come if you continue to work at it. The success that you want will be the success that you get as long as you work for it.

Again, thank you so much for tuning into this podcast. Let's chat. Let's exchange stories. Let's, you know, if you like it, if you don't like what you hear, if you like what you hear, whatever, hook up with me on social media. I'm on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. Twitter and Instagram, it's at beingonstage. Facebook, you can look up the page, beingonstage. It's all about making connections and I want to make a connection with you.

So again, hit me up on social media and just keep working hard. And as always, rock stars, just keep on shining.