“Never compare your inside with someone else’s outside.”
-Hugh MacLeod, author of Ignore Everybody
Hi all! Welcome to the 17th episode of A New Order of Things.
Ove the past week or so, I have uncharacteristically been involved in conversations where the people I am speaking with discuss how they are interested in and/or will not apply a certain role at work, or play a sport, or apply for a school.
Each time, the person I am speaking to alludes to the idea that other people are better at the task, performance than they are.
The words out of their mouths are: “So I’m not even going to try.”
A New Order of Things has a mission. We, meaning you and I, are here to share knowledge across any and all sorts of industry, science, literature, History, and who knows what else.
All in an effort to create something like Charlie Munger’s “latticework” of ideas that allows us as individuals to make faster, more informed decisions, and to assist us on our paths to obtain top 25 status in multiple things. So, we can best empower all whom we influence.
With that in mind, let’s dive into this prolific tendency to compare ourselves to others….
The Fallacy of Comparison
What is a fallacy you ask? Well Wikipedia states:
A fallacy is reasoning that is logically invalid, or that undermines the logical validity of an argument. All forms of human communication can contain fallacies.
Because of their variety, fallacies are challenging to classify. They can be classified by their structure (formal fallacies) or content (informal fallacies). Informal fallacies, the larger group, may then be subdivided into categories such as improper presumption, faulty generalization, and error in assigning causation and relevance, among others.
The use of fallacies is common when the speaker’s goal of achieving common agreement is more important to them than utilizing sound reasoning. When fallacies are used, the premise should be recognized as not well-grounded, the conclusion as unproven (but not necessarily false), and the argument as unsound.
Since a fallacy is an idea that is not well founded that we may use to make decisions, let’s discuss the one that the folks I was speaking about at the beginning of the show are, unknowingly utilizing. The Incomplete Comparison Fallacy.
Incomplete Comparison Fallacy Extended Explanation
An incomplete comparison occurs when two things are compared that are not really related, in order to make something more appealing than it is. This also happens when conclusions are made with incomplete information.
The Incomplete Comparison fallacy is a logical fallacy that occurs when two objects are compared, but one or more important aspects of the comparison are left out. This can lead to an inaccurate or misleading comparison, as it fails to take into account all the relevant information. This fallacy can be used to make a point seem stronger or more valid than it actually is.
For example, a politician may make the argument that raising taxes on the wealthy will help reduce poverty. While this may be true, it is an incomplete comparison because it fails to take into account other factors such as the effects of raising taxes on the economy, or the potential for the wealthy to move their money elsewhere.
Incomplete Comparisons can also be used to draw false conclusions about a situation. For instance, a person might say that the reason why their team lost the game is because the other team was more skilled. While this could be true, an accurate comparison must take into account other factors such as the team’s preparation, performance, and strategy.
The Incomplete Comparison fallacy is an important logical fallacy to be aware of, as it can lead to inaccurate conclusions and false assumptions. It is important to be aware of all the relevant information when making a comparison and to consider all the possible factors that could affect the outcome. This will help ensure that any comparison is accurate and complete.
Josh Kaufman- The Personal MBA
What Is The ‘Comparison Fallacy’?
The Comparison Fallacy assumes that it’s possible to compare your skills, priorities, goals, and results with other people in an accurate and useful manner.
Other people are not you, and you are not other people. You have unique skills, goals, and priorities. In the end, comparing yourself to other people is silly, and there’s little to be gained by it.
The only metric of success that matters is this: are you spending your time doing work you like, with people you enjoy, in a way that keeps you financially Sufficient?
In business and in life, it’s easy to compare your situation to others. Status Seeking ensures that we spend energy tracking our relative status to our peers, and most of the time, our conclusions aren’t favorable.
We tend to fixate on what other people are accomplishing instead of what we need to do next to achieve our Goals. When other people we know accomplish big things, it’s easy to feel sad for ourselves instead of happy for their achievements… as if their success diminishes us in some way. It doesn’t.
The Comparison Fallacy is a simple idea: other people are not you, and you are not other people. You have unique skills, goals, and priorities. In the end, comparing yourself to other people is silly, and there’s little to be gained by it.
Here’s an example: one of my friends is very successful in business, and makes about ten times what I make each year. He has received a lot of public recognition for his work. His products sell well, and he enjoys his success. There’s a lot to envy.
Here’s the other side of the coin: my friend works twelve hours a day, sometimes more. He doesn’t have a family. He has a large staff that requires constant attention, and his business’ Overhead is over ten times mine. He’s overwhelmed with emails, phone calls, and meetings. He’s under tremendous stress almost all the time.
It’s easy to see the benefits of my friend’s life, and just as easy to overlook the Tradeoffs. That’s the trick: he is successful in certain areas because he works very hard, and he’s willing to pay the price of his success.
If I could swap lives with my friend, I wouldn’t: I’d be miserable. His life doesn’t mesh with my priorities or how I prefer to live and work. The benefits he enjoys appeal to me, but I’m not willing to pay the price he’s paid for achieving them. Remembering the Comparison Fallacy allows me to wish him well and stay focused on achieving the Goals that are most important to me. I can be genuinely happy for his success, and not waste my energy on pointless envy.
The same trick works in any situation that has the potential of inflaming feelings of envy or inferiority. Whenever you’re tempted to compare yourself to an acquaintance, colleague, classmate, or celebrity, it always helps to keep in mind that your goals, preferences, and priorities are completely different. You’ve lived different lives, and you’ve each paid different prices for what you’ve accomplished. Any comparison you make instantly renders itself invalid, so you can relax.
The only metric of success that matters is this: are you spending your time doing work you like, with people you enjoy, in a way that keeps you financially Sufficient? If so, don’t worry about what other people are doing. If not, focus on making changes that are within your Locus of Control, so you can start moving in the direction you desire.
Remember the Comparison Fallacy, and keep moving closer to what you want.
Kaufman gives three questions we can ask ourselves that will help keep us from falling into the trap of the Incomplete Comparison Fallacy. If you start thinking that someone or something is better, or that you are not as good as this or that, ask yourself these questions:
Josh Kaufman’s Questions About The ‘Comparison Fallacy’
- How often do you compare yourself to other people? What do you tend to compare?
- What can you do to remind yourself about the Comparison Fallacy whenever you notice yourself feeling envy or anxiousness?
Imposter Syndrome
Reviewed by Psychology Today Staff
People who struggle with imposter syndrome believe that they are undeserving of their achievements and the high esteem in which they are, in fact, generally held. They feel that they aren’t as competent or intelligent as others might think—and that soon enough, people will discover the truth about them. Those with imposter syndrome are often well accomplished; they may hold high office or have numerous academic degrees.
Understanding Imposter Syndrome
Why do people with imposter syndrome feel like frauds even though there is abundant evidence of their success? Instead of acknowledging their capabilities as well as their efforts, they often attribute their accomplishments to external or transient causes, such as luck, good timing, or effort that they cannot regularly expend. Whether in the areas of academic achievement or career success, a person can struggle with pressure and personal expectations.
What causes imposter syndrome?
Personality traits largely drive imposter syndrome: Those who experience it struggle with self-efficacy, perfectionism, and neuroticism. Competitive environments can also lay the groundwork. For example, many people who go on to develop feelings of impostorism faced intense pressure about academic achievement from their parents in childhood.
How common is imposter syndrome?
Around 25 to 30 percent of high achievers may suffer from imposter syndrome. And around 70 percent of adults may experience impostorism at least once in their lifetime, research suggests.
What triggers imposter syndrome?
Can you be diagnosed with imposter syndrome?
Are women more likely to experience imposter syndrome?
How does perfectionism influence imposter syndrome?
Why do I fear success?
Overcoming Imposter Syndrome
Overcoming imposter syndrome involves changing a person’s mindset about their own abilities. Imposters feel like they don’t belong, so acknowledging their expertise and accomplishments is key, as is reminding themselves that they earned their place in their academic or professional environment.
People should stay focused on measuring their own achievements, instead of comparing themselves to others. Similar to perfectionists, people with impostorism often put a lot of pressure on themselves to complete every task flawlessly; they fear that any mistake will reveal to others that they aren’t good or smart enough for the job.
They perpetuate this excessive pressure because they believe that without discipline they won’t succeed and, instead of rewarding themselves, they only worry about the next task ahead. This cycle can be hard to break, but part of doing so involves reminders that no one is perfect and that a person can only do their personal best.
Why is it important to fight imposter syndrome?
Imposter syndrome can stifle the potential for growth and meaning, by preventing people from pursuing new opportunities for growth at work, in relationships, or around their hobbies. Confronting imposter syndrome can help people continue to grow and thrive.
How do you overcome imposter syndrome?
Reflecting on your concrete achievements, sharing your feelings with a loved one (preferably outside of the setting in which you feel impostorism), expecting to make mistakes at the beginning of a new experience, and seeking out a mentor who has charted a similar path are a few of the concrete steps that can fight imposter syndrome.
From: Stop Telling Women They Have Imposter Syndrome
Imposter syndrome is loosely defined as doubting your abilities and feeling like a fraud. It disproportionately affects high-achieving people, who find it difficult to accept their accomplishments. Many question whether they’re deserving of accolades.
Psychologists Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes developed the concept, originally termed the “imposter phenomenon,” in their 1978 founding study, which focused on high-achieving women. They posited that “despite outstanding academic and professional accomplishments, women who experience the imposter phenomenon persist in believing that they are really not bright and have fooled anyone who thinks otherwise.”
I find that one idea helps to mitigate or stop the creeping in of the incomplete comparison fallacy and its subsequent Imposter Syndrome. This idea is proven throughout history and has assisted many great thinkers to push through their own incomplete comparison fallacies. That idea is:
Standing on the shoulders of giants
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see Standing on the shoulders of giants (disambiguation) and On the Shoulders of Giants.
The phrase “standing on the shoulders of giants” is a metaphor that means “using the understanding gained by major thinkers who have gone before in order to make intellectual progress”.
It is a metaphor of dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants (Latin: nanos gigantum humeris insidentes) and expresses the meaning of “discovering truth by building on previous discoveries”. This concept has been dated to the 12th century and, according to John of Salisbury, is attributed to Bernard of Chartres. But its most familiar and popular expression occurs in a 1675 letter by Isaac Newton: “if I have seen further [than others], it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
Early references
Middle Ages
An unknown attribution to Bernard of Chartres from John of Salisbury in 1159, John wrote in his Metalogicon: “Bernard of Chartres used to compare us to dwarfs perched on the shoulders of giants. He pointed out that we see more and farther than our predecessors, not because we have keener vision or greater height, but because we are lifted up and borne aloft on their gigantic stature.” However, according to Umberto Eco, the most ancient attestation of the phrase dates back to Priscian cited by Guillaume de Conches.
Early modern and modern references
Isaac Newton
The quote is most often attributed to Sir Isaac Newton in a letter to his rival, Robert Hooke, though at that time Newton and Hooke were on good terms.
Isaac Newton remarked in a letter to his rival Robert Hooke dated 5 February 1675:[10]
What Des-Cartes [sic] did was a good step. You have added much several ways, & especially in taking the colours of thin plates into philosophical consideration. If I have seen further it is by standing on the sholders [sic] of Giants.
This has recently been interpreted by a few writers as a sarcastic remark directed at Hooke’s appearance. Although Hooke was not of particularly short stature, he was of slight build and had been afflicted from his youth with a severe kyphosis. However, at this time Hooke and Newton were on good terms and had exchanged many letters in tones of mutual regard.[citation needed] Only later, when Robert Hooke criticized some of Newton’s ideas regarding optics, was Newton so offended that he withdrew from public debate. The two men remained enemies until Hooke’s death.
Others
Diego de Estella took up the quotation in the 16th century; by the 17th century, it had become commonplace. Robert Burton, in the second edition of The Anatomy of Melancholy (1624), quotes Stella thus:
I say with Didacus Stella, a dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see farther than a giant himself.
Blaise Pascal, in the “Preface to the Treatise on the Vacuum” expresses the same idea, without talking about shoulders, but rather about the knowledge handed down to us by the ancients as steps that allow us to climb higher and see farther than they could.
Later in the 17th century, George Herbert, in his Jacula Prudentum (1651), wrote:
“A dwarf on a giant’s shoulders sees farther of the two.”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in The Friend (1828), wrote:
The dwarf sees farther than the giant when he has the giant’s shoulder to mount on.
Against this notion, Friedrich Nietzsche argues that a dwarf (the academic scholar) brings even the most sublime heights down to his level of understanding. In the section of Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1882) entitled “On the Vision and the Riddle”, Zarathustra climbs to great heights with a dwarf on his shoulders to show him his greatest thought. Once there however, the dwarf fails to understand the profundity of the vision and Zarathustra reproaches him for “making things too easy on [him]self.” If there is to be anything resembling “progress” in the history of philosophy, Nietzsche in “Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks” (1873) writes, it can only come from those rare giants among men, “each giant calling to his brother through the desolate intervals of time”, an idea he got from Schopenhauer’s work in Der handschriftliche Nachlass.
Contemporary references:
NASA’s official film of the Apollo 17 lunar landing mission was titled On the Shoulders of Giants
The British two pound coin bears the inscription STANDING ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS on its edge; this is intended as a quotation of Newton.
Stephen Hawking stated: “Each generation stands on the shoulders of those who have gone before them, just as I did as a young Ph.D. student in Cambridge, inspired by the work of Isaac Newton, James Clerk Maxwell, and Albert Einstein.” Additionally, Hawking wrote a book called On the Shoulders of Giants, which explores the major works of physics and astronomy that inspired him.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe said that our generation is compared to “dwarves standing on giants’ shoulders”. Although we may appear to be on a lower spiritual level (dwarves) than previous generations (who were like giants on a spiritual level), when our (much smaller) achievements are added to their (much larger) achievements, the combined achievements ultimately bring us to the era of Moshiach!
Google Scholar, a search engine for academic literature, displays the phrase “Stand on the shoulders of giants” below the search field.
How To Stop Comparing Yourself To Others
Caroline Castrillon Nov 24, 2020,09:00am EST
Comparing yourself to others doesn’t help to create the life you want.
You’re up early one morning searching for jobs on LinkedIn when a new notification pops up. Your best friend from college just got promoted to Vice President at the same company where he’s spent the last ten years. Meanwhile, you’ve just been laid off from your most recent position—the fourth job you’ve held in that same timeframe. Even though you both graduated in the same year with the same degree, your careers went in distinctly different directions. Instantly, you feel resentful. You ask yourself, “Why not me?”
Yet, this reaction is not uncommon. According to a recent study, more than 75% of people reported feeling envious of someone in the last year. Comparing yourself to others can leave you feeling frustrated and anxious. But it doesn’t help in creating the life you want. Instead, it just takes away valuable time and energy that could have been spent on building a successful career. Here are five healthy and practical ways to end the jealousy game and take your power back.
Identify specific triggers
If you want to stop comparing yourself to others, determine when envy rears its ugly head. Is it when you’re scrolling through LinkedIn or your Instagram feed? Or maybe when you hear your best friend bragging about a salary increase? Use these observations to learn about yourself. Then make a list of who and what you frequently envy or compare yourself to. Write how these feelings negatively impact you, and why they are a waste of your time. Resolve to become more vigilant so that you can catch yourself in the future.
Commit yourself to gratitude
It is almost impossible to experience negative emotions when we are thankful for what we have. To stop comparing yourself to others, consider starting a gratitude journal. Take a few moments (preferably at the beginning of the day) to write down all the things you’re thankful for. Another fun idea that can involve the whole family is to create a gratitude jar. Find a jar, decorate it, and every day think of at least three things you’re grateful for. Write each down on a slip of paper and insert them into the jar. Soon, you’ll have a whole host of reasons to be grateful. When you find yourself slipping into those feelings of self-doubt, read a few notes from the jar to remind yourself about the positive things in your life.
Document your achievements
When comparing yourself to others, you focus on their strengths and ignore your own. So, go ahead and make a list of your achievements. It doesn’t matter what they are, big or small, as long as they are something you’re proud of. If you ace a project at work, record it. If you help a friend in a crisis, add it. If you drag yourself to the gym on a morning you didn’t want to go, write it down. Include everything you can think of. Then reflect on that list and post it somewhere where you can see it every day.
Embrace the competition
It can be helpful to view people you envy as allies rather than threats. If you avoid people that trigger self-comparison, you may miss out on how those successful people can help you. Think about what you can learn from them. Approach them and ask them for advice. Instead of feeling jealous, use their achievements as motivation. Who are the people you most admire that are making a difference in the world? Reach out to them to find inspiration so you can become a better person.
Be your own best friend
Often, we treat others better than we treat ourselves. Start by examining your self-talk. Are you self-critical during those moments you compare yourself to others? The first step in being your own best friend is to stop beating yourself up. Stop and ask yourself, “Would I say these things to someone I care about?” Then start acknowledging and appreciating your own unique talents and abilities.
Remember, there will always be someone more attractive, intelligent or successful. The trick is knowing the unique value of what you bring to the table. Whenever you focus on what other people have that you don’t, you give away your power. As Theodore Roosevelt said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” So, take back your power. Decide that your energy will be used for believing in yourself and creating the life you deserve.
Well, I think we have discussed the basic points of The Fallacy of Comparison.
If the topic of this episode is something that hits home with you, please head on over to my website www.EddieKillian.com, and leave a comment under this show transcript.
I you do not have issues with the Fallacy of Comparison and its subsequent “imposter phenomenon” keep this info in mind, and add it to your “latticework”. Maybe you can use it to assist a friend or coworker in a time of need.
I guarantee I will be returning to the topic of fallacies in future episodes, and diving deeper into these ideas and real-world observations and how they are pertinent to our lives, businesses, and organizations today.
Links to all the quoted resources are in the show notes and in the transcript on my website, Eddiekillian.com
Join me next Tuesday as we continue to travel the path of what is difficult, perilous, and uncertain as we explore introducing A New Order of Things.
I am your host, Eddie Killian. And this concludes Episode 17.
References
Kaufman, J. (2010). The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business. London: Penguin Books.
Links:
Forbes:
Harvard Business Review:
https://hbr.org/2021/02/stop-telling-women-they-have-imposter-syndrome
Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_on_the_shoulders_of_giants
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies
Psychology Today:
Eddie Killian 