Is Your Definition of Success Holding You Back?

The Secret to Winning Without College: Overcoming Comparisons

In this episode of 'Winning Without College', host and College Dropout Stuart shares his personal journey and insights on achieving success without relying on a college degree.

Stuart reveals how despite owning expensive possessions and attending fancy parties, he never felt like he was truly ahead.

He discusses the first reason for this feeling, emphasizing the importance of networking and surrounding oneself with people more successful than oneself for growth and mentorship.

However, he points out the unintended consequence of constant comparison to more successful peers leading to feelings of inadequacy.

Through personal anecdotes, including a touching story from his time as a used car salesman, Stuart highlights the importance of measuring success against one's own progress rather than others'.

He advocates for setting short-term, achievable goals and constantly striving to improve oneself over yesterday, emphasizing that true success comes from personal growth and fulfillment.

Show Outline

00:00 The Struggle of Feeling Like You're Not Winning

00:15 Welcome to Winning Without College

00:41 The Illusion of Success Through Material Wealth

02:06 The Unintended Consequences of Networking

04:39 The Power of Personal Progress Over Comparison

05:15 A Life-Changing Car Sale: A Story of Redemption

11:41 Embracing Short-Term Goals for Long-Term Success

12:13 Closing Thoughts and Invitation to Engage

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Episode Transcript

Stuart (00:00):
I never felt like I was really getting ahead.

(00:02):
I never felt that I was truly winning.
And I was like, why is that?
There are two answers.
, I'm going to give you the firstone is actually an unintended
consequence of something I teachhere and tell other people to
do, And welcome to winning withoutcollege, the podcast that helps
you get ahead in business and inlife, all without a college degree.

(00:24):
My name is Stuart, your host, yourcoach, and fellow College Dropout.
In this podcast, I give you actionablesteps you can take right now in your
career to set yourself up for rapid careeradvancement, entrepreneurial success,
and achieving an above average lifestyle.
So I want to tell you a story todaywhen I was in high school I remember a
friend had a keychain on his backpackthat said he who dies with the most

(00:49):
toys wins I remember that becausefor a while even through my 20s and
30s I still remembered it regularly.
It wasn't that I necessarilyagreed with it, but it was
always in the back of my mind.
It was always like that measuringstick on whether or not I'm
successful, and I remember buying.

(01:09):
That brand new hundred thousand dollarMercedes and I remember buying the
boat and the fancy suit and the Rolexwatch and I remember going out to fancy
parties and eating at crazy expensiverestaurants, you know, the expensive
ones where they don't give you any food.
So you end up hitting a drivethrough on the way home.....
despite all of the success and all ofthe status that I had, both the actual

(01:31):
accomplishments that I had and, and thosethat I just thought I had in my head.
I never felt like I wasreally getting ahead.
I never felt like I was doing my best.
I never felt that I was truly winning.
And I was like, why is that?
Why is it that despite all ofmy best efforts, did I feel
like I just had not yet made it?

(01:52):
Well, there are two answers.
To this question, I'm going to give youthe first one is actually an unintended
consequence of something that Ibelieve, something I teach here and
something that I tell other people to do,
and that first one, I talk about theimportance of networking, the importance
of being known and being active anddeveloping your own personal brand.

(02:16):
See, I think it's greatto teach other people.
I love coaching.
I love helping other people reachtheir goals, which is one of the
reasons why I started this podcastand one of the reasons why I
do a lot of coaching and stuff.
But I also believe that in networking andwithin your social circles, you should
never be the smartest person in the room.
If you're the smartest, the richest,the most influential person in the

(02:38):
room, then you're in the wrong room.
And what do I mean by that?
It means that you need someone thatyou can learn from, that you can grow
from, that you can, be mentored by.
You know, you're always looking forthat next step up and you want to get
with people who have done it before.
So they can help you just like I'm ata certain point where there might be
people who aren't to where I'm at yet.

(02:59):
So I can help them get to where I'm at.
I need other people to helpme get to where they're at.
They've been there.
They know the way they can help me out.
Same with me.
If you're not thereyet, I can help you out.
That's the point of networking.
That's the point of, of all this.
But here's the unintendedconsequence of that action.
When you're not the smartest personin the room, when you're not the most
successful person in the room, you'realways looking up to them and you'll see

(03:22):
them saying, Oh, I just bought this 20million home or I just bought a brand new
million dollar car or something like that.
See, when you surround yourselfby people who are smarter than
you and more successful than you,they're going to have more than you.
That's just it.
And when you start comparingyourself to them, yeah, you're going
to look like you are a failure.
You're going to appear asthough you have not made it.

(03:44):
You, cause you're always comparingyourself to somebody who's
been there longer, done more.
You know, a lot of these peoplethat I was working with, they're
20, 30 years older than I am.
They've had way more time to be ableto achieve more than I ever had.
And that's one of the reasons whyI just never felt like I was able
to get ahead because I was alwayscomparing myself to people who were

(04:07):
further along in their journey.
Than I was and that was likethis demoralizing kind of man.
I want to be like that.
I want to be like that It's also agreat driving force That's one of
the reasons why I say you shouldnever be the smartest person in the
room because they're your drivingforce or your momentum They're your
you're you're you know They're they'reshowing you what you can do if you
just follow in their footsteps if youlearn from them and you work with them

(04:30):
So that's that's a great thing But theunattended consequences if you compare
yourself to them You're going to lose.
And that's why you can't compare yoursuccess to other people's success.
The only thing that you cando is compare you to you.
And what do I mean by that?
All you can do is ask yourself, am Ibetter off today than I was last year?

(04:56):
Is there more money in my bankaccount this month than last month?
Are my sales up or down thisquarter compared to last quarter?
And when you start looking only atyourself, you'll start to see and
determine whether or not you are movingforward compared to your yesterday self.
Let me give you another example.
And this is important.
After one of my businesses closed,I was kind of stuck, and I needed

(05:18):
a job, and I needed a job fast.
I just needed money.
I dumped everything I had into thisbusiness, and now I was flat broke.
And I wanted a job that had ahigh turnover rate, where a company
wouldn't spend a lot of time and moneytraining me because I knew, for me,
this gig would be temporary untilI found something more permanent.
So I ended up as a sales repfor an independent used car

(05:40):
dealership in Orange County.
And I took this job, firstof all, because I loved cars.
I bought a lot of them in the past,and I always wanted to learn more about
the industry, you know, more aboutbuying and selling cars wholesale.
Markups, I always thought if I had thatknowledge about how the car industry works
I might be able to get myself a betterdeal the next time I go and buy A new car.

(06:01):
And the dealership I went to was small.
It was an independent one.
Just a couple salesperson,myself, a manager, and the owner.
And we carried a small inventory ofabout 40, 50, 60 cars at any given time.
Now we specialized in highmileage luxury brands.
So think like Lexus, Mercedes, BMW, Audi.
You know, cars that looksharp, that were clean.

(06:22):
They had the newer body styles.
They were just high mileage carsand these high mileage cars.
It kept the price downbecause they look sharp.
They look good.
They were clean, but most people whowould normally buy a Mercedes or an Audi
or something like that, they would neverbuy something with 150, 000 miles on it.
That was only four orfive years old, you know?

(06:42):
So essentially, we were sellingfancy cars to people that necessarily
couldn't really afford them,but they wanted to put on a show.
They wanted to put on a personaabout themselves that they could.
So they buy the fanciest car,clean, sharp, great looking for
Instagram, just very high miles,something that a lot of people
probably wouldn't notice right away.
So I remember one day we were very busy.

(07:03):
It was a Saturday afternoon andeverybody was out helping customers.
And I just finished up writing a dealand getting a customer on their way and
I saw another family looking at this carand nobody had really talked to them.
Now this car, let me tell you, yeah.
When the owner bought it from the auction,I literally laughed in his face and I
said, oh my gosh, what are you doing?

(07:23):
Nobody is gonna buy this.
I mean, we're gonna siton this car forever.
And he told me, Hey, everycar has an ass for it.
And let me explain what that means.
I don't remember his exactwords or something like that.
But essentially.
He's saying that every car has a buyer,and this car is very specific for a

(07:43):
specific buyer, for a particular typeof buyer, and they're gonna love it.
Anyways, I took his advicebecause, you know, I'm new in this
and I'm still trying to learn.
Anyways, this car, itwas a 20 year old Lexus.
ES300 with over 350, 000 miles onit and even by our standards this
car was way older and had way moremiles on it than we usually take in.

(08:07):
We normally deal in cars thatare around eight or ten years old
maybe with 120 to 150, 000 miles.
This car was 20 years old andhad over 350, 000 miles on it but
But here's his family.
They were taking a look at this car.
And I went down and I talked to them.
It was a family of five, mom, dad,and three very young children.
And we talked for a bit, andI offered them a test drive.

(08:28):
But since there were five of them,plus me, we all couldn't fit.
In the Lexus that they were looking at.
So it was just dad andI, we took out the car.
Now, let me paint a pictureof this father for you.
This father, he's a big guy, bigas in muscular, big as in tall.
He'd gotten tattoos all over hisarms and legs and a shaved head.
This was the type of guy youwouldn't want to rumble with.

(08:50):
If you saw him out somewhere,you know what I mean?
And so we get into the car and I wasa passenger, he was a driver and he
drove us out of the lot and we wentdown the street for a very short amount
of time, just 2 minutes maybe then hepulls the car over into a parking lot.
Man, I swear, I thought he was gonnaturn to me and say, get out of the car.
But this guy, he pulls into thelot and he just starts bawling,

(09:11):
uncontrollable, just crying tears.
He's this big guy, right?
And he's just having this emotionalbreakdown right there in the driver's
seat of this Wendy's parking lot orwhatever it is that we pulled into.
And I was like, I don't know what to do.
I felt so awkward.
This is not like my cup of tea.
I'm not very like that kind of like,Oh, they're, they're kind of person to

(09:32):
begin with, and there's this completestranger, this big old muscular burly
dude here having a complete emotionalbreakdown in the seat next to me,
and I just didn't know what to do.
So after a while, he stopped crying.
He apologized and he said, I'm so sorry.
I couldn't help it.
I was just let out of jail.
I had lost my family.

(09:54):
I did things in my life I wasn't proud of.
But now I'm out of jail.
I was able to repair myrelationship with my wife.
I get to see my children again.
I found a job.
And now I get to buya Lexus for my family.
And I was just so taken back.
Because here's this car, this P.

(10:14):
O.
S.
car that I had made somuch fun of and mocked.
And And for this guy here, sitting inthis chair, it was like his shining light.
It was his dream come true.
It signified a turning point inhis life, and he just had so much
pride for this car, for being ableto provide for his family, that

(10:35):
the emotion just caught up to him.
And I was just so taken back by it.
It was his mark that showedhe's better off today.
Then he was yesterday and a year beforethat he was only comparing his success
to what his life was like before, andit was such an emotional change, such

(10:57):
a dramatic change that he just couldn'thelp but breaking down because he had
made so much progress in his own life.
You can't compare yourself to others.
The only thing that you can dois compare you to your past self.
And as long as you're doing bettertoday than you're doing before, then

(11:18):
you are winning the race becausethere's always somebody else behind you.
So if you ever feel stuck, if you everfeel like you're just not making it,
you really have to ask your question.
Is it because you think that you'renot moving as fast as somebody else?
And if so, you got to get thatcomparison out of your head.
You can only compare yourself to yourself.

(11:41):
That's why I don't like long term goals.
I like short term goals.
I like quarterly goals.
I like annual goals.
I don't like people who say, whereare you going to be at in five years?
I don't know.
I don't know where I'm going tobe at in three years, but I can
tell you I hope that this month isgoing to be better than last month.
I cam hope that this year isgoing to be better than last year.
Those are small, measurable,meaningful changes that you can

(12:02):
control right now in your life thatmake you feel good about yourself.
So stop comparing yourself to others andstart focusing on making sure that you
are better today than you were yesterday.
Well, that's what I got foryou for today's podcast.
I hope you like what you heard.
Please rate us on ApplePodcasts or Spotify.
It really helps us get this show out tomore people, and it's such a big blessing

(12:23):
to me and the entire team that workson the Winning Without College podcast.
Thanks for listening, and wewill see you in the next episode.