PDM 023: Do You Compare Yourself to Others? Discover The Root To All Failure and Unhappiness

Lucas P. Johnson: How often do you compare yourself to others? Do you compare yourself to others as a way of achievement or not measuring up? When you compare to others, how does it affect your emotions? The art of comparison truly is a serious problem in society. And in this episode, we will uproot the old ways to unlock a new perspective. However, before we go any further, roll the intro.

Narrator: Welcome to the home of Project Dream Mastery. Here at PDM, we are challenging the status quo of what it means to follow your dreams and how to unlock the power those dreams will bring to your life. The show experience will be unscripted, authentic and transparent. So now sit back, relax and get inspired with your hosts, Lucas Johnson and Patryk Labuzek.

Lucas P. Johnson: Welcome to Episode 23 of the Project Dream Mastery show where we help inspire you to follow your dreams, defy expectations, dream big and love deeply. My name is Lucas Johnson based out of Charlotte, North Carolina. And I'm here to help you live a more purposeful and passionate life. Don't forget to review and subscribe to the podcast to be the first to receive new episode releases. And if you're interested, this episode is available with video. So check out our website at ProjectDreamMastery.com to watch now. The tendency to compare ourselves to others is as human as any other emotion. We do it so often. So unfortunate that it truly steals joy from our lives and is a habit with many shortcomings. It's not only unfair to you. It's unfair to others. It wastes precious time. It puts focus on the wrong people, the wrong person. Ultimately, it's you. Nothing to gain or lose from it.

Lucas P. Johnson: It deprives us of joy. This episode, it hits really close to home because I feel like we're, not only myself but for so many others during this time, we are facing all of these distractions that we normally don't have around us whether it be constant access or instant access to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, so forth, all these social media sites. We have instant access and there's no one that's really stopping us from being on our phone or being on an actual website on our laptop because we are living in a remote society right now. Everyone is working remote. There's no one during the day to say, hey, you know, we're working and it's professional. Put your phone away. Or you just know because you're with other people, other professionals. So you just have your, you know, you're good to go. You don't have your stuff out.

Lucas P. Johnson: But now, and we are constantly surrounded by technology. And it's not like we weren't before, but now it's even more prevalent. Every single day, new technology is released. We have our mobiles, we have our laptops, we have watches, we have even these headphones that I'm wearing right now are Alexa enabled. Everything around us, smart gadgets, lights that work with all these technologies. It's just amazing to see where we've come and where we're going to go. But it's also really important to understand that we have a past and let's take a look at comparison. When did it start in your life. When did you start realizing that you were comparing yourself to others? Did it start at birth? I don't think so. Because when we were probably up until eight, nine years old, everything was perfect. We were living the life. We were a kid. We were enjoying it.

Lucas P. Johnson: We were out in the playground. We were going to school. Just living life. We had no cares in the world. All we were worried about was what are we going to have for lunch, breakfast, dinner. Oh, can I go play? Can I go outside and hang out? There is no true comparison. Yeah, I mean we did. Okay. Why does that kid have that ball? And I have this one. It's little things that we had comparison there. Yeah. Okay. Fine. But it's not to the extent now where you have something that's much larger scale. You have, all right, that guy's got a bigger house. She's got a better car.

Lucas P. Johnson: He's got more money. He's got a better job. She's gone on more vacations than I have. It's crazy. We can think of anything and everything to compare ourselves. Even the giraffe that's behind me right now. This picture, someone else could love say a koala. I like a giraffe. I have a giraffe behind me. But I see their koala, and I'm like, oh, I really want that koala. I want that koala picture. I want it. Okay. I'm comparing because I like that. I want that. I'm comparing myself. Okay, I would look really good if I had that. What would I get if I had that? Would I get more subscribers? Would I have more people listening? Would I have more people that are in my house just really enjoying the time they spend? There are so many points in our life where we have comparison.

Lucas P. Johnson: I feel like it's so prevalent right now. And if you're struggling right now, this is an episode you really want to listen to closely and you might want to even take notes because right now is not the time to compare. Right now is the time to figure out where you want to be in your life to really truly find happiness in your life. Because there's not going to be another time where, hopefully, I really hope there's not going to be another time like this, where we don't have instant access to the same amenities and things that we had going on before whether it be going ice skating without a mask on, whether going to the movies without a mask on. I mean you can't even go to the movies now. So right now is probably the most amount of time you're going to have to spend with family, to spend with yourself, to spend just thinking, to do the things that you normally don't necessarily have the time to do.

Lucas P. Johnson: And who knows? We might be truly working our way towards a remote work environment completely. So it's going to be even more prevalent, comparison. Every single day, what is stopping you from achieving greatness? Do you say I'm going to start a podcast and then you start listening to others and you're like, oh, mine is not going to be that good. It's never going to achieve those results. It's never going to be as good as that person's. I'm never going to have that many people listening. And then you just don't do it because you compared yourself to the other person. I'm guilty of that. Paddy and I are both are. We look at others and think, oh, we're never going to compare to them. But we started changing the way we think. We started saying, it's not if, but when. It's not if, but when. It's not if, but when. It's when we achieve it, it's not if.

Lucas P. Johnson: Every single day that we go by, we don't always have growth. Sometimes it's exponential. You know? It slowly goes up and up and up. But it's the days that are stagnant is when comparison really comes in, we're not going to be successful. It's really amazing to see the days that spike and you go, all right, I'm doing my own thing. It's not if, but when. When we're going to be successful. When we take off. When we start inspiring. When we start making people understand that life is so much more than just that 9 to 5. Life is so much more than just waking up to go to work. Life is so much more than waking up to do things just for others. Yeah. You got to do a little bit of everything. Life's a game of giving and taking. Got to give a lot.

Lucas P. Johnson: You got to take some. You can't just take, take, take, take. You have to give. But if you keep comparing, you'll never ever be able to give. You'll never have the opportunity or the time to give because you're so focused on the things that are not important. And I mean that comes into every single part of your life. You have to be conscious of the effects that it has on you whether it be in your friend group, whether someone went to college or not, I mean whether your job is what they deem a quality job, whether you're living a life that is outstanding. Every part of your life, there can be comparison. And I just want to label a few of those. And this really brings some negative beliefs into your life and mine. Let's just list a few off. I don't have good friends.

Lucas P. Johnson: How do you know you don't have good friends? Are you comparing that because that person on Instagram that looks like they're having the best time of their lives in the picture, are you comparing yourself to that? Because most of the time, those are staged pictures. I know that I take some really quality photos on my Instagram, but a lot of those are like, hey guys, let's take a great picture. And then 20 minutes, everyone's off doing their own thing. You can't compare yourself the picture on Instagram or Facebook or any social media. And even if you see those people out and about, it doesn't mean that their lives are perfect. You can't say that everything in their lives perfect and those people are all getting along just well and dandy. It's not like that. Life's not like that. Life's a game of give and take.

Lucas P. Johnson: And I'm sure every single one of those people in that group are giving something or taking something or taking a lot more than they're giving. And that's when you start to really take a look at some of those other episodes that we have right now. It's about really unlocking your purpose, one, and two is finding your tribe, finding the people that make up the best version of you, make up a really quality circle that loves you, supports you, takes you to the next level, people that you don't have to worry about comparison. You don't have to compare your group to how you were or how you want to be. You just have to know that those people were there for you. And you have to constantly reevaluate whether those people are quality or not. And they should be in your circle. I don't know necessarily all the time.

Lucas P. Johnson: Once you find those people, they're probably meant to be there. And then the three tiers that make up that. Another area is when you look at someone that's rich, beautiful, talented, educated, you think you're not lovable because you don't have something. You're not rich. You're not beautiful. You're not talented. You're not educated. Who's to say you aren't? Who's to say that you don't have that. I mean it costs nothing to give. Do you understand what I'm saying there? It costs nothing to give. Absolutely nothing. I give my time whether it be a community outreach program, whether it be mentoring, whether it be coaching. And even in my youth group, whenever I was back in the youth days, I gave my time. What are you giving? Are you giving something? Everyone gives their time. Come on. So what classifies you as being rich? Why? Because you don't have stacks at cash. Okay? What's it matter? You can't get that one thing . You're probably living a happier life than some of those people that have those stacks of cash. You don't know what their problems are. But yet, you're comparing yourself to them. You're comparing yourself to what they have. Maybe they have two houses and four Lamborghini's and they have a big family. But maybe they're divorced. Maybe they're paying off five mortgages and they have $5 million in debt.

Lucas P. Johnson: Maybe they're living outside their means. But yet, you're comparing yourself to them. They're beautiful. Okay. You're beautiful too. You're one of a kind is one of my every single episode says, as Roman Atwood says. You're one of a kind. You just got to keep loving yourself. Keep living. Don't compare to others. Hell, you don't know what they're wearing is truly theirs, if they use their entire paycheck to buy that one thing or maybe their parents or family members bought them that. You just can't compare. Maybe you worked your ass off to get that dress. Maybe you worked your ass off to get that purse. Maybe you worked your ass off to get those nice pair of boots. You cannot compare yourself to others because everyone is unique, everyone has a different story and a different way and means to get to that end goal.

Lucas P. Johnson: You just can't compare. There's nothing to compare. And the beauty? You know, we can all put makeup on. We can all put it on. We can all, and I say that more figuratively. We can all put makeup on. We can dress ourselves up. We can make ourselves look good. But that doesn't take away from the evil part or the disregard for life, the disloyalty, the anger. But the people that don't put on that disguise, that don't put on the makeup, the people that just truly care and love and support, those are the people that you want to surround yourself with, one, and those are the people that you know are just being authentic. Authenticity is absolutely amazing. So are you being authentic? Are you truly letting yourself love yourself? Are you truly letting yourself be who you're supposed to be? Because when you compare yourself to others, you're not letting yourself be authentic.

Lucas P. Johnson: You're not letting yourself come out and be transparent because you're always worried about what's next? Who do I have to please? Am I good enough? Enough. Just enough of that. And the education part, life is a battle of ups and downs. You're going to have mountains and then you're going to have valleys. And you're just going to keep going up and down, up and down. And maybe sometimes, you'll have a period where you're stagnant. But we're all constantly learning. You can't get through life without learning. And it doesn't matter if you have a four-year degree, two-year degree, a year or nothing, or maybe eight, it doesn't matter. Yes, some people have more technical skills and they have more education, but that does not mean that they are the smartest people in the world. They might just have something else up their sleeve.

Lucas P. Johnson: They might've learned how to go about a process or procedure or some other methodology or some other thing in life that they may have had more time to kind of master. But anything that they're doing now is also going to require that they take time to keep on mastering it. Even doctors, they have to keep performing. They have to keep on performing surgeries or they get rusty. Even professional athletes have coaches because they know the benefits of having someone else coach them. A third party can see what you're doing wrong. They can see what you're doing right. And then they can analyze that to help you perform even better, to exceed expectations. But the funny thing there is the only expectations you have to live up to are your own. And then you just defy them. You just blow right through them. It's crazy how life is. But you know, the best part about that is it doesn't matter where you are in your life, you can get through and you can stop that wall. You can break right through it. There's nothing surrounding you that says you can't.

Lucas P. Johnson: Life's about giving and taking. It's about mountains and valleys, about occasionally being stagnant. And it's okay to be stagnant without comparison. One of my other favorite ones is when your family members or your parents, they want to compare. They want to say, oh, my son or daughter is so successful. They are living in a mansion. I'm just throwing stuff out there. But they're living the best life they possibly can. And that's phenomenal. Everyone wants to hear that. Everyone wants to hear how fantastic everything's going for you. And then there's people that don't, but we don't need to go there. Point is they're accomplished. They're successful. But a lot of folks, they get in those moments where they're like, okay, is my son or daughter similar? Are they as successful or as accomplished? Do they get, they're trying, they're constantly comparing and we need to be better.

Lucas P. Johnson: They can't compare. We just need to keep moving on because people are gonna need to follow their heart. They need to follow their dreams. You need to follow your dreams. You need to follow your heart. What makes you happy? Because whenever you break down that barrier and truly unlock your purpose and find your passion, life becomes so much easier. You stop worrying what people think. And if you don't know anything about me by now or you're just meeting me, I went through a period where I truly cared what people thought. I didn't post anything on my YouTube channel. I didn't do anything with my business. I just took a gap of roughly four years. I just said, okay, I can't have people judging me. I can't have people and putting myself out there like that. That's not going to happen.

Lucas P. Johnson: But then I got to the point where I studied abroad with some of my best friends I would say in the world. And I have some really amazing best friends as well back from, you know, your K through 12 days. But I feel like everyone has those five or six people from those days as well. For me, it was really breathtaking to find people outside of that group from a completely different country, all over the world. But they made me realize that no matter where you are, there's going to be people that love, support you, like you, don't like you. And then there's going to be people that want to be there in your corner. And you just have to find the ones that want to be in your corner. And the ones that don't, there's the door. It's okay. We don't team well.

Lucas P. Johnson: We don't align well. And that's completely fine. But the most important aspect is we found out now. We found out now. And those people will allow you to blossom into a better person. They'll allow you to open up, live a more authentic and transparent life. And when you do that, life becomes so magical. Life becomes so inspiring. And you can see the big smile I have because this is such a powerful topic for me is when you finally get to the point where you just say F it. You just put yourself out there. That's what I did. I went on and I put up my YouTube, my personal YouTube page, Lucas P. Johnson. And I just started putting blogs up of all of the stuff that we do in all my travels. And there's some goofy stuff. And there's some stuff that I didn't publish to this day is because when I went back to uni, when I went back to college here in the States, I took a break.

Lucas P. Johnson: I was like, all right, well, I don't want to put anything else up. I don't have the time. And I also don't want to be judged. And then I gained another 80 pounds. And I don't know where life was and graduation from Penn State, I was 276 pounds roughly. And I looked in the mirror and said, who are you, Lucas? What are you doing, man? Do you even recognize yourself? Took me a while to really truly be transparent with myself and say, hey man, all those people that you graduated with, even college and high school and so forth, they're no longer around. I mean except for the people that are in that circle, that tribe that I keep going back to. And that comparison, I don't need to compare myself to those people anymore because they don't surround me. They're not my circle.

Lucas P. Johnson: And those people that want to come back into my life have to work their way back into my life. They have to show that they want to be there. That's part of being human. You can't just give trust out like that anymore. You have to truly see if the people are good for you and you have to make sure that they're ready for you. So going back to the period where the journey of trying to figure out whether it was time to be transparent is when you look yourself in the mirror and say, are you ready? And you're not comparing yourself to others. Yes, for me, I was like, oh yeah, I want to have a six pack. I want to look like that.

Lucas P. Johnson: And then I look back at all the times I tried to lose weight and I failed because I was comparing myself to someone else. Isn't it amazing to see how when you finally realize that you're no longer comparing yourself to someone else, when you finally kicked down the door and you break through the wall and you get yourself outside and you just see that the things that were impossible are now possible and you're now living an authentic and transparent life that's outside of anyone else's scope, outside of anyone else's feelings, outside of anyone else's mindset, their bubble. It's just you and your thoughts. It's just you and yourself. It's you taking on the world. Not necessarily alone, but you're taking on a more authentic and transparent life.

Lucas P. Johnson: Kick down that door, break through that wall. Life's too short. So finally, I broke through that door, that wall, and I said, you know what? It's time. And if you've listened to any of the other previous episodes, you'll probably hear it when we talk with Brandon Walker here in Episode 10. Please check that out. He gives us a phenomenal chat about unlocking your purpose which is parallel to this conversation is you have to do that as one of the first steps before you can even live a life that is even breaking down that wall and breaking down comparison. But you have to truly take a moment to figure out what you want. And I did. Not to make this all about me, but I did. I figured it out. I looked in the mirror and said, all right, it's time. Roughly nine months, it'll be a year in March 2021, I am roughly down 80 pounds.

Lucas P. Johnson: I'm down, I don't even know, maybe more than that. I'm at a point in my life where I'm truly happy. And I say that to everyone I come in contact with is I'm living the best life I've ever lived. I was running eight, nine miles. I was. And the reason why I say I was is because I got injured. But that's not the point. The point is I broke down the wall and you can too. It's never too late. It's never too early. And when Gary Vee, if you're not familiar with Gary Vaynerchuk, he constantly says it doesn't matter what your age is. Age is just a number. You just have to go after it. You have to make it a reality. And it's never too late. Just realize that you can't compare yourself to others. You just have to do it. You have to do it on your own. When you start comparing, you are not only unfair to yourself, you waste that precious time. You put focus on the wrong person. You need to focus on you. You need to figure out who you are. There's nothing to gain or lose by comparing to others. It deprives you of joy.

Lucas P. Johnson: Another great one is I'm not as loved as others. And this is actually kind of funny because what gives context to that is unknown. How do you know if someone loves you or not? It's really kind of frustrating to me is thinking someone may have more followers, friends or at least it might seem like it. A lot of times I find myself saying and calling people peers because I don't know if they're my friends. I'll never hang out with them outside of maybe work or I never hang out with them outside of a couple of occasions. So are they friends or are they just peers? I'm not as loved as others. Okay. Well, what makes me loved? I like to think that people that are in my life at least have some sort of liking for me. I mean I would like for them to love me, but I'm not expecting that.

Lucas P. Johnson: That's a big thing to give up. When you say you love someone, you're willing to give them everything. You're willing to drop whatever you're doing and be there for them. I knew if Cory, which we actually talked to him in one of the previous episodes, you should really check it out. He also goes into talking about how you can live a life that has your state of flow in mind. But if Cory called me right now and said, hey, man, I'm in trouble. I need you. I would drop everything I'm doing. I would stop this podcast. I would get in my car. I would get an airplane and I would be there because that's what people who love each other do. So when someone says I'm not as loved as others, okay, all right, I don't know how to respond to that.

Lucas P. Johnson: Sometimes whenever you get in the, you're sitting there trying to figure out what's next and not as loved as others, well, okay, you have a few people that really love you. That's more than some other people. So really just take what you can get sometimes. Give and take, right? Give and take. Mountains and valleys. Mountains and valleys. Haven't had vacations or exciting life experiences. And this is really I think prevalent in my life and Patryk's. And Patryk, he would probably say right now, it doesn't matter where you are in your life. It doesn't matter what experiences you have, what travels you have. What matters is that life will continue and you have the opportunity to change it at any moment. AlwaysSomewhere.net is Paddy's little blog, his little thing he enjoys, what he loves. I don't say little. I mean it's something that is blossoming and growing.

Lucas P. Johnson: It's not if, but when. And you always have the opportunity to take your life to the next level. And you don't have to travel far to say you have life experiences. Your life experiences are different than some of the other folks. And in fact, I recently just had a chat with a really good friend of mine that I just kind of made real acquaintances with or became reacquainted with it. And one thing that I realized was this person didn't have the experience, didn't have the life experiences or travels or anything like that. But they lived a different life. They were more frugal. They were more, they took things less for granted. And it makes me realize or made me realize that life is short.

Lucas P. Johnson: And there's so many people out there that are struggling. There's so many people out there that are living a different kind of life. We don't all live the same life. We're all unique. We all have our own perspective. And best of all, we get to do things on our own terms. So whenever you're trying to compare yourself and say you haven't been on vacations, you don't have life experiences, bullshit. Simple enough. You are incredible. And I'm sure your experiences on some things outweigh mine in many, many areas, in many ways of life too. I am experienced in a few areas and I have broad experience in others. But I'm not perfect in anything. I don't think I'm perfect in anything. And I don't think any of us are. I think we're intelligent. I think we know our stuff in some things. But again, going back to being educated, we're all learning.

Lucas P. Johnson: And just because I don't know it now or you don't know it now doesn't mean you can't go learn it. One thing that I just did here recently is I'm not a professional dog trainer by any means. And I'm sure that if you're listening to this now and you are, feel free to give me some tips. But I didn't trust myself just training my puppy. Ollie and I had a little bit of a battle here trying to figure out how to get housebroken. And it's definitely a tough thing to do living in an apartment. And luckily right now, I'm not in my apartment. But the best part is being able to find someone who knows how to train a dog or someone who could teach me how to train my own dog because I want to be present. And I think that's one of the most important things you can be is present. And I say that because when you are comparing yourself to others, I don't think you're present.

Lucas P. Johnson: I think you've not allowed your brain to become inactive because you're not thinking about anything that's relevant, thinking about anything that's going to add value or bring joy to your life. It's just inactive thoughts that are making you feel like shit. So doing something to change that and be active, like receiving training or coaching from someone else to help you become better than you were yesterday. You. Not comparing yourself to others, but you comparing yourself to yourself the day before, five years ago, 10 years ago. Every single day, I like to compare myself on this podcast to how I was when I first started. And every single time, I think I'm growing and I think Paddy does the same thing. We're learning. We're growing. And when you're listening to this right now, are you an active listener or are you an inactive? Are you sitting there truly observing? Are you truly thinking about the things we're talking about?

Lucas P. Johnson: Not that you need to compare, but you should. You should compare yourself to where you're going to be. Comparing yourself to yourself. If five years go by and you're not where you want to be, that's a good way, it's a good thing to have metrics. It's allowing you to see and observe and visually kind of okay, this is where I was and this is where I need to be and I said I was going to be here, but I'm not. You're seeing it firsthand. You're comparing yourself to yourself which is not really comparison. It's more of a way of learning. It's teaching. It's educating. It's saying, hey, you know, I'm not where I want to be. Okay. Great. Now we need to take this to the next level. And we need to do a little bit of a performance improvement plan. We need to do a PIP as they say in the work environment.

Lucas P. Johnson: So when we go back to the story of training and coaching, I found myself going on masterclass and getting taught by Brian McMullan, I believe is his last name. And it's what? A 14-lesson course. It cost me $180. But that was the best $180 that I've, one of the things. I mean it's coaching. It's similar to going to class. Yeah. You could go to someone else and have them train your dog. But I didn't want to do that. I wanted to be active. I could've went on YouTube. But I wanted to learn from someone that was quote unquote the best. Not that comparison is really in there. I mean but this guy seemed like he knew what he was doing. And yeah, I compared to others. I went on YouTube and I was like, okay, yeah, this is great free course. But I want something that's straight to the point.

Lucas P. Johnson: I want something that's not going to take up a lot of time because I've value my time. Do you value your time? This guy is great. So taking that time to evaluate your experiences and build on that, to have coaching and learning opportunities is consistent with building a better life. Having metrics, having someone to shape you. But not let them completely shape you because you're unique. You're one of a kind. Another area that we want to explore is life and career. Are they a huge disappointment and embarrassment? I have found this so often and coming out of college and going into the workforce. And before that, working six years in financial services is really kind of shed some light on this because I never really thought about or put anyone down for the job they had. Why so? And how so?

Lucas P. Johnson: Because we as humans are constantly saying, all right, am I better? Am I better than that person? I think that's an immature thought process. If you're still thinking like that, take time to evaluate what's the next step. Did you recognize that you're not better than them? Because if that's what's going through your head, then we need to have a little chat. We need to think through that. It's time to mature. It's time to take it to the next level. Because when you pass that, when you stop comparing and am I'm better than that person, oh my gosh, life becomes so much more magical. You're not living on someone else's terms. You're not living to compare. You're living to enjoy life. You're living to be happy. And it's just incredible when you can put a smile on. Put a smile on. Don't just put it on. Reality. Smile because you're happy, because it brings joy to you. You're enthusiastic about what's going on and what you're talking about makes you happy.

Lucas P. Johnson: Doesn't matter what you're doing in your life, life career. It's not a huge disappointment. It's not an embarrassment. And if anyone says it is, those people do not need to be a part of your tribe. They do not need to be a part of your circle. And if they aren't already, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what they have to say. It doesn't matter what they think. All that matters is what you think. All that matters is the people that surround you, your tribe, your closest advisers. That's all the matters. Those people that are out there in the imaginary world are just floating by. And a lot of folks, they get joy out of putting people down. And it's really sad. Really sad when you get joy out of putting people down. Life's too short. Give and take. Mountains and valleys.

Lucas P. Johnson: Your life and career are your choice. And we live and learn. It's all a game. Life's a game. And I learned this very early in my life. I was sitting there actually, I want to say I was 15 or 16 and just went into high school. And I had a class with some seniors, 12th grade seniors that were kind of just teaching me some of the stuff they learned. And one of the things they said was, man, life's a game. Well, what do you mean life's a game. I need to get straight A's. I need to be perfect. I need to do this and that. No, man, life's a game. Life is a game. Like he went on to explain that you can do everything right. You can do everything and expect that you're going to be perfect.

Lucas P. Johnson: But when you start to realize that every step, you play every step out and you play every situation out and you start to move your piece from one to the next to hopefully win the game, the game of life. You're going to have a lot of steps that you're going to take that are going to go down a negative path and then there's going to be others going to go down a positive path. And you have to find a way to overcome the challenges that are in those particular paths. You have to overcome even things in the positives, in the positive path. Because you can only have so much positive before something really, really bad happens. I wish that wasn't the case, but it just seems to happen. Everything's going so well in your life. And then all of a sudden, shit hits the fan.

Lucas P. Johnson: It's crazy to think that we can have everything going right and it just all go wrong. But life's a game. When you master the game, when you master kind of is it worth the battle, you'll start to realize that you can enjoy your life a lot more. Some conversations that you realize if you just have the conversation going to stir the pot, do you really want to have them or do you just want to keep going because you can live your life a lot more happier, your performance and work could be a lot higher. You can have all time friends and so forth just by sometimes keeping your mouth shut. It's that simple. You have to understand that those conversations, yes, it can come up. But the life, the game of life says, if you make that move, you move your piece to that square, what's going to happen? It's like chess. Are you going to lose one of your pieces? Or checkers? Are you going to make it all the way down to the king?

Lucas P. Johnson: You got to find your way and maneuver around obstacles and challenges to make yourself successful and most importantly, happy. And comparison is not going to let you get there, my friend. Comparison is a route, one of the roots to all evil. I truly think that because the more we compare, the more we lose focus, the more we lose clarity on what really matters. Your family's perfect. You're perfect. Yeah, things might not always go right but again, life's a game. You got to figure out how to play your pieces right. Once you figure out how to play those pieces, you're going to have a much better time. And when we talked about it in one of the episodes is just because you have 30 years of experience doesn't mean you have the experience of today. True. But those 30 years of experience brought you to where you are today. They taught you some lessons that others are going to take 30 years to learn or maybe you're going to be willing to give it away. As one of our amazing guests, Travis, Trav came on here, Travis Bell and said, you know, your experiences should not be cooped up. You should be giving them away. You should be sharing those with the world. You shouldn't be selfish.

Lucas P. Johnson: 30 years of experience can teach a lot to this world. It can teach a lot to people and you can be the difference. If you keep cooping, you're keeping all these thoughts up and allowing them to be locked down, that's why we have things that have taken hundreds of years or 30, 20, 30 years to build is because people were keeping their thoughts together. They're not allowing them to escape into the world. And when those things would become a reality, people would start to realize that their thoughts could come together and make one amazing product, one amazing service. I mean we could even have cures to some of these diseases and other things that are out there in this world that we just don't know yet. We could be up in space. We could be colonizing another planet. I'm just throwing things out there.

Lucas P. Johnson: There's so much we can do if we would just let ourselves be, let ourselves be out there. And the more we compare and the more we, there are things in this world that allow us to compare is when we get lost over and over and over again and just brings so many emotions. Going back, 30 years of experience really allows you to overcome a lot of the obstacles that we're facing today. I'm grateful for you. So if you're listening right now and you have 30 years experience, send us a note, send us a message. Let's chat. I want to hear what experience you have that you want to share with this world and hell, we'll even bring it on the show. Love to hear it. So the last thing I want to bring up here in negative beliefs is haven't achieved anything worthwhile and also feeling alone.

Lucas P. Johnson: What considers that you haven't achieved anything worthwhile? Why do you feel that way? What's bringing you to that thought process? Why do you feel alone? What is making you feel alone? What scares me? In times I felt really, really alone. We all have. Every single person in this world has felt alone at one time or another. I know that I had surgery a few years back and I was sitting in the pre-op room and they made my family leave before I went into surgery because they were about to push me back. And something happened and I sat in there for an hour. And I was scared. I've never, never had like a real true surgery before. I was scared. I felt alone. I felt so alone. I was comparing myself, well, why does that person have their family still back here? When those people left, that person probably felt the same way. Why am I alone? You're not alone, my friend. There's people thinking about you. There's people that are praying for you even though you don't know it. Just the other day I was praying for someone that I haven't even met. Someone said, hey, they need the prayers.

Lucas P. Johnson: My brother just lost a really great friend of his. They served in the military together and Cory was telling me this and it was just sad, breathtaking. You know, life is short. This guy was young. And when people in your life all of a sudden disappear, they're always going to be a memory. They're always going to be around you somehow some way. But you comparing yourself to that one person that may no longer be on this earth. When do you allow yourself to say, okay, it's time. It's time to just be here for me.

Lucas P. Johnson: The person that my brother served with was from what, I didn't know him personally, but what he said was he was good man. And he died too young, very, very young. Died of cancer. And it's not my story to tell, but it's time to really reevaluate our lives and think about the things that are important because you never know how much time you have left. This guy was young. He was told that he had 24 hours to live. What would you do with your 24? He went from thinking he was going to have years to all of a sudden having 24 hours.

Lucas P. Johnson: So we're going to bring Cory on the show. We're going to talk about some other really deep topics. And Cory has a lot to say. But life's short and I'm sure if he was here right now, he'd echo that. Life is short. You need to take the time to really reevaluate where you want to be. Take the time to unlock new perspective. Take the time to find your purpose, passion in life. Uproot all the ways that you used to live and build a life that's worth living, that's worth the happiness, the joy that you have and the people that are going to make it so much better.

Lucas P. Johnson: Don't ever feel alone. Don't ever feel like people aren't there for you because we are. And you shouldn't compare to us because we're just like you. We all have our battles. We all have our demons. We all have those bad days. In fact, some lately more negative than others. But we all have them. So stop comparing. It's about damn time you lived your life on your own terms. About damn time you took on the next chapter and made the best decision for yourself and your future. So I want to go through a few things, help you break free. Be conscious of its effect on you. Be conscious of how comparison affects you and your mood. Once you kind of break free from that, you'll see that the positives will start to outweigh the negatives. You'll start seeing a lot more positive things happen in your life because comparison is no longer there. Don't be stuck on YouTube saying, all right, this person is so successful. They're making seven and a half million dollars because.

Lucas P. Johnson: All right, first off, it takes a long time to get there. And everyone has learning lessons. And two, just take that first step to make it a reality. Business takes a long time. And maybe it takes some people three months, but it takes other seven years, 10 years, two years, a year to get something that really blossoms. Visualize your own success. Understand what you've accomplished. Be aware of what you've accomplished. And don't take it for granted. Look to greater things. Look to greater things. What do you want to achieve? Pull out your dream journal. Pull it out and write down in your Dream Mastery journal, go ahead and write down the things that you're dreaming about right now. And if you don't have one, check it out. It's in the show notes. Look to greater things. You're going to accomplish them. Compete less and appreciate more. Be grateful. Compare yourself to where you were in the past to now. It's so simple. So remember those six things. Be conscious of its effects, visualize your own success, look to greater things, compete less and appreciate more, be grateful, compare yourself to where you were in the past to now. So simple. There's going to be give and takes in life, mountains and valleys. You just have to be ready to take them on. You have to be ready for the fight, my friend, because it's gonna take a long time to overcome some of those demons. But it's going to be super, super easy to do if you just break down, kick down the door and break through the wall of comparison. It's about damn time.

Lucas P. Johnson: So with that said, our show is completely listener supported. So please consider supporting us by checking out our Patreon membership community where you can become one of our elite supporters and gain exclusive access to early releases, live streams and Q&A. We have a few different tiers available with some pretty sweet perks. So make sure to check them out and consider supporting the show. Go to ProjectDreamMastery.com and click the red button that says become a Patreon to learn more. If you have not already, please make sure to review the show, subscribe, like and share so that we can reach more amazing listeners just like you. All of our shows are available in both audio, video and written form. So make sure to check out our website to access the full experience. Again, thank you so much for joining us today. We look forward to seeing you on the next episode to come. We'll talk to you soon.