Robert Parker, like many, enjoyed a glass of wine. In the mid 70s, he began writing about his passion. He was just an enthusiast. He didn’t have a horse in the race. He wasn’t associated with the industry and wasn’t trying to promote one winery over any other. What started as a hobby sharing his thoughts with other like-minded folks turned into a burgeoning business.
His newsletter became subscription driven. Other consumers were happy to pay to read what Parker was thinking about certain wines. He began to offer ratings for wines. He scored them on a variety of characteristics he considered important to a quality wine and assigned scores to a given vintage between 50 and 100 points. His “system” was seen as “objective” and without taint of being in favor of any vineyard.
A tipping point began when he encouraged producers to label their bottles with his score. The score led to increased sales and popularized many vineyards. The increased exposure a high score gave a given vineyard inspired and incented vineyards to try to gain Parker’s favor. They began to reorient their vintage to produce product that met Parker’s preferences. The vineyards were playing Parker’s game as their sales increased when their vintage scored highly in Parker’s rating.
Scoring 95, for example, instead of 85 could translate into millions of dollars of extra sales and profits for a producer. A top score of 100 allowed vineyards to charge up to four times as much as a lower scoring wine. By setting standards, Parker created a game that consumers and producers played of which he was a big beneficiary. His subscribership grew and continues today with over 50,000 subscribers. He’s been called “the most influential wine critic in the world.” Parker has also been referred to as “The Million Dollar Nose.” He’s since sold his publication business and has ridden off to retire in the sunset. Parker determined a set of standards and was the wizard of wine for more than a generation.
Not everyone believes Parker’s system is objective. They have their own taste preferences and criterion for quality. They aren’t happy that the industry seems focused on catering to Parker’s program as their interests are sidelined. They would prefer not to be playing Parker’s game. Chefs and food enthusiasts hate the ranking as it is done with small sips of wine with no food. Chefs seek to prepare food that complements a wine. This couldn’t be done as effectively when rankings were done independent of food. Whether you like Parker’s rating or not, his self-determined standards were impactful.
What game are you playing? More importantly, do you know whose game you are playing? Are these questions something you have thought about? So much of our life is built around comparing ourselves to others. Where do we stack up? Where do we fit in? Who am I better than? Who’s better than I am at X?
Our involvement in comparisons starts long before we’re aware of it. As newborns our growth rates in terms of height, weight, and more is compared to the “average”. This extends to school. It follows us through our lives into the job market where our resumes and our interview skills are constantly being compared with those of others. We are bombarded with articles and news stories about what the average income is or what the average savings are for our age. We are encouraged to compare ourselves to others in our jobs, in our finances, in how we spend our money and how we save it. We also read stories about relationships. What percent of women in an age group remain single. What percent of men are married by x age. We then extend our comparisons from relationships to children. How many children do you have relative to the average in your country? Comparisons are embedded in our fitness efforts. In cross fit gyms our workouts and performance are written on the wall to be compared with others. We use apps like Strava to detail where and when we have done routes. We see how we compare to others as others see how we compare to them. We are constantly wondering or looking for where do we fit in. How do we stack up in x group? Even in our down time at home on the couch playing with social media apps we’re caught up in comparisons. How many friends do we have? How many likes did my last post earn? How many comments did I receive on my post?
It’s natural to see how we stack up. We seem to be both wired to look around at others as well as being trained to do so by our cultural surroundings. Both nature and nurture conspire to cause us to compare. Psychologists have crafted “The Social Comparison Theory” to try to explain why we do what we do. Part of the drive to compare is based on our need to understand ourselves and where we fit in the world. We tend to look both at those outperforming us as well as those struggling. The former are considered upward comparisons, and the latter are downward. We make comparisons on any number of variables. It can be based on height, weight, age, intelligence, ability, social status, wealth, health, and on and on and on.
Psychologists have observed that we gravitate to downward comparisons when our ego has been threatened. For example, when we feel bad because of being criticized in some way, we then compare ourselves to someone who may be worse off than us in the area that we have been criticized. We do this, it’s suggested, to reduce the negative sting of criticism. Our minds tell us, “see, we can’t be that bad at x, Joey is obviously much worse.” We feel a little bit better about ourselves by comparing ourselves to those worse off. This may seem constructive and a beneficial result of comparison. However, if our self-esteem is based on the limitations of others, this isn’t a solid foundation. It also emphasizes differences between us and others. It isn’t a way to recognize the strengths or successes of others. It doesn’t bring us closer to them, it separates us from them. We start to look at others with disdain and think of them as less or as those that deserve where they are. Our empathy toward others is reduced.
More often, we’re comparing ourselves to those that are above us in some area. The upside of looking at those exemplifying characteristics or having things to which we aspire is that it gives us inspiration, hope, and, ideally, motivation. We want what they have so look at them for fuel to work toward what they have. The positive piece of comparing ourselves to those better at us is it can show us a way forward. It can give us direction. We want x, they have it, let’s figure out how to emulate them. If we can channel our comparison to use it as fuel to propel us forward, great. Comparison then serves a purpose. Unfortunately, upward comparisons all too easily convert to envy or lower self-esteem. We become embittered at the excellence of others. We feel bad about ourselves not having what others have. Both feelings are negative and reduce our willingness to work hard.
Both upward and downward comparisons conspire to cloud our visions. We view the lives of others one-dimensionally on the variable of comparison. For example, envying those that seem to “have it all”, that possess beauty or wealth relative to us assumes that the dimension of comparison is both worthwhile and responsible for only happiness and joy in their lives. We’re missing out on positive outcomes simply because of our lack on the dimension of comparison. We neglect to see either the work that may have gone into developing their advancement or the other struggles and suffering they experience in other aspects of their lives. We compare and see only what they have that we don’t and not the other problems or challenges they may have that are far more difficult than our own.
Teddy Roosevelt is typically credited with the quote, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” When we seek to stack up against others, we’re less likely to be happy. Without developing our own purpose, we spend much of our lives on autopilot, blindly following what we see others do. We will never develop our deepest potential or have great satisfaction with ourselves by taking this approach. Deep down we recognize we have abandoned ourselves. There will always be a pang of regret lying below the surface of our attention. At the root of comparison is a restlessness and anxiety. There’s nothing pleasurable about these feelings. William Irvine writes in, A Guide to the Good Life, “People are unhappy, the Stoics argue, in large part because they are confused about what is valuable. Because of their confusion, they spend their days pursuing things that, rather than making them happy, make them anxious and miserable. One of the things they mistakenly pursue is fame.” The problem with pursuing fame is that we’re giving power to others to determine whether we’re worthy or achieve what we think we want. In Four Seconds, Peter Bregman cautions writing, “There is good reason to learn from the wisdom of others. But there is also a cost: as we shape ourselves to the desires, preferences, and expectations of others, we risk losing ourselves.” To achieve the esteem of others we need to behave in a way that is calculated to make them admire us. This enslaves us to the opinion of others, it diminishes us. We give control to others who we can’t control. This means we put ourselves in a position in which it’s possible to never be happy. The vineyards ceded control of the production of their product to the preferences of Mr. Parker. It was Parker’s standard that dictated the business decision making of vineyards.
Working to earn the positive opinion of others forces us to live by the values set by those whose opinions we want to win. Do we even know that if we are successful and earn their favor that the things we’ve done will give us satisfaction? We should work to heed the wisdom of Epictetus who suggested, “If you are ever tempted to look for outside approval, realize that you have compromised your integrity. If you need a witness, be your own.” Lance Secretan writes in, Inspire, “society slowly clutters our inner awareness with its rules and pressures. And so we squeeze ourselves into the cookie-cutter molds that society deems to be best for us. With each effort to gain the approval of an external person or norm, whether these are our parents, our partners and spouses, our children, bureaucracies, institutions—‘them’ and ‘the rules’—we trade something of ourselves in exchange, until we eventually hollow ourselves out, becoming empty and, eventually, solely guided by the outer forces of life. Thus we become inauthentic and lose our wholeness. We become not ourselves, but as others would like us to be. We live in a paradigm created by others.”
In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius, considered the last of the great emperors, gave thought to the crush of comparisons on several occasions. In one verse, Aurelius writes, “I’m constantly amazed by how easily we love ourselves above all others, yet we put more stock in the opinion of others than in our own estimation of self. … How much credence we give to the opinions our peers have of us and how little to our very own.” In a separate entry, Aurelius observes, “How much time he gains who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks, but only at what he does himself, to make it just and holy.” There’s a cost to comparison. It’s in energy, time, and peace of mind. All are compromised by comparing to others. Those with self-determined standards avoid this depressing distraction and focus their energies and efforts on a direction they have detailed.
Bronnie Ware was a palliative care nurse in Australia that learned from those in the late stages of their lives. Ware uncovered that the number one regret of the dying is living a life that wasn’t true to oneself. We need to recognize that the only way to avoid this regret is to spend time thinking about and figuring out what we want our lives to stand for. Do you know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it? What is it you’re chasing? What’s the object of your game? Are you going after a standard that you’ve defined or are you aiming for that set by another?
Parrish points out that high performers aren’t casual about their development. They have high expectations of and for themselves. They are both aiming high and prepared to do the work to achieve their goals. Parrish writes in Clear Thinking, “Masters of their craft don’t merely want to check off a box and move on. They’re dedicated to what they do, and they keep at it. Master-level work requires near fanatical standards, so masters show us what our standards should be.” Parrish points out, “Champions don’t create the standards of excellence. The standards of excellence create champions.” That is, standards precede success. Stature is built on standards. Parrish notes, “We’ll never be exceptional at anything unless we raise our standards, both of ourselves and of what’s possible.”
Adam Grant writes of the acclaimed Japanese architect, Tadao Ando, in Hidden Potential. Grant notes that Ando regularly poses the following question to himself, “If this was the only work people saw of yours, would you be proud of it?” He is seeking his own standard of success. Ando offers, “What some other people think of my work is not my prime mover, it’s my desire to satisfy me, and to challenge myself.” Awards, financial compensation, status, or esteem aren’t drivers for Ando. His standards are personal. This is what we’re encouraging. True success, that which is fulfilling and long-lasting is striving for self-determined standards. You can only win when you’re playing your own game. Peace of mind is what you’ll find when you choose to chase your own race.
In How to Develop Your Personal Mission Statement, Stephen Covey gives us a bevy of questions to prompt the development of personal principles. Covey encourages readers to consider, “What is truly important in my life? What would I really like to be and do in my life? What are my greatest strengths? What are my talents, possibilities, and true potential? If I had unlimited time and resources, what would I do? What are my deepest priorities? Which relationships do I wish to be lasting? Who is the one person who has made the greatest positive impact in my life? What must I do, and how must I manage my life, to constantly nurture these vital relationships? What kind of person do I wish to become? What are the principles I would like to live by? What have been my happiest moments? How do I want to be remembered? And, finally, how can I serve others in a meaningful way throughout my life?” These questions offer a rich source upon which to reflect. They involve you getting clear about what you hold dear. None of these are about comparing yourself to others. None of these involve asking someone else what should be important to you.
Taking the time to both consider and create detailed responses to Covey’s questions will help you become like the person Epictetus described, “When someone is properly grounded in life, they shouldn’t have to look outside themselves for approval.” Ultimately, your goal becomes to be the kind of person Caroline Myss describes where she’s quoted in Secretan’s book. Myss offers, “When you do not seek or need external approval, you are at your most powerful. Nobody can disempower you emotionally or psychologically…You cannot live for prolonged periods of time within the polarity of being true to yourself and needing the approval of others.”
Consider those that exude self-confidence. What does it look like to be comfortable in one’s own skin? Those that have taken the time to learn who they are and what they stand for seem self-assured. They aren’t clamoring for the attention of others. They are clear on their own path. Their confidence stems from the value they place in themselves. They have a deep sense of self worth that flows from knowing why they are here. They recognize their life’s purpose. They recognize that their purpose was determined by them. They aren’t living someone else’ values. These folk aren’t looking to the left, right, in front, or behind them. A commonality amongst high-performers and fulfilled people in life is that they know what they’re seeking. They’ve consciously crafted their goal. They know their definition of success. They know their lane and have defined their game. They know who they are, what they stand for, and what’s important to them. They are content striving for their self-determined standards.
