Neil Dudley: Ladies and gentlemen, here we go again, Straight From the Horse’s Mouth. This time, it’s going to be straight from Kasey Mock’s mouth. And it just makes me think, I don’t know why I said it, it is exactly like that, but Kasey and I had a conversation a couple of episodes back on the podcast, and a piece of that keeps replaying in my mind. That is comparison is bad. I’ve titled this episode Comparison…Bad!!! Now that could be a bit of an overstatement. I think we find a lot of value in comparison as long as it’s healthy. So bad comparison is bad. Measuring your happiness based on what you think somebody else has or allowing your happiness to be, I want to say kind of monitored or controlled by how you feel like you compare to someone else is very bad, and we want to discourage you from doing it. We’ll be playing a little clip from that episode of that conversation I had with Kasey. I want you to listen to it and think about what do you do to compare yourself to others and how that negatively impacts your thought process or what you think about yourself, what you tell yourself when you’re just alone.
I think for me, it’s very valuable to have an internal conversation with myself that is positive, that is uplifting. As a younger fella, I probably did spend quite a bit of time telling myself I’m not good enough, I’m not very good, I’m not good enough, I’m ugly, there’s a lot of reasons people don’t like me. And that was pretty much made up. It was all pretty much made up by me due to the fact that I was spending time, unnecessary time, unjustified time, comparing myself and the success that I thought I was having or could ever have to other people. I could even do that today. Like even right now, I can find somebody younger that has done big things, and I think my brain wants to immediately go to, wow, I must just not be very smart or very good because I didn’t do it that quick. I didn’t do that when I was that young. Well, that’s just my journey. It’s not necessarily that it means I’m bad or anything. If I had done it that young, it wouldn’t have been a good result in my life. I’m totally getting so much more comfortable with the truth that this is my journey. I don’t know when it ends, but from now on and each and every day, I look forward to the process of getting better. And I don’t measure myself compared to others. Yeah, other people have things that I want to have too. Hey, that just means we’re kind of like-minded. It doesn’t mean they’re better than me or that I wish I was them. They’ve just accomplished a thing that I want to accomplish. They’ve got to a level that I’d like to be. And not everything is monetary or not everything is some physical possession. I see people that have just levels of happiness, levels of contentment in who they are, what they are, what they’ve done with their life that I want to be, I’m working towards.
So, I encourage you to take some of this, what I’m talking about, and roll it around. I say that almost every episode. Just what I mean by that is think about it a little bit. It may not fit for you. It might be just right for you; it might be a perfect time in your life to hear something like don’t compare yourself to other people. Are you putting out max effort? Are you doing the things that you know you need to do to be the best you can be, then that’s all, that’s all you have to require of yourself. You don’t have to be that other person. Ed Mylett is a guy- Okay, if you just want to pick somebody that I aspire to be, or at least for his success in business and some of the toys he has, mainly his private plane, I would really love to have a private plane. I would love to have a private pilot’s license. So those are things that I’ve always wanted. It’s not just since Ed Mylett has one that I want one, but if I could get to that level, that’d be something that I could feel really accomplished about. If I never get it, I will not be a failure. I’m not going to believe that I must have not done anything God wanted me to do on this earth. That’s not true. So, I don’t spend my time comparing myself to Ed or the level of wealth he has, the level of influence. Look, I can compare this podcast to a lot of other podcasts and even the guys I work with, Johnny, Creed, Brandon, they’ve all kind of had to knock me around a little bit because I will get into that spiral where I’m like I’m only getting X amount of downloads. This must not be right. And they’re like, look, but you are getting X amount of downloads, that is progress, that’s quality, that’s good, so be happy with it.
I’m rambling a little bit just because I think this is such an important thing. So, people listen to me – comparison in a negative way, when you’re thinking they’re up on a pedestal and you can’t reach that or you haven’t so you’re less, is bad. Please don’t do it. Because every person that’s on that pedestal you’re putting them on was at some point not. And you just have to build yourself to do that. It’s going to be, for sure, once you get to where you want to go, you’re going to need that self-esteem that comes along with not comparing yourself and being proud of who you are. The things I do is gratitude. I spend time being grateful for the fact that as simple as I can type on a typewriter – not typewriter. How many of you even know what a typewriter is? Type on a keyboard. I have all my fingers, hands, my mental capacity. There’re so many things in my life I have huge gratitude for. So anytime I start comparing myself in a bad way to others and think, man, I don’t have everything I want to have, I don’t have what they have, I immediately go to the gratitude. Hey, look at this beautiful family I have. Look at how lucky am I to have the parents I have and the in-laws I have? We’re just so blessed in so many ways, it is really ridiculous to spend any time comparing myself to somebody else and thinking I’m nothing.
So, folks, please listen to that, think about that. I know it’s super valuable for me. I think it could be for you. Now, I want to play this little bit of a conversation I had with Kasey Mock. And after that, well, you’ll get a little outro and some good listening music by Mr. Byron Hill. Thank you so much. Straight from the Horse’s Mouth, folks, comparison is bad.
Kasey Mock: I could discuss this for days, Neil. We don’t have enough coffee. And we’re going to get into the afternoon and wish we had something else if we stayed on this topic. But here’s the deal – did I do as good as I could do? I tell people in our Sunday school class – we teach a, it’s not called Sunday school anymore, it’s life groups – I teach a life group at our church in Wimberley. And my wife and I have taught for 12 years, I guess, since we first got married. We were teaching in college when we met at Tarleton. So, we’ve taught a church group for that long. And I always told them, we’ve always kind of targeted young people, kind of late college, early career age people that are trying to find their place in life. They’re trying to meet a spouse and they’re trying to find their place in business and direction. And they’re moving off of being dependent on their parents, having to figure it out by themselves. And that’s a pretty intimidating place in life. And now all of a sudden, you’re measuring what you have compared to what somebody else has. And you’re used to the lifestyle that you had with your parents. And if you had successful parents and you had a nice house and a nice setup and nice horses and a nice truck and nice show animals and a nice ski boat, and all of a sudden, you’re in the business world and you got student loans and your own mortgages and your own trucks and your own stuff to pay for. And it turns out, it’s hard to afford that stuff. And so, I tell people all the time, don’t compare yourself because you don’t know the backstory. My wife and I worked really hard.
Neil Dudley: You don’t know the damage it does to your internal mindset or your internal little recorder that’s playing all the time that says you suck, you suck, you’re no good, look at how good they are.
Kasey Mock: And so many things in our world today engineer us to try to want that. You get on social media and what pops up? The things that you want that you’ve shopped for or browsed that you maybe want one day. Whereas 20 years ago, when we grew up, if I wanted something, if I wanted a new belt or I wanted a saddle or if I wanted a fishing rod or if I wanted a set of binoculars to go hunting with, I would have to go to Cabela’s or Academy or somewhere, I’d get the Cabela’s catalog back then, and I’d mark that page. I’d have to get it. And I knew what it was going to cost me. And I was going to go to that cotton field every morning, and I was going to hoe weeds, and I was going to walk that field until I got blisters on my feet as a nine-year-old and sweating my butt off. And I was going to hoe them weeds for $3 an hour so that I could save that money. And when I got enough money, I picked that catalog back up and I’d order that item.
Neil Dudley: Do you have a story-? Do you know-? Okay so, here’s- Don’t let me ping pong you.
Kasey Mock: But now I pick up my tablet or my phone and I turn it on and doesn’t matter what app I pull up, what pops up? That thing. That thing that everybody else has that I want. And so, it poisons our mind to start to think about that’s what success is. But you never compare yourself. Because I remember when we were first getting into business, man, we had friends that they had normal, old jobs, just normal jobs. I knew what they made because I knew where they worked, within range I knew what they made. But they had new cars and they had a big house and you’re wondering- we’re living in a duplex and driving old cars and we can barely pay our bills, and we’re thinking, gosh, what are we doing wrong? How are they winning? But you don’t know. And you learn their situations. Every example you can think of, they had a grandparent or a parent that died and left them a life insurance policy. I would never exchange a dead parent for a life insurance policy so that I could have their car or their truck. Or they lease everything they own, and they own nothing. Well, I don’t want that either. And I look up and I think, well, man, as a 22-year-old living in a duplex, but my vehicles are paid for and I got some money in the bank and I’ve got some businesses that are worth something, I think of all my friends, I’d take my place. So never compare yourself.
Neil Dudley: As you’re comparing, or I think of it like this, I’m comparing stuff to- I’m comparing myself to somebody else and the truth is there’s probably somebody comparing themselves to me. In any situation you’re at, there’s somebody that would take your spot and be so glad to have it. So just stop the comparison thing. It is hard. You have to practice it. You have to try. You have to spend time realizing, oh, I’m comparing myself, I don’t want to do that, I’m going to change my thought process.
Look, everybody, I got to thinking I also talked about comparison in the beauty world with Lacey Haegan, and I think it applies very much in this conversation, this Straight From the Horse’s Mouth episode. So, I had to jump in, go listen back to that episode, find a couple of the relevant clips – actually one, there’s one piece of the conversation I think applies really well here. And it just highlights how even the world will encourage you to compare yourself. And it’s just not associated with your self-worth. It is not a good idea when it is, for sure, when it’s perceived negatively. Anyways, listen to what Lacey has to say in this clip, and don’t take it like I don’t deal with these things. I’m totally, I have self-esteem issues. I have to work diligently to make sure I’m not spiraling into that, some kind of a bad internal conversation with myself. So, I want to encourage you, if you have to deal with anything like that, totally find ways to battle that and knock yourself out of it. Find friends that will support you that way. Thanks for listening. I hope so much this helps somebody in some way.
Lacey Haegan: I love to be able to like hug somebody and whether that’s physically or with some sort of experience, I would spend all of our budget on that all the time. Like that’s to me the most important thing. And I think it’s because I spent so many years working in the cosmetic industry and just feeling the feeling of women feeling sad or inadequate or like they weren’t pretty enough or good enough or had enough money to buy what they wanted. I’ve always loved to be able to be like, okay, well you’ve got this much money, great, here’s some extra things. Like let’s just make it a little more special. Or you’re not feeling great about yourself, stop looking at that picture. It’s got nothing to do with you. Like let’s hug it out. So that’s always been the piece that really was so impactful and moving to me and that’s the part, that’s really why I started my company. I love making products and I love the act of self-care, but really what it comes down to is when I realized that after helping, I don’t know, thousands of women, nobody had ever said to me, you know what, I’m just so beautiful. Like they always sat down and said, God, I’ve got under eye circles-
Neil Dudley: Oh, my third eyelash from the right is crooked.
Lacey Haegan: Yeah. Or like, it was just this reason of like why I’m ugly and like help me fix myself so I’m worthy. And I just want to eradicate that feeling, that thought process-
Neil Dudley: Do you ever feel like that?
Lacey Haegan: Yeah, absolutely.
Neil Dudley: I know, it’s the craziest thing. Like we’re sitting here, like, man, they’re crazy for being like that and I do it too. I’m like, man, my left nostril is bigger than the other. And that kind of looks funny when I’m on camera. Whatever, it’s just how you are. You got your nose laid over multiple times from other things – football or wrestling cattle, whatever it was. So, it’s just, it’s actually kind of cool when you think about it.
Lacey Haegan: Yeah. And you know what, at least you’ve got some cool battleground stories to tell about why. Like a lot of women just, they either are straight up told you’re ugly or they are just straight up told you’re fat or they’re straight up shown pictures of what perfect looks like. We understand our reality based on words and comparison. That’s how we understand differences and that, when it’s internalized and internalized and perceived as negative and associated with your self-worth and your value, it’s debilitating. And it’s also something we’re not allowed to really talk about, or it’s been very recent that we’ve been able to talk about it and be accepting of it and start really broadening the definition of what beauty is. And it’s not about what your face looks like or your body looks like. It’s about what are you doing out there in the world? How are we moving the needle forward on accepting each other? And like you said, rising the tide together.
Neil Dudley: Okay, everybody, that’s it. Hey, real quick, I want you to check the show notes because I added in a little bit of a snippet or a timestamp for an episode of the Ed Mylett show with Aubrey Marcus; that information ties really close to this particular conversation or this particular topic. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Straight From the Horse’s Mouth brought to you by the Cowboy Perspective. Love y’all.
I hope you guys found some value in this quick conversation. I’m going to be doing these Straight From the Horse’s Mouth, trying to nail down some specific things on topics for everyone so you get a little quicker listen. And if you want to get deeper, you can listen to these full episodes. Thanks everybody for listening.
Hey, if you like what we’re doing here, go to the website, thecowboyperspective.com and check out all the people that sponsor the podcast. They help me make this thing happen. If you have some need that they might be able to fulfil, I’d appreciate you doing some business with them. Thank you.
Now for your listening pleasure, a little Traversing the Trail from Mr. Byron Hill.