The Profit Builder Unscripted

The Hidden Cost of Comparison

• Episode 48

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Ever sat in a room full of successful people and suddenly felt like you didn’t measure up?

That happened to me this week in my mastermind group and it caught me off guard. I went from listening to others’ wins to second-guessing myself and questioning why I even showed up. Sound familiar?

In this episode of The Profit Builder Unscripted, I share a powerful moment of clarity that came from a swirl of self-judgment and comparison.

I’ll walk you through how I broke out of it, the surprising shift that happened in the group conversation, and what it taught me about connection, support, and choosing a different voice in your head.

This isn’t just about mindset—it’s about what makes real growth possible.

Tune in if you’ve ever let that inner critic get the mic. You might just walk away with a new way to show up for yourself and your business.

Resources mentioned in this episode: The Contractors Collective

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If you're a contractor and you find yourself sometimes comparing yourself with other people or being critical of yourself, you're going to make sure to listen to this episode. It is really a powerful lesson that I learned this week, or I should I say relearn this week that I think you'll find to be helpful. Hi, I'm Vicki Suiter. Welcome back to the Profit Builder Unscripted.

Have you ever found yourself judging yourself or comparing yourself to somebody else? You know, I think we've all had this experience as human beings. And I had this interesting experience earlier this week. I belong to a mastermind group. I've belonged to this group for many, many years. And I know all these people really well.

And I just started to notice as I was listening, you we at the beginning, we all kind of go around and do check-ins. And I noticed at the beginning of this session that as I was starting to listen to people, I was like more and more starting to judge myself, starting to compare myself, starting to have this whole conversation internally with, I'm not doing enough. I'm not.

I haven't gotten that project moved forward. I don't have anything good to report. I don't know why I even showed up for this meeting today. I should have said that I couldn't make it because I don't really have anything to move forward or that I get to like talk about in terms of my accomplishment or some great thing that I had happened in this last month. And whatever the reason was, whatever the story was about the why of it, was completely not even in the picture at that point, right? 

Have you ever had that experience where you're talking to somebody, maybe it's with a group of people or maybe even one person and they're talking about themselves or talking about what's going on. And then this little voice starts going off in your head about like, well, I'm not doing that or they're doing better than me or they got their act together more or that somebody else is something more or better and we're something less.

And the thing is I was, as I was listening and I, and I noticed that my, my, my level of frustration or really my level of self loathing, if you will, started to go up and started to increase as I was, you know, as I was sitting there longer. then this thought occurred to me and I was like, listen, you've known these people for a lot of years. What are you doing? And then this other voice inside my head said, well, even if you didn't know them for a lot of years.

What are you doing? Like this does not is not useful for you to be doing some type of compare. And then some little other voice in my head said, is there something that you can ask for help for right now from this group of people? Like, is there some way that you can allow them to contribute to you with wherever you're stuck? And, and I did, I actually, like when it came around to my turn, I kept passing.

Because I didn't want to be like I didn't want to talk after the first few people But it was good that I gave myself a little bit more time because in that process what I got to do was to stop and Really observe what was going on for me I got to observe that internal Critic it and that that voice inside of me that monkey mind that was comparing me to what everyone else had done Can can you relate to that like you ever have that happen?

And as I went through the, you know, when it came around to me and I just acknowledged what was going on for me. I'm like, I just spoke to what it was that I had been doing over there in my head of, you know, comparing myself and wanting to make myself wrong for whatever it is that I hadn't gotten done in the previous 30 days or hadn't done enough of in the last 30 days.

And you know, it got me thinking about how often this happens for us as human beings and how that sometimes we're not willing to acknowledge. I know for myself, I'm sometimes not willing to acknowledge when I'm stuck and I'm sometimes not willing to ask for help. And I'm not willing to, in my perception, feel bad. And the thing that was interesting is that as I started to share with the group, that what it actually did is it got the conversation very real for a moment. 

And it had everybody listen from a different place of, rather than people just sort of spewing about, did this and I got that done and life is great and it's all wonderful, to having this very deeply meaningful conversation and building these deeper connections with other people and people who are important to me in my life that I want to invest that time in.

And I realize that we don't want to have that level of conversation, maybe with everybody, and maybe not all the time. But I also think that it's really important that there's people in our life that we can talk to, people that we can have that space with to talk about how it really is for us, and that space to not compare ourselves with other people. And that space to... really feel that sense of safety and that sense of support from other people. I think it's really important for us to always, you know, find community around us that will allow us to do that and allow us to have people who care about us and who want to hear what's going on really as opposed to just all the great things in our lives. 

But I also think that the most important thing that I took away from that, other than I will say being deeply grateful for having this community that that I do have and that I really appreciate, is I think the other thing that was really a big takeaway for me that I was grateful that I had the ability to observe what I was doing. And I think that so much of our ability to affect change in our lives as human beings comes from our ability to observe what's going on with ourselves, whether it's the self-chatter in our head or... just to be able to sort of slow down and notice what are our thoughts, what are our feelings, what's the conversation going on between our two ears, long enough to be able to have choice about it. 

There's a lot of times probably, maybe you've been here too, but I know for me that if I'm in an environment that I think calls for a certain, like... you know, that if I'm up in front of a room and I'm speaking and I'm speaking about my experience and expertise, I'm not really talking about how not perfect I am, right? Well, sometimes I do, because I just think being authentic is important in my world. 

But I think that a lot of times our ability to be able to really create deep connections and deep and meaningful change in our life comes from when we can observe our own thoughts and our own feelings, our own behavior and stop and notice it and go, all right, is that really what I want to be doing? 

Is that, you know, so that I had that moment of being able to have a different choice. And so in that conversation earlier this week with my mastermind group, it was stopping noticing what I was doing, the head trash, the criticism, the self-deprecation that I was doing for myself that compare that I was doing with other people and that when I could stop and I could observe that I could make a different choice about it, which is what I did in the moment. So that's my invitation to you. My invitation to you is maybe stop and notice. 

Are you in a place in, you know, in your relationships and maybe it's business relationships, maybe it's networking groups, maybe you belong to a mastermind group or just know, business associates and people that you talk to, you fostering relationships that are based on honesty, authenticity? And more importantly, are you just being present and being able to be there without judging yourself and comparing yourself to other people? Are you able to just notice in the moment, hey, you know, am I judging? Am I judging myself? Am I judging somebody else?

Because the other thing I noticed, it's really interesting is that when I get into compare and I get into self judgment, I also start to judge other people. Right. Do you ever notice that? Like when you're, you're, you're starting to judge yourself and then you start to look for like, where's there, you know, where's there like loopholes with you will, where's their weaknesses in what that other person is, or you don't believe them. And it's just, isn't useful, you know, our ability to have a good experience in life and have deep connections and relationships with other people, I fundamentally believe starts and ends with our ability to notice and observe our own behavior, because ultimately we're the only ones we ever have control over. So if we want to have a different experience at all with other people, it starts with our relationship with ourselves, and how are we with ourselves?

And are we running some self-critic? And so then again, it comes back to, can I pause long enough to observe my own self-critic and then at the moment, be able to make a different choice in the moment and go, is that really the experience that I want to be having? All right, so I hope this has been thought-provoking for you. I would love to hear your thoughts. I would love if you had popped a note down below, sent me your feedback. I'd love to hear what you think. And...

I also want to extend another offer to you that if you don't have a community that supports you in your professional growth and development, if you don't have a community of people around you that can be a sounding board for you, then I invite you to definitely check out my group, my peer group called The Contractors Collective.

We have a few spots open right now and it is a great place for you to be able to get support in a group of like-minded business owners who are looking to grow their business and to be able to have those meaningful and supportive conversations with each other where there's no judgment. It's just a safe place where you get to show up and learn and grow. And it also includes coaching with me. So.

If you're interested, click on the link below, schedule a call. You can get some information about it, but on that page is a link to schedule a call with me, no obligation, but learn more about it, see if it's right for you. All right, thanks for being here. Thanks for being part of this community, and I look forward to seeing you next time on The Profit Builder Unscripted.


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Vicki Suiter

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