nicholasbraman.com

Tag: Growth

  • Learning From the People Ahead of Us

    Learning From the People Ahead of Us

    I wrote this in a season where I was obsessing over podcast downloads and social media numbers, watching other people’s projects race ahead of mine. I kept trying to stop comparing myself to them, but that never really worked. So I started asking a different question instead: what if comparison could be useful?

    I’ve been thinking a lot about the phrase “Comparison is the thief of joy”. As I’ve been spending more time working on my podcast and social media, it’s easy to get caught up in the numbers and worrying about what other people are doing. But when I started to really follow other creators and examine the work they are putting out, I realized that comparison could be a tool for me to learn from, rather than a discouragement. Everyone can teach us something, so rather than focusing on feeling jealous of the people ahead of me, I started to see what I could learn from them. I didn’t stop comparing myself, but I started framing it differently.

    Research helped me make sense of what I was experiencing. Comparison happens automatically: we size ourselves up without thinking. Sometimes it shows up as pride when we’re doing well, sometimes as admiration for what others have achieved, and sometimes as envy (Crusius & Lange, 2017; Smith, 2000; Steckler & Tracy, 2014). Recognizing these reactions as normal made it easier to separate the emotion from the information. That shift turned comparison from something discouraging into something useful, as long as I stayed grounded in who I am and what I’m actually trying to build.

    Most of us have thought about putting together the ultimate athlete or hero by taking the best attributes of different people and combining them into something unstoppable. As I compared myself to others, I realized I could do the same thing with them. One person is super good at speaking, another at editing, another at creating systems. All of these were areas I could take lessons from and apply to my own work. And as I did this more, I also found that I gained more actionable insights from comparing myself to people who aren’t too far ahead of me. It’s great to look up to a New York Times bestselling author or the top podcasts in the world, but they are playing in another league; the rules and lessons aren’t the same.

    Research supports this. Studies show that comparing ourselves to people who are similar to ourselves, in socio-economic background, status, age, etc., increases inspiration over discouragement (Andreeva, Irina & Kim, Youllee & Chung, Sungeun 2024). I’ve found it isn’t useful to look at people who are too far ahead of you in their journey. Look at those who are just a little further down your path. That will give you inspiration to achieve what they have instead of facing a seemingly insurmountable gap. You can identify with where they are and what they’ve done, and recognize the areas where they have progressed ahead of you. If you want to get better at basketball, don’t look to Michael Jordan as an example of where you want to get to; look at the guy in your neighborhood who outscores you in pick-up games. If someone slightly ahead of you can do it, then it feels possible for you.

    Comparison isn’t something we can switch off, and psychology shows it happens whether we want it to or not. So instead of fighting it, I try to use it with intention. I look for people whose next step could realistically be mine, and when I notice that familiar pang of envy or inadequacy, I’ve learned to pause and ask what I can learn from the moment. Now, when I compare myself to others, I’m looking for direction, not validation. Comparison hasn’t stopped being part of my experience, but it’s stopped stealing my joy.

  • Living as a Work in Progress

    Living as a Work in Progress

    Change has always fascinated me, how we deal with it, resist it, or grow through it. After years of working in marketing, building teams, and talking to dozens of people about their journeys, I’ve realized that adaptability isn’t just a professional skill. It’s a life skill. The way we respond to change often determines not only our success, but also our sense of meaning and peace.

    Benjamin Franklin famously said that the only things certain in life are death and taxes. I’d add one more to that list: change.

    The world and our lives shift constantly, whether we want them to or not. Sometimes we move forward, sometimes we take two steps back, but whichever direction we’re heading, change never stops. Our lives will always be a work in progress, no matter how much we achieve. I used to think there was a finish line, some marker of success that would finally make me feel like I’d made it. Now I know that line just keeps moving further down the road.

    Over the past year, I’ve talked to more than 30 people on my podcast, and every one of them has had new challenges to overcome, no matter what stage they were in. From an entrepreneur with a successful startup looking to scale, to an artist with global shows seeking new ways to express herself, to a two-time Olympian building a new career, everyone, regardless of how far they’ve come, still faces change. Sometimes it’s internal, sometimes external. Sometimes it’s a challenge, sometimes an opportunity. But it’s always there.

    Researchers who study adaptability call this self-regulation through change, the ability to adjust our mindset, goals, or direction as our circumstances evolve. It’s what allows people to keep growing even when the path ahead isn’t clear. The opposite isn’t failure; it’s rigidity.

    Seeing life as a work in progress has been comforting. There’s no race to get anywhere; the progress comes from the work itself. I was a late bloomer, starting my corporate career when I was almost 30, but looking back, that didn’t hold me back. What mattered at every stage was how fast and how well I adapted to my situation at the time. The times I felt stagnant were when I wasn’t adapting or driving change. The times I grew fastest were when I was challenged, taking risks, and putting myself in new situations. Change forces us to evolve. We can resist it and be dragged forward, or we can embrace it and move with it.

    In jiu-jitsu, black belts often say that earning the highest rank is like starting over. After the ten or more years it takes to reach that level, thousands of hours of sweating, sparring, and drilling, they feel like beginners again. That mindset reframes the journey, from what’s been achieved to an open world of new possibilities. Our lives are like that too: not a game of levels and linear progress, but a river of currents and eddies where progress is measured by how well we flow, not how far we’ve come.

    Life keeps moving. We’re surrounded by people finding their own ways, shaping their own paths. Sometimes we feel ahead, sometimes behind, but that’s not what matters. There’s always another mountain to climb, another storm to endure. The story doesn’t end; we just keep writing new chapters.

    I keep coming back to this idea: change never stops, but growth is optional. The difference lies in how willing we are to adapt.