August 9, 2025 | Read online
(special offer at the end of the newsletter)
As I sit here trying to come up with something meaningful to write for this week’s newsletter, I’m scrolling through Linkedin for ideas to see what other people are sharing and topics people are engaging on.
I’ve been doing this long enough to know better but these days, every time I open LinkedIn, I still find myself falling into the ‘comparison’ trap.
Objectively, things are going well. I’ve rebuilt my business (again) and it’s doing well, I’m doing work I love and trying to make a difference. My family is healthy, my bills are getting paid, and I’m hitting goals I set for myself years ago.
But the moment I start scrolling, I see someone else announcing a massive merger, closing a huge deal, launching a new AI product, or getting thousands of likes and comments on a post. This all inevitably makes me feel like I’m falling behind.
The truth is, “comparison is the thief of joy,” and social media (specifically Linkedin for me) is the perfect getaway driver. If you let it, it will convince you that you’re losing even when you’re winning.
It will also convince you that you’re the only one who’s struggling.
I remember, about a year and a half ago, when I was in the middle of trying to rebuild after going from $6M to $0 in 2 months during the 2023 Tech Industry crash, one of my peers in the industry called me to catch up.
He asked how I was doing and I told him I was going through the hardest 6 months of my entire career and explained what had happened.
When I was done he said “Oh…thank God…”
I was like - “WTF??? I just told you I was going through the worst 6 months of my business life and your response is - thank God?”
He went on to tell me that he thought he was the only one struggling because of all the stuff he was seeing on LinkedIn from everyone else, and the fact that I was struggling too made him feel a lot better.
Let me be crystal clear, if that’s the way you feel, I promise you, you’re not the only one.
So, this week’s newsletter is about trying to stay focused on what you can control and making sure you don’t fall into the same trap as me.
TACTICAL TIP:
The 1% Rule
One of my core principles is simple: stop trying to be better than everyone else. Just try to be 1% better than you were yesterday.
Now, let me be clear, I don’t nail this every day. That’s not the point. Some days I get worse. Some days I’m off my game, I miss opportunities, or I just don’t have it in me. That’s real life.
The goal isn’t perfection, it’s effort. It’s being able to look at yourself in the mirror at the end of the day and honestly say, “I got better today.”
And “better” doesn’t have to mean some massive leap. It could be making one more cold call than you wanted to, sending one extra follow-up, finally asking that tougher question in discovery, doing one extra pushup, or making someone else smile.
If you focus on getting 1% better every day, in about 50 days you’re effectively 50% better than when you started (I know that’s not exactly how the math works but you get the point).
Think about that - if I told you that two months from now you needed to be 50% better than you are today, you’d probably panic. You’re already trying your hardest, right? But when you break it down to small, daily gains, it becomes doable, and sustainable.
Here’s how to put it into practice:
- Pick one input metric that you can control like cold calls, follow-ups, LinkedIn posts, proposals sent or whatever matters most to your pipeline right now.
- Set yesterday’s number as your baseline.
- Beat it by 1% today. That might mean one more call, one more targeted follow-up, or one more DM to a prospect.
Do this for 90 days. Some days you’ll crush it, some days you’ll stumble. But over time, those small, imperfect gains will stack up. And you’ll be too focused on building your own momentum to waste energy comparing yourself to someone else’s feed.
SALES TECH/RESOURCES:
Tracking your progress
If you’re serious about getting 1% better every day, you need a way to capture and review your progress. You can use anything - Notion (not a sponsor), Google Sheets, even a pen-and-paper journal. The key is having a consistent system you’ll actually stick to.
Personally, I use Otter.ai (sponsor) because most of my improvements show up during live calls, and Otter makes it easy to capture those moments and review them later. Here’s my process:
- Record every call. Whether it’s a cold call, discovery, or client meeting, Otter automatically records and transcribes in real time so nothing gets lost.
- Highlight “1% moments.” After each call, I scan the transcript and highlight something I did better than yesterday. Maybe the way I handled a specific objection, or asked a better follow up question or how I “closed.”
- Tag for review. I tag those highlights as “Wins” so I can filter and find them quickly later.
- End-of-week review. At the end of each week, I go through all my tagged wins to spot patterns like what’s improving, what’s slipping, and where to focus next week.
This way, my “highlight reel” builds automatically over time. And when I have those days where I feel like I didn’t improve at all, I can scroll back and see proof that I’m trending in the right direction.
The tool you use is up to you. What matters is having a repeatable way to track those small daily gains because if you can see them, you can stack them.
(P.S. I’m doing a webinar with Otter on the 21st on how to confirm, control and follow up from meetings to make sure you maintain control and never get ghosted. Sign up today and get the templates and outlines I use for this.)
SALES FROM THE STREET:
Proud Dad Moment
If comparison is the thief of joy, then my daughter is the antidote for me.
I’m always proud of my daughter but this week there was an unexpected pride moment that I wanted to share because it highlights an important point.
We got an email from her school (see below) that she had received a “Departmental Distinction” in Science for her “unflagged curiosity and passion for the subject, positive attitude, and work ethic.”
Those are literally 4 of my favorite characteristics in anyone. They’re things you can really teach and with AI taking over IQ, these EQ traits will be more important than ever for humans to have.
To see my daughter recognized for them makes any other ‘thief of joy’ disappear.
SPECIAL OFFER
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I’ll be over-indexing on the first group so if you’re interested, schedule a call with me today: https://calendly.com/d/cs3b-3jb-gzx
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