Gaps, Gains and Gratitude

Business is Good with Chris Cooper

Comparison is the thief of joy.

Theodore Roosevelt

Entrepreneurs spend most of their time looking for the next problem to solve.

This is often good for business, but bad for the entrepreneur.

According to Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy in The Gap and the Gain, "Gap Thinking means looking at the distance between where we are and where we want to be (or comparing ourselves to what other people have achieved)."

When you're "in the gap", you can't be happy, because you're always desiring the next thing - the next revenue milestone, the next acquisition, the next hire. Unfortunately, this means you can never be happy, no matter how successful you are.

Sullivan's advice is to focus on "The Gain": look back at your progress you've already made. He calls this "measuring backward, not forward" - which means comparing your current position against your former position, instead of your ideal position.

You have an ideal in your mind, and you're measuring yourself against your ideal, rather than against the actual progress you've made. This is why you're unhappy with what you've done, and it's probably why you're unhappy with everything in your life. Don't let your past be forgotten. Always measure backward.

Dan Sullivan

This makes conceptual sense. Buddhists have been preaching the pitfalls of comparison and desire for millennia. But in a world of constant comparison, where we're watching everyone else's highlight reel on Instagram every single day, how do we avoid comparison--or even jealousy?

Here's how to build the habit of living in "The Gain".

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