Scott Schimmel (00:02.03)
For the past 20 something years, the most frequent conversation I've had professionally is with young people who are confused about what to do with their future. Time and time again, young people, especially when I'm asking, what are you planning on? What do you want? Where are you going? What's your plan? Come back with some version of I'm not sure. I don't know. And the ones that have a plan, the ones that will say something clear, also will admit and confess.
that they're not quite sure about it, that they don't have a lot of, whether it's confidence in that plan, they're just kind of making it up. I can think of maybe a count of total of two hands of young people I've met and talked to that have a very specific clear plan and then end up following it. They end up doing it. What happens to people? What prevents people from finding clarity?
and moving forward. I think what often happens and myself included that we get overwhelmed and when we feel overwhelmed, we get confused and confusion just breeds inactivity. We get paralyzed by confusion and feeling overwhelmed too much intensity. And the key part of all of that is comparison. Now comparison, in my opinion, and according to research can be a good thing. Comparison is how we learn.
Comparison is how babies, toddlers, young kids, adolescents, it's one of the most effective ways to learn a new skill, to learn behavior, to learn language, to understand interpersonal relationships. Other maybe ways to think about comparison are imitation, mimicry. We are by nature people that read the room.
And when we can't, when someone can't read the room or doesn't maybe lacks social awareness, emotional intelligence, even self -awareness, we would say something's wrong. Something's wrong with them. Maybe they're too egotistical. Maybe there's something, some sort of disorder that they are experiencing. But by and large, most people learn by imitation and comparison. We can look at someone like a role model and see something in that person that resonates deeply within us.
Scott Schimmel (02:25.902)
And then we would say, aspirationally, we want to become like that person. They embody a quality, a characteristic, an attribute that I see in myself and I want to explore more in myself and express more. And so I look at their life. I model myself after them. And there's to a tremendous degree that can be exceptionally helpful to somebody. But comparison in its uglier forms.
leads to feeling, like I mentioned, overwhelmed and confused, inactive, or worse, it can take you down a path that's not right for you. Last week, I had the opportunity to lead four separate column assemblies, workshops to my kids' high school, specifically the freshman class and a few others, but it was primarily the freshman class over four separate class periods.
And every single class period, I was joined by older student leaders. They were called ambassadors. They were a really select group of seniors on campus that were nominated and applied for, had to go through this rigorous process to get accepted to essentially represent the school. My experience with those ambassadors were they were the cream of the crop. They were fantastic kids, young adults, well -spoken.
mature, responsible, thoughtful, kind, easygoing, all the wonderful qualities you would imagine and hope for, let's say in your kids or other kids. And as I was leading and speaking and sharing stories and leading exercises with the freshmen, oftentimes I'd have one of those older students, they're all seniors, the senior ambassadors share a story from their life that was relevant to what the freshmen might be going through or could learn from.
And of all the things that they shared, which were a lot, there was one particular student, I'll call her Isla, who shared something. I didn't get her permission. That's why I changed her name. I don't think she'd mind. But what she shared impressed me more than I've been impressed in a long time. What she described was going through the college admissions process. And as she started to narrow down the list of schools that she was going to apply to, she started to notice and hear as as this happens all the time.
Scott Schimmel (04:46.062)
where her friends and peers, where they were applying to. And there's something that happens, and I remember this happening to me as well in high school as a senior. When you start hearing where other people are applying, and it all of a sudden throws your clarity out the window. If you had it already, if you knew, hey, this is the type of school, this is the kind of thing I'm into, and then you hear a friend say, I'm gonna apply to these schools, and it just throws a wrench in there.
It's one part FOMO. I don't want to miss out. It's another part like, well, if they think they're qualified for that school by gosh, I'm qualified. There's also layers of if if they get into that school and accepted and I don't know why I'd be missing out, but it'll say something about my worth or my abilities, my value. It just gets really overwhelming in that scenario. So she shared that and then also shared how she had been tempted as she was.
filling out the applications to present a version of herself that was not entirely accurate. In other words, to promote herself and tell stories through college essays that went beyond accuracy, which again, how common is that? And I was so impressed that she shared that. And even more so, she realized at some point, and I love to have her on the podcast and ask her more questions about that.
she realized at some level that that was disingenuous, inauthentic, and that in fact she didn't want to get accepted into schools that would have accepted her for someone that she actually wasn't. And so she rewrote the essays to tell the real honest, accurate story, which is probably, I didn't read them, I would imagine a little less impressive, a little less flashy, a little less dramatic, more honest and real. And here she waits.
having it's not acceptance season yet. She hasn't gotten any letters yet. Here she waits. I was so impressed by her courage to do that. And over the weekends, it was actually a couple of days later, I found myself in the same trap, the comparison trap, getting overwhelmed, confused. It was simple. I had a conversation with a guy who was interested in the work that we're doing with you school. And he in the course of a short conversation,
Scott Schimmel (07:09.262)
asked if I had heard or met people from these two other organizations, which I forget what they were. I don't remember. But as he asked me, I said, no, I hadn't. And I was on the call was looking up the websites of those two separate organizations. And they happen to do things that are similar or tangential to you school. And then this is all happening on a subconscious level. I'm not thinking about it. But after we got after we're done with the meeting.
I spent maybe three minutes looking at these two different websites, going to the, what do they do? And then quickly to the kind of like the about us, who are they? And kind of reading through what they offer. And the words and the phrases all kind of sound similar to what we do. And so, and I've lost count of how many times that scenario has happened to me over the last 12 years of leading the U school.
But I've had a variety of reactions. Here's how I reacted. Subconsciously, in my head, I thought, oh gosh, what am I even doing? I mean, other people are probably doing this way better. They look way more put together, thoughtful. They probably have a much bigger reach and scale. They're probably impacting more lives. They're probably having bigger staff.
And what I found myself doing is just feeling kind of not just overwhelmed, but sort of paralyzed. And the initiative, the drive, the passion, even the goals that I've set for myself over two days, just we're at a standstill. This is my confession. And I found myself because of that comparison, getting distracted from what I feel committed to and called to. Can you relate?
of learning how to be reflective is such an ongoing life skill. And so my question for you is whether you're a kid listening to this, a parent, a teacher, a coach, who do you find yourself comparing yourself to? Who, if you see them on social media or on LinkedIn and they make a post about a job or a new program they're starting or a
Scott Schimmel (09:35.47)
certificate they got or degree or a car they bought, a vacation they went on, a dinner they went out to, and you find yourself without even noticing it, following the trail of looking up that website and clicking on that link and looking up where that restaurant is and checking out the menu, see how much the prices are, looking up the sticker price of that car.
finding out what are the qualifications to get that job. And there's a mirror there back to you in that scenario, back to me of what am I doing? And why don't I have that? And how come I wasn't offered that? Or I don't know anybody or I haven't done anything yet. I mean, it just happened so quickly. And on the other hand, are there models of life, people that...
embody and emulate the things that you value. Who are they? So there's a, again, there's this fine line of comparison that can yield clarity for you, aspiration. It can put the kind of ideas to life, abstract thoughts into the flesh, but it can also distract you, discourage you, overwhelm you, confuse you.
to be a worst version of yourself. So, healthy imitation, healthy mimicry, healthy comparison can be extremely beneficial, but the key to it is intentional reflection.
