Stop Comparing Your Business: Water Your Own Grass

Here's a thought I want you to sit with this Monday: the grass is greener where you water it. It's a concept that came up at the two-day retreat we hosted for Aligned CEO Method clients, and I haven't stopped thinking about it. When you know what your lane is and how to stay in it, you can get really rich there. I say this with love: if you decide you're a big deal, and that you don't believe in competition, the people who are meant for you will arrive.

🎧 Prefer to listen? This post began as Ep 632 of the My Aligned Purpose podcast. Listen on Apple Podcasts or listen on Spotify.

Why Comparison Is the Biggest Trap for Women Entrepreneurs

I've never been a perfectionist, and I'm not type A. But comparison? That has been my Achilles heel in business for years. I've fallen into it again and again, and I'll be honest about the season where it cost us the most.

Late 2023 into early 2024, I was watching one particular couple in business very closely. I knew their price points. I knew their launches and their revenue milestones, or at least what they said they were. Their ads were flashy and their marketing was great. I'd be in bed at night, phone in hand, feeling that panic in my chest: I'm behind, and they're so far ahead.

They were selling the passive income stream dream, with funnels that make sales while you sleep. Kaila had just had her second baby and was feeling run down, and it looked like an easier way. So we signed up. We forgot that we're a high-ticket, high-touch company that builds clientele through relationships and referrals.

What Happens When You Water Someone Else's Lawn

You can probably guess how this goes. We got on the inside and realized we'd been sold a dream. The coaches talking about big numbers didn't know how to systematize or automate anything. Everyone in the program was saying the same thing: this isn't working for me.

The cost was real. Q1 and Q2 of 2024 were our slowest stretch in business. We had about one sale in five months, because we were trying to do it their way, and their way didn't work. I felt guilty about that investment for a long time.

Here's the reframe that finally clicked. Every minute I spent looking over at someone else's lawn was a minute my own lawn dried out. I was fertilizing their grass with my attention while mine turned brown. And energy flows where attention goes, which makes comparison an energetic leak. When I'm scrolling and measuring and wondering why her and her, my energy is literally flowing out of my own field and into somebody else's.

That poor decision didn't make me swear off coaching, either. It made me get clear on the kind of mentor I wanted, which was people who build the way we build, through relationships and community. That led us to Chris and Lori Harder's mastermind, and since then I've invested in incredible leaders because they were right for me, not because their grass looked greener.

What Oprah Teaches Us About Staying in Your Lane

I love Oprah, so of course this is where the story goes. The Oprah Winfrey Show went national in 1986, the year I was born, and she was the queen of daytime. By the mid-1990s the landscape shifted. A wave of shock-value talk shows arrived, led by Jerry Springer, with screaming guests and chairs flying. In May of 1998, Springer actually beat Oprah in the ratings.

Imagine sitting with your team, looking at those numbers, while everyone tells you this is what the audience wants now. I'm not sure I would have held my ground. But Oprah didn't change the energy of her show. That same fall she launched Change Your Life TV and leaned all the way into what she loved: spirituality, personal growth, books, healing, purpose. The industry thought she was nuts. The show ran 25 seasons, and she built a multimedia empire off her own name.

The skill she modeled is awareness without abandonment. She knew exactly what was happening in her industry, and she still refused to switch up who she is in the name of metrics. You can know what's happening around you and stay 100 percent devoted to what you're building.

How to Build Self-Trust and Stay Consistent in Your Business

Here's what I want you to do over the next few days.

• Notice the ping. When you catch yourself on someone else's profile, just say, "Oh, there I am, watering their grass." Awareness comes first.
• Curate your garden. Your feed, your podcasts, your inbox. There's a little thing called the mute button. Ask whether each person inspires you or leaves you feeling less than.
• Define your own scoreboard. Oprah's was impact and meaning, so a monthly rating never got to tell her who she was. Is yours a certain income, more time with your kids, four days a week from the beach? Write it down.
• Pick your daily watering. One thing a day, like content or a conversation with a potential client, done even on the days you can't see results yet.

Consistency compounds. This podcast, the emails, the posts, the sales conversations, the offer we refined, the book that took us two years to write: it all stacks. When you keep hopping lanes, people notice, and when you don't trust yourself, it makes them wary of trusting you too. Your lane is also where your magic lives: your story, your voice, your isms. When you copy what's working for someone else, you water down the exact thing that makes you magnetic.

And self-trust may be the most magnetic energy there is. Every time someone tells me they're drawn to my energy, it's when I'm being authentically me, never when I'm doubting myself.

One more truth: this is hard to do alone. I tried building on my own for four years before meeting Kaila, and Kaila was doing the same on the other side of the world. When you build by yourself, the only reference point you have is whoever you're watching on your phone. That's exactly why we built Aligned CEO Method, so you can look inward at your own vision and your own numbers, with real support all around you and coaching every week.

Ready to stop watching other people's lawns? Take the free quiz to find your next step, join the newsletter for weekly encouragement, and explore Aligned CEO Method if you want coaching and community to help your grass grow.