Jealousy Will Eat You Alive

Chris Pirillo — Fri, 20 May 2011 04:48:24 +0000

No matter what line of work you choose, there will always be someone who does it better than you. You will find more prolific writers, smarter code monkeys and better designers. Finding someone to look up to is good, as is a little healthy competition. Jealousy, however, can eat you alive – even online – just as it did back in high school. That despicable green-eyed monster will do nothing more than bring you down and incapacitate you.

I don’t care how good you are, there are people out there who are better. It’s a fact of life. You’re never going to be “the” best, no matter how hard you try. You can – and should – strive to be the best you possible. Pushing yourself is a good thing. Trying to go beyond any limits you see yourself as having is fantastic. Striving to be exactly like the guy on the next blog – or better than him – is a complete waste of your time.

Who wants to read something that is already being done elsewhere? I know it’s insanely hard to find something unique and different to write, design or create every single day. Take something you find interesting and build on that. Add your own spin to it and do so in a way that brings it to life even more. Allow others to see your personal touch in everything you do, instead of thinking “oh, that’s exactly what I saw on Johnny’s site earlier.”

Being jealous of those who do things differently or better is plain ridiculous. What good will that do you? I see this happening constantly, even within our own community at times. So what if Sally writes better than you do? Are you putting forth your best effort? What more can you possibly ask of yourself?

The beautiful thing is that you don’t have to be Sally or Johnny. No one expects you to be the best, so you’re disappointing no one but you. We already know that there will always be more and “better,” so we don’t expect perfection everywhere we go. You’re the one putting that pressure on yoruself. It’s certainly not us.

The next time you feel yourself becoming jealous of what someone else does or has, remember that the only one who matters is you. When you look into the mirror at night, are you happy with what you see? If the answer is no, then reevaluate what YOU are doing, how you’re doing it and what you can do to make things better. Measuring yourself against everyone else isn’t going to cut it. You are the man (or woman!) in the mirror.

Jealousy Will Eat You Alive

YouTube vs. Google Video vs. Revver

Chris Pirillo — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 20:48:09 +0000

YouTube vs. Google Video vs. Revver

The idea here is that you have to press play on the following videos (in vertical order) so that they all stream to you at the same time. You may need to adjust the volume on each respective network, though. Press play on the top (YouTube) video, then immediately press play on the second (Google Video), and then press play on the third (Revver). Bam, bam, bam – and you should see ‘em playing back simultaneously.

And if you think this sounds crazy, you gotta see my Soapbox vs. YouTube vs. Break.com vs. Vimeo. vs. Jumpcut vs. Blip.tv vs. Metacafe vs. Revver vs. iFilm shootout after you’re done watching the following video brawl.

For now, on this page, make sure you scroll down far enough so that you can see all three videos on your screen at the same time, then press the play button for each video. This will only “work” if you play these videos on the same page together:

Because of inconsistent timing issues, each time you try this, you should see / hear slightly different results. My secondary interest lies in how many people view the video from the respective video hosting networks (though I believe that YouTube will draw the most eyeballs, Revver the most revenue, and Google the least everything). And if three videos isn’t enough for you, I’ve slapped nine video networks together, too.

To put this series of videos on your own blog or MySpace, copy and paste the following code into your page:

YouTube vs. Google Video vs. Revver

Chris Pirillo » competition

Jealousy Will Eat You Alive

YouTube vs. Google Video vs. Revver