Why the success of others can sometimes feel like your loss

I had a moment this week that I suspect many of you might recognise. I was scrolling through LinkedIn - a quick "check-in" that turned into a ten-minute descent into a specific kind of professional gloom.

Have you ever had that experience? That sudden, uninvited sense that everyone else is winning a game you didn't even know was being played?

We’ll come back to that in a moment. But first, before we dive in, I have a small update on the book's progress.

Beta readers get started...

I am incredibly grateful to five kind people who have already started to help as beta readers for my book The Zero-Sum Illusion. Their early feedback is already helping me sharpen the tools in the manuscript.

I would love to have a few more voices from this community involved. If you are interested in getting an early look at a chapter or two, please just reply to this email. I promise it doesn't need to take a lot of your time - even 15 minutes of your perspective is immensely valuable to me.

So, there I was, scrolling through LinkedIn.

I saw a former colleague land a major position. I saw a peer’s post skyrocketing. I saw a competitor doing work I would have loved to lead. On the surface, I was happy for them. But deep down? I felt a dispiriting sting. It felt as though their "win" had somehow taken something away from me.

The author Gore Vidal once captured this feeling with brutal honesty and humour: "Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies."

While "friend" might be a stretch for many LinkedIn connection, sthe sentiment is the Zero-Sum Illusion in its most intimate form. It is the "Success Debt" - the feeling that there is a finite amount of status or achievement in the world, and they just took your slice. The feeling that "they" got something and you didn't.

The Ledger of Loss

Why does someone else’s success feel like a withdrawal from our own internal account?

Earlier this week, I had the chance to speak with Professor Jay van Bavel, a social neuroscientist at New York University. Jay pointed out that our brains are incredibly sensitive to Realistic Conflict Theory.

It sounds academic and somewhat impenetrable, but the "realistic" part simply means the conflict is rooted in a competition for what we perceive as real, limited resources - like a promotion, a success, or even just social status - where we believe that for one person to get it, another must go without. Historically, we evolved in environments where resources truly were limited. If a rival group found the best hunting ground, it meant yours didn't.

Jay explained that our brains haven't quite caught up to the 21st century. We treat "symbolic threats" - like a peer’s promotion or a competitor’s viral post - with the same neurological urgency as a physical threat to our survival. When the amygdala detects a threat to our relative status, it triggers a defensive, zero-sum reaction.

The £/€/$10 Problem

This is compounded by Loss Aversion, a phenomenon famously explored by Daniel Kahneman (the Nobel laureate behind Thinking, Fast and Slow).

Kahneman and Amos Tversky demonstrated that the pain of losing is roughly twice as powerful as the joy of gaining. In their experiments, they found that people typically wouldn't bet on a coin flip unless the potential gain was at least double the potential loss. Losing £10 hurts far more than finding £10 feels good.

When we apply this to social success, the effect is profound. Because our brains are "loss-averse", we don't just see a peer’s success as a neutral event. We perceive it as a loss of relative standing. In the internal ledger of your brain, you feel like you’ve just lost £10, even though your own circumstances haven't changed by a single penny.

Are you playing a Zero-Sum Game?

Readers of this newsletter are often high-achievers, which makes us more susceptible to this, not less. We are wired to track progress. But as Jay and I discussed, the first step to breaking the illusion is simply to name it.

How do you see the world?

During our conversation, Jay mentioned a specific tool used in research: the Scale of Zero - Sum Beliefs. It measures the extent to which we view the world through this "me or them" lens.

I was so fascinated by this that I have put together a short version of this assessment for you to try. It is one of the MANY tools that you will get access to in my upcoming book. But you can try it now:

Take the Zero-Sum Belief Survey here

It consists of 12 questions and takes about two minutes. There are no right or wrong answers, but it will give you an immediate, personalised insight into how your brain is currently "weighting" competition versus cooperation, along with some additional research and insights.

When you feel that sting, ask yourself: Is this a real loss of resource, or is it just my ancient brain running an outdated calculation?

Success is rarely a fixed pie. Usually, it's more like a candle - one person’s light doesn't diminish yours; it just makes the room brighter.

What I'm (re)reading this week

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. It is the definitive guide to the "bugs" in our internal operating system. It explains why we are so prone to the Zero-Sum Illusion, even when the logic doesn't stack up.

The Big Idea: Our brains operate using two systems. System 1 is fast, instinctive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and logical. Most "zero-sum" thinking happens in System 1 - it is an ancient survival reflex that incorrectly treats modern social status as a finite physical resource. To break the illusion, we have to consciously engage System 2 to "fact-check" our feelings of loss.

This is the book where I originally found the "Two Things Are True" framework. It provides the perfect antidote to zero-sum thinking by proving we don't have to choose between two seemingly oppositional realities (like holding a firm boundary while still being deeply empathetic). Dr Becky also advocates for finding the "Most Generous Interpretation" (MGI) of someone's behaviour - looking past the immediate friction to the unmet need beneath it. It is a fantastic read for anyone leading a team, managing a household, or just trying to navigate difficult relationships.

Key Quote:

"The response to losses is more than twice as strong as the response to gains. Loss aversion is a powerful conservative force that favours minimal changes from the status quo."

Best wishes,

Grant

PS To chat about how these ideas apply to your own work or leadership, reply to this email. I’m booking 15-minute virtual coffees and would love to meet you. Book it directly in my calendar here.

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