When Our Friends Resent Our Success

In my early 20's I had my first taste of success, and like any idiot who has a couple of extra dollars (and typically happens to be a guy) I spent a bunch of money on a fancy sports car. It felt like a trophy for having accomplished something great. I couldn't wait to share it with my friends.

It... did not go well.

I had an old friend from Middle School in town the weekend that I bought it, and when I unveiled this shiny new toy, here's what I got: "Yeah, well, it must be nice." This may not shock you, but he was not happy about the situation. He resented it, and he resented my success. At the time I was truly shocked, but now having been down this road for a while, I'm well aware of why.

As Founders we often believe that our success will not only validate our own feelings but also validate our relationships in the external world, particularly in our own social circles. What we miss in that estimation is that we're only thinking about how it affects us — not the people on the other side.

How People Actually Process Our Success

Anyone who's spent 5 seconds on social media know exactly how other people's success is processed — as a reflection of our own inadequacy. What? You're the one person who doesn't feel that way? Amazing, that's going to make your understanding of how to deal with this problem 100x harder!

We're all brutally insecure, that's just the way life is. Because of that, we tend to reflect our insecurities in those around us. So when we see someone else doing well, our first thought isn't their success, it's the computation of how that compares to our own level of success, and if that computation suggests that they are "better than us" in some way — we often resent them based on our own insecurity.

This math forms the basis for our compounding issue. The more success we create, the larger our delta with the people in our world, and the greater the resentment. What we want — the personal validation, enjoying the fruits of our success, and celebrating with our peers — comes at a cost to them.

Should We Deflect or Attract?

There are many schools of thought as to how to approach this issue, ranging from "Who cares what others think?" to "I should keep my success a secret!" Both of those, in this Founder's opinion, are trying to avoid the issue rather than deal with it.

What I've found to work best in not just my life but also in watching other Founders navigate this successfully is a combination of self-awareness and humility. The self-awareness comes from simply recognizing that our success isn't the same win to everyone else that it is to us, and in fact, may actually be a cause for great stress and pain. If we're aware of how our behavior can "hurt" others, at least we begin thinking twice about making it worse.

The second is humility. Basically, picture the opposite of whatever Elon Musk would do. The most successful Founders I've seen who present their success, do so with an air of genuine humility. That doesn't mean hiding it, it means intentionally framing it in a way that allows others to appreciate what it took to get there and the appreciation for the others that helped us along the way. Gratitude goes for miles.

Can We Avoid Resentment Altogether?

Nope — and we shouldn't try to. When we start making it a full time effort to avoid resentment, we're willfully imprisoning ourselves. It's possible to be proud of our achievements without being a douchebag about it. Take it from a guy who spent the balance of his years being a douchebag about it. (In my defense I hadn't learned this lesson yet, so it'd cost me some important relationships to learn it.)

But at which point we're actively trying to avoid sharing our journey because we've built up this constant fear of how others react, we've already lost. Again, we're not prisoners to other people's insecurities, and that's no way to live. It's important that we don't go out of our way to stoke those insecurities (that's just not cool) but not by neutering our own accomplishments.

It's OK to be proud of our hard-won accomplishments. Yes, it will rub some folks the wrong way, and that's the way of the world. But if we're kind, humble and show a sincere amount of gratitude for our good fortune, we'll not only minimize that resentment, we'll earn the respect of those with whom we've earned it.

In Case You Missed It

The Emotional Cost of Being a Founder When we talk about building startups, we talk about lots of costs: Staffing costs, the cost of capital, cost per acquisition, and opportunity cost. But we never talk about the biggest cost – the emotional cost.

Why is Everyone Counting My Money? We worked for it, sacrificed our health and time, and at some point, even settled for less compensation for the company to grow. Still, Founders can't flaunt the money we make because some people find it appalling just because they don’t have it.

What Happens After I’ve “Made It” Success is a big deal, especially when we don't have it. But when we do, you’d be surprised at how we almost universally learn that the things that occupy our day are largely the same.