Being Exceptional But Not The Best

I've Never Been the Best in the World at Anything

I am writing this email from Houston, where I traveled for the national championship game in college football. I flew out to support the football team of my alma mater, Washington. We came up short and lost to Michigan. My Indian readers may be experiencing similar emotions with the ICC World Cup defeat.

I feel terrible. The loss stings. I also feel terrible physically. A stomach bug hit me right when I landed. I didn't eat anything all day and barely made it to the stadium for the game. I can hardly lift my fingers to type out this email, so forgive me if it's brief.

After the game, it dawned on me that for some reason, it hurts more to finish near the top than it does to finish in the middle. Why is that?

Objectively, it shouldn't. If you finish near the top, you're better than 99% of the others.

In my own career, I've always been exceptional but never the absolute best. I'm a principal engineer, which represents the top 1-2% of engineers…