Why Toxic Competition Feels Normal (But Isn't) | Snapshots with Imam Tom Facchine

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Snapshots with Imam Tom Facchine

Why Toxic Competition Feels Normal (But Isn't) | Snapshots with Imam Tom Facchine

Somewhere between ambition and envy, a lot of us start measuring our worth by other people's numbers. Without realizing it, we can begin hoping to see them stumble. In this Snapshot, Imam Tom Facchine names this pattern directly: toxic competition, and traces it back to a simple shift in where we're looking.

This episode covers:

— The moment a young creator's honest confession revealed a bigger problem

— Why the Prophet (s) instructed us to look at those below us, not above

— How envy quietly disguises itself as ambition

— What it actually looks like to root for someone who could be seen as your competition

Watch on YouTube

This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings.

00:00Once we had a young content creator approach us and he asked for advice and I really appreciated it because he was very, very open and vulnerable.

00:12He told us, "When I see other creators that are doing some of the things that I do or they're kind of in my lane and I see that they're succeeding, I get a little bit jealous.

00:20And I wonder if that is an indication of something that's wrong with me." And he asked for advice. He was very, very open. He said, "What should I do?" And we commended him for being so open and vulnerable, but we realized that this is a systemic problem.

00:33That if you're not careful, you're going to be looking at other people as rivals. Toxic competition with other people—that you want to see them fail or you want to succeed at their expense.

00:43And this reminds me of a hadith of the Prophet ﷺ in a slightly different context, but it's relevant. Narrated from Abu Hurayra (may Allah be pleased with him) who said that the Messenger ﷺ said, "Look at those below you and do not look at those above you, lest you belittle the favors of Allah."

00:57And that's narrated in Sahih Muslim. We have to be grateful for what we have. And part of being grateful is actually looking at people that are down the chain from us.

01:06Now, I'm going somewhere with this. That means that if all you spend your time doing is looking at those above you, and we're going to take this into the social media space or in the content creator space,

01:18then it's easy to feel like other people that are at your level or below your level are competitors.

01:25Meaning that you're so obsessed with chasing however many followers or whatever type of platform or notoriety or fame that you're trying to get, that you're going to slip into looking at other people as competitors.

01:38Now, when the Prophet ﷺ said to look at the people below you, it is an important reminder to be grateful for what you've been given. And that's a keyword—been given, right? It's not by your own amazingness or awesomeness.

01:50It's by the rizq of Allah ﷻ. Allah ﷻ chooses certain people, gives certain people a platform. And there are some people that are amazing with amazing things to say, that are brilliant people, that have like one follower or two followers or no followers and no one knows about them.

02:03So realize that this is from a rizq from Allah ﷻ, and that'll change the way that you look at those people who are, quote-unquote, at your level or below—that they're not actually your competitors.

02:13They're actually your potential salvation. They're your potential raw material for worshipping Allah ﷻ and really bringing something healthy to the online space or the content creator space,

02:26which is collaboration, which is nasihah—something we've been harping on a lot lately—this loyalty, being true to one another. And so when it came to this young man and the advice that we gave him, we said,

02:36it's kind of natural to feel that way and to be a little bit territorial and a little bit competitive. And then someone's going to reach out to you in like an email or a DM and they're going to want to collaborate.

02:45You're going to maybe feel that pull to not want to collaborate with them because they're competition or whatever. How do you fight against that? You go out of your way to collaborate with that person.

02:54You go out of your way to try to lift people up. You go out of your way to give time to people that are, quote-unquote, beneath you. And in addition to that, you try to put people on and you get happy.

03:06And this is a real, real important metric: you get happy at other people's success. If someone ends up surpassing you, goes super viral and is having a really good impact on people, you're happy for them.

03:17And guess what? If you collaborated with them, you're actually part of that success story and you're part of that process. And even if nobody knows about it, then Allah ﷻ knows about it. And Allah ﷻ will write it down within your good deeds and things that you did as an act of righteousness.

03:30And the last thing—other than sharing resources and sharing tips and sharing networks and uplifting each other through collaboration— in addition, the very, very simple thing, the very bare minimum is: pray for them.

03:42If you want to take the thing out of your heart, pray for their success. And you know that if you pray for something for someone, the angels say "Ameen" and for you too. Though that's not the point. The point is that it's a transformative habit.

03:52That transformative habit means that, yeah, it's not me against the world and me against this creator and that creator. And if, oh, if this creator had a scandal and goes down, that means more viewers for me. No, no, that's not what we're doing here as Muslims, in sha Allah.

04:06That we actually want everybody to succeed. We want everybody to be able to collaborate. We want everybody to be able to work together. And that's going to not only uplift all of our work and make for a stronger ecosystem and a healthier, more pious, more righteous ecosystem,

04:20but it's also going to pay off in the afterlife.

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