Honestly, it’s perfectly all right to be competitive

If you want, says Rob Long, you can even hang a sign on the door

Show business people are competitive. I was with some stand-up comedians recently and when the subject of another stand-up comic came up, one of them said: “I know people like that guy, but I don’t get what all the fuss is about. He’s got basically one joke that he repeats over and over, with different wording.”

That may be true – I really don’t keep up with stand-up comedians. But the comment reminded me of a meeting I had long ago with a highly-awarded, well-regarded actor who mentioned another actor in his same basic age range, summing him up this way: “I know why the Academy felt like they had to give him the Oscar a few years back, but honestly, he turns in performances that are just … noise.”

I’m no different. Despite the fact that I’m basically an emotionally centred person who wishes everyone well – stop snickering – I have often made comments such as: “You think that writer is funny? Really? I mean, I know he’s successful but I hear he steals most of his material.”

Now, I told you those things so I could tell you this story:

A friend of mine has a nine-year-old son who plays baseball and is very serious about it. A few weeks ago, my friend noticed a note taped to the wall of his son’s bedroom.

“Be better than Ryan,” it said.

Ryan is another nine-year-old boy in my friend’s son’s class who is slightly better than he is at baseball – and slightly better, it turns out, at maths and a few other things.

The boy’s goal was clear and unambiguous: be better than Ryan. When they asked him about it, he told his parents that he taped up the note to keep himself focused.

So my friend and his wife did what progressive, modern, affluent parents are supposed to do. They attempted to persuade their son not to try so hard.

“We just want you to be the best you that you can be,” they said, aping the dialogue from a child-raising manual. They told him that they were concerned that he was placing too much emphasis on Ryan, and Ryan’s talents, and not enough on his own unique specialness.

“Why not think about changing the sign to something like, ‘Be better than yesterday’ or something?”

None of that worked, of course. All they got was the same look Southern California kids give their overly protective, smothering parents at sporting events when the parents pretend that no one is really keeping score.

“What’s the score?” you can ask a typical Los Angeles parent, and what you’ll get is: “That’s really not the point. We’re all about the spirit of play and the joy of good sportsmanship.”

“What’s the score?” you can ask any kid, and what you’ll get is: “Four to three and we’re killing them.”

My friend wasn’t ready to surrender to his son’s brutal ambition. He tried one last argument. “What happens,” he asked, “when Ryan comes over here after school to play? What if he sees that sign? What then?”

His nine year-old son assured him that he would remember to take the sign down before Ryan enters the house. So, it stayed up.

A few days ago, though, my friend’s son informed him that disaster had struck. Ryan had indeed come over to play after school, had seen the sign and, naturally, had demanded to know what’s up.

“Were you embarrassed?” my friend asked.

“A little,” his son said.

“So what did you do?” my friend asked.

“Well,” his son began matter-of-factly, “I told Ryan that I needed that sign to remind me to be better than him at baseball and maths and stuff.”

In other words, he told the truth. He revealed to his friend that he didn’t feel as good at baseball or maths or some other stuff as he was, that he intended to make up the difference, and that he thought about it every single day.

In other words, he did what no grown-up would ever do. He did what pretty much everyone in the entertainment industry cannot do, which is to say: “I want to be better than that other person”, rather than: “That other person isn’t so good.” His competitive streak may be raw and uncensored, but at least he’s harnessing it to useful ends.

“And then what happened?” his father asked.

His son shrugged. “We ate pizza.”

And that’s another thing people in the entertainment industry can’t do, though that’s mostly about avoiding gluten and not eating carbs.

Rob Long is a writer and producer based in Hollywood

On Twitter: @rcbl