Remember last week when I wrote about the exhausting irony of doing everything and nothing? About how we dilute our impact by spending energy outside our Circle of Influence?
Here’s what I didn’t say: Competition is the engine driving that exhaustion.
Ruchika Malhotra’s new book Uncompete names something I’ve been circling for years—that the competitive frame isn’t just exhausting, it’s making us sick. And it’s so subtle we don’t even see it anymore.
This 40-minute conversation rewired how I think about success, scarcity, and what it means to “win” in a world designed to make us feel like we’re always losing.
💡 Why Watch (60 Seconds to Decide)
Competition isn’t making us better—it’s making us anxious, isolated, and convinced there’s never enough. Even in “collaborative” fields like nonprofits and academia, we’re elbowing each other out of the way.
What if the alternative isn’t just “be nice”—but a fundamentally different system based on abundance, solidarity, and rest as resistance?
Ruchika Malhotra’s new book, Uncompete, calls this out — and offers a radical alternative: collaboration over comparison, abundance over scarcity, and solidarity over self-promotion.
This conversation challenges one of the most deeply ingrained rules of work and life — the unspoken belief that you have to be better than others, elbow people out of the way, or accept that the end justifies the means.
🔍 Key Insights From Our Conversation
Competition is so subtle it’s invisible.
It’s everywhere — even in supposedly collaborative fields like nonprofits, academia, and journalism.
We’ve accepted it as “how things work,” without questioning who that serves.
The system is designed to make you feel inadequate.
Competition doesn’t drive excellence; it drives insecurity and loneliness.
Children raised in competitive environments either chase external validation forever (hello, anxiety and depression) or never discover what they’re actually good at because it doesn’t “count.”
Your body is the battleground.
Especially for women and people of color, competition teaches that our bodies are tools of capitalism — resources for others’ advancement.
Rest becomes resistance. “For a short while,” Ruchika says, “even in a world that denies me this, my body belongs to me.”
Scarcity is real for marginalized people — but resistance is essential.
The playing field isn’t level. But replicating the same competitive patterns that created the inequity won’t fix it.
To uncompete is to refuse that script.
Uncompeting is about slowing down, not perfection.
You don’t have to change overnight — just pause the knee-jerk competitive reaction.
Ask: Do I really want this? What am I gaining or losing? Is the relationship more important?
Ancient wisdom knew what we forgot.
Many cultures understood that rest and embodiment were sacred, not indulgent.
Modern capitalism convinced us otherwise. Reclaiming rest, as scholars like Dr. Tricia Hersey and Dr. Sandra Dalton-Smith remind us, is spiritual, physical, and cultural restoration.
⏱ Timestamps & Bite-Size Highlights
[00:42] The radical reset: there’s room for all of us to succeed
[01:45] Why competition is so pervasive we no longer see it
[02:37] The unspoken rule even impact-driven leaders follow
[03:22] Five myths about competition (spoiler: burnout is just one)
[05:12] How the world is designed to make us feel not enough
[06:02] How competitive environments damage children
[32:33] Why embodiment was the hardest—and most vital—chapter to write
[33:25] Rest as radical resistance (Dr. Dalton-Smith’s seven types of rest)
[34:46] Rest is ancient wisdom, not laziness
[35:00] The most common object of competition? Your own body
[37:03] The promotion example: when your friend’s in the running too
[37:53] Scarcity is real—and resistance still essential
✨ One-Liners I Loved
“It’s so subtle and yet so pervasive… we rarely question it.”
“Competition doesn’t make us better; it makes us lonely.”
“Your body doesn’t belong to you. It’s a tool of capitalism.”
“For a short while, even in a world that denies me this, my body belongs to me.”
“Slow down that automatic process of sharp elbows out.”
“Do I really need to conform to this?”
👤 About Ruchika & Uncompete
Ruchika T. Malhotra is the founder of Candour, a global inclusion strategy firm, and author of Uncompete: Rejecting Competition to Unlock Success (Viking/Penguin, Nov 4, 2025 - help build the momentum of Uncompete and pre-order now!).
She also wrote Inclusion on Purpose (MIT Press’s top-selling book of 2022) and co-authored HBR.org’s top-100 most-read article, Stop Telling Women They Have Imposter Syndrome.
Learn more: ruchika.co | LinkedIn | Instagram @rtulshyan
💬 Let’s Keep Going
This conversation surfaced so many threads I want to pull on (rest as resistance, scarcity vs. abundance mindsets, how competition shows up in “collaborative” spaces…)
What hit hardest for you? Where do you see competition masquerading as motivation in your own work or life?
Drop a comment — I’m building the next essays from what matters most to you.
If this resonated, tap ♡, restack, or share with someone who’s exhausted from competing.
Hint: Maybe it’s the automatic response when a colleague gets recognition. Or the way you feel about someone else’s success. Or how you talk about your body. Or that voice that says “I have to be the best” even in spaces that claim to be collaborative. Any of that ring uncomfortably true? 👀
