Clapping for your friend’s win doesn’t take anything off your scoreboard.

Success feels like a fixed quantity and almost never is. Somebody near you doing well does not use up an opportunity you were going to have, and the sour feeling that arrives anyway is just comparison working exactly as it always has. The cost of that feeling is real though, and it goes straight into the friendship.

Notice the flinch when it comes and then do the opposite of what it wants. Say congratulations first, out loud, and mean the specific thing. Ask how they did it. Being genuinely pleased for people is rarer than being good at something, and it keeps you in rooms where good things happen.