Being compared to your cousin doesn’t mean you’re losing. It means someone forgot you’re running a different race.

A comparison only makes sense when two people are attempting the same thing, and most of the time you are not. Relatives reach for it because it is the simplest available measure and because they often cannot see what you are building. The mismatch is in the measuring instrument, not in you.

Get clear, for yourself, on what you are actually trying to do, since that is the only defense against someone else’s scale. You do not have to argue the point at dinner. Let the comparison sit there unanswered, and keep going at the thing nobody in the room has a number for yet.