Your highest peak is built by others

I am what I am because of who we all are.

I came across an African word in Very Good Copy that might hold the secret to every breakthrough you’ve been chasing alone: Ubuntu.

In 1990, Ubuntu united South Africa, helping it survive apartheid.
In 2008, Ubuntu united the Boston Celtics, making them champions.

It carries a truth that terrifies the ego and frees the soul: “I am what I am because of who we all are.” That our success isn't threatened by someone else's greatness, but actually it’s incomplete without it.

Everything you've been taught about competition is a lie wrapped in loneliness. The myth that someone else's win means your loss has kept you small, scared, and separate from the very people who could lift you higher than you ever imagined.

We've been programmed to believe in scarcity. That there’s only room for one winner. One story. One success. And that belief leaves us starving alone, when we could be rising together.

Ubuntu offers another way. At my workplace, I’ve seen it rests on three principles:

• Celebrate others - Every breakthrough in your field is proof of possibility. Today it’s their turn. Tomorrow it’s yours. Keep clapping for others until you get there.

• Share everything - Keep nothing to yourself. Your ideas matter more when they help someone else climb.

• Connect intentionally - Keep close the people who challenge and inspire you, and let your presence do the same for them.

You can’t reach your highest self in isolation. You need a mountain of other people’s greatness to stand on. Because every person who rises in your field doesn’t take your spot but they expand the field. They prove more is possible. They stretch the universe of what can be achieved.

So find someone thriving in your space. Instead of envying them, thank them. They’re not taking your future. They’re revealing the path to it.

Because in the world of Ubuntu, there are no self-made successes.
Only we-made ones.
Andreea