I finally went to the gym the other day. I set my goal for a modest ten-minute mile and succeeded. When I was done, I stretched and watched the other joggers. Do you know what I saw? A bunch of people checking out their neighbor's treadmill. You know, the stealthy, sneak-a-peak, let's-see-if-I-can-beat-this-guy kind of look.

It made me think about the first time I joined a gym. I was fresh out of high school and fresh out of a way to exercise since I played basketball and softball year round. I didn't know where to start. So, I hopped on a treadmill and scoped out my neighbor's monitor. She was at 45 minutes and a 7.0 speed. If you know anything about treadmills, 7.0 is a sprint for most people. I assumed she ran the full 45 minutes at 7.0, and told myself I could do better. It became clear after three minutes there was no way I could keep up.

Are we programmed to be competitive from a young age? I remember playing team sports as a kid and winning was everything. In eighth grade I cried during half time because my coach yelled to the entire team it was my fault we were losing. There's always a winner and a loser, and I was determined never to lose.

I'm fairly new to social media (before three months ago I didn't even have a Facebook account) and I've been noticing a different trend. It's one of collaboration and respect. My previous aversion to social media sites spawned from a misconception that Facebook was a popularity contest and Twitter was for businesses. Now, I see an affinity for connecting with people based on collaboration, not competition. Where people embrace and promote others' ideas, instead of trying to one-up them.

Recently, during Michael Reynold's Twitter for Business seminar at SpinWeb, we had a brief discussion about the way businesses use social media. One guest pointed out collaboration is a necessity when using sites like Twitter because it leads to trust-based marketing. If you or your company cannot provide a requested service, it's quite common to suggest what was once considered a competitor.

Fortunately, I shed my competitive skin (for the most part) when I started college, mainly due to my coursework and a certain professor, but that's for another blog. I bet if I had just asked the girl on the treadmill next to me, she would have been happy to advise me and share some starter tips. Instead, I assumed she was standoffish and unfriendly. So what do you think? Are people naturally competitive? Or was that just me?