Never claim or even think to be the best. This is a losing strategy. To be the best, you have to be the best continually. This means a constant effort to, well, be the best, and that's not easy. If you claim to be the best, you have to live up to what are pretty lofty goals. If you think you are the best, even though you may not be, you become complacent and risk losing your status.

The thing is, you learn much more by having someone better than you, and even just thinking that someone is better than you. Well, because they are different to you, they must be better than you at something, but by putting yourself on the lower pedestal, you open yourself up for learning.

As soon as you claim, or even think to be the best, you're kind of saying 'I've learned everything there is to learn, no one can be better than me.' Which is impossible. It's best to always be learning something new, and by claiming or even thinking that there's someone better than you, you learn more in the process.