Im lucky I realized a long time ago that there is always someone better than you. The chance that you are the unmatched expert in an arbitrary field, no matter if it’s science, fantasy or anything else, goes close to zero. There are 8 billion people but probably not 8 billions subjects that can be mastered, not mentioning that it’s very likely that if someone is an expert in a field, they’re most likely also an expert in a very closely adjacent field.

Being the number 2 is perfectly fine, as is being number 3, number 100 or number 100 million. Just think about how if you have even just an average comprehension of something, you still have a better understanding than roughly 4 billion people.