Do you want to know a secret? The most successful innovators don’t sit around and talk about how to beat their competition. They talk about creating solutions to problems and serving their customers well.
In a recent interview between Simon Sinek and Marie Forleo, Simon recounts giving two keynote talks at very different conventions: Microsoft and Apple.
"As I sat in the audience for the Microsoft event, the vast majority of the executives spent the vast majority of their presentations talking about how to beat Apple. At the Apple summit, 100% of the executives spent 100% of their presentations talking about how to help teachers teach and how to help students learn. One was obsessed with where they were going. The other one was obsessed with beating the competition." — Simon Sinek
Two vastly different perspectives demonstrate precisely how when we start focussing on the finite game and winning for the sake of beating our competition—we take our eye off of what truly matters. These practices might win in the finite game (a single product launch, a particular campaign), but they lose in the infinite game... the long term.
"The goal is not to beat your competition, the goal is to outlast your competition, and the only true competitor in the infinite game is yourself." — Simon Sinek
The only person you are truly competing against is yourself—the last product that you launched, the last wedding that you photographed, the version of you who showed up to work yesterday.