Be Prepared: Life Is A Competitive Domain

When you look at projects that succeed in life, most of the time, the people who run them are better prepared than projects that don’t.

Executing on your vision is hard. There are a lot of things you learn via some trial by fire dynamics and meanwhile your life is going to throw cornball distractions at you the whole time. Executing on your vision requires learning from the falls and figuring out how to make things happen.

In life there are decision makers and gate keepers and everyone else running to break through the door. 

The people you see getting opportunities figured how to work in some version of the system to prosper. 

The people who don’t, clearly weren’t competitive enough. 

There are 185 restaurants in my neighbourhood alone in Montreal

This data is based off Tripadvisor.com which means there are probably even more restaurants in the hood. 

Our part of town has 76000 or so people. The reality is, unless someone becomes an Uber Eats darling, it’s super hard to create long term sustainability in my hood without some competitive edge. As an example, Homer's opened up 2 blocks from another bakery that had to have had a short term impact on revenue as the months of donut lineups took place.

It may not be nice, but food is a competitive game and you need to stay relevant however you get it.

There are many strategies to winning, but outworking your competition will always be super effective, given you work on the right things.

While you may not need to compete with the world, you probably should be aware you’re competing in your own domain.

Even the company you work for is competing to stay alive

Most companies are going through it these days with inflation, AI and constant threats from all sorts of factors from war to Gen Z buying habits.

Basically the world is changing and a lot of well intentioned nice people are about to lose a lot of money. A bunch of other nice people, who adapt better, are going to make a lot of money. With big data, surgical level precision and crazy innovations people are creating their new competitive edge, millimetres at a time.

Many of us are taught some version of work hard, do it right and you’ll be rewarded.

The reality is history forgets most of us and very few people will ever achieve the grand vision they set in motion. 

It’s still worth giving it your all, 10% of your wildest dreams will be far better than complacency.

It’s okay to not be competitive, but remember that life is and will remain as such for awhile

Sometimes really valuable people are just not interested in competing.

They find the pressure of it all too much and are comfortable living in their little corner, playing the hand they were dealt and making the most of it. While I don’t understand that life, I do respect those people. The ones that actually play their part humbly because that’s what they really want.

They have a level of satisfaction that’s admirable. 

Most people just whine instead. That part I don’t get. If you complain without action, why bother. You need to do things to create new results. There’s no real short cuts.

Acting like life isn’t full of hustlers and sharks is a good way to get your food eaten. 

You don’t have to play the game per se, but align yourself with people who do if you really want to win.

Live Long and Prosper Everyone