My Competitor Is Me Quotes

My eyes fall to his chest that is far too close, reminding me that we are far too close for competitors, for enemies in these Trials. And yet, here I am, dancing with him in his bedroom. Alone. In the dark.

But yet let me lament With tears as sovereign as the blood of hearts That thou my brother, my competitor In top of all design, my mate in empire, Friend and companion in the front of war, The arm of mine own body, and the heart Where mine his thoughts did kindle—that our stars Unreconcilable should divide Our equalness to this.

Since as far back as I could remember, I'd felt that Lisa's responses toward me usually bordered on the brink of hostility. Years later, a therapist would explain that growing up with few resources had turned us into competitors- over food, over our parents' love, over everything. At the moment, we were competing for who had the better handle on Ma's illness, and we both knew she was winning.

You might be thinking, “But what if someone steals my idea?” Trust me: most of us don’t have the spare time to start a company with your great idea, and even if we did, it’s going to be up to you to outexecute your competitors. You’re

The Peacemaker Colt has now been in production, without change in design, for a century. Buy one to-day and it would be indistinguishable from the one Wyatt Earp wore when he was the Marshal of Dodge City. It is the oldest hand-gun in the world, without question the most famous and, if efficiency in its designated task of maiming and killing be taken as criterion of its worth, then it is also probably the best hand-gun ever made. It is no light thing, it is true, to be wounded by some of the Peacemaker’s more highly esteemed competitors, such as the Luger or Mauser: but the high-velocity, narrow-calibre, steel-cased shell from either of those just goes straight through you, leaving a small neat hole in its wake and spending the bulk of its energy on the distant landscape whereas the large and unjacketed soft-nosed lead bullet from the Colt mushrooms on impact, tearing and smashing bone and muscle and tissue as it goes and expending all its energy on you. In short when a Peacemaker’s bullet hits you in, say, the leg, you don’t curse, step into shelter, roll and light a cigarette one-handed then smartly shoot your assailant between the eyes. When a Peacemaker bullet hits your leg you fall to the ground unconscious, and if it hits the thigh-bone and you are lucky enough to survive the torn arteries and shock, then you will never walk again without crutches because a totally disintegrated femur leaves the surgeon with no option but to cut your leg off. And so I stood absolutely motionless, not breathing, for the Peacemaker Colt that had prompted this unpleasant train of thought was pointed directly at my right thigh. Another thing about the Peacemaker: because of the very heavy and varying trigger pressure required to operate the semi-automatic mechanism, it can be wildly inaccurate unless held in a strong and steady hand. There was no such hope here. The hand that held the Colt, the hand that lay so lightly yet purposefully on the radio-operator’s table, was the steadiest hand I’ve ever seen. It was literally motionless. I could see the hand very clearly. The light in the radio cabin was very dim, the rheostat of the angled table lamp had been turned down until only a faint pool of yellow fell on the scratched metal of the table, cutting the arm off at the cuff, but the hand was very clear. Rock-steady, the gun could have lain no quieter in the marbled hand of a statue. Beyond the pool of light I could half sense, half see the dark outline of a figure leaning back against the bulkhead, head slightly tilted to one side, the white gleam of unwinking eyes under the peak of a hat. My eyes went back to the hand. The angle of the Colt hadn’t varied by a fraction of a degree. Unconsciously, almost, I braced my right leg to meet the impending shock. Defensively, this was a very good move, about as useful as holding up a sheet of newspaper in front of me. I wished to God that Colonel Sam Colt had gone in for inventing something else, something useful, like safety-pins.

Unfortunately, my experience serving under this president has left me convinced Trump is shifting America into reverse. He’s not positioning us to strengthen our empire of liberty. Instead he’s left the empire’s flank vulnerable to power-hungry competitors.

The Book of Oogenesis In the beginning were the gametes. And though there was sex, lo, there was no gender, and life was in balance. And God said, “Let there be Sperm”: and some seeds did shrivel in size and grow cheap to make, and they did flood the market. And God said, “Let there be Eggs”: and other seeds were afflicted by a plague of Sperm. And yea, few of them bore fruit, for Sperm brought no food for the zygote, and only the largest Eggs could make up the shortfall. And these grew yet larger in the fullness of time. And God put the Eggs into a womb, and said, “Wait here: for thy bulk has made thee unwieldy, and Sperm must seek thee out in thy chambers. Henceforth shalt thou be fertilized internally.” And it was so. And God said to the gametes, “The fruit of thy fusion may abide in any place and take any shape. It may breathe air or water or the sulphurous muck of hydrothermal vents. But do not forget my one commandment unto you, which has not changed from the beginning of time: spread thy genes.” And thus did Sperm and Egg go into the world. And Sperm said, “I am cheap and plentiful, and if sowed abundantly I will surely fulfill God’s plan. I shall forever seek out new mates and then abandon them when they are with child, for there are many wombs and little time.” But Egg said, “Lo, the burden of procreation weighs heavily upon me. I must carry flesh that is but half mine, gestate and feed it even when it leaves my chamber,” for by now many of Egg’s bodies were warm of blood, and furry besides. “I can have but few children, and must devote myself to those, and protect them at every turn. And I will make Sperm help me, for he got me into this. And though he doth struggle at my side, I shall not let him stray, nor lie with my competitors.” And Sperm liked this not. And God smiled, for Its commandment had put Sperm and Egg at war with each other, even unto the day they made themselves obsolete.

The sole reason I work out like I do isn’t to prepare for and win ultra races. I don’t have an athletic motive at all. It’s to prepare my mind for life itself. Life will always be the most grueling endurance sport, and when you train hard, get uncomfortable, and callous your mind, you will become a more versatile competitor, trained to find a way forward no matter what.

When he came to fear and detest you, it was worse. He ordered three hits on you that I know of.” Roarke continued to stroll. “There were five, actually.” “Why didn’t you ever retaliate?” “I don’t need the blood of my competitors. Or even my enemies. He was, for some years, nothing to me. But he should never have touched my wife. I’d have done him for that, if you’re interested. For putting a mark on her.” “You didn’t, and he lives.” “Because doing so would’ve put another mark on her, as that’s who she is.” “You let him live to protect your wife?” Roarke paused, looked Alex in the face. “If you think the lieutenant needs protection, mine or anyone’s, you’ve severely misjudged her. I let him live out of respect to her. And I became convinced living, as he is condemned to live now, was worse than death.

Look at the opportunities here for a man of knowledge, brains, pluck, and enterprise to sail in and grow up with the country. The grandest field that ever was; and all my own; not a competitor; not a man who wasn’t a baby to me in acquirements and capacities; whereas, what would I amount to in the twentieth century? I should be foreman of a factory, that is about all; and could drag a seine downstreet any day and catch a hundred better men than myself.

my pleasure in having Albertine living with me now was much less a positive pleasure than satisfaction at having removed from the world, where everyone could enjoy her in turn, the blossoming young girl who, even if she caused no great joy to me, at least could not offer it to anyone else. Ambition, glory could never have meant anything to me. Still less was I capable of experiencing hatred. All the same, carnal love for me was above all the joy of triumphing over so many competitors. I cannot repeat it too often, more than anything else it was relief from pain.

As I worked with hundreds of gamers, it became apparent to me that many of these kids were looking for some sort of deeper connection and a sense of purpose. Alienated and adrift in soulless and institutional high schools, the meaning-starved kid finds purpose in a digital fantasy realm of adventure where there are monsters to slay, competitors to vanquish and prizes to attain; there is a soul-satisfying sense of purpose—and, if the games are played with others, a shared sense of purpose. As I treated and talked to my various young clients, another dynamic also revealed itself: escape.

Almost, but not quite,” says Haymitch from behind us. I whip around, afraid he’s going to be angry over us watching his tape, but he just smirks and takes a swig from a bottle of wine. So much for sobriety. I guess I should be upset he’s drinking again, but I’m preoccupied with another feeling. I’ve spent all these weeks getting to know who my competitors are, without even thinking about who my teammates are. Now a new kind of confidence is lighting up inside of me, because I think I finally know who Haymitch is. And I’m beginning to know who I am. And surely, two people who have caused the Capitol so much trouble can think of a way to get Peeta home alive.

As long as I’m earning money and I stay inside my limits, everyone’s happy. What’s more, it makes me top earner in the firm. Do you see this office? The boss of Barclays Thailand used to sit here. You might be wondering why a lousy broker like me is here. It’s because there’s only one thing that counts in a brokerage company: how much money you earn. Everything else is decoration. Bosses, too. They’re only administrators who are dependent on those of us in the market to keep their jobs and salaries. My boss has now moved to a comfortable office on the floor below because I threatened to go to a competitor with all my clients if I didn’t get a better bonus agreement. And this office.

We were stereotyped the way many athletes with disabilities or illnesses are, particularly in participatory sports such as biking, running, and triathlon. After a while I could pretty much fill in the thought balloons over these people's heads. "Oh, look at these heroic young people, courageously struggling to get themselves across the finish line, in order to raise money for thier cause. How inspiring!" Don't get me wrong; while we appreciate the good wishes and realized that they were usually genuine, something in that attitude rankled me, and still does. We're athletes, dammit, and we want to be accorded the same respect as other competitors. That's how you treat somebody with illness or disability, in my opinion. Not as a special-needs person, but as a person.

Falling into this elaborate daydream about me and Heather Craven forever after. Imagining us as married professionals with our six towheaded children running loose in our suburbanite home as surrounded by a lush yard and fenced. Walking toward the door yelling, “Honey, I’m home!” and having Heather answer my call. Imagining the family dog jumping me, slobbering over in greeting and my laughing heartily as I was knocked to the ground. At one point getting so steeped in the fantasy that I actually found myself troubleshooting marital problems in advance, arguing with the fantasy love of my life before the dog grew on me over whether we should even have a dog; wasn’t six dependents enough? Losing the argument and then reluctantly accepting this new intrusion and competitor for Heather’s affections.

Most people think you need tens of thousands of dollars to get started, but you can get there with just a thousand, or less,” Jared told me. “The money isn’t the obstacle. The truth is that ninety percent of the battle is getting your head right and just pushing through all the obstacles, no matter what. You have to make it your mission to find a way.” Jared’s obstacles didn’t end that sleepless Christmas. To this day, competitors copy his ads, and even his products. Some of them are total scam artists who take orders with no intention of fulfilling them. “When I first started, I’d get so angry at the scammers, but that wasn’t helping me,” he said. “Now, if I see someone copying my stuff, I immediately get my lawyers involved and send a cease and desist. It’s part of the game. I’ve learned to just deal with it.

The twentieth-century mystic Thomas Merton wrote, “There can be an intense egoism in following everybody else. People are in a hurry to magnify themselves by imitating what is popular—and too lazy to think of anything better. Hurry ruins saints as well as artists. They want quick success, and they are in such a haste to get it that they cannot take time to be true to themselves. And when the madness is upon them, they argue that their very haste is a species of integrity.”20 Merton elegantly articulates how the pressure of the create-on-demand world can cause us to look sideways at our peers and competitors instead of looking ahead. The process of discovering and refining your voice takes time. Unnecessary Creation grants you the space to discover your unique aptitudes and passions through a process of trial, error, and play that won’t often be afforded to you otherwise. Initiating a project with no parameters and no expectations from others also forces you to stay self-aware while learning to listen to and follow your intuition. Both of these are crucial skills for discovering your voice. It’s completely understandable if you’re thinking, “But wait—I hardly have time to breathe, and now you want me to cram something else into my schedule, just for my own enjoyment?” It’s true that every decision about where we spend our time has an opportunity cost, and dedicating time to Unnecessary Creation seems like a remarkably inefficient choice. In truth, it is inefficient. Consider, however, the opportunity cost of spending your life only on pragmatics. You dedicate your time to pleasing everyone else and delivering on their expectations, but you never get around to discovering your deeper aptitudes and creative capacities. Nothing is worth that.

So, these competitors . . . What do they hope to gain by interfering with your journey?” The instant the question left his mouth, he knew it was too direct. Nicole dropped her gaze and removed her hand from his arm. “With all due respect, Mr. Thornton . . .” Drat. They were back to Mr. Thornton again. “ . . . the details of the business I’m conducting for my father are not your concern.” “They are if they put you in danger. And what of the rest of my staff?” Darius snatched the napkin from his lap and threw it onto the table before lurching to his feet and pacing behind his chair. “I have a right to know if having you here is putting them at risk.” “No greater risk than they face from your exploding boilers!” Nicole shot from her seat, color running high in her cheeks. The audacity of the chit. “I take every precaution—” “As do I.” She glared at him. “The Wellborns are in no peril, especially if they keep my presence here a secret. It’s doubtful that Jenkins’s sons will find me, anyway. Heaven knows they aren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer.” “As master of this house, it’s my duty to know the business of those under my roof.” He didn’t know what nonsense he was spouting now. He didn’t care. Nicole had let a vital piece of information slip in her anger, and he wasn’t about to let the argument cool long enough for her to notice her lapse. “Well, perhaps it’s time I collect the pay I’ve earned and leave you and your roof to your own devices.” Not on her life. The woman would be unprotected. Vulnerable. Easy prey for that Jenkins scum. But he couldn’t let her know his refusal was out of concern for her. She’d simply assure him she’d be fine and walk out the door. Darius crossed his arms over his chest and looked down his nose at her. “You agreed to accept payment after a term of two weeks. I’ll not pay a cent before then. You owe me ten more days, Miss Greyson. Or do you plan to renege on our agreement?” Her hands fisted at her sides. “I never go back on my word.

Know the Competition I had a wonderful experience purchasing a luxury car. I was looking at three different brands. I have owned all three at different times in my life so I knew each fairly well. I had studied the market and knew most of the features of the competing models. However, this particular sales guy knew every detail about every car I was considering and so served me wonderfully in my purchase. He never once used his knowledge to speak poorly of the competition. On the contrary, he told me where each model was better than the car I was considering. Wow. I found myself starting to trust this guy because he was being honest and transparent. He stood firm that his car was the car I should buy because of its particular features and quality, but he brought great information about his competitors to the discussion. It was a really classy way to handle a sales role. A really sad part of my wonderful car purchase was that I was on a competitor’s lot the next day and the sales guy there knew less about the car he was selling than my guy knew about the same car. In

I've defined myself, privately and abstractly, by my brief, intense years as an athlete, a swimmer. I practiced five or six hours a day, six days a week, eating and sleeping as much as possible in between. Weekends were spent either training or competing. I wasn't the best; I was relatively fast. I trained, ate, traveled, and showered with the best in the country, but wasn't the best; I was pretty good. I liked how hard swimming at that level was- that I could do something difficult and unusual. Liked knowing my discipline would be recognized, respected, that I might not be able to say the right things or fit in, but I could do something well. I wanted to believe that I was talented; being fast was proof. Though I loved racing, the idea of fastest, of number one, of the Olympics, didn't motivate me. I still dream of practice, of races, coaches and blurry competitors. I'm drawn to swimming pools, all swimming pools, no matter how small or murky. When I swim now, I step into the water as though absentmindedly touching a scar. My recreational laps are phantoms of my competitive races

March 4 Could This Be True of Me? But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself. Acts 20:24 It is easier to serve God without a vision, easier to work for God without a call, because then you are not bothered by what God requires; common sense is your guide, veneered over with Christian sentiment. You will be more prosperous and successful, more leisure-hearted, if you never realise the call of God. But if once you receive a commission from Jesus Christ, the memory of what God wants will always come like a goad; you will no longer be able to work for Him on the commonsense basis. What do I really count dear? If I have not been gripped by Jesus Christ, I will count service dear, time given to God dear, my life dear unto myself. Paul says he counted his life dear only in order that he might fulfil the ministry he had received; he refused to use his energy for any other thing. Acts 20:24 states Paul’s almost sublime annoyance at being asked to consider himself; he was absolutely indifferent to any consideration other than that of fulfilling the ministry he had received. Practical work may be a competitor against abandonment to God, because practical work is based on this argument—“Remember how useful you are here,” or—“Think how much value you would be in that particular type of work.” That attitude does not put Jesus Christ as the Guide as to where we should go, but our judgement as to where we are of most use. Never consider whether you are of use; but ever consider that you are not your own but His.

American Girl dolls are nice. But they aren’t amazing. In recent years Toys“ R” Us, Walmart, and even Disney have all tried to challenge American Girl’s success with similar dolls (Journey Girls, My Life, and Princess & Me)—at a fraction of the price—but to date, no one has made a dent. American Girl is able to command a premium price because it’s not really selling dolls. It’s selling an experience. When you see a company that has a product or service that no one has successfully copied, like American Girl, rarely is it the product itself that is the source of the long-term competitive advantage, something American Girl founder Pleasant Rowland understood. “You’re not trying to just get the product out there, you hope you are creating an experience that will do the job perfectly,” says Rowland. You’re creating experiences that, in effect, make up the product’s résumé: “Here’s why you should hire me.” That’s why American Girl has been so successful for so long, in spite of numerous attempts by competitors to elbow in. My wife, Christine, and I were willing to splurge on the dolls because we understood what they stood for. American Girl dolls are about connection and empowering self-belief—and the chance to savor childhood just a bit longer. I have found that creating the right set of experiences around a clearly defined job—and then organizing the company around delivering those experiences (which we’ll discuss in the next chapter)—almost inoculates you against disruption. Disruptive competitors almost never come with a better sense of the job. They don’t see beyond the product.

In late fall, I had a phone sessions with my Oregon therapist. For some reason, we started talking about happiness. “Chris achieved happiness so easily,” I said to him. “And I don’t.” The counselor interrupted me. “Do you know how he did?” I started to answer that I didn’t. But then I realized that Chris had set out to do many things, and he’d achieved them. He’d wanted to be a rodeo competitor, work as a cowboy, join the SEALs. He’d done all of those. What’s more, he excelled at them. Those achievements made him happy, or at least confident enough that he could be happy. As we talked, the counselor noted that I, too, had my own achievements. But I told him--as he already knew--that I wanted to do so many more things. And I always do. Was that a reason not to be happy? The counselor pointed out that I tend to focus on what I haven’t done, rather than what I’ve achieved. My thinking runs; If I do A, then B, then C, then I’ll be happy. But when I achieve A, rather than saying “Yay!” I say, “I haven’t done B and C, so I can’t be happy.” Why focus on what I haven’t done? Why not celebrate those things I have done, even as I look forward to doing other things on my list? Those achievements are accomplishments--I should feel good about them, confident I can do more. And happy. Or at least happier. Another lesson. There are other components to happiness beyond achievement. “Smaller” things, like carving out time for workouts as well as the kids, are actually big things when they are added up. Yet I often feel those things are distractions from what I really want to achieve. Blockers, rather than stepping-stones. Obviously, the wrong way to think about them. On paper, it doesn’t seem like a very profound realization. But put into practice, it means that I--we, all of us--have to keep things in the larger perspective. If you want to achieve a lot, then the reality is that you are always going to have something else you want to do. Keep trying to achieve, but don’t beat yourself up for not getting everything done. The “smaller” things are just as essential to happiness. So: the key to my happiness is appreciating what I have and what I’ve done, and realizing that I’ll always have something else to do. Profound? No, but empowering. I might never have realized it had I not been grieving so deeply. I would have felt silly, really, talking about achieving happiness when Chris was alive. Why wouldn’t I be happy with a great husband and wonderful children? I was happy. But not at the deepest level. I’m not there yet, obviously. But it is possible now. And yet I still wonder: How can I possibly be happy with Chris gone?

But there were problems. After the movie came out I couldn’t go to a tournament without being surrounded by fans asking for autographs. Instead of focusing on chess positions, I was pulled into the image of myself as a celebrity. Since childhood I had treasured the sublime study of chess, the swim through ever-deepening layers of complexity. I could spend hours at a chessboard and stand up from the experience on fire with insight about chess, basketball, the ocean, psychology, love, art. The game was exhilarating and also spiritually calming. It centered me. Chess was my friend. Then, suddenly, the game became alien and disquieting. I recall one tournament in Las Vegas: I was a young International Master in a field of a thousand competitors including twenty-six strong Grandmasters from around the world. As an up-and-coming player, I had huge respect for the great sages around me. I had studied their masterpieces for hundreds of hours and was awed by the artistry of these men. Before first-round play began I was seated at my board, deep in thought about my opening preparation, when the public address system announced that the subject of Searching for Bobby Fischer was at the event. A tournament director placed a poster of the movie next to my table, and immediately a sea of fans surged around the ropes separating the top boards from the audience. As the games progressed, when I rose to clear my mind young girls gave me their phone numbers and asked me to autograph their stomachs or legs. This might sound like a dream for a seventeen-year-old boy, and I won’t deny enjoying the attention, but professionally it was a nightmare. My game began to unravel. I caught myself thinking about how I looked thinking instead of losing myself in thought. The Grandmasters, my elders, were ignored and scowled at me. Some of them treated me like a pariah. I had won eight national championships and had more fans, public support and recognition than I could dream of, but none of this was helping my search for excellence, let alone for happiness. At a young age I came to know that there is something profoundly hollow about the nature of fame. I had spent my life devoted to artistic growth and was used to the sweaty-palmed sense of contentment one gets after many hours of intense reflection. This peaceful feeling had nothing to do with external adulation, and I yearned for a return to that innocent, fertile time. I missed just being a student of the game, but there was no escaping the spotlight. I found myself dreading chess, miserable before leaving for tournaments. I played without inspiration and was invited to appear on television shows. I smiled.

Twenty years? No kidding: twenty years? It’s hard to believe. Twenty years ago, I was—well, I was much younger. My parents were still alive. Two of my grandchildren had not yet been born, and another one, now in college, was an infant. Twenty years ago I didn’t own a cell phone. I didn’t know what quinoa was and I doubt if I had ever tasted kale. There had recently been a war. Now we refer to that one as the First Gulf War, but back then, mercifully, we didn’t know there would be another. Maybe a lot of us weren’t even thinking about the future then. But I was. And I’m a writer. I wrote The Giver on a big machine that had recently taken the place of my much-loved typewriter, and after I printed the pages, very noisily, I had to tear them apart, one by one, at the perforated edges. (When I referred to it as my computer, someone more knowledgeable pointed out that my machine was not a computer. It was a dedicated word processor. “Oh, okay then,” I said, as if I understood the difference.) As I carefully separated those two hundred or so pages, I glanced again at the words on them. I could see that I had written a complete book. It had all the elements of the seventeen or so books I had written before, the same things students of writing list on school quizzes: characters, plot, setting, tension, climax. (Though I didn’t reply as he had hoped to a student who emailed me some years later with the request “Please list all the similes and metaphors in The Giver,” I’m sure it contained those as well.) I had typed THE END after the intentionally ambiguous final paragraphs. But I was aware that this book was different from the many I had already written. My editor, when I gave him the manuscript, realized the same thing. If I had drawn a cartoon of him reading those pages, it would have had a text balloon over his head. The text would have said, simply: Gulp. But that was twenty years ago. If I had written The Giver this year, there would have been no gulp. Maybe a yawn, at most. Ho-hum. In so many recent dystopian novels (and there are exactly that: so many), societies battle and characters die hideously and whole civilizations crumble. None of that in The Giver. It was introspective. Quiet. Short on action. “Introspective, quiet, and short on action” translates to “tough to film.” Katniss Everdeen gets to kill off countless adolescent competitors in various ways during The Hunger Games; that’s exciting movie fare. It sells popcorn. Jonas, riding a bike and musing about his future? Not so much. Although the film rights to The Giver were snapped up early on, it moved forward in spurts and stops for years, as screenplay after screenplay—none of them by me—was

Then an answer occurs to him: ‘It’s because our team is losing. All the things we need to be good at to thrive in the world we imagine existing in ten or twenty or even fifty years from now are things that my female friends and competitors are better at than me. Then us. And I am loath to tell that to someone who is going to put it in print, but it’s true.

I get excited by the kind of person I know you will become when you give up your excuses and start uncovering what you’ve been capable of all this time. I get excited by the kind of impact you will be able to have when you stop playing small, when you get out of your own way, when you are ready to be done holding back and to become all you were made to be. I get excited by inspiring every individual I meet to access his or her great potential so that the world doesn’t miss what he or she brings to the table. This is what finishing first is about for me. It’s not about proving yourself or beating your competitors but about accessing your deep purpose. What is your unique purpose? Do you know? If you do know, have you taken any time to stop and make sure you’re doing what you were put here to do? My faith tells me that everything is meaningful, that nothing happens by accident. You are here for a reason.

As the story goes, the manuscript that formed the outlines of Wiener’s contributions to information theory was nearly lost to humanity. Wiener had entrusted the manuscript to Walter Pitts, a graduate student, who had checked it as baggage for a trip from New York’s Grand Central Terminal to Boston. Pitts forgot to retrieve the baggage. Realizing his mistake, he asked two friends to pick up the bag. They either ignored or forgot the request. Only five months later was the manuscript finally tracked down; it had been labeled “unclaimed property” and cast aside in a coatroom. Wiener was, understandably, blind with rage. “Under these circumstances please consider me as completely dissociated from your future career,” he wrote to Pitts. He complained to one administrator of the “total irresponsibleness of the boys” and to another faculty member that the missing parcel meant that he had “lost priority on some important work.” “One of my competitors, Shannon of the Bell Telephone Company, is coming out with a paper before mine,” he fumed. Wiener wasn’t being needlessly paranoid: Shannon had, by that point, previewed his still-unpublished work at 1947 conferences at Harvard and Columbia. In April 1947, Wiener and Shannon shared the same stage, and both had the opportunity to present early versions of their thoughts. Wiener, in a moment of excessive self-regard, would write to a colleague, “The Bell people are fully accepting my thesis concerning statistics and communications engineering.

I may not be good at climbing, may lack the upper-body and leg strength required to make me a good cyclist or an ironman competitor, may have spent my schooldays getting an 'acceptable' for my level of fitness and a 'cause for concern' for my attitude towards exercise, but, despite all my athletic shortfalls, what I lack in agility I more than make up for in bloody-minded stubbornness and unfailing blind optimism.

But when the cosmo-in-a-glass came out, it was red, not pink. And our apple martinis were dark green when they should have been pale green. That may seem like no big deal, but it killed the product. No one knew what they were. They didn’t look like cosmos or apple martinis, so no one bothered. You see, I didn’t sweat the small stuff and it bit me in the ass. My partners convinced me that the color didn’t matter. Well guess what? It mattered! The business tanked and I lost money. Bottom line: if it doesn’t work perfectly, throw it out and get it right. Because if you don’t, one of your competitors will!

Not only did Lance train hard but he also was one of the fiercest competitors ever. After winning his fifth Tour de France in 2003, he defiantly said, “No one trains like me. No one rides like me. This jersey’s mine. I live for this jersey. It’s my life. No one’s taking it away from me. This fucking jersey’s mine.” Lance didn’t just visualize success. He also visualized crushing his competitors. I respect that mindset.

Mobile phone apps – 2012 Before building a QuickBooks app, I decided to try iPhone and Android apps. This my first experience entering an app store. Unfortunately, the apps failed for many reasons: User base too small: There are millions of mobile phone users, but that does not translate to millions of users for your software. There is a subsection of a user base that matters most. Too many competitors: The app stores were oversaturated. There were over a million apps, literally. There was no way to stand out from the rest. My apps became me-too apps. The Intuit app stores were just getting started at the time and there were far fewer apps. Difficult to gain entry: I tried game development, and good games are expensive to produce. You need a soundtrack and graphic designers. The cost of making an exceptional game is outrageous. There was no way I could afford it. Failed to show value: Since most apps were free, users refused to pay me. I tried in-app purchases, but most users were uninterested. I learned that businesses were a better target because I could show them how to save time. Failed to solve a problem: In my eyes, app stores were the only way to advertise my game. I failed to tap into my potential user base. Businesses have a clear data entry problem that I can fix, but consumers were too difficult to sell to. Technical issues: I submitted one app to the Windows Marketplace, and it failed 15 times. I had to wait for Apple to publish updates to my app weekly. I learned that my next plugin must receive updates in a few hours, instead of a few days. Users simply cannot wait this long for an issue to get fixed. This was the most important lesson that I learned, and it inspired me to make a cloud-based system. Different devices:

Why I was successful In 2014, I was 29 years old. I was selling against companies that had been in the QuickBooks integration business for five years or more. Some competitors had millions of dollars in venture capital. Their websites were the equivalent of a five-star hotel. These competitors had large sales and marketing teams that could easily show the value of their solution. The companies had a team of programmers. I had my pajamas, a corded phone, a cookie-cutter website, and a laptop computer. I signed up about three hundred new accounts because I was the first person to pick up the phone and I spoke English. I could answer questions on what my software can automate. If there was a problem, I called the customer and we did a screenshare. You need to talk to customers on the phone and you cannot email customers to death. Many customers later told me they reached out to competitors and received no response to sales or support inquiries. These customers said they chose my company because I was responsive. Potential customers want to speak to someone in their area who understands their language. You need to connect with them. Many people signed up for Connex because they liked me over the phone. We attract many small business owners. I had similar interests and I owned a business, just like them.

Frankly, I'm a recent convert to the delights of pure plantation chocolate. I adore chocolate in all its many forms, but my current passion is couture chocolates made with the selected beans from single plantations all around the world-- Trinidad, Tobago, Ecuador, Venezuela, New Guinea. Exotic locations, all of them. They are--out and out--the best type of chocolate. In my humble opinion. The Jimmy Choos of the chocolate world. Though truffles are a fierce competitor. (Strictly speaking, truffles are confectionary as opposed to chocolates, but I feel that's making me sound like a chocolate anorak.) Another obsession of mine is Green & Black's chocolate bars. Absolute heaven. I've turned Autumn on to the rich, creamy bars, which she can eat without any guilt, because they're made from organic chocolate and the company practices fair trade with the bean growers. Can't say I'm not a caring, sharing human being, right? When my friend eats the Maya Gold bar, she doesn't have to toss and turn all night thinking about the fate of the poor cocoa bean farmers. I care about Mayan bean pickers, too, but frankly I care more about the blend of dark chocolate with the refreshing twist of orange, perfectly balanced by the warmth of cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla. Those Mayan blokes certainly know what they're doing. Divine. I hope they have happy lives knowing that so many women depend on them. So as not to appear a chocolate snob, I also shove in Mars Bars, Snickers and Double Deckers as if they're going out of fashion. Like the best, I was brought up on a diet of Cadbury and Nestlé, with Milky Bars and Curly Wurlys being particular favorites---and both of which I'm sure have grown considerably smaller with the passing of the years. Walnut Whips are a bit of a disappointment these days too. They're not like they used to be. Doesn't stop me from eating them, of course---call it product research.

Similar to the rebates we discussed earlier, pre-payment creates a strong barrier dissuading a customer from switching to a competitor. I do not think that you will get prepayment 100% of the time, but I think you can successfully obtain this 25–35% of the time if you ask for it all of the time. When you ask, I would encourage you to make it a first concession issue rather than a first offer issue. I will offer a price that I know the other side will react to by saying it is “too high.” In response, I concede to lower my price if they pay me in advance.

There are a lot of nice people. As a matter of fact, there are a ton of nice people. Where were they hiding before? Well, they were reacting to me because my old view of things caused me to see them as competitors, as people who are in my way of getting what would make me happy.

Certainly not Pre. “Sure there will be a lot of pressure,” he told Sports Illustrated. “And a lot of us will be facing more experienced competitors, and maybe we don’t have any right to win. But all I know is if I go out and bust my gut until I black out and somebody still beats me, and if I have made that guy reach down and use everything he has and then more, why then it just proves that on that day he’s a better man than I.

It’s to prepare my mind for life itself. Life will always be the most grueling endurance sport, and when you train hard, get uncomfortable, and callous your mind, you will become a more versatile competitor, trained to find a way forward no matter what. Because there will be times when life comes at you like a sledgehammer. Sometimes life hits you dead in the fucking heart.

I didn’t think of myself as competitive. I thought in terms of having fun playing games and trying to win, but with me it was more hoping to win. I didn’t have that killer instinct they say is required to get to the top. I couldn’t see myself behaving as my dad did with his vociferous love for golf and football. The house resounded with his yells and groans during PGA and NFL tournaments. It seemed to me that yelling in itself required a killer instinct.

Most recently, I worked for this advertising agency that specializes in perceptual marketing. They ensure that whatever ads you see in your everyday life are geared to your specific taste, style, demographic, purchasing history, and countless other interwoven criteria. If you walk by a billboard, it shows you something you actually want or an upgrade to something you already have. They use real-time rolling data feeds, so you might see a different ad depending on your mood before versus after lunch, if you were running late or had time to linger, whether you had sex that night or argued with your spouse that morning. Following a negative experience with some company’s wares, they’d give a competitor a shot at shifting your brand loyalty. My big idea was that clients could pay a monthly fee to see no ads at all. Instead of individualized niche marketing, you could experience a world blissfully emptied of promotional clutter. It was a total failure. Because it turns out people like ads. Especially when they’re targeted to warp the visual environment around you to emphasize your needs above all others, as if you’re the indispensable center of the global economy. Nobody wanted to pay for the privilege of being irrelevant to commercial interests. Except me. I essentially got my employer to launch an expensive new product solely for my use. An industry of one.

I was about to lose one of my biggest accounts, Walgreens, the people I had created a tremendous amount of business for and to whom I was selling five million cups a year. Fred Stoll told me in strictest confidence that a former Walgreen executive who had a lot of pull in the top offices of the company had gone into the paper cup business with a competitor of mine, and he was going to be given all of the Walgreen trade. The rationale would be that this competitor was selling for five percent under my price. I explained this to John Clark and tried to get him to go along with offering Walgreens a price break—after all, they paid their bills on time and there was promotion value in having a big company like that use your product. But all I got was a tongue lashing.

Tell me about your last conversation with the account,” my manager would say. Then he would run through the drill: “Who are we meeting with? Describe each person’s behavioral style. What is important to each person attending this sales call? Why do they think we are here today? What is going on in their business that I need to know about? What is your main objective today? What is a ‘win’ for us walking out of here? Tell me your plan for the call. How are you going to handle introducing our new offering? What role would you like me to play? Where are we vulnerable? What is our Achilles’ heel? Which competitors are involved here? Who is more entrenched? How do you like my tie? I wore it just to help you close this sale today. Don’t forget your breath mints. May the force be with you.

February 2 The Constraint of the Call Woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel! 1 Corinthians 9:16 Beware of stopping your ears to the call of God. Everyone who is saved is called to testify to the fact; but that is not the call to preach, it is merely an illustration in preaching. Paul is referring to the pangs produced in him by the constraint to preach the Gospel. Never apply what Paul says in this connection to souls coming in contact with God for salvation. There is nothing easier than getting saved because it is God’s sovereign work—“Come unto Me and I will save you.” Our Lord never lays down the conditions of discipleship as the conditions of salvation. We are condemned to salvation through the Cross of Jesus Christ. Discipleship has an option with it—“IF any man . . .” Paul’s words have to do with being made a servant of Jesus Christ, and our permission is never asked as to what we will do or where we will go. God makes us broken bread and poured-out wine to please Himself. To be “separated unto the gospel” means to hear the call of God; and when a man begins to overhear that call, then begins agony that is worthy of the name. Every ambition is nipped in the bud, every desire of life quenched, every outlook completely extinguished and blotted out, saving one thing only—“separated unto the gospel.” Woe be to the soul who tries to put his foot in any other direction when once that call has come to him. This College exists to see whether God has any man or woman here who cares about proclaiming His Gospel; to see whether God grips you. And beware of competitors when God does grip you.

Because the profitability framework won’t give me the additional information I need about customers and competitors, I’ve officially exhausted its usefulness. My working hypothesis has evolved and the current framework doesn’t cover the data needed to test that hypothesis,

three modalities of the other: the imaginary other—my semblant, my fellow-man who is simultaneously like me and my competitor, the one with whom I am caught in the struggle for recognition; the symbolic Other—the trans-subjective symbolic order which regulates the space of interaction between me and my semblants; and the real other, the impenetrable abyss of the Other’s desire, which can be elevated into the absolute Otherness of god.

The competitor who won’t go away, who won’t stay down, has one of the most formidable competitive advantages of all. When the worst happens, as it did to me, I was helped by knowing what it took to be that kind of competitor—to not go away, to get up and fight back.

The sole reason I work out like I do isn’t to prepare for and win ultra races. I don’t have an athletic motive at all. It’s to prepare my mind for life itself. Life will always be the most grueling endurance sport, and when you train hard, get uncomfortable, and callous your mind, you will become a more versatile competitor, trained to find a way forward no matter what. Because there will be times when life comes at you like a sledgehammer. Sometimes life hits you dead in the fucking heart.

Consistent actions build respect, not words. I worked to develop my mass—that sense of who you are—into something that pulled others in. Since I was attracted to those who were tough and real, my roommates were Terry Brands, one of the more ferocious competitors in NCAA history, and Travis Fisher, a hard-nosed, small town Iowa boy. They asked me to room with them, and I jumped at the opportunity. I based every decision on principles that would lead me to greatness on the mat. Terry and Travis were blessings to live with as both had jumped the gap from believing to committing. I’ve learned Elite people have a bias toward action.

Schmidt started 2012 with new, modern packaging for the deodorant, which was designed to set it apart from the competition. She looked beyond the direct-to-consumer sales channels and the natural and wellness retailers that her competitors used almost exclusively; in 2015, she expanded into traditional grocery stores and pharmacies, which allowed her to reach more customers and to enable greater access to healthy natural products. Her creativity, innovation, and hard work paid off. Schmidt earned appearances on Fox News and The Today Show; mentions on social media from celebrities and influencers; articles in national publications; and distribution on the shelves of Target and Walmart. Though it was bittersweet, Jaime realized that a larger company with more resources could bring her vision and mission to an even wider customer base, and she signed the deal with Unilever right before Christmas 2017. Reflecting on her journey, she says, “When I’m asked about what made Schmidt’s so successful, I often say that my customers were my business plan. It started when I listened to those at the farmer’s market, and it continued through each step of growth. Staying hyper-tuned-in to my customers always guided and served me.” Not sales. Not marketing. Customers, educating, and being educated.

Switching over Entire Networks Part of why cherry picking can be dangerous for the incumbent is that the upstart networks can reach over and directly acquire an entire set of users who have been conveniently aggregated on your network. It’s just software, after all, and users can spread competitors within an incumbent’s network by using all the convenient communication and social tools. Airbnb is again an example of this. The company not only unbundled Craigslist and turned the shared rooms idea into an entire product, but they actually used Craiglist users to advertise Airbnb to other users. How? Early on, Airbnb added functionality so that when a host was done setting up their listing, they could publish it to Craigslist, with photos, details, and an “Interested? Got a question? Contact me here” link that drove Craigslist users back to Airbnb. These features were accomplished not by using APIs provided by Craigslist, but by reverse-engineering the platform and creating a bot to do it automatically—clever! I first wrote about this in 2012 on my blog, in a post titled “Growth Hacker is the new VP Marketing” with this example in mind. By the time Craigslist decided it didn’t like this functionality and disabled it, months had passed and Airbnb had formed its atomic network. The same thing happened in the early days of social networks, when Facebook, LinkedIn, Skype, and others grew on the back of email contacts importing from Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, and other mail clients. They used libraries like Octazen—later acquired by Facebook—to scrape contacts, helping the social networks grow and connect their users. At the time, these new social networks didn’t look like direct threats to email. They were operating within niche parts of messaging overall, focused on college and professional networks. It took several years for the email providers to shut down access after recognizing their importance. When an incumbent has its network cherry-picked, it’s extra painful along two dimensions: First, any network that is lost is unlikely to be regained, as anti-network effects kick back in. And second, the decline in market share hits doubly hard, which has implications for being able to raise money.

I thought about it, and I came up with the perfect way to raise her awareness. I wrote her a bedtime story, a disarming blend of humor and affection, and I called it: The Book of Oogenesis In the beginning were the gametes. And though there was sex, lo, there was no gender, and life was in balance. And God said, “Let there be Sperm”: and some seeds did shrivel in size and grow cheap to make, and they did flood the market. And God said, “Let there be Eggs”: and other seeds were afflicted by a plague of Sperm. And yea, few of them bore fruit, for Sperm brought no food for the zygote, and only the largest Eggs could make up the shortfall. And these grew yet larger in the fullness of time. And God put the Eggs into a womb, and said, “Wait here: for thy bulk has made thee unwieldy, and Sperm must seek thee out in thy chambers. Henceforth shalt thou be fertilized internally.” And it was so. And God said to the gametes, “The fruit of thy fusion may abide in any place and take any shape. It may breathe air or water or the sulphurous muck of hydrothermal vents. But do not forget my one commandment unto you, which has not changed from the beginning of time: spread thy genes.” And thus did Sperm and Egg go into the world. And Sperm said, “I am cheap and plentiful, and if sowed abundantly I will surely fulfill God’s plan. I shall forever seek out new mates and then abandon them when they are with child, for there are many wombs and little time.” But Egg said, “Lo, the burden of procreation weighs heavily upon me. I must carry flesh that is but half mine, gestate and feed it even when it leaves my chamber,” for by now many of Egg’s bodies were warm of blood, and furry besides. “I can have but few children, and must devote myself to those, and protect them at every turn. And I will make Sperm help me, for he got me into this. And though he doth struggle at my side, I shall not let him stray, nor lie with my competitors.” And Sperm liked this not. And God smiled, for Its commandment had put Sperm and Egg at war with each other, even unto the day they made themselves obsolete.

Define the Profitable Core In our experience, business definition is one of the most frustrating activities for senior executives. Although business leaders know that they should have a clear answer to the question, “What is our core business?” it is difficult to arrive at a fully satisfying statement. Part of the problem arises from blurring several distinct but related topics that need to be considered one at a time and then integrated in a consistent manner or within a single framework. In working toward a useful business definition, executives need to ask themselves the following questions: What are the boundaries of the business in which I participate, and are those boundaries “natural” economic boundaries defined by customer needs and basic economics? What products, customers, channels, and competitors do these boundaries encompass? What are the core skills and assets needed to compete effectively within that competitive arena? What is my own core business as defined by those customers, products, technologies, and channels through which I can earn a return today and can compete effectively with my current resources? What is the key differentiating factor that makes me unique to my core customers? What are the adjacent areas around my core, and are the definitions of my business and my industry likely to shift, changing the competitive and customer landscape?

It would be one thing if such scorekeeping worked, but it never has and never will, not where the heart is concerned. When one person’s gain equals the other’s loss, the relationship between them always suffers. We become competitors rather than teammates. Moreover, like a husband pointing out the dishes he’s done in order to leverage some gratitude from his wife, the second we harness our good deeds for credit is the second they become less good. All of a sudden, a price tag is dangling off of what was supposed to be a gift. “If I knew that you’d require a ton of affirmation and thanks, or that you’d hold it over my head, I would’ve done the dishes myself!” And that’s just the petty stuff. The language of scorekeeping is the language of conditionality. “I’ll do this for you because you do that for me.” “I’ll hold up my end of the bargain as long as you hold up yours,” we say. However egalitarian our intention, that kind of nonassurance sets us up for a life of accounting. But what works at the office runs out of gas at home.

By offering cheaper prices online, the retailer educated me to never purchase in their physical store. By offering unconditional returns, they taught me to return poor products. By blocking my ability to return poor products because I made too many returns, they conditioned me to always shop at their competitors.

Constantly reading books is giving me an advantage against my competitor. If you are not reading, it's hard to lead your people and industry.

Who are we meeting with? Describe each person’s behavioral style. What is important to each person attending this sales call? Why do they think we are here today? What is going on in their business that I need to know about? What is your main objective today? What is a ‘win’ for us walking out of here? Tell me your plan for the call. How are you going to handle introducing our new offering? What role would you like me to play? Where are we vulnerable? What is our Achilles’ heel? Which competitors are involved here? Who is more entrenched? How do you like my tie? I wore it just to help you close this sale today. Don’t forget your breath mints. May the force be with you.

Yeah, either that or he's going to put two in the back of my fuckin' head. A few minutes later, I see headlights coming around the bend and feel my balls tighten instantly in response. He's here. Shit. “Get a grip,” I mutter to myself. “He can't kill you. Otherwise he gets nothing.” It's something I've repeated to myself a million times already. And even now, after saying it one million and one times, it doesn't make me feel one iota better. Trujillo is a wild card. He's unpredictable and I never know what he's going to do, let alone what he’s thinking. He very well could decide that I’m more trouble than it’s worth. That he'll eat the money I owe him just to wash his hands of me. I just don't know. And it's that uncertainty that has my balls climbing up into my throat. The black SUV pulls into the rest stop, as I’m trying to avoid comparing the sound of gravel crunching beneath the tires with the sound my bones would make beneath those same tires. The SUV pulls to a stop in front of me and the driver cuts the lights. After being nearly blinded by the headlights, it takes my eyes a minute to re-adjust to the darkness. I hear the door open. Blinking away the spots, I watch as the driver walks around to the rear door and opens it. Gabriel Trujillo steps out of the vehicle and makes his way over to me. His dark hair is slicked back, and his thick beard neatly trimmed. The dark designer suit is well-fitted to his frame, with a vibrant blue pocket square, complete with matching tie - providing the only bit of color. Trujillo looks the part of a respectable businessman. He's anything but respectable though. Gabriel Trujillo is the head of one of the most notorious, violent, and brutal drug cartels in Mexico. Like most of the cartels, he's expanded his business operations into the U.S., moving drugs, guns, and girls. He's also eliminating his competitors along the way. The mass graves that seem almost commonplace south of the border these days, have been cropping up in places like Arizona and New Mexico. Recently, a couple had even been found in southern Colorado.

Also, I’ve been meaning to explain this to you. When I show my teeth, it’s not a display of power or dominance. I’m smiling. It means I’m amused or happy.” “Truly?” That astonished him. He never would have made that connection on his own. “Would it trouble you not to clarify this to others? It makes you less imposing.” “Uh, sure. They can keep thinking it’s a scary battle face, I don’t mind.” “Thank you, Terrible One.” “What did I say about working on your endearments?” she snapped. Zylar processed the reaction, but he didn’t understand her outrage. “It is a compliment. You will behold many fearsome competitors in the Choosing, but I do not believe anyone can best you.” “It’s a cultural thing, I get that. But if you want to put a smile on my face, call me sweetheart or baby or…” She stopped talking, likely reading his horror. “Why would I comment on the delectable nature of your organs?” Zylar shuddered delicately. “It’s even worse to infantilize you.” She tilted her head. “Shit, since you put it that way, now I don’t like those options either. Then…just use my name, okay?” “Yes, Beryl. That I will do gladly.” He set off again, pleased with how readily they’d reached a sensible compromise. “What does your name mean?” “It’s a mineral found on Earth. A gemstone, to be precise. The best known types are emerald and aquamarine, but I’m honestly glad my mom didn’t get more specific.” “These gemstones are valuable, yes?” “Some of them. Why?” Ignoring the question, Zylar churred in satisfaction. “You are well named, my unexpected treasure.” “I…thanks.” She ducked her head, and the color of her cheeks shifted, darkening with what looked like it might be an injury. “Are you well enough to compete?” he asked. “We’ll find out.