How to Find Your Competitive Advantage
Stop following the crowd and forge your own path.
Everyone is a clone. You speak to anyone and they just repeat what other people say or do. They get so caught up in following trends that they forget that their competitive advantage is the thing that makes them different. But they can’t even begin to grasp that idea because they fill their heads with so much noise. They can’t even tell if their thoughts are their own. The people who will win in the long term are the ones who can block out the noise and follow their own advice.
Why Copying People Doesn’t Work
Copying what made someone else successful would make sense if you were in the exact same position as them. But you’re not. You’re gentically different, your upbringing was different, your talents are different, the people you know are different, your access to resources is different, and the context of the world itself is different. You’re a different person in different circumstances. So your path moving forward has to be different.
Take Elon Musk for example. He has degrees in Physics and Economics, which relates to almost all of the things he’s done so far in his career. He went from co-founding Zip2 and PayPal, to founding SpaceX, to investing and becoming CEO of Tesla, did a few side missions, and then ended up buying Twitter. Throughout all of that, he was simply following his own competitive advantage: the things that make him different.
You can’t do any of those things. You don’t have the same skillset, interests, or opportunities. And that’s a good thing. The world would be a boring, static place if everyone was the same and did the same things. There will always be followers. People who either can’t think differently or are too scared to. And they will always stick to following trends. We need those people. But we also need people who aren’t afraid to be different. That’s something anyone who really wants to can do.
How To Be Different
You don’t have to force being different. You are different. It’s just about bringing that out. Here’s how.
1. Think in Decades
Following trends comes from short-term thinking. You try new diets and workout routines because you want to get in shape fast. You watch popular TV shows and keep on top of fashion because you want to be liked by other people. You jump on new ways to make money because you think it’ll get you rich quickly. But none of that lasts. Consistency will always beat jumping on new diets and training routines. Trying to be liked by everyone will have you being loved by no one. And I’ve come to realise that building generational wealth will probably take generations. So stop thinking in months and start thinking in decades. When you get out of the habit of short-term thinking, you’ll stop following trends, and you’ll do the things that align with your interests and skill set. Which in turn, will bring you long-term success.
2. Look to Your Past
Your past can tell you the things you’re good at or the things you enjoy. Things you might have forgot about as you got older. Like maybe you were good at drawing as a kid, so you might be good at architecture or graphic design. Or maybe you were good at algebra, so you might be good at troubleshooting code. Once you rediscover those skills and interests, try leaning into those and see where they lead.
But this isn’t always true. In school, I didn’t like IT, so I had it in my head that I wouldn’t be good at programming. Then years later, when I took a programming module at university, I found out I was good at it and it's something I enjoyed. That brings me to my next point.
3. Try New Things
I never actually tried to code. I just assumed I wasn’t good at it because I didn’t like IT in school. And if I had never tried, I’d still be thinking the same. So don’t be scared to try new things. You might think, or other people might say, something isn’t for you. But they don’t know you and you don’t completely know yourself. So the only way to find hidden interests and skills is by experimenting. The worst that can happen is you don’t like it. That’s not time wasted. It’s a lesson learned. And it will also help you better understand yourself. The best thing that can happen is you come across a skill or interest that you can use to differentiate yourself from the rest.
4. Think Whilst You Consume
Every piece of content you consume will change you. If you watch a video and disagree with it, it reinforces your own beliefs. If you watch a video and agree with it, it will either reinforce your own beliefs or change them. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s only an issue when you don’t take the time to think about it. I see it all the time. People think something is true just because they heard it online. They don’t take the time to stop and think. They just assume it’s true and accept it. That habit decreases your ability to think independently. And if you can’t think independently, you will conform to the group and lose your competitive advantage. So instead, get into the habit of questioning everything you consume.
5. Stop Seeking Advice
Seeking advice isn’t a bad thing. It can help you learn faster. But it’s an issue when you take it too far. When you make decisions based on someone else’s advice that goes against your judgement, you end up valuing other peoples opinions more than your own. You stop trusting yourself. And when you stop trusting yourself, you turn into a sheep. Blending into the crowd because you’re too scared to go off alone. You’re better off trusting your judgement, making mistakes, and learning from them. And if you're scared of making mistakes, you’re scared of taking risks. That just tells me that maybe you are a sheep after all.
Final Thoughts
Let’s sum that up. We live in a generation of clones. To get above the masses, we have to have a competitive advantage. Something that we have that no one else does. That just means leaning into the skills and interests that make us different whilst resisting the pull of the crowd. And like I said, if you’re scared of being different, if you're scared of making mistakes and taking risks, then maybe you are better off being a sheep after all.
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