The Great Compete Against Themselves, Others Compete Against Them

You Should Find Your Fiercest Competitor In The Mirror

By David Miranda

Tiger Woods is the Number One Golfer in the world. Toyota is the most profitable car maker in the world. Google is the most successful search engine in the world. Competitors try and try but Tiger, Toyota, and Google still excel.

The question is why?

The simple answer is that their fiercest competition is themselves, not "the other guy." While their competition is investing time trying to analyze and copy them, they are investing their time on making themselves better than they were yesterday. Interesting approach.

Tiger Woods, even after achieving great success, decided to change his golf coach and his swing. Both his competitors and golf pundits alike were befuddled. Why tamper with success? When asked to explain, Tiger said he needed to improve. Tiger Woods improve? But improve he did! His fiercest competitor is himself.

During a recent interview Ford's new CEO stated that Ford was examining how Toyota was able to make better cars, be profitable, and continue to gain market share. His time might be better spent making better cars. By the time Ford is as good as Toyota is today, Toyota will be better than they are tomorrow. Toyota's fiercest competitor is Toyota.

Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft are all trying to compete with Google and Google continues to gain market share despite their individual and collective efforts. Google competes with itself.

Winners compete against themselves.

The lesson is this - if you want to be great, relentlessly great, compete with yourself.

Be your own fiercest competition. Be a Tiger!