Rethink what it means to be competitive by injecting creativity
The most successful business people I know focus more on creation than they do competition. In fact, the way to compete is by being the most creative. I often hear “Competition is what made this country great!” I will argue that competition caused someone to be more creative, and it is creativity that made this country great.
Certainly, competition exists, and sometimes it’s necessary, worthwhile, and even enjoyable—witness the sports culture in the United States. However, don’t leap to believing that all of life is a competition. One of the keys to being successful is figuring out what game you’re in. Is it a zero-sum game (winners and losers) where you need to compete, or is it a game of synergy (win/win) where you need to cooperate? Both games exist in life. In either game, generally, the most creative person or team wins.
A 100-Year Old Lesson
In 1910, Wallace D. Wattles wrote his classic self-help book, The Science of Getting Rich. His book was the basis of the successful movie and book, The Secret. What Wattles has to say about creating is the mantra for many entrepreneurs and value creators.
“You must get rid of the thought of competition.
You are to create, not to compete for what is already created. You do not have to take anything away from anyone. You do not have to drive sharp bargains. You do not have to cheat or to take advantage. You do not need to let anyone work for you for less than he earns.
You do not have to covet the property of others or to look at it with wishful eyes. No one has anything of which you cannot have the like. You are to become a creator, not a competitor.
You are going to get what you want, but in such a way that when you get it, every other person whom you affect will have more than he has now. You are not seeking anything that is possessed by anybody else. You are causing what you want to be created from formless substance, and the supply is without limits.
Stick to the formulated statement: There is a thinking stuff from which all things are made, and which, in its original state, permeates, penetrates, and fills the interspaces of the universe. A thought, in this substance produces the thing that is imaged by the thought.
A person can form things in his thought, and, by impressing his thought upon formless substance, can cause the thing he thinks about to be created.”
Wattles’ description of the “thinking stuff” is later called “the field” or “quantum field” by Albert Einstein and is beautifully and simply explained in the book The Field by Lynne McTaggert.
The Science of Getting Rich was the predecessor to later self-help books such as The Master Key System by Charles F. Haanel and Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. It has become a cult classic for many entrepreneurs and is free at http://www.scienceofgettingrich.net/. Read it and start creating!
Author Bio: Larry Kendall
Larry Kendall, author of Ninja Selling and chairman emeritus of The Group, Inc. He is one of the founding partners of The Group, Inc., a real estate company that is owned equally by its sales associates and staff. The Group has 190 sales associates and six offices in the Northern Colorado area.
