For the past two months, I haven't been actively working. Not in the sense that I did nothing. I was working, just not really working. I had a lot on my plate. But within those two months, I made a lot of observations. A lot of thoughts. A lot of thinking, the kind that sits with you long after the moment passes.
One of those thoughts hit me so hard, a thought about competition. And funny enough, I stumbled on a video by Victor Okafor, and he made me understand it better in a different light. Which is proof, honestly, that there's really nothing new under the sun.
Here's what I think.
There are three different types of people in every industry, when asked the questionwho is your Competition? The first are the ones who feel like they don't have any competition. They're good to go, nothing to worry about.The second are the ones who, when asked who their competition is, name the other people doing the same thing in their community, the other gym, the other podcast, the other brand. And then there's the third set. The people we're actually here to talk about. The people who understand competitive advantage.
Let me use Victor's scenario to explain it.
Say you own a gym. The gym's main goal is fitness, everything you do, every piece of content, every offer, exists to serve that one goal. The people who understand competitive advantage are the ones who, when asked about their competition, don't point down the street. They point to the alternative. Because when people aren't at the gym, they're still trying to get fit somehow. Slimming teas, most likely. Home workouts. Fad diets. Even surgery, for some weird reason(just saying). There are a hundred ways to chase the same goal, and your gym is only one of them.
So the real question isn't "who else has a gym near me?" It's "what do I do so people choose the gym over the slimming tea?" That's when you start creating content around it. That's when you start finding real solutions to a real problem. And that, funny enough, is how you become genuinely creative in your industry, not by outdoing the competition next door, but by out thinking the alternative.
That's the whole game, really. If you want to be great in your industry, that's the best place to start.
And after sitting with this thought, after stumbling on Victor's video, I went and checked it against every great person I could think of. Podcasts, business gurus, people who've genuinely made it in their space. Every single one of them works with this idea, whether they call it that or not. Not "who is my competition" in the way we're taught to ask it. But "who is offering the alternative to what I offer, and how do I out serve them."
Because there are so many ways to solve the same problem. If I want to get fit, I could join a gym, take slimming teas, get a trainer, try a diet, even consider surgery. Endless paths to the same goal. And it takes someone truly great to find the better solution and pull people toward it.
There's a lot I thought about in these two months, and that's what this new newsletter seriesKayla's Thoughts, Between Two Months'is going to hold. Every deep thought, every observation, everything sitting in between the noise. New issues drop every Monday and Friday, sometimes a Wednesday if the thought won't wait. Follow and subscribe to stay with me on this one.
Love thisss