RE-TWEET IT!
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Image credit telegraph.co.uk
If you watched the sprints at 2008 Beijing Olympics, the name of Usain ‘Lightning’ Bolt is surely a familiar one.
The 22 year old from Jamaica set the track on fire, winning both the 100m and 200m sprints – setting world records. He is the fastest man on earth!
Usain Bolt taught me a principle about marketing. I’ve been using it.
Over the last few months, I have unsubscribed from most of the ezines and email lists I had signed up for.
Several reasons. Lack of time. Boring or irritating content. Constant sales pitches. Parroting the latest affiliate copy-paste message. And more.
I justified being on those lists by calling it ‘research’ or ‘monitoring the competition’.
‘Lightning’ Bolt taught me why that wasn’t necessary. As he pulled away from the field in the last bit of the 200m final, he was STILL powering away. Not slacking or slowing.
And that’s because HE WASN’T WATCHING THE COMPETITION!
He was competing against HIMSELF.
Trying to improve upon his personal best.
And that’s a great way to get ahead, win the race, be the best you can ever be… maybe even the best in the world.
But if you did what Usain did in the 100m, and only run to beat the competition, you’d slack off and slow down once you’re ahead of them.
You may end up being less than what you’re capable of being.
That would be a shame.
Run for yourself.
And win.
{ 3 comments }
I’m totally convinced. Great post as ever.
Thanks for writing.
Right, now hitting the unsubscribe button in my feedreader
Just kidding, but I believe you are right. In many areas (not just marketing) we probably spend too much time looking at what other are doing, rather than to do something yourself.
well, frankly, i’m not entirely sure that this can be seen as a thumb-rule.
yes, when we’re good at one very specific thing, there is little need to ape others or even try to look at them as benchmarks – it’s always imperative to set our own.
but even bolt would look at the training techniques, ethics, habits or stances of other players, because there will be several players whose individual abilities in one small area of running will be technically better than his, and he’d be able to improve himself by observing and learning from them.
essentially, what this post ought to highlight is that: when we want to get good at something, we should shut out the rest of the crap (like, seeing other runners while the race is on, or, random email subscriptions) and after having observed and imbibed from the best in the world in related fields, we should then try to apply it (and improvise), in our special field to the best of our abilities..
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