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       Day 5
       
       To compete is to choose to play somebody else's game. This 
       can be a massive source of energy, but it's also a dangerous 
       game. The billionaire investor and founder of PayPal, Peter 
       Thiel, said that the fierce competition in his college career 
       nearly kept him from doing what he actually was meant to do. 
       He later wrote in Zero to One, "All failed companies are the 
       same: they failed to escape competition."
       
       When we're locked in competition we tend to obsess on doing 
       the same thing but faster, bigger, or cheaper. Competition 
       can blind us to opportunities to truly distinguish ourselves.
       
       In fact, the fiercer the competition, the more similar things 
       get. Harvard Professor Youngme Moon writes in her book 
       Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd that, "The dynamic 
       [of competition] is not unlike a popularity contest in which 
       everyone tries to win by being equal parts friendly, happy, 
       active, and fun. Or an election campaign in which all the 
       candidates try to be charming, serious, humble, and strong. 
       Once everyone starts doing it, no one stands out."
       
       Put simply, Moon has found that, "The more diligently firms 
       compete with each other, the less differentiated they can 
       become."
       
       Even more often than businesses, individual lives are ruined 
       by being too preoccupied with competition to look around. 
       Where are you competing in your life that you don't actually 
       want to be (e.g., money, audience, position, possessions, 
       looks, awards, travel, experiences etc.)? If you weren't 
       worried about winning that, what would you focus on?
       
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       This topic doesn't really fit me so much...or maybe I'm 
       misunderstanding this.  I 'm not really a competitive person 
       these days.  I know that before, I had more competitive 
       tendencies, but even then, I would not consider myself 
       competitive.  The older I get, the more I see the value of 
       cooperation rather than competition.  Even though I am 
       generally a loner, I do find the strength of cooperation and 
       the strength of the team to be of more value than anything I 
       could do on my own.
       
       I think if there is competition, it would be mostly against 
       my personal best.  Or what improvement can I do compared to 
       last time or yesterday.  The Japanese have a term, "kaizen," 
       I think it is.  I means something like continual improvement.  
       I think Toyota or some other Japanese manufacturing company 
       uses that term for their work.  For me, it would be more 
       appropriate to compete against myself rather than anybody 
       else.  
       
       As you can probably tell. I was not really into competitive 
       sports.  I did enjoy sports, but more for recreation and 
       leisure.  I enjoyed playing...winning or losing did not 
       matter so much.  Yeah, I like winning, but I think I find 
       more value in the playing.  I'm not too big on watching other 
       people play sports on TV.  Maybe I'm the target market for 
       participation awards...actually, scratch that.  I think those 
       are silly and defeats the purpose of having awards.  I would 
       rather just enjoy playing.
       
       Now, my wife and my son, they are competitive.  They would 
       probably know more about competition than me.  
       
       Some of these topics seem like it is not really where I am in 
       life these days or do not really pertain to me as much as it would 
       have in my younger days.  I think I will still continue with these 
       topics but will stick with the perspective of where I am 
       today.  I don't really feel like rehashing the past so much 
       these days.
       
       That is 20.
       
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