How to stay on top of competition regardless of age and industry

How to stay on top of competition regardless of age and industry

Viktoria Guseva
Sep 6, 2018 · 5 min read

Competition both in business and on your career path can by very tough.

Yet, impossible is nothing — just recently I did a research on the topic and will be happy to share some thoughts with you.


Pursue self growth whatever age you are

My patterned thinking was blown up a few days ago by just one interview.

I could hardly expect myself listening to the advice of an 80 yo man — and ended up attending for more then 2 hours!

The podcast host was Tim Ferris so somehow he got me hooked — his guests are always outstanding, regardless of age.

So why did this guest speaker — a well-know US basketball coach — has impressed me so much?

At 63 he became a marketing director at Nike International Basketball and now, at 80, still has impressively active lifestyle — with no wish to retire any time soon.

His road to success was paved with non-stop self-learning and development.

Now I asked myself — if this guy at 80 doesn’t stop learning, then why would any of us complain that we miss some possibilities with age?

The only barrier we have is in our heads, success equals to non-stop self-development — whether it’s new skills, new books, new people we meet or new goals we set.

If you’re interested to listen to the guy as well — the interview is here

Get proper people around you

I do believe in the idea that 90% of success is based on your environment — on those people you surround yourself with.

And it’s up to you to chose whether they will inspire or demotivate you, push you to learn something new and move to the future or keep stuck in complains about golden past.

Eventually that’s why successful people share same views and stick together.

After all, finding those soul mates is not so difficult — meet-ups, conferences and trainings of all kinds are available year-round and are full of opportunities to make new acquaintances.

“close-up photo of four person's hands” by rawpixel on Unsplash

Watch the trends

So far trend-watching was a kind of secret skill available only to the chosen.

Yet, as it gets more and more obvious that the early bird gets all the worm, these skills are pursued by more and more individuals.

Here is a list of few good books on the topic:

Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction by Derk Thomposn

https://www.amazon.com/Hit-Makers-Science-Popularity-Distraction/dp/110198032X

Nice list of ideas (quite a few of them are from Hollywood) to jump-start your trend-watching habit.

Non-Obvious 2018 Edition: How To Predict Trends and Win The Future by Rohit Bragava

https://www.amazon.com/Non-Obvious-2018-Predict-Trends-Future

The author is a kind of guru in trends prediction and each year he publishes a new book with insights for the the coming year. By the way, a book for 2019 is already available for pre-order via Amazon.

Contagious: Why Things Catch On by Jonah Berger

https://www.amazon.com/Contagious-Things-Catch-Jonah-Berger/dp/1451686587

This book is not quite about trends as they are, but can give you some insight about the essence of popularity — why some things catch on and others don’t. It certainly will add a few nice life hacks to your hit list.

There is also a worthy concept developed by Gartner — it gives reference points for technology hype cycle and its stages, which can be further transformed to other industries.

Another cool tool you can use to quickly check trends is Google trends .

Never stop challenging yourself

And not only yourself — but you team / environment as well.

I’m pretty sure you now think “Ah, it’s easier said then done!”

But once you embrace the approach and start challenging yourself and setting new goals on a regular basis — I can assure you will grow both personally as well as increase your business results.

“man standing on cliff under white sky” by Francisco Gonzalez on Unsplash

Use the power of small steps

Another worthy approach to overachieve the desired results is the power of small steps.

Small steps can help overachieve, seriously?

Actually, yes.

Every big goal is made of small steps. Once you take small steps on a regular basis your goal gets more and more achievable — each day. Each day you will get one step closer to the desired result.

The best example here is sports: have you ever noticed how every spring lots of people start rigorously exercising in the gym? They want get back to shape fast, probably, within a month.

Yet, if they changed the strategy and applied the tactics of the small steps, they would be far ahead of the competition.

The golden small steps in this case equal to regular exercising during winter months (actually, during the whole year, but that’s a separate story). And this is a proven strategy to stay in good shape always, even after a few month without visits to the gym.

Aim higher

Another personal example from sports.

I like to start my morning routing on a running track. Each week I try to extend the running time — by at least a few minutes, as well as speed and incline.

Then a few days ago I was in a hurry and had to substantially shorten the run time — to about twice shorter then usual.

And you know what? I could hardly finish my training — each minute seemed an age, since the goal was much simpler, it was somehow much more difficult to get to the end.

So after all I made a conclusion, which can be just as good for any goal setting — aim higher. The simpler the goal, the more difficult it seems.

The more difficult the goal — the more you strive to achieve and the less you think about its difficulty.

Looking forward to get your comments!

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Viktoria Guseva

Written by

Digital Ninja | Digital Strategy | Performance Marketing | SaaS | e-Commerce | Blockchain

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