Step 38 - Throwing Idiots To The Crocodiles
This lesson is about competition and companion. It explains which individuals to compete with, whom to avoid and whom to ally with. This lesson is an instruction on how to gain a comparative advantage against our competition.
What type of person to compete with
Doubtless we are going to compete with someone else in some way, but we have the ability to choose the area of people we want to compete with. And it is better to compete with idiots than with genius.
We learn from history that the first rule of biology is competition. Mother nature has not read the declaration of independence, nature does not see all people equally and nature laughs last. And even if we are not operating on a primal animalistic understanding of humanity, we can't deny basic competition among men, the forces of nature or competition in our body and its dissolution by bacteria.
Therefore in business, we don't want to place ourselves in an area, where our competition is full of mostly genius. Charlie Munger once said that, what we really want is to compete with a bunch of idiots, and fortunately these come in large supplies.
Stay with your natural strengths, even in a highly competitive field and tweak your business or career in a direction, where your competition is less genius to gain a comparative advantage with the people around you.
And only if we succeed to claim our comparative advantages we will be able to trade with others in a profitable way, because in contrast to economic theory of comparative advantages, a single human is limited in their capacity. So secure yourself your comparative advantage by tweaking your business in areas of low skilled competition and apply these comparative advantages in the three areas of classical production of land, labor and capital.
What type of people to avoid in life
As much as it is important to know with whom to compete, it is also important whom to avoid when it comes the time to build alliances with employees, business partners and friends.
When we put stability and loyalty as the litmus test for building our land and castle we have to get rid of people with a distorted self image, because they cause the most trouble. People who have a distorted sense of self are unstable, because the world is always going to give those persons feedback, that they are either not as good as they think they are or that they are way better than they think of themselves. And as soon as an opportunity arises they will jump at it, no matter the casualties.
High self esteem individuals who think they are better than they are, have also been regarded as most violent, because their bloated self esteem does not deal well will rejection. If they find a chance, where they can spring up to a higher level on your back, at your expense, why wouldn't they do it? They see themselves as high and want to get acknowledged by other people, therefore they take their chance.
Low self esteem individuals see themselves as horrible, bad looking and less skilled than they really are. At some point they are going to take their chance and take the big jump, and when the moment comes they take casualties and we don't want to be a casualty.
Both cases cause trouble, because they are erratic, they surprise you and then they come back and bite you to jump at an opportunity at your expense. Therefore avoid people with a distorted self image.
What type of person to hang out with
Now that we know what kind of person to avoid, the person to ally with is the opposite of it. We have to align with people who can judge themselves accurately, because they will be the more stable and loyal candidates in life, for your trench wars, to built your land and your castle.
We want people we can count on and loyalty is the only thing that we can build on and the question about self image is the litmus test. By spending time with them, observing and common sense we can get a good enough understanding if they pass the test.
Optimistic people are fine. Critical or negative people offer their balance to the team also. And it is okay to be tough on yourself. But the general vicinity to the accurate level of self image must be met.
What are crocodiles?
When building our caste we need a moat around our castle to protect it from the competition. The moat around is our land, labor and capital.
The crocodiles are our comparative advantages and the idiots we throw inside are our competitors, which we choose by definition to be weaker than us. Competition is going to attack our castle and we need a moat around it to protect it and our allies inside to be stable.
Sidenote:
Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened. If you feel opportunities are closed, keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking and eventually what you are looking for will be discovered. The reason most people don't find their destiny, is because they give up too quick.
Sidenote:
Everybody at the end of the day thinks they are better than you, even if they don't want to let on, that's part of the drive to be humans, they want to beat.
Answer the question below, print this sheet and keep it in your 3-ring business binder.
What is an example in your life socially where you have allied with unstable people? Let's call her D. She was great. Top student. Many academic distinctions. A 10. Then she stopped working on herself. Time passed and she still thought she is worth her past accomplishments, which is difficult, because her current accomplishments lacked. Little bit Unstable, yet I don't know if it was a bloated or low self esteem, since people try to compensate for what they lack.
How can you adjust your career so that you are working with your competitive advantage? Tweaking my industry to go in a direction with less skilled organizations, which is not difficult to find for the moment. But I've to make haste slowly.
What are your advantages? Analytic strength. Technology. Web development. Planning. Digital. Automation. Data driven rationality.
What new allies do you need to go out and make? When time comes, loyal allies with complementary strengths.