Look in the mirror.

Congratulate yourself for being a fei cheong (Cantonese for very) fabulous human being, artist, entrepreneur, nonprofit, or company.

Now, look behind you.  Wow, there are a lot of people in competition with you for being the most fei cheong fabulous.

How do you stand apart?  How do you compete successfully?

A post on this very topic by Chris Brogan, a great thinker about things like this, appeared way before my morning coffee the other day.  Being #1 Daughter of #1 Hsiung sister in a sprawling Chinese family has prepared me for competitive living, one family reunion at a time.  Over time, I have realized that if you accept yourself as your fiercest competitor and critic, you will never lose.   Through my years as a nonprofit ninja, I find that my mistakes have been my greatest mentors.   There are many ways to be an awesome competitor.  Here are some of my thoughts.

Rewrite the gameplan

Can you solve a problem I didn’t know I had? Chris gives the example of how Virgin USA solved his “flying is kind of boring” problem.  Its always better to be proactive in creating compelling value for people.   Do you focus more time on value or product?

Reconsider the failures

Another great post, this time about failure, by Fred Wilson who ends his piece by saying, “So don’t hide your failures. Wear them as a badge of honor. And most of all, learn from them..”.    Failure is nothing more than a GPS alert telling you to re route a new and perhaps unimagined path to your goals.  Do you look through your failures for clues?

Reinvent your nametags

Constituent, consumer, service provider….  Hmmm.  Accurate, but not sexy.  When you have a problem with your Apple product, who do you talk to?  An Apple Genius.  Hey listen, do you want to waste your valuable time with anything but a genius?  Apple knows this about you and has made it easy for you to get help.  And because these geniuses have had this title professionally bestowed upon them, they are filled with pride in being able to save you.  Do you and yours do more than your nametags?

Redirect the race

The race to the best price is always towards the bottom.  Being competitive and focused on other market factors such as listening well, empowering people, making life easier and fun,  building a relevant community – whatever it is you do best for people -  puts you in the position of running the race, not running in it.

Respect

No one is a winner all the time.  Your day in the sun may be tomorrow, not today.  Look at the big picture and consider what you gained from each success and from each failure.  If you can backtrack from each success to a lesson learned or an insight gained from an earlier failure, consider that a fei cheong respectable success.

I am counting on all you competitive types to come back with more cool ways to be a contender!