If you look around and feel there are people competing with you, people whom you have to beat, you're playing too much by the rules.

Now, I am not talking about the scientific definition of competition, such as two fighters in a boxing match, or two companies selling the same product. This is competition on a higher level; the strategic, who-I-am-and-what-I-represent level of competing.

Competition only exists when you are measuring yourself by what others do or have done. You can be in a field that has 1,000 others who play the same sport or sell in the same mall or who write books on the same topic, and still not see them as competition. It's all in how you see yourself and what standards you measure yourself against. Do you need to beat them or are you racing against your own standards?

Understand that when you use others as a measuring stick, you can never go any higher than they are, and you’re only just above them if you win. When you set your own standards, they can be as high as you want them to be, no limits. You control your standards, but you don't control how good the "competition" is.

Run a new race.