Too busy to read?

When you can't win by being better, you can win by being different. By combining your skills, you reduce the level of competition, which makes it easier to stand out. You can shortcut the need for a genetic advantage (or for years of practice) by rewriting the rules. A good player works hard to win the game everyone else is playing. A great player creates a new game that favors their strengths and avoids their weaknesses.

The next task was to reframe the competition: "We are honored to be competing against two other great firms today. I know each of them could serve you well because they have large teams, multiple offices, legions of young, energetic researchers, and the best-paid analysts in the world, and when working a deal, these firms spare no expense to tackle the job." This was my way of saying that Goldhammer and the group from London were big, bloated corporations with too many people, many of them young and inexperienced. With this statement, I had reframed the competition as young, overstaffed, worried about their fees, and generally overweight.

"It doesn't matter how smart you are or aren't, you need to make up in hard work what you lack in experience, skill, intelligence, or innate ability. If your competitor is smarter, more talented, or experienced, you just need to work three or four times as hard. You can still beat them!"

Walgreens's rivalry with CVS, which was based in Rhode Island and one-third bigger in terms of revenues, colored virtually everything the drugstore chain did. It was a myopic view of the world that was hard to understand for an outsider like Hunter who wasn't a Walgreens company man. Theranos had cleverly played on this insecurity. As a result, Walgreens suffered from a severe case of FoMO--the fear of missing out.

There's nothing like a friendly contest to whet your competitive spirit and immerse yourself in a new habit with a bang.