Competition or a worthy rival?

Do you need competition or a worthy rival? It depends on which game you are playing – a finite game or an infinite game.

You guessed it, I’m talking about The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek… again.

Finite vs Infinite

In a finite game, there are established opponents, established rules and a clear winner and loser. With an infinite game, the opponents come and go, the rules are changeable, and the endpoint is undefined. There are no winners or losers – just ahead and behind.

You don’t need to compete when you know who you are.
Bernadette Jiwa, Story Driven

This quote reminded me of the premise Simon Sinek outlines when talking about competition and worthy rivals. When we focus on competition, we tend to lose sight of who we really are and our unique purpose and intention for being in business.

However, when we shift that thinking from competition to a worthy rival, we are now considering the rival in a new perspective – one that encourages us to do better, recognize what they do well and how we can up our game. It becomes a long game with no definitive end in sight.

Know the game

There is a time for a finite game and a time for an infinite game. Knowing when is key to our success. A game of baseball is a finite game. The game of baseball is an infinite game.

In the game of life, we only get one choice. Once we are born, we are all players. The only choice we get is if we want to play with a finite mindset or an infinite mindset.
Simon Sinek

As always, in pursuit of purpose,