If everyone’s doing it, you’re already too late

Walk the other way

Here’s a simple principle to get ahead of everyone else.

Find out what most people are doing and do the opposite.

It sounds almost too simple, but the crowd has a tendency to be wrong most of the time. When everyone is doing one thing, you should be looking to do something else entirely.

Why does this work? Look, we all know the 80/20 rule that roughly 80% of the results come from only 20% of the people. If you’re doing what everyone else is doing, you are putting yourself in the 80%. You’re fighting for scraps with everyone else. To get into that top 20%, you have to separate yourself from the herd.

When you dare to do something different you stop competing. You get to make your own rules.

Investor Peter Thiel builds on this in his book Zero to One. He argues that “competition is for losers.” The real winners don’t just try to beat the competition at their own game. They invent a new game entirely, creating a monopoly for themselves.

This is the ultimate advantage. Being the only one doing what you do is the closest thing to a guarantee of success. You’re not just a player in the market. You become the market. That’s where the real wins are found.

If you’re tired of conventional advice and want to explore strategies that give you a real edge, this newsletter is for you. You can subscribe here.

Tomorrow I will share one way that you can use to come up with ideas no one is exploring and crave your own unique path.