You can and should become the best.

Becoming the best at something. It’s a fantastic strategy that you can adopt because once you do, you’re choosing to no longer be a commodity. You’re choosing to stand out amongst the rest. You’re choosing to be that person, that organization, that group of people who others can point to and say, “That’s the best.” And it comes with a lot of benefits, and we’re aware of all this. It comes with more awareness, more attention around us.

You might not play chess. You might not know how to play. But you probably know who Magnus Carlson is, and you probably don’t know who Alireza Firouzja is, right? There are measurable benefits that come once you become the best. Sales becomes easier. It gets easier to spread the word about you. You can increase your price. If there’s a course on how to play basketball by Michael Jordan, I bet you it’s going to cost more than all the other coaches out there.

Becoming the best is a very valuable solution, a very valuable approach we can take for ourselves. But the confusion comes, and the trap lies in how we understand what it means, or how to become the best. The how is the problem because we’ve been so indoctrinated, not maliciously, but just because it’s so prevalent. If you look at media, we get fed almost daily zero-sum games, competitive games where there is a fixed set of rules, and to win you have to play by those rules better in order to win a fixed prize pool, a trophy, a number of seats, presidency, etc.

We are so indoctrinated to believe that to become the best, we have to play by the rules better. So if you’re a dentist, we look at the competition around us and then we say everyone is honing their technical skills, their clinical ability. To become the best, I have to have the best clinical ability. That is the trap. That is the wrong way of approaching what it means to become the best today.

So what I’m going to do, assuming we all understand the benefits that come with becoming the best, is I’m going to show you the new approach, the how to become the best. And the first thing it’s going to require of you is to remove yourself from this idea that we exist in a zero-sum game, that we can play in the realm of an infinite game.

An infinite game is one that has no structure. It has no rules. Sometimes the rules aren’t fair. Sometimes the prize pools are different. And you can see this in life. Life isn’t fair. We get born into different situations. Everyone’s playing their own game. Everyone has their own rules. Everyone has their own goals and outcomes. This is an infinite game.

And to be honest, our existence lies somewhere on a spectrum. Yes, there are truly fixed games, typically fixed zero-sum games, and typically fixed zero-sum games are human-made. Infinite games are the world of synthesis, where two people come together and create more value than if they were individuals. If we exist in that realm of infinite games, then we’re able to create abundance. We’re able to create value.

So what I challenge you to do, the first step to becoming the best, is to remove yourself from this idea of a fixed game that we have to become the best at under a fixed set of rules, and try to adopt the belief that we live more in this infinite world. It’s a paradox, but try this as a thought exercise.

Once we do that, what’s the next thing we have to do? We have to be very clear with who we’re becoming the best for. I’ve always wondered why in sports, let’s say you have the greatest player of all time for a certain game. In hockey, maybe you could argue that was Wayne Gretzky. I used to play hockey when I was a little kid. Everyone knew Wayne Gretzky, but there were also people who were very big fans of second-rate players, players who maybe never won the Stanley Cup, never won a significant achievement, but they still had diehard fans.

I always wondered why. Why wouldn’t you want to support anyone but the best? And it turns out the best means very different things for different people. I have a certain idea of what is best for me. When I go grocery shopping, I want certain things, but a different person has a totally different criteria of what they consider to be the best for them. And who’s right? Both of us. No side is more valid than the other. That’s an infinite game. In this game, there are multiple winners.

So who we’re trying to become the best for is the second step after we first remove ourselves from this zero-sum game. We then identify who we’re becoming the best for.

And now, how do we become the best? Best is a byproduct. It is a byproduct of continuously, every day, becoming better and better and better. So let’s take our lens, let’s take our focus off becoming the best, and shift it to becoming better. And now the question becomes, how do we become better?

Then we go back to who we’re trying to serve. What does better mean to them? I do marketing. I have thoughts on what better marketing is. My clients and my customers may not believe that’s the case. They may believe in something totally different. So if I come with my approach to them, I’m not doing anything better. If they care about more eyeballs and I care more about sales, they’re going to find someone who can get them more eyeballs. Even though I’m helping them with sales, and even though I say, “I’m actually better for you,” it doesn’t matter. It’s what they say is better for them.

I’m probably missing an insight that they have, and I’m here stubbornly believing my approach is better, that they should agree with me, and I don’t have the empathy to see what they’re seeing and realize there’s a reason why they would want eyeballs.

So we start with who. Who are we going to serve? Who are we going to be better for? People want very different things. Not everyone wants the same thing. Not everyone cares about clinical efficiency or clinical ability. It’s not about that anymore.

We’ve removed ourselves from the frantic realm of needs and survival into a more functional society where we can start taking care of things like wants, identity, how we like to be served, and respect. These things matter when it comes to people choosing you.

When I go to a dental office and they have the best doctor in the world who can accurately do everything but is super rude, arrogant, you get zero service, the line is packed, that might not be the best for me. I might go to someone who is clinically proficient, good enough to do the job, get me to a good space, but gives me many other aspects of what I consider to be better.

As you do this, as you offer more and more things that I consider better, to me, you become the best.

We live today in a world with so much diversity and so many different ideas of what is better. Someone likes organic. Someone believes organic is a scam. Someone loves GMO. Someone hates GMO. Someone likes ’90s music. Someone likes modern techno music. We’re too diverse.

Choosing to become the best by winning a fixed zero-sum game with a fixed set of rules is a viable strategy if you manage to do it, but the competition is way too big. There are too many people. It is incomprehensible to say, “I’m going to be Michael Jordan.” Sure, it would be a great strategy if you could achieve it. Is it likely? Probably not.

So my challenge to you is to understand that this is more of a pipe dream unless you have all the advantages and a realistic shot. In that case, go for it. But my guess is that’s probably not you. You weren’t born with all these advantages. You weren’t pushed to your potential as a child. You didn’t have the best people around you. And that’s okay.

You can be the second-rate player who has a significant fan following, who people love, who people tell their friends and family about, who they point to and explain emotionally why you’re the best for them. That’s completely fine, and that’s a valid strategy.

So what I’m saying is this is the approach we should take. We should stop obsessing over fixed rules and zero-sum competitive games and instead consciously play infinite games where we can create value, where one plus one equals five, synthesis, synergy.

Choose to become the best, but change how you believe the best is accomplished, and keep doing it better and better every day.

Thanks.