I stopped worrying about traditional competition years ago. I know first hand that the majority of people in any field (and I have worked in a few of them) really don’t care all that much about their careers, their customers, their learnings or their incomes. Oh sure, they say they do, and are even adamant about it at times, but their consistent application of effort, common sense and good practice are few and far between, or perhaps, their perception of what that really means differs from mine. So, who is your real competition? Yourself. Every day my question is “Today in any way did I get a little better?” And I try to answer that question with a YES. Anything I do to build a skill that will help my goals or any activity I partake in related to my goals makes it a good day. Who else is your competition? Oddly, weak competition. I have lost more business over the years due to people simply getting turned off of training because of some unprofessional or ineffective training or trainer than I have to other true professionals. The reaction to poor training is generally “we don’t train any more”, regardless of who it was, and not “well, it was a bad experience but we’ll consider another company”. So, how does this apply directly to you? Stop worrying about the competition (you can’t control that thought and they probably aren’t half as focused as you think), start making self-improvement job ONE (you are your business) and do what you can to improve your entire industry (as a dissatisfied customer paints the entire industry with the same brush). Have a great week!