What You Need to Do to Succeed in This Cut-Throat World

Success isn’t easy to accomplish, especially in this competitive, cut-throat world, where you have competitors left and right, fiercely fighting you for customers.

To come out on top, you need to be better than others. That means crossing existing standards and setting new ones.

Go the extra mile!

My English Language teacher used to say that “if you aim this (*raises his hand*) high, you’ll reach a little below“. That if I wanted to get 100%, I’d have to give my 110%. If I wanted to score a perfect 800 on my SATs, I’d have to study a little more than what was required.

Competition is everywhere (nature, classrooms, businesses, blogs…). You have to compete with your rivals. The best man (or woman) comes out on top. How do you come out on top? You have to go the extra mile (as I mentioned above). You have to do something extra, something others aren’t doing, to get noticed. Here are two examples:

1. Eyeing that promotion? Get the boss to notice you by doing something the others aren’t. Work longer hours than your colleagues. Work harder than your colleagues. Be more involved in company meetings, affairs, etc. Be a suck up if you have to (though I don’t recommend that for the sake of your own dignity). And don’t give up. The top brass has to notice you sooner or later!

2. Want more market share? Create products that people want. Create something that is useful. Go the extra mile. Do more research than your competitors. Hold more surveys and polls. Assemble a more kick ass team of workers, designers, engineers, economists, professionals. Do extra! All the extra work you put in will show in your products. People will notice the quality and usefulness. And your market share will increase, albeit slowly but surely.

Remember that your competition isn’t probably going to just sit there doing nothing. They’ll notice you doing all the extra work, and they will follow suit. They’ll go the extra mile too, for the sake of retaining their market share. They’ll set the standards higher. That means you’ll have to work harder. But in the end, all the hard work pays off.

Don’t Give Up!

So you see, all the extra effort that you put in pays dividends. It doesn’t necessarily happen overnight (it can take months or even years), but it does happen. The important thing is to keep going. Never give up. If you give up in the middle, all the hard work goes to waste. Just keep going, for that dark tunnel isn’t going to last forever.

(Awesome) photo by Photomish Dan