Breaking out of a mental prison
There was a time in my life when I felt trapped in a “mental prison” of my own making.
Do you feel, as I once did, that your mental processes are “narrow minded” and dogmatic? If so, you may be trapped in an inefficent mental prison. If you are trapped in a mental prison, you will feel it internally. Your gut, or intuition, will be silently telling you so.
The common symptoms of being trapped in a mental prison are constant frustration, a lack of enthusiasm, boredom, little or no creative thinking, and a lack of progress towards your goals.
The dangers of a poor “mental framework“™:
There is nothing that can limit your success in life more than being narrow minded. When you are narrow minded, you are operating your life from a very inefficient “mental framework.” You fail to see opportunities to apply your individual uniqueness to the objective world.
In effect, when you are stuck in this inefficient state you have no “personal competitive advantage™” whatsoever. The decisions that you make internally and the actions that you take in the objective world come from a weak and inefficient mental framework. A mental prison causes “victim” thinking and a reactive (instead of proactive) attitude towards life in general.
Breaking out of the mental prison:
You can, and should, take responsibility for creating your own success. How does one create success in such a competitive world? You create what I call “personal competitive advantage.” Personal competitive advantage arises out of the creation of an improved mental framework.
Installing a new mental framework:
In the movie The Matrix, Neo developed a competitive advantage once he understood how to leverage the resources at his disposal. Just as the players in the Matrix installed new mental frameworks with instructions on how to excel, you too can install a new mental framework that utilizes your uniqueness and the body of knowledge within a particular context.
Determination and persistence are no longer enough to succeed in our competitive world, they are now just an entry fee to get into the game. To succeed, you need a personal competitive advantage over the competition. -Darryl Dosti
Bruce Lee had it, Tiger Woods has it, and so do the best Pick Up Artists…
Bruce Lee had it, Tiger Woods has it, and so do the best Pick Up Artists. So do successful entrepreneurs as well as the greatest leaders throughout the history of civilization. Any business that has been successful over time has it as well, just in a different way.
I am talking about sustainable competitive advantage.
Just as a successful business has a sustainable competitive advantage, every successful person has developed a personal competitive advantage. Anyone who has achieved a high level of consistent success has figured out how to apply their individual uniqueness to some field or skill. They have not just gotten down the learning curve, they have figured out a way to shift it in their favor.
The bar is being raised everywhere. Persistence, determination, and knowledge are no longer enough, they are now minimum requirements. In our hyper-competitive global economy we need to apply our unique individual qualities to find ways to add value to the marketplace.
When we have an actual method that allows us to apply our individual uniqueness to a set of skills we can effectively align who we are as individuals with the competencies that are necessary to succeed. We “individualize” the skills. Our actions then become optimized and second nature in feeling. We create uniqueness in action and a competitive edge.
If you are frustrated that you are not achieving your goals you have probably not developed a personal competitive advantage. But how do we develop this? Can a new “mental framework”™ be installed in our minds? In my book “Personal Competitive Advantage™” due out later this month I discuss just such a method. -Darryl Dosti
Becoming a New Barbarian
One of the books that had a big impact on me was The New Barbarian Manifesto (2000), written by Professor Ian Angell. In this book he discusses how we have entered a
“new elite cosmopolitan age where knowledge workers have become the real generators of wealth… It is now abundantly clear that knowledge workers are the real generators of wealth. They always have been, only now they realize it. For their knowledge is the basis of innovation, and innovation underpins the creation of alternatives - not only alternative products but also alternative procedures. Alternatives deliver new competitive advantages, and destroy the old. …The income of these owners of intellectual wealth will increase substantially. They will be made welcome anywhere in the world, no matter what their age, race, sex, color, or creed. “
Of course, knowledge, in and of itself, achieves absolutely nothing. Knowledge, in and of itself does not produce competitive advantage. It must be applied by individuals that utilize their talents to add value and create wealth. Personal competitive advantage is what allows us to create value and wealth. Without it, you will be among the increasing masses that are forced to compete for insecure service or other low skilled jobs. Quoting from the New Barbarian Manifesto once again:
“(National Economic) growth has been decoupled from employment, it is created from the talent of a few knowledge workers, not from the labor of low grade service and production workers. Growth is delivered by entrepreneurs, but only if they are given the incentives, and otherwise left alone…. Companies and individuals, not countries, generate the wealth. New technology has released these organizations and knowledge workers from any geographical constraint, and they are roaming the world looking for free-thinking countries as partners.”
Understanding how to develop and sustain a personal competitive advantage is now more important than ever, and its importance will only increase in the future when you consider the trends discussed above. The old models of narrow minded, dogmatic management and bureaucracy have fallen by the wayside in this brave new world. What matters now is how you as an individual can add value to the world and make someone else’s life better in the process. What can you, as a unique individual apply and leverage through some context to add value to the world? Do you have a competitive advantage?
This is not a time to fear competitive forces. It is a time to embrace them. The current environment presents opportunity. The opportunity lies in being able to utilize our individual and organizational idiosyncrasies in the global marketplace. We do this by developing a Personal Competitive Advantage™. –Darryl Dosti
Do you ever feel “out of alignment?”
Do you feel like you are out of alignment? When an individual or organization is not in tune with their competitive advantage, life becomes a struggle. We feel awkward, out of alignment, and out of tune with our life’s purpose. This leads to unhappiness and misery for the individual. At the business or organizational level it means bankruptcy or death.
Remember Muhammad Ali? He developed a fighting style that was in alignment with all the things that constituted his individual culture (everything that made him unique as an individual). His personality, his physical skills, his determination, his internal values, etc… all the elements of his internal culture were combined with the competencies in the context of boxing in an optimal way.
This created a competitive advantage that only reached its end after a great career. He believed he was the greatest fighter in the world, as well as one of the most entertaining people in sports. He combined boxing competencies with his individual culture into a proprietary competence. This proprietary competence flowed into everything he did. The result was a sustained competitive advantage. Whether they are aware of it or not, every person who has achieved a high degree of success has done this, usually unconsciously. I show you how to do it consciously in my book “Personal Competitive Advantage™” due out at the end of January, 2008.–Darryl Dosti
How to stop living a mediocre life
Are you determined to succeed? So what, everyone else is too….
So what separates the winners from the losers in life? Of course, determination and persistence play a role, but everyone else also has those qualities. They are a given, like showing up to the Olympics in great physical shape. In other words they are a minimum requirement. If you have determination and persistence then you have brought yourself up to the same level as everyone else.
Have you have read all the self-help stuff, gone to the seminars, set your goals and work toward them every day yet you still wind up frustrated year after year, spinning your wheels? It is because you do not know what separates the winners from the mediocre in life…. The winners know how to apply their unique individual characteristics in a way that gives them an edge at whatever they do. In short, what separates the winners from the losers is “personal competitive advantage.”
You have a personal competitive advantage at something when you have found a way to apply who you are as an individual to whatever it is you are doing. You in effect “individualize” the skills you are focused on. No matter what your field, career, or goals, in order to develop a competitive advantage you must not only adapt to the context, but adapt the context to who you are as an individual. All successful people have done this.
We are all different for a reason. On this New Years Eve, make a vow to stop being mediocre. Embrace, apply, and utilize who you are as an individual. Be happy that you are unique and learn to apply and adapt your uniqueness to create a personal competitive advantage. -Darryl Dosti