Compete Compete Compete

You have to want to compete if you are going to be a startup entrepreneur. If you don’t like competition, don’t even think about doing it.  Go work for someone else.

Competition is underrated today.  Kids are raised to think they are all “special” and everyone gets a trophy.  Each human has an attribute that is indeed special but you have to spend a lot of time figuring out what it is.  Every kid on the soccer field isn’t special and as a matter of fact it’s rare to have even one special kid in an entire league.

Brian Urlacher played for the Chicago Bears.  I saw him play a bunch.  I couldn’t believe how fast he was.  A friend of mine played middle linebacker for the Bears.  His name was Tom Hicks and he started in the mid-70’s. After Butkus and before Singletary.  He wore #54 too!

I was talking to him about playing and asked what he played at.  He was 6’5″ 225lbs.  Urlacher was 270!  Tom said it would have been extremely difficult for him to even play football today as a middle linebacker because he just wasn’t fast enough or big enough.

Urlacher gave a lot of credit to his family and his teammates.  I think entrepreneurship is like that too.  Entrepreneurs families sometimes make a big sacrifice and when your family life is going good, your work life goes good too.  On the trading floor, I knew guys that would take 5-6 months off when they were going through divorces just so they wouldn’t lose a bunch of money.

Teammates are big.  Urlacher played alongside some great players.  They stimulate you to play better and rise to the top. They cover for you when you can’t.  They pick you up when you are having a bad day.  The great thing about entrepreneurship is you can pick your own team.  You can recruit them.  Great entrepreneurs understand where they are weak and they recruit people to plug those gaps.

However, believe it or not there are a lot of people that are Urlacher’s size and have his sort of speed. More than you think.  What separates them?  Urlacher’s Hall of Fame speech will gives some insight into that.

I may be one of the most competitive people you’ll ever know. I wanted to win every snap, every game. Even though it’s not possible. But I didn’t just compete against the other person, I competed to be my best. It wasn’t merely about the conquest. It was about the challenge. Every moment. Every practice. Every game. Everywhere. I just loved competing. Competition is in my DNA.

You have to compete.  Every down of every game.  You have to win.  There is no second.  That’s what separates people like Urlacher from the rest.