I picked up the book out of personal interest.  Surprisingly, however, I found an extremely powerful business lesson for marketers; a lesson superior to the platitudes we disappointingly find in many of today’s ‘best selling’ business books.

The Lesson (..in just seven words)

I don’t compete anymore...I just create.

As ego-boosting as they can be, these rewards can easily become a distraction...for us and our teams.

Rather than looking inwardly to the positive affects our efforts have on our organizations, we [marketers] often look to these external sources to validate the ‘success’ of our efforts, concepts, and ideas.  

In doing so, our ‘success’ becomes a comparative measure of accumulation - measuring what we ‘have’ versus that of our competitors and colleagues.

So What, We Need To Create A Utilitarian Marketing Seasame Street?!?!
No way, marketers are a naturally competitive group.  We build complex, innovative marketing programs to compete for strategically important objectives like market share and brand recognition.  

It's not that we can’t be competitive, it's that we need to shift our focus from outward to inward validation; to more of our own sense of accomplishment than those set externally.  

From what I learned through his writings, I don’t imagine that Prodigy is saying, “I’m not competitive anymore...I don’t care.” In my mind he’s saying the opposite, he’s matured to level of confidence that provides him with real focus.  In fact, he is competitively differentiated because he’s found a focus in his abilities, strengthens, and talents...a rare level of maturity that naturally breeds innovation and market leadership.

That is a powerful lesson for us as marketers.

While others continue to focus on the ‘noise’, we can learn from Prodigy and focus on our goals, strengthens, and talents.  Our competitors that choose to stay focused on the ‘noise’ will labor under the misdirection of comparative success.  

Whether we reflect on this topic from the words of Prodigy or from Harvard Business School Professor Youngme Moon’s book Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd I feel that the message is an important concept in focusing our teams on the right areas of growth and success.

What’s The Point?
It’s easy to be lost, and consumed by, the competitiveness that our profession breeds.  To me, this isn’t a strict lesson as much as it is a reminder that differentiation is built from thoughtful introspection and our unique perspectives on creativity.  

Our competitors’ tweets, pages, apps, posts, campaigns, positioning, awards, articles, mentions, fans, and followers are just that...theirs.  They are not strict benchmarks, targets, or goals to measure our own success.

Maybe we should put aside those best sellers (that we all read) and pick up My Infamous Life.