Can you imagine playing competitive tennis against your sister? And can you also imagine wanting to CRUSH HER? Because you should.

Venus and Serena Williams have been going at it or years now and last night was another battle between the two sisters. I mean, they’re sisters and BEST FRIENDS and they want to crush each other on the court. Each one wants to win badly. This ongoing competition has made them both better players.

“She’s the toughest player I’ve ever played in my life and the best person I know. It’s going against your best friend and at the same time going against the greatest competitor.” – Serena Williams

We all want to be the best. According to marketing guru and all-around hustler, Gary Vaynerchuk, there are two ways to build the biggest building in town.

1. Knock down all the other buildings (and be a d-bag).
2. Just keep building yours taller and taller and taller and BAM you’re still the biggest (not d-bag-ish at all).

Competition is GOOD for your business. It’s good for your creative spirit. When I do Seminars at a trade show, I want to be the best presenter. I’m friendly with many of the other Seminar speakers and we like to have dinner together after the show. And I want to CRUSH them.

I want people to say, “Ya know, the best Presentation of the day was from the red-haired lady from Chicago, Jane Hamill.”

I like hearing nice things about my buddies – the other speakers. And every time I hear how good they are it spurs me into action to be BETTER. Liking these people doesn’t affect how much I want to CRUSH them and it doesn’t make me want to be the second best presenter.

I’m pretty sure they want to crush me too – as they should.

So if you want to crush the competition…

1. Take a look at what they’re doing and appreciate all the things you feel they’re doing RIGHT.
2. Figure out 5 ways you could provide MORE value to your clients. Don’t think about money or getting sales, just worry about the clients.
3. Care more, work harder, do whatever it takes to make your clients/customers happy.
4. Don’t feel bad about wanting to beat the competition – ever.

Most of us, especially women (yes, I just said that), were brought up to act nice – all the time. If I sat down at the dinner table as a high schooler and told my parents just how badly I wanted to crush my friend/competitor to earn the starting small forward position on the basketball team, can you imagine the response I would have gotten? Pretty sure it would have been along the lines of…

“Now Jane, that’s not very nice or very ladylike. Don’t talk like that at the table.”

Or perhaps they would have made me read this article (which seems like a joke but I can’t be sure).

But here’s the thing…

You’re trying to build the tallest building, not trying to knock theirs down. So go ahead and CRUSH IT.

As always, thanks for reading,

Jane

P.S. What would YOUR parents have said at the dinner table? Do you ever feel “bad” about being competitive? Or is this an issue for me because of my age and generation? Is that “How to Be a Lady” article I linked to above a joke or not???!! Tell me your thoughts in the comments below.