📅 WEEK 48
📌 Rule No. 43 —Run your race.
— The Discipline of Ignoring the Wrong Competition
Rule: Run your race.
Source: Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins
Most executives are competing with the wrong people.
David Goggins built his philosophy around a single idea: the only meaningful competition is with the version of yourself that is capable of more than you’re currently delivering. Everything else is noise.
In business, this translates directly. The leaders who spend significant energy watching competitors, benchmarking against industry averages, and optimizing for market position relative to others are often distracted from the more honest question: Are we as good as we’re capable of being?
There are markets where competitive intelligence is genuinely important — where you need to understand what others are offering to price and position effectively. But this is different from letting others define your ambition. The competitor sets a bar. Your actual ceiling may be substantially higher.
The businesses I’ve watched achieve genuine breakthroughs rarely do so by outmaneuvering the competition. They do so by building something that reflects their own capabilities and convictions more fully than anything the market has seen.
Run your race is a principle at The Executives’ Institute because the most important standard you can meet is the one you set for yourself based on what you actually believe is possible.
The competition is a reference point. Not the destination.
coming Monday, November 30, 2026
Don’t waste energy trying to beat someone else at their game. Your greatest competition isn’t the business next door — it’s your own untapped potential. Discipline, endurance, and grit win in the long run, not comparison. Run your race. Fully. Relentlessly. On your terms.
The disciplined keep going. Turn the page.