Success secrets from Michael Phelps and Steve Jobs

An interesting episode occurred during the Olympics in Beijing.

The great American swimmer Michael Phelps won the seventh gold medal in swimming and was preparing for a historic swim to win the eighth gold. No one in the world had done that before him.

He stood by the pool and waited for the judge to call his name. Michael put his right foot on the pedestal and just waited. Suddenly, he was approached by his main competitor, Milorad Slavik. The Serbian swimmer, world and European champion, came close to the opposite and also put his right foot on a pedestal and defiantly looked into Michael’s eyes. In the eyes to the eyes, staring at point-blank range. In the swimming pool reigned tense silence, the audience in the hall and millions of TV viewers in bewilderment looked at this scene.

Then the judge called the athletes and the swim began. In a bitter struggle, Michael won the historic eighth gold of the games, and Slavik took second place with a slight gap.

After the swim, when the passions subsided, Phelps’ coach asked him:

- What do you think about the fact that Slavik stared at your face before the start?

- Did Slavik look at me?

Phelps was so immersed in himself that he did not even notice the manipulations of his main competitor. You could say that Phelps struggled with himself, not his competitors. How can you not remember the legendary and prophetic words of young Steve Jobs:

It’s a stupid thing to think that in order to make Apple successful, we certainly need to beat Microsoft. To be successful, we need to make cool products!!!

Competition is the engine of progress, you can’t argue with that. But very often, in order to succeed in business or career, we need to beat ourselves, not our competitors.

If you can beat yourself, you won’t even notice the competition.