First Principle for me as a person :
My only competition is the reflection I see in the mirror.
Everyone else, living or dead, is a teacher in my model of the world. It comes from a place of tranquillity and curiosity.
I hear this rhetoric all the time: comparison is the thief of joy; I'd rephrase it as: competition is inspiration.
It tells me what’s possible. I take the lesson, leave the envy, and go back to the only comparison that matters: me against who I was.
First principle for me as an entrepreneur:
Two mental models I swear by:
Peter Thiel says, "Competition is for losers. The goal should be to create a monopoly so that you can charge monopoly prices".
Naval says, "Markets converge to excellence". When products, services, etc. are easy to compare, customers choose only the best and mediocrity gets flushed out.
I fully agree with both.
Focus on excellence and use competition as a stepping stone.
Learn from their mistakes and/or learn from their success -> distil the learnings -> fit them into your context -> Iterate and execute.
I don't believe in drowning myself in competition. My focus is to create an excellent product which solves a problem I deeply care about.
As a derivative, I will beat out the competition.