I’ve had variations of this article on my computer since 2018, always hesitant to share because it’d be easy to dramatize this message, conveniently ignoring the context. I do not want my words to be taken out of context. To state this plainly, I believe in “community over competition”. So much so, this is actually a codified core company value. However, it’s not phrased this way, verbatim. This is something that we enact day in and day out, every day, for more than seven years. But it goes by a different name in our companies, and that is sportsmanship.
We respect our colleagues, and learn from them, often building enduring professional relationships for that very reason.
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In the right context, “competition” means refinement.
“Community” isn’t just a declarative term.
And like so many things, the richness lies in the undefined in between.
The Boom of the Creative Entrepreneur
Backing up, I was “raised” in the boom of the creative entrepreneur. From approximately 2015 until around 2019, creative entrepreneurial endeavors experienced a boom in popularity, with people leaving their corporate jobs and setting sail as creative entrepreneurs. (This “boom” occurred again in 2021-2023). The wedding industry boomed, the creative industry boomed, and in 2017 I arrived somewhere right in the middle of all of that. During that time, this catchphrase absolutely took off- a well-intended standard adopted by nearly everyone I met.
Coming from the world of litigation, it was so curious to me. Refreshing. It almost felt too good to be true. I admired it at first, and I still do. However, just as so many things do, it became more of a catchphrase. I think some of the original intent of this term was lost in translation; diluted over time. Some people will always take advantage of kindness, and will always take “community over competition” as a license to copy; as a license to create cliques and call it “community”.
What was an aspirational standard became a misappropriated weaponized by some, the torch that lit the flames of false witch hunts.
Again, for many, this was, and is, a laudable aspiration. For those more conniving or simply short-sighted, it became the blanket argument against those who didn’t fall in line.
You think your work was copied? Maybe you’re just too “touchy” and don’t understand what it “really means to be a member of a community”.
This was an actual response to a polite instagram message (not even a cease and desist) sent to an influencer promoting this term, who copied my client’s product line by line.
You’re not attending certain events, or co-signing on unethical behavior? You’re not “independent”- you’re clearly just not someone who “supports community.”
The concept was bastardized and put on a pedestal by some.
Then 2020 hit, and many of those “communities” fractured; exposing the weaknesses that had always existed.
To be explicitly clear: this is not a “hit” against “community over competition”. But we’ve all grown older, hopefully wiser, and I think it’s time to have a more mature conversation on the topic. One that does oversimplify the narrative. And when you complain about something more than twice, it’s time to do something about it.
Here’s the deal. “Community” isn’t just a declarative term. It’s not just a spoken statement that is actualized upon vocalization. It’s the result, the byproduct of action meeting words, brick by brick, laying the foundation of something enduring. Let it remain hollow, and it stays a cage.
Community without that action is just a cult. Just a clique. And we have to be more discerning than that. And competition? That’s not a curse word. That can be a tool for refinement.
So what should we call this place? This place “beyond the pines” of community and competition?
An entrepreneur is both an athlete and an artisan.
As an entrepreneur, you are both an athlete and an artisan.
An artisan in what you creatively cultivate, refining over time.
An athlete in the repetition, the discipline, the endurance, the mindset you cultivate, the mental toughness, the sportsmanship with which you treat those around you. Every entrepreneur is both, on some level.
I ran track in college briefly, and that time spent as a D1 athlete forever shaped my mindset. I highly recommend the documentary on Netflix called “Sprint”. Even if you don’t care about track at all, watch how these elite athletes operate.
The most elite athletes in the world; the sprinters whose careers hang on the balance between their ability to eek out one one -hundredth of a second, one -tenth of a second faster than their competitors; who very literally line up next to each other as competitors, demonstrate something important.
They’re able to look around, assess the situation for what it is. They are on a starting line next to the person they are competing against. And then they shift their focus entirely to their ability to execute a literal muscle twitch to get out of the blocks, and get to work within their own lane. I can promise you, because I’ve been there: they could care less about the person next to them the minute the gun goes off.
The most elite athletes in the world are not immune to competition. In fact, immunity to competition is not the end game, or the goal. But the elite are specialists at turning it on and off, opening that compartment in their mind when they need to, and using it to fuel that fire of mental toughness. That compartment is always there for fuel, but it’s never the sole source of the fire. The minute the gun goes off, every inch of every stride is calculated with forward momentum.
You may not have noticed this, but rewatch Gabby Thomas from the Olympics this year. She didn’t win gold because she stayed in the middle of her lane- no 200 runner does. Watch her right before the last turn of the curve- she’s hugging that line. Every inch of every stride that she takes counts, and she’ll move an inch to the right to shave off a millisecond. In a game of hundreds, that is not, of course, arbitrary. She’s running her own race, strategically, and well.
Entrepreneur as an artisan.
Artisanal competition, if we can coin that term, was a key component in building a city that would define the Renaissance. Florence, Italy. The city considered so beautiful, it was spared from World War II bombing.
“Renaissance” quite literally means “rediscovery”, and the revived importance of antiquity art, architecture, and science resulted in one of the most prolific, enduring, and prosperous cultures in modern day history. This didn’t just happen because artisans were hired; this occurred because patrons would oftentimes facilitate competitions, so that artisans had to continuously refine their work to qualify for the job.
One of the most famous examples of this stands, to this day, just outside the Duomo. The competition for the bronze doors of the Florence Baptistery was the city’s most prestigious public commission. Seven artists competed by submitting a bronze plaque on the “Sacrifice of Isaac”, and were voted on by a panel of Florentines. Facilitating the training ground of refinement in the arts resulted in a masterpiece that endures to this day.
The space between.
When determining what community over competition looks like for you, don’t bastardize your understanding of either term. See them squarely for what they are. Are you a competitor of Gabby’s watching film? Trying to figure out exactly how she shaved off that hundredth of a second? Watch it, study it, implement it into your own training, and become a better sprinter because of it. No one can recreate somebody else’s race; you have to take what you learn and implement it on your own.
And here’s the funny thing about competition: if you’re so scared of it you have to pretend like it doesn’t (or shouldn’t) exist, are you really running your race well?
You may be able to take the wind out of someone’s sails, momentarily at least. But the person who learns to get back up, again and again, when competitors continually attack?
They’re going to hone a special kind of bounce rate; a special kind of mental toughness, and the more they grow, the less they’ll care about you. The more you try to win with competition, the more you’re slowing your own race.
You don’t have to be friends with everyone, and space exists between community and competition. But treat it with sportsmanship. You can politely meet them on the proverbial track, respect the levels of elite athleticism they bring out of you, and then move along.
Do the right thing
As if that were ever easy.
With some people, if they don’t get it, they don’t get it. You can’t teach them, nor is it your job to. But you never know what effect your example could have. Your actions can raise the level of the community around you that you inevitably build over time. The real secret: the more you train that muscle of resiliency, the more you get back up when someone knocks you down, the stronger you become, and the more they veer off course. They will end up inevitably being hoisted by their own batard.
Community is built on the back of integrity. Competition will always exist in business. But your ability to smile at the challenge and cultivate sportsmanship is what creates endurance and entrepreneurship.
Remember, community, not cliques. Refining fuel, not competition.
The gun’s gone off.
