This Post is Brought to You By the Letter ‘L’

What If You No Longer Have Competitors?

I seem to do a lot of these English Lit geek-out blog posts.

Partly because I have to justify those 5 (yeah 5) years of undergraduate work and student loan repayment that sometimes seem to relate only peripherally and mysteriously to the current flow of my career.

But mostly because, if we are trying to re-imagine how we do things as solo entrepreneurs so we aren’t contributing to the economic ‘ick’ we see around us, we need to re-imagine our language, too. Our words are integral to how we create and conceptualize our work to ourselves, and how we communicate that to our village of potential clients.

So today, I’m going to offer the most basic adaptation of language I possibly can: add a single letter to a word all of us solo entrepreneurs have used at some point, a word that has been at the heart of capitalist economic culture for decades.

I invite you to add a letter ‘L’ to the word ‘compete.’

‘Complete.’

In a classic zero-sum way of thinking about business, there are only so many clients for each of us practicing a certain modality. To carry on with the Sesame Street references, there’s only one cookie and we each only get a small or a big bite. People doing the same or similar work as us, who have the same modality or similar niche, ‘compete’ with us.

For me, changing that word ‘compete’ to ‘complete’ changes the whole field of possibility.

It means there are lots of cookies, not just one (mmmm. . . .Cookie). It means I don’t have to be all things to all people. It means I can be really specific about who I help and how, what problems I help them solve. It means I can be fearless about communicating that on my website and in my media posts. It means I can filter ‘in’ to my business those who will be a good fit.

And since I am filtering ‘in’ those who are a good fit for my specific work, I will also be filtering ‘out’ those who are not. There will be people that I am not best suited to help. So where do they go?

To those whose work ‘completes’ mine. To people in the same general field as me, who specialize differently, or who whose work is related but complementary, or who go into more depth in areas I only touch lightly.

That one little letter shifts the focus from an experience of ‘not enough for everyone’, to ‘there is space for all of us here.’ It’s one furry blue Cookie Monster paw across the threshold of seeing everyone in our general field as potential allies, or even kin.

Another function of that word ‘complete’ is that it shifts my attention and focus away something I can’t control—what other people do—to what I can control, i.e. the refinement of my own work, and how I give voice to it in the world.

Instead of judging myself against what I think other people are doing—competing—I focus on ‘completing’ things in my business. Like refining my packages, clarifying the marketing materials, creating a new workbook, and re-calibrating my social media posts.

If I shift my focus to the things within my control: the odds of success are much higher than if I gaze around, wringing my hands about what other folks (formerly known as the competition) are up to.

This post was brought to you by the letter ‘L’.

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