In his book Zero To One 
, Peter Thiel points out how war metaphors have invaded everyday business language. For example, we use headhunters to build up a sales force that will enable us to take a captive market and make a killing. Thiel further concludes that:
It’s competition, not business, that is like war: allegedly necessary, supposedly valiant, but ultimately destructive.
Before I unravel the last four tomes of advice in this series, let’s unpack Thiel’s assertion, starting with the definition of competition. From Wikipedia,
Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal that cannot be shared: where one’s gain is the other’s loss.
In other words, competition is a Zero-Sum Game. I win. You lose. There’s no win-win scenario.
We are not slicing the same pie into smaller and smaller pieces. It’s a constant process of baking and cutting. You are growing the market and your share of it in tandem.
As such, the more niche market you are in, the more likely you should look outside the box as to who your competitor truly is.
So, if your enemy is not your direct competitor, who – or what – is it?
The zero-sum battle for attention
You are what you pay attention to. We are all limited by time & energy. We all have 24 hours in a day, limiting the number of things we can pay attention to – at least consciously. Your goal is to earn an open, reply, click, appointment, order, purchase, forward, share, or other reaction from your prospect/customer.
Action requires attention, and attention is a limited resource.
Modern humans are exposed to
5,000 – 10,000 advertisements per day. And we are only talking about ads here. In reality, hundreds of other attention thieves prey on you and your client prospects.
