This ribbon is attached to my handbag to remind me that life is not a race.

I have always been uncomfortable with competition. In our culture, this can be a handicap. I am terrible at games, disinterested in team sports, and humble to a fault about my successes. In a winner-take-all world, ceding the fight can seem downright self-destructive.

The ribbon is an important touchstone in a world that glorifies competition. We’re obsessed with cooking competitions (Top Chef), design competitions (Project Runway) and best friend competitions (I Wanna Be Paris’ New Best Friend). We love bake-offs, spelling bees, and game shows. We rank our entertainment (Billboard), judge our movies (Oscar), and rate the sex appeal of our icons (And the Sexiest Man Alive award goes to George Clooney…again). We wear team colors, paint our faces, scream obscenities at the TV and take the wins and losses of the home team personally. Our election is a competition between Democrats and Republicans. And in the ultimate competition, we wage war.

We all know people who are proudly competitive in life and in business; people who’s primary objective is winning. They feed on the aggression–I guess this is where the “spirit” in “competitive spirit” comes from–that comes with proximity to a worthy opponent.

The older I get the more I question why this is and whether it’s actually constructive–in life and in business. Continue Reading »

Brands worry a lot about whether the consumer likes them. How many brands worry about whether or not they like their consumers?

Last week I was working on a project to define the target audience for an accessories brand. One of the influencer interviews I conducted was with a menswear designer who quietly listened to me pose the same question six different ways: “Who do you think this brand’s consumer is today?” Finally he answered in a huff: “They need to stop trying to define an artificial group and just go out and start selling to people they like.” Continue Reading »