You don’t have to compete for what’s already yours.

"And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be."

- 1 Corinthians 12:16-18 (New International Version)

It can be a real bummer to see someone else pushing out an idea similar to yours. You feel all special and dope because you came up with something you thought no one else was doing, only to find out that wait, actually, someone is. Womp womp. I felt that way recently when coming across some other examples of communities dedicated to Christian entrepreneurs. UNTIL I looked a little bit closer and saw that each community had its own sub-focus. Taking a minute to study each of them actually ended up further sharpening my clarity and vision about what mine is here to do. Here's what I took from that:

Don't let your competition scare you, let it position you. 

Your competition has their own mission from God that they're working on and so do you. And God needs you to play your part. Just like the ear in this week's scripture has no business defecting from the body just because it's not an eye, we can't throw our whole idea away just because someone else is doing something similar. No, the "body", or in this case, the "market" needs your unique version of what you bring to it. You have a function to perform and, if you neglect to perform it, there will be a gap. 

Some of the best advice I've ever gotten that still rings true to me today is that every brand has to know these two things: who it is and who it isn't. I know it can be a slippery mental slope when studying your competitors (it's so easy to fall into comparison!), but a healthy way to do it is not with the goal to "compete" but with the goal of clarifying these two things for yourself. You are most certainly not your competition, and they're not YOU either! So don't be intimidated. Instead, focus on maximizing the unique role God gave you to play because it truly is yours and yours alone. 

Still Hungry? Eat more//

• I've been reading The Science of Getting Rich and it has been a gamechanger for my mindset around competition lately (plus it's one of the FEW "worldly" books on abundance that actually acknowledges Biblical scripture & principles) The audio version is free on YouTube but I also recommend grabbing a physical copy when you can.