Be The Best In The World At What You Do

To celebrate World Book Day it was only right to talk about one of my favourite books - The Almanack of Naval Ravikant.

Naval is an entrepreneur, investor and problem thinker (this last one is how I perceive him). He is founder and chairman of AngelList - a leading early investment and support platform for tech entrepreneurs.

I won’t go into details of Naval, but do urge anyone interested in the art of building business, leverage and speciality in their craft to look him up.

Almanack of Naval Ravikant is a essentially written format and explanation of Naval’s legendary tweet storm - How to Get Rich (without getting lucky).

There are many bitesize gems in this book, which by the state of it you can tell lives on my bedside for daily to weekly access.

Be the Best in the World in What you do

When I came across this page, I didn’t make much of it. I skimmed through it, much how I was skimming through the rest of the book. Have to admit, in it’s first reading, the book makes no sense.

Afterall, words like leverage in business, money vs wealth, or allocation vs knowledge is not something we are ever taught at uni or form a part of dinner table conversations.

I did however find that over the weeks after reading the book, I started seeing practical applications and life time examples of the concepts discussed in the book. So I went back for a 2nd, 3rd and 4th time - and every time I read chapters, it felt like new worlds of understanding business reveleaed themselves to me.

This page however is one I used and continue to use extensively through the recent years of building Cheeky Food.

Be The Best In The World At What You Do.
Keep Redefining What You Do Until This Is True.

This is a more catchy take on the age old Pivot or Preserve that so many of us have endured in our businesses.

I make juices → So do other brands
Pivot
I make affordable juices → So do supermarkets own labels
Pivot
I add bits to my juices → So do Tropicana
Pivot
I make juices with whole fruits → What is that?
Preserve
I make Smoothies → Welcome Innocent Drinks

(Please note this is a hypothetical example and not true of the story of Innocent Drinks)

The above is just an over simplified example of what this complex process of redefining what we do may look like. Often this process would be painful and lengthy spread over years of fine tuning and re evolving our craft till we become the best at what we do.

The above mental model can be applied anywhere from a product based business to services even in what may seem like a busy and saturated market-
 
Peanut Butter with deep Roast - ManiLife
Delivery service of wonky fruit & veg - OddBox
Dating app where only women can initiate - Bumble
Comedic food critic of Asian Recipes in the character of an Asian uncle in a bright orange t-shirt - Uncle Roger

You see the possibility to go into detail, tweak, validate and then pivot or preserve is endless. It often needs discipline and patience of a monk, but once you define yourself as the best in the world - it can be your domain to dominate.

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