How do you compete without needing others to fail?
There may really be only one order to win. If two furniture makers offer to build a customer’s table, both cannot receive that same commission. Wanting to be chosen is an ordinary part of competing.
It does not follow that the other maker’s whole business needs to fail. You can pursue the order by making your own offer worth choosing, while recognising that useful work by someone else still belongs in the world.
A Spark from The Vision
I do not wish for anyone's downfall. The world needs successful people. I just think of ways to add more value to myself, and wish that my adversaries would do the same.
In Wishing for a person’s downfall, Innocent points to how much of daily life depends on other people’s successful work: the things we use, wear and eat. He brings that dependence into rivalry. Rather than wishing to be the only person who succeeds, he wants to become more valuable himself and wishes others would do the same.
For the furniture maker, that directs attention towards the table the customer needs. Is the proposed size right for the room? Have you understood how it will be used? Can you do the work to the standard you are promising? Improving the offer gives the customer a reason to choose you that exists independently of your rival’s difficulties.
It may still be tempting to hope the other maker misses an appointment or delivers poor work. Their mistake could, in fact, bring you an order. But it would tell you very little about the quality of your own work. If another competitor arrived tomorrow, the same weaknesses would still need attention.
Trying to damage the rival adds a further cost. A false story about their work asks the customer to decide from bad information. The order, if it comes to you, has been won partly by denying someone an honest choice. That is a different achievement from building something people have good reason to want.
None of this requires feeling delighted when you lose. You may have needed the income and spent days preparing an offer. The disappointment can be real without becoming a wish that the chosen maker disappoints the customer too.
Their success might also show something worth learning. Perhaps they understood a requirement you overlooked. Perhaps they were simply a better fit for this particular job. You can examine that difference without copying everything they do or deciding that your own work has no place.
The wider benefit in the chapter matters here. Customers need people capable of making good things, including things you do not make. Your own work depends on others doing theirs well. A rival can be inconvenient to you in one contest and still contribute something people need.
Competing honestly leaves room for that uncomfortable combination. You want this customer to choose you. If they choose someone else, you can be disappointed, improve what is yours to improve, and let the other maker do the job well.
Related lessons
AI-generated from Innocent Mwatsikesimbe's writing.
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