When I was a kid there was a popular newspaper called USA Today.
I’m sure some of you remember it.
What made the USA Today unique was three things.
The first was that it was in color. Which perhaps seems quaint these days but at the time was a huge departure as every other paper was black ink on white paper (which, fun fact, is where the commonly used term for a fact being “black and white” comes from.).
Secondly, it was broken up into very distinctive sections. The entire paper was basically a collection of mini-papers focusing on news, sports, economics, etc.
Lastly, and perhaps most famously, the front page of each of these sections featured what became known as an infographic.
Infographics were things like bar graphs and pie charts that gave the reader easy to understand visual breakdowns of information.
Want to know the top 10 words used in Bruce Springsteen songs? There’s an infographic for that.
(The number one word is “down” in case you are wondering. Feel free to use that fun fact in order to impress your crush at the 4th of July barbecue. Let me know how that works out for you.)
Want to know what percentage of videos are returned late at Blockbuster video and what movie genres are the biggest offenders?
You get the picture.
Newspapers famously lost audience share during the rise of the internet but the world wide web has certainly borrowed a page out of USA Today’s inky playbook.
But rather than the infographic, websites like BuzzFeed got super popular by using something called the listicle.
A listicle (which is a combo of the words “list” and “article” and not “light” and “testicle” which, quite honestly, it looks a bit more like) is an evolution of the infographic, created as a very easy to digest and usually lighthearted way of delivering simple information to the masses.
“Top 17 Tweets From This Week That Had Me ROFL” and “47 Looks from The Met Gala That Are Totally 🤮” are examples of the content that internet empires are built upon.
You may have noticed that in an effort to be hip and trendy, I have occasionally and subtly stolen the listicle idea.
Sure, perhaps I am more well-known for regaling you with seemingly unrelated and emotional stories of my childhood or creating meandering introductions that somewhat miraculously tie themselves back to training (in case you were unaware, you are in the middle of one of those right now). However, in order to make things more actionable and memorable, I will occasionally throw a short list your way. Lucky for you, today is one of those days.
And not only is it list day, this is a list on how to become unbeatable at anything you set out to do. Pretty exciting stuff.
Equally exciting is that this is a short list of only two items. That’s right! You only need to master two things to become unbeatable at whatever it is you want to accomplish. Powerful, efficient and so brief that you’ll be back to watching Bachelor In Paradise before you know it.
OK, before I use up all 800 words of your attention, let me get back to it: how to become unbeatable.
Number one: you must have an unwavering belief in the thing that you want to achieve.
Do you feel like the product or service your start-up is providing will truly change the world? Do you think writing a hit song is what you were born to do? Does the thrill of running a sub-5 minute mile keep you up at night?
The list is infinite but if you want to be unbeatable, this strong and solid belief in whatever it is you are doing and are a part of must reside in the core of your existence.
You must be borderline unreasonable in this belief as if you could not stand to leave the world as it currently is. This drive must light you on fire to the border of obsession.
Number two: you can’t care how long it takes.
Will you change the world in a week? A decade? Do you care if you haven’t accomplished the thing by the end of your life but someone else on your team might after you pass?
I’m not trying to sound morbid here, but if you are willing to work and push and suffer and reexamine for your entire lifetime - even if that means never seeing the rewards yourself - you are going to be a tough person to beat.
I’m not claiming any of this is healthy or balanced or even recommending it as a way to live. I have to imagine that many people have been driven to the brink of madness and beyond by tirelessly working to bring their passion to fruition.
But if you are obsessed enough and are willing to work on that obsession for an infinite amount of time, you will be impossible to beat.
And if that sounds like it’s too much for you, how about spending 10 hours a day for a decade or one hour per day for a year developing your talent and bringing your idea to the world.
You might not be unbeatable, but you will be ahead of 99% of people who aren’t willing to do even that much.