Find your tribe in a Sea of Creativity
This is a very tricky question. Whenever I teach someone, my biggest concern is his/her potentiality to surpass me. It’s good if one can quickly learn and absorb knowledge – shows that your teachings are effective, but it’s bad if he/she can learn too fast, because you’d eventually be surpassed. 😝 Of course, it’s bad if one can’t learn well and don’t understand what you taught him/her – because it shows that your teachings are ineffective and useless.
That’s the reason why I hate/hesitate to teach others (my peers especially), because of their potential to surpass me if they are effective learners.
Answer: Learn from your competitor
The most common advice you’d often hear from your authority probably “Just by continuing to work hard” or “Work harder.” Unfortunately, that’s the most useless advice anyone could ever give.
There are 2 runners. Runner A is you, and Runner B is your emerging rival.
Scenario 1: You are Runner A running. Runner B suddenly appears and effortlessly surpassed you.
In this scenario, it’s clearly not of your concern. That Runner B is probably a teacher, definitely better than you.
Scenario 2: You are Runner A running. Runner B tags along behind you, but with a higher pace than yours.
This is the scenario of contention. It’s a scenario of someone supposed to be behind you, running a possibility of surpassing you in the near future.
Those who advised Runner A to “continuing working hard” or “work harder” are too simple-minded. It doesn’t solve any problems. It’s a stupid advice. If Runner A continues to “work hard” (running at same pace), he would eventually be surpassed.
The most viable approach to defend your supremacy is to learn from your competitor. Find out how he/she has an increased pace against you and nullify the difference by applying the new knowledge to yourself.
This solution isn’t groundbreaking at all… it’s quite relatable e.g. businesses. Companies learn from its competitors to improve their products or services. One such successful instance is Samsung, where it fancies copying everything of the iPhone and successfully brings in billions of dollars revenue every year.