It is easy to sell vegetables at a farmers’ market. Or to apply to a posting on an online job portal. Or to spam thousands of email addresses with advertisements.
But humans are incredibly efficient at seizing easy opportunities. Therefore, whatever is easy is also crowded. These crowds engage in what Seth Godin calls the race to the bottom, with the prize always goes to the lowest bidder. This bidder is then forced to bid even lower in the next round.
To go in the other direction is to embrace difficulty, deliberate practice and discomfort. It is to leave the well worn path and find new, creative ways of addressing problems. But it is also to leave the crowd behind.
When we venture deeper into a jungle, we leave most other people at its periphery.
