Most of my readers know by now that I am a lover of jogging and physical fitness. My latest craze is body building. I cannot trace how I fell in love with this sport over the past several months, but it has become firmly part of my daily routine. In my pursuits with physical fitness, I have been running an obscure show, practicing on my own. I have been beating my own deadlines, pushing myself, tracking my progress and feeling so happy and in love with myself and my progress.

Through this,

• I have tuned in to the wavelength of inspiration and penned very many motivating articles on this blog. I can estimate that more than 60% of the contents of this blog is the direct or indirect inspiration of my jogging escapades
• I have accrued massive self-belief and self-motivation
• I have remained fit and lean, active and happy
• I have my mental energies charged according to this article:

In short, the benefits were coming fast and furious and I was a happy guy…until I was invited to join a health club few weeks ago! Friends, I have said in the recent past that the beauty of God’s creation is that His products are only made complete through the process of co-creation. In other words, no man is an island.

You see, I was busy doing my thing and in my own world. I was cut off from what other people were doing in the same pursuit I was engaged in. In that health club, I had a massive culture shock. I thought I was good until I saw a lady (nothing against women being good at sports), endure an aerobics session with such ease. On my part, I was struggling massively to keep up with her and with the instructor.

There were a couple of older men and women, who I could estimate were 15 or so years older than me. They too were at ease with the day’s routines while I kept glancing at the watch wondering when the ‘hell’ I was in would come to an end!

What I Was Missing

Here I was thinking that I was doing just fine in my obscure physical fitness routine. I was oblivious of what I was missing joining with other people to do the same pursuit. And friends, this is the one thing that I encourage you to do: In whatever you are pursuing, always pit yourself against the very best in your niche!

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In whatever you are pursuing, always pit yourself against the very best in your niche!

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I know some motivational speakers will tell you things like: “Be yourself, do not compete but collaborate, stop comparing yourself with others”…and so on and so forth. Whereas these nuggets have their place when taken in context, when it comes to growth and honing your gift, talent or trade, pitting yourself against the best is the sure way to go.

• If you are an author and your genre is Christian fiction for example, you need to pit yourself against none other than the famed Francine Rivers. If you are comfortable in your writing while in obscurity and are not ‘competing’ with Francine, chances are that you are not growing. Chances are that you are not soaring.
• If you are a blogger and your message is on productivity and personal development, you need to pit yourself against titans such as Michael Hyatt. This giant in blogosphere has over 700,000 (yes, seven hundred thousand) followers world-wide. If you ‘stalk’ him and implement some of the things he does on his blog, your growth trajectory increases.
• If you are into podcasts, you need to pit yourself against this crazy guy called Tim Ferris, author of “The 24-Hour Work-Week”. Tim influences the world with his gift, grit and self-motivation. His book is on the top list of the most influential books ever. Pit yourself against this guy in developing your podcasts, chances are that you will soar, unlike if you stayed comfortable in your obscurity.
• If your gift is in speaking, then you need to pit yourself against the titans in the industry such as Les Brown. He gets tens of thousands of dollars by giving just one speech. If you pit your speech against Les Brown’s chances are that you will start growing and soaring.
• If you are a Life Coach or a Life Mastery Strategist, then you cannot continue crafting your trade alone and in obscurity. You need to look at the massive strides that people like Tony Robbins have made in that industry. When you pit your coaching and training and seminars against such a titan, that would be the end of your mediocrity.

Now, I am not telling you to copy and paste these guys. I am telling you to put your game up against theirs for the sole purpose of learning and growing. You can never clone any of these guys because you have no idea what they have gone through, what their motivation is and what their setbacks have been. So forget about copying and pasting, learn and be authentic.

I am sure you get the point. The following are some of the benefits you will accrue when you do this:

1. You get feedback:

You will immediately notice how far you are to catching up with the very best of the best. This is good feedback. This is humbling feedback. There is a Swahili saying that goes, “Jogoo wa shamba hawiki mjini”. It means the cockerel from the village has no say in town. And that is you. As long as you stay in the ‘village’ you can only be the king of the village…and that is not good enough for your Life Signatures

2. You Grow

The consequences of pitting yourself against the best is that you will most definitely grow. There is a massive alteration in my blog ostensibly because I am trying to mirror Michael Hyatt. In the past few days alone, I have received positive response from my audience that they love the changes they see. Now, as long as I was doing my own thing and was satisfied with it, I was operating in mediocrity.

3 You Get Stretched

This is important. Comfort is our enemy even though it is what we seek daily. Your brain cells will grow because you are engaging a higher gear. If you are not stretching and are comfortable where you are, there is a problem. Myles Munroe says that the enemy of success is past success. So we need to be on the lookout for improving. When you pit yourself against the best, you improve constantly. “Good better best, do not let it rest until the good is better and the better is best”

4. You get A Benchmark

In athletics, we have very important people called “pace makers”. Oddly, these guys are not in the race to win, but to help the titans to win. Now when you pit yourself against the best, you now have a benchmark through which your work can grow. You have a pace maker. For example, if Michael Hyatt writes 3 articles a week and I am pitting myself against him, that becomes my benchmark also. You see, when you are doing your own thing, there is no “outside” benchmark to gauge your progress against.

5. Your Work Becomes Professional

Did you notice that there was a professional instructor at the health club? I did not have one at home as I was swotting it out by myself. The best of the best have professional services and you cannot pit yourself against them and still play local league. You go professional

6. You Increase Your Consistency

This is what made the young lady and the older men and women better than me. Indeed age is but a number. These people had attained levels beyond me by merely becoming consistent with their routines. If you pit yourself against the best, you cannot sleep on the job…you are always alert!

7. You get recognition

One way or another, your path will cross with your industry leader. In fact, some of these industry leaders are on the lookout for people whom they can collaborate with to expand their influence on earth. If your work is just in obscurity, there is no way that they will think about you. However, when you pit yourself against them, your standard is upped and therefore they can see their DNA in your work. That is how you get to share a platform with them…and when that happens, BOOM! All that you have been doing both in obscurity and out of it gets recognized.