Back in 1965, a cheeky reporter cornered Mick Jagger in Ireland and bombarded him with an onslaught of pointed questions surrounding the “competition” between his group, The Rolling Stones and The Beatles.

The dialogue went something like this:

Reporter: “How do you compare your group with The Beatles?”

Jagger: “I don’t know. How do you compare it with The Beatles? I don’t compare it at all. There’s no point.”

Reporter: “Well, let’s get down to brass tacks –– do you think you’re better than they are?”

Jagger: “At what? It’s not the same group. So, we just do what we want and they just do what they want. And, there’s no point going on comparing yourself. You can prefer us to them or them to us. It’s just diplomatic, you see?”

Reporter: “Do you feel you do what you want to do better than they do what they want to do?”

Jagger: “Ugh. Well, I don’t know. I don’t know what they want to do, you see? It’s very diplomatic.”

It’s very diplomatic.

In closing –– you only have competition if you choose to have competition. Refuse this choice. And, be so wildly uniquely yourself, that your would-be competitors are forced to make this choice, too.

By Cole Schafer.

P.S. This conversation reminded me of one David Bowie had with a reporter years later in 1990 when asked, “Do you have competitors?”