What League Are You Playing In?

As I was watching football this weekend, I saw an ad for Direct TV's LeaguePass package.  In it, Ray Allen, of the Boston Celtics, says "to succeed in this league, you have to know your opponents better than they know themselves."  This is virtually an identical statement to the first rule of what I call The Five Unbreakable Rules for Creating Demand.

After the similarity hit me, I realized its implication.  How many people play basketball?  Millions.  How many actually make real money playing basketball?  Less than 1%.  The same is true of virtually every sport.  The great ones make a lot of money, the average ones don't.

For the last 20 years, this did not apply to business.  Sure, the great businesses have always made exponentially more money than the good ones, but the truth is that, then, good was good enough.  You could make a good living (great by most standards), you could build reasonable equity value and you could grow - without the sacrifice of being great.  Today, that is no longer true.  Today, the drought makes business tough - almost impossible - for those unwilling to make the sacrifice to be great.

So my question to you - are you ready to play in the major leagues?  Great, what are you going to do?