When I was building and promoting my own web service, I deliberately shut out the noise around me. Of course, you have to absorb good advice and make it your own. But unnecessary interference helps nobody. Those people are not going to run your business for you, and they certainly will not take responsibility when things go wrong. If you succeed, you succeed. If you fail, you fail. So let me give you the conclusion right up front. Block out the surrounding noise and strictly follow your own conviction.
This is not just my personal opinion. It is a truth shared by the masters of every successful business. They never completely ignored the advice of others, but ultimately, they always kept the final power of choice in their own hands.
Lately, though, we see a troubling shift. Without truly knowing what they are good at or how they should operate, people just do whatever others say is working, or whatever AI recommends. If anything, this is precisely the trap I wrote about in Why Learning AI Tools Is a Waste of Your Time. In this era of extreme information overload, if you want to succeed, you absolutely must carve out time for solitude. The ultimate method for your success can only be found inside of you.
The Monopoly of Being You
Peter Thiel discovered a singular trait among successful companies. Borrowing from Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, he explained it this way.
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| Peter Thiel on why true business success requires absolute uniqueness rather than competition |
"In the real world, business succeeds when you do what others cannot. Therefore, a monopoly is not a pathological phenomenon or an exception. It is an essential condition for every successful business. If you look at Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, all happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Business is the exact opposite. All successful companies are different: each one earns a monopoly by solving a unique problem. All failed companies are the same: they failed to escape competition."
I believe Thiel's words go far beyond products. A successful company is entirely unique in how it builds its team, how it works, and how it develops its product. Gathering a team, building a product, and working the "Elon Musk way" is something only Elon Musk can do.
Custom-Fit for Your DNA
This does not just apply to building companies. For world-class performers, almost everything is customized specifically for them.
Most shooters in the NBA use a two-motion shot. They jump, lift the ball simultaneously, and then release it. But Steph Curry shoots with a one-motion shot. Because he lacked arm strength as a kid, the habit of shooting the moment he jumped became his signature form. With this entirely personalized shooting method, Steph Curry is now widely considered the greatest shooter of all time.
Then there is Shohei Ohtani in baseball, who does not eat eggs. Why? Because a blood test revealed that eggs simply do not agree with his body.
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| Elite performers like Steph Curry and Shohei Ohtani achieve greatness by tailoring everything to their unique DNA |
People at the absolute pinnacle of their fields have almost everything customized to fit their own biology. That is the only way to produce peak performance. This is also exactly why geniuses often make terrible teachers. They use forms and practice methods tailored strictly to their own specific DNA, which means no one else can ever truly copy them. Out of 8 billion people on this planet, not a single one shares your exact DNA.
The Myth of Forced Consistency
The method that fits you perfectly feels as natural as clothes tailored specifically for your body. Many people say that to succeed, you have to be relentlessly consistent. But I think they have the cause and effect entirely backward. Once you find the method that actually fits your body, consistency comes naturally on its own.
If you need to watch three motivational videos just to start a task, that is a glaring signal that the work does not fit your body. Your next move should not be forcing yourself through it by watching three more videos, which often stems from Why Chasing Money Is the Worst Business Strategy in the AI Era. You need to find the work you can do naturally without anyone pushing you, or find an approach that genuinely suits the way you are wired.
This is why success is bound to be a solitary journey. Every successful person achieved it through their own distinct style. Even if you copy the exact method someone else used to get there, you might still fail. Conversely, even if it is a method no one has ever succeeded with before, if it feels completely natural to you, it means you could be the very first person to succeed with it.
Stop being conscious of the people and the noise around you. You must be solitary to succeed. Because only in solitude can you relentlessly experiment and endlessly adjust millions of variables to fit your body alone. At this specific stage, other people are nothing more than obstacles.
Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
Of course, this does not mean you have to do everything alone from the very beginning. When you are just starting out, getting help from others is perfectly fine. Imitating the methods of the masters is actually a fantastic way to begin. If you visit Google Scholar, there is a massive phrase on the front page: "Standing on the shoulders of giants."
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| Standing on the shoulders of giants by learning and imitating the proven methods of masters |
In my own case, I run a blog where I write about various mental models related to business. But I have practically zero mental models that I created completely from scratch. Most of them are the models of famous masters that I have assembled and tailored to fit my own style. I imitate their thought processes, their design patterns, and their frameworks.
But as you keep imitating, you start to notice that certain designs or methods differ from what you are actually pursuing, or that they simply do not fit your current situation. That is because the methods you are borrowing were not built exclusively for you.
From that moment on, you have to strip away what does not fit and modify what remains to match your own DNA. As you continuously imitate, subtract, and adjust, you will eventually discover the specific field, the training methods, and the working styles that align perfectly with who you are.
And that method will be something no one else can copy. Even if they try to mimic it, they will not get the same results, because it is fine-tuned strictly to your DNA. For you, it will feel as natural as breathing, and it will unlock your absolute peak performance.
So ultimately, we must embrace solitary time. The definitive method to unlock your peak performance can only be found from within. Never from the outside.
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