Amazon is not your problem, let’s talk.I am starting to see this excuse come up as Amazon is emerging into markets that they haven’t been in before. The problem is not with the competition, the problem… is with you. Companies continually look externally and blame their competition for them losing market share and sales dollars in their respective markets.Simon Sinek tells a story in his “Find Your Spark” speech about the Black Death of Childbirth. Back in the 18^th century scientists saw a spike in deaths from this disease. Women were giving birth and then die shortly after. A man by the name of Wendell Holmes realized that the doctors weren’t washing their hands before they would start their second shift. They of course ignored him until 30 years later when it finally sunk in and they took the necessary precautions before changing shifts. Simon says that the lesson here is sometimes…you’re the problem. You can take all the credit for the things you do right, as long as you also take responsibility for when things go wrong.So what does this mean for our companies? We need to stop pawning the blame off on our competition. It starts with us. I see so often in companies the same trend, that when things are going great we have no complaints or questions of how to get better. Then when things go bad, the finger of blame shows up, “it’s amazons fault, it’s our lack of resources, etc…” So we head down the blame game road instead of taking the first step in making a change… admit you have a problem.You cannot begin to head down the path of making our companies better until we admit where we are at. This is why it is the first step in the path to recovery for an addict. How can you fix a problem that you do not identify with? Once we can stop blaming Amazon and realize it is US that is the problem, we can begin fixing it.The goal of a company should not be to beat the competition, it should not be to become #1, it should not be to be the best. We need to realize the game we are playing. I talked about this a couple articles ago, we are in competition to stay in the game not to beat everyone else. We need to focus on our people, our resources, our company and how we can make it better today for the people of tomorrow.It all starts with you. Who knows what competition will look like in 6 months, a year, 10 years?!!? It is why we must focus on us. Sometimes we are the problem. Sometimes we get in our OWN way of making ourselves successful. The goal is not to find someone to blame when things go wrong. The goal is to keep getting better. We need to do more with what we have and focus on the process of growing each day. We think Amazon is our problem today, but who will be the new company to blame tomorrow?On Purpose,Matt