*Typing*

Have you ever been moved by art? Stendhal syndrome is being shook. Years ago, psychiatrists began documenting bizarre instances of museum goers becoming physically ill after gazing upon particularly extraordinary works of art.

Michelangelo's David it seemed was a common catalyst. Sufferers would become dizzy, forgetful and, in some cases, experience heart palpitations. One of the first individuals to write of the phenomenon was the French writer Stendhal. Hence the name, Stendhal syndrome.

While walking Florence's Santa Croce basilica, Stendhal felt "celestial sensations", "impassioned sensuality" and "the proudest of ecstasy". Terrified his heart might explode, he stumbled out of the chapel, nearly fainting.

It is difficult to conclude whether Stendhal syndrome is fact or fiction. But, it is a fun North Star to strive for in the creation of art. To make something out of nothing that doesn't just move a person but shakes them, that is the hope.

You can defeat your competition with several maneuvers. You can be faster. You can be stronger. You can be smarter. You can be meaner. You can be dirtier. You can be richer. You can be savvier. You can be luckier.

But, these maneuvers aren't easy to pull off. Not to mention some of them are merely a matter of chance. One maneuver that is often overlooked is endurance. If you can outlast your competition, you defeat them.

You don't have to be the fastest nor the strongest. You don't have to be the smartest nor the meanest. You just have to do well enough to fight another day... another week... another month... another year. With time, you will look up to find you're the last one standing

When confidence is present, it's a performance-enhancing drug. It can power us to extraordinary feats physically, intellectually and emotionally. However, confidence is fleeting. Sure, there are rituals we can do to momentarily boost our confidence. But, it's a fickle emotion to rely too heavily on. From one moment to the next, our confidence can be soaring in the stratosphere or buried six feet under.

Because of this, we should place less emphasis on our confidence and more emphasis on our commitment. We build up our commitment by proving to ourselves that we are capable of keeping the promises we make to ourselves. This proof can happen daily in the form of small rules we make and obey. Maybe we run a mile for every cocktail we down the night before. Maybe we don't touch social media with a ten-foot pole until the sun goes down. Maybe we never order desert at dinner.

The rules themselves don't matter. What matters is that we keep them. And, by keeping them, we become the kinds of people that are committed to ourselves, even in the circumstances when confidence is fleeting.

We are individually ignorant in a lot of areas. But, rarely in the same areas. So, miraculously, this individual ignorance can give way to collective genius. If each of us is quite knowledgeable in just one or two topics and ignorant in a hundred others, we can not only get by as a culture but we can thrive.

However, for this collective genius to occur, we as individuals must agree to be honest about

1). What we know

2). What we don't know

This latter half of the agreement is something we struggle with. Humankind has gotten itself into quite a bit of trouble over the years pretending to know what it does not.

Back in 1817, an economist named David Ricardo came up with the concept of 'comparative advantage'. It's the ability for a country to produce a product better and easier than their trading partners. Canada has a comparative advantage in maple syrup. They produce 75% of the planet's maple syrup. That's an astonishing amount.

Now, if Canada were stubborn, they would also try to grow avocados. And, with enough investment of time and money, they could probably grow enough avocados to support their country's avocado consumption and perhpas a few others. But, they would have to war against their own country's climate, constructing tens of thousands of square feet in greenhouses. What makes more sense is for Canada to get their avocados from Mexico. This allows them to focus on producing maple syrup.

Comparative advantage doesn't just apply to trade between countries. It's how businesses do business with each other. Find your comparative advantage. What can your business do better and easier than everyone else? Once you find this comparative advantage, leverage the hell out of it.