For years, I was puzzled by the word strategy.

“What is strategy, what does that word even mean?” I figured it was a word people used mainly when they wanted to sound smart.

Then, a month or two ago, Alper and I interviewed corporate strategy consultant Alex Smith on the podcast.

Alex mentioned a quote from Dolly Parton: “Find out who you are and do it on purpose.” He said that quote tells you everything you need to know about strategy.

(below, click the podcast short to hear Alex dive into this quote a bit more)

I’ve been noodling on that quote for over a month now. And then I read this article from Smart Bear…

https://longform.asmartbear.com/never-compete-on-price

…and I thought, “If those companies did anything else, they would be dead in 5 years.”

And then the word strategy fell into place for me:

“Strategy is being who you already are. The penalty for deviating from that line is death.”