#384: BOOK - "Positioning", By; Al Reis - & Jack Trout,

Want a shortcut to standing out without shouting louder? We explore how Positioning by Al Ries and Jack Trout can transform the way you think about your work, your brand, and your creative edge. The goal isn’t to be incrementally better than people with bigger budgets and longer résumés—it’s to be unmistakably different in a way the audience understands in seconds.

We unpack the staircase metaphor for growth and put “different over better” into practice with concrete examples. From reimagining a stand-up set by weaving in magic, music, and mentalism to crafting unorthodox strategies in jiu-jitsu and basketball, we show how a clear position becomes your playbook under pressure. Instead of competing in someone else’s lane, you create a lane where your promise and style define the rules. That shift clarifies your message, accelerates feedback, and makes marketing a matter of proof, not persuasion.

You’ll also hear why your circle acts like an algorithm for ambition—surround yourself with people who defend their edge and your standards rise. Above all, we come back to simplicity as the mark of real genius: distill a complex idea into a single, memorable promise, then build options beneath it like a pyramid. When your why is crisp, decisions get easier, tactics align, and you become findable in a noisy world. If you’ve been grinding for attention, this is your reframe: carve a niche, say it cleanly, deliver it consistently.

If this sparked a new way to think about your craft, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs a positioning reboot, and leave a quick review telling us your one-line why.

Chapters

• 0:00 Books As Steps To Level Up
• 1:04 Discovering Positioning And Your Why
• 2:51 Crafting A Differentiated Comedy Format
• 4:28 Compete By Being Different
• 5:26 Think Different Across Skills And Sports
• 6:24 Choose Better Company, Grow Faster
• 7:28 Simplicity As Real Genius
• 8:20 Clarity, Freedom, And Final Takeaways

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:08

You know, on my last uh podcast episode, I was talking about books and how particular books can really level up your life. And um, if you really wanted to level up, go to that next level in your professionalism, your career, whatever it is, right? Um, it could be in your passion and what you're trying to be in life, creativity, etc. To get to that next level, if it was like walking up a staircase, okay, and at the top of the staircase, there was a landing representing like, hey, I'm at that next level. Each of those books I said in my last podcast were like were like steps to that next landing on that staircase. You know, like each step of that staircase was like a book, and the top of it is like leveling up officially. All right, but the point is, this next book I'm gonna say, there's just a few more, and I had to say it because in hindsight, you kind of always think about one more thing. There's this really great book, and it's essential for everybody. It's called Positioning. It's by Al Reese and Jack Trout. And it's basically about finding your niche, what makes you different? Because the thing is, if you have a podcast, nobody's gonna listen to you. No one's gonna listen to me, no one's gonna listen to anybody unless they have a reason to listen to you. If you are a professional athlete, okay, and uh you were going to get um if you wanted to get a uh a UFC fight, right, and you have tons of followers on Instagram, you're more likely because you have a huge following. For example, all right, um, to get a a fight in the UFC as opposed to a guy who's a much better fighter, who has less of a following. Now, I know that's not completely related, but my point is is that why? Why do they want to watch you? That's how you can convince the person, whether it's negotiating or whatever, or it's your brand, how are you different? Everybody has to know your why in life, or nobody is going to be interested in you. When you're talking to a girl, why should she be talking to you? Right? When you're talking, uh, if you're talking to a guy and it's for a business prospect or whatever it is, why? The why is the most important part. And this book, Positioning, explains how to find the why in every situation, essentially, how to think differently, and how to not just find what your niche is, but how to create a niche in any market and uh how to be prolific, how to really like excel. All right. Now, I remember when I got this book as a comedian, I was always thinking, like, why am I different? How am I different? What do I got to do this? What do I gotta do that? What's my niche? And what I've basically done is from my personal niche, is that I have changed the format of stand-up comedy and the way that I do things. Okay. I do a little bit of magic now, I do a little bit of music, I do a little bit of everything, I keep I do uh mentalist stuff, I keep everybody on their toes, okay, so they don't know what I'm gonna do next. And it is filled with laughs from the beginning to the end. Okay, it's the best stuff that I've ever done. But uh my niche as a whole, I wanted to have the word different be my concept. I wanted different, okay, to uh I wanted the like the goal of my comedy, of course, for everybody to be laughing. However, I wanted the format to be different because the way I figure it is that like a lot of things in life, it's chess, not checkers. If I try to do something better than a guy that has more promoting, more marketing, a bigger uh support system, and uh he's been doing it longer than me, uh, that would be a lot harder compared to doing something different that we're both making uh individuals laugh, for example, right? But we're doing it in two different ways. I'm no longer competing with that guy. And guess what? He can't compete with me. I don't care who you are, all right? But if you find in a different, which is a great word, uh unorthodox, an unorthodox way of achieving the exact goal, all right, in anything that you do in life, if you're doing it in a different way and getting an equal or better result, that's what you need to do. And that's essentially what this book does. That's why it's so important. If you want to know not just what makes you different, but how you can be better, whether it's with your uh strategy and tactics to beat somebody in jujitsu, uh your setups, your setups for um shooting a two-point shot in basketball, how you're gonna fake somebody out, this or that or anything else, okay, this book is huge because when you start thinking differently, you start acting differently. It's like they say when you um it's like they say when you uh have friends that are really smart or really athletic, you kind of become a part of what your friends are, right? So hypothetically, and in all reality, if you have a lot of dumb friends that don't want to do anything with their lives, the likelihood of you doing something is a lot less because you're you're choosing your company. But if your company are competitors of a field that you want to excel at, or just um different guys or girls or whatever that that want to be better in their own field, you can like you can competitively vibe off of that because you're you're in good company, you're in like a great support system, right? So anyway, um I'm gonna do one more podcast about books just because I think it's so relevant to everybody, and I wish I learned all these lessons earlier, um and I know them now. And again, as I always always mention, I truly believe that whenever you're being successful and you're you're doing the right things, by taking note of it, making a physical imprint on your memory, hearing these things out loud, and especially me myself, it's like a refresher, it brings to the forefront those things that are most important. I'm really trying to simplify everything that I'm doing now to make not just everything easier for me, but um also simpler, you know, and a lot of times I feel like in life, the simpler that you make things, okay, um I don't want to make this too complicated by being simple. The more simple that you make things, okay, the the harder it can actually be to think of. Meaning, meaning. If somebody explains something in a lot of words, okay, that doesn't necessarily mean that they're smart. Sometimes some people talk a whole, a whole lot about nothing. But real genius is being able to take a complex idea and breaking it down into a simple structure, a simple way of explaining and that to me is real genius. That to me is uh simplicity, and um that's what I'm really trying to do in my life. I'm trying to take everything, whether it's my uh comedy or my jujitsu or anything, and making it as simple as possible, okay, to be able to uh organize my thoughts to move in a creative way and to really be in the moment. You know, I mean if you think about a bird, a bird can fly. It's a very simple concept, right? However, in that in that freedom that bird has, he can do certain moves like bring his wings together and dive towards the ground. Okay, he can open up, you can you can have kind of like a uh maybe like a pyramid, right? I'm trying to make my thoughts be like the top of that pyramid with options that br that like an open up below it. But you have to have a simple point of origin in thinking, and that's what this book does. It makes you think different, it makes you simplify your thoughts, and it makes your goal become a lot easier no matter what you're doing. You're strategizing, your marketing, your exercise plans, you name it. So, anyway, with that being mentioned, I'm Binja well done. Simplicity is genius. Check me out. Peace.