Never chase the wind.
In many racing conditions the wind is always changing – in both velocity and speed. The boats that are winning are probably those that find themselves in the best patches of wind.
When things aren’t going so well, it’s usually because you’re not in the good air. But if you see another part of the course where the wind looks better, it will invariably be gone by the time you get there.
The lesson is to find your way to the part of the course where the wind is going to be – not where it is now.
It’s the same in business. When your toughest competitors leap ahead of you, you can’t catch up by simply doing what they’re doing.
Instead you need to figure out the next thing a good company should be doing. When you figure it out, you don’t need to set your course for where your competitors already are; you can set it for where you want to be.