Erica Cook

Choosing Community Over Competition in Life

The second sentence—“I hope we all make it”—extends the idea outward, implying that achievement does not have to be zero-sum. In many fields, scarcity is treated as inevitable: limited jobs, limited recognition, limited room at the top. Yet Cook’s hope challenges that default by treating progress as expandable, where one person’s win does not require someone else’s erasure. This shift in framing matters because it changes how people behave when opportunities appear. Rather than hoarding information or undercutting peers, a non-zero-sum mindset encourages sharing leads, credit, and encouragement—actions that can multiply chances for many people at once. [...]