Business Book Review: The Unfair Advantage by Ash Ali and Hasan Kubba
Your unfair advantage is the secret to your success you never realised you had. Using your conditions, assets or circumstances to help elevate your success.
My Rating: ★★★★★
Length: 276
Publisher: Profile Books
Released: 2020
Key Takeaway for Personal Branding
In The Unfair Advantage, Ash Ali and Hasan Kubba propose you already have the competitive edge you need to succeed in the marketplace. The key is understanding and leveraging it.
The Unfair Advantage challenges two popular schools of thought:
Meritocracy: This believes that hard work deserves success.
Fatalism: Says success is all about luck, timing, natural talent and fate.
Ali and Kubba propose the secret lies in the middle. Embracing both luck and hard work.
The MILES framework
The authors present their ‘MILES’ framework. Which proposes that your unfair advantage can be made up by any of the following dimensions:
Money
Intelligence and insight
Location and luck
Education and expertise
Status
A ‘Reality-Growth’ Mindset
Their framework is underpinned by their proposed ‘reality-growth’ mindset.
The ‘fixed mindset’ says that some believe they’re born naturally gifted at some things and incapable of others. The ‘growth mindset’ proposes that almost anything is possible. Their reality-growth is, therefore, the ability to accept some hard limits while also believing almost anything is possible.
Your Moat
Like personal branding, which the duo discuss in the book, what makes you unique is your competitive advantage. And the equivalent of what Warren Buffet would call your ‘moat’.
Favourite Quotes
An Unfair Advantage is a condition, asset or circumstance that puts you in a favourable business position.
Your Unfair Advantages can’t easily be copied or bought. Your set of Unfair Advantages is unique to you.
An unfair advantage is similar to what Warren Buffett calls an ‘economic moat’.
Unfair Advantages are not just about your strengths, which is what you’ll often read about in business and self-help books. The unique thing about the Unfair Advantage concept is that it also takes into account your circumstances.
The best strategy is to partner up with people who have unfair advantages that complement yours.
Creativity is largely about training your mind to connect things you learn in one domain to situations that seem completely unrelated. This is known as intersectional or interdisciplinary thinking.
Your Status is your personal brand. It is how others see you. It is your social standing, your appearance, gender, age, how you dress, stand, talk. It’s also your perceived credibility.
Ali and Kubba refreshingly reject the misleading ‘hard work is everything’ narrative. Shedding light on the nuance behind some of the world’s most famous success stories. The Unfair Advantage compels you to explore every aspect of what makes you unique. The good, bad and ugly. All have the potential to form the competitive edge for your personal brand.
It’s often easier to envy others and says it's unfair. Instead, ask yourself what makes your own circumstances unfair? Now, leverage it. Because there’s no one just like you.
The Unfair Advantage by Ash Ali and Hasan Kubba: Available on Amazon.
