Latest / The Vincere Project / Episode 18. Competitive Forces
Transcript
- Vince: Vincier Project is back doing what we do. Now we just have some panels that are standing there behind me, which is kind of embarrassing because they've been sitting there a little bit of while I don't know, three weeks. Sure enough, Mary, I don't know if I mentioned this last podcast. She came in and was like, Hey, that color doesn't match. Like, okay. Great. And and it went from being like a a little project where I'm gonna hang up these things that are now just stacked there. To now it's like we're getting a complete overhaul and it went from being cost effective to now it's gonna turn into a a process. We'll see. We'll see what happens with that. But she's trying to make it better and I I understand her perspective and I'm gonna listen to her. Just it's gonna my credit card gets to feel that. Yeah, my credit card. Man, I I I I had a whole laundry list of things I wanted to talk about last week after last podcast, 'cause I don't feel like it was that good and and You know, I I was like, hey, like I gotta streamline some topics. I have a ton of topics for the blog and for this, and it's just not getting done at the rate of effec effectiveness or efficiency for that matter, like that I would like. And I have to systematize it, I gotta think about it. I'm gonna wait a week though. Got my birthday. I'm gonna be old. Getting old now, you know, starting to contemplate like what does it mean to be old? accepting all that stuff. But maybe I'm young. Maybe I'm young too. It depends on who who you ask and the story you tell. So but competitive forces, right? Time is undefeated, right? And that is that saying goes for everything, right? Whether it is business, sports, life in general, right? Time time always wins. It has a way of humbling all of us, I guess, right? Like I think that's you live long enough, go through enough, eventually you're gonna get humbled and there's nothing wrong with that. That's a good experience. So we learn how we grow, how we become We evolve, we change our mind about things, is it's painful enough for us to change. You know, very few people like seek change or shift the life trajectory. There's like a purpose or a mission, meaning. People have that meaning, that worldview of their higher level needs and things like that. Like if they want to save the turtles or, you know, serve the country or whatever the heck or innovate or design something. A lot of time it's just working on yourself, right? And I think I think there's a competition for all that. Just competitive forces. Competition with myself is probably the biggest one. That's the office and the panels behind me that's gonna drive my OCD crazy. but I'm stubborn. I can grit that straight through this and then throw those things right in the trash and not care. And then my wife would ask, why did we buy them in the first place? And I'm like, I would have returned them to China, but he threw out the box. I don't know. Just upset about these panels that drive me crazy. It's all good. Man, July is moving along well. We're cruising in. The business and man, doing everything I said last week about the business, man, just making clients delighted, right? One at a time. Human services are like that. It's very individualized. It's very sensitive. Privacy and confidentiality are are supreme in our business. No matter what, right? Like we we're HIPAA compliant what we do and I think something that comes up, man, a lot for middle aged folks that have children or in their own experiences, sports and all the stuff that comes with it, some of the pros and cons. I kind of made a list here. I look at the internet, I think about the conversations I have. I definitely coach a few student athletes and have more or less along the way, speak with student athletes and privilege. That's that's a blessing. I think I have something a frame of reference that they can understand and connect with, even for an old guy. My wife asks, like, hey, do you think you're gonna coach or do you want to coach or something? I'm like, Yeah, but I I'm too much of a control freak in that sense with that. Like like I I I don't I don't know. Like I don't really want to coach somebody else's kids. It's just a lot of pressure. A lot of pressure comes with that and strain and and stress, and you have to really, really want to volunteer. And I I established a few weeks ago. I'm just not a good volunteer, right? But I'm definitely gonna coach my son, that's for sure. If he wants to if he wants to, if he wants to do that, right? We're definitely gonna do that. But the competitive forces of life, right? In business, we get them in our marriage and in our relationships with our children, with our parents, man, with our neighbors, with the community, with the tax man, freaking tax man. Dude, y you wanna change your perspective on how you see the world, start with paying taxes, right? But then really specifically how about payroll taxes? You're like, hey, I'm providing value and including people in growing this process and talking all the smack about delighting customers and clients and partners and and then you have payroll taxes. You know, this is wild. This is wild to me. But yeah, competitive forces, right? So sports specific stuff, right? Like in and I think it's all competitive. Whether you're it's fitness and you're doing CrossFit or it's finance, right? Nobody gives away their money and not intentionally anyway. You know, or maybe intentionally, right? If somebody has an illness, disease, or an addiction, right? Like our our system is geared towards that. It's predatory in nature, if you're not paying attention. I've been victim of that. We all have at some point, right? We all have. And that's okay too. But man, the sports sports and like I think something that comes up a lot of times is sports, specifically youth sports, trying to get college scholarships and like competing in the twenty four hour news cycle and social media and rating systems. It's all a lot of pressure and it's all real pressure. And college scholarships are that valuable and can be that life changing, I think, that it's worth competing for, if that's A young person's thing. And then beyond that, it's like, do you play rec league or local or high school or travel? And those come those decisions come with a whole series of other decision points. And I think the question always becomes is like, is are you having fun as a family, right? Or is the student athlete having fun? Right. Like that's a very, very subjective question. But I think that's the first question, right? Because I think for me, I look through the lens of having kids. It's like rec ball and local ball is always going to be better. Those are your best friends. You know, like do you wanna be competitive, you wanna win, you wanna learn some things, but like y the assumption is that nobody's going to the league and whatever the thing is. And then, you know, you you wanna play, you wanna experience all those things with your your your buddies and friends and compete and train and and go across town or go to the next town or up up the highway or play on the big game on Friday night or in front of your friends and family and like I mean I had those experiences, especi especially playing ice hockey, right? Like those were great experiences, you know. Just gifted. You're aligned with a group of people, and there's some luck involved in that. But like we definitely, you know, you need good players. You need good players within the league or the framework you're in to be able to win, right? You need the horses to run the race, right? That's that's part of it too. And nobody wants to lose, right? Nobody wants to be on a team that goes 0-50 in a travel league. That stinks, or not play on the triple-A select perfect game, national, regional, intergalactic. team, right? I think I think sometimes I use like you know there's there's been pro athletes locally through the Jersey Shore and it's a hotbed for some sports and every sport. But like he the dude, the best player, the best player is always gonna be the best player and other people are gonna let that player know that they're the best player and that's my belief structure is that if you're good enough they'll always find you. I don't know. I apply that to business a little bit. A little bit of a twist to that, but at that logic and mindset, if you're good they'll find you. Doesn't mean you have to don't have to seek those opportunities and chances and that your zip code and your parents' socioeconomic status and stuff like that matter, but I think there's benefits from sports. I mean, like like look, physical and mental health, right? I made a note of that. Man, emotional and social life skills, right? How to win, how to succeed and fail. And I played for brick high school, brick hockey man, and I say for like from Pee Wee on, like, I don't think we lost too often. I mean, maybe 20, 30 games, and and that's like a we paid like 200. combined or little cohort group. And I I say that because the fundamentals and principles were there and like of being a great teammate, never quitting, and always playing to win. And that started with the adults and the coaches and, you know, how they treated things. And it wasn't fair. I don't think it was fair ever, right? Like the best players played, right? And then that's a very different time. It's not like that as much anymore. And then there's the academic behavioral benefits, right? Like you need to pass classes to be eligible or be able to play. You know, the behavioral benefits. I for me as a kid, man, I I I dude, I had in school suspension, out of school suspension. I had Saturday school a few times at one point. I was fighting in the street and and all sorts of weird stuff, man. Behavioral stuff. Dude, they thought something was wrong with me when I get to Lakewood High School, I got to a public school, they put me in the special needs class for a little bit, dude. And like I'm sitting there looking around and I'm like, man, like in two of the dudes I know, right? I grew up with them playing like Wall or whatever, like we're up to no good. Totally up to no good. They the special kids in there and I'm like, man, these these people don't even they just don't want to deal with whatever the thing is that you're presenting. And that that left a taste in my mouth as far as like public school. It was wild. It's wild. Right. And then you're so dumb and naive, or I was so dumb and naive. I should say like I didn't realize that like like they're betting against me every step of the way. But you know, it also turned turned me on because I got a gift an opportunity a year later when life got really complex and got to to you know, transfer high schools and and go forward my life, man. It's such a gift. It's also when I knew I was gonna be a Republican forever, too, man. Important part of my story in that, like those, those folks, right? And yeah, love those people. Love those people. But yeah, sports, open that door. Because if I wasn't any good at a particular sport, then I wouldn't have been opportunity to escape the particular situation I was in. So I understand that. I understand that quite a bit, right? and that created opportunities to go play in college, man, pretty high level, right? Like that definitely some NHL coaches, people that made a living doing hockey in that world, right? So really, really competitive. You know, but the downside injury, burnout, right? They spoke to that before, financial burden and and reduced time. But I think the reduced time is the best part. Yeah, I think it's the best part. And my wife is you know, she's po poking and prod. She's like, Hey, you gonna start hockey? Or what do you think? You wanna get him on the ice? I'm like, Yeah, Tate's still crapping himself, right? Like I starts getting it like five, six as far as I'm concerned, right? But I I think, you know, there's a luck involved in that. I think my dad, I'm grateful for that, you know. He didn't have money for ice hockey and how we were living and we were doing, but he saw his sons loved it and kept out of the street even further than going wherever they went to in the street. And I look at sports that way, man. I think I think it's what sports are a good thing in a hyper competitive world environment. And but the best players are gonna play and the best players are gonna endure. And a lot of times I would say for high school athletes, it's just don't quit. 'Cause I can tell you that like I think from middle school to high school, there's a group of kids that quit. They're already they already quit in seventh grade, they're just playing 'cause mom and dad asked them to play through the end with that group core. And then he gets high school. And I don't think sports at the end all. I think there's other ways to be competitive. I think that young dude that started a business at fourteen, fifteen, that young Warren Buffett that's knocking doors and cleaning trash cans and whatever service, right? Like or going to the jobs with dad or their uncle or brother, like they're at a competitive advantage. Like, 'cause classroom sometimes isn't it. Right. I think we know that and not gonna geek out on like, plumbers and electricians are gonna be the next millionaires like that. Yeah, they're already millionaires. I know for a fact that they crush, they crush, especially the guys that have good business minds, right? Like I learned from those dudes, man. Learn from them, right? Always want the customer delight. Always want the customer delight. Whether you're doing a two million dollar transaction, ten million dollar deal, or it's a two dollar widget, right? Lots of smiles, pleasantries, kindness. And then the levels of complexity are aligned with the reward or what it is. So, no, I think sports are just the application. You know, I think it's a good character development exercise. But for me, I mean, whatever, whatever little do picks, like you know, it's like my daughter, right? She's I want to try track, I want to try this, I want to try that. She did like flag football, though. She wasn't all in on that. I would say with the first time when she started crossfitting a lot, I was like, something, something happened on that field you didn't like. And that's a good thing, right? It's like, how are you gonna respond or react to that? You know, I I I I had good experiences that get passed over, not getting the playing time, whatever. Then you have to make a decision. Like, what are you gonna do? What do you want to give up? No secret sauce, you know, and I think that's the beautiful thing with competition and sports. Same thing business, right? You you you're gonna be a better teammate when you're with people you like. You're gonna practice never quitting and always trying to win. So I think those three things are universal. And then all my all alternative summon Mary like, are you gonna coach with them? No, no no way, I don't I don't think so. But then also me my alter ego is like, Well, each hour can sponsor the club, we would call it the South Jersey Mastiffs. We'd get kids to drop out of middle school and just go to the H Hour Leadership Institute for two, three years, or they just do class for like two hours, but then they're in the gym or out in the field, going to iFLY for science class. And we we bring in Steve Spencer to guest lecture on science because he'll be retired by then, and then we could pay him. We have some PhD level folks to talk finance and business, bring some folks in from private equity world, have scientists come in. Reach out to Elon and be hey, this is what we're doing. And there'd be two issue with it. I don't know. Just a dreamer. But yeah, little dude's gonna pick his port. And then here's the thing, I would say this, right? For for anybody still listening at this point, right? It's like if there's a degree of physicality or risk in there, about middle school age and high school, it's a mandate to work out lift weights, especially if there's collisions or there's gonna be physical altercations. putting putting a child out there where they can get seriously injured or or hurt and they're not promoting physical strength and capacity and power and speed and agility, endurance and all of those things to transform and and create n more strength in their neural pathways and and their physicality. I think that's a good way to set up somebody to have a sad face because by the time kids are eighteen, nineteen years old in a high school field, rank, court, they know what they're doing and they're and they're built like men in some cases. And Even if they're not gonna play in college or beyond that, like they physically have the ability to to collide or stun, hit yeah, do things on a field and and I think it's competitive in nature and you don't want somebody to get hurt. Yeah. I don't know. But I think compassion fatigue comes on before burnout, they give a crap meter. I think that's universal. I think that applies in counseling, I think it applies in business, I think it applies in families. It's not burnout. Like nobody gets burnt out of their family. It's like the give a crap meter just gets lower and lower and lower if we allow that standard to continue to lower. And so yeah, for my son, most likely he'll have you know, whatever junior varsity sport he plays, we'll make sure he's on the the lower level team so he never comes off the field quarter ice because it's all expensive. So we'll just play the lower level. Like, dude, you're never gonna want the bill to go a low level, right? And then by the time we're twelve, thirteen, fourteen, we introduce some weightlifting and double sessions and work out mom in the morning, dad in the evening. yeah. No big deal. Sprinkle creatine and a cereal. It's gonna be awesome, man. Competition. It matters, man. Competition, right? Fair, not just. Or maybe it's the other way around. I don't know. Whatever. But yeah. It's our job and responsibility to promote that stuff. It's important. But it can be found out elsewhere. It's not limited to sports, and I think that's important. If somebody is an artist, they gotta be competitive with that and do that, practice that. It's not competitive in the traditional sense. It's a competition within ourselves. Who do we want to compete against? Ourselves, right? We get good at that and then The rules don't even matter at that point. The rules and laws are just made up for the dumb people. Super fun. Cheers.