Toe to toe with the best of them….
Toe to toe with the best of them….
What does it take to be the best? Is being the best defined monetarily or with trophies and plaques? As I write this post I reflect on my journey; the futility I encountered when wanting so desperately to “get it” while those around me seemed to just move effortlessly. I have come to realize that it is a journey, and some of the things I do today took damn near 10,000 hours to learn.
In grad school I can remember the most impactful paper I ever wrote. It was for professor Al Napier. He asked us to interview 4 people we admired / had charactics we wanted to emulate. One person I interviewed was brutally honest with me. He was the best I have ever seen, and his words still echo in my head to this day. In summary, I was bragging about my excel skills and all this newfound knowledge I was gaining at school. “You will never beat me” were his words. He went on to explain that he does the very thing I wish to do, effortlessly. His math skills were almost savant-like. I was mesmerized; I met a master, and this meeting changed me. I found a boundary condition.
Finding boundary conditions has been critical for my development. In many ways the boundaries allow for hyper focus. I am by no means an excel spreadsheet master, but through the years I have developed the ability to “think” in rows and columns. In O&G the PhDs built the models. As the leader of a company, be it Single Member LLC, I set the model. The coolest part is when I show other people what I built–the elaborate pricing models with links to databases and the VBA functionality all tied into Microsoft Powerapps. It is a mouthful.
What I am learning is that if I do what I am good at and surround myself with the best, we can set our own boundaries. Last year I spent >30 hours building a model for a commercial project. I was competing with my old business partner. I was not going to lose. In the end, I did not win the project. My approach was all wrong. I was focused on beating someone. I put bad energy into my work. I have since refined this model. It now has a friendly feel to it. I wield it to help all of the men and women that work with me. I now work for the betterment of the team, not the ego of the one.
