This world we live in isn’t always the kindest to those lucky enough to be graced with the perfectionist gene (if such a thing existed, that is). The very same skills and drive that many perfectionists have in common are just as likely to lead to failure as they are success if not harnessed properly.
When I’m not analyzing or writing about DFS, you can generally find me immersed in real estate. As a teenager, my dad, brother and I renovated an 1880’s apartment – ripping it down to the studs and building it back up. I was hooked and real estate has been an interest of mine ever since.
One lesson I learned early on was that being a control freak and perfectionist is not necessarily the best way to find success. Fiscally, it just doesn’t make sense for me to be laying flooring and putting up drywall. It took me a long time to fully grasp this concept though.
I mean, I have the skillset and desire to do it, so why shouldn’t I be the one doing it? That way everything is done exactly as I see fit and up to my expectations. This was my (probably irrational) thinking.
But what I finally realized after many a sleepless night and missed deadline, was that the sub-contractors I could hire to do such things are just better at their specialized tasks than I was and, more importantly, far more efficient. As good as I thought I was at certain things, there just wasn’t a way to compete with people who do these tasks over and over for a living (check out this previous article from Matt Freedman’s The Labyrinthian series for a bit on how long it takes to “master” a craft).
And while I might have had a slight edge in one or two areas over the people I was hiring due to that little bit of extra attention to detail we tend to have when working on something that’s “ours,” overall, it just wasn’t close. Sure, I might have laid a mean tile floor, but, if I’m being honest, my drywall work was probably more Tim “The Toolman” Taylor than Bob Vila.
When I started looked at things in terms of paying myself an hourly rate for doing such jobs, things really became clear. I could make more money doing things that I specialized in and have more time for my family by outsourcing tasks to people who were experts in their own specific area.
This isn’t to say that my time was wasted in learning new skills and gaining an understanding of how different processes work. It has actually been an incredible asset. Now, because I have an understanding of how long it should take to do the work and how it should be done, I can reap the benefits of having freed up additional time in my schedule, while also still getting the same quality of work I’d have expected out of myself. If someone cut corners on a job, I have a far better chance of spotting it than if I had never taken the time to acquire these skills.
So you’re probably wondering, “When is this guy going to get to some DFS material?” Just hang with me, it’s coming.
Letting yourself realize that there are areas that you may be stronger in than others shouldn’t be a sign of weakness, but instead a strength. Pinpointing these weaknesses can allow us to either work on them in hopes of turning them into a strength or outsourcing them to someone better adapt at performing the task.
I do however believe that there’s a vast difference between educating yourself and coming to the realization that certain tasks are better off outsourced – whether due to time, money or skill – than blindly outsourcing them just because something seems difficult. But maybe that’s just me.
So how can we relate this to what we actually do day-to-day in DFS? Here’s an example.
Let’s say John Doe works a full-time job and has a wife and kids at home. Time is at a premium, so although he is an Excel guru, he just doesn’t have the capacity to build and maintain a model to handle his nightly NBA projections. Because of this, he relies upon our Player Models page to assist him with his nightly lineup construction. But because John knows he does have a skillset that has value, he doesn’t just blindly run the optimizer and set a lineup. He still puts in whatever research time allows during the course of the day.
Because he has experience handicapping games, he notices that the spread on the Warriors game that evening seems too big, which has resulted in a lower-than-usual minute projection for Steph Curry of 33 minutes. John believes that because the game will be far closer than the line implies, Curry will play no less than 36 minutes.
With the research he’s done, John now turns to the Trends tool to see how/if he can exploit this information. First, he runs a Trend looking at how Curry has performed when projected for 33 or less minutes.
He then alters the Trend to look at how Curry has performed when projected for 36 or more minutes (which he believes he would be projected for, if the spread were closer).
With this information in hand, John may now be willing to consider Curry in cash games or utilize him in a higher percentage of his GPP lineups that evening than someone who didn’t take the extra step of performing that additional research.
So while John didn’t sit down and create an intricate projection model, he did utilize his own skillset to gain what he believes will be an edge on that evening’s slate of games.
Understanding where our strengths and weaknesses lie is the first step in setting forth an actionable plan that will allow us to shore up any weaknesses and further focus on our strengths. For some of us, this may mean we suck at mudding drywall seams and should be paying someone else to make sure quality work is being done. For others, we may have the requisite skillset to perform a task, but not the time management skills to fit it into our daily schedule.
Regardless of where you fall on this spectrum, taking a moment for reflection is a great way to ensure you’re optimizing your time and talent on a day-to-day basis.
