All success is dependent on gaining competitive advantages. Whether in life or in business, the one who sets the performance curve wins. Why? Because they force others to adjust to their level, not the other way around.
In my sports broadcasting career, the ability to build trust has always been one of my own competitive advantages. It has helped me earn hard-to-get interviews. It also helps me put my guests at ease, evoking authentic, powerful stories. It makes sense that how to do this has also become a frequently requested topic in my corporate keynotes.
Just as every profession is different, each will also demand its own unique set of skills to come out on top. In October, I was joined on my podcast Rounding the Bases by one guest who specializes in helping companies identify – and leverage – their own competitive advantages. Because when you live in a shark tank, winning must be inevitable.
High stakes demand even higher velocity innovation…and an offensive strategy that cannot be beat. Joel Block is the CEO of Bullseye Capital who has a penchant for futuristic market disruption. Known as the Houdini of Hedge Funds, he’s at the apex of venture capitalism. But even before he was rattling cages on Wall Street, he was bringing down the house advantage as a professional blackjack player with a reputation that preceded him.
His wicked-sharp wit and mind-bending motivation transformed him into a rainmaking machine at the intersection of success and significance. But his most competitive advantages came from playing by the rules to get there.
SINGLE: A Wild Ride
As a CPA by trade, Joel’s work with clients exposed him to a wide range of industries. And an assignment to work with a major syndicator helped him recognize his true ambition. “I don’t want to be a tax doer,” he remembered thinking as he learned about his client’s business. “I want to be a deal maker.”
So he left accounting and made his way to Wall Street, where he began raising money to buy real estate, build companies and sell both. When reflecting on the ups and downs of his career, he stated it simply when he said, “It’s been a wild ride.”
DOUBLE: Advantage Player
Las Vegas wasn’t built by winners, and blackjack didn’t become the biggest game in the world from losers. We have people like Joel to thank for that, who casinos refer to as an advantage player. “[It’s] a mathematical game,” he explained, “And I got really, really good at it.”
Keeping track of which cards had already been played gave him competitive advantages that helped him win big at the tables. “They didn’t like it, but it was legal,” he said of his strategy. All bets were off, though, when the then 20-something professional learned about Wall Street, what he calls the biggest casino in the world.
“They’re really related,” he said. “It’s about taking calculated gambles.” And just like in Vegas, he learned to play in a way that allowed him to actually beat the unbeatable.
TRIPLE: Into the Future
Nobody knows what the future will hold, but with the right thought processes, you can find clues. “There are predictive strategies all around,” Joel said. It’s the people who pick up on them who gain the competitive advantages.
Economic disruption is the most telltale sign of impending change. Because every industry has its own unique set of cues, learning to find them is a critical piece of the equation for anyone looking to make advantage plays in their own life or business.
“Those are the things that give hints about what’s likely to happen in the future,” he shared. And also the key to making informed decisions about tomorrow…using only the facts from today.
HOME RUN: New Time
Gone are the days of BC and AD. In it’s place is a modern measure of time known as Pre-Pandemic and Post-Pandemic, as well as the unique period known the world over as “During Covid.” Put differently, the life-altering time when all walks were on lockdown.
It was tumultuous. It was emotional. But most of all, it was unprecedented. “The world reset,” Joel observed. As we re-emerge on the Post-Pandemic side of history, we’re also beginning to fully understand what implications the whole experience had – and continues to have – on our economy.
This is particularly evident in the labor market, which is no longer content to accept commutes and office settings in the traditional sense. “It’s not to say they don’t want to go at all, but they don’t want to go with the same pattern,” he told me.
The only relief to this fundamental new approach is in modifying corporate expectations to match. “Employers need to start measuring outputs instead of inputs,” Joel said. And now that the disruption has occurred, only time will tell who will go on to win it all.
Listen to the full interview here or tune in to Rounding the Bases every Monday and Thursday, available wherever you get your podcasts.
Learn More About Competitive Advantages from Joel
Book Joel Goldberg for your next corporate event. He draws on over 25 years of experience as a sports broadcaster. In addition, he brings unique perspectives and lessons learned from some of the world’s most successful organizations. Whatever your profession, Joel is the keynote speaker who can help your team achieve a championship state of mind.
Full Transcript:
Joel Goldberg 0:18
Welcome in to the latest installment of Rounding the Bases presented by Community America Credit Union: Believing in Unbelievable. My name is Joel Goldberg. I’m not the only Joel on this podcast today. I’ll tell you about that in just a moment. A quick shout out to my good friends over a Chief of Staff Kansas City: Making Connections That Matter. Whether it be in KC, in the Midwest or all over the country, if you’re looking for a job, if you’re looking to be placed, if you’re looking for help in finding someone, at minimum, they’re just such a quality resource, and great people that believe in good culture. That’s why I partner with them. So hope you’ll check them out chiefofstaff@kc.com and I hope you enjoyed the beginning of Season Eight of Rounding the Bases. If you haven’t checked it out yet, especially if you love baseball, it was mostly baseball, not all baseball. And it usually is not on this podcast. But Bob Costas, the legendary announcer, was my guest to kick off the season. And he was as I expected spectacular. So if you haven’t had a chance to, check that out. I referenced another Joel. When you live in a shark tank, winning must be inevitable. The high stakes demand even higher velocity, innovation and offensive strategy that cannot be beat. Today’s guest is the apex of venture capitalism, known as the Houdini of hedge funds. Before rattling cages on Wall Street, he was burning down the house advantage as a professional blackjack player, where a reputation for collecting chips and taking names preceded him. I’m joined by Joel Block, the CEO of Bullseye Capital. With a penchant for he’s got a pension for futuristic market disruption. Wicked sharp wit and mind bending motivation transformed him into a no-holds barred rain making machine at the intersection of success and significance. But his most competitive advantage was playing by the rules to get there. I don’t even know how to describe fully all of what Joel does, because he does so much. I know this much. He is a member of the National Speakers Association, which I am as well. He’s done it a lot longer than me. He’s got an incredibly interesting background, which means a lot of great material to speak to. A lot of different people about let’s have Joel tell the story. To Joe’s on one podcast, Joel Block. How are you?
Joel Block 2:36
Joel Goldberg. How are you? I’m doing good, man. Thank you. Nice to see you.
Joel Goldberg 2:40
Joining me from Denver, which is home now. The Denver area. But I know Joel travels all over the place. There’s no way in an intro to really describe everything that you have done. But I know you’re asked this a lot. How would you sum up who you are and what you do?
Joel Block 2:55
You know, I I started as a CPA as a youngster. And one of the clients I worked on was like a big syndicator, which means they put together deals and I just thought you know, I don’t want to be a tax doer. I want to be a deal maker. And I went into the deal business and did the same thing that the clients were doing. And I’ve spent the last 30-35 years doing deals, buying real estate, putting companies together buying selling things and you know, and that’s what I’ve done. It’s been a, it’s been a wild ride. It’s kind of a Wall Street business. I mean, really, that’s raising money and buying things. That’s what we do.
Joel Goldberg 3:30
Wall Street meets occasionally sports meets a lot of speaking and oh, by the way, some blackjack in there not just your cabinet. I’m looking out my window as we’re recording this. I’m on the road and I’m looking out my window at a casino. I could go over there and play a few hands. That’s not, I don’t think what you were doing. Where’s all the blackjack come in?
Joel Block 3:51
You know what, when I was, when I was in college, I learned how to how to play blackjack. And the blackjack is a mathematical game. It’s about keeping track of what cards are gone. So you have a sense about what cards are coming. And it’s it’s very, very mathematical, it’s problematic, it’s probability. And I got really, really good at it. And I was on one of the great teams in Las Vegas in the 1980s and it was a lot of fun. We used to take money out of casinos and that really is kind of how I got started. I was taking money out of those casinos until I found out about those giant casinos that big one on Wall Street and that’s where I spent the rest of my career. And it really you know, they’re kind of related. I mean it really it’s about taking calculated gambles. A gambler speculate you know Las Vegas wasn’t built by winners, you know that right? And, you know, but but there are people who can beat those unbeatable games and the casinos call those people advantage players. I was always referred to as an advantage player because I had an edge that the casino could not control. It was legal. They didn’t like it but it was legal. And I did it with my mind. There were no computers and machines, I just learned how to do it. Other people can learn how to do it. And the funny thing is, it’s guys like me who can beat the game. Very few people can beat the game because you have to get really good at it. But it’s guys like me that made blackjack the biggest game in the world and the most profitable game for the casinos.
Joel Goldberg 5:19
Well, what was a good day for you?
Joel Block 5:20
You know, I was I was a kid at the time. And we would play solo, you know, so I played with hundreds of dollars. I mean, I didn’t have a giant bankroll. But we also played team. And team play, much bigger money can move around. And that’s kind of when you saw the movie, the 21 movie with MIT, they were playing team. So they’d have somebody station in each of the tables in the pit. And then the big man, somebody would wander in, one of the people at the table would give him a signal, they’d tell him that the cards were hot, the big man would wander in would plunk down a bunch of money. And then the person sitting at the table would help them to play the hand, because the person who was plunking down the money that came in, didn’t have any understanding or knowledge of what the history of the cards was for that particular round. So it was it was a very, very smart way to play. The casinos have kind of caught on to that a little bit. So now the game has changed a little bit. But I will tell you, just like taxpayers and the government, the people lead the casinos, the gamblers lead the casinos, not the other way around. The casinos can change the rules, but the people outsmart them. And you know, it’s always a game of cat and mouse. And that’s this, and that’s the way the whole system works in the United States Government reacts to what people do with casinos react to what professional card players do. And that’s the way it works. And you want to be on the front end of that, not the back end. You want to be the one that leads the reaction, not the one that’s stuck reacting.
Joel Goldberg 6:52
That’s kind of life, though, isn’t it? I mean, beyond, I know the expression isn’t really right, you’re cheating the system. That’s the wrong way to put it. But but no innovation, right being ahead of the game, setting the curve, and then letting them adjust to you versus you adjusting to them. Isn’t that life? Isn’t that every business? Isn’t that sports? Isn’t that really across the board?
Joel Block 7:13
That’s that’s the goal. But I wouldn’t say most people play that way. That’s the way advantage players play. I mean, that’s the goal. But how many people really are able to do that? How many people are able to lead and get other people to chase them? Not very many. And ultimately, that’s really kind of the objective. So, you know, I help people to be advantaged players, play at the top of their game, get a competitive advantage. And you know, the companies that do that best are the companies that set the tone for everybody else.
Joel Goldberg 7:45
So you do a lot of speaking, and I want to dig more into that in a bit. But let’s say for instance, and I’m bummed out, because I’m not going to be there, October 22. I’ll be traveling for a speech myself, but you’re coming in to speak with with our chapter in Kansas City, NSA, I know most of the people listening to this won’t be members, although we would certainly encourage them to consider coming out. When you come and visit with a group like you will in Kansas City, typically, what are you trying to speak about? What’s your message?
Joel Block 8:14
Well, the message is, is really all about, you know, being an advantage player in your business and your life. You know, how to be, how to gain a competitive advantage and everything that you do. And one of the first things that we’ll do is we’ll lay it out. I will show everybody who’s in the audience how to count a deck of cards exactly the same way that professional card players do. And I’ll show him the exact system that we use to take money out of casinos. Once they understand the system, and they kind of get how it works, which by the way doesn’t mean that they can run to a casino and start taking money out. It’s those two things don’t happen together. It takes a lot of practice. But I’ll show them the basics of the system. Once they get it. They’ll understand the metaphor about how this works. And think about this. You know, everybody in the room is going to know the answer. I’m going to show them nine cards, and they’ll all know what the 10 card is because I’m going to have told them the system. So everybody’s going to know and that’s the way that blackjack works is that there’s a certain prediction to the formula. And the whole thing is very, very smooth. But, but here’s the thing. After everybody guesses the right answer, they all know what the answer is. And they didn’t. It wasn’t a lucky guess. It wasn’t clairvoyance. It wasn’t magic. It was advantage played where they learned the system and they understand how it works. They’re going to understand something very important, because I’m going to ask them the question. If you got seven people sitting at a blackjack table, how is it that six people don’t know what day of the week it is, what time of the day it is, what they had for dinner, what they doing tomorrow? They don’t know anything that’s happening around him and one guy at the table know so much about what’s happening that that person knows what cards are likely to come next. That’s how life is and so he asked, you asked the question, Well, isn’t that what we all tried to do? Yeah, but six of the people at the table don’t know anything about what It’s happening around them, they’re kind of oblivious to what’s happening. And one person at the table knows everything. And my goal for companies, my goal for NSA, my goal for everywhere I go, is to turn leaders into advantage players who look at cues, they look at tells, they look at situations in ways that help wake them up and see and understand the world in a different way.
Joel Goldberg 10:23
Right. So when you speak to a group, the goal is to make them better blackjack players, I’m using that as an example in the same way that my speech isn’t a baseball speech, even though most, not all, most of the material is baseball related. But it’s going to be be much different than that. It’s going to be about culture and building teams. You’re trying to teach people how to make that advantage play in life in their business, not necessarily at the card table. How? How much do you hear from people afterwards? In putting this together? It’s because, you’re right. If you if you know what day of the week it is, and nobody else around you knows the day of the week, you’re already ahead of them.
Joel Block 11:03
You’ll hear it. Here’s the thing, is there are predictive strategies all around us. There are things that you know, people say, oh, you can’t predict the future. Well, you know what, let’s say you and I are sitting there enjoying the sunshine one day unaware that a storm is coming in, meteorologists know that the storm is coming. But if you’re just two people sitting on a beach, you don’t know what’s happening next. But there are people who know, and you have to get systems, you have to get formulas, you have to use processes that help you to figure that out. Let me give you for example, let’s say you’re a travel company. What’s predictive? If you’re a travel company, and you want to predict how much travel is likely to happen? Well, you know, one thing that might be predictive is how much luggage people start buying. If people are buying luggage, when you think you’re going to start traveling more? Every single business has some kind of a cue, or a tail, or some kind of a hint that something is about to happen. The other thing is that advantage players pay attention to trends that pay attention to economic disruption. Because those are things that kind of give them hints about what’s likely to happen in the future. And you know, we produce a trend report every year. And I I deliver information about the kinds of trends that we see in the marketplace. So people, business people in particular, can make decisions about their own businesses based on things that are likely to happen based on what’s already happening. And a lot of this comes from my own insight, a lot of it comes from friends and people I talked to on Wall Street, that are really in the know, and I just share what it is that I know. And that’s that’s a big part of what happens.
Joel Goldberg 12:40
I’m curious, as you’re talking about this, I think about just where we are right now in the world with automation in all professions, by the way, including, you know, the sport that I’m in with baseball, and all the analytics and all the data and not all that is automation. But there, there’s so much info out there that people have access to that they never did before. But I think oftentimes, they can go on, and this or I came with the automation, they can go into autopilot. You know, I often see baseball players, some are wired to process this information, some are not, some are held hostage by it and handcuffed by it, others are good with it. Some of them just rely on it without actually thinking for themselves. And so I’m wondering sort of how you, how do you balance all of that in a world where everybody wants everything just tied up neatly in a bow and handed to them? But then again, if everybody’s getting that same information, you don’t really have a competitive advantage, right?
Joel Block 13:39
Well, you know, think of it like this. You know, 40 years ago, everybody used to type letters and then somebody got a computer and they have this desktop publishing this, they can make their letter look better. And that person had an advantage for about a week until everybody else started getting computers. And now the bar went up. So that the the 80%, the minimum standard was you had to have a word to make your document look nice, and a typewriter would no longer do. And the bar is continuously going up. And that’s happening in sports. It’s happening in business. And that’s part of why business owners, business managers, leaders advantage players need to pay attention to trends, they need to pay attention to what’s disruptive around them, because things are changing. And you don’t want to be the last person on the block to know, you know, your career demands that you know, before other people, because if you’re the last person to know, somebody is not going to be impressed with your performance.
Joel Goldberg 14:38
So what is going on in the world right now in terms of change? It’s a loaded question. But I mean, we’re in this unique time still. We were in a unique time for the last couple of years because the pandemic. Now we’re I think in a unique time of coming out of a pandemic for the first time. I was telling you before we went on that as I started traveling with the Kansas City Royals again this year, all the cities look different. The feel and a lot of these downtown’s and the stadiums was different. We certainly hear with a lot of the people that were speaking to about the hybrid situation and working from home and working in the office. I mean, everyone’s trying to, if not reinvent themselves, kind of redefine themselves or refine themselves. So what are you seeing in terms of disruption or moving forward right now?
Joel Block 15:25
Well, let’s put it like this. I kind of see that there was a pre pandemic world, then there was a pandemic. And now there’s kind of a post pandemic world, which we’re just starting to kind of understand. And I think a lot of the economic turmoil that we’re having is not what the economists think that it is, I don’t think that this is traditional inflation, the same way that it was, let’s say, in the 1980s. And I’m very concerned that the Fed is attacking it. They’re the doctors giving the wrong medicine for the wrong disease is kind of what I see is happening. But put it like this. You know, before the pandemic people, just for used to go into work, and they never gave it a second thought they would just drive in their car, there was a lot of traffic, they would go to work, and they would sit there. Then there was a pandemic and nobody go to work. And now after the pandemic, people don’t want to go back to work the same pattern. It’s not to say they don’t want to go at all, but they don’t want to go with the same pattern. The other thing is the Zoom became normalized. Once Zoom and other kinds of technology became normalized, the possibility of something could be different changed. And I think that the world has reset. I think the world is actually fundamentally different than it was before. And I think we have to recognize that, with that it’s different. Among the differences, people necessarily can get their work done. Employers need to start measuring, instead of output, you know, or instead of inputs, which is like ours, FaceTime, they need to measure outputs. They need to think of new ways to measure things. For hundreds of years, the only thing that we can measure was input, if you they saw you sitting at your desk, then you must have been doing something that was valuable. That is not really a decent measure anymore for certain kinds of jobs. You know, maybe there are jobs that can only be measured by by that kind of standard. But there’s a lot of things that can be measured in different ways. And employers are really pushing back, they don’t want to change, they will eventually change. People have options, you know? People talk about where’d all the employees go. We don’t have price and wage increases, because companies just feel like paying more. The workers are gone, where the workers go, Well, you know, these people have options. What options? They’re driving Uber, they’re renting out their swimming pool, using the swiftly they’re renting out their backyards, using these things, they’re renting out bedrooms and Airbnb. They’re maybe they’re selling their clothes and anything that they have available, they’re able to turn into cash in ways that couldn’t do it 10 years ago. And so the world is fundamentally different. People have ways of making money in generating capital in ways they couldn’t do it before. And that has changed the face of the labor, the whole labor market is just changed as a result. And so I don’t think that the inflation that we’re dealing with is entirely as advertised. I think that really, it’s fundamental. There’s been a big reset in the marketplace.
Joel Goldberg 18:12
When you talk about recognizing trends. And again, this is competitive advantages. When you talk about recognizing trends, it feels to me like there are a lot of employers out there that are recognizing exactly what you’re talking about, and that are pushing forward. And then there are others that are just expecting or wanting to go back to where they were and, and I hear from some of those CEOs, they’re frustration about the way things look now, and they don’t want to do this. And they’re lazy with that. I mean, that right there is what you’re talking about, right? It’s recognizing that the world is different now.
Joel Block 18:49
The world, the world is different. And there are just a lot of people. And I think there’s an age issue here. I also think there’s a gender issue here. I think that there are a lot of people who maybe are our age that just kind of would wish that the world would stay about the same for about another 10 years. Let me get out, let me get off the moving sidewalk, and then let it change all at once. But let me just finish out my last 10 years kind of the way that I’m familiar with it. But that’s not how the world works. The world doesn’t accommodate us and our desire for that to happen. The world has changed. And so whether we like it or not, we need to come up with new ways of working with people. Young people think differently than older people think. And that’s that was true when we were kids too, by the way. We just didn’t see it so much that way. But young people see the world in a different way. And they want the world to be different. And they deserve to have a different world because it’s their, it’s a world they’re going to inherit. They deserve to make certain choices about it. And you know, so I think that some of the older, starcher more stubborn people are going to get kicked in the teeth and it’s not going to be pretty and those companies need to wake up They, I’ll tell you what I think. I think they need to put a few women in charge is what I think because I think women are a little more sensitive. And that’s not being, you know, so generic is that I just think that they’re women just kind of maybe are a little more flexible, I think they kind of see the world a little different way.
Joel Goldberg 20:18
Well, you know, been discriminated against in so many ways for so long that that beyond just some of the differences between all of us, they have a different perspective, right? I mean, that’s just,
Joel Block 20:31
Yeah, I listen, they have, they have a different perspective, and they have different experiences. And I think that we really need to get some new people that have some new experiences, because the same, the same old white guys that are running the place, you know, the world has changed. And really, we need to get a few new people running the place, because it’s not going to stay the same as it’s been for a long time.
Joel Goldberg 20:55
Yeah, amen to that. And so I guess the, the, whatever, 64 $64,000 question doesn’t work anymore. No, nobody that’s younger than us even knows, I think that the pyramid game came back, I don’t know. But why is…this has always been the case. I love like when people say things like, our talent is slow to change, or the weather always happens quickly here. And whatever it is, like this only happens now. But no, it happens everywhere. Like, change is hard wherever you go. For the most part, even the most progressive of areas, it’s it’s hard to move the needle, certainly in a quick way. Why is change so difficult for people?
Joel Block 21:36
Well, number one, I think it has to do with us being comfortable, you know. Human beings like to be comfortable, we like to do what we know how to do. Getting out of our comfort zone is uncomfortable. By definition. That’s what it is. And when you when you go out of your comfort zone and you do something that you haven’t done before, you don’t know, there’s no certainty about the outcome. You know, there’s risk. Human beings don’t like to take a lot of risk, some of us like risk, but a lot of people don’t really like a lot of risk. And they really want to make, they just kind of want to protect what they have. And the world has fundamentally changed. And whether you like it or not, if you do nothing, it’s going to be ugly for you. So you’re going to have to take some action, that changes some things. And this is whether you have a small company, a large company, the world has changed and we need to adapt to it.
Joel Goldberg 22:25
Yeah, I couldn’t, I couldn’t agree more with you. So I do want to hit you with some baseball, actual baseball questions in the mix. I know you’re a big Dodger guy, and some really cool stories there. But before we get to that, on the YouTube portion of this interview, I want to I want to go with my baseball themed questions. Not necessarily baseball, but you’ve done so much and been at it for so long, and had a lot a lot of different jobs and cool stories and everything that comes with longevity. What’s the biggest homerun that you have hit in your career?
Joel Block 22:58
Well, you know, early in my career, I invented the concept of delivering stock quotes to investors by fax. Fax in the 19, in the 1990s. Me and another guy came up with this idea together, we built this company, we raised a lot of money for it, grew it all over the country and ended up selling it to a Fortune 500 company. So that was that was a pretty big homerun.
Joel Goldberg 23:24
Not a bad one at all. How about a swing and a miss? And what did you learn from it?
Joel Block 23:29
Well, you know, after I sold the company, there was a swing and a miss. And the swing and a miss was that I didn’t hire PR to tell the whole world what a great deal I’d put together. So I kind of kept it a secret. And that didn’t work for me. I mean, you know, I mean, I probably would have had a speaking career a lot earlier than I do now. Because I would have gotten people interested in hearing my story. So, you know, really kind of understanding the concept of PR and understanding the concept of putting the word out was really an important concept.
Joel Goldberg 24:03
And then the last of the baseball themed questions, by the way, we’re all storytellers, it’s, it’s those of us I believe, that can effectively storytell, it’s another competitive advantage. Because not everybody knows how to do that. But we all have stories to tell. We all have companies to talk about whatever it might be. The last of the baseball theme questions: Small Ball. That’s what I wrote my book, and I want to ask you about your book as well. The little things that add up to the big results. Now you’re a baseball guy, so you know that we love the homeruns, we love the big RBIs. But what about if we really want to get deep into the weeds here? What about that guy that advances the runner with a productive out? Doesn’t even get credit for it? Right? I mean, like he gets, he gets a pat on the shoulder, but it doesn’t show up in the stats. Like, those are the beautiful things about the game. I think that’s true blackjack. That’s true of venture capitalism. That’s true of every walk of life. The little things that don’t show up on the stat sheet. What is small ball?
Joel Block 25:01
In blackjack and again, you know, blackjack is more of a metaphor for everything that happens in business about playing at the top of your game, doing things other people won’t do, seeing things other people don’t see. You know, when we talked about team play, and you had six people, each guy sitting at a table in the pit, those were the those were the the base hitters, they just played five bucks, five bucks, five bucks, and then the home run hitter, the big man would come along and plunk down 1000, or two or five or 10. And be at the mercy of the of the base runner, the base hitter, you know, telling them what to do and do it right. And so, listen. That applies in business too. To me, it’s all about consistency. Base hits, businesses win with base hits. It’s not won with homeruns. Homeruns, exciting as they are, you know, it’s not any different in golf and golf, you know, you know, drive for show, putt for dough, you know. It’s the same exact thing. I mean, listen, as exciting as a great drive is, that’s not what win tournaments and baseball games. If somebody loads up the basis, and then somebody clocks one, it’s much more awesome than than a single. So you know, it’s, it’s the way it is, but that, to me, it’s all about consistency. And it’s about doing the right thing over and over and over.
Joel Goldberg 26:18
Right, which which you started this podcast talking about too, or at least early in the podcast. You know, it’s it’s not simple just to learn all these techniques from blackjack, which again, can be that metaphor for anything else in life, right? I mean, I get my job, I’ll get people to see you get nervous getting in front of the TV? No, I’ve done it 10s of 1000s of times. So it doesn’t mean I don’t have bad days. But this stuff all like anything else takes repetition.
Joel Block 26:45
It’s it’s mastery. You have to have mastery of the basics. And when you have great mastery of the basics, some of the advanced strategies, you know, are not so hard to implement.
Joel Goldberg 26:58
Before we wrap things up, I wanted to ask you about you’ve got so many things, but the the book and the podcast as well. Stop Hustling Gigs and Start Building a Business and then Profit From the Inside. As far as podcast goes, tell me about both of those.
Joel Block 27:15
Well, the book Stop Hustling Gigs, you know, the beginning of the gig economy five or eight years ago. You know, I spent my life in venture capital. I’ve been inside of 1000 companies, I’ve evaluated companies, I’ve invested in companies, I bought companies. And there are certain companies that just do things that are awesome. And there are companies that do things that are terrible. And really what I tried to do, you know, I really wanted to write something that I could leave for my children and tell them, hey, listen, these are things that I learned in my career, and I want you to learn these things for me. And so I really started creating a catalog of what I saw great companies doing, what I saw not so great companies do. What are the great questions that great leaders ask, what are the great selling techniques I’ve seen people use? What are you know, I just I catalogued a lot of different things. And that’s what Stop Hustling Gigs is. Profit From the Inside is really, I’m all about taking the inside track, you know, take the best, smartest or fastest way to get somewhere. It’s not about a shortcut. It’s not about cutting corners. It’s the best, smartest or fastest way to get something done. And so we bring on business leaders, CEOs people to take their companies public. And we asked them what they learned and what the inside track is they’ve taken and what the best, smartest or fastest way is that they’ve used to put their deal together. And those are the things that we that we put on the podcast. And it’s it’s a really cool show. Because we always put out something interesting and different.
Joel Goldberg 28:47
Content storytelling again, it’s it’s what it’s all about. And so it’s great stuff. I hope that people get a chance to hear you speak. I know that this has been released just a couple of days before you’re visiting the chapter that I’m a board member at in Kansas City for NSA. So if people get a chance to do that great. You could also get in touch and learn more about Joel and his website. Really simple. Joelblock.com. I’ve got, we got to talk a little baseball and some fun stuff in the YouTube portion of this. So I hope people will stick with us. It’ll be in the show notes. You can find the link to the YouTube portion of this but in terms of the audio, Joel want to thank you for spending time on Rounding the Bases. Great stuff. Thank you so much.
Joel Block 29:35
Thanks for having me, man.
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