GPITW Day 21-22

[gonores]

On the Importance of Arrogance

So the last update got me to thinking. A couple people used the word “arrogant” to describe the character in my stories. As I said before, I readily admit to having my bouts with arrogance. And while arrogance is not something I condone (it is, by definition, a “bad” trait to have), I’m going to use this space to talk about why arrogance isn’t as bas as a lot of people think.

In my critical pubescent years, I worked as a caddie for the most exclusive country club in Milwaukee. I fit right in to my job. I had a love of golf and a healthy respect and curiosity toward the membership. I worked my way up the ranks…a feat that wasn’t very hard to accomplish. Being around other 14 year olds, all I had to do was show up every day and keep clubs clean to beat out 90% of my associates. My golf knowledge took me the rest of the way, and by my second year, I was a member of an elite group of five caddies. Every weekend, four of these five caddies were tapped to go out with the Morning Group. The Morning Group was a foursome of basically the coolest members in the club. They were incredibly young by the club’s standards (minimum age for full membership: 35), and they were all egotistical power brokers. They were either single and dating A-list Milwaukee chicks (go ahead and laugh) or married to gorgeous 20-something trophy wives. They often stayed out all night Friday night to make their 730am tee times and they smoked huge cigars, drank bloody marys, gambled for thousands of dollars per round, and told dirty jokes. In other words, they were gods to a 15-year old kid. It was the easiest thing in the world to wake up at the crack of dawn and lug huge golf bags around a hilly course in the middle of a sweltering summer if you knew you got to work for these guys for four hours

While those guys were busting their ass during the week, I still had money to make at the club. I fell into another plumb gig when I got to caddy for an eccentric 80 year old. Naturally, he made his money making sausage. If you’ve ever received a box of cheese and sausage from your boss over the holidays, chances are, you’ve eaten something from his sausage concern. We all know people like him…whenever you overheard someone talking about him, he was always described as “very cool, but a little weird.” I ended up caddying for him for 3 summers…9 holes, every Thursday morning, always by himself. This guy (I’m sorry I can’t tell you his name…you might recognize it, but the member list is a big secret) molded many of the life philosophies I still hold to this day. A couple of the more peculiar…

- On pictures – Completely useless. Anything that is worth remembering doesn’t need a picture to remember it by. He took it as far as refusing to be photographed for all but the most unavoidable situations. I held this line as well for many years until finally, last year, I started letting people take my picture because of the threat of losing a friendship over this principle.
- On phones – Voicemail is much preferred over actual phone conversations. Any conversation that needs to be two ways deserves to be face-to-face. He was notorious for never answering his own phone.

One day, we were talking about my weekend gig with the Morning Group, and we got around to talking about how they acted. Long story short, I got another lesson on life that day. He told me that among other things to aspire toward, man should aspire to be confident. It is only when one is truly confident that one can achieve his potential. There were two directions one could go from the ideal of confidence, both of which are less desirable than truly confident. You can either be too confident (arrogant) or not confident enough (humble). He argued that arrogance was desirable over humility. People can only achieve their potential if they are confident in themselves. Humble people rarely turn out to be “great” because they often lack the confidence to achieve. Arrogant people give themselves the opportunity to be great at the expense of having a few people dislike them. Suffice to say, the words hit home for me.

As an aside, it hit me one day a couple years ago that a lack of confidence does not equate to humility…it equates to low self-esteem. Regardless, I’ve always strived to be confident , and I’ve always strived to err on the side of arrogance rather than the side of humility.

A few weeks after that talk, I had the pleasure of observing a golf lesson, given by the club’s head pro, who, by my estimation, comes off as the Tommy Angelo of golf…always calm and big proponent of rhythm and playing within oneself. Anyways, when the student hit bad shots, they were hooks. The pro told him that he always preferred teaching the golf swing to a hooker rather than a slicer. For those of you who don’t know golf, a hook is usually the result of too much aggression, and a slice is the result of being tentative. It hit home to me…this is almost always the case in other realms as well. It’s easier to make a great pitcher out of an aggressive pitcher. It’s easier to make a great hitter out of an overaggressive hitter. It’s easier to make a great quarterback out of a guy who tries to make too many tough throws. It’s easier to make a great salesman out of a guy who is too pushy. It’s easier to make a great student out of a guy who thinks he should get As. It’s to make a player out of a guy who thinks every girl should want him.

And it’s easier to make a better poker player out of a guy who is too aggressive. *Gasp! Poker content!* It’s easier to turn raisers into the occasional caller than it is to turn a caller into the occasional raiser. That’s one of the beauties of dropping in limits from time to time, and one of the reasons I enjoy and perform better when I’m playing 20/40. I remember when I was a rookie, I read a reply by mike l. that struck home. He said, at least when in position, if the question is check or bet, 90% of the time the correct answer is to bet.

So you can imagine how mortified I was when I was wandering through Pokertracker the other day. I was going over my 450BB downswing from late 2005, and I learned that most of my losses came from 2-7 handed games. Upon further inspection, I realized my aggression levels in those games dropped across the board in those games. My go-to-showdown stats were higher than before, and my win at showdown stats went down. For a guy who used to pride himself on shorthanded poker, this information was devastating. Fortunately, at least I’ve identified the problem. I think that will be the focus of my poker content from here on out.

Day 21 was basically spent writing up that damn Panhandling Pete story. Afterward, I went to the Cake concert with the NPA, his wife, and his wife’s sister. Much fun was had by all. Ed needs to stop drinking Heineken. I played no poker, because I’m awesome.

Day 22 was a rerun of day 20. got up about 3k early, hovered for a long time, took a nap at midnight, woke up and played some more at 2am, and dropped a bunch before making a comeback and finishing the day +12BBs.

Stupid long posts.

825BBs to go.

[highlife]

one thing I wonder is whether arrogance begats success or success begats arrogance.

[Justin A]

[ QUOTE ]
one thing I wonder is whether arrogance begats success or success begats arrogance.

[/ QUOTE ]

Neither. Preparation begats both.

[HouseCalls]

Preparation begets success; success begets arrogance; arrogance begets lack of preparation; lack of preparation begets failure; failure begets humility...

[RiverFenix]

This is by far your best GPITW post yet. Thank you

[The DaveR]

Top notch. Best post yet. My caddie-ing experiences were much worse. I would usually be hungover and all I wanted to do was drink a Gatorade and smoke a cigarette.

Part of the reason for your adjustment (getting to showdown cheap) in that game is that they are much more willing to blast you out with air, particularly the guys who only play short. But yes, rigorously getting to showdown with middle pair or Ace high is a long-term disaster.

Did I read correctly that, as a teenager, you got a box of sausage from an eccentric older man and he taught you life-lessons?

[Granite]

Thanks Gonores, another great post. Alot of good points. I have erred on the side of humility too much in my life and it has affected my career. I have started to blow my own trumpet alot more and it shows results. It is a fine line to walk though.

I used to have a similar view on Pictures. I have travelled extensively and my view at the time was why take a photograph. I should live in the moment and focus on remembering the moment, not taking photo's and spending my travels looking through a lens. I kinda regret not taking more photo's, but too many is wrong too. I think half a roll for 2 months in China is a little on the low side.

Cheers,
Granite

[nolanfan34]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
one thing I wonder is whether arrogance begats success or success begats arrogance.

[/ QUOTE ]

Neither. Preparation begats both.

[/ QUOTE ]

And luck before all of that.

Interesting post Doug. I've worked in a few places now where you run into many different types of ego. I'd concur that the line between arrogance and confidence is a fine one. To me, the distinction is the level at which you advertise it. You can be confident and show leadership by stepping up and performing a task well. When you spend your time talking about that success after the fact, is when it starts to edge over the line.

Gonna have to stew over this one more.

[sweetjazz]

Hey gonores,

I read your and Justin's posts when I get a chance and I, like the others, really enjoy them. I must say that I don't really agree with your perspective this time. (Sorry that my first reply is rather negative as you are a great writer and an interesting, thoughtful guy. But I like to play devil's advocate. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] )

My basic question is: Is being a rich SOB who hangs out with 20 year old floozies and plays golf all weekend really that "great"? I strongly believe it's their prerogative to live their life as they choose, but I can't really say I am particularly impressed or envious. Somehow, in all of their success, I think they completely missed greatness. That's just my way of seeing it.

I think the right approach -- which sounds pretty close to, if not the same as, the one you have adopted -- is a nice mix of confidence and humility. Confidence is (accurately) realizing our abilities and humility is (accurately) realizing that we will still strive to improve.

[Justin A]

[ QUOTE ]
I have started to blow my own trumpet alot more and it shows results.

[/ QUOTE ]

There's a big difference between talking about yourself and being confident.