Playing hurt
The athlete knows the day will never come when he wakes up pain-free. He has to play hurt.
Steven Pressfield
You don’t have to be a professional athlete to know that playing hurt is a thing.
Those of us safely into middle age know that on any given day, a new ache can emerge from out of nowhere. Doesn’t matter. Garbage needs to be taken out, walkway needs to be shovelled, or the grass needs to be cut. Suck it up, buddy.
But I’m not talking about physical pain here.
I’m talking about the hidden stress we are all carrying with us every day. Everyone is playing hurt. It may be a minor nagging injury, or maybe it’s much more serious. But nobody is pain free.
Your company is in the midst of layoffs.
Your dog is sick.
Your parents are starting to forget things.
Your kids are struggling in school.
Choose one (or all) of the above, and go ahead and add your own. We are all playing hurt.
Making decisions under stress
We all have those days. We haven’t slept. We aren’t prepared. For whatever reason, we aren’t at our best.
When your job is making decisions, you have to be especially vigilant. One must have an automatic brake that is applied in times of heightened stress. No big decisions today. Just sleep on it.
What do you do when, as an investor, times of heightened stress often correspond to times when you might have to make some big decisions? Now stress management becomes a critical part of your job. Self awareness is something that you learn the hard way, by observing (and hopefully learning from) your mistakes over the years.
Minimizing the number of decisions you have to make helps. Remember Buffett and his punch card. Imagine twenty big decisions, over the course of your investing career. The less you do, the less you have the potential to fuck up.
It helps to have a strong team behind you. When you trust the judgement of your partners and team members, you can lean on their expertise. You can have them test the clarity of your thinking when you’re not operating at 100%. And you will do the same for them.
Perspective on pain
Knowing that you’ll always be playing hurt makes it easier to get through the rough patches, because you know it’s just part of the game. And it helps you appreciate those rare days when you’re feeling that treasured clarity (despite having been inspired to write this, I’m doing ok myself at the moment).
I’m often shocked when I find out what pain a friend has been silently carrying with them. How many others that you interact with each day are doing the same?
Knowing that others are playing hurt makes our work more meaningful. When I’m helping a client, I’m taking away a burden that might allow them to feel a bit less pain today. And that knowledge can take away a bit of my own pain.
Behind the self-congratulatory LinkedIn posts and celebratory Instagram dinners, there’s usually a hell of a lot of pain.
If you realize that we are all playing hurt, you can reframe the exhaustion you may be feeling. Just show up. We are not always at our best, but maybe the struggle is the point of it all.