687: US Open Medalist on Principles to Succeed at Any Table in Business, Sports, and Life (Strategy Skills classics)

0:27Welcome to the Strategy Skills Podcast, where strategy partners teach you the tools and techniques to solve mankind's greatest problems.

0:45Justin Bookey: Hello, this is Krista Farova. Welcome to another episode of the Strategy Skills Podcast. Our podcast sponsor today is strategytraining.com. If you want to strengthen your strategy skills, you can get the overall approach used in well-managed strategy Studies. It is a free download. Go to firmsconsulting.com forward slash overall approach. It is F-I-R-M-S consulting.com forward slash overall approach. And if you're currently updating your resume, polishing it up, you can get McKinsey and BCG winning resume. Also a free download. You can get it at firmsconsulting.com forward slash resume PDF. And today we are speaking with Justin Buki.

1:25Justin Bookey: Justin is a former lawyer, an award-winning marketing strategist, and global ping-pong player who won medals at the U.S. Open and the U.S. National Championships. He also earned Emmy nominations for feature documentaries he produced and Televidi and Eddie Awards for digital marketing campaigns. Justin, welcome. Thank you, Chris. It's nice to be here. Such an interesting, exciting career. So maybe we could start briefly with your journey, and then we will go right into the leadership lessons from your recent book. Sure thing. I practiced communications law for several years in Washington, D.C. And then this was in the 90s when Internet Web 1.0 was taking off.

2:14And I saw a lot of really fascinating opportunities there. So I kind of transitioned into that side of the industry and had a real amazing ride through content strategy, UI, brand strategy, helping companies really embrace this new age of digital communications. and did a lot of consulting in that area, worked with a lot of, I was in-house at a lot of large digital agencies and had a chance to work with some really amazing leaders. And that's where I found a lot of insights into how pioneers in different industries really forge their way and really have some great success doing things in a lot of unique ways.

3:03Yeah.

3:04Justin Bookey: What were some of the most unexpected, mind-blowing insights for you from those days? From those days? I think as someone who had practiced law, that's an industry where there are many established routes and channels to accomplish your goals, established habits and best practices. And in fact, very rigid standards in many ways. at the onset of internet development as content started to explode online, it was a free-for-all. And it was fascinating that you could really create your own rules as you went along. I mean, there were copyright issues, other intellectual property issues, but in terms of really staking your claim to what was going to be successful, no one had a really clear roadmap.

4:01And so I had to adjust my thinking. And one major breakthrough insight was just watching some of these creators, business creators, entrepreneurs do things that just seemed so outlandish. And the way they would run a company that ended up really paying big dividends without any blueprint. They were flying by the seat of their pants. Obviously, these were smart people and they think they had a roadmap internally, it wasn't always evident. And so I just kind of enjoyed watching people who would start a company like Rotten Tomatoes. I do talk about in my book, Patrick Lee, who started that with help as a side business that was totally separate from his core web consultancy.

4:52And they just saw that take off, you know, movie reviews. They liked watching Kung Fu movies, and they just happened to have some reviews about these Kung Fu movies as they started to roll out because they couldn't find reviews very easily in those days, but, you know, pre-broad internet. And it just took off and they really went all in. And the way they ran that company took a lot of risks and it took a lot of innovative u-turns and they had to get a whole different kind of set of staffing and a whole different way of investing and talking to investors anyway that was that was kind of eye-opening just just seeing those kind of examples of how you just walk over the the crest of a hill without seeing the other side with sometimes blind faith, and that can really pay off.

5:49Not all the time, but you have to be willing to at least climb up that hill and see what's on the other side, and then maybe it will pay off. I think that was just inspiring and eye-opening for me.

6:01Justin Bookey: When do you think was the period of your life, and maybe it is now, when you felt you were growing at the highest rate? You know, it goes in spurts. I think I've had periods recently in my life and certainly as a kid. When I moved to Los Angeles and I was able to secure a much higher level coach for table tennis, for example, I've been playing table tennis, ping pong, otherwise known as ping pong, since I was age six.

6:35but when I found this coach all of a sudden that was a new spurt of development for me because I had had decent training but nothing like this she's an Olympian she's a world-class coach and when you encounter that kind of resource it was like just ignite it was rocket fuel for my my discipline, my understanding of the sport and my technique. So that was definitely a spurt. And then every time say I joined a new position, a new job, there's always that spurt of development. Sometimes it can be jarring, but it can be thrilling because you're forced to perform in a very different way. Right. I worked at XPRIZE for a while and got to work with Peter Diamandis, the founder of XPRIZE.

7:27And they're doing fascinating projects that are really unconventional. They're not what you encounter usually in a law firm or a digital agency or a consultancy. Because they're doing these global community-based challenges that have huge impacts, whether it's carbon capture or space travel, rainforest maintenance, whatever. you can't help but just learn masses amounts and you have to perform at a different velocity in order to really keep up with an organization like that so that that was a spurt as well

8:06Justin Bookey: do you remember the moment that defining moment when you decided to write the book that you just wrote and published there was one moment i mean the background is my whole life i've had kind of parallel lives. I studied hard in school. That was important for my parents and my family that we do well in school. Okay. So I studied hard and tried to live up to my three older sisters standards. They were very smart. And I would come home to school and play table tennis or ping pong. Law school, college and law school. And even as a lawyer, I would work hard and have long hours maybe, but I would then on the weekends or late at night, I would play and I would play competitively, but they never really mixed.

8:56And then I remember one day years ago, I had a meeting, a presentation at work and I'm walking down the hall with one of my colleagues. And I just did this kind of this, this certain stance I take and breath I take before I enter the table area at a competition. And it's very table tennis related, very athletic related. I didn't even think about it. And my, my buddy, my work buddy says, what was that? What did you just do? And I didn't even think about it. Oh yeah. Don't worry about it. We're good. And I realized I was using this mind frame, basically get in the, get in the moment technique, snap myself in the moment that I used in table tennis at work and had exactly the same function.

9:51It just snapped me into, here's what we got to do. I better be focused. I got to bring my A game. And that was an aha moment for me. It's like, wow, there is no division here because the mind doesn't know the difference between a huge challenge at the ping pong table or a huge challenge at a breakout room table, negotiating table, it's the same chemicals in your head about alertness and fight or flight and high performance, right? So that was an aha moment. It's like, wow, I have a whole range of skills here and a very different range of skills here, workplace versus table tennis. And yet there is a lot of bridging I can do between those to benefit each.

10:40Yeah. So that was part of the genesis for even writing the book, because I realized, wow, there's so many overlapping principles.

10:48Justin Bookey: A hundred percent. We only have one brain, so it is exposed to everything and takes into account everything we know and do. Can you share with us this get in the moment technique? Because otherwise everyone will be wondering what it is. You know, we all have different ones. So mine will not be magic for anybody, but it's just a certain way, I straighten up and thrust my hands out and breathe, head forward. And just, it's a way of tightening and straightening my body. Now that's irrelevant if it doesn't work for you. I was talking with John Foley, who was a former Blue Angels pilot, the performance jet flight team pilot.

11:31And we talked about different rituals they all go through to snap themselves into ready position or ready frame of mind. He had a football player friend where every time he jogged onto the field right before the game, he would snap his helmet onto his chin. And that's when it really tightly secures your helmet. Click. And he always did it at the same moment when he crossed the goal line heading onto the field. That physical ritual taps into your mental frame of mind. and you can't help it if you do it over and over again at the right place and right time it it is a trigger and you can use those triggers there's all sorts for the blue angels when um when the cockpit would lower and snap into place that's one of them where when john apparently knew this is time when i really get into flight mode because it's about to get real.

12:32And we all have those. And it's something we can all identify or even create for ourselves. If you don't have a ritual like that, it's not hard to create one. As long as you stick to it, pretty soon you won't even be thinking about it. And it's an easy way to all of a sudden snap yourself into the right frame of mind.

12:48Justin Bookey: Do you remember where this technique originates, how you developed it? Or maybe you have seen someone doing it. Do you remember where it originates? honestly i don't know if i can trace the very origin because i think i've been doing it a long time instinctively but once i realized it explicitly then i started to play with it because i i do have different ones every time i step up um before i go into a match the very because there's always nerves always butterflies i think that's natural kobe bryant would say you know he had he had butterflies before every basketball game and if he didn't that's when he would get worried because then you're not taking it seriously so that how i dealt with my butterflies um yes i would do the frame of mind thing i talked about before a meeting or match but before i toss the ball up i would have another ritual i would do which is depending on who i was playing and where i was playing and what level this was at i would i would lean down and and write write just with my finger, like a letter on the floor that stood for one of the key elements of this game.

13:57Now it might be if I felt that I wasn't aggressive enough in my last match, I would write an A, aggression. Or if I felt like I didn't have enough touch because I was trying to overpower everything, I would write a T, touch. And that by manually writing that out with my finger, I felt like I could see that tea on the floor the entire match. And it was a constant reminder rather than just kind of having a loose thought. Oh yeah. Remember touch. Yeah. It's not the same until for me, I physically manifested that. We all have different ways we can do that. And once you explicitly acknowledge the power of that, then you can shape it however you want.

14:40Justin Bookey: Thank you for sharing this. So you sat down to write your book. Was it difficult to identify the principles you wanted to include? I have so many principles floating around in my head from so many years. Once COVID came around, I had some time in 2020 to really sit down and crystallize them all. So even a decade before them, I had these principles floating around. And I used to play with them and talk them out a little bit, but never had a chance to really sit down. So it was really a matter of corralling them down. I probably have 35 or 40 of them. So really, it was a matter of who can I find out there in the real world, in the world of leadership, that really exemplifies principle seven or principle 18?

15:36and is there someone who really personifies that? So it was really about corralling, figuring out which ones would work best, what kind of flow there is. And it turns out that there were about 18 that were really solid for the book in three natural sections. Like heighten your awareness. There's six of them, the first six. Heighten your awareness to what's around you and what's possible. And then overcome obstacles. That's the next six. Like if I'm facing challenges, we all will. It's inevitable. How can I get over them, around them, just pass through them? And then the last, elevate your game.

16:13What can I do to polish, refine, and just super boost all of my skills? That's the last six. And once they kind of fell into those categories, it's like I knew I had my attack strategy.

16:30Justin Bookey: Which great principles didn't make it into the book? Because it wasn't a good leadership example, but you truly believe that those principles are crucial. Wow, there's a lot. A lot of them are offshoots of my current principles, so they're not all standalone. I'm trying to think of a good one. um it might be something related to don't adopt a don't adopt a pose unless you're ready to carry through like no even if this is going to be a big failure know that you are at least going to follow through on it and know your limits of how much you can get done so let's say you are going into a negotiation, you're going into a match, you know you're outgunned, you know they have more lawyers, guns, and money than you, whatever the case might be.

17:34But you know, if you follow through on this one attack strategy, it may just work. Be ready to go absolutely 100%, not 80%, then don't be tentative because that's a surefire way for failure. And that's one of them. And there were a couple of people that actually exemplified that, but I just couldn't get ahold of them. That was part of the challenge. These are some very high-flying, amazing leaders. And sometimes it was the simple fact that, oh, sorry, Shonda Rhines is not available. So I couldn't get her. but yeah that's one of them that maybe i'll save it for the sequel it's an important one i'm so glad you shared it so let's go into the principles that actually

18:24Justin Bookey: made it into the book sure i would like to start with principle number two it's a rhythm game and you gave an example of james brown and how for him it was about the beat no matter which instrument you played, because that's what translates directly to people. How can we similarly cut to the core of our art with brutal simplicity? So the way James Brown did it with music, let's say someone who is a senior manager at a very large organization, let's say it's a large tech firm. Any thoughts you can share on how they can take this example you shared by James Brown and apply it to their work, their art?

19:04Sure. It's a rhythm game. Pong Pensable number two. We are surrounded by rhythm in our daily lives, weekly, monthly, yearly lives, whether or not we realize it. When we wake up in the morning and you're brushing your teeth, there's a rhythm to that. Not only the rhythm of your brushing, but when do you brush your teeth? Do you run into the bathroom and immediately brush your teeth? Do you have coffee first? Whatever. However, when you get to work, who do you interact with? What do you do first? How fast do you do it? When do you need a break? What kind of break? When do you change jobs? When do you go on vacation?

19:49Without realizing it, if we look backward, there are so many points of rhythm throughout our day. And we all have our personal rhythms. we have our interaction rhythms with others we have our team rhythms we have our company rhythms right if we can really learn to recognize those and pattern recognition is part of it then we can harness those and say you use the example of a tech firm i was working at a large digital consultancy and we did massive websites back end and front end development infrastructure. And we were known to be very fast, aggressive, disciplined, high-end output, pretty expensive, but that was part of our offering.

20:38Our clients were huge aerospace, technology, consumer electronics companies, automotive, finance, and they rarely worked in the same rhythm as we did. So that caused problems because we would roll out a project timeline. Okay. In the next nine months, we're going to do A, B, and C. Giant project. Here's the timelines. Here's the decision points. Here's the approval points. Here's the, we'll have iteration A through D at these points. And then we need 24 hour turnaround for approval, whatever, right? Inevitably, we'd get to timeline one or two or three. And then the client was like, oh yeah, our VP is in Singapore right now.

21:20They can't get back to this within 24 hours. So it's like, okay, well, we'll just do a change order. Maybe we'll push back the timeline a little bit. And then it would end up costing more time, more money. Ultimately, what we learned is we had to adjust our rhythm. They had their rhythm of approvals. We had our rhythm of production and development, right? We adjusted our rhythm. We adjusted the allocation of our workforce. Instead of one person devoted to this client, we'd have 60 % client A, 40 % on client B, which adjusted their rhythm a little bit, right? And then we would make sure we knew the rhythm of every individual client partner.

22:05Was their rhythm quickly on text? Was it four-hour delay on email? Was it one week because they're always at a different conference, right? We just paid more attention to rhythm. In the end, we didn't have to delay projects as much. We could do more projects as long as we meshed the right rhythms. And the clients ended up being even happier because we didn't have to keep pushing back timelines, right? So that's like on a macro level for a client engagement, rhythm could really hurt us, but it ended up really helping us once we understood it. So that's an example kind of from the tech development industry.

22:47It certainly has a base in table tennis because when you're playing with this little ball, everyone has their own rhythm of hitting the ball. Mine might be more aggressive off the bounce. So it's ba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bum. Yours might be moderate. You might go ba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bum. Someone else might be more defensive. They stand back from the table and chop. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Once you understand that and you're comfortable with your rhythm, you understand your adversary's rhythm or your partner's rhythm, then you say, okay, now here's the rhythm. And then you have to know when to break it.

23:29Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And that will take them off guard. This is in a competitive atmosphere. That'll take them off guard to your advantage. When you're collaborating, you need to know, okay, if we're going to break the rhythm, let's get on the same page and break it together. And that is, of course, helpful in music and business and any collaborative endeavor. Because if you're too repetitive with the rhythm, then it gets boring. It gets predictable. It's like TV show. it's a streaming show that like oh it's season 3 and we're still doing this you need to throw some curves in there sometimes

24:11Justin Bookey: so when you play table tennis do you actually adjust your rhythm to the other person's rhythm ideally no ideally you play your rhythm and maybe you'll get them to adjust or if you do adjust to their rhythm it's very temporary just so you can optimize the rally just for maybe a hit or two. And then again, break it. So you can lull them into a false sense of security. Like, okay, I like to be, and they're more. So, okay, I'll do that for a little bit, just a couple. Now, if they're being predictable, okay, now I know, that's the next one coming. And then it's like, okay, all I'm going to do is hit it a little bit before that.

25:06So it kind of plays into the game just enough so I can get comfortable with seeing my window and then attack.

25:17Justin Bookey: So coming back, talking about the rhythm in real life and in business, What did you learn from figuring out your own optimal rhythms for various situations at work, in life generally? I know that I can tend to be overly aggressive at the table. I'm maybe what they call a two-wing attacker, meaning I like to stand fairly close to the table often and attack from backhand and forehand. and take it quick off the bounce. And then I'll move back when I need a little more time. My three to five feet back is probably my comfort zone, three to six feet back. Some people go way far back and they'll rush in.

26:07And sometimes I'm just a foot or two from the table. And I tend to be a little impatient sometimes. And so I know from that tendency and that rhythm, that carries over into other parts of my life. So I have to be careful. If there's a certain plumbing issue we have at our house, I will immediately call the plumber. I mean, that's not a bad thing. But then if the plumber doesn't reply really soon, I'll get impatient sometimes and maybe make a call to the second or third plumber. but then five minutes later, the first one will call back and he's a great plumber. And it's like, okay, that was wasted effort on my part.

26:50I could have waited five minutes for the first one to call back. Right. Just a small example of how sometimes just taking a simple action and letting it play out will benefit you just fine versus working yourself up into extra effort. That's not necessary, right?

27:09Justin Bookey: Very helpful. So in the book, you asked some questions. So you asked, are there any particular areas of your business or life that feel rushed? Try to isolate each part in its smallest unit possible to help identify specific problem areas. And what about areas of business and life that feel painfully slow and drawn out? Could you elaborate on this for people who will be listening to us now and starting to think about their own rhythm and how they should adjust things? Sure. Like I mentioned, it's really useful to take a moment and listen and watch your own rhythms at work, everywhere, but certainly at work.

27:53If there is something that seems painfully slow, first of all, is it painful? How painful is it? Is it just painful because you've created a pain around it? Is it actually slowing down your progress? Or is it just someone else's very reasonable rhythm, given their workload and their working style? Maybe you have plenty of other things you could do to fill that empty space. And you can even create a new rhythm. Because let's say every time you submit receipts to the accounting department for reimbursements, It takes a long time for them to get back, but they always get back. Hopefully, let's say it takes them three weeks.

28:39Now, is that really causing you hardship? And if so, why? Are you losing these receipts and then you don't know, are they accurately reimbursing me? Maybe a simple adjustment in your attitude will alleviate this pain. and you keep your receipts in a folder, on Google Drive, whatever, and then you'll know that, okay, as long as they're accurate and you can do a couple audits, then just adjust for that rhythm. Or if it's someone who doesn't get back to you as soon as they should in your mind, plan for that. Make that like, oh, okay, I'm going to talk to Stan. I'm going to text him. He might not text back to me tomorrow, but I'm going to plan for tomorrow, not three hours from now.

29:32Because if I text Lucy, I know she's going to get back to me in 40 seconds. So really just adjust your expectations and have that set of rhythms kind of in your head. And I think it will alleviate a lot of frustration and it can actually aid in your planning.

29:50Justin Bookey: Very helpful. The next leadership lesson you had in the book is when deception is fair play. And I think this one is very interesting to talk about. So for that lesson, you had a quote from The Art of War. I appear weak when you are strong and strong when you are weak. And you had an example. Let's talk about this example. Nolan Bushnell, co-founder of Atari, was the first to hire Steve Jobs. And in the book, you share how after a few products that didn't do well, They created a prototype of a basic coin-operated pinpole arcade video game, PON. And soon they had to produce 3 ,000 of them a day, but they could only produce 200.

30:30Justin Bookey: And they had a lot of copycat producers disassembling a finished Atari product, photocopying the circuit boards, and building their own clone games. And it got to a point where 150 ,000 arcade units sold, but Atari had sold only 30 ,000. So tell us what Nolan did next. Yeah, that was a fun one. To start with, yeah, Pong Principle number three, it's a game of deception when deception is fair play. Certainly in table tennis, it is built on legal deception. There's a lot of spin and you're hiding what kind of spin you do. And that's legal. Now, there's a lot of illegal deception, like you can't use the wrong color rubber on your paddle, or you can't shout too loud and distract your opponent, because that's not seen as fair sportsmanship, sportspersonship.

31:24um so nolan bushnell who founded atari and chucky cheese brilliant innovator crafty businessman uh when he first invented pong and was distributing pong the video game way back in the 90s uh sorry that was no that was the uh that was the 70s um 80s um it was very successful off the bat but he had a small operation. And so they were just trying to crank out these units as fast as they could. And yeah, just a few thousand they could make any given weekly rollout schedule, right? Meanwhile, the industry was craving more and more of these Pong units. And so there was a lot of knockoff producers who were really just really unethical, if not illegal.

32:19They would buy a pong game, just open it up the circuit board, reverse engineer it, and then just copy it and sell knockoffs. And they were doing great. They were selling far more units than Nolan's company. And yeah, maybe they could have pursued legal options, but that could be slow. And by that time, I mean, the market could have died. Who knows? So he had to act quickly. So it was nefarious. It was devious, perfectly legal though. And he was getting really screwed over by these competitors. So what he did, they had his factory purposely mislabel the little circuit breakers and little chipsets on the boards.

33:02So if it's like a whatever, you know, controller three, they had it labeled as controller five. And that's because controller 19, they had it mislabeled as controller 25. And then they got a box of these, like usual, but only at Nolan's factory did they know, oh, 19 really means four and 26 really means nine. So they correctly assembled them, beautifully shipped them out. All the competitors who were cheating, meanwhile, assembled them like they would. And it was a useless box of junk because it wouldn't do anything. And so all the competitors had a warehouse full of junk and then they went under.

33:43And it was an example of something that was perfectly within Nolan's right to do, but he knew that that kind of deception would really fend off these really, really damaging unethical practices by his competitors. and yeah so that was that was a really great lesson and you know the bottom line is yeah that's a very specific instance but there's all sorts of things to do in the in a cutthroat in any cutthroat industry any competitive industry where you can use your imagination and think about what can i do to throw off the trail throw competitors off the trail quick changes we can do innovative quirks we can work into our product that really might confuse the opposition and benefit us.

34:37And without, again, you have to be careful of following your own moral guidelines, because yes, these can be legal, but of course you want to follow healthy

34:48guidelines that are going to keep your conscience clean and not exploit or manipulate or damage anyone's reputation or you know or or really darken um your reputation because that's obviously something that most people would want to hold dear so um it's a balancing act 100 when i first saw this principle

35:17Justin Bookey: i was taken aback but then when you gave an example in that situation it was justified yeah because he was just trying to protect someone basically coming and stealing his creation and he was just trying to protect it. He was not going out of his way to hurt someone that other people were hurting him. And he was just trying to protect his creation, his territory. Right. Do you have any explicit guidelines of fair play you refer to at work in your own personal life? Or is it just case by case? It just, you know, inside that it's fair play. It's okay. No, this is over the line. I mean, I sign off my emails often.

35:56Hit hard, have fun, play fair. which means hit hard, whatever you're going to do, go for it fully, because it's not worth it if you're going to go 60%. Have fun, bring in the joy, you're going to work harder if you're having fun, and you're going to commit to longer hours and obstacles if you're enjoying it, and you can bring people along. And then play fair, that's a crucial third of that. whatever you're doing, however hard you're working, however much fun you're having, you better have some idea of how far you're going to go ethically and still be able to sleep at night before you do it. And so we all have different boundaries and we're raised differently in different cultures and so forth.

36:46I would say a key thing is before you just open that door to whatever party you're going into. At least have in your mind, what are the boundaries for me? What are my guidelines? How much am I willing to put myself out there before I somehow hurt myself or others? And again, we're all going to have a little, you know, little or big differences, but just it's really helpful to know that before going in. So you don't have to make a snap decision. Oh, is this, should I be doing this? You don't want to have to decide it in the heat of the moment because that's not a good time to have to decide.

37:26Justin Bookey: We are getting close to the end of our discussion. I wanted to ask you what are habits or practices that you personally cultivate that you believe have contributed to your professional success and impact? Let's see. I think I would say Pong principle number six, what's your ready position, has been really helpful to me constantly on a daily basis and on a long-term basis. And that is in table tennis, there's a specific ready position. You're crouched low, paddle more or less in the middle because you can easily handle backhand or forehand. And even after you swing, you want to rebalance and get in ready position again, because there's another ball coming at you probably.

38:16Similarly, in work, in relationships, in travel, family, whatever, we all have our different ready positions. And I realize no matter what I'm doing, if I can quickly assume a ready position and reset to ready position after I do something else, it's so helpful because as they say, if you are ready, you don't have to get ready, right? So before you do a podcast, you probably have a ready position. I don't mean sitting here close to the mic. Well, that is, but it might even be in the right chair. It might be the right lighting, but it's also the hour and the day and the week leading up to the podcast.

39:00you are keeping up with whatever you need to keep up with, whether it's the research, whether it's the attitude, whether it's the physical fitness, because you want to look and feel your best when you're doing a podcast, right? We all have different ready positions that we need to be mindful of. And that could literally be two seconds before the act, whether it's about to raise your hand as an objection in court, or it could be two weeks before a very important presentation. You always want to do A, B, and C. So we all have our ready position. The more you can acknowledge all the different elements of that ready position and make that a habit to always assume that ready position, pretty soon it'll be habit.

39:48It'll be innate reflex. And then whenever opportunity comes your way, you don't have to scramble to get into ready position. and you're there.

39:58Justin Bookey: It's a very good principle. I agree with you. Anything that you do on a daily basis that you could also share any, so to say, success habits? One that I, yeah, I don't know if it's daily, but it's maybe close to daily. And that is, Pong principle number 10, don't write the script. Don't write the script before you know how the scene ends. And that's from watching a lot. That's from my own experience in table tennis, but also learning from Annie Duke, who is this amazing poker champion, World Series of Poker.

40:39There's so much of a tendency for us to walk into any situation, and we all have these scripts in our heads. Oh, this is going to play out this way. This is going to play out this way. If I drop this meatball, it'll probably bounce and splatter spaghetti sauce on my shirt. That's a script, that's a pretty dependable script. It may not always happen like that. So they're useful, but they can also lock us into very rigid ways of thinking. So let's say you're driving on the road.

41:13We tend to always judge ourselves by our internal thought processes and rarely our external actions. But it's the reverse for everybody else, where all we have to go on to perceive is their external actions. We don't know what's going on in their intentions, right? So we know our intentions, but we're not paying as much attention to our external results. But it's the opposite for everybody else, right? So if someone cuts you off when you're driving, he's like, oh, what a jerk. They're just some clueless weirdo jerk who's just cut me off. that's their external action we don't know what's going on inside their head and they may have swerved to avoid a cat who is in the road and they don't they're not thinking about their external they're just thinking oh i don't want to kill a cat but we're seeing the opposite oh it's a jerk who you know and then we might honk at them they're thinking oh there's a jerk behind me just honking at me you know um they don't know our intention that all they see is our action Right?

42:18So we're always applying scripts. And we can save a lot of internal emotional angst if we just wait to see a scene play out. And maybe I'm driving a little further and I see a cat scurry across after they swerve like, oh, they were just trying to avoid hitting a cat. So then, okay, that's a very different script. So if I remember that script, if I can somehow, I mean, there's millions of scripts, but that category, if I can remember that category of script, oh, there's probably a reason why there may be a reason why that person had to swerve suddenly. And rather than just jump to applying script number one, oh, they're a careless jerk and they don't care about me or traffic safety.

42:57So that's something I can apply every day when someone doesn't email back quick enough, or maybe I get a terse response from a text. Maybe this person is in the middle of a personal crisis. Maybe they're at the hospital. I don't want to write that script until I know how the scene ends, right? So it's about patience and about some empathy and just about imagining all the different things that could be happening. It's not all about me. So that's something I can say that I apply all the time.

43:30Justin Bookey: Thank you, Justin. Any canals you would like to share? Any final thoughts? And also where can our listeners learn more about you, buy your book, anything you want to share? Sure. Go to pingpongleadership.com. That's the name of the book, Ping Pong Leadership, and pingpongleadership.com is the website. You can find background of the book and all these amazing 18 leaders that I was able to interview for the book. And social links for me will be there as well. You can find me on LinkedIn to Justin Pookie. And parting thoughts, I think we all have our tables. We all have our tables in life. Mine's a ping pong table and other tables.

44:09And maybe your table is a podcast microphone. Someone's table might be a chef's table. Someone's table might be a drafting board. It could be anything. And once you identify that table and you're comfortable with it and you're learning mastery of that table, you start to realize that table transcends everything in your life. It can transcend everything in your life. You can apply the mastery of your personal table to anything else. They're all connected in some way and it can really help you across the board.

44:43Justin Bookey: Very true. Thank you very much, Justin. Great to have you with us. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. It was fun. Thank you everyone again for tuning in. Our guest today again has been Justin Bucke. Check out his book. It's called Pin Pong Leadership. And our podcast sponsor today is strategytraining.com. If you want to strengthen your strategy skills, you can get the overall approach used in well-managed strategy studies. It is a free download. Go to firmsconsulting.com forward slash overall approach. And firmsconsulting is F-I-R-M-S consulting.com forward slash overall approach. And if you're currently updating your resume, I would also recommend downloading a free gift as well.

45:24Justin Bookey: McKinsey and BCG winning resume, which is a resume that got offers from both firms. And you can get it at firmsconsulting.com forward slash resume PDF. Justin, thank you again. Thank you everyone again for tuning in. And I'm looking forward to connect with you all next time.

45:46Thanks for listening to this episode of the Strategy Skills Podcast. Stay up to date on all of our latest training by signing up for our email updates on firmsconsulting.com. We look forward to helping you develop your strategy, critical thinking, decision-making, and communication skills next time here on the Strategy Skills Podcast.

46:23Thank you.