---
title: "Competitive Advantage pt2 - Stakes is High"
description: "A talk for anyone sitting out a moment because the stakes feel too high."
author: "Rahim Rasul"
type: "Podcast episode"
series: "Halftime Talks"
episode: 73
published: "2015-12-16"
duration: "15 min"
theme: "Appreciation and perspective"
tags: "confidence, mindset, risk, scarcity, competition"
audio: "https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/rahimrasul/HTT073_StakesIsHigh.mp3?dest-id=175061"
url: "https://iloveprocess.com/halftime/competitive-advantage-pt2-stakes-is-high/"
site: "I Love Process"
---

# Competitive Advantage pt2 - Stakes is High

_A talk for anyone sitting out a moment because the stakes feel too high._

**The question:** What is possible when you stop factoring in the competition, and see your one to one relationship with what you want?

Listen: https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/rahimrasul/HTT073_StakesIsHigh.mp3?dest-id=175061

## Before you listen

This second part of the Competitive Advantage series asks how much of our performance is driven by perception and how much is real. When I began treating something as a high-stakes game, my whole M.O. changed. Life is a fun experiment, and definitely winnable.

It starts with a poker game on my phone. With a big chip count I played hands I had no business playing, and won more of them. Years ago in Vegas I was betting a dollar at blackjack until I watched my brother throw a $100 bill on a game of war and win. Several hours later I was well over $1,000. The talk separates the time things take to grow from the psychological time we make ourselves wait, and notices that most people in the room are just happy to be there.

Listen for the moment I catch my confidence rising and falling with my chip count, and the closing call, with 2016 on the horizon, to get in the game and show up.

## From the talk

> I was allowing conditions to dictate my confidence. But the confidence didn't come from anywhere else, but myself.
>
> The person that you say you want to be is standing right before you today, because within your imagination is the blueprint for that.
>
> Stakes are not high. You're not risking it all. Engage, play, get in life. Get in the game, show up.

## Sit with this

- What's possible when you let those excuses die on the sideline, and it's just you in this moment?
- If you engage this moment, if you give this moment all that you have, if you don't put up the facade of excuses, what is possible?

## Transcript

A couple of days ago I was I was on my phone playing a game like many of us find ourselves doing and I became aware of my thoughts. As I was play. I was playing a game of poker. And you know, for the previous couple of days, I had been meticulously building up my my chip count, you know, I started with a couple, couple $1,000. And now I had maybe 200 200 $400,000 In my kitty, and something changed, something within me changed. I was a little bit more liberal and how I played, I began to throw around my weight a lot more than I would when I felt that the stakes were higher when it felt like I had something to lose. And there were there were hands I played that I had no business playing.

And I'd win a lot more of those hands. Was it the hands that I was winning? Or was it the psychology that I was winning with? And that's the essence of the competitive advantage that I want to intersperse within a conversation today. It also reminds me of a time years ago, I went to Vegas with $200 in my pocket, and I began to play cautious I was I was that $1 better. I was on blackjack table betting $1. And then I see my brother play a game. I declare war. We've played that, right. But he played it in Vegas, he threw $100 bill on the table flipped over yet to hire card and he won $100 I was like damn, maybe I'll play a 10 Maybe I'll play a 20 and he gave me a permission slip, just watching him win over and over again that I had to quit something shifts.

You're no longer looking at life from a perspective of scarcity and what can be taken away but the opportunity begins to consume you begins to shift not only your confidence, but your expectation. Stakes is high. Over and over that night, I began to win. Like I said I went in with $200 Several hours later, I was well over the $1,000 mark I was a bonafide Vegas thousandaire that's silly. But think about it, like games that I wouldn't have won I won on the sheer basis of confidence expectation. I am not a gambler. By trade, I am not a surveyor of the odds. I am somebody who definitely benefits from the orchestration of what we shall call in our conversation, the universe to source that which we call God or that which we call the orchestrating principle that governs all of this.

I was the beneficiary of great fortune. The thing that I want to ask you is how many opportunities are before you They're able to win just by you being confident in President of how many shots could you make if you shot instead of past? If you are on the sidelines and not leaning into the events and circumstances that life is presenting you, the Why are you showing up to begin with life is about embracing not only who you are, but where you are the context of what you've crafted around you. Now, a lot of other people might say it takes time. No, it doesn't. The term that you're talking about is a psychological time, a time that you think you will give yourself a certain level of term before you can afford the permission necessary to pursue it.

And that psychological time is this. Let me break this down real quick. A seed takes a certain amount of length to physically transform itself into the tree, the plant the fruit, the vegetable, you know, there is a certain level of maturity it takes from a child to become a fully functional adult. But the term that we call the growth, the aspiration, a psychological growth, that requires time doesn't exist, it is only in our head, we only have to make choices. That put us in a chord with that which we say we want, obviously the trappings the manifestation, things that we quote, unquote, accomplish, or that we can surround ourselves with, does take a certain level of time to acquire, but the person that you say you want to be is standing right before you today, because within your imagination is the blueprint for that.

So that which we see, we are capable of becoming, we may not necessarily have access to that person. But it is available in each moment. So this idea of the stakes is high, gives us a false premise. Because a lot more opportunities are available before us. If we're able to see it. A lot more opportunities are able to be won, by virtue of the competition on the board. With a scarcity mentality with a fearful mindset, it brings me back to another story in my single days long, long ago. I'd be in a city like Atlanta, where they talk about the ratio of men to women, and you'd hear conversations about men, there's so many guys in this event, right? And some people were buying with their foot will be on the wall, and they wouldn't be talking to anybody.

And as single people do they, they talk to the opposite gender, women, women, you do it to men, you know what I'm talking about. The one interesting thing when I was in the space, very comfortable, confident, the stakes were high, they were as low as they could be because I know the ratio of people willing to play this game willing to pursue, some people just want to be at the party. Some people want to fully take advantage of where they are. And so no matter what the ratio was, I knew that I was playing in a different game, I was playing with a certain level of skill, there was a certain level of psychology that you can utilize, apart from the stories that you can utilize in a space to career the choices that you're making.

That give you that competitive advantage. Most people aren't willing to play the game. Most people who are there are just happy to be there. So there's a small gap, this Pareto Principle is 8020 that 80% of the people there ain't even near to win. 20% are the people that really take advantage of it. I'm gonna get into a whole episode about Pareto principle a little bit later. But I want you to imagine, imagine with me, imagine with me, the people who are pursuing similar goals and aspirations as you now imagine the people who don't ask for the sale, who don't take it to that next level, who don't possess the skills that you've cultivated up to this point. Imagine what they're leaving on the table.

Imagine now, if you have the confidence to seize the moment, because what you and I we we see so often and we hear from other people or in our other saying that I'm better than this person. I'm more skill than this person. I have more experienced, but that's an excuse. You have a lot of talentless musicians winning right now. But they possess the gift that the talented musicians don't. The not to go for it, the not to not let where they are and what they should be. limit them. Take the competitive advantage, mirror the confidence with the talent that you've come up with up to this point, things will begin to change as you begin to change. Seize It, grasp it, wrap your arms around it, identify what become it and nobody, no institution, no, no magical line drawn in the sand can prevent you from going there.

Now, we're not going there to please anybody, we're going there because it's who we are destined to be in a room, I'm destined to win. And so like playing this game of poker the other day, I began to see my psychological frame of mind shift with a different shift ChipKit that was very conditional. And I wasn't too happy with myself once I understand that I was allowing conditions to dictate my confidence. But the confidence didn't come from anywhere else, but myself. And if we can figure out tactically, strategically, day to day, to summon to tap into that confidence, that know how that belief in our ability, what's possible, what is possible in your life, with a little bit more confidence, what is possible when you stop factoring in the competition, and see your one to one relationship with what you want.

What's what's possible when you let those excuses die on the sideline, and it's just you in this moment, the past is a great resource and in the future is a great pulling point. But to be fully engaged in this moment, with the skills and abilities that you've acquired up to this point, knowing that you will continue to grow. It's an inevitability of life. But if you engage this moment, if you give this moment all that you have, if you don't put up the facade of excuses, what is possible, just imagine with me, what's going to be possible. 2016 is looming right on the horizon. And this is that term where we we put together our New Year's resolutions, we both know it's important to take inventory, to have a ambitious perspective of what we want to accomplish.

But like this episode is, is essentially saying we can't sit on the sidelines of our life and not make the decisions that put us in the core with who we want to be. We cannot react to the conditions. We can't allow the conditions to give us what is already ours. Load ship hardship, play to win. Don't play not to lose. Don't try to avoid that awkward and uncomfortable a moment when you might not get what you want. Because you close yourself off to more of your possibility. There's time, time is this most valuable resource that we get to dictate ourselves through. Starting to get a little too philosophical, but stakes are not high. You're not risking it all. Engage, play, get in life. Get in the game, show up. Try your best. Learn from it.