Dad used to take a position with respect to people who would ask him about his success with the dogs. Dad was fairly successful in betting the greyhounds. He loved the dogs. I’m not sure why, because Greyhounds are frankly pretty ugly. But the fact is he just simply loved them. And, maybe because of that, he was successful at it.

He used to be surprisingly good, starting the season with $500 bucks in his left pocket and that would be not only his “dog money,” but it would also be his spending money to take Mom out to dinner, movies, and so forth, throughout the entire season, and still have money left over to bet. While he would start with $500, and go the entire season betting, he would end up, when it was all said and done at the end of the season, with $3,000 or $4,000 extra in his pocket. He would take the extra cash, put it in a box in the closet, and wait for the next season to start. It was a really beautiful thing. He would spend most of his time studying the book, with a friend of his who was a bartender. Now being a bartender at the Sanford Orlando Kennel Club is not exactly one of those positions that was the most prestigious. As a matter of fact, most of the people who were at the Sanford Orlando Kennel Club were either missing teeth, had some really bad fillings, or replaced them with solid gold. It was an amazing sight – that Star Wars of humanity – but Dad loved it, and because he did, so did I.

From time to time, as the bartender and Dad had accumulated a whole lot of friends around them, they would ask Dad what he was betting on. Dad was absolutely religious in refusing to tell anybody what he was doing. He did that because he had no desire to take the responsibility for somebody else’s losses. He was happy if they would win, but he was devastated if they would lose.

One day, somebody came up to him and said, “here’s the deal: if you tell me every time you bet what you bet on, and I make it clear to you I’m not going to tell you when I agree and when I don’t, what I bet on and what I don’t, will you always tell me what you’re betting on.” Dad told his friend he would, but he wanted to make it totally clear he took no responsibility whatsoever for whether he won or lost in his own betting.

His friend said that was okay, and they went on from there. Dad was religious in working out whatever his formula was and coming up with whatever the result was, and, as he walked towards the betting window, if the fellow was there, he passed him by and told him what the bet was. If he wasn’t there, he wouldn’t. Dad didn’t go out of his way to look for his friend, but he also didn’t alter his routine.

In the very beginning, he found that he started to allow the fact that this fellow was going to follow him to influence Dad’s judgment. That was not a good thing, because Dad’s results immediately started to falter. So, after a very quick loosing streak, Dad realized what he was doing, went back to the basics, and just made it clear that he was going to have to play his own game. At the end of the day, at the end of each race, he would either communicate or not based on whether his friend was there.

Dad’s numbers immediately rebounded and his friend was totally appropriate in neither praising Dad when he won nor blaming Dad when he lost. In fact, he never told Dad when he was in or out.

Dad continued to process until he was no longer well enough to go to the dogs. His friend lamented Dad not coming. And the bartender had long since resigned to become a permanent gambler or should I say “investor” at the tracks.

My feeling about business in not all that different than Dad’s.

1. I’m going to do what I’m going to do.

2. I can’t allow myself to be influenced by whether investors follow me or not.

3. I don’t want investors to tell me when you win, and I definitely don’t want you to tell me when you lose.

4. I want you to know that when you are placing a bet, you’re not placing a bet because you think I’m always right, or because you think I’m always wrong. I want you to know that you’re placing a bet because I’m placing that same bet myself – not influenced by whether you’re following me or not.

5. If I win, you win. If I lose, you lose. But I don’t want you to believe for one instance that I am winning because you’re losing or that you are winning because I’m losing.

6. My judgment is my judgment and your judgment is your own.

It worked for Dad; so far, it has been working for me; and I hope there’s a time it will work for us all.

Original writing date June 27, 2005

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 28th, 2006 at 8:09 am and is filed under Business, Dynetech, Larry Pino, Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.