How many times growing up were you told to always do your best? How many times have you told it to your own kids or grandkids?
While it has a catchy ring to it, it is basically terrible, short-sighted advice that’s impossible to follow.
Why do I say that? Because it doesn’t account for how much time it takes or how much something costs. Time and money are scarce commodities. We don’t have an unlimited amount of either. It also doesn’t account for tradeoffs we all need to make in the real world.
In other words, to really “do my best,” I might have to devote much more time and money into an activity than would be warranted by any increased benefit.
Say I find a game to play for big stakes, and sitting down to play it quickly avoids missing out on the opportunity. I don’t know the game well and I allocate, say, 60 minutes to getting as good as I can as quickly as I can. I then go and attack the game. (A version of this happened to me when the SLS opened. That turned out well for me, but it didn’t have to. At one point I was down more than $30,000 before things turned around. Things don’t always turn around.)
Will I know the game perfectly after 60 minutes? Possibly. It depends on how straightforward it is, how similar it is to other games I’ve already mastered, and how many “exceptions to the rules” it has. For example, in a 9/6 Bonus Poker Deluxe game with a straight flush of 300 rather than 250, I could play perfectly after maybe five minutes of study — because I already know the “regular” version perfectly and not many hands are played that differently.
But any version of Deuces Wild? No way in the world will I play perfectly after an hour of study. (And I’m a guy who has spent far more than 1,000 hours studying Deuces Wild games — including helping create two Winner’s Guides. And I already know three variations of Deuces Wild games at better than a 99.9% accuracy level and have great strategies for a couple of others where I could get up to that speed pretty fast.) Going from 99.9% to 100% in Deuces Wild takes a lot of study and a lot of repetition because, for me at least, some of the exceptions don’t stay memorized.
Still, I’ve decided I’ve got one hour to do this before I lose the opportunity. So my question is: Does this qualify as doing my best? With an extra couple of hours of study, I’d be a better player, but the opportunity just might be gone.
It could easily be the case where I had an hourly EV of $100 if I played after one hour of study, and an hourly EV of $101 if I studied two hours beyond that. Or maybe an EV of zero because somebody else had the machines locked up.
Now it could turn out that in this particular case, if I took more than three minutes to sit down, the opportunity would be lost forever; conversely, I could have spent 12 hours getting ready without changing anything. But I can’t know this beforehand. I have to make my best guess beforehand and go with it.
Another example: Assume I have a radio show interview to do next week which will involve talking to a guy about his brand new 400-page book on some form of gambling. I’ve read 60 pages of it and am bored stiff. How much more do I have to read in order to “do my best?” I can skim the chapter titles and dip in occasionally and create enough questions to keep the interview going for the hour. But maybe I would have found better questions if I read the whole thing. Are shortcuts allowed when you’re doing your best? (This example is hypothetical. Next week’s radio guest is actually David Schwartz talking about his book Boardwalk Playground. I wrote this paragraph months before I had any idea who was going to be our guest.)
Another example: However much time I spend with Bonnie, there are always more projects and things she wants us to do together. I need to spend time on my career — and I want to keep her a happy wife. How do I do my best at both?
Another example: I go to the gym. I watch my diet. And I still weigh more than I want to. I could, I suppose, spend twice as much time at the gym and watch my diet even closer. That will probably make me slimmer. It may not make me happier. Does that matter when I am doing my best?
Another example: Often when I’m driving I’m thinking of something else. Say I’m debating in my mind how I’m going to attack a particular promotion. I’m a safe driver with no accidents (so far). But if I were concentrating 100% on my driving, I’d probably be even safer at it. But would I have to spend other time (or not do it) thinking about that promotion? Am I doing my best at driving? Am I doing my best preparing for the promotion?
Another example: I have relatives from California with whom I visit (either here or there) once a year or so. I don’t feel any need to visit with them any more frequently. Nor do they feel the need to visit us in Vegas any more than that. Am I being the best relative I could be?
We all have heard that “settling for good enough just isn’t good enough.” I disagree. I believe that most of the time “good enough” is just fine.
A good enough car might cost $20,000. The best possible car for your situation (taking into consideration whether you have to drive other people or things around) may cost well north of $100,000. Are you sure you want to argue that good enough isn’t good enough?
A casino is “comping” a balcony cabin on a cruise ship (they’re still going to charge you $500-$1000 for this “free” cruise, but I digress). A penthouse suite is available for an extra $8,000 for the week. I, for one, believe the balcony cabin is good enough.
So go ahead and tell your kids to always do your best. I don’t know what that means, and if I press you, I suspect you don’t really know what it means either.
But it sounds good!