Mastering the Art of Risk - business lessons from a professional poker player. Welcome to The Marketing Accelerator Podcast, featuring three insights in about three minutes. I'm Drew Dinkelacker, and today I'm speaking with Greg Brooks, he's the Partner and CMO at SearchTides - revenue hub for all things search, AI, and the future of commerce. Greg, having been a professional poker player, what have you learned that applies to business?

Greg Brooks: In poker, you always want to have a plan. There's another card that can come out, there's a bet that can be made, but inevitably things will deviate from your plan. So being able to have a plan and then know that it's likely going to change is critical, both in poker and then also in business. I think there's some pretty typical things, understanding human behavior, that's really valuable to understand the incentives of a partner or a client or someone who's working with you, but overall, the number one learning that I had from poker was understanding and managing risk.

Drew: I have to admit, I've been in business for myself for over 20 years, and even the word, risk, it gives me chills.

Greg: Yeah, I think that's pretty typical. I think most people would say that I have a really high risk tolerance, but I think that what I've actually done is just been able to separate out the difference between the perception of risk and then the actual risk associated with something. And I think that happens in poker a lot, you can kind of break down your actions into math, and even though something might appear to be really scary, such as I have to make this big bluff and there's a lot of money in the pot, and I have to put a lot more in, and if I get called, I lose, you can scope out the probability of winning and how much you'll win, and it kind of removes this emotion. It makes it clear that you need to move forward. The difference between what you perceive and what is reality is pretty great.

Drew: Greg, how do I apply this new awareness of risk to my business decision-making?

Greg: I think look for opportunities where something feels really risky to you and then re-evaluate that. And so, there's a few that come to mind. The first is the risk of doing nothing. It feels not risky to continue doing what you've been doing, but it is in fact incredibly risky to be doing anything than moving forward, and you're at risk of stagnation. I think that's one big thing. I think the other is to seek out things where it feels risky because it will feel daunting, and that's another sign of growth, and again, then you get in there and you say, "Okay, well, this is actually… This is what I feel, but this is what's actually happening." I use those things as markers that we're headed in the right direction, and that we're growing individually and then also as a company. Yeah, this is what we feel, but now what do we do after that initial reaction.

Drew: I think Teddy Roosevelt said it best, "Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor souls who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat." The Marketing Accelerator Podcast is a production of MarketingAccelerator.com, where business leaders take the risk of working with us so that they can gain confidence in their marketing efforts and their marketers turn into high performing leaders. Yeah, that was a risk… I'm Drew Dinkelacker.