There might only be two fish in the sea.

This is good news if you’re one of the fish.

Leadership coach Belinda Thomas told me she felt like she was swimming in a huge ocean of competitors. Her confidence was down.

I said “Sure, there’s a million videographers too. How many do you know?”

And she said… “Two.”

If Belinda needs a videographer, she’s not choosing from a teeming ocean. She’s fishing in a pond with two fish. And I’m one of them.

Pretty good odds!

Yes, I know more than two videographers. But that’s not relevant. SHE doesn’t.

Comparison is the thief of joy. But possibly not the thief of your market.

Col has some great thoughts on how to refocus a fear of competition in this episode of The Fink Tank.

KP’s been to SEVEN OLYMPIC GAMES as a performance psychologist. I had no idea until yesterday.

That is RIDICULOUS.

For the first couple of years I knew Dr Kirsten Peterson, she never mentioned she’d been to the Olympics SEVEN TIMES. She was an engaged participant in my Be Less Shit on Camera course during that time, creating videos talking about her work. I still didn’t know!

It felt like she actively hid it from me.

And she’s not alone.

To get paid to do the thing you do, people need to know you do it.

Most people fall down at two main hurdles:

1. Saying it at all

2. Saying it enough

These comically simple barriers affect nearly everyone running a small business.

Fear of rejection. Imposter syndrome. Tall poppy. Take your pick.

Over several months as KP’s business coach, Col lovingly hounded her into owning it. Her LinkedIn bio now leads with “7x Olympic Games Performance Psychologist”.

She’s talked about it on radio and TV.

She (apparently) references it often, yet I STILL DIDN’T KNOW.

That’s how much noise is out there. Even people who know and like you might miss the message.

So say it.

Then say it again.

Then keep going.

One 2003 ski trip. 50 mates.

Plenty of dickheadery.

And a warning about forming strong opinions from weak evidence.

In this episode of The Fink Tank, Col and I talk about the beautiful human habit of overthinking the anecdote and underthinking the maths.

About how we love to build worldviews from tiny, noisy data points, and then swear they’re true. Humans are notoriously poor at assessing probability, sample size, and causation. Where your business is concerned, this is probably costing you.

What can we do about it?

I loved revisiting this old footage which is somehow TWENTY TWO YEARS OLD. This episode is actually two years old itself! A 9 minute version was sitting unused in the folder for season 1. So I gave it a trim and added the ski trip footage.

We haven’t changed a bit.

People are weird. Our lives of abundance have meant we often feel compelled to satisfy ourselves in illogical ways with our hobbies.

Col is three sheds deep into a scientific enquiry into how humans often love buying stuff more than they like having it or using it.

This episode is a sprawling ode to that deeply relatable, slightly unhinged truth. Humans have strange and dumb ways of finding joy and distraction in our post-capitalist hellscape of privilege.

Also, is anyone out there willing to admit they spent $500 on a pair of running shoes?

Some childhood beliefs leave quietly. Others wait until you’re an adult to slap you in the face.

The moments of realisation tend to stick in the mind, too.

I turned beetroot red during my turn for roll-call in grade 2. It’s pronounced Penelope, not Penny-lope. (Mispronouncing words you learned reading is a whole sub-genre here. Good luck, Siobhan)

Col’s primary school mate Tim thought bands played their hit songs live at the radio station for every broadcast.

I genuinely slapped my forehead when I realised pipe-cleaners aren’t just for craft. They also… clean pipes.

The beauty of these childish realisations is they continue into adulthood. Hopefully at reduced frequency. There’s a great xkcd comic about treating these moments with reverence. If you laugh at someone’s embarrassing adult discovery you’re training them not to tell you next time. And you miss out on the fun.

I first saw a pineapple plant with Ed in Thailand in my mid 30s. It blew my mind. I thought they grew like bananas! (Please comment if you’re just now finding out they grow on the central stalk of a spiky bush. See also: cashew nuts.)

There’s a right way and a wrong way to tie your shoelaces (I’m going to make a video about this). Blake’s shoelaces kept coming undone on our New Zealand hiking trip. I gently enquired about his technique. “I’ve been tying my own shoelaces for TWENTY FIVE years Cam!! I know how to do it!!”. He did not.

On a camping holiday in the mid ‘10s, we discovered TWO people in our group independently thought molasses was a type of sea creature. They were both from the UK. Coincidence??

Also, the frozen bananas in The Simpsons are sold AT THE AQUARIUM.

Embarrassing adult realisations are a source of immense joy. Once the shame dissipates.

We’d love to hear your best “Wait…. WHAT??” moments.

Your workshop isn’t a suitcase. Stop overpacking it.

You’re trying to provide value. So you cram in every model, every framework, every brain nugget you’ve ever loved.

The result? A learning day that’s chokkas.

No space to breathe. No time to reflect. No energy left by 2pm.

In this episode of The Fink Tank, recorded during the lunch break on the second day of Col's 2 day summit, we talk about the urge to overstuff, why it comes from a good place, and how to fight it.

Shoutout to the random guy who got in the lift with us at 45s. And Deb Bailey.

The amazing satirical commentators H.G. and Roy host a long running radio program called This Sporting Life.

Their tagline is “Too much sport is barely enough”

With facilitation and training it’s sometimes the opposite:

“Barely enough stuff is too much.”

It started with our shit original band and stupid holiday videos. Now it’s keynotes, coaching, and feature films.

Compound interest isn’t just about money.

In this mid-summit episode of the Fink Tank, Col and I chat about the cruel human condition of being overly critical of our progress or growth.

About how we underplay our past accomplishments in our journeys toward mastery. This whole room of solo pros deliberately and meaningfully joined the dots of their history. And were called out on pointless self-deprecation!

It's really gratifying to reflect on the timeline of your accumulated skills.

Try it!

Eight years ago, I deleted an entire keynote I’d just filmed for Tracey Ezard.

Not a file. Not a clip.

The whole keynote. Gone. Like a magician, but sad.

It felt career-ending.

Tracey, somehow, was kind and forgiving. I, in return, filmed her next keynote free-of-charge and built a shame-fuelled foolproof backup system.

It has never happened again. Mostly because I now treat footage like a live organ transplant.

We all make mistakes. It doesn't feel like it in the moment, but there aren’t many you can’t come back from. I filmed another keynote for Tracey a few weeks ago. She’s still awesome.

This week on The Fink Tank, Col Fink and I set the scene with some glorious childhood dickheadery.

What’s the worst you’ve ever screwed up?

And how long did it take before you could laugh about it?