Bob Skinstad - Focus, Commitment and The Power of Choice
In this episode, I catch up with former professional rugby player Bob Skinstad who played for the Springboks. In addition to his time on the pitch, Bob also has a wealth of experience in the field of business and investments.
From Stellenbosch University, Bob spent twelve years playing professional sport internationally. During his sporting career, he had a number of investments and co-investments which trajected his interest in the world business and entrepreneurship. He dabbled in a corporate role to learn the formal side of business, “learning how to dot the i’s and cross the t’s” and managed his own portfolio of investments. He is now a partner for investment capital management firm Knife Capital and is a venture partner for a family office in the United Kingdom.
Getting over the obstacles and learning through focus
Facing a major injury in his career, Bob had to overcome the challenge of putting his body, mind and energy into adapting back into sport after three years out. To get himself, his BMI and his speed back in place, Bob had to put in an immense amount of effort to conquer the day-to-day struggle to get back to the physical strength necessary to perform and succeed as a professional athlete.
“That was the first time I realised that stuff that had come easily to me was genuinely a day-to-day struggle for a lot of people and it became a day-to-day struggle for me because of the new body type. It was a turning point in my life realising that when you take on big projects like this, there needs to an nth degree of focus and commitment and there needs to be a plan and roadmap and you need to be able to put milestones and grow. And when a lesson comes along like this, you learn it and you learn it properly.”
The fear of failure and reward of risk
Bob noted that risk and working through the fear of failure is a tremendous exploration, and it’s brave to talk about the fear because people don’t like the concept of failure. Without thinking about it, Bob’s default has been optimism and “what if I fail” wasn’t a question he asked. Growing up with supportive parents, he tends towards saying yes to risk and not getting wrapped up in the woes and worries of the fear of failure.
“Everyone believes entrepreneurs are completely on top of all the risk in the world, but actually the idea is calculated risk, not fearlessness. If I fail, the cost-benefit analysis is in my favour, so screw it, I’m going to go forward. The more you admit that failure exists, the more comfortable you get with the risks involved.”
Working in the present, with the future in mind
When working in business with different avenues of career at one time, it’s crucial to learn to say no to things. The more a person says yes, the more they risk feeling overwhelmed by having too many things on their plate. Bob’s approach to this is choosing the present with the idea of the future in mind:
“The future is not always going to provide the reassurance you seek from it, it’s actually just a little bit of what you feel right now, just in a few month’s time. The future, from my vantage point, is going to look very similar to what’s happening today. The new future is only just a couple of months ahead of that. And I think that’s okay.”
It means there’s a reason to say no, especially if you think you’re on the right track because you’ll get there eventually. Thinking about the future as the only pinpoint to strive towards makes it more difficult to enjoy the present without enormous pressure. But if you’re saying no to the wrong things for the right reasons, then that’s okay.
As Jeff Bezos famously said, people often ask what’s going to change in the next ten years, but there’s more interest in what’s not going to change in the next ten years. And that’s fundamentally true. So it’s better to play on the field that you have rather than focusing on trying to predict the future.
“And it’s freeing to mentally grasp it. You can sit here and wring your hands and say you need to change it. Changing the future will change it, worrying about changing it will not.”
Selflessness is a fallacy and altruism is a lie
Society has developed a sort of quasi-religious approach that giving everything to other people is the ideal to look up to, but it’s actually not the case. As Bob noted:
“I’m starting to understand that selflessness, complete selflessness is overrated and actually non-existent. This is especially for women. Particularly in the home environment, daughters and mothers are trained to be sort of be quiet and subservient and I think that’s a societal problem. A lot of women have fought this and are incredible in their roles.”
Instead of aiming to give everything to everyone, look after yourself and slowly things will be okay. The guy next to you will look after himself and the girl next to him will look after herself and joint and separately we will look after each other in the needs of our current endeavour.
Give to the givers, don’t give to the takers
Prioritising yourself and your family doesn’t make you selfish. It makes you focus on improving yourself and your life, which sets you up to become the best you that you can be.
“If you want to survive in this world, give to the givers, don’t give to the takers. If you give to the takers, you’ll never give it back. If you give to the givers, you’ll get it back your whole life long. And that’s why I think selflessness is overrated. I don’t mean just look after yourself, I mean look after the people who will look after you.”
You have agency and the choices in life are up to you
When it comes down to choices in life, you get to choose what you like, you get to choose what you fail at. So if you’re going to fail, you might as well choose to risk failing at something you love.
No matter what the world tells you: In your life, in your side hustle, you have agency and you get to choose what you want to make from your time.
If you want to get in touch with Bob or find out more about what his venture capital endeavours, find him on LinkedIn, on Twitter, or check out Knife Capital.
