Welcome back to weekend coffee chats, the Business Breakdown series. Where we discuss different industries, businesses, and what we can learn from them.
We’ve been discussing recently F1 and what lessons can be learned from it. If you haven’t read part#1 check it it out here, if you’ve missed on part#2 you can read it here.
Before I even start, if you are an F1 fan, how crazy are those last races? So much heartbreak but tremendous suspense till the end, just wow. As a newbie fan I’m constantly amazed by how entertaining these races can be.
Okay now back to the business stuff, with less adrenaline going around. Since we previously talked about the positive aspects of the sport, its only fair we examine the negative ones as well. Which we’ll be discussing in this post.
- The dangers of the sport
We’ve touched briefly upon the dangers of the sport in the last post, however it is worth elaborating on. Even though it is argued that the sport is at its safest levels in these years due to constantly evolving safety measures, the sport itself remains dangerous. It’s like diving with sharks while you’re in a cage, sure you’re in a cage but that cage could break open. Also, there’s still sharks out there looking for any error, any unusual circumstance to attack, and in F1 that shark could be the speed. I’ve started watching end of last year, by mere coincidence as my sister has been watching F1 for a while and I was intrigued by what’s so interesting about a sport where cars run in circles so I gave it a try. (also corona house bound leads you to try so much so) Shortly after I found out about drive to survive (more on it in next post) and was shocked to see the episodes about the death of Heubert and Jules. I couldn’t help but wonder if their love for this sport was worth their death. Of course neither do I nor anyone have a right or a say in a person’s life or death but i couldn’t help but wonder. Even though unfortunately you hear of accidents and deaths all the time, it’s quite eerie when its the equivalent of someone going to his/her job and dying because of it. Death waits for no one and unfortunately when it’s someone’s time they’ll go whether in a car or some other way. Yet it does make this sport difficult to comprehend and understand. I guess we’d need to blindly and passionately love something so much that our life being a price is deemed an acceptable bargain. I have yet to experience that feeling. What I found even weirder is how some people deem the sport now boring for the lack of accidents and collisions, which just i dont know what to say, just no. I find that it makes the sport harder to watch, thinking of all those who could’ve been there rather than gone. What gives me solace is knowing that they left doing the thing they loved the most, the thing that made them happy, and that I can understand.
Takeaway: It got me thinking as well, what’s the shark each of us faces in our own respective jobs ? I hope it’s not death for anyone reading this, but what could be circling around us yet unlike F1 drivers, without our constant attention paid to it. Is it time we’re losing while we are young and will never get back? Is it our health? Is it relationships we sacrifice? How long will we keep diving with the shark unaware of its teeth getting closer until we’re between them?
- The combination of car and driver
What’s interesting about F1 is that the main contender is not only a contender or athlete, it’s 50% human (the driver) and 50% machine (the car). So regardless how good a driver is, he needs his car to be at the same caliper if not more. What’s ironic though, is that if the car isn’t performing well, it’s checked and considered to need work and maintenance. But when a driver isn’t performing well he’s scrutinized, his preparation investigated, and his performance re-examined from every angel to find the issues and faults. Some reports even go to the extremes of deeming some drivers unfit or lacking talent based on just a few performances. Don’t get me wrong data is important and feedback helps us develop, but there’s a fine line between feedback and mere judgement. So not only do drivers need to work with the car and get a good rhyme, they need to develop the mental strength to deal with all scrutiny that arises when car vs driver comparisons go on.
I still find it bewildering that cars are expected and excused for breaking down, but human drivers are not.
What’s even more bewildering is the same pattern in other industries. It’s unquestionable when a laptop breaks down due to overload or memory damage, but when an employee is burnout it’s a whole debacle. “Why? how come? are you sure you are burnout not just tired?” and more such shenanigans ensue.
Takeaway: What element closely affects your work that you need to focus on? your energy and body? your laptop constantly crashing? your work area or teammates ? as those will need to be addressed and improved as working on yourself alone is not enough sometimes (especially to get to the next levels professionally). Also, are you dealing with feedback or judgement? What do you need to take with a grain of salt and improve on and what do you need to block out and not pay attention to? Asking yourself these questions and more to increase your self awareness, will benefit you as much as those extra hours working on your own.
- The uncertainty and sudden changes
In short bad shit happens to people, even to F1 drivers and in the F1 industry. Great drivers losing their seats, other drivers getting into accidents, or being hit by another driver’s accident. Add to that car failure, pit stop delay, weather conditions changing, or a pandemic putting the whole world to a stop. In addition to the painful cases of drivers losing their friends to the sport or loved ones and having to carry on performing (I’m a Gasly fan in case you didn’t notice, but seriously that’s a lot for one human to deal with, but I digress). Heading to a seemingly good race and it turning horribly wrong or the other way around and the driver needs to push, the possibilities are endless. Honestly, I’d personally love to see how a week in a driver’s life is if they drop some of the confidentiality and mystery around it, as not only would it get the fans closer to the drivers, but truly revolutionize performance studies and we all can benefit from that regardless of our industry, but i digress, again…
What I additionally didn’t notice before, but i do now (after the Monza sprint race, if you know you know) the immediate influx of emotions either negative or positive and wondering how do they deal with it? I mean i’m just a viewer and couldn’t focus on anything after that sprint race for a few hours. Regardless whom you like and cheer for among the drivers, seeing a driver taken out of the race by a damage then a crash when he has so much to give just saddens me, and that’s what happened to Gasly whom not only got damage but hit the barriers and was out of the race on the first lap. What do you do after that? go for a run? listen to music? meditate? talk to someone? go boxing? Again i have no clue as it probably depends on each driver, but I hope they each have a process that supports them in these times. Also, i’m not saying this to dunk on a driver, crashes happen and bad days happen to all of us, but putting myself in the shoes of someone so ambitious I know it hits emotionally hard, and therefore wonder how they deal with it.
Takeaway: what’s your process in times of uncertainty? what’s your go to method when dealing with a tough day or a bad outcome at work? Is it working or would you benefit from coaching or a mentor’s advice on improving this? Also, there’s always things we can’t control in every field and industry, and we need to try to let go of them, as Elsa says “Let it go, let it go”
That’s it for now, but let me know are you enjoying this F1 series posts? Would you enjoy more posts or back to other businesses? Let me know in the comments!
Till Next time 🙂 !
Disclaimer: None of this information is to be used as advice, it’s just for entertainment purposes. Additionally all information used is publicly available.
Picture: Photo by Nicolas Peyrol on Unsplash
References:
Ref#1: https://www.essentiallysports.com/f1-news-is-f1-still-dangerous/
Ref#2: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.how-f1-technology-has-supercharged-the-world.6Gtk3hBxGyUGbNH0q8vDQK.html
Ref#3: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.pursuit-of-performance-the-formula-1-development-race.3KtlXW0NC45PnsrYEAzRPE.html
Ref#4: https://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/2018/01/top-10-coolest-formula-1-technologies.html
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