One of the great challenges we all face in life is distinguishing between two classes of people: people who know and people who sound like they know. It’s called the Batesian Mimicry problem and once you see it, you’ll start to notice it everywhere from colleagues and boardrooms to talking pundits on TV.
From Elon Musk’s advice on how to tell if people are lying to how to win an argument, the problem is so pervasive and so fundamental to succeeding in life that I keep a running file whenever people have a clever way to help quickly determine who knows. An unlikely book offered another technique called Racking the Shotgun and it comes from a professional gambler.
80/20 Sales and Marketing by Perry Marshall tells the story of John Paul Mendocha, a friend of Marshall’s. At age 17, Mendocha dropped out of high school, hitchhiked to Vegas, and became a professional gambler.
A teenager, however, needs some street smarts so he found himself someone who would take him under his wing for a split of the profits. Mendocha found Rob, a seasoned gambler.
“Son, the first lesson about gambling is, you have to play games you can win. You need to play people who are not as good at poker as you are. Those people are called marks.”
One time, Rob wanted to show John something so they got into the car and headed to the Cabaret. They walked in and sat down amongst the blaring music, dancing women, and copious amounts of alcohol. Rob had a sawed off shotgun in his coat.
He pulled the shotgun out, slipped it under the table. He pressed the lever, popping the chamber open as if to load it. But instead of inserting a shell, he loudly snapped it back shut, with that sharp, signature ratcheting sound shotguns are famous for— what enthusiasts call “racking the shotgun.”
A few heads in the crowd twisted around, trying to see where the racking sound had come from. Everyone else was oblivious, absorbed in their haze of nightclub revelry. Then Rob slipped the gun back into his jacket.
The owner of the club came over to their table and asked if everything was ok.
“Everything’s fine, Bill. Just teaching the lad a lesson,” Rob replied. Then he leaned over and said to John, “John, the people who turned around— those guys are NOT marks. Do not play poker with them. “John, your job is to play cards with everybody else.”