The "base nature" we will retreat to

Drawing from sports to business, it is usually the badly-conditioned base nature that knocks us out when things go wrong...

One cool thing I observe as a sport person is that we always retreat to our base nature (precursive habits) when things go sideway. Why do all academies take in players when they were 7 or 8? At that age, they wouldn't have any pre-anchored movements or behaviours that would override their best trained techniques. I know this because I'm nowhere near elite athlele level, so my understanding of falling back into my bad habits is often better than those who get conditioned at a much younger age.

When I'm tired or falling apart mentally, my soccer skills would become no more than just stumbling around on my feet, passing the ball bindlessly to the next person. In Muay Thai, my guard would go down and kicking would be less hip-forced.

This works the same way in other aspects of life. Your brain is wired when you were very young – that is when repressed traits or personalities are shaped. Those could be influenced by your family, your school or a bigger thing called collective unconscious (which I often refer to as social archetypes.) Much of them will contribute to your base nature later in life, in which you will retreat to when things go wrong.

I tend to think of the social aspect of life as a grand academy that takes in young lads, conditions them and somehow lets them graduate at 21. And just like a typical sport academy, top players are those who are most adjusted to excellence. But, it's not the excellence of techniques/skills that brings forth much of my concern – it's actually how they deal with chaos when things go sideway i.e. what is the base nature that they would retreat to when shit hits the fan, when the gas is out, both knees jerked?

Have you seen a Muay Thai fight before? Or a MMA fight as it's more common these days? You can fast forward a random fight to the 4th or 5th round, you will see a lot of what I described above. In a close fight, the winner is often the one that falls back into "better habits" between the two. No fighter should have a low left guard when throwing a right roundhouse kick—this is gospel truth, but don't you dare say it when all is left is just excessive lactic acid built up in every muscle of the body.

Look no further than the recent World Cup Qualifiers. It is Vietnam national team’s very first time getting this far. We still have been unbeatable in Southeast Asia but the 7-losses run at Asia level does say something: under extreme pressures, the worst side of our players get exposed. We have the highest number of fouls in the box, resulted in 6 penalties. Some say we were unlucky, I say our players were forced to face with their bad habits constantly when playing against superior sides, mentally and physically.

Drawing this back to business. I see this very clearly when running a startup here in Vietnam. Most of the time, it's the people problem that bothers me, not the business problem. The thing is, if 9 out of 10 team members retreat to the same base nature when chaos arises because they happen to share the same social archetype by growing up in the same environment, and that base nature is badly conditioned, shit will get worse.

I have a chance to work with my current co-founder Le Duy Hoang who grew up in Germany and spent his entire youth life in the West. What I often observe from him is that he has a tendency to realise an issue in ways that I can't see myself. To make it clear, it is not only the way that he chooses to rectify the issue when it arises that differentiates us apart, but also the way his conscious mind reacts to the info and picks up the details of the issue when it's freshly brought up to him.

It's fascinating to me because I think this has to do with how he was conditioned in his own "academy" back home. Our base nature is just so different, much more different than between me and the others who share "my academy". I don't know. We all joke that German have their way of looking at things, not so wrong in my tiny context after all.

Oftentimes, you see the differences in tail-end events. I have seen (and worked with) people who are only just as good as the positive news around them. The base nature of the team when dealing with crisis should be seen also as a group quality, not just talents.

Well, I don't know exactly why I'm writing this at 1AM on Sunday (or Monday whatever) while I should be asleep and prepare for another week ahead. Maybe because of the 2 Jack Daniels neatly served after dinner. If anything, I usually blame the whiskies.