3 Reasons I Love NASCAR

I am not a racing fanatic.  I appreciate the skill it takes to drive a race car (one of my favorite palindromes by the way).  But, I don’t get excited to watch the Indianapolis 500 or the Daytona 500.  

I have attended a few big races live and even had the pleasure of roaming the pits once for the Ford EcoBoost 400.  That race was the last NASCAR race of the year prior to a recent schedule change.  So, there was no lack of circumstance.  But outside of a great experience like that, I do not follow any of the races, drivers, or teams closely.

Respect

My lack of interest isn’t for lack of respect.  I have to give credit to the technology, courage, and sheer speed that NASCAR, Formula 1, IndyCar, and the other leagues display.  

I admire the dedication that race teams have for their sport.  The attention to detail that they have to have in order to be highly competitive, legal, and safe is unmatched.  

No other sport that I know puts its competitors at that extreme risk and has such a small margin of error at such a high velocity. 

Traction

Part of the impactmaker movement is gathering momentum, or traction, amongst the masses.  Some of the best nonprofit organizations are dedicated solely to advocacy for the issue they address.  

Your impact project needs help as it grows and if people are not aware of or don’t understand the issue, you’ll struggle to have an impact.  There are all kinds of strategies to gather attention.  Some will work for you and some will not.  It’s often just a matter of trial and error and some time.

PJ1 TrackBite

According to Brittanica, “Organized automobile racing began in the United States with an 87-km race from Chicago to Evanston, Illinois, and back on Thanksgiving Day in 1895.”

There have been numerous steps taken to give racing surfaces more tractions.  

PJ1TrackBite has been used for about 50 years to prevent tires from slipping on racing surfaces and is well known in the industry.  It stands out among many solutions to give surfaces more traction.  It works in some cases and not in others.  Incidents at IndyCar races in the last three years have been attributed to the substance.  However, many drag racing tracks could not operate without it.  

The lesson is that the most well known option for traction is not always the best.  Impactmakers often have to look for unique ways to advocate for their cause.

Competition

One of the strongest driving forces in our lives is competitions.  Contrary to some opinions, it can exist in healthy fashion outside of the sports world.  

The best of the best within certain industries often spend time together in order to spur growth.  They are competitors but have the abundance mindset.  Believe me, there are enough people in this world to which to sell your product or idea.  McDonalds may sell a lot of hamburgers, but there are still plenty of people to buy form Burger King and Wendy’s.  

I urge you to network with other people who are doing similar things as you are.  Learn from them.  Push them to do more and allow them to challenge you to do better.  

You can also create friendly competition within your organization.  In my previous professional role, our regional manager would often provide statistics of the other regions in the country.  He would reference his counterparts and talk about being friendly with them, learning from, but also wanting to outperform them.  I got the feeling that the company did a great job of promoting competition amongst its people with creating decisiveness.  

My best examples of healthy competition is do come from the sports world.  My best coaches as young athlete (like when I played Little League baseball as chronicled in the September 8, 2020 E-Impact entry) created a fun environment where we competed with our teammates at practice and were each other’s biggest fans during games.  Without the competition, we’d have no drive to win.  

Your impact project needs drive to win too.  

E-Impact 36 talked about solving a problem.  You solve it with motivation.

A Modern Media Company

Speaking of Impact a year ago.  

I spent over five years dreaming of recording myself and pushing it out to the world.  There was definitely some ego involved there, but once I got passed that phase it became a very healthy process.

I can’t criticize the time it I was unable to start show (there are various reasons not relevant to this entry) because it gave me time to experience more things.  Without those experiences, I think Speaking of Impact would either not exist or not be the same.

My original desire to start a podcast was related to my work in the financial industry.  It sounded like such a great idea to have a show about financial planning.  However after deeper thought, I realized that really wasn’t the type of show that I wanted to have.  It made more sense to have one about people doing what they love and making a positive impact in the world.  And so Speaking of Impact was born.  

I wish a I remember some of the other titles that I came up with, but none of them fit very well and Speaking of Impact really stood out.  I believe I had something about stewardship, but that is the extent of what I remember.  

I realized that once the podcast was live that we had some sort of modern media company.  It was cool to think but also intimidating.  I believe there is great responsibility in running the company no matter how small and seemingly insignificant in today’s over saturated media world.

Details, Momentum, and Peers

I needed to have a respectable control of all the details.  I am not looking for special credit.  But, I must point out that setting up the system to produce a weekly podcast is not simple.  There are many things to consider including: booking guests, researching, recording, writing copy, editing, artwork, uploading, promoting and post communications with guests.  The current system is not perfect, but it works well enough to have great show for promoting positive impact in the world. 

Once the details where set, I needed to have a plan for traction.  I needed to have a way to share the message.  The PJ1 TrackBite for Speaking of Impact and the rest of the material on bobdepasquale.com is social media.  Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn provide platforms to share the message and give people a gateway to additional content.  Each person that “grabs” on to the movement creates more momentum.  It makes me feel happy and fulfilled whenever I see another subscriber to the weekly newsletter or support of one of the social media pieces.  

The final piece to the modern media company is nothing new.  It’s been around since the beginning of time.  It’s a group of peers.  They compete in a friendly way and even collaborate at times.  My greatest experiences in the journey have been from speaking with other great “modern media” types (podcasters, bloggers, coaches, creatives, etc.).  We all learn form each other, help each other, and hold each other accountable.  It would be so much harder, even impossible, if there wasn’t a team of people pushing the movement from the periphery.  

I know that these three things are just as important to your efforts as they are to mine.

Three Reasons to Love Four Left Turns

I said I’m not a fan of racing.  I get tired of repeated left turns.  But, I love NASCAR; or, at least three things about it. 

1. The first thing I love about it is the dedication that individuals have to their craft.  

Racing is certainly more a science than art.  I don’t want to take away from the skill of the drivers but I’ve heard numerous racers talk about how important windspeed, suspension, lift, angles, drag, and draft are.  There are multiple roles on a race team (driver, crew chief, engine specialist, engineer, pit crew members, etc.) and each has to have an incredible level of dedication that leads to work with amazing detail.

The world will be a much better place if we can all be as dedicated to a purpose as the members of NASCAR teams.    

2. The second thing I love about NASCAR is the ability for cars to be under control at extreme speeds.  

It’s amazing how a car can go well over two hundred miles per hour without spinning out or lifting off the ground.  The fact that they do at times makes it that much more amazing that a five hundred mile race (with two thousand turns) can be completed.  

I see this as analogous to a a highly motivated impactmaker that is able to harness her or his passion and stay under control to complete the necessary tasks (see E-Impact 55).  

3.  The third thing that I love about NASCAR is the relationships between the drivers.  

This is the closest thing to a soap opera that I am interested in.  The story off the track seems to be more interesting (and time consuming) than what happens on it.  I am sure there is some behind the scenes production that contributes but the drivers absolutely push each other to be better.  In addition to the money and fame on the line, there are some good old fashioned bragging rights.  It’s interesting to see which competitors use the pressure from their counterparts to motivate and which find it as a distraction.  

A great impactmaker looks at other impactmakers as great motivation.

The Checkered Flag

You have to be detailed, gain traction, and compete to be an impactmaker.

1. Know your cause inside and out.

2. Build your network.

3. Give just as much effort as the rest of us; if not more.

Doing these three things will guarantee that you will be successful in making the world a better place.  

Thank you for doing what you do as well as you do.  I am rooting for you.  Your success makes us all better.