Plant the Seed: Why the Best Cards Take Time

Foreign. What's going on everybody? Welcome back to Stacking Slabs, your hobby content alternative. I am Brett. Hopefully you're off to a great start. It is a fun part of the hobby calendar year. A lot of us are hitting the field, going to shows, doing the damn thing. I will be at the Columbus Card Festival for a couple days here coming up. So excited to be out having conversations with collectors, business builders, you name it. And I was having one of those conversations this earlier last week and it was with John Amendola. Put out that episode of Passion Profession with him and his build of Mint Inc. And we got into a topic that inspired me enough to make a Friday note out of it in my Patreon group. And I couldn't stop thinking about it. And so I want to do a whole episode on it today. And that is planting seeds and why planting seeds matter. So that is what we're going to talk about today. I want to say thank you. The summer is busy. Things are moving quickly. A lot of us are trying to manage being parents, maybe even more with school being out little, we lose time, maybe collecting, we lose time in our business working. And you're here and you're listening. So I just want to say thank you for doing that. And what I want to get into is this topic of planting seeds and how it applies to us as collectors. And I've been thinking a lot about opportunity and how it shows up and why some people get more of it and why some collectors get access to cards before they hit the open market and why people get invited to certain rooms before people know that those rooms even exist. Or why collectors seem to have things move towards them. They're the center of gravity for certain cards. And the more I sit with it, the more I come back to this idea of you have to plant seeds. Not once, not when you need something, not when a card pops up, but you have to be doing the right activity all of the time to build and develop not only your reputation, but to build your brand in this sports card space. And brand matters. Because if you've got brand, that means you've established your reputation. You're establishing trust. It's how it forms. It's how access forms it, how it's how relationships form. This is how people begin to know what you as a collector care about. That is how the right cards start finding their way to you. That is how opportunity starts moving in your direction before it is public. And I think this matters maybe more. It's more important right now than ever before because we are Moving at such a rapid pace. There is so much scaling, so much growth across the industry. Everything feels fast. The way content is coming at us is fast. Auction cycles move fast. All time highs. The. The attention shifts fast. One day, everyone cares about one lane, how about Wimby? The next day, everyone cares about another lane. How about Messi? And when you live inside that pace for too long, it starts to train you. It trains you to think every move needs to happen right now. It trains you to think that every opportunity is urgent. It trains you to think every card needs to be acted on today. It trains you to. To think that if something is not visible, then nothing is happening. And I think that is a problem, because the best things in this space usually don't work that way. My favorite cards in my collection were never the ones that came at me quick. They were always the ones that took time. They came from relationships, they came from the right opportunities. The best collections don't come from reacting to what the feed tells you to want. The best things come from doing the right work long before the outcome shows up. And I think that is what planting seeds is all about in this space. And that's what I want to talk about today. Because I know myself, I'm an ambitious person. When I was in corporate America, I did all the personality tests, and in every personality test I ever took, I was a 100 in ambition. And I was like, this is great. 100 in ambition. I got a big motor. I can keep going. But then you learn when you are 100 in ambition, that all the negative things, well, some people can't follow you that quickly. And also you're draining yourself, and that's why you feel exhausted every time you come home from work on Friday. And that shows up in my work. I think that shows up in stacking slabs. Right? You're following stacking slabs. You're seeing what I'm doing. You understand, I'm ambition. I'm. I have ambition. I'm moving quickly, new shows every day. And I think that is a good trait to have, especially when you are doing something like I'm doing. You're trying to build this media network. Think. That shows up in my relationships and it shows up in how I'm collecting. When I want something, I want it, I want to see the outcome. I can feel where I want to go. I can get locked on the card. The idea, the project, the next step, the opportunity, the ambition has helped me. I do not want to pretend like ambition is bad. Ambition does create movement, ambition does create energy. Ambitious ambition pushes you to care. But ambition without patience can turn into pressure. And pressure sucks. Can turn into rushing, forcing, reaching. If the right relationship isn't there, or buying something before your own conviction isn't there, it can turn into chasing before you have formed true collecting identity around it. It can turn into wanting the outcome before you've done the work that earns the outcome. And that is where I have had to learn. The things I want most in life take time. I want stacking slabs to be even bigger than it is, and I want it to be even bigger than it was yesterday. And I constantly have to train myself to continue to play the long game and continue to put in the right work. The things I want most take time. The things that matter most in collecting take time. The cards I remember most are always tied to a longer process. The relationships that mean the most were not built on one deal. The opportunities that changed things did not show up because I demanded them. They showed up because the seeds had been planted. Some of those seeds were conversations. Some were patterns. Some were just being consistent, showing up every day. Some were moments where there wasn't any payoff. And most of those were moments where there was no payoff. Some were quiet decisions that kept showing up. That is what I want to talk about. Because planting seeds is not about sitting back and hoping. That is not what this is. This is not passive. This is not, I guess I will wait and see what happens. That this is active. It's behavior, it's intention. It's learning how to repeat and not move on to the next thing. It's how you participate when nobody's watching. It's how you build trust before you even need trust. It is how you build relationships before you ask for access. It is how you become known for something before a card appears. And that is why I think it matters. Because most collectors want the visible outcome. We all do. Trust me, I want certain cards right now. But know that it's going to take a minute. We want the card. We want the card that completes the run. We want the dream card. We want the certain card that connects back to our broader collection. And I get it. I am one of you. I am not here to act like the card doesn't matter because the card matters. This is a hobby built around objects. We care about the cards. We remember where we were when we bought certain cards. We remember certain deals. We remember cards that we miss. But the card is often the end of the process. It is not the whole process. The card is the part everyone sees the work that led to the card often happen in private. It happened when you did the work in advance. And I've been talking a lot about that on certain flagship episodes. And I think it's the part people miss. They see the pickup, they do not see the seed. They see the card in the case. They don't see the years of paying attention. They see a private deal, but they do not see trust built before the message was sent. They see the opportunity, they do not see the consistency that made the opportunity possible. And this is where the hobby can really mess with your head. Because the hobby rewards what is visible. Mail, day, show, pickup, flip, auction, win. When you're working at a show, the person who walks up to the table, all those things, those things get attention because they are easy to see. But the work that creates durable collecting is not easy to see because research isn't loud. Patience isn't loud. Passing on things isn't loud. Building trust isn't loud. Having the same collecting identity for years is not loud. But this is where roots form. That is where collection starts to hold. That is where you begin to separate yourself from people who only react to what is moving. So let's define the idea here for a second. What does planting seeds mean in the hobby? To me, it means doing the work before the reward shows up. It means creating conditions that optimize for those future opportunities. It's making decisions today that your future collecting self will benefit from. It means giving people a reason to think of you. When the right card shows up and you know what that card is, you know why it matters. You already know what you are willing to pay. You already know what makes one copy different from another. And that is power. Not power over people, power over your own decision making. Because so many collectors are reacting. They're waiting for the feed to tell them what matters. They're waiting for the next comp. They're waiting for someone else to say the card is good. Planting seeds gives you a different path. You build your own conviction before consensus. You build knowledge before the urgency hits. These are signs that you are playing the long game. And I want to be clear. Planting seeds is certainly not manipulation. It is not pretending to care about people because you think you can help them later. It's not commenting on posts because you want access to someone's collection. It's not. It is not networking with a hidden agenda. People can feel it. Collectors can feel when someone is only showing up because they want something. That doesn't build trust. I think it damages it. Real seed planting Is rooted in contribution. It's rooted in how you participate. It's rooted in paying attention, being useful, being consistent. It's rooted in being the same person when there's no deal on the table. And I think that matters because one thing that I know about being in the hobby, being back in the hobby for this long, what I know from building a business in this hobby, is that the hobby remembers. It remembers those who communicate well, who make things easy, who follow through, who are consistent. It remembers who treated people like people and not transactions. And trust is one of the most valuable assets you can build in this space. Not because it gets you every card, it won't. Not because it replaces money, it doesn't. Not because relationships mean you never have to compete. That's not real. Trust gives you more at bats. It gives you more chances, gives you conversations. It gives you more room. It gives you more patience. It gives you access. It gives you a chance to be thought of before something goes public. And that matters because cards move through public. Yes, platforms matter, auctions, marketplaces, shows, all those things matter. But the cards that mean the most often, often move through trust. Private messages, conversations at a show, A friend tips you off to some information. A person knows you, knows you will do what you say. That doesn't happen because you asked once. It happens because you plant seeds over time. And one of the most important seeds that we can plant as collectors is clarity. Collectors underestimate this. They think clarity is only about content. They think being known for something means performing their collection online. That is not what I mean. You do not have to turn every card into content. You don't have to explain every purchase to the hobby. You don't have to make your collection a brand. But people need to understand what you, as a collector, care about. And that is different. If nobody knows what you collect, nobody knows what to bring you. If your collection has no signal, opportunities will pass you by. If your lane changes every month, people don't know where to place you. If you chase everything, people do not know what matters to you. Clarity creates connection. Connection creates opportunities. Can another collector describe your lane in one sentence? I think that's important. I think that is really important because that means if they can, that you're known for something, that is the signal. And that signal forms your taste. And taste is a topic we continue to hit on here on stacking slabs, because it's. It is important. It is important. Right now, it's another part of planting seeds. You're not only planting seeds with other people. You are Planting seeds inside yourself. Because as collectors, we're learning our own tastes. We're learning what we want to build, what we can live with and without, how we pull back, how we show restraint. You're learning what has staying power. That takes time, because taste gets defined through reps. You buy something and you learn it. You pass on something and you learn it. You chase, you learn. The point is to keep paying attention. When you pay attention, your collection starts to speak to you. It tells you what matters, what feels right. It gives you that feeling, and we all know that feeling. It tells you what you bought because you wanted it versus what other people. And I think that distinction matters because the hobby is full of borrowed conviction. A collector sees something, See someone else sees something someone else cares about, then starts to think that they should care about it. That's following that path, is just how you keep restarting. That is how you interrupt your own progress. You can't plant seeds, keep digging them up to see if they're growing. Because I see it everywhere. A collector starts building a lane, then shift to another lane that's hot. And a collector starts reaching a category. Then the feed moves somewhere else, so they stop. It just happens over and over and over again. And every time that happens, the compounding resets. You make it harder for people to know what you as a collector stand for. You make it harder for opportunity to find you. You make it harder for your own conviction to build. And I want to say this to the collector who is listening and feels the tension. I get it. I felt it too. I want progress. I want to feel movement. And this is why I think it's really hard. Because planting seeds can feel quiet and slow. Nothing is happening. It means the work has not become visible yet. Progress is not only the pickup. Progress is not only the deal. Progress is not only crossing, crossing into your hands. Progress can be learning the difference between a car that you admire and a car that you need to own. Progress can be a lot of different things. The reward is not the card you end up with. The reward is becoming the type of collector who is ready for it. That is a different way to think. And I think it's healthier because chasing is fun. But chasing drains you. Building gives me energy. Chasing makes me reactive. Building makes me intentional. Chasing needs the reward to show up. Now, building understands that the reward is shaped by the work, and that is the shift. The hobby right now creates a lot of chasers. Not because people are doing the wrong thing or bad, but. But because the environment is built for Reaction. Think about your every moment in this hobby. Participating online. You open your phone and see what someone else bought. You see a comp and card ladder. You see an auction ending. You see a card that got people talking. You saw an index that spiked. When you start to see all of these things and you react to these things, it starts to steal your focus and your patience, your taste, perhaps even your joy. It makes you feel behind in a hobby that was supposed to bring you meaning. And that is why planting seeds matters right now. Gives you back control. Not control over the market, not control over other people, not control over outcomes, control over your own behavior. You can control what you study, how you treat people, how you follow through all of those things. And that control reduces something that I know I battle and experience, and that is anxiety. And going into this space, it can make anxious people very anxious. They feel like they need to do it right now. If they don't, they'll miss out on a big opportunity. It gives your ambition somewhere to go. It gives your ambition a job. Because ambition without a process turns everything into urgency. Ambition with a process turns it into discipline. And this is why what planting seeds does, it turns, I want this into what am I doing to become ready for this? And I think that question can change the hobby. Think about the card you want the most, not the card you want because everyone else wants it. The card you think about when no one else is talking. The card that would matter in your collection even if the market ignored it. There are dozens of questions that we can ask ourselves about that card. Because wanting the card is one thing, but preparing for the card is another. A lot of collectors want the opportunity. Fewer prepare for it then when the card appears. They're scrambling. They are asking people what they think. They're waiting for someone else's validation. That is a position I have been in, and I know many of you who have been in. Think the advantage comes before the moment before the advantage is built, while it is still calm. The advantage is built when you know why it matters, before you need to explain it. And again, another topic we've been talking about a lot. You start to crystallize this and understand this when you're researching. And researching is one of the best parts of the about collecting. Because research gives you a relationship with the card before you own it, you understand it deeply, intimately, where it fits in, where it's going to be, how it's going to be positioned. And when you get knowledge and you educate yourself and you can feel that, then you create conviction and that conviction gives you peace as a collector, and that is really, really powerful. That is a calm place to collect from. We need more collectors who know what they're building. We need more collectors who, who are okay with saying no. More collectors who build relationships with care. That doesn't mean the hobby needs to become slow for the sake of being slow. Speed has its place. When the right card appears and you know what it is you need to move. When the opportunity lines up and you're prepared, you need to act. The point is not to be slow in the moment. The point is to do enough work to before the moment so you can act with confidence. That is the long game. It is not delay, it's preparation. And preparation changes the way you experience the hobby. When you are prepared, you can move fast without being reactive. And that's the balance. Slow enough to build conviction, fast enough to act when the moment arrives. And a big part of this is relationships and relationship building, because this is where planting seeds, I think, gets real. A lot of people say they want relationships in the hobby, but what they mean is they want the benefits of relationships, the access, the deals, the info, someone to send them the cards first. They want the outcome. But relationships are not built around outcomes. They are built around the things we have talked about in this conversation. Time, trust, attention, care. The hobby is. This is a space with a lot of action. Buying, selling, trading, consigning, business shows, platform, money. Transactions are a part of it. And I am certainly not against transactions. However, I'm against every relationship feeling like one. Because people get tired of that. They get tired of just being treated as a thing. If you want to plant seeds with people, start planning with being present, without needing anything. And this is the hardest thing. How do you show up and how do you add value to someone without asking them directly for something? It's a mindset thing. It's understanding what matters to those people and how you can help. Sending them cards, giving them information, all of that stuff regularly compounds and it matters. You can't make someone send you a card. You can't make someone think of you first. You can't make someone invite you into the conversation. But you can be the type of person who is easy to think of. You can be the type of person who is easy to deal with. You can be the type of person who adds the hobby instead of adds to the hobby instead of extracting from it. That is the seed. And the outcome comes later. And sometimes it does not come at all from that person. That is another part of this you do not plant seeds with a specific person and demand a specific return. That's not planting seeds. That is transaction with a longer timeline. Real contribution doesn't work like this. You plant seeds because that is the right way to participate. You plant seeds because it matches who you want to be. The opportunities that come from it are real, but they can't be the only reason you show up now. I want to talk to the collector, who might already be a couple levels ahead in doing this because I know you're out there. You're building something that not everyone sees. You're studying, Elaine. You're building trust. You're doing all of these things. The feed, the reaction doesn't always reward these things. Patience, restraint. The feed does not always reward taste because the market catches up. So I guess in a way I kind of want this episode to be an affirmation to you. Keep going. I built stacking slabs over a four year period without asking for anything from anyone. Just adding value, doing things. Year five all of a sudden I'm leaving my job in tech to go all in and full time on this. I did not anticipate those opportunities coming my way to make me, give me the opportunity to do this. They just happened because trust compounded over a long period of time and the work that I was doing matter. Those quiet parts matter. The discipline matters. This matters too in my cards and collecting. So I say to all of you who are building something, whether it's your collection or your own work in this space, keep building. Not because everyone, every seed becomes the next opportunity or a card or becomes a relationship with access. Keep building. Because this is how meaning forms. A collection with roots feels different. You know why the cards are there. You know what each card connects to. You know the story that's hard to replace. Now I also want to talk to the collectors moving too fast because trust me, I've been there. You might be asking too much from the hobby before you have planted enough seeds. You might want long term meaning while making short term moves. The gap might frustrate you because you will feel the hobby is not giving you what you want. It might feel like the best cards are passing you by. Think the question you have to ask yourself is what have you been planting? What are you building? Because if you do not know what you're building, the hobby will hand you options all day. There's more options than ever before. It is a melting pot of options. So many different ways to participate in this hobby. Everyone's waiting for those people to turn to because They've got options. Every option will feel possible. Every lane might feel interesting. But the questions that you ask have to be, what are your collection standing? Does it stand for? What is your taste? What do you keep returning to? These are the types of questions that help slow us down as collectors. They force us to separate the signal from the noise, and they make you look at your collecting instead of looking at everyone else's not. And it's not always comfortable. Maybe you'll realize, or you've already realized this, that you're moving without a direction. Sometimes you realize you've been collecting other people's conviction. That's not a reason to get upset with yourself. It's a reason to plant a seed. I think, in a way, we're always waiting for something outside of us to tell us whether we are doing it right. Planting seed shifts behavior or focus to behaviors. Did I study today? Did I have a good conversation? Did I track the category? Did I show up consistently? Those types of things are in your control. And when your focus moves from control to control behavior, collecting becomes more grounded. You still care about outcomes. We all do. But you are not held hostage by them. You can feel progress before the cart arrives. And that matters, because waiting is one of the hardest parts of the hobby. Right price, waiting for the right copy, relationships, it's endless. But when you are planting seeds, waiting becomes the work. You are not sitting still. You're preparing, learning, building, becoming ready. It's a different kind of patience. Patience is not passive when it's attached to the right behavior. And I think that's an important note for collectors because. Because too many people think patience means doing nothing, and so they resist it. And I know patience can suck. I'm a very impatient person, but my growth, not only as a person but in this hobby, has happened when I have been mindful of patience. Patience with no behavior is drifting. Patience with behavior is preparation. And I think that's a big difference. I think what it comes down to for me, and it continues to come down for me, is whether it is my collecting, whether it is building, stacking slabs. My primary goal is to build something with meaning, something with thought, with care, something that reflects time. And I think if you want that kind of collection, you have to respect the process that creates it. You can't rush. You can't demand trust. You can't skip clarity. You can't force meaning. You build it. And a great way to build it is to be consistent, to have the right conversations. Moving fast with clarity can be your superpower. Moving fast with no roots can be costly, and I think that's a big distinction. I do not want collectors to stop being ambitious. My advice here is I want collectors to aim their ambition better. Put your ambition into learning. Put it into trust, taste, relationships, consistency. Put it into becoming known for something. Put it into being prepared. Because if you are ambitious only about the outcome, you'll rush. I've been there. If you're ambitious about the process, you'll grow. And the outcomes that come from that will feel different. They will carry more meaning. The card will mean more because you know why you wanted it. The relationship will mean more because it was not just built around a transaction. That is what I want more collectors to experience. I want collectors to feel the difference between owning and building. Owning is a possession. Building is formation. Owning can happen fast. Building takes time. So much time. I have been in build mode for six years and am nowhere close to being done. Owning can be bought. Building has to be lived. This is why two people can own similar cards and have completely different relationships with them. One person bought the card because it was hot. Another person bought it because they studied it, waited on it, understood it, and knew where it fit. The card might look the same in the case, but it does not feel the same. And that feeling matters. That is part of the joy. And I do not want collectors to lose that joy because the hobby keeps pushing them to move faster. So my challenge to you all, the loyal listeners of the Stacking Slabs podcast, slow down enough to plant better seeds. Slow down so you can see, you can think, you understand your own taste, relationships. Then when it is time, you can move with conviction. That's the balance I'm after. And I think that is the way forward for collectors who want more than just transactions. So I know this is pretty heavy and we went pretty long, but I don't know, this comes down to just being honest with yourself. I tend to have a layer about me that I can't help but being honest, or maybe overly honest. I don't know how to be someone else that I'm not, or to buy or collect something that doesn't have meaning to me. But I think the, from what I understand through the thousands of conversations I've had over the course of time, the hobby gets better when you begin to be honest with yourself. I know when I jumped into cards, I wasn't being honest with myself because I was buying shit that I didn't care about. That quickly shifted and now I'm here and spend almost all of my time here. The best things usually don't come from forcing the moment. They come from doing the right work long enough that the moment knows where to find them. I find this is true in business and collecting, in relationships and just life in general. So plant the seed. Water it. Give it time. Keep showing up. And when the card comes, when the relationship opens, when the opportunities appear, you will not feel like you got lucky out of nowhere. You'll know it. The work was already working. I appreciate your engagement, your support for stacking slabs. Make sure if you enjoyed this episode to tell a damn friend. We aren't going to stop. Only going to keep marching forward. So many different topics, so many different ways to explore the collector, the psychology and how we are showing up in the arena to buy, sell, trade, build whatever we're doing that motivates us and gets us excited. Excited about sports cards and collectibles. Thank you so much. Take care. We'll be back with another one tomorrow. Talk soon.