Poker from the Inside-Out

High Performance

More Enjoyment

Better Results

TAMAS BEDO

Copyright © 2019 Tamas Bedo

All rights reserved.

ISBN 9781795026840

CONTENTS

Introduction 7

STEP 1: Gaining Clarity

Chapter 1: Your Current Situation 14

Creator vs. Victim 16

The 4 pillars of a poker career 19

Getting inspired 26

Chapter 2: Creating The Results You Want 29

Getting clear on what you want 30

Default vs. Created future 31

The direction of your focus 32

The creation process 34

A matter of possibility 36

Looking at goals differently 41

Show up, and respond to what shows up 43

STEP 2: Shifting Your Mentality

Chapter 3: A New Understanding of Mental Game 48

Getting a new understanding 50

Where do your feelings come from? 52

How the human mind works 57

Peace of Mind 63

One problem, one solution 68

Information vs. Insight 69

Flow & High performance 72

Tilt, Fear, Unstable confidence, Motivation 77

Chapter 4: Turning Pro 89

Amateur vs. Professional 89

A professional attitude with a beginner's heart 91

Falling in love with poker 95

Productivity & Procrastination 101

Your inner thermostat 105

Positive feedback loop 107

Checking the poker graph 109

From results- to process-oriented 115

STEP 3: Creating Your Poker System

Chapter 5: High Performance Strategies 120

Setting vision & intentions 121

Productivity 124

Energy 136

Stretching your limits 140

The power of a supporting environment 142

Slow down to speed up 144

Some Final Thoughts 147

Resources 149

Acknowledgments 150

About The Author 151

7

INTRODUCTION

Dear Reader,

I have written this book for poker players around the world, even

though the ideas here are also relevant in other professions or

areas of life. If you picked up the book, I will assume you are a

poker player, and you're interested in gaining an edge in today's

competitive games and reaching more of your potential in poker.

There are tons of information available that poker players can use

to become better. There are sites and books to learn strategies,

they can talk to other players, hire coaches, and watch videos.

There is a great amount of knowledge on the mental aspects of the

game as well, and many interviews with some of the best players

sharing their mindset and practices.

All the information is available for a player to advance to higher

levels. However, as Derek Sivers said “If more information was the

answer, we would all be billionaires with six-pack abs.”

There is a difference between information vs. transformation.

Information and strategies are important in any field, but what

matters even more is the mentality of the person, which will

determine how much he can access his potential and use the

available strategies.

Real transformation happens when there is a shift in how the

player looks at himself, his potential and his approach to the

games, causing a change in his decisions and actions, which will

lead to different results.

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Poker can be a challenging profession. Many players get into it

because they enjoyed the games initially and liked the appealing

freedom they thought it can provide to their lives. However, it’s

easy to forget about the initial inspiration towards poker, and

ending up feeling trapped by the daily grind.

More and more players seek not just success in poker, but a

deeper meaning in their profession and lives as well. Trying to add

even more willpower and hustle often leads to just more stress or

burnout. However, I believe there is a different way to approach

poker, which we will explore through the book.

Over the years, I've seen how the ideas and practices in this book

helped countless players jump up in stakes, earn more money,

enjoy their work more, have a higher self-esteem, greater

relationships with others and all around become more fulfilled

people.

I'm not here to tell you what to do or how to approach the games.

I don't consider myself to have the ultimate answer, but over the

years, life has taken me in a direction where I could gain some

valuable insights on this area. Let me share a bit about my

background.

Over ten years ago, I was just an introverted guy from a little town

with lots of frustrations and felt I wanted to become a more social

and open person. I wanted more freedom and power in my life. So,

I went online to see how I could create a different future for

myself. This was the starting point of my journey in personal

development, which over the next couple years, radically changed

my life. Later on, I became a poker player for two years, which

provided me with many personal lessons and gave me the financial

background to move on in 2013. Towards the end I looked at

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poker as a stepping stone for me that could provide the

opportunity to go after my passion at that stage of my life. I

wanted to be an entrepreneur, so after that, I was building a

marketing consultancy business, but shortly thereafter, at an

event I attended, this realization hit me that deep down I knew

what my direction was, and it was time to step into that.

I knew I had an innate gift and talent in working with people and

supporting them to have their own transformations. I decided

from then on, that if that was my role here in this life, I would owe

it to myself to gain mastery in that. So over the years, I’ve become

obsessed with learning about human transformation, high

performance, mental game, psychology, eastern philosophies,

anything that could give me more insight into how human beings

work and what creates results in our lives. I've spent a great

amount of time and money traveling and learning from the best

people in these fields, and be personally mentored, trained or

coached by them. Adding to that, over the last decade, I've put in

my thousands of hours of studying books and other materials, and

personally coaching hundreds of individuals from all walks of life.

This gave me the opportunity to work with a wide variety of

people including some of the highest achievers like world-class

athletes, top level CEOs, business leaders and over 300 poker

players up to the highest stakes in different games, mostly in the

Hungarian poker community.

I wrote a digital book for the community in my country in 2013

with the title of Mental Preparation and Maximum Performance,

which spread around and impacted many players. Then I joined

the ProPoker Backing group consisting of about 200 players and

had been their coach for 2 years. It really gave me a great

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opportunity to closely study what factors determine a player’s

performance and results and how it can be influenced.

Since then, I've worked with different backing groups and

individual players through coaching, and held one- and two-day

live workshops for players. Those things started the journey and

the rest is still unfolding. Nowadays, I work with players and

people from different fields, assisting them in creating the life they

want. I wrote this book because I felt I needed to share what I've

learned over the years through working with so many players. My

hope is that many players can gain valuable insights from what is

shared on the pages and I can leave something behind for the

community.

That's about me in short. I wanted to give you a little background

on my own life. However, this book is not about me. I want to invite

you on a journey, where together we explore areas like the nature

of the human experience, your innate potential, high performance,

mental game, productivity and strategies.

I'm going to share what I have found useful over the years in

working with players. Use the words and ideas in the book to

reflect on and bring your own insights and realizations.

This book is divided into three parts. In each of them, we will cover

certain areas that will help you get more out of your innate

potential, perform more often at your best, whilst enjoying poker

and your life more. In each chapter, I will share stories from my

work with clients to illustrate certain points even more.

In step 1, we will focus on gaining clarity over the factors that

contributed to your current situation in poker, and uncover what

areas might need some changes. We will also look into getting

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clear on the results you want and how to go on making them

happen.

In step 2, we will explore a deeper understanding on how the

human mind works, what creates high performance, how to play

at your best more often, how to become more productive and

eliminate mental game issues. We will also look at how to

approach poker so that you can not only create the best results on

the long term, but enjoy the game as well.

In step 3, we cover high performance strategies and best practices

which can help you be more organized, focused and energized to

create the results you desire.

How to get the most out of this book

Firstly, be open. Now this seems cliché, but it's one of the key

aspects I've seen that can create transformation in someone's life.

Be open to put aside your current ideas and ways of looking at

things, and be willing to explore other ways provided in the book.

What usually holds us back in life is when we are too rigid in our

beliefs and don't even recognize that just by questioning them, we

might arrive at other perspectives, which would enhance our lives

more.

So before discarding ideas in the book and judging them, I invite

you to look at them neutrally and curiously. Try them on for a bit,

explore them; and later, you can come to your own conclusions

and see what you resonate with and what you don't in the book.

Take the things which add to you and leave the rest, for now. Later,

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you might come back and read it again and it might provide you

with new realizations.

Many things in this book might seem to be far from your old way

of looking at things, to the point that you might want to say they’re

rubbish. I encourage you to hang on, have some curiosity and

explore those ideas as well. I've seen the radical change they

brought to players' lives.

Also, just recognize that the mind has a tendency to say 'I already

know that' and then it closes itself down to new learning. Come

fresh and open to this book and then it can be really insightful.

Many things might seem obvious and you might wonder why they

are even worth talking about. However, as they say, common

sense is not always common practice.

Alright, it's been a long chapter, let's dive in.

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STEP 1:

GAINING CLARITY

“It’s not what you look at that

matters, it’s what you see.”

- Henry David Thoreau

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CHAPTER 1:

Your Current Situation

Whenever a player who is interested in advancing in his poker

career comes to me, we start off with getting a clear picture on

exactly where he is currently, and what he wants to achieve. You

could say it is obvious to know these, but my experience is that

most people lack clarity in their lives. They go on living their lives

being busy with the day-to-day activities, and not taking time to

step back, zoom out and do some honest reflection. However,

without clarity, we are shooting in the dark.

"Clarity is power" as the saying goes. Just like a GPS can't navigate

properly without a clear target destination and a starting location,

we are the same. This chapter focuses on getting clear on your

starting location, which consists of the results and circumstances

you have now.

Your poker career (or business, if you like that term more) is a

system with different parts working together. If you want to

improve a system, you have to know what condition it is currently

in, and how each part is working.

So when we start working together with a player, that's the first

step we look at, doing an analysis. It requires honesty to face the

facts. For example:

- Where does what I’m doing day-to-day take me over time?

- Do I play enough?

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- Am I bringing my best to the tables?

- Is my approach to learning effective?

- Am I really doing the things I need to do to get ahead?

- How am I holding myself back?

- What do I want?

- Why don't I have it yet?

- What are the biggest challenges I am facing?

- Do my decisions and actions lead me to the results I want?

We will go into a more detailed way of assessing your current

situation later in this chapter. Imagine being inside a forest trying

to find your way. You see trees, bushes everywhere. Now,

compare it to a view you get when you fly above that forest with a

helicopter. You've got a totally different perspective and see more

clearly the terrain and directions.

That's what self-reflection can give. It helps you zoom out from

your habitual way of doing things, gets into a third person

perspective and reflect on your situation.

The circumstances you have now are the result of your past

mindset, strategies and actions you have been taking. These are

the cause, and your results are the effect. If you want different

results, you need to change the cause. You can't directly impact

results you can only do it indirectly by focusing on the things which

are in your control.

The first step is getting clear on your current situation, and

accepting it as it is now. No judgment needed, just seeing the clear

facts. It is not a reflection of your potential, and what you are truly

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capable of. If you are not satisfied with where you are, you just

have been using an approach that didn't support you in accessing

more of your potential and getting better results.

When you get clear on where you are now, and how you have

approached poker, then you can assess how this has been working

so far. If you want different results, you might need to make some

changes in the cause (your approach).

I have witnessed so many long time players turn around their

careers, who were stuck at lower limits, or hovering around break-

even living from rakeback deals. Once they changed their

approach (mentality/strategies), they were advancing in limits,

often within weeks, but it all starts with facing the facts, and then

committing to a new direction. It was tempting for them to buy in

to thoughts of limitation saying, 'This is what I'm capable of in

poker'. However, we have so much more potential and capacity

for creating results than what our thoughts would want to make

us believe. Shifting your mind, and using a better approach will let

you tap more into your potential. It's inevitable.

CREATOR VS. VICTIM

A couple months ago, I had a discussion with a player, and I could

notice how he put himself into a disempowered state with the

language he used. I call this the victim mindset. It's when we blame

our actions and results on outer forces, instead of taking the

responsibility for them.

It can come off through phrases like "it's because of the variance";

"I can't do that"; "I don't think it's possible"; "Our study group fell

apart because members weren't committed"; "I think a study

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group would be useful, but I don't think we could get one

together".

The pattern behind this is not taking responsibility, and not

stepping into the role of being the creator of your life.

So I got into a discussion with this player regarding the difference

in the mindset of a Creator vs. Victim. With this, he realized he

actually has the power within to create what he wants, but he

didn't tap into that because of those fear-based thoughts and

excuses in his head. The purpose of those is to keep you "safe" in

your comfort zone by a brain which is built for survival through

evolution.

Once he could see that and took responsibility for being the

creator of his results, he started on a different journey. We started

a coaching program together 3 months ago. As a first step, he got

clear on where he is now, and how he has been approaching poker,

where he wants to be exactly and what changes are needed.

Within weeks, his whole mentality changed. He has gained

confidence, developed an action plan, implemented supportive

strategies and routines and got rid of mental game issues.

Basically, we worked on things which you will find in this book as

well.

Within 3 months, he went from playing $0.25/0.5 and $0.5/1 cash

games, to now taking shots at $3/6 games. Besides that, he had his

best ever month during his 8-year poker career, which was just the

side effect of changing his approach to poker, and putting in the

time and energy. He changed the cause (his approach), which let

him tap into more of his potential, and it ended up creating

different results. It was really inspiring to witness his

transformation.

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Before our work, he said it would be great to have a poker coach

or other players to study with, but he didn't proactively take steps

to make it happen. We created a plan to change this; he showed up

as a leader and approached mid and high stakes players. Now, he

has a study partnership with a past client of mine who plays up to

$50/100 games. First, he thought why would that guy who plays

so much higher want to study with him? But if you show up as a

leader, and people can tell that you are hungry and driven, that is

appealing. So they ended up creating a structured study group

with clear boundaries. It required both of them to step up.

It changes a person's whole life once he claims his power, takes

responsibility for the direction of his life and shows up as a leader,

not as a follower and victim.

Here is a valuable perspective about one of the aspects of

Leadership by Werner Erhard, who is considered to be the

greatest teacher in the field:

"[Part of being a leader is to accept] being cause in the matter of

everything in one’s life as a stand one takes on self and life, and

acting from that stand. It is not true that you are the cause of

everything in your life, rather this is a place to stand – a place from

which to deal with life that you have chosen for yourself. It simply

says, “you can count on me (and, I can count on me) to look at and

deal with life from the perspective of my being a cause in the

matter”. In taking this stand, you give up the right to assign cause

to the circumstances, to others or to the waxing and waning of

your state of mind – all of which leave you helpless (at the effect

of). When you see how this works, it will be clear that taking this

stand does not prevent you from holding others responsible. By

contrast, when you have mastered this aspect of the foundation

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required for being a leader and exercising leadership effectively,

you will experience a state change in effectiveness and power in

dealing with the challenges of leadership (not to mention the

challenges of life)."

All of us can get into a powerless state of mind where we find

excuses and tell ourselves stories of limitations and why we can't

have what we want, and end up blaming outside circumstances.

The key is to notice when you get into this thought pattern, and

instead, take full responsibility. You got here because of your

approach, decisions and actions so far, and it's not a reflection on

what is really possible for you. At each passing moment, you have

the possibility to take back your power and choose to direct your

life in the direction you want.

THE 4 PILLARS OF A POKER CAREER

I want to give you a simple framework for assessing how your

current approach to poker looks right now. If you are an online

player you’ve probably done a leakfinder in poker, going through

your stats and seeing which ones are not optimal and requires

working on. That's basically the same as what I do with a person at

the beginning of a coaching process, but what I look for is clues

about their mentality, targets and strategies in order to see where

they are not optimal in producing greater results.

By now, I've worked with so many players who played from lower

limits to some of the highest stakes that it has become really

obvious that there are different patterns that lead to better

results or lead to staying stuck.

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This can be a fairly obvious pattern like a player doesn't play much

or tilts away his money. Most often, however, things are more

subtle and require more digging under the surface.

For example, sometimes there is a pattern of strong inner critic

and perfectionism for a person, which makes him study more, and

not play much. The problem with that is his mindset doesn't allow

him to gain confidence in his abilities, because no matter how

much he studies, the lens through which he sees it in his mind, is

that he is not good enough, and needs more certainty before he

can really put in the hours into playing. It makes him feel aversion

towards playing because it often triggers his feeling of

incompetence, which further reinforces him in the need to study

more, so he can finally feel competent. However, from this

paradigm that feeling will rarely come and won’t last long, it's a

never ending cycle, completely killing a player’s results and

improvements. So it's not enough to just study; the internal

mindset behind that will determine how effective it is.

Now to recognize a pattern like that is not necessarily easy unless

you take really deep self-reflection, but the ideas in this book will

help you a lot in seeing where your mindset and approach might

be off and not serving you. I recommend you to note down those

things that jump out for you and then strategically focus on

changing them.

On a really simplistic level, we can do a quick leakfinder to see if a

player is on track for great results or not. Basically, what is the

track that leads to great results over time?

- Play a lot. Do it in great quality, and being focused.

- Constantly improve your understanding of the game,

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whether via study, video, learning through playing or

teaching. Do this in a focused way, making it important.

- Be consistent with these, and over time, getting better is

inevitable.

Pretty simple right?

It really is that simple; however, there are usually certain inner

conflicts in the person that can screw up this process. For some

reason, the player may not sit down to play; or is not focused

there; or doesn't study, because he thinks it doesn't produce quick

visible results. Perhaps he studies but can't execute well on his

knowledge during the games; or he is not learning effectively; or

his decision-making process is not optimal at the tables etc.

That's basically my work with people, to create those shifts that

enable them to tap into more of their potential and be on track to

better results and constant improvement.

So let's look at a bit more detailed framework on how you can

measure your current situation. I call it the 4 pillars of a poker

career. How you stand in each pillar determines the success and

enjoyment you experience.

I. Poker skills

This pillar is basically about how well you understand the game.

Obviously, you want to understand what the most profitable play

in each situation is or at least do it better than your opponents so

you gain an edge.

So how well do you improve your skills?

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Some people learn best from videos, some from PIO, hand

analysis, teaching, playing, talking with other players, etc.

For some, it is a mixture of these, or changing it periodically to

create variety. You want to find out what is the best way for you.

- Do you know what the best ways are for you to work on

your game?

- Do you spend time consistently on improving your skills?

- How effective are you during the times you study? Are you

focused or just going through the motion?

- Do you avoid playing by overstudying as an unconscious

attempt to finally feel totally certain, confident and

capable?

- Do you bring those new lessons learned into your game

effectively?

- How could you improve the effectiveness of your

learning?

II. Execution

It's not enough to just have a deep understanding about the

games; it also matters how well a person can use that to make

effective decisions while playing when it really counts. Probably

you have known players as well who are amazing at analyzing

spots away from the tables, but their results don't reflect their

poker skills; and you may have known players who are on the

other side, whose poker knowledge isn't that extraordinary, but

they are having better results more consistently.

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Why is that?

Because during the game, how focused the player is will determine

a lot about how much he can access his knowledge, especially from

those parts of his game which are not yet mastered at an

unconscious competence level.

There can be inner conflicts in the player's mindset that take away

his focus and cause him to play suboptimally.

Jared Tendler did some great work around this in both of his books

that helped many players to resolve issues and perform better

while playing. In chapter 3, we will explore this area deeper and

look at how your level of execution can be improved radically.

- How focused are you during your sessions?

- When you lose focus and don't play well, why is that? Do

you get bored and lose interest in the games? Do you get

too anxious or upset?

- Which spots in the game cause you to lose focus? What

happens in those situations?

- How often do you play your A-game?

- How often do you find yourself in flow? Do you know what

constitutes for you playing in the flow?

- How well can you execute even when you have an off

session/day where you just don't feel it?

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III. Poker / Life Management

This pillar includes the first two. It is the overarching approach you

have towards managing your poker and life in order to create a

successful and fulfilling career.

Here are some questions that can be a good start for reflection.

Not everything is a must to have, but generally, these areas can be

useful to look into and find how they appear in your life; you may

also determine whether to implement some changes there. We

will look into these areas and more later on in the book.

- How well do you manage yourself (your focus, activities,

time)?

- What kind of rituals/habits do you have that support or

sabotage your results?

- Do you have morning / evening rituals?

- Do you have effective warm-up / in-session / cool-down

rituals?

- Do you have a daily / weekly schedule?

- Have you got a clear vision and goals you are working on?

- Are you clear on what things, people, habits are draining

your energy and focus; and have you

decreased/eliminated them?

- How are your physical/emotional/mental/ spiritual energy

sources handled?

- How about regular exercise, hydration, healthy diet and

good rest?

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- Are you clear on your top priorities that make you

progress in poker?

- Do you have a supportive environment (either workplace,

or inspiring friends)?

IV. Mentality

Mentality is defined as a habitual mental attitude that determines

how you will interpret and react to situations.

This is the pillar that includes all the other three; basically it will

determine how much you access your potential; what decisions

and actions you take; how you relate to your thoughts/emotions;

what you think is possible for you; how you deal with setbacks and

so on. It influences how much you play, how well you can learn,

how you perform at the tables and basically everything else. This

is where your decisions and actions come from that determine

your results.

Now this pillar is a bit more complex, so I won't list questions here;

however, during the next chapters, we will explore this deeper,

which can provide you with new insight.

These four pillars are just a simplistic overview about a poker

career's elements. Nonetheless, I encourage you to spend a bit of

time reflecting on what kind of challenges you have in each of the

pillars, and see where might be the most important to direct your

energy and make improvements.

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GETTING INSPIRED

I was in a coaching conversation with a guy who told me his life is

good, that he is making good money in poker, living with his

girlfriend, does activities with his friends and is his own boss. Can't

complain. However, something didn't feel right to him in the last

2-3 months. "I feel my life has become gray. Something is missing" he

said.

I said to him, "Think back to times in your life when you felt most alive.

What happened there?"

He took a minute to remember past memories.

Then after a while he said, "I felt most alive when I was living on the

edge, stretching my comfort zone. It had this mesmerizing feeling to it."

He had an insight in that moment. He settled for comfort. It might

seem as the safe choice, but it's not what makes us come alive and

bring out all of our potential. What made him feel mesmerized

wasn't achieving his dreams, but it was the journey that got him

there. He needed to find something to go for again. New

challenges that would inspire him.

Shortly after that call, he ended up joining a 5-month group

coaching program I did with a couple poker players. He took

responsibility for his life and showed up as a leader and creator

again in his life. He faced the uncomfortable and hard things and

stepped into things that scared him.

Now, two years has passed and his life has changed beyond

measure in all aspects. It was because of one insight; and one

decision. He chose the mesmerizing life, not the comfortable one.

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You might or might not be satisfied with your situation in poker or

any aspect of your life. The mind can bring up all the fear-based

excuses to stay where you are. It wants to protect us. However,

it's just great to remember that there is more within us than our

thoughts might make it seem. We can tap into more of our

potential and create the situation we want. It can be scary, but

damn, it's worth going for it anyway.

I hope this first chapter gave you some things to reflect on. Your

current situation in life is always a result on your mentality and

actions so far, not a reflection on what is possible for you, and what

you are truly capable of. We are often far closer to what we want

than we think. If you shift your mindset, focus, approach and

strategies, it can take you to a totally new future.

That's what the next chapter will focus on.

SOME THOUGHTS FROM THE CHAPTER:

- Clarity is power. When you get clear on how you've been

approaching your poker career, it gives you the chance to

make necessary changes that can produce the results you

want.

- Law of cause and effect: The result you have now is the effect

of the way you've approached poker. If you want to change the

result, change the cause.

- Your results reflect your approach, not how much innate

potential you have. With a different approach, you can tap

more into your innate capacity and potential to create results

you desire.

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- You take back your power when you realize you are a creator,

and take responsibility by focusing on things that are in your

control.

- While it's not true that you are the cause of everything

happening in your life, taking this stand lets you access your

innate power to create the life you want.

- If you are not satisfied with your results, press the reset

button and start a new chapter where you change your

approach to create new results.

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CHAPTER 2:

Creating The Results You Want

In this chapter, we will do a partly philosophical, partly practical

exploration about how we create results in our lives. When we

understand 'the science of achievement' or what I like to call 'the

creation process', we can change how we go about creating results

and making things happen in life.

This is one of my favorite subjects that I've spent endless hours

exploring over the years and have come to certain conclusions

about how life works in this regard. This is my way of

understanding that I've gathered through studying science,

quantum physics and various forms of traditions, gaining personal

experience and deconstructing many of the highest achievers'

journey to mastery.

Since what we are going to cover here might be outside of most

people's perception of reality, I encourage you to have an open

mind for this chapter and see how this understanding can be

helpful to you.

This process has been working in the background for most of the

things people have created in their lives, whether they were aware

of it or not. Now we are just going to break it down, so you can

consciously access this process and use it for whatever you want

in your life.

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GETTING CLEAR ON WHAT YOU WANT

Sometimes, a simple shift in your mindset and gaining clarity on

what you want can make all the difference. I remember when a

player approached me almost 3 years ago that he doesn't feel the

motivation lately about the games, and wants to make some

changes.

I told him, let's jump on a call and talk. He explained that lately, he

has lost motivation, not knowing really where he is going or why

to put in the hours into the game.

Usually, when we are in that low state of mind, it colors our

perception negatively and we see the future and things in our life

as more hopeless. I helped him reconnect to past memories of

feeling alive, confident and free. That immediately changed his

outlook. I said, "The feelings you feel are already here, now. Not in the

past. Nothing has changed in your circumstances in this last 20

minutes, but you feel totally different now. Your thoughts and what

you focus on will determine what you can access from yourself and how

you see the world."

I asked, "What would you love to tell me one year from now if your life

turned out to be extraordinary?"

He said some things. Then I asked, "What else? Let's go deeper."

He was telling me things, but I felt as though he was telling me

ideas from his head, not from his heart. I didn't feel he really

connected with the things he said. So I asked "What is a dream you

have in your heart, that maybe you haven't dared to admit even to

yourself?"

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He kept silent for a bit, then enthusiastically said "I want to be a

WSOP champion by 2022." I knew we got it. He connected to his

heart and his deepest desires. We decided to work together for

the next 6 months.

He showed up powerfully from that day on. Putting in 300 games

/ day, and crushing the $100 spin&go's. He provided a huge

inspiration to people around him. He showed up as a leader and

creator and reconnected with his power. That's the benefit of

gaining clarity. Many times, it already creates a positive change

and momentum in people's lives. When we don't have a sense of

direction, we often feel lost, and we are just going through the

daily motions. We are not in touch with our inner resources. Once

we gain clarity, and set a direction, it can propel us to tap into our

capacity to create results we want.

DEFAULT VS. CREATED FUTURE

We all have a default future. It is the future that will take place

from moment to moment when no further thought, intention or

commitment is brought to it. It's the extension of our past. It's the

future we arrive at if we keep having the same beliefs and patterns

of behaviors in our life. For most people, that's the standard.

Usually, it is having mostly the same way of living dictated by their

early conditioning in life. It will impact their decisions, actions and

results.

On the other hand, a 'created future' requires the person to stop

for a moment, look at his conditioning, see if that's where he wants

to go or not, and realize he is the creator of his life. At that point,

32

he can set a new direction for himself. Creating consciously,

instead of being run on autopilot by old conditioned patterns.

THE DIRECTION OF YOUR FOCUS

Whenever I have a coaching conversation with a person, the

quickest way to start creating a change in their lives is by guiding

them to shift their attention from what they don't want towards

what they want. I've seen time and time again how that already

starts a process of change within the person and outside of them

in their circumstances.

I believe deep down we all know that it's much better to focus on

what we want instead of what we don't. Yet, we still do focus on

the unwanted.

One thing I've come to understand by now is that our whole life is

guided by the direction of our focus, the decisions we make and

the actions we take based on that. Out of these, all are equally

important, but usually the first part is the most powerful. The

direction of our focus impacts our decisions and actions, and

ultimately the results we end up with.

Throughout the numerous fields I studied over the years, I have

seen one universal principle in all of them described in various

ways. It could be summed up with this ancient Chinese saying:

"Wherever attention goes, energy flows."

If a player is focused on his dissatisfaction of his current results

and situation, this will just create more resistance. "What you

resist, persists" as the saying goes. The mind has it totally

backward. It thinks the more we focus on a problem, or worry

33

about a situation then it will bring positive change. However that

will just direct the energy on the current situation. The mind is

afraid that if it doesn't resist the situation then we will get stuck in

what we don't want. However, that's actually how we keep

reinforcing the situation.

When you focus on what you don't want and resist that, it will limit

your access to your innate resources which could be used for

creating a better situation. Just think about how effective you are

when you keep fighting what you don't want, putting all your

energy there, being all worried and stressed.

Real change starts when you redirect your focus. The best first

step for that is acceptance. Accepting the facts of the situation;

not our meaning about it (good, bad), but the facts. It is what it is.

Then we are free to shift our attention on what we want. When

you just accept the situation as it is, you free yourself and your

infinite creative potential within you to move you into a new

direction.

This requires awareness. Stepping out of that thought process

that creates resistance and makes you fight against the situation.

It's good to realize what you don't want, because then it can help

you clarify what you want and you can start moving in that

direction. There is no point fighting a situation you don't like. Use

that initial resistance to gain clarity and move in a new direction.

There is a powerful quote I read from Mother Teresa a while ago.

When asked what she thinks about the Gulf War situation back in

the early 90s, she said "I'm not against war. I am for peace."

34

She knew that resistance just creates more resistance. We can't

solve a situation by fighting it and resisting it.

What happened, has happened. No need to fight it, as it won't

change it. However, we can change where to go from here, and

what reality to create instead.

If you are not satisfied with where you are now in your poker

career, the limits you are playing, how the variance has been lately,

your financial situation or whatever else, just take some moments

to stop, give up fighting what is; give up fighting the facts.

As Epictetus, an ancient Greek philosopher, said, "It's not the facts

that bother us, but our opinions about them."

We will go into more of this in the third chapter, but until then,

what's important to note is to accept what is, and focus on what

you want to happen.

THE CREATION PROCESS

I remember this day very vividly. I had a profound insight on seeing

how we create results in our lives. I looked at my watch, it was

17:06. I was in a hotel room in San José, Costa Rica. I was there for

a 10-day retreat; we organized with a coach friend of mine. It was

an event filled with deep inner work, strategic planning,

adventures and lots of fun in the jungle of Costa Rica.

It was 24 more minutes for the participants to show up for the

beginning of the program, and then it hit me. A rush of energy went

through my body, giving me goosebumps and tears in my eyes.

Everything stopped. I realized 3 months ago this thing wasn't even

35

existing. Back then, I had this thought how awesome it would be

to create a retreat with my friend together. It was just a thought,

an idea that appeared from Nothing. We sat down on a Friday

morning and planned out the whole retreat in 3 hours. The

location, the content, the process.

Fast forward 3 months later and I was there in the hotel room

experiencing the reality that was only a non-physical thought in

my head before. I realized that's how we create whatever we want

in our lives.

Creation doesn't start with thought. First, it starts with Nothing,

this space beyond thought from which ideas and thoughts come

from. As I see, it's not really we who think these thoughts of

inspiration, but they come from something beyond. I call it the big

Nothing, that space of pure potential which contains everything.

All great inventions, all tools, all things people have created didn't

exist before, only as a possibility and then a thought penetrated

the person's mind, moved them into action and that created the

result.

That's why it's so powerful to take time to quiet our minds and get

back to our natural state of clarity. Then we have more access to

this pure potential to gain helpful thoughts that can guide us

better in our situations.

So what's the creation process?

- It starts with this Nothingness; this space of pure

potential, or as quantum physics says, the field of infinite

possibilities.

- Then we have a thought of what we want in our lives to

show up.

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- We focus on that, giving it energy.

- Show up consistently and take action.

- Ride the waves of ups and downs, whilst staying on the

course.

- Give enough time for it.

- And one day it can take form in our physical reality as well.

You are already a creator. You have already done this process

many times in your life. You made things and results happen.

Maybe it was getting a driving license, reaching certain stakes or

results in poker, travelling to a place, reaching other goals etc.

Think about things that you had in your life, which once were just

ideas in your head. Then you focused on them, took action and

after a while, they became part of your reality.

Now, why is it helpful to understand this process? Because it can

take a lot of uncertainty off your mind about how to go on creating

what you want.

Take a couple minutes and see this process in action in your life so

far.

A MATTER OF POSSIBILITY

“Everything is energy and that’s all there is to it. Match the frequency

of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can

be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics.”

- Albert Einstein

Once, I came across an explanation on how we create things in our

lives, by a Russian quantum physicist. His way of talking about it

37

completely shifted my paradigm. Most often, when people think

about goal setting, it seems like a process where you write down

what you want, focus on it, take baby steps toward it, fight away

your doubts and beliefs whether or not you can do it and hopefully

take action on it.

However, what I want to look at here is a deeper understanding of

how life works. In quantum physics, they refer to the field of

infinite possibilities. Everything is made up of energy. The desk I

write on, the chair under me, the laptop, even the air around me;

all made up of molecules, atoms, particles, quarks and then at the

most basic level... energy.

This energy that permeates everything and is everywhere has an

information field, which contains all possibilities. Everything that

is yet to be created already exists in the present moment on a non-

physical level as a possibility.

So let's say three months from now you want to play at a higher

level, or think about anything specific you would like in your life 3

months from now.

This is a possible "future" reality, where it happens. There is also a

possible "future" reality, where in 3 months, you play at the same

level you do now and love it. Also, one reality exists where you

dropped down to lower limits. Another one is where you could be

skinnier, more muscular, or fatter. You could have an intimate

partner or not. You could be an alcoholic, or totally healthy.

Anyway you get the point. There are countless, or infinite possible

ways your life can look like 3 months from now.

Now you say, many of these things I listed are not likely, and I

agree on that. However, all of them exist as a possibility. All of

38

them could happen if your focus, choices and actions are directed

a certain way.

It's important to grasp that whatever you want or desire, you don't

have to believe that you can have it, or you are worthy of it. Just

know that it's possible, one out of many different realities. It

already exists right now in this moment in this formless energy

field out of which everything is created. This is that space of pure

potential I mentioned in the last section, this Big Nothing out of

which all thoughts and ideas of inspiration come.

If you reflect on this, and truly grasp it, your relationship to things

you want will completely change. Instead of looking at a goal from

a traditional paradigm, as something out there in the future that if

you are brave and strong enough you might create, look at it as

setting an intention. Here and now you choose one out of the

infinite possibilities. You choose one reality that you want in your

life to show up. That's what you put your focus on.

It already exists; it just needs your focus, choices, actions to align

with it and enough time for it to show up in your reality.

When you slip into this paradigm, you come from a state of

knowing and all the doubts and worries your mind will produce

about its attainment can be dismissed and not taken so seriously.

Traditional goal setting often gets people to set a goal, but they

keep focusing on the lack of it in their lives. Someone sets a goal of

playing at a higher limit, or wanting more money, or anything else.

If they focus on the lack of their desire, they will just direct their

energy to that reality, resist it and it will reinforce it in their lives.

Here in this paradigm, we come from the understanding that what

you want (playing at a limit, making certain money, etc.) already

39

exists as a possible reality; it might just need focus, actions and

time to be materialized.

What do you think is more powerful? One player comes from the

fact that what he sets out to achieve already exists and is possible,

it just requires his consistent action and time. Another player sets

a goal he wants, but doubts it constantly, if it's possible for him or

not, and whenever he has some bad streak or session, he

interprets those events as signs that it's not going to happen, and

becomes disheartened. He shows up with this attitude of doubts

when he studies or plays, or even doesn't show up to take the

action. Will it affect his performance? Will it affect how primed his

brain is for learning? Even if he puts in the hours, on a deeper level,

he will hold himself back.

Now, we will bring it together with what we talked about in the

last section. If you have a situation which you don't like, don't fight

it. Simply choose a reality which looks like the one you want.

If you don't have money, choose a reality where you have. If you

are not satisfied with how your poker results look and where you

play, choose a reality which is how you want it to be. Choose one

out of all the possibilities.

Imagine this field of infinite possibilities as a supermarket where

on the shelves are all the possible scenarios. Pick and choose one

that you like, instead of focusing on the one you don't like and

giving it the energy.

When you choose what you want in your life to show up, at this

point, you don't have to worry about the “how” exactly. We will

cover that part later on this book. At this point of a coaching

40

journey, a small practice I recommend to clients is to write out a

vision they want, and set goals/intentions.

Make them in past/present tense, like it's already a reality in their

lives. Write it from that point of view.

Then go on and spend a couple minutes every day reading it, and

imagining that it's already how their situation looks like. How does

it feel, what it is like, get totally immersed in it.

The first couple times it might be weird, and the mind can chatter,

saying "Who are you fooling, this is not what your reality looks

like." But after a while, this will become more and more real for

you. You basically bring it into your consciousness and once you

get to a point where you just know that it is a possible reality, it will

impact you greatly on a subconscious level as well. By taking a

couple minutes every day, you shift your focus in this direction,

and direct the vast potential of the Mind to work on making this

happen.

This could be thought of as a visualization practice mentioned in

many books, which in fact, in some way, it is. However, the more

important thing is the understanding behind it; “knowing” that it's

a possible reality already existing and you just have a glimpse into

that. As Einstein said, "Imagination is the preview of life's coming

attractions."

Visualizing your desired outcome and goals for five minutes a day,

whilst you feel frustrated that you don't have it, and if for the rest

of the day you keep focusing on the lack of your desire, that will

not benefit you much. However, when you understand that your

desire already exists, feel into that and just ignore thoughts of

41

doubts whilst you take action, your mind will guide you to take

decisions that can make your desired reality show up.

LOOKING AT GOALS DIFFERENTLY

"A goal is not something to get to, it's something to come from."

It's easy to fall into the trap of always chasing something on the

horizon. Something out there. Something in the future. We hope

when we finally get there, we will be happy and fulfilled. We forget

about the journey. If we have our happiness, self-worth or feeling

of security attached to our goal, there is a lot on the line to make

sure we achieve it, and through the journey, we will be anxious

about ‘what if we don't make it’.

Traditional goal-setting is usually viewed as a goal that is

something over there in the future. It often puts someone in a

result-oriented mindset, not really enjoying the process. I want to

offer a different paradigm here.

Take something you want to have in your life. We could call it your

goal, or intention. As we have discussed in the last section, this is a

potential reality that can manifest in your life. It already exists

now as a possibility.

Let's say you know that in 3 or 6 or whatever months’ time, you

would surely have this, you are 100% certain, like you made a

contract with life about it and all you need to do is to just show up

consistently and do the work, trusting that you will navigate

yourself along the journey and make necessary course

corrections. So if that was the deal, how would you show up?

42

Would it be worth taking those thoughts of doubts, worry and

anxiety seriously that come up time to time in your head?

Surely you would have ups and downs along the journey. Creating

something is not a linear process, but plateaus, stepping back,

breaking through, etc. That's the journey of mastery and creating

a worthwhile goal. However, what if you fully accepted that in

your mind, your perception of your progress will fluctuate, and

sometimes you might feel on top of the world, while some days

feel totally devastated; but you just know that it's not to be taken

too seriously because it doesn't tell you the truth whether or not

you will have what you want. Remember you had the contract; it

is happening. Now you are just waiting for it, and doing your part,

which is showing up, trusting and doing your best effort you can

on that day.

Then you can just enjoy the journey one day at a time, keep

showing up, accept the fluctuations on how you will perceive

progress, whilst trusting that by doing your part, it's inevitable not

to make progress and get better over time.

What if that goal or vision is not out there, but already inside you?

It already exists. Here is a little mindset shift which I've seen

worked wonders for some people. You are not sitting down to just

play, or study, because that's your task, and hopefully it would lead

somewhere. Rather, bring meaning to these tasks. You are doing

these because they are part of your vision. You are already living

your goal or vision by sitting down to study for an hour, or play a

session. What if you could enjoy this part of your journey now,

fully accepting it is what it is: part of the creation of your vision?

You bring back your focus into the here and now and enjoy

creating. It's really not about a brief moment in time in the future

43

when a person says "Yes, I've achieved what I set out to do”. That

usually never brings lasting happiness, but the process of creating

that can. When we engage fully with that, and fall in love with it,

that can not only help us make more awesome things happen, but

also be more fulfilled as well.

SHOW UP, AND RESPOND TO WHAT SHOWS UP

Two years ago, a past client of mine contacted me, who was

previously part of one of my 5-month group coaching programs.

He said he currently set a 4-month challenge and would love to

have my coaching support there.

We basically went through the steps you see in this book. Gaining

clarity, Shifting mentality, Creating a poker system. We applied

them to him personally.

First, we got clear on his situation. He felt he was at a stage of his

life where he really wanted to challenge himself, because he knew

there was even more potential in him. He got clear on what it is he

wanted to create during those 4 months. He made a list of

intentions. It included playing 133 spin&go’s a day (4000 games /

month), learning a language, dating, working out and eating

healthy.

Most of our work has been around mindset and gaining a deeper

understanding on the creation process, and how our mind works,

especially with our relationship to thoughts/feelings we face.

All this has helped him not to get into his own way, and just take

the action he knew would serve him. Nevertheless, sometimes our

44

mind, with its neurotic thoughts, can get the best of us and we can

lose hope, get off track and sabotage ourselves. Part of my job as

a coach was to help him see through those illusory thoughts,

remind him how powerful he is, even if he forgot that and make

sure he stays on track and keeps showing up.

And that's what he did. He kept showing up day in and day out

regardless of his mood. That's one of the key parts of the creation

process, showing up and doing the work. He did. The result was

one of the most epic periods of his life. He had record months

crushing the games in his 10 year career playing. Besides that, he

enjoyed dating, learned a language, gained a deeper

understanding of his innate well-being and discovered a different

relation to his thoughts/feelings. Now almost two years later, he is

still going strong playing the $500 spin&go’s.

Witnessing him making this happen was really inspiring and lots of

great insights could be taken from his amazing results. I will share

more in the next chapter as well.

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SOME THOUGHTS FROM THE CHAPTER

- Getting clear on what you want, and focusing on that already

gets the infinite potential of your mind to move you in that

direction.

- There is a formless energy field of infinite possibilities behind

life where every possible reality already exists. You can

choose the one you desire out of the many by aligning your

focus, decisions and actions with it.

- Traditional goal-setting often focuses on the lack of

something, and a target in the future. Here we come from the

understanding that the desired outcome already exists as a

possibility out of many.

- Your default future is the extension of your past based on the

way you approach life now. Your created future is when you

consciously direct your life to where you want it to go.

- The creation process is when you have a focused intention,

show up consistently, take action, improve your

strategies/approach and over time your intention can

materialize in your circumstances.

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STEP 2:

SHIFTING YOUR MENTALITY

"Your thoughts are like the artist’s

brush. They create a personal

picture of the reality you live in."

- Sydney Bank

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CHAPTER 3:

A New Understanding of

the Mental Game

Now that you've gained clarity on your current situation and what

results you want to create, it's time to delve into the mentality

even deeper. This area can make or break a player’s performance.

Just to name a few things, this will determine how much you

access your potential, how you approach setbacks on the road,

how focused and in flow you play during the game and how well

you can execute on the process that would produce results.

Most players are afraid to look into this topic, as for them it

triggers fears of not being enough. We naturally want to avoid

looking weak and incompetent. This gets many players to ditch

this area and not reflect on themselves, their mentality and the

cause of their behaviors. Action is massively important, doing the

things that produce great performance and results. For some

players, it's more natural to get into a mindset where they could

excel in the games. However, for the majority of the players, it

might require making some shifts in their mentality so they can

access more of themselves and create the results they want. This

is normal. The sooner a player recognizes that, the easier his life

gets.

I've only been referring to one's mindset around poker, but this

actually determines our whole life, whether it be our sense of

fulfillment, relationships, health or finances. The results we have

49

in our life most of the time come from our actions. Those actions

are determined by our decisions. We make those decisions based

on how things look to us in the moment, which is set by our current

thoughts and feelings and how we are relating to them. We have

arrived to the origin of this process, which is our mentality or even

deeper, our level of understanding about how our mind works. So

if we want to influence the results we have, we got to look into this,

which will lead to new decisions and actions.

In the first part of this chapter, we will explore how the mind

works and what role Thought plays in creating our moment-to-

moment experience. We will also look at our innate well-being and

having a clear state of mind regardless of circumstances.

Now, usually what I see is, when people start to gain a deeper

understanding on this topic, it has a profound impact on them. It

can help you become more resilient regardless of the ups and

downs in poker; you can find your best performance more

effortlessly, improve your mental game and execution while

playing and naturally find more peace of mind in your life.

Generally I see where this impacts many other areas of people's

lives as well, simply because we experience every area, whether it

be a poker session, a relationship or finances through our own

thoughts and feelings. If we have a different relationship with how

our mind works, it can impact everything.

In the second part of this chapter, we explore how you can look at

areas in poker with this new understanding and shine new light on

them: Flow & High Performance, and frequently talked about

Mental Game topics (Tilt, Fear, Unstable confidence, Motivation).

Most of the time, a deeper transformation in a person’s mentality

comes from a reflective state of mind, instead of a busy, grasping,

50

analyzing mind. So the best way to get the most out of this chapter

is to just be curious about what you are reading with an open mind,

and entertain the ideas here. Just take them in. No rush. You may

find that it is so obvious that you wonder why it is even worth

talking about. You might find it doesn't make any sense, or you can

have any sorts of resistance in your mind. It's all fine. Just take

what you get here, and you might come back later again to this

chapter and give it another read then see how this applies in areas

of your life. Alright, with that said, let's continue the exploration.

GETTING A NEW UNDERSTANDING

Some time ago, a guy contacted me saying he saw the massive

changes in another player’s performance and results who I've

worked with, and was interested in experiencing something

similar. As usual, we got on a call to gain clarity on his situation,

which is the first step, so we can see what's holding him back and

where he needs to make some changes.

On our first call, he explained he didn't have a passion and

motivation for poker; he found himself in constant ups and downs;

the negative variance often made him stay away from the game

for days and not spend much time on studying and improving his

game. Besides that, he battled insecurity and lack of self-worth,

which affected his poker performance at the tables and negatively

impacted his social life as well.

I felt he was ready for more in his life; he really wanted change.

That's important, because if someone is not ready and committed

yet to change, and creating a new future, then there is no point for

us to work together. It's so important to gain clarity on the current

51

situation, because then we can face the truth and make changes if

we realize that our current approach will not lead to our desired

outcomes. This client was ready for change, and we started

working together for 6 months.

On our first two calls, we explored deeper how the mind works

and how his thoughts/feelings are the source of his momentary

experience, instead of the circumstances. The problem wasn't

what was happening during his poker sessions, but a

misunderstanding of where his experience came from. This

caused his lack of motivation, tilt and confidence issues and poor

execution of his poker knowledge. Already, on these two calls, he

had deep insights that helped him approach poker differently and

started falling in love with it again, without being affected by the

variance much.

Once we insightfully see that our frustration and suffering comes

from being lost in our thinking, and not from the situation, that

insight alone can transform our lives. That happened with him as

well. He started to really understand how the mind works, and

how he creates his experience of life from the inside out. His

problems were symptoms of a deeper misunderstanding. Once

there was a shift in his paradigm, his problems started falling away.

Over the next 6 months, he became a new person. Now, he is a

purpose-driven, confident, open, joyful person. He played such an

amount in poker that his teammates were wondering how he

could do that.

Last time I checked in with him a couple months ago, he lived a full

life with regular sport, had a great social life, fun, enjoyed travel

and new experiences. He constantly improves himself and his

poker game.

52

Usually, a good test is to examine how we react to a situation now

and how we reacted to a similar situation in the past. I remember

when he was experiencing a long period of bad variance, where

results didn't mirror the improvement his poker game and his

performance at the tables went through. Before our work

together, the variance and his results would have negatively

affected his performance and the amount he played. Now he

shows up every day ready to do his work, putting in the time,

loving poker and his life. That's the power of insightfully

understanding where our feelings come from. This understanding

can help people find more peace of mind and deep resiliency

regardless of the circumstances. Many times, I see players who

suffered in their performance and volume at times of bad

variance, now go on and start fresh every day, motivated to make

the most again from that day.

With this client, shifting the mindset was a big part, and coupling

that with the new rituals and practices he implemented, his life

and results took a turnaround. It was partly from the insights he

gained from our work together, and a big part on his readiness, his

commitment and the energy he put in. It was a truly inspiring

journey witnessing him flourish. The interesting fact is that I used

to coach the backing group he was part of, but he never took the

chance to opt in for a session with me, even though I was with that

group for close to 2 years. He wasn't ready back then, but later he

was ready for transformation. It happens with a new decision.

WHERE DO YOUR FEELINGS COME FROM?

If we were to ask people who are frustrated, 'Where do you think

your frustration comes from?' about 99% of them would say 'it's

53

from this situation in my life (a person; poker session; finance;

etc.).' However, why is it that the same situation can happen to

people and they experience it differently? If the source of our

feelings was really the situation, which can be the same, why don't

we experience it similarly?

This points to one of the biggest misunderstanding we fall into,

which causes so much suffering in our lives. The misunderstanding

of where our feelings come from.

Two persons face the same situations. Losing a hand against a fish;

losing a session; having a regular berating them in the chat; etc.

One person gets upset, the other stays indifferent or even laughs.

What's going on?

Probably it happened to you many times as well where you

experience the same situation differently at one time and another.

You might be totally devastated after a losing session, being

worried, upset or sad. Another time, you don't really care much

about it and move on with your day. The same can happen with

situations during the game. Losing a hand against a fish; Getting

caught with your bluff; Making a mistake.

If the source of your frustration, anger or worry was really the

situation, you would have to feel the same way all the time, and

everyone else would have to feel exactly the same, but that's not

the case.

Here is a good time to quote Epictetus, the Greek philosopher

again: "It's not the facts that bother us, but our opinions about them."

It points to the simple truth that situations in and of themselves

don't have meaning. Our mind attaches meaning to them by

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thoughts, which then creates our experience of the situation.

Things that happen are facts: The result of a session, an outcome

of a hand. These are facts. Information. Meaningless. Neutral.

However, our mind attaches meaning to them.

It's easy to fall for the misunderstanding that the source of our

feelings is the circumstance. We can call it the outside-in

paradigm. It seems like things happen to us on the outside, and

make us feel a certain way on the inside (frustrated, upset, sad,

worried, joyful, happy etc.). Pixels on a monitor showing

something don't have the power to cause a feeling in us.

Or people say they are stressed because of a traffic jam, but cars

don't have power to cause us to feel a certain way. There are

people who are experiencing that traffic jam differently. One can

be stressed or upset, while another can be calm or joyful in the

moment, regardless of the situation.

Alternatively, people say they are stressed because of an

upcoming test they need to take. However, a piece of paper

doesn't have the power to make us feel a certain way. Our

experience comes from one source only. From the inside-out.

As I am writing this, I'm just over Christmas season, and at this

time of the year, you can hear people around you say how stressful

Christmas is. Well, I experienced it as anything, but stressful, full

of great feelings. Christmas is neutral, and our experience of it is

made up of thought. That's why people experience it differently.

100% of our feelings come from thought in the moment. This is

one of those insights that can start a deep transformation in

people's lives. Our feelings are not coming from things outside of

us, but they are created from thought in our mind. Our experience

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in the moment is made up of our thoughts and feelings, which are

two sides of the coin; they come together.

The other insight that can be a catalyst for change in a person is

when someone really sees it for himself that thought is a transient

energy. It is fluid. It determines our felt experience in the moment.

This formless energy takes a form in our mind. It can be an 'I'm not

good enough' thought, a 'things will turn out horrible' thought or

an 'I am the best player ever' thought, etc. All of those thoughts

are made up of the same formless energy. They are meaningless

and harmless on their own. However, we give meaning and

importance to them.

Has it ever happened to you that certain thoughts come into your

mind and you just dismiss them? Then they move on and new

thoughts come. Maybe during a session, a thought appeared about

'what should I eat for lunch' and you just dismissed it; or you had a

thought about punching someone in the face and you didn't act on

it and let it pass; or a thought about how bad of a player you are

after coming out of a losing session, and you just let it move on.

Our thoughts are transient, and our feelings change with them

too. The problem comes when you take the content of your

thinking as truth. You give importance to certain thoughts and

make them look real for yourself. Think about how often you

experience a low mood and you see things in a negative way, you

are worried about the future and how things will turn out. Then an

hour later or a day later, you are back to normal and feel more

optimistic about the future.

Your state of mind (thoughts/feelings) is constantly changing

during the day, ups and downs, like a roller coaster. That's the

nature of the mind. If you let it, then it can change on its own. Once

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you insightfully see that your experience of the moment comes

from thinking and not from the situation: that experience starts to

lose its hold on you. It becomes more fluid and less frightening.

Thought is a fluid formless energy, however, what we often do is

make it look more solid by paying too much importance and

meaning to what it says and making it look real. An ice is

fundamentally the same as water, but in different frequency, and

so different solidity. Ice and water are fundamentally the same as

clouds, but different solidity. A cloud looks like a solid object.

Whenever I'm traveling by plane, I get this idea how awesome it

would be to jump on clouds. Though it might seem real and solid, if

we get closer, we realize it has no real substance. Same with our

thoughts. If we make certain thoughts important and look real, we

make them more solid, and then we can "bump" into them and it

hurts. If we realize thought is a transient energy which is fluid, we

can step back, let it move on and see things with a fresh

perspective.

We have the capacity to think again. New thoughts can come into

our mind from this formless infinite field out of which thoughts

take form.

It is important to grasp that events have no meaning, and our

experience of them is fully created from the inside through our

mind by the power of Thought. Now it doesn't mean that once we

grasp this, there won't be any frustration, anger, uncertainty or

any discomfort showing up in situations. It just means we can

wake up from the illusion that it's the situation that is causing us

to feel this way. So we don't end up fighting imaginary problems,

or resisting things outside of us, which would just limit our

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capacity to think clearly and show up with our best to deal with a

situation.

HOW THE HUMAN MIND WORKS

We all live in separate realities made up from thoughts in our

mind. That's why people experience the same movie, city, book or

poker video differently. We are not experiencing the facts, but our

thoughts in our mind. Then we project them onto the situation and

color them. Imagine everything as a white canvas. Our thoughts

are like a paintbrush that colors it. When thoughts change, the

coloring changes as well.

On one level, it looks like the mind works as a camera, taking in the

input from the outer world and causing our experience. However,

the mind works as a camera and projector at the same time. It

takes in the outer world and situations, but projects onto them the

thoughts we have, coloring our perception with them.

It's like wearing glasses with different colors. If yours has a red

shade, you will see everything reddish. If mine is blue, I will see

things blueish. That's why there are many conflicts between

people, forgetting that we live in separate realities made up by

thoughts. When they think their way of looking at things is the

right one, it's easy to disregard the other person's point of view.

There is this power in all human beings that makes up our

experience in the moment. We can refer to it as the power of

Thought. It is the origin of our thinking. We could say that our

momentary experience is a two-sided coin. On one side is the

thought; the other side is the feeling. Inseparable. Your feelings

are just a reflection of your thinking in the moment. If you feel

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anger, then you have angry thinking. If you feel fearful, you have

fearful thinking. 100% of our feelings come from thoughts in the

moment and not from the circumstances outside of us.

Many times when I have a conversation with a client who is

experiencing a tough time before coming onto our call, I like to

point them in this direction to see what the facts are and what his

thoughts are. Then, usually, what happens as the person wakes up

from the grip of their thinking that looked so real about the

situation or about how terrifying things will look in the future, is

that their feelings and perception start to change about the

situation as well. If that happens, usually they access their better

judgment or as I like to call it, their innate intelligence or wisdom.

They regain their sense of stability and can have more helpful

thinking about the situation at hand that moves them forward.

I like to point it out to them and ask "What do you make of the fact

that your experience (feeling) is fluctuating much more quickly

than your circumstance? Nothing has changed in your financial /

poker / relationship situation, but you feel totally different about

it and it looks different to you."

This usually gives them a chance to see the illusory nature of

thoughts and feelings. They come and go; they are not as solid and

real as they seem. That's the power of this understanding, it can

help the person find their innate stability or as I like to call it, their

innate resilience, regardless of the situation. Many times players I

work with start to experience that no matter how badly things are

going in poker and maybe by the end of a session or day, they feel

they have been through a war, they are much more able to get

back to their stability, clear their head, keep going and show up for

the next session ready to play. When in the past, before seeing the

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illusory nature of their thoughts, they would avoid the games in

those times, and the bad mood would carry over to their personal

life as well.

The definition of resilience is 'the capacity to recover quickly from

difficulties.'

It's within us. We are all resilient. Yes, horrible things can happen

to us all, but our experience of those is made up in our mind. Our

suffering is not coming from the situation, but being lost in our

thinking. That's why this understanding is so powerful for people

with painful traumatic experiences as well, who might have

experienced abuse, or veterans coming home from war. The old

experience is just carried over time through memories (thoughts)

into the moment, and they again experience it as real.

Nonetheless, when they start getting a different understanding

about it and see that in the moment they are experiencing

thought, then it starts to loosen its hold on them, and not affect

their well-being as much.

We all get painful thoughts that make us worried, stressed, upset

and frustrated. They always come and always will come. It's not

about changing our thoughts, as they change on their own as well.

It's rather about getting a deeper understanding and so a different

relating to our thoughts and feelings. It's like the weather. It

changes. Sometimes things get cloudy, or even have a heavy rain

and thunderstorms. Then after a while it can clear again on its

own. It's built into nature. Just like it's built into the nature of the

mind.

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Thoughts are impersonal

Although I’m using the phrase ‘your thinking’, a more truthful way

to describe it would be ‘the thinking that appears in you in the

moment.’ The less you take the thoughts personally, the less you

identify with them. We all have habitual thoughts which come to

us, it doesn’t mean that’s ours. It might mean those are thoughts

which we held true and gave importance to. Usually you are not

the one who brings certain thoughts into your mind in a situation.

There is a deeper power from which thoughts come from.

Thoughts, in and of themselves, have no meaning, it's not a

problem. The problem is when we hold onto them and give power

to them, then they look so real and we get lost in them. For

example, just like every player, probably you have times when you

feel worried about the future and how things will go. At those

times, your thoughts project a more pessimistic future forward,

and it can look so real. It can look like things will continue this

badly, this downswing won't end, like you will go bankrupt and so

on.

The mind has a tendency to project the current experience

forward and think things will always be this way. Until you wake

up from these thoughts, or go for a walk, talk to someone, sleep

and later on these thoughts have moved on, and you will

experience things and the future differently. Maybe you had a

great session, and your thoughts totally changed, allowing you to

see a totally different future. You may think it will always go well,

that things are amazing, until again your thoughts will change. Do

you see the fluctuation of this in your life? Your feelings and

thoughts about your progress, skills or future will always

fluctuate, giving you a different perception and coloring of things.

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It's just great to see this for yourself in your everyday life from

now on. See how your experience changes moment-to-moment,

day-by-day. It will help you wake up more quickly to the fact that

your inner experience comes from your thinking and not the

situation. Even if it looks really real, and your mind wants to

persuade you that "no, this time it's really coming from the

situation, from out there," that's just one of the ways the mind can

seduce us.

Deepening the understanding

Imagine a live poker cash game where at the table 9 players sit

together. There is one who has never played the game and doesn't

even know the rules. There is also a recreational player who isn't

really good, but likes to play. There is an NL2, NL10, NL50, NL100,

NL400, NL1000 and a nosebleed player as well. They are looking

at the same game. They have the same amount of information

available for them. The same situations happen. However, they

have a different level of understanding about how poker works,

which will affect how they interpret what's going on in the game.

Over the years, as your level of understanding deepened in poker,

you see it differently now compared to the time when you just got

familiar with it.

As our level of understanding deepens about how life and human

beings work we start to see life differently. On a lower level, it

might seem totally real that we are victims of things happening to

us. On a higher level, things start to look very different with a

greater perspective and we might start relating to thoughts,

feelings and situations in a new way.

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Clarity is the default

Human beings have an immune system that kicks in when the

body gets out of its natural healthy state and then it works on

restoring it. The mind has a built in psychological immune system

as well. When it comes out of its natural clear state of mind, this

takes it back to its default state. If there is no interference about

it, our mind is built for clarity, that's our default state. That's when

we are stable; we see things more clearly, we access wiser

thoughts and our intuition, we have more connection to life and

people around us and better well-being.

It's enough to just wake up to the fact that what you are

experiencing in the moment is Thought, and it starts to lose its

hold on you. Then this psychological immune system can help

quiet your mind down until you see more clearly again.

Let's say I were to ask you to take a glass of water, put in some

ground, mix it up with a spoon, and you would get a muddy water.

Now I ask you to clear it. If you were to try to spoon out the

ground, it would just keep stirring it up and wouldn't clear.

However, if we understand the nature of how it worked, you

would know that when the ground settles down on its own, the

water will have its clarity which is its default. The same is with the

mind. The less we try to control and manage our thinking when we

are stressed and frustrated, the more stable we are. It's just

enough to see that it's Thought, then you can fall into a deeper

space where you can have new helpful thoughts. This

understanding can help us be more stable even when the

inevitable ups and downs of being human come to us.

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PEACE OF MIND

There are two realizations that can be really impactful about this

understanding for someone's life. The first one is seeing how our

experience is created from the inside out through Thought, and

not from the outside-in through circumstances.

The second realization is about seeing our true nature, seeing

there is a space beyond thought, where our innate resilience, well-

being and infinite creative potential is found.

When we are in touch with that space, we are more stable,

grounded and present to life. We see things more clearly and

move forward with better judgment. We are more in touch with it

usually when our mind is less noisy. When you feel connected to

the moment, or feel a deep connection to a person, play in the flow,

meditate, walk in nature or any situation where your mind is

quieter.

This space contains everything we are looking for on the outside,

usually in getting the right circumstances around us in the future.

Self-worth, a feeling of love, freedom, peace of mind, joy. These

feelings are innate regardless of circumstances. These deeper

feelings are always available to us underneath the surface. A baby

doesn't think they need a certain amount of money, fame, success

or gadgets to feel their natural well-being. It's not to say we can't

go for creating awesome things, however, it can be a lot more

satisfying if we see that we are well and whole as we are. Then we

are free to create for the joy of it, instead of as a way to prove that

we are good enough and finally be happy.

Otherwise, it's easy to get caught up in the race of never enough.

From that place, there will never be a time when we can enjoy

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what we have. Only for periods. We can see examples of this in

celebrities who, on the outside, looked like they had all the

circumstances anyone can want: money, fame, success, friends,

family and material objects; and still felt depressed or suicidal. We

don't have to go back too far to find examples from the

entertainment world of people who even acted on those

depressive and suicidal thoughts. It just shows again that our inner

experience of life is not based on the circumstances around us.

There are examples of people having it all on the outside and being

miserable and also people who are generally more fulfilled. There

are also examples of people having tough circumstances who feel

miserable, are addicts or suicidal, but we can also find people with

these circumstances who are generally happy and grateful.

At one point, I did some work with a backing group for a 3 month

project. I had a call with one of their players who I could see often

got caught up in lots of thinking. He generally had a busy mind.

That was one of the things he held himself back with. Lots of

thinking interfering with actualizing his deeper potential, and his

best performance. It not only affected his poker game, but his

enjoyment of life as well.

On that call, we just looked in the direction of how our mind works,

and what is that deeper space beyond our thinking. I could see at

one point he got quiet. Not verbally, but internally. His mind. Lots

of business dropped. He was there, in the moment. He sank into

that deep space of inner silence and well-being, regardless of

circumstances. Nothing has changed around him, but he got a

clear experience of that innate well-being we are all looking for

out there. So I just let him be there, gave him some pointers and

left him to stay with that newfound feeling.

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About a week later, I got a message from him, which said:

"What I've felt after that session I can't describe, but it felt like I

had a 3-4 hour-long orgasm. It might sound funny, but I guess you

know what I'm talking about. I felt so wonderful in that amazing

noiseless, vibrant, huge calmness, that I immediately regretted

not recording the session. One more note: You are great, huge

respect. I never would've thought that it is possible to impact

another person so much mentally, and give them these feelings."

I knew what he meant. There was only one misunderstanding in

what he wrote. I didn't give him the feeling. I just guided him to find

that feeling inside of him under the business of his mind. That

feeling is always there, no matter what goes on in our lives. Now, I

don't know how things turned out for him eventually, as my

project with the group ended shortly after that. He was super busy

in mind arriving to the call, and in that hour, nothing changed in his

situations, but his level of consciousness shifted greatly,

experiencing life in the moment from a different perspective.

That's a vertical change in the moment. We can get to a different

level of understanding, which will impact how we view life at any

moment. A horizontal change takes place over time, changing

circumstances, behaviors, habits, etc. However, internally, we can

always wake up from low level thinking in the moment.

I look out of my window now and it's super sunny and bright. Five

minutes ago, it was cloudy and I could've said the sun is not

shining. However, the sun is always there, shining. It just gets

covered by clouds in front of it at times. Same with us. That space

of inner quiet and well-being is always there in the background no

matter what. That's our place of wholeness. However, it

sometimes gets covered by our thoughts and feelings that make it

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seem like we have lost it. That's the human condition. We have

thoughts and feelings, and we get caught up in them and identify

with them, forgetting what lies beyond. That's the power of

understanding how our mind works and what our true nature is. It

can make us find more resilience, be more fluid with our thoughts

and feelings instead of holding onto them and might also make

those thoughts of limitation look less real, which we believed to be

true about us and our potential.

No matter how much a storm is raging on the surface of the ocean,

with waves coming and going. In the depth, there is this peace and

silence regardless of what goes on up there on the surface. When

you touch that space of inner quiet, it helps you gain more clarity,

and find your stability and resilience.

Even as you are reading this now. You can just take a couple

minutes and shift your attention from your thinking to this

quietness beyond thoughts inside you. It requires no effort. In fact

the opposite. Not fighting or resisting thoughts and feelings. Just

turning the attention away and inside.

The more you look in that direction and touch that inner space, the

more familiar you get with that. It's always there in the

background. We are just usually too busy being lost in the content

of the mind that we forget about the space behind that. Many

people and traditions refer to this with different words: Home,

Space within, Pure Consciousness, Awareness, Peace of Mind,

Presence, which all point to that formless and indescribable space.

This is your true nature. On the surface, your state of mind

(thoughts and feelings) constantly changes. However, there is

something that doesn't change. The content of your experience

(thoughts/feelings) changes, but the fact that you are aware of it,

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doesn't. It is the same awareness as it was 2 minutes ago, 2 days

ago, 2 years ago, 20 years ago. Imagine a room with pure

nothingness, and in the middle, there are certain forms taking

shape, one after the other. That's the content of your experience,

which is fluid; it always changes. The space around it is constant.

In that space lies our well-being, joy, peace of mind, wisdom, sense

of freedom and innate resilience. When we identify with our

thoughts, they can look so real that we take them for who we are.

When your thoughts become your identity, that is called ego. Ego

is a case of mistaken identity. You believe that the illusory

thoughts that come and go are your true self. Your true self is the

dimension of you that does not come and go.

When we are kids, we are still more in touch with that space. We

don't have as much on our mind. We experience the fluctuations

of our state of mind freely. When momentary sadness, anger and

frustration comes, we feel it, and two minutes later, it changes

again and we are back to our natural well-being, out in the world,

playing and living. When we are kids, we still live from that place

unconsciously. As we grow up, we get more caught up in our

thinking about ourselves and the world, which veils that deeper

essence of ourselves. We all get caught up in our thinking even

after we see that it's our thinking we experience, and we have a

deeper well-being inside us. We sometimes don't see it clearly. But

just knowing that can already bring us an enormous sense of

freedom and stability. We can wake up from the grip of our

thought-created experience more quickly, and find our stability

again. We start to seek less for deep feelings of joy, love, peace of

mind, freedom or sense of wholeness on the outside in

circumstances, and start to see it's already inside. Always has been

since we were born. But along the way, we distanced from that.

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There is nothing wrong with us. Nothing to fix. Nothing that would

mean we are not enough or worthy. Only thoughts saying

otherwise. When we live from that deeper essence, we can realize

that is what connects us all. We start to see it in other people as

well. We see their behaviors come from their thinking in the

moment. We become more compassionate and kind towards

ourselves and others. Our relationships deepen.

ONE PROBLEM, ONE SOLUTION

Here is how one of my mentors, Michael Neill, an extraordinary

transformative coach, greatly articulated this point in his book

'The Space Within'.

"There is a space within you where you are already perfect, whole

and complete. It is pure consciousness - the space inside of which

all thoughts come and go. When you rest in the feeling of this

space, the warmth of it heals your mind and body. When you

operate from the infinite creative potential of this space, you

produce high levels of performance and creative flow. When you

sit in the openness of this space with others, you experience a level

of connection and intimacy that is breathtakingly enjoyable and

filled with love. And when you explore this space more deeply, you

will find yourself growing closer and closer to the divine, even if

you're not sure there is such a thing and wouldn't know how to talk

about it if there was. Every problem we have in life is the result of

losing our bearings and getting caught up in the content of our

own thinking; the solution to every one of those problems is to find

our way back home. One problem. One solution. Infinite

possibilities."

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You might want to re-read that and let it sink in.

Most of our problems are thought-created problems. When we

get caught up in our thinking about it, we lose our innate stability

and can't access our best performance and inner wisdom, which

would help us find the solution and move things forward in a

situation. We get problem-focused, we stress out, we get anxious

or paralyze ourselves. When those thoughts drop, we can look at

the situation with fresh eyes and either realize there wasn't any

problems to begin with, or we know what to do about the situation

if it really needs our attention. That's why I assume Mark Twain

was famously quoted for his saying "I had many problems in my life.

Most of them never even happened."

INFORMATION VS. INSIGHT

So far, you could read about how the mind works, the role

‘Thought’ has in creating our experience and about that space

within us beyond our thinking where our well-being, wisdom and

peace of mind lies. In itself, this information won't bring any

change to your life. However, when you start having your own

realizations and insights about it, then those can start to change

your relationship to how you experience life. When you start to

see in action that your feelings are coming from the power of

Thought, and not from your circumstances; when you start seeing

that your thoughts and feelings are made up of a transient

formless energy, which is fluid and changing; when you start to see

that no matter what goes on outside of you, or what kind of inner

storm is taking place in your thoughts and feelings, underneath,

there is always available an inner stillness, quiet, wisdom, joy, well-

being and a sense of stability inside you.

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It's not a matter of knowing more, but seeing more. You can

describe a beautiful sunset to the smallest detail to a blind person;

it will still be far away from actually seeing and experiencing of it.

If there was a person who tends to overthink things that's been

me. I still have a tendency at times to overthink. For so long, it

seemed like a really good idea to me. I was a control freak. This has

caused lots of anxiety, frustration and tension in my life. I thought

it had come from the things I wanted to control. If I could only

change the situation… If I could only change myself, or my

personality… If I could only change certain traits in me, then all this

frustration would leave. I didn't realize that the source of it was

my thinking.

Even after I started to get more involved in studying high

performance and success psychology, I was overthinking about

my thinking and feelings. I wanted to become more and more

extraordinary, which just added a lot of extra pressure to perform,

be great and always be on top of my game. Whilst studying

different traditions definitely helped me become more functional,

and create better results, now I see it was still feeding an

underlying misunderstanding of where my experience was

coming from. First, I wanted to change circumstances to be more

awesome. Then I wanted to change the content of my thinking and

personality.

Now I don't know anyone who is always on top of their game and

doesn't experience feelings of anxiety, insecurity, worry, fear or

being upset at times. It's part of our ever-changing state of mind.

However, seeing that it's okay, and comes with being human

makes it less like a good idea to try to fight it and get rid of it.

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I started to see that people who produce great performance have

less on their mind. They use their capacity to think about solutions

to the situation and making progress, instead of using it to

generate endless personal thinking about their performance,

skills, past, future, how others perceive them and so on.

I also started to see that the happiest people around me are the

ones who aren't that caught up in their thinking, so they have more

capacity to notice and appreciate things around them, and be

more engaged with what is in front of them. They are more like

grown-up kids, having that childlike sense of freedom, and ability

to engage with things. As kids, we didn't overthink. Otherwise, we

still wouldn't be able to walk and talk to this day. We weren't that

self-conscious, or worried about the past or future. We were more

happily engaged in the present moment. When momentary

sadness and discomfort came, we experienced that part of being

human fully as well; and as we let that transient energy change a

moment or two later, we were up and going again.

When I more insightfully started to understand how our mind

works, and seeing our true nature, it seemed less and less like a

good idea to try to control, fix and manage my state of mind

(thoughts/feelings). I see that our state of mind constantly

changes and we all get lost in it from time to time and mistake it

for reality. Sometimes we are on our game and sometimes totally

not, despite our best attempts. We all have our off days. However,

when our relating to our thoughts and feelings starts to change,

we can wake up from our 'bad dreams' more quickly and create

less damage whilst we are caught up in them. Also, we can find a

better sense of stability and clear mind regardless of our

circumstances. This can produce enormous freedom in our life.

When we look in the direction of how life really works, our

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misunderstanding can start falling away. It's not about adding

more to us, rather waking up from the misunderstanding that gets

in the way of us dealing best with situations in front of us and living

fully.

FLOW & HIGH PERFORMANCE

I once had a conversation with a client who expressed his

frustration that lately, he hasn't been playing in the flow, and it's

been more of a struggle. Just like many players, he wanted to

experience more of that state where playing feels enjoyable,

where great performance is effortless and he is fully immersed in

poker. Many times, it is referred to as being in the zone as well.

This gave us a great opportunity to explore what the nature of

flow and high performance is. I proposed to him, "What if flow is

your default state, and you don't have to put yourself into flow, but

rather not interfere with it or say otherwise, not bringing yourself

out of it?"

This has got him to start looking at it differently, and was able to

get him to think less about his performance and focus on the game

more. By now, three years later, he has become one of the best

players in the high stakes cash games.

This is an opposite way of looking at flow than most of sports

psychology approaches it. If you read any book on the topic, it

usually says you need to fix, control or manage your state of mind

(thoughts/feelings) in order to perform well. However, many

times, that just creates even more resistance to the person, who is

already in a resistant state. Not only is he resisting the situation,

but becomes aware of his thinking and feelings, and starts to resist

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those as well. Many books share techniques to cope with the

stressed state of mind, however the only times when those coping

tools actually help are the times when the person stops resisting

the moment and instead, focuses his attention on performing the

task in front of him. That way, his state of mind will change

naturally. We already talked about how state of mind is made up

of a transient energy, which is fluid on its own, as long as we don't

make it solid and sticky.

Let's see what flow is by definition and then look at it from a

different angle than most books talk about.

Here is the definition by Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, who first

coined the term (from Wikipedia):

“In positive psychology, flow, also known as the zone, is the mental

state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully

immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement and

enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is

characterized by complete absorption in what one does and loses

sense of space and time.”

“Jeanne Nakamura and Csíkszentmihályi identify the following six

factors as encompassing an experience of flow.

- Intense and focused concentration on the present

moment

- Merging of action and awareness

- A loss of reflective self-consciousness

- A sense of personal control or agency over the situation or

activity

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- A distortion of temporal experience, one’s subjective

experience of time is altered

- Experience of the activity as intrinsically rewarding, also

referred to as autotelic experience”

Actually, all of these are characteristics of moments when you

don't have much personal thinking in your mind, or even if you do,

you are not paying attention to that. That way, your attention is

fully on engaging with the task and not on your personal thinking

about yourself and your performance.

If we saw a great, successful public speaker, and ask him his secret

as to why he is so confident what he thinks about when he

performs that make him so good, he would probably say, "Well,

not much really, if anything. I'm just in the moment and focus on

speaking." If we take a public speaker who is doing a horrible

performance, stumbling on stage and ask what he thinks about

during the talk, he would say something along the lines of "I had

lots on my mind, how people will like me and what I have to share,

whether it is good or not. I felt tension and doubts."

If we ask a great athlete what he thinks about when he is doing an

amazing performance, he would say "Well, nothing really. I'm just

there, fully engaged in the action." If we asked the same athlete

after a horrible performance, he would say "I was overthinking a

lot. I was thinking about my performance, how I am off, how things

are not working, how I came across to the audience."

Same with poker. If I were to ask you when you are at your best

and at your worst what goes on inside you, what would you say?

Probably when you are at your best in the flow, you are focused

on playing and most of the thoughts you have are fact-based,

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which are about how to best respond to each situation, what to do

on each street and so on.

When you are not in the flow, either bored with the game, tense,

frustrated or tilting, then you probably have personal thinking

which you are focusing on, either about stuff outside the poker,

your skills or performance on the spot.

So what if the thing that gets in the way of performing at your best

is getting caught up in your personal thinking? The problem is not

what happens out there, i.e. the way hands turn out; the variance;

etc. Also, the problem is not the state of mind you are in. The

problem is when you resist what is going on, either in the situation

or inside you, and focus on that.

By personal thinking, I mean that chatter in your head evaluating

you, your performance, either judging, having expectations,

comparisons and so on. Most of this chatter goes on without your

conscious awareness of it.

“Am I good enough?”

“I made a mistake again, how could I be so stupid?”

“I need to perform well.”

“If I don’t win, then … will happen.”

"That a**hole lucked out again, now he thinks I'm a total shitty

player he can fool around,"

and so on.

This can produce tension, resistance, uncertainty and anger.

When you are in flow, you don’t get caught up in these thoughts

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and feelings; your full awareness is on the action, and not on the

“little me”, the personal mind.

So we can put the equation for performance like this:

Performance = Capacity - Interference

When you eliminate interference, you can perform closer to your

full capacity. The interference is when we are too focused on

resisting what is going on in the situation or inside us as thoughts

and feelings, instead of being focused on engaging with the task at

hand.

What I usually say to clients is, the way to get in flow is to stop

caring so much about your performance and skills when you are

about to play. When resistance comes up within you, just

recognize that it is not coming from the circumstance, but is just

reminding you that you have 'resisting thinking' in your mind. Just

accept and see it for what it is: thinking and feeling that fluctuates

always, part of being human. Don't pay much attention to it, and

rather refocus your attention on what's in front of you. Playing the

next hand. If you just accept how you feel and what is happening

in the situation as it is, and focus on the task, many times after 2-

5-10 minutes later, you can find yourself in the flow of the action

again. The more you stress out on your state of mind, the worse

you will perform. The less you care about your state of mind, and

focus instead on playing, the better your performance will be.

You can get frustrated, anxious, upset during a session; if you can

just recognize it, take a deep breath, relax your shoulders, allow it

to be and focus instead on playing the hand in front of you, it will

pass. You can still perform well whilst you have these feelings. So

rather focus on what matters.

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You remember from previous sections we covered that the mind

self-corrects when it gets too clogged up with thinking, and we just

recognize it, and let it run its course. That means accepting it, and

not resisting it. When you start gaining a deeper understanding on

the inside-out nature of our minds and how it works, that will help

you wake up to the fact that your experience is Thought generated

in the moment. That understanding can help you relate differently

to the thinking and feeling you have, not take it that seriously and

be able to put your attention on what matters instead.

TILT, FEAR, UNSTABLE CONFIDENCE, MOTIVATION

In this section, I want to explore these aspects about the mental

game. Actually, these are byproducts of being human, and having

a mind. The nature of the mind is that it is always changing. Our

state of mind always fluctuates. You can feel motivated in one

moment, and don't in the next; you can feel confident and on top

of the world and then a session later, feel totally insecure about

yourself and your skills; you can feel totally certain, then totally

fearful and worried; you can get angry during a situation in the

game and the next moment, feel excited.

This is not an issue on its own. It might be tempting to think that

by numbing yourself to your emotions, you will be able to have a

much smoother life and better performance. That might look like

one solution to deal with it. I see people often go on that route,

mostly unconsciously. Many players shut down from the neck

down, numbing themselves to their feelings. The problem is that

by doing so, they numb themselves down to being human. This

usually numbs them to experiencing life more fully, and having

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deeper connection in their relationships and intimacy with their

significant other.

So before you try to get rid of your human part of you; and numb

yourself to your emotions, there is a better way out there.

Deepening your understanding on how the nature of human

experience works, thus, getting a different relating to thoughts

and feelings. That way, it becomes less frightening and interfering

with your life and performance, and rather starts to enrich your

life beyond measure.

Having fluctuation in your state of mind is not an issue. It is only an

issue when you get caught up in it and so it ends up interfering with

your capacity to perform.

When someone gets a deeper understanding about that and sees

how we always feel our thinking, and that we have an innate

capacity to cope best with the situations, then that can naturally

help unleash more of his potential. That happened to the client

who I described in the beginning of this chapter as well. When he

realized how his mind works, issues regarding tilt, fear, unstable

confidence and motivation naturally faded out on their own and

he could access his best more of the time. Let's take a closer look

at each of them. First on tilt.

Tilt

I remember one of my early clients a couple years ago was playing

mainly low stakes cash games, being a breakeven player and living

mostly from rakeback, thanks to him grinding a lot. When we

started the work, it was obvious he really holds himself back by

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letting his state of mind interfere with his capacity to perform well.

It's kind of like a bucket with leaks on it. That bucket won't be able

to hold its full capacity of water as it is leaking away.

The problem was coming from a misunderstanding around what

causes his anger. To him, it seemed to come from certain

situations during the game. However, when he started to see that

it's his thinking that causes his anger and he can choose to focus

on playing well instead, that already made a large portion of his

previous tilt go away. Within weeks, he started playing in mid-

stakes, then soon in high stakes games. His capacity was there, but

because of the interference, he couldn't access his best many

times, while also greatly damaging his win rate from the bad

decisions he made during the game when his clear judgment was

clouded. So this area can be important to look into if you feel you

are experiencing tilt while playing. It can greatly improve your

results.

So what is tilt? Tilt is referred to a state when a player gets angry

or frustrated and then goes on to make bad plays. From the

outside-in perspective, it looks like the situation caused his anger

and frustration. Something happened and caused him to feel this

way. His bluff getting caught; another player lucking out on him;

etc. However, as we discussed in the section of 'Where do your

feelings come from?' we can see the experience comes from

Thought in the moment, which the mind projects onto the

situation as the possible cause of it. Then we react to the situation,

not realizing it's our thinking that colors our perception and gives

meaning to what happened. That's just a misunderstanding we

tend to fall into.

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There are certain thoughts appearing in the player's mind, which

are in conflict with what has happened. For example, making a

wrong play, and thinking "I am stupid for making that mistake

again." or "I am just eradicating my previous wins by this stupid

play." or anything else. Most of the times, these thoughts are not

even ones you are consciously aware of; they appear so fast in the

background.

I don't think it's necessary to uncover what thoughts cause you to

get upset, many times as a person gets a deeper understanding on

this inside-out nature of mind, many of these thoughts just fall

away on their own or the person gets caught up in them less and

so he has more capacity to focus on playing well. However,

sometimes I find it is useful to look at situations which cause you

anger and frustration and explore what kind of thoughts look real

and are in conflict with what is happening. Then those thoughts

can be questioned.

When your mind is more in alignment with how reality works in

the area of poker, then you have less noise in the system, less

friction which could cause interference. You resist less what is

happening, as you don't have that much distracted thinking saying

things should be another way than they really are (variance;

mistakes; getting caught with bluffs; other players lucking out;

etc.). You are more in acceptance and allowance with what is, thus,

more in the flow. This results in you responding to situations from

a deeper clarity instead of reacting to them by your clouded

thinking.

Jared Tendler in his Mental Game of Poker book popularized the

mental hand history, which can be a great tool for uncovering

which situations are there in poker where you let your thinking

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cloud your perception. It helped countless players; you might be

one of them as well. This tool is basically a set of questions to

uncover what the situation was, what thought made you react the

way you did and then questioning the validity of that thought, and

changing it to one that is more in alignment with how that aspect

of poker works (i.e. mistakes are always going to happen; there is

variance which makes the game profitable).

The main thing, however, that brings the change is when you no

longer get caught up in thoughts about the situation which caused

you resistance. They might have looked real and you weren't even

aware of them, and thought your frustration came from the

situation, but you can realize it's all made up by the power of

Thought. It's just the form your inner experience takes in the

moment. It's not wrong, nothing to fix about it and no need to fight

it. Just recognize it for what it is and refocus your attention on

what matters; playing the next hand. Then you can more easily

stay immersed in the games and access more of your capacity.

Fear

Now let's take fear. It might look like we are afraid of the situation,

but what we are afraid of is what we think. When those fearful

thoughts are not there, or are not taken seriously, we can focus

instead on just engaging with the task and show up with our

capacity. Situations out there are not fearful; it's our thinking that

can give them a fearful meaning. However, when we forget about

that and think that it's the situation that is scary (playing against

another regular on your limit; going up to higher limit; etc.) then

we will naturally want to avoid it to keep ourselves safe. Being

afraid or feeling uncertainty is not a problem, only if we get lost in

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it and stop ourselves from taking the action we know would serve

us.

How does fear or uncertainty show up for you in poker? It might

be fear of a losing session, fear of moving up in stakes, playing

certain regs, making mistakes or just having a bad month.

It is okay and totally normal. Fear is inevitable as long as you are a

human being, which I guess you are, if you are reading this. We all

face fear. From time to time, fearful thoughts pop up into our head

out of nowhere. What matters more is how we relate to these

thoughts and feelings. If we get lost in them because they look so

real about the situation, we will probably sabotage ourselves, not

act, or interfere with our performance. If we can recognize them

as just the energy that fluctuates in our mind which takes different

forms like fear, anger, joy, gratefulness etc., then we can let it be,

not pay much attention to it and rather focus on what action we

can take and engage with. Then fear can sink into the background.

We don't have to be confident and certain first to take action. It's

just our state of mind, which fluctuates with our thinking and

many times, changes on its own when we instead focus on what

matters.

Unstable confidence

Feelings of confidence, uncertainty or insecurity can fluctuate.

Lack of confidence is not the problem. It's not about injecting

yourself with feel good mantras from motivational videos. That

can sometimes give a boost to the person, and at other times, just

get him even more tense inside. We are confident by our true

nature. In other words, we have a sense of stability underneath

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our ever-changing state of mind. When we have less thinking on

our mind, we see things more clearly; we have access to more of

our inner resources to cope best with situations that are in front

of us. We have better judgment and ability to make more

supportive decisions.

The problem is when we have thoughts clouding our perception

and we don't see clearly. It can be either thoughts of insecurity or

thoughts of overconfidence. Both happen when the player is

caught up in thinking and not in alignment with reality in the

moment. The main thing though is that you don't need to feel

confident to take action or to succeed. Success is a byproduct of

taking action. Your feeling of confidence can fluctuate with your

thinking.

In the case of insecurity, it might reflect thoughts that distort your

perception about your skills, ability, chance of succeeding or other

players’ skills.

In the case of 'overconfidence', it might reflect thoughts that

distort your perception of your skills, ability, chance of succeeding

or other players’ skills.

It comes from the same source. Thought coloring your perception

and clouding your clear seeing. It just creates a different

experience. Problem is when you take the content of your thinking

and let it interfere with focusing on what matters. When you have

less noise in your head, you can better assess your skills, ability, or

other players’ skills and make necessary improvements and

changes.

However, when your perception is clouded by your thinking, it can

hold you back in different ways. For example, insecure thoughts

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can make a player believe he needs confidence before he can play

more, play higher or really succeed. Then, to resolve that feeling

of lack of confidence, players try different coping tools. One can

be about constantly learning poker strategies, which can

hopefully make his feelings of uncertainty go away. This never

happens on a consistent basis, and actually can just amplify the

feeling most of the times. It often happens with players who have

perfectionistic tendencies.

Overconfident thoughts can make a player believe he is much

better than his skills actually are, making him jump into games

where he is the underdog, have blindspots about his leaks and

avoid learning and improving his game.

The solution for both of them is to see Thought creating your

experience and focus on things that matter about improving your

skills, playing well and consistently becoming better.

Motivation

Let's divide the topic of motivation into two parts. First is when

you experience a period where you feel you are in the gray zone,

and not feeling that inspired about poker in general. This is when

people talk about their need for some boost or inspiration to go

for creating something. I wrote about examples of that in Chapter

two, when clients got in touch with an inspiring vision, knowing it's

possible, realizing the potential they have and choosing to step

outside of their comfort zone and create something great. Setting

an inspiring vision and goals can have the effect of energizing you,

getting you into motion and bringing you the initial motivation to

go for something. Now that's about the first type of motivation.

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The second type which people refer to, is when you already set out

to achieve a goal; you were inspired for a while then started having

motivational issues. You might remember the client who I talked

about in the last chapter who had the goal of playing 4.000

spin&go’s per month (133/day) for 4 months, whilst learning a

language, dating, eating well and working out and enjoying life.

A couple weeks into our work, he was already making great

progress, playing every day about 150 games on average, and

slowly the other areas started to fall into place as well, which he

set out in his vision. It was really inspiring to see him making

progress with his vision over the weeks. Then on one of our

sessions, he showed up saying, he doesn’t feel that burning

motivation now, which he felt when he came up with his vision.

This has lead us into a deep exploration on the nature of

motivation and creating results. Motivation is a feeling. It’s not a

prerequisite for making things happen. When we think that we

should feel a certain way before performing an action, that is what

creates the resistance.

When you think you are making progress, you feel motivated.

When you think you are stuck, and nothing is working, and the

poker god is against you, then probably you won’t feel that

motivated.

Our feelings don’t give us a clue about our progress, they show

what thinking we have about our progress.

When you feel like making progress and are feeling confident,

then probably you find it easier to sit down to play or learn. When

you feel uncertain, worried, fearful or insecure, then you might

want to engage with more distracting activities instead of doing

the things you know will make you better player, create results

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and make your goals come true. You might say, 'Well I just don't

feel motivated today.'

The problem with relying on a feeling of motivation for taking

action is that it is short-lived, and ever changing. By its nature, it

must be. It's just a feeling, and by now you know it changes with

our thinking. It's created from a formless, transient energy. If you

keep showing up to becoming better every day regardless of the

fluctuations in your state of mind, improvement will inevitably be

a byproduct of that.

Putting it together

You might be saying ‘alright I get it. It’s in my thinking. So what do

I do with all this? How do I implement it? Where is a technique?’ In

the section of ‘Information vs. Insight’ we explored that when you

insightfully start seeing how the mind works in your everyday life,

your level of understanding starts to deepen, and your relating to

your thoughts and feelings start to change. When you touch a hot

stove, you take away your hand, because you understand where

the pain is coming from. You don’t need a technique for it. When

you understand that your psychological pain is created from

Thought, not from the circumstances, your experience of life

naturally will start to change. I’ve seen it many times with people.

You start getting lost in your thinking less, and gaining back your

stability faster.

Even though for my intellectual mind it was hard to understand it

initially, now I see it takes insights not more information. I

encourage you to appreciate whatever insights you have gained

from this chapter, instead of stressing out on what you should be

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getting. If you keep coming back to this chapter to reread it and

see them more and more in your life, I guarantee it will start

impacting you beyond measure.

So to recap this section; what I'm pointing to is that tilt, fear,

confidence and motivation all come from the natural fluctuation

of our thinking, and it's only a problem if you get lost in it and

mistake it for reality. Then it interferes with you taking the

necessary action, or accessing your best during action (playing,

studying). What's important is to take the action which will realize

your goal, stay the course, engage with the tasks and show up each

day as best as you can on that day. There will be better and worse

days, as it is natural. However, if you stop getting in your own way,

it's surprising how far you can go, how enjoyable poker can be and

how fast you can improve.

SOME THOUGHTS FROM THE CHAPTER

- 100% of our feelings come from our thinking, and not from the

circumstances.

- Our experience in the moment is created from the power of

Thought.

- Thought is a formless energy, which is transient by its nature.

Our mind projects it onto the situations, coloring our

perception of them.

- Suffering comes when we take the content of our thinking and

mistake it for reality.

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- There is a space within us beyond our personal thinking where

our sense of freedom, well-being, wisdom, love, joy and peace

of mind is found.

- Our state of mind (thoughts/feelings) constantly change.

There is a dimension within us which doesn't change. That is

our true nature.

- You don't need to control your thinking and feeling. Enough to

recognize that you are that awareness which is aware of it, and

put your attention on the task in front of you instead.

- We have a capacity to perform well. The interference that gets

in the way is being lost in our thinking and losing our innate

stability.

- Often discussed mental game issues are simply symptoms of

getting caught up in different kinds of thinking that cloud our

access to our innate capacity and wisdom.

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CHAPTER 4:

Turning Pro

Just like any other profession, poker has some requirements as

well if a player wants to be successful and make a great living from

it. Many players initially loved the idea of not having a boss, or a 9-

5 workplace to get to, actually realizing only later that they still

need to be their own boss to manage themselves and their

activities, something that turns out to be difficult for many. Not

only that, but your attitude and mentality towards poker will

impact your performance, results and enjoyment greatly.

In the last chapter, we looked at a deeper understanding on how

human beings work and took that to explore the factors that

impact your performance while playing. Now in this chapter, we

will take this understanding and focus on the other aspects of

being a poker player outside of the sessions. That means areas like

productivity, consistency, professional responsibilities, your

relationship to poker, and being results- vs. process-oriented.

AMATEUR VS. PROFESSIONAL

By this distinction, I don't mean the difference between a

recreational player and someone who makes his living from poker.

The fact is many players can do this full time and still do it with an

amateur attitude. They are usually struggling players. They

haven't turned pro yet.

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The two attitudes make you look at poker completely different,

and thus affect your day-to-day decisions and actions, which will

end up creating different results. An amateur avoids the

discomfort, stays in his comfort zone, is inconsistent and lets other

things be more important than his goal with poker. He is in a victim

mindset, blaming his results on outside circumstances, like

variance or not having enough time because of other things

coming up.

A professional is dedicated, and shows up whether he feels like it

or not. He knows motivation is fleeting, but consistency is

powerful. He shows up as a leader and creator in his life, taking

responsibility for his results. He seeks to become better, and is

willing to look for challenges, because he knows they will make

him better.

One important thing that sets professionals apart is that they

choose to make their poker goals important for them and accept

that it will require them to put in the time and work. If you accept

that it will not be easy and fun always, but rather uncomfortable

at times, it will change your expectations and you can just keep

showing up to do the things, knowing it's part of the journey.

If you feel you are not getting the results you want, it might be time

for some honest self-reflection. Look at how you have approached

poker, how dedicated you have been, what priorities you had. If

you find a goal that really matters to you, just get clear on what it

would require from you to make it happen. Then, you can make the

decision to say "hell yeah, I'm in, let's do this" and you can show up

from then on with a professional attitude.

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A PROFESSIONAL ATTITUDE WITH A BEGINNER'S HEART

When you read about putting in the hours, having a great work

ethic and being consistent, it can either inspire you or cause

resistance depending on your current state of mind. It can seem

like the key to success is more effort. Well, yes and no.

One way to go about making things happen is by pushing yourself,

gathering lots of self-discipline and willpower, and getting

yourself to do the things. One can say it is about putting in more

effort. This approach, many times, produces improvement and

results, simply because the person takes action and does the work,

which is a prerequisite for creating anything in life. However,

relying only on willpower and self-discipline can lead to burnout

and less fulfillment in poker.

What I see, however, that produces not just great results, but

more sense of enjoyment and fulfillment as well is a blend of

lightness and seriousness. Effort and effortlessness. Self-

discipline plus genuine interest and love for poker. Having a

focused intention, showing up consistently whilst also knowing

your life, self-worth and well-being are not on the line. Showing up

with a professional attitude but with a beginner's heart.

When most players started on their poker journey in the

beginning, they were driven by a great level of enthusiasm,

curiosity, genuine interest and love for the game. It put them into

a state where their mind was like a sponge. They learned really

fast.

They didn't put that much pressure and expectations on

themselves; they weren't all serious and tense. They didn't judge

their own skills, results and abilities that harshly yet.

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This all made them enjoy poker more and engage with it more

fully. In turn, it made them improve a lot in a short amount of time.

By our nature, we are designed and optimized for learning and

creating results. As babies, we learned by having a genuine

interest and curiosity towards things, which directed the vast

potential of our mind that way and we could make improvements.

We learned that way to walk, talk, write, and later on, maybe

develop more sophisticated arts and skills as well. When we have

this lighthearted curiosity and interest in getting better at

something, whilst showing up to engage in it, that will inevitably

make us get better and create results.

No matter what field I worked with elite performers, I saw there

were a couple things that produced their results.

1. They had a focused intention. They had a drive and

interest to get better or create results.

2. They took action and engaged with their field (poker,

sport, business).

3. They gave it enough time and showed up consistently.

The source of their drive might have been varying, but what was

constant is the fact that they had a focused intention on getting

better or creating results, and they showed up consistently.

Once I was working with a client for 3 months, which ended up

bringing a really powerful insight for me. She was a national

champion in sports pole dancing and wanted coaching to help her

prepare for the world championship, which she qualified for. I

haven't really met many people who were as committed,

dedicated and driven as her. She got into pole dancing at 35 years

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old, and within 3 years, she became the national champion without

much of a background in any athletic interest. She became the

best in a field where most other competitors were in their peak

levels in their twenties with having almost their whole lifetime

dedicated to the athletic fields.

Seeing how much she tapped into her potential was truly inspiring

for me. What created this outstanding result for her? For three

years, tons of hours of practice every day, pushing herself to her

limits, often getting to the point of crying at the training sessions

because of the pain and inner frustration.

She was reaching amazing performance levels and producing

phenomenal results, but had tons of frustrations, which negatively

affected her sense of fulfillment and relationship with her partner

and daughter.

During our conversations, she realized her drive came from a need

to prove herself and her self-worth. She didn't love herself. She

realized on a deeper level that she still wanted to win her parents’

approval, especially her dad's. Slowly, these previously

unconscious thoughts started to seem less true to her, and she

realized her innate self-worth more.

At one point, a few weeks into our work, she told me she decided

to finish competing in the sport. She said she had one more

competition a week later, which she would attend and then she is

done. She realized she doesn't need to prove herself anymore, and

started to love herself. Her life and relationships were filled with

more joy. I was like "Damn, what did I do? She approached me to

get her to be the best at the world championship and now she

quits." Back then, I didn't fully have a greater trust in the innate

wisdom within us and the intelligence of life yet.

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So she went on to compete, where she ended up getting third

place with a great performance, though many other competitors

thought she deserved the first place.

She was full of joy after the event, no signs of regret. We parted

ways, and then about a month later, I checked in with her. She said

"Life is amazing like never before, I'm so happy. And guess what, I

have found a new hobby, a different kind of sport, air gymnastics,

but this time the source of my drive and my trainings are so

different. It's not about pushing and forcing, but just showing up

loving this hobby and spending time with it."

I was genuinely happy for her. A couple months later, I saw on her

feed, that she ended up winning a championship title in her new

sport. I still remember that was a really insightful moment for me.

On one level, I realized there is a deeper wisdom about how our

life turns out, and we don't have to control that much from our

head. On another level, I could see that creating results don't have

to be about pushing or forcing oneself. It can come from loving the

thing we are engaging with and having a genuine interest in

getting better. The latter usually brings more joy and fulfillment

with the process as well.

So what I think is the best way to approach poker or any endeavor

is on one hand, having a professional attitude to accept that

putting in the hours and engaging with the thing is a prerequisite,

and doing it consistently regardless of someone's mood. On the

other hand, it's about having a beginner's heart. A joy, curiosity

and love for poker, as well as a genuine interest in wanting to

understand it more deeply, get better at it and create great

results.

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This combination inevitably produces greater performance,

improvement and results over time.

FALLING IN LOVE WITH POKER

Probably you have experienced the fluctuation of your love for

poker over the years. Let's do a quick exercise. Take a minute or

two and reflect on a time when you felt passion, curiosity and love

for the game.

I guess you loved spending time on it, it was easy to get yourself to

play or study, you learned fast and probably experienced better

performance more often while playing.

Now think back to a time where you felt indifferent about poker,

or even hated it or you just didn't have the passion and interest for

the game.

What did you experience there about your performance, your

volume and level of improvement? Probably these weren't as

great as in the first example.

We don't have to be a genius to notice the people who have

become really outstanding in what they were doing, had this

obsession about it. Simply, to get good at something requires time

and energy, especially in the beginning. Without having that drive,

it's hard to put in the hours.

So if loving poker can have a huge impact on your performance

and ability to learn, how can it be influenced?

By now, from the previous chapter, you know that our feeling

about something is made up of Thought. That's why we can feel

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totally different about something in one moment to the other, all

whilst the thing has stayed the same.

Our perspective is made up and can change. It doesn't reflect the

ultimate truth about something. How many times have you

changed your perspective about something?

I've heard before that Spin&Go is monotone and boring, whilst

also from other players that it's the best type of game ever. Same

with MTTs, or cash games. So which one is true?

Neither. It's neutral. It is as it is. Poker is neutral. Not bad, not

good, not ugly, not beautiful or whatever. Remember, nothing has

meaning except the meaning we give to it.

It makes me remember a player who used to be in one of my

programs; he left the spin&go’s because he hated the 3-handed

games and changed to HU. After a while, he returned to spin&go’s

and now loves it. Spin&go stayed the same, however, his thoughts

and feelings changed about it, thus, it colored his perception of it

differently than before.

I could also make the example about studying. Some players love

it, some hate it.

In one of my group programs, I remember we had two players who

hated it, so obviously didn't spend much time studying. We talked

about it on one of the calls, and they were willing to look at it with

fresh eyes as a clean sheet of paper, and be open to the possibility

that it might actually be enjoyable.

The next week, they showed up for the next call saying they loved

studying the games. I still remember one of them said he got so

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much in the flow of it that he studied for 5 hrs straight! Talk about

a big shift in perspective!

Obviously, this had a good impact on their poker skills as well.

Learning or implementing something new can usually give an

extra boost of motivation for poker from the feeling of making

progress.

Although, if you find yourself at a time when you don't have the

love for poker, it might seem difficult to change your perspective

about it; here are couple pointers which can help start this

process. Just like starting a snowball from the top of a snowy

mountain can gain momentum and get bigger, here you might

need a little push as well for the beginning.

1. Desire and intention

The first step is usually to have the desire to reconnect with

the passion and interest for the game, or how I like to say, "Fall

in love with poker."

The desire gives you a target and the intention helps you to

focus your mind in that direction. When you genuinely want to

enjoy or love something, it starts to direct the vast potential of

your mind, and starts a process within you.

Although, in and of itself, desire and intention don’t mean you

end up enjoying and loving something; still it makes it

exponentially more possible.

2. Possibility

I mentioned some examples of how players have shifted their

attitudes towards playing or studying, but you can also find

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occasions from your past to see how your perspective can

change from one period to the next.

Often, we close ourselves down to that possibility by saying

"It's not possible." We close down our minds to see something

in a new, fresh perspective.

However, if we put aside our momentary resistance and start

from the premise that it is possible, even if we don't yet know

how, that is already enough to start the process.

3. Nature of Thought

By now, you know that the nature of thought is ever-changing.

It's not solid, it's made up, a transient energy. If you

understand this fact, it makes you less likely to get stuck in

certain ways of looking at the world, as you realize it's not

reality, but just a momentary way of perception. Also seeing

that something by itself doesn't have a meaning, and only our

thoughts give it one, that can help in the process of changing

perspective as well.

4. What do you focus on?

If you focus on what's not good in poker or studying, probably

it won't attract you that much.

Thoughts can appear like, "I'm not a good player and won't be

one"; "I'm not improving"; "there is no point putting in the time and

effort"; "it's a total waste of time to sit here if I keep losing anyway";

"I don't feel I'm improving by studying"; "I don't know how to

approach studying, it's too complex" etc.

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These are meanings attached to poker and learning the game

which suppress passion and enthusiasm. No wonder these

thoughts produce resistance, doubts and insecurities.

However, if you direct your focus towards finding signs of

small improvements, and what you can appreciate in poker,

whilst accepting there will be easier and harder times, then

this can bring a positive momentum with itself.

By themselves, these points don't guarantee that you will end up

enjoying and loving poker more, however, they can start shifting

your perspective.

In practice:

If you want to bring this into practice in a more concrete way, then

you might create a little game for yourself for 7 or 30 days, where

your focus can be "Falling in love with poker" or "Appreciating the

beauty of poker" or “Enjoying poker” or any other slogan with

which you resonate with.

Be open, start small, set the desire and intention and know that it

is possible, even if you don't yet clearly know how it will turn out.

Also just accept that your thoughts/feelings/perception about

poker will fluctuate, and they are illusory in nature and not an

ultimate truth about reality.

Here are a couple questions that can help you bring a new

perspective:

1. What is it in poker that you don't like, but is important to

do?

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2. Can you see that if you liked it then you would approach it

differently? Would this perspective make you more

productive and efficient?

3. Right now, what meaning do you attach to the thing you

don't like (why don't you like it)? Can you see this meaning

is thought created and not the absolute truth?

4. Have you heard about someone liking the thing you don't?

Was there a time before when you liked it more? What

does this tell you?

5. If desire and intention matter, would you set them in the

direction of possibly getting to like the thing?

These questions can help you wake up from the grip of your

current perspective and start the process of getting a different

one. Look up these questions whenever you feel you need some

notch towards a fresh perspective.

Now this section on falling in love with poker doesn't mean that

you would first have to feel love/curiosity before you can show up

to do your tasks; that again would put it in the category which we

talked about before needing confidence/motivation/other

feelings before performing a task. Your feelings change and

fluctuate, so will your love for the game on the surface. However,

with directing your awareness towards appreciating this game,

you will end up loving and enjoying it more often, which will enable

you to access more of your potential, improve faster and play

better.

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PRODUCTIVITY & PROCRASTINATION

You might know this feeling: You wake up in the morning, do your

errands and as you have already read from many productivity

articles; you might even write your To-Do list for the day, thinking

that today will be super productive.

But as the day progresses, it’s already afternoon and you’re still

yet to get into your tasks, which you just keep putting off, finding

yourself randomly browsing the internet, Facebook, refreshing

Gmail or chatting up people on Skype.

You feel even more stressed and guilty that you wasted so many

precious hours without doing useful things…

How could we become more efficient at doing the things?

I hear a lot from people that they want to stop procrastinating that

much. They beat themselves up about it, might even read many

articles on how to be more productive and implement numerous

techniques, but still find themselves randomly putting things off.

So why do we procrastinate?

Many times, it is regarded as the bad guy holding someone back

from really being successful. However, procrastination is just a

symptom.

Let’s say a player sets the goal of playing 3 x 2-hour long sessions

that day. When he finds himself not playing as much as he set out

to play, and puts the sessions off, there is usually some resistance

behind that. Procrastination is a way to cope with the

uncomfortable feelings of resistance within.

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Procrastination is not so much different than any other way

people (mostly) unconsciously escape their uncomfortable feeling

states into different non-supporting activities like alcohol,

smoking, drugs, overeating, endless series/movie watching, porn…

There is a feeling of discomfort within (which is created from

Thought) and then the person seeks relief by engaging in

something, and finds that he feels better, and credits the change

in his feelings to the activity. What actually happens is that his

focus is taken off from those thoughts that caused his discomfort

and that's why he can end up feeling better. His actions were just

coming from an outside-in misunderstanding about where

feelings come from.

So rather than dealing with the symptom (procrastination), let’s

understand better how that resistance arises.

It might look like your resistance is coming from the given task (for

example playing a poker session, or sitting down to study the

game). However, if really that was the source of your resistance,

that would mean you would always have to feel this way, and

every person as well, but that’s not the case.

Sometimes you might find yourself in a confident, enthusiastic,

stressed, frustrated, anxious or any other feeling state about

playing, studying or doing any tasks. Isn't it true? You might feel

totally different about a task one day vs. another day.

Because our feelings are just showing what kind of thinking we

have in the moment, 100% of our feelings come from thought in

the moment, not from outside things.

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When you realize that what you are up to is just some resisting or

stressful thoughts, and not an inherently scary task, that can ease

up your inner experience and resistance.

The task at hand is actually neutral, it has no meaning. It’s not

good, bad, stressful or whatever. It has no meaning, except the

meaning you give it through your thoughts.

Your resistance might come from thoughts like “I don’t want to

play now, but I should” or some other thoughts about fearing to

lose, or not feeling in the “right state", but you should. That’s the

source of your resistance.

One thing that caused me frustration so many times is the advice

you can hear in the areas of personal development and sports

psychology, which is to “change your state.” Many times I just got

frustrated about not being in the right state for doing things,

whether it was doing a task, standing up for speaking in public or

approaching a cute woman.

However, the only time our feeling state holds us back from

performing a task is when we think we need to be in a certain state

to perform the task.

Our feelings change with our thinking. When our attention is not

on resisting the thing, or trying to manage/control our feelings and

thinking, but rather we put our attention on the task, and just

show up and start doing the thing, we find that it is surprisingly

easy sometimes to just get into the flow after 5-20 mins.

One of my favorite quotes is from Ralph Waldo Emerson:

“Do the thing, and you will get the energy to do the thing.”

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We can make our breakfast feeling confident, and we can make it

feeling stressed or fearful. We can take a shower feeling

enthusiastic, and we can take it feeling anxious.

It doesn’t matter if we just do the thing.

The same goes for a poker session or other tasks. When you just

show up, and not resist, you are naturally getting back to your

default “flow” state, and can perform the task.

So whenever you feel resistance about doing your task, just ask

the question: “Where do I think my feeling comes from? Is it from the

task or my thinking?"

You don’t have to do anything about your thinking, no need to

change or control it. It’s enough to just notice and understand that

it is what it is now. Instead, put your attention on doing the thing

no matter how you feel. You might be surprised how well you can

go on performing many times when, before, all your cells resisted

the task you had. Also, it's worth noting here that there are days

which are just totally off; even if you show up and go for it, you just

feel that you don't have the mojo that day to perform well. That

happens from time to time, but it's impressive how many times

when it looks like one of those days in the beginning, it turns out

to be a really productive one if you just show up and engage with

the tasks.

(I'm just putting this note here. For example, my day today. I woke

up feeling like a train ran over me last night, and didn't really find

my mojo in the morning. I guess you’ve probably had one of those

days before. All I knew was to just show up regardless. Though the

whole morning I felt a bit off, just by showing up and doing the

tasks, it ended up as a day where I made one of the most progress

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on writing this book. So how you wake up and feel has no

indication about how much you can progress that day with your

goal).

Here is the mantra:

Show up, and respond to what shows up!

It means show up to your task, start doing it, put aside the

expectations and respond to what arises. Consider going with this

mantra the next couple days. Take this as a little exercise and see

how your outlook might change on topics like productivity or

procrastination.

YOUR INNER THERMOSTAT

I wrote about one of my clients in the first chapter. We had one of

our calls in early November where he shared he had his best, most

successful month in October during his 8 year career as a

professional. We worked hard on making this a reality over the 2

months before that when we started the work.

This is great in itself. However, in the beginning days of November,

he was really unmotivated, found it hard to get out of bed in the

morning and was not really putting in the hours into the work.

When he shared this on our call, I knew what was going on.

Something they call "inner thermostat". An inner comfort zone in

which we are comfortable to be, as long as we are inside its

boundaries. When we get away either upside or downside from

this thermostat, an inner process kicks in to change our behaviors

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to get back to the comfortable level. It can be in business, finances

or weight as well.

Maxwell Maltz wrote a famous book on it, called

Psychocybernetics. In short, basically he likened the brain to a

cybernetic mechanism, similar to how rockets or autopilots in an

airplane operate to coursecorrect whenever the system feels it

gets off from the set target. Kind of how our inner thermostat or

what he called ‘our self-image’ operates.

We worked on the steps, which you can find in this book as well,

gaining clarity, shifting his mentality and implementing new rituals

and practices. All this supported him to achieve his 4-month goal

in 2 months, but then, after he achieved his goal, he started

sabotaging himself. Gave up what worked. Got off course.

What he needed now was to update his old thermostat, realizing

his innate potential, letting go of the old story and setting new

targets. This thermostat or self-image is nothing more than a

collection of thoughts we hold to be true about ourselves, our

capabilities and potential. Usually, we are totally unaware of it, but

how our life looks like is a good reflection on that. When someone

starts seeing that his potential to create things is pretty

extraordinary if given enough focus, right work and time, that

insight can start questioning the old perceived limitations that

acted as a comfort zone.

Start putting yourself into the reality that you are already the

player you want to become, playing at the desired level, earning

how much you would like to. Feel into this, know it's possible and

make it your reality now. This is your new poker identity. If you

start engaging with this, whilst doing the work, soon, your

circumstances will manifest around you as well, which will be in

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alignment with your inner reality. Usually, circumstances need

time to reflect that; just know that it is coming.

This is what we did with this client in the beginning as well. He set

his poker vision, realized it was possible and started imagining he

was already the player he wanted to be, not in the future, but now.

Like, it would be his reality. Within 2 months, he reached his goals.

Now, he again needed to upgrade his poker identity to tap into

more of his potential. We will see how it turns out.

To end the story, after that call, he slowly regained his stability, set

new goals and got back on course with the right schedule and

practices.

POSITIVE FEEDBACK LOOP

One thing I often emphasize to clients is the importance of

directing their focus on finding clues on improvements and

making progress that shows their new desired reality unfolding

and desired results taking shape. It puts them in an upward spiral.

This brings momentum, certainty, motivation that will feed him

even more, help him perform even better and learn faster.

On the other side, if you focus on thoughts about not making

progress, struggling or falling behind, you will sabotage yourself

and get off course. You won't show up, or if you do, you will be half-

assing it, not being fully there giving your best.

Just see it for yourself. Look back in the past how each direction of

your focus affected you (focusing on finding clues for progress vs.

focusing on stagnating/being stuck).

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Here are the two loops to illustrate it:

Positive spiral:

1. Looking at current situation & finding progress /

improvement

2. Produces thoughts of motivation, confidence and high

self-worth

3. Prompts action, vision and momentum

vs. Negative spiral:

1. Looking at current situation & comparing against ideal

results

2. Produces thoughts of self-judgment and criticism, which

creates frustration, stress and low self-worth

3. Prompts avoidance, procrastination & time wasting

Players with a perfectionistic tendency will often gravitate to the

second spiral with their internal focus. If you know you have that

tendency, just notice it and redirect your focus again on finding

clues for progress.

With that said, it doesn't mean ignoring areas where you could still

be better, that wouldn't serve you. However, when you look for

improvements, just notice if you have thoughts that cause you to

doubt your potential to achieve your goal, or make you feel you

are a bad player or you can't improve, etc. These are not helpful

thoughts, and are not true, so ignore them. Learn from possible

mistakes and see that the fact that you recognized room for

improvement is making progress. You've got this, go for it!

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CHECKING THE POKER GRAPH

You might remember the client I wrote about in chapter two, who

set the goal of playing 4000 spin&go’s/month for 4 months.

After a couple weeks into our work, we talked about why he

checked the poker graph so much. I felt it just held him back by

disturbing his mind. So he set the goal of not checking the graph

for the whole next month.

It was tough for him going through that month. During the whole

month, he kept writing in his journal how it is a bad idea not to

check graph, how badly things might be going for him, how he

misses looking at it and how it would even improve his

performance and motivation if he could check it. It was interesting

to witness his fluctuating thoughts and state of mind week after

week.

However, he ended up not checking the graph for the month, so

respect for his commitment. It turned out to be a record month for

him. Now, isn't that funny and really insightful? It shows that your

thinking about your progress and results can be totally out of

alignment with reality. He had many thoughts about how bad he

was doing, how his game sucked, etc. but it didn't reflect reality. So

why should you take these thoughts seriously that randomly pop

into your head? It's just mind chatter, which fluctuates. He actually

ended up not checking the graph the next month either and it

again produced a really great month.

Later on, he shared his thoughts about his experience in a post in

one of my groups:

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"I don’t want to make this a 'not checking my results made me into

a Phil Ivey' but rather I want to shed some light on some of the

benefits I've been experiencing so far.

Before, I was checking my results constantly. I thought that it

clears my mind because I see what is the real quality of my play in

the graph. I checked it multiple times during a day. I thought that

when I see a bad graph that motivates me to play better and when

I see a good graph that motivates me to keep going.

Then I accepted Tamas' challenge of not checking my results for a

month. I was pretty skeptical and didn’t feel right at the beginning.

After the days passed, I completely lost track of what my winnings

may look like. At that point, I was in the dark and in the dark I saw

my sessions and my plays much more critically. I felt like each

session was a bit bad and that I didn’t bring high enough quality.

Because I didn’t see the graph, my mind got room to estimate

things. And my estimations were always pessimistic and this

pessimism strived me to play better. At least that’s how I explain

it. In any case, after 1 month I checked my results and it was one of

my best months in my life. It’s for sure because of variance too, but

I think if I would have seen my month 20 days in, I would have

played the last 10 differently. Less concentrated or with less

volume or something like that. Because, I would have been

satisfied already with my results. So I think that’s where not

checking results help. It just helps you to focus more on your game,

strategy and individual hands rather than the big picture. The big

picture is worthless in poker. The big picture is built by the small

decisions so the small decisions matter; and not checking the

results improves just that.

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So since then, I didn’t check my results for another 30 days and I

made another killer month. Sure, it’s still variance too, but I think

not checking my results really help in keeping my A game up."

So let's look deeper at what goes on with checking the graph and

results.

Looking at the poker graph I believe is neutral, not good, and not

bad. However, since we are humans, and have our own personal

thinking, it usually causes some problems for players.

The problem is not the fact of checking short term results or the

graph. It's a problem when there is thinking, which says that it is a

good indicator for progress, and a good measurement of one's

actual skills.

Why can it be a problem?

If you check it during sessions, and you have lots of excess thinking

about it in your mind, it takes up some of your mental bandwidth,

which could be used for making the best decision in the moment

and performing at your best.

It can be accompanied by personal thinking about your

performance, your results, your image as a player and so on, and if

you get caught up in that, you are out of the flow, and it limits

access to your best.

If you are not watching the graph during the session, but after it or

end of the day, looking at it can be a problem for the same reasons

basically.

You can have excess personal thinking about it. If you get caught

up in those thoughts, they can stop you from doing the things that

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actually produce results in the long term. You might start doubting

yourself and your abilities. You might have more resistance to

playing, lose motivation, feel like you are not making progress,

lose confidence and put yourself in a downward spiral, whilst you

might have been doing really well, playing, studying, improving,

but you don't notice it, because you are focused on short term

results affected by the inevitable variance.

What’s behind checking the graph for you?

Take couple minutes, and reflect on times you looked at the graph,

and see why you did so.

What emotional/mental state are you in when you get the urge to

check it?

What do you secretly hope to gain by the behavior?

Though our behaviors might not make sense sometimes, by

looking at them from our mind’s perspective, they perfectly do.

If someone thinks smoking is unhealthy but still smokes, on one

level, his brain finds it logical, it gives him some hidden benefits (i.e.

sense of calmness and relaxation, connection with himself/other

people around, sense of variety…)

Same with any behavior, and checking a poker graph as well.

What I've seen is that usually, behind the urge to check results, is

having an insecure state of mind in the moment (due to being lost

in personal thinking), and trying to gain some stability and

certainty.

There is a sense of uncertainty you might experience during a

session or the day about whether or not you are doing okay,

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progressing well, are on track and so on. Personal thinking

generates this uncertainty, which is normal. However, trying to

regain certainty by checking the results is not the best solution, as

usually, that gives a skewed view of your progress. It provides a

patch on the symptom. The cause is the excess personal thinking,

which creates worry and uncertainty.

So what can be a better solution?

Shifting your mind to look for progress in things that are in your

control and the cause of your results. Also insightfully seeing that

checking the graph and results constantly is usually rooted in a

misunderstanding and is used as a way to cope with the feeling of

uncertainty.

You could see above from the example of that client, how thoughts

can be totally misleading. It's easy to fall into believing them and

worry endlessly, which would just take you off course. I can't

emphasize this enough. In the last step of this book, we will create

your roadmap on how to produce results, and then all you have to

do is stay on the course. Do the things consistently which will

produce the results. The only thing that gets you off course is

believing too much of your personal thinking.

When someone has a results-oriented mindset, which interferes

with his performance, I usually recommend a two-step solution.

One is to avoid looking at the graph and results for a while, and

checking it less frequently. Maybe once a week in the beginning,

then once every two weeks or a month.

The other step is to shift from results- to a process-oriented

mindset and start looking for better indicators and measurements

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for long-term success and progress. We'll look at it in the next

section.

From my experience, starting small can help slowly leave the habit

of 'checking short term results for progress' behind. I've seen

many players who could change their relationship to this habit by

setting a couple days of not checking it, then longer periods,

meanwhile realizing that it's not really a good indicator of

progress.

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FROM RESULTS- TO PROCESS-ORIENTED

One thing I want to help my clients with is to gain more certainty

about reaching their goals. One helpful method is really

understanding how results are created, which we covered in

chapter 2, seeing that your desired result already exists here and

now as a possibility, just like many different potential realities, can

happen as well for you. However, knowing this can make you look

at your goal differently. Not hoping, but knowing that it is possible,

and it is one of many realities of how your life an turn out, and you

choose this one. It makes you realize that the potential is there for

it to happen (or I could say you have the potential to create it;

there might be just some old doubtful thoughts making it look

otherwise).

Another way to gain more certainty is really getting clear on what

actions you need to do that will create the results. If you get clear

on that, and focus on showing up consistently, being fully there,

we can say the result will take care of itself, you don't have to

worry about it.

The result is the end, you can't directly influence it. You can

influence the cause that creates the results. So why would you

focus on the result? It just messes with your thinking.

Clients often set out to not check the graph for a while (usually in

the beginning for a couple days), and next to that, we also come up

with other performance indicators that could be more useful to

measure.

These are:

1. How many hours did you play that day?

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2. How was the quality?

3. How many hours did you study?

4. How was the quality?

Basically, if you put in the hours into playing and studying; and do

it in great quality it MUST produce improvement and results over

time. This is inevitable. Your best chance of getting the results you

want is to focus all your effort on the action steps that make it

happen. That's the professional attitude.

You can come up with different indicators as well if you find some

that are useful to measure, and then you can create an excel sheet

to track each day, and put in the amount of hours and rate 1-5 the

questions on quality. You might also leave some space to jot down

some notes about the day.

All you need to do is make each day a masterpiece! It will add up

to something truly outstanding, I promise.

That's what the philosophy of John Wooden was, probably the

greatest basketball coach ever. He was famous for winning ten

NCAA championships in a 12-year period as a head coach of the

UCLA college basketball team. Also at one point his team won 88

consecutive games in a row!

He said to his players, "If your friends can tell whether or not you

won the match that day, you are focusing on the wrong thing." He

knew the right focus was on the things in their control, and the

result will take care of itself over the long-term.

His method was to eliminate the future. He called it, "Make each

day a masterpiece." When he got his whole team to devote all their

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skills and attention to ‘today’s Wednesday afternoon practice’

(instead of the upcoming “big game”), they became the Zen

Masters of college basketball. Linear thinkers could not beat

them, because Wooden’s boys were always in the moment they

were in.

He knew that if the players just focus on making the most of today,

it would end up taking them to the best end result in the future.

Consistent, focused work over time compounds into greatness.

SOME THOUGHTS FROM THE CHAPTER

- An amateur avoids discomfort, and dabbles with his

consistency. A professional accepts that the process won't

always feel easy and fun, and devotes himself to doing the

things which lead to improvement and results.

- Having a professional attitude with a beginner's heart

makes you enjoy poker more, learn faster and perform

better, whilst creating greater results on the long-term.

- Having a love for poker can be influenced, and can act as a

catalyst for more engagement and enjoyment, which leads

to better results.

- Good mantra for more productivity: show up regardless of

your state of mind, and respond to what shows up.

- By directing your focus on finding clues for improvement

and making progress on your goal, it will put you in an

upward spiral, which can bring momentum, certainty and

motivation.

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- Focusing on indicators which are in your control and lead

to long-term success helps you get into a process-oriented

mindset, making each day your masterpiece.

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STEP 3:

CREATING YOUR POKER SYSTEM

“You were born to win. But to be a winner,

you must plan to win, prepare to win, and

expect to win.”

- Arnold Schwarzenegger

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CHAPTER 5:

High Performance Strategies

Up until this point, we focused mainly on getting clarity on your

situation and what you want to create. We also talked about a

different way of looking at the creation process, and how the

human mind works and what's the nature of the human

experience. We also talked about how this relates to areas in

poker, which can help you to more frequently access your best. All

the discussion till this point was to support you in being able to do

the things that will produce the results. We talked about it before

as well, but you can only create things in the world if you are taking

action. We could say taking the right action and with the right

focus.

In this last part of the book we will focus on practical approaches

and tools that will help you focus your energy on the right things

to see improvements in your skills and results.

I call this ‘creating your poker system’ because you essentially

want to build a reliable process that will eventually lead to

improvement and great results, and all you need to do is to just

show up and take action on it. You want to take out the second

guessing, and have clarity instead. Knowing what to do, and what

not to do in order to get the results you desire.

This will help tremendously with something that many players

find difficult: managing yourself and your activities.

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SETTING VISION & INTENTIONS

In the first part of the book, we discussed in length the importance

of getting clear on what you want, and putting your focus on that.

Instead of focusing on what you don't want, or the lack of

something, focus on your desired outcome. This has so much

power to it. This can really impact you and your decisions in your

everyday life.

Here, I want to talk about it in practical ways. What I usually ask

clients to do in the beginning of our work together is to spend

some time reflecting on what they really want.

It can be about creating a one- or three-year vision for poker

and/or other areas in your life, and writing it out. Some people

resonate with this, if you are one of them, just go ahead.

What I like to do usually is to just take certain areas in my life:

career, finance, relationships, personal or health, and write out

how I want that area to look like in my life. Sometimes, I add a date

to it (for example, by March 31st), but many times I don't. It's not

time constrained. It doesn't really matter much; what's more

important is to get a clear intention on the reality you want in your

life and taking it through the process below.

You want to write it down. Take half an hour or so. It doesn't have

to be perfect, you just need to have it. When writing, use

present/past tense. Otherwise, with future tense, your mind will

always look at it as something in the future, something that never

comes. You want to make it look like this is your reality now.

Then, you can take each of these intentions one by one and spend

a bit of time reflecting on them. Look at them from the perspective

we discussed in chapter 2. Recognize that it already exists now as

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a possible 'future reality' for you, one out of many. It already exists

as a possibility here energetically in the formless energetic field.

Feel into it like it is your reality now. You can imagine it, or just feel

it, going through each area you described. The point of this

exercise is to get you to a point where your doubts about its

attainment start falling away, and you come from a sense of

knowing. You know that it already exists, and you just bring your

focus on it, feel into it and show up from this place; take action and

after a while it can come into fruition in your physical

circumstances as well.

In the beginning, you might have lots of doubtful thinking,

resistance or fear about imagining this reality. It's to be expected.

Just accept it, and keep on with this exercise once a day, or more

if you like. After a couple days, you might start to see your

relationship to this vision has changed and it can seem more and

more possible. This is great because it will impact you

subconsciously as well, and so impact your decisions and actions

to guide you in this direction.

What I tend to see in my own life is usually that those intentions

that I fully align myself with and focus on are the ones that show

up, sometimes really precisely.

With this process, we could say you plant a seed in your mind of

the reality you want, and by you focusing on it, taking action and

giving it enough time, it can show up in your outer world as well.

By planting the seed and focusing on that, your mind will direct

you with your decisions in the best way. It can impact your

decisions in poker and outside of poker as well.

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You might write for example:

- I am a successful, winning player on the NL600-NL1000

games by March 31. I enjoy poker, and consistently

improve and get better.

- I have a $30,000 bankroll.

Write out what you want your poker reality to look like. Then just

focus on these intentions as already existing, feel into it day in and

day out. Imagine that you are already a player who is on that level

where you want to play at. That's who you are now. Make it your

identity. Start showing up from that place. If you are playing

NL100, start thinking of yourself as a NL400 player. When you

start planting this seed, it will impact the decisions you make in

life, in poker, even during poker sessions, which are made up of

thousands of small decisions.

You might want to re-read chapter two at this point to let this

perspective further sink in. This inner shift in perspective is the

key that makes goal-setting work.

Most people just write down goals they want, but still

energetically focus on the lack of it, so no wonder it doesn't show

up. Their focus is on the lack. I'm not a religious person, but I like

the deeper truth in this quote from Jesus: "For whoever has, to

him more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but

whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away

from him."

This is what he referred to by that. Our energetic state is what

determines what we bring to creation in our life.

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The truth is, you don't even need to set goals if you put yourself in

the energetic state of abundance and success and focus on what

you want. Coming from that, you will end up creating great things.

That's why there are people out there who achieved great things

without writing goals down or whatever. However, since this

energetic state of abundance is not the standard operating place

for many people, I recommend you consciously set intentions,

focus on them and align yourself internally with them. It will have

a huge impact.

PRODUCTIVITY

Creating results basically comes down to having a focused

intention and consistently showing up, taking action and making

improvements. In this process, it can be really helpful to get clear

on exactly what the main things are that impact your results, and

what things are taking away your focus and should be limited or

eliminated.

First, you want to get clear on the priorities. If you really want to

make great results happen in poker, you have to make it a priority

in your life. Make it more important for you than spending your

time and energy on time wasting activities. That's the first

decision you have to make for yourself. A commitment to your

intention and doing what it requires.

The next step is to get clear on the actions that produce the result.

What are the main things in poker? Define them.

Usually, players say they are playing & studying.

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Other things are there to make you be able to perform these two

even better. Doing these two are the ones that move the needle

(besides your focus and mindset).

So if you are clear on that, you can build your poker business

around how you can maximize the reward for your efforts in these

two. Usually, it comes down to uncovering what NOT to do, and

eliminating those things. These are the distractions that take away

your focus and drain your energy, and thus, hold you back from

performing at your best.

What are the things you do that are distractions? Make a list.

For example:

- Social media (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger,

Whatsapp)

- YouTube

- Browsing the internet

- Skype, Discord

All these can have useful aspects, and can be part of your life.

However, they can negatively impact your focus and energy,

which could have been spent on making your dreams a reality.

How do you usually feel when you engage mindlessly in these

activities? I know I get drained most of the time. It's just

unnecessary stimulation for my brain.

They are hugely addictive for the brain. They produce same

hormones (i.e. dopamine) which are there at other forms of

addictions as well (smoking, drugs and alcohol). So it's a good first

step to recognize that your brain is addicted to these, then you can

approach it differently.

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Here are a few things that can help you limit distractions.

1. Turn off all notifications on your phone/computer

You got to give up living a reactive life basically reacting to all

the outside stimuli that come towards you. Your mind will be

restless (producing just more personal thinking and stress). It

negatively impacts your energy, sleep and relationships

because you are not as present.

These notifications are just stimulating your brain needlessly.

If people up until the 21st century could live their lives without

this stuff quite well, probably we can be okay with not having to

react to them either.

You can still see what things happen when you choose to open

up any app which showed you notifications previously, but

turning these off is a good start.

If something is really important, people will call you, or you call

them back. Last year, I did almost a month without internet

when I attended a retreat. It was amazing to be without the

endless stimulation. I still believe these things have useful add-

ons to our life, but maybe 10% of the time what we spend on it.

So I recommend turning off notifications, also the buzzing

sound alerts of them, or even uninstalling them from your

phone.

2. Turning off the internet

This simple habit turned out to be really useful for me and many

people. Before going to bed, turn off Wi-Fi and mobile net on

your phone (then I put it into flight mode), and not turn on the

internet on your phone till maybe next day noon, or at least

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until you performed useful actions, maybe a session/study. If

you did the first step, and turned off the notifications, you

wouldn't get any buzzing anyway, but if your internet is off, you

will have less temptations to check distracting apps in the

morning. Here again, you want to use the morning hours more

efficiently, instead of starting the day loading your brain with

mostly useless stimulation. One of the worst things is when

someone wakes up and immediately jumps on the notifications

and starts his day with that reactivity.

3. Facebook newsfeed eradicator

The newsfeed can be a total time waster, providing you with

not many real benefits to your life. So there is a great extension

for Chrome and Firefox, which turns off the newsfeed and

rather puts on a quote on its place.

You can still use other aspects of Facebook. This extension was

a life saver for many people, including me.

4. RescueTime

This is a great free app and extension for your phone and

computer that automatically measures how much time you

spend on activities. This can be helpful to bring you more

awareness on how much time you can waste on distractions,

giving you an extra boost of motivation to limit them.

5. Stayfocusd

Awesome chrome extension which helps you label certain sites

as unproductive and allocate 'x' minutes a day to be used on

these sites. For example 20 minutes. Whenever you visit a site

that's on the list, the app starts counting back, and lets you

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know when you have 10, 5 or 1 minute(s) left that day. A good

side effect is that it makes you want to spend less time on these

sites and use that more wisely.

6. Set time blocks when you can check these apps

You can set some boundaries; for example, by saying you don't

check social media for first 3 hours of the day, or saying you

only check it at lunch break, and later in the evening.

If you allocate time for it, you can relax into knowing that later

on, you will check it and see what's been happening.

By eliminating distractions, you will free up focus and energy

that you can then spend on the really important things to make

your dreams happen in poker, and other areas of life as well.

Starting the task

Regarding productivity, here is a little trick that can be useful

whenever you find yourself in resistance about sitting down to

play or study. I call it the 30-minute rule. Basically what you do is

you tell yourself "Alright, it's okay if I totally don't feel like

playing/studying now. I just sit down and engage with it for 30

minutes regardless of how I feel, and if after the 30 minutes I still

feel like leaving this task now, then it's alright." What you do

basically is stop resisting the task in front of you or your state of

mind, and instead just engage with the task; you show up and

respond to what shows up. Many times, you can find that after the

30 minutes, your state of mind has shifted and you find yourself

wanting to keep doing what you started.

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Decision fatigue

There is a concept which I love. It says you have only so much

capacity to make conscious decisions during a day, so you want to

spend it well. The thing is, if you are too depleted mentally, you will

end up making poorer choices. Probably you have seen this as

well, when you are tired or hungry or stressed, it affects your

decisions as well.

That's why it's better to eliminate the need for making that many

decisions and instead use that capacity where it really matters, for

example poker. Barack Obama, Albert Einstein and Steve Jobs

were famous for having many pieces of the same outfit, so they

don't spend any energy on thinking about what to wear. It's one

way how they were using this concept.

The way you can use it is by what we discussed previously as well,

getting clear on your most important actions, creating a schedule

and eliminating distractions.

Now here are some other ways:

1. Automate your food

Constantly thinking about what to eat/cook/order just causes

mental fatigue. I know when I first automated this a few years

ago, it probably made me a ton of money since, just by not

having to think every day on what food to order. I used services

where on the weekend, I could select what food I want to eat

next week on each day, and they bring it every morning. Many

players use services like this, which can be a lifesaver.

2. Allocate fixed time for activities

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By getting clear on what to do at what time takes away a lot of

thinking, and helps you get into a routine. It can be fixed times

for starting sessions, or session length, studying, workout. How

many times, which days, how long, then you can put all these

together in a daily/weekly schedule.

Priorities

Now that you got clear on what NOT to do, and how to limit and

eliminate these distractions, it's time to get really clear on what to

do, and how to do it.

- How much do you intend to play per month / week?

- Which days do you prefer to play?

- How many sessions? What session length?

- When do you want to play these sessions? In the morning,

afternoon or evening?

- What is the best way for you to learn? Is it from video,

poker coach, study group, software, etc.? Is it more of

these?

- Which should be your top priority?

- How many hours do you intend to study per month / week?

- Which days? What time during the day?

- Is there a better way to look at studying that will help you

be more focused in it, maybe falling in love with it?

By getting clear on these questions, it can help you be more

intentional and focused in how you approach your poker business.

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Now you can take what you have come up with and put it into a

schedule.

Morning/Evening routines

Let's look at useful routines inside and outside of poker that can

help you be more focused and manage your energy more wisely.

We already discussed that starting the day with checking

notifications on the phone might not be the best way, so what

might work better than that? A dedicated morning routine. It's no

wonder they call the first hour of the day the golden hour, as it can

set the tone for the day.

You can use this hour to get you more centered and intentional

about your day, instead of starting it in a more hectic way which

can put you in autopilot for the day, making unconscious decisions

from your old conditioning.

I've often seen it with clients that implement a morning and

evening routine, which gave them a huge boost in their

performance and productivity.

If you don't have a routine yet, I suggest using these points to

create your own, and give it a try for a week. By then, you can see

if it was useful for you or not.

Here are some things that might be useful in starting the day:

1. Open up the window and get some fresh air. Probably your

room has been deprived of oxygen by night.

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2. Hydrate. By morning, your body is depleted of water, so a

good guideline is to drink about 500 ml of water at least 40

minutes before breakfast.

3. Do something physical to get you into your body and wake

up your system. It might be yoga, stretching, 7-min

workout (YouTube), running or even a proper workout if

you prefer to do it in the morning.

4. Spend 5-20 minutes getting centered. Just sitting down to

find that inner space within beyond all the mental noise.

5. Read and feel into your intentions like it is already your

reality.

It doesn't have to be long, and don't stress on it. Find some things

that work for you to implement in the morning routine, and try it

for a week. It might take a few days or 2 weeks for it to be more

habitual. Until then, it might require some commitment and

willpower in the beginning.

The other useful thing is an evening ritual. What can impact your

mornings? Your previous evening. That's why it can be great to use

the last 45-60 minutes of the day to wind down.

Some things you can do:

- lighting a candle instead of using lights (helps you in

winding down)

- reviewing your day

- reading and feeling into your intentions

- eliminating display (phone, computer, TV) which would

disrupt your sleep

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- spending 5-20 minutes getting centered, slowing down

- reading

You can take some of these suggestions for your time before bed.

Give this one a try as well and see how you feel.

Poker routines

Now let's look at poker rituals. First off with the warm-up routine.

I think the priority of a warm-up routine should be to help you get

more centered and more intentional about the upcoming session.

Some ideas that can be helpful:

- Moving your body for 2-3 mins

- Reading strategic reminders on some areas in your game

to improve by focusing on it

- Doing some hand analysis, or checking some situations

- You can set some intentions for yourself: "My intention is to

be focused in the session, have the right decisions to appear to

me, and enjoy this game." Alternatively, this can be anything

else that you want to direct your mind towards. Don't

make it into an expectation, just put out an intention then

forget all about it, show up and respond to what shows up

- Sitting down and just focusing on your breathing and your

body for 2-3 mins

You can add anything that's useful for you, find what works.

Sometimes less is more. In the beginning of the day, it might be

great to do a more proper warm-up (or before MTT if you play

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that), and before other sessions, a short centering and intention

setting can work well.

From previous chapters, you now know the mantra: 'Think less

(personal thoughts), and achieve more.' So don't complicate this

ritual either, which could just take you up more in your head.

Here is a ritual that can be great during the session:

Using a mindfulness bell (search in Google), you can set a "gong"

to go off every 15-20 minutes. It can be a great way to wake you

up if you got caught up in personal thinking during the session. You

can take three deep breaths, relax your shoulders, get centered

again and focus on just playing each hand the best you can.

After the session, you can do a cool down ritual that can help you

review the session and put it down in your mind. It might be a good

thing to take 2 minutes to just sit, breath and wind down, before

moving on with your day.

I'm not going into too much details about these rituals, just wanted

to share some ideas, as by now you have probably read about

these enough times from different sources.

Daily/weekly schedule

A tool that turned out to be really useful for a lot of players is

having a concrete schedule. Setting your important activities, and

then putting them into a schedule, can help you focus your energy

to be more effective. It gives you a clear action plan.

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I recommend creating an ideal week schedule where you include

all the poker and outside activities as well. By doing it, visually it

can help you even more to see how certain areas and activities fit

into your time. Google calendar, a paper or an excel sheet can be

great for this.

The main thing is it doesn't have to be perfect and you won't be

able to hold this schedule 100% of the time. It doesn't matter. It

still gives you a lot of extra clarity and focus.

I recommend doing this ideal week schedule at least once. Then

it's up to you if you want to plan specifically for every week or the

next day.

First write down the main areas of your life and write the activities

in each area that you want to include in your week. Then allocate

time for each and put it together in a calendar, breaking it up into

chunks for the days. For example:

- Poker

- Play - 30 hrs.

- 5 x 6 hrs.

- Study - 8 hrs.

- 4 x 2 hrs.

- Coaching - 1 hr.

- etc.

- Health

- Workout - 3 x 3 hrs.

- Food

- Relationships

- Date night w/ girlfriend

- Social night with friends

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- Talking to family

- Personal

An example of a schedule might be to wake up at 7am, do a

morning routine for an hour and play for 2 hours then eat

breakfast. Then at 11am, play second session etc. Usually for

players, it's helpful to make the start of the sessions and other

poker related activity more fixed. So you have a clear schedule to

work. You just show up every day and go with it. In chapter 4, at

the section around productivity, we covered that you don't need

to feel in the mood to start the activity. When it's time, just show

up and respond to what shows up.

ENERGY

Performing at your best requires energy. In the short-term, it's

pretty amazing how much energy we can gather when it really

matters, however for long-term high performance, it's important

to manage our energy better.

I've seen players on bad diets, and no workout, achieving great

levels. Also players on good diet and workout and not really

performing well. In and of itself, this won't necessarily make or

break your career, but can be an important element.

There is a great book from Tony Schwartz and Jim Loehr called

The Power of Full Engagement, which gave me a lot when I first

read it. They basically say it's our energy that is the most precious

thing we should manage, and that will contribute to the best

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performance. We should manage our energy and focus instead of

trying to manage time.

They say we have 4 sources of energy: physical, emotional, mental

and spiritual. Our physical is the most fundamental, and our

spiritual is the most powerful. That's why when it really matters,

even if people are hungry or sleep deprived, they can summon the

energy to do something extraordinary.

The understanding we looked into in chapter three can help a lot

to manage your emotional, mental and spiritual energies. If you

are caught up in lots of personal thinking, it will end up draining

you in these areas. If you wake up from those thoughts and rest

more in your inner stillness, this will rejuvenate you better than

anything. Even physically, but I will address that energy source

here a bit more.

I wrote a whole guide on how to manage your physical energy that

includes everything you need to know. It's called the Physical

Energy Guide. You can find it at the resources page.

Here I want to give just a really basic overview on this topic.

It has four main components I like to look into with clients:

1. Diet

2. Movement

3. Rest

4. Hydration

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Diet

Over the years, I've spent tons of time on finding the best diet for

humans. What I've realized is that there is not ONE that fits all.

Even though we are all humans, there are different factors that

can affect what's good for our body and what's not. These factors

include hormones, genetics, blood type and the nervous system.

So one person might tolerate animal protein more, while another

might not. One might tolerate carbs and veggies better, while

another person might not.

Here are a few things that more universally hold true that can be

great to eliminate:

1. Sugar

2. Refined carbs

3. Trans fats

And these can cause sensitivities and even stronger intolerances

or allergies for many people as well:

4. Gluten

5. Dairy

6. Caffeine

7. Alcohol

Sometimes behind people's poor performance is some dietary

issue. Eliminating or reducing these can already be a great way to

improve by getting rid of foods that might be draining your energy

and focus and affecting your health negatively.

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Movement

Our body is designed to move, so obviously, it makes sense to

realize it will have a great impact on our energy and health if we

move. I remember in the past, I did a survey with dozens of poker

players and it included questions about whether or not they do

sports/workout, and also other questions on their performance.

One thing that immediately jumped out consistently was that the

players who had good focus and concentration did some form of

workout regularly. Players who were less focused, less energized

and more distracted were ones who didn't do regular activity.

It doesn't have to be a huge workout every day. It can be some

light stretching or moving around a few times a day, or a few

minutes of workout at home in the morning, or a 20 min walk. This

may also be some form of sport, yoga or gym 3 times a week.

Rest

This includes getting a proper night of sleep and also, getting some

rest during the day to renew your energy source. It can be sitting

down for 2 mins and just breathing and getting centered, which

can already help to ease the tension in your system (which comes

from excess mind activity). It can also be a short 2-3 minute

movement or stretching.

Taking a nap for 20-25 minutes can be a great energy booster as

well during the day. Just don't really go for more than that, as it

can get you into deep sleep, which would just make you more

deprived.

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Taking a cold shower can also be a great way to wake up your

body, alongside having many other health benefits.

Hydration

Hydration and breathing are the most basic ways to impact our

physiological system and our energy. Drinking three liters of

water is enough for most people to be well hydrated. Heavier

physical activities or hot weather can increase this number.

STRETCHING YOUR LIMITS

There is an infamous saying amongst Navy SEALs; it's called the

40% rule. It says that when your mind thinks you can't do more,

you are at about 40% of your capacities. Many people hit a plateau

at around 16-miles at a marathon, but still 99% of people finish it.

We have so much more to us than many times our mind makes it

look like.

You might have your own thoughts about how long you can play

effectively during sessions, how many hours a day, how much a

week, when is a good time to play and when it is not, and so on.

What if all these thoughts are made up? It seems true in reality,

because you have been finding reference experience to reinforce

these, but what if we start off from the fact that there are huge

reservoirs of potential within you that you can tap into?

What if you start doing things differently to what you thought was

possible? I find that setting challenges is a great way to disrupt old

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thought patterns. They can give you an extra boost of inspiration

and make you tap into more of your power.

If you set a challenge that seems to be far outside of your current

comfort zone, I recommend setting it for short term.

What I mean, for example, if you normally play 4-5 hours a day,

and 80 hours a month, then it might be a great challenge to do 8-9

hours for a day or for 3 days straight, however, it might not be that

great of an idea to play 200 hours that month. Setting something

too far outside of your current comfort zone, for sure can be

fearful yet motivating, and you might make it happen with self-

discipline, however, it can lead to burnout after it, which I've seen

happen before.

So on the short-term, setting big challenges can be great, but for

more long-term, it might not be the best. On a long-term level,

setting a gradual increase might be better.

Here are some examples of challenges that might work:

- Increase your session length by 10-20% for the week

- Play one more session a day

- Play double the amount of hrs. for a day

- Set a bigger volume for the month that is outside your

comfort zone

- Do a big grinding weekend

- Do an immersion study for 3 days or a week alone or with

others

- Play a session on less tables, but focus on each hand more

- Play a session on more tables

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- Play a session on higher limits

You get the idea. You can come up with your own challenges.

Doing smaller or bigger, shorter or longer term challenges is a

great way to disrupt your old habitual way of operating and your

thoughts of what you think is possible for you. This starts opening

you up to more of your potential.

Include some challenges regularly; it's a great way to spark some

extra variety and inspiration, whilst getting better.

THE POWER OF A SUPPORTING ENVIRONMENT

The first group coaching program I ran was in the beginning of

2016. It was a 5-month long program, called the Top 5%

Mastermind. There is a saying that in any field, the top 5% is

considered world-class. The mastermind was for players who

wanted to demonstrate that mindset of actualizing their

potentials.

The group had 9 players playing different types of games. This was

an elite group, which inspired everyone on their own to get to the

next level. By now, three years later, some of them dominate the

high stakes CG or PLO scene. Some of them play the $500 spins.

There are many of them who are owners of backing groups. There

is also one of them who had his first inspiration on one of the group

coaching sessions when we did a group retreat, where he realized

his deepest passion and calling is not poker anymore. Since then,

he left it and went on to become an influencer, inspiring people

from different fields, leading his own programs and being invited

as a speaker for events.

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It feels great to remember this group, and what they went on to

create in their lives. I believe so much in the power of a supporting

environment. There is a saying that "you are the average of the 5

closest people you hang out with." Simply because, even without us

noticing it, we blend into our environment. Our brain is evolved

for that over tens of thousands of years. We needed to fit in. So we

get influenced unconsciously by our surrounding.

Start connecting with people who are inspiring, who are even

better than you at things, play higher limits or just demonstrate a

great mindset and want to improve. I shared in the first chapter

how a client of mine approached players who were playing many

limits higher than him, and got into a study group with them. First

he had excuses to avoid it, which is natural. “Why would that guy

want to be surrounded by me?” Just put it aside. If you are

dedicated and communicate that, many people find that inspiring,

no matter where you are at.

I've always felt inspired by people who reached out to me for some

advice who demonstrated they are really dedicated. It makes you

feel that you spend your time well by giving some guidance,

because the person will implement it.

Show up as a leader, get a study group going with players who you

think would be a great fit. A piece of advice: though I believe in

equality, many times, these groups fall apart if no one wants to

show up as a leader. You might have to take it on yourself to

communicate with the group, set clear agreements in the

beginning, and setting fixed times for your calls by putting them

into your calendars. Besides that, start hanging out and talking

with inspiring people.

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SLOW DOWN TO SPEED UP

There is an insightful story from one of my coaches, Rich Litvin. He

was once at the kitchen of his friend's house talking and his

friend's dog came into the kitchen and wanted to start running

really fast, but his legs were slipping on the floor. The faster he

wanted to run, the more he stayed at one place. After he stopped

from exhaustion and took some breaths, he started slowly putting

one leg in front of the other and then he ended up making

progress.

Rich and his friend were laughing, but actually it made them

realize that we humans do the same thing many times as well. We

think the harder we push, the faster we will make progress, but

many times, we just run ourselves down to the ground.

Going with pure will and determination can sometimes lead to

achieving a goal. However, when we operate from resisting our

current situation, focusing on the lack of something, feeling afraid

of not making it and grasping to get to a future destination, we

forget that we are caught up in our personal thinking. We might

end up making the goal happen, but it won't be a long-lasting

fulfillment for sure. From that perspective, we are always coming

from a lack, a hole inside us which we feel needs to be filled by

getting to an end destination in the future; totally forgetting about

enjoying the journey and living in the now, focusing on making

each day a masterpiece. This is paradoxically the thing that will

end up getting the best outcome anyway.

I used to run like that dog. Years ago, I thought I always had to be

busy, doing something or learning something. I was so in that

paradigm, that I even had my lunch and dinner in front of the

computer most of the time browsing the internet, or working on

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something or learning. Then at one point, I started to slow down

and realized I can make even greater results using less time and

with less stress. When I needed to do things, I was focusing on

those, but I also learned the power to step away and let my mind

and body settle down.

Living our lives caught up in our mind can lead to great

achievements, but it can also cut us off from feeling a connection

to a deeper part of ourselves, a space within us, beyond our

personal thinking where our innate well-being, sense of peace,

creativity and wisdom are found. It's a space of pure potential. It's

the source of all thoughts. When we take time to reconnect with

this part of ourselves, it can lead to a life lived with more peace of

mind, effortlessness, joy and connection.

The understanding I was pointing to in this book, mostly in chapter

3, might still feel foreign to you, but it might also resonate and ring

true on some level. My hope is that it gave you some curiosity to

look in this direction, and explore this understanding and deeper

parts of yourself, enriching your life on the journey.

Since this chapter is about practicality, a small practice which can

be useful is taking some time in the morning/evening, or even

during the day to slow down a bit, breath, arrive back to the

moment and into your body. You can just sit down, take some deep

breaths and redirect your attention from the mind's chatter to

your body and its sensations. You might also start sensing a

deeper place of quiet and stillness within and putting your

attention on that. That's the essence of meditation. Resting in that

space of awareness.

Don't worry if you find yourself having a lot of mental activity in

your head; we don't want to get rid of it. It's part of having a mind.

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It just requires a little shift in our attention to a deeper space that's

always there in the background. We don't want to get a tennis

racket to hit the waves of the ocean in an attempt to stop them.

Instead, we can put our feet into the water and find more stillness

under it. If we just take our leg deeper and deeper, we realize that

no matter what goes on in the surface at the depth there is always

stillness.

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SOME FINAL THOUGHTS

We have started the book with the idea that a player's results

reflect his approach, not his potential. Through this book we

looked at how you can approach poker in a way that contributes

to better results and more enjoyment. I've seen countless times

with personal clients how the principles and ideas we covered

changed their careers and lives.

Many of the greatest achievements in history happened because

people were willing to persist and stay consistent even in the face

of obstacles. We often think things should work in a linear,

consistently up-trending way, however it's usually a mixture of

ups, downs, plateaus, and breakthroughs. That's the way of

mastery. Also, the way of the creation process.

By this point you heard about the importance of getting clear on

the reality you want and setting it as an intention, knowing that it's

possible, and taking action from that perspective. You also learned

about a different understanding on how the mind and the nature

of human experience works. We looked deeper into what really

goes on behind great performance, flow, and productivity. We also

looked at what it means to turn pro, and how to approach poker in

a way that can lead not only to long-term success but more

fulfillment as well. In the last step of the book we covered practical

ways of focusing your energy on key things that will end up

producing your results, whilst getting rid of things that could stand

in the way.

You could create a clear system for you now with the actions you

need to take daily. Then all you need is to just show up, start doing

those and respond to what shows up. If you do it consistently,

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persist, and stay the course, you will end up improving your skills

and getting better results.

It won't always be an easy ride. There will be times where your

results will vary, also your feelings about your skills and progress

will be a rollercoaster of ups and downs. By now you have learned

that it's the nature of the human mind that our feelings fluctuate

with our thinking. All you need is to be aware that it's just thought,

not reality, not taking it too seriously, and staying the course. Keep

showing up. If you do so, the result will be something truly

precious. Not only creating amazing things in your life, but

through this process you deepen your own understanding on how

human beings work, how results are created, whilst tapping into

the deeper space of infinite potential and stillness within you.

I hope this book has served as an inspiration and as an insight

catalyst, bringing you new ways to understand yourself and how

you can make your poker dreams a reality.

I would love to hear what insights you've gained from this book. If

you have anything to share, or a question you want to ask, please

email me at hello@tamasbedo.com.

If you are interested in working together on creating the future

you want, send me an email and let's talk.

Please take this book and share it with your friends if you have

found it useful. My hope with this book was to get this information

to as many players as I can, so that they can experience their own

transformations which can impact their poker careers and lives.

I wish you the best on your journey!

To your amazing life,

Tamas

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RESOURCES

There are some additional resources you can find on the following

page: http://www.tamasbedo.com/resources

If you want to continue deepening your understanding around

how human beings work which we looked at in Chapter 3, I

recommend the following resources. My hope is that this

understanding can spread, and even more people will find

liberation from their suffering and can go on living a more

effortless, joyful life. There are many teachings that point towards

this direction, however there is a field (referred to as Three

Principles or Inside-Out understanding) which I've found life-

changing personally and professionally. It first originated from

Sydney Banks, a simple man, who had a spontaneous awakening.

His teachings were giving hope to set psychology on new

foundations for future generations. Since then, many teachers

emerged who point to his teachings, which helped countless

people in their lives, including me as well. I recommend the

following books on the topic.

Michael Neill - The Inside-Out Revolution

Michael Neill - The Space Within

Mara Gleason - One thought changes everything

Dicken Bettinger / Natasha Swerdloff - Coming home

Jamie Smart - Clarity

Jamie Smart - Results

Dr. George Pransky - Relationship handbook

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I woke up one Saturday morning with an inspired idea to leave

behind something for the international poker community based

on the insights and experience I've gained over the years. That's

how this book first started. It wouldn't have come to fruition if it

wasn't for the hundreds of players who were open enough to show

up for coaching conversations with me. It wasn't only them who

gained their own realizations, but me also. I'm so grateful for many

of my long-term clients as well. You were teaching me a lot.

I want to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to the

people who were guiding me on my own journey. There were

many of them, but the ones who impacted my life the most

through their coaching, trainings and mentoring were Michael

Neill, Tony Robbins, Dicken Bettinger, Ilona Csattos, Gabor

Harsanyi, Itay Polivoda and Rich Litvin. Special thanks to Michael

Neill. Writing this book has made me realize how much of an

impact his mentoring had on my life.

I also want to thank my close friends and family who were by my

side along the journey. My love, Audrey, you supported me in

writing this book and amplified my own creativity with your

presence. Thank you.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tamas Bedo has worked with hundreds of individuals as a

transformative coach, including world-class athletes, top-level

CEOs, entrepreneurs, and over 300 poker players.

He has a deep passion for uncovering and sharing the principles

behind great performance and living life to the fullest. He shares

the insights gained from his work on his website:

www.tamasbedo.com