THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

HAPPY?

I'm currently struggling to get any kind of volume of poker in at the moment mainly for 3 reasons,

1) My Dads illness, I'm spending as much time as I can with him and I'm more than happy to do so.
2) The computer I'm using has seen better days and runs as slow as a snail with a hard on.
3) My overall frame of mind.

My Dads leukemia I can't influence. I would move Heaven and Earth to have the ability to do something about it but I can't its totally beyond my control.The PC I'm using is well within my control and in the next few days it will be replaced with a nice shiny new one.

My frame of mind is totally under my control, but sometimes I'm not so sure...

I truly believe I should have control over my mind however I'm currently having a daily battle to keep a smile on my face and feel positive, not for one minute do I think I'm losing this battle, its just such a struggle, an effort and a fight I could do without as its sapping my motivation in nearly every area of my life not just poker. This morning I was lying in bed having been awake since 5am, I didn't have work so was pissed off at the thought of being awake when I should be sleeping soundly. I was chatting with friends on Facebook and had sent a few "tweets" everything I wrote had a cheerful tone however I felt as miserable as sin.

On Friday morning I had some wonderful news when Jose 'Girah' Mecado contacted me regarding my previous blogpost, he loved it and has offered to help me with my game, I was elated! Friday night I had a fantastic time with my old school mates at our latest reunion and on saturday I went to Haydock races and once again had a good "craic" with some great friends, so whats my problem?

You Choose.

At any given time we have the option to choose our dominant thoughts and I'm currently not choosing mine very wisely. I'm focusing for some reason on whats missing in my life, I'm focusing on events from my past both positive and negative, when I have positive memories, after the initial warm glow I'm longing for those times and I'm feeling the pain of regret for my actions that led to those memories becoming just that, memories and not some ongoing part of my life. The negative thoughts, well that just speaks for itself, negative thinking is like a downward spiral, one after the other the thoughts just drag you down and attract more thoughts of the same ilk until something either internal or external breaks the cycle.

External things certainly do help but really, nothing outside of ourselves is permanent, it can be taken away in an instant, the people we love, the possesions that bring us pleasure, even things like hobbies that we enjoy and places that we like visiting, things can happen that can remove the external joys of life.

We as individuals should try to cultivate happiness and positivity from within and not be so reliant on the external influences to provide our happiness, that way the winds of change that blow through our lives and sometimes cause havoc, have less of an effect. Mindfulness is a technique from the Buddhist tradition that I'm currently using to combat some of the negative thoughts, images and feelings that I'm wrestling with on a daily basis, without Mindfulness I'm not sure how I would cope. Simply put Mindfulness is all about focusing on "NOW" not regretting the past or living on past glories, not worrying about the future, what I call anticipatory dread, that fear of the unknown, most of the time it never materialises so we waste valuable time and nervous energy on nothing. Mindfulness originally was a way of me staying fully focused on my poker, so I stayed calm cool and collected playing a game for profit that can truly drive a person round the proverbial bend! Now its quickly becoming a life saver.

When I decided I was going to write a blog, at the back of my mind I was hoping by thinking out loud I would put myself under positive pressure and follow through with the actions I need to take on a daily basis to realise my goals, well it's certainly doing that, as I'm writing this now its also helping me to clarify my thought processes and to count my many blessings.

I've got a new life now, with some fantastic people in it, I know where I'm going and believe 100% that I will get there, however I'm heading in that direction a wee bit slower than originally planned, but its all GOOD.

The Hawaiian House

This may be my first post were I deviate slightly from the main theme of this blog and touch on lessons we can learn from poker that cross over into our life. Just recently I came across an article on the web about a young Portuguese poker phenomenom under the alias GIRAH, apparently this guy was 18 years old and had more or less appeared from knowhere and had quickly progressed up the stakes and was winning at the highest levels and all this in what seemed double quick time.

This totally fascinated me. I did some research on him and found out his real name is Jose Macedo and he started playing poker for fun with play money on Facebook when he was just 16 years old and also admitted he wasn't very successful, in his own word he says he was continually getting "hammered" and now just 2 short years later he is mentioned in the same breath of Durrrr, Jungleman and OMGclayaitken.

Learning that Girah started off getting hammered on FB poker for playchips and saying he had zero natural poker talent intrigued me even further, how could this be? what does it take? what was his primary motivator? how on Earth could such a young man make such rapid progress? eventually I found the answer...

He had a DREAM.... and that dream was to own a house in HAWAII

To quote Jose, "It's a nice house in Maui and I REALLY  want it"

That quote above is the key, that quote reveals the secret of Girah's success and of any person on the planet who wants to achieve massive success. How can an 18 year old boy hold the secret to success in every walk of life? did a mystical guru from antiquity reveal the secrets of the ages? No, quite simply Jose Macedo had a burning desire to to own a home in Hawaii and poker was the vehicle that was going to take him there.

Everybody has dreams, we all want to be, have and do something more, however, how many people are prepared to put in the time, effort and money to achieve their dreams? by gathering info on Macedo one thing really shines through, his WORK ethic, he worked relentlessly for hours on end grinding  poker games and taking copiuos notes, he read book after book after book, he watch training videos created by the players who he respected the most, not only that, he actively sought these guys out and used his creativity to enlist the help of these elite players to further his goals.

Reading the above paragraph doesn't really capture and do Jose's determination and work ethic justice, you have to put yourself in his position, imagine the time and effort the endless hours of playing and studying, pursuing your heroes to extract the required knowledge, ignoring all the general day to day distractions and the merchants of doom, who we all have in our lives, who try to bring us down at every opportunity... wow its a massive undertaking but this young kid did this consistently day in day out.

I am pretty certain that when Jose started his quest as a 16 year old kid he had no idea how he was going to achieve his dream but he just kept taking the next step.

"The HOW doesn't matter, because the WHY will find a way"

Jose's WHY was the house in Hawaii, that was the fuel that drove him forward that enabled him to take massive action and make constant and never ending improvements.

Question:

"Whats your WHY?"
"Whats your house in Hawaii?"

I'm going to take inspiration from Jose Macedo and find my WHY and let that drive me forward and I suggest all who want to improve their lives follow Jose's example too.

Further reading: The Monk who sold his Ferrari by Robin Sharma
                            Mindstore by Jack Black.

The Inner Fish

Its been a month since my last blogpost and I haven't played much poker, mainly due to my Dads ongoing illness. Travelling from work to the hospital and keeping up a rota of visiting with my brother has been very time consuming so poker has taken a back seat as has a lot of things in my life.

 On a more positive note, I've hired a coach Barry Clark and had a fantastic couple of hours with him he has stripped my game almost back to basics to build a good foundation and also introduced some poker fundamentals I've never come across in any book or poker publication and I'm extremely happy with the direction poker and my life is taking as a result of Barrys input.

When you take a big step like taking on a coach many things run through your mind, am I ready for this? am I attempting to run before I can walk? will the coaching be worth the outlay?... I needn't have worried! Barry has given my game a structure a "Modus Operandi" he's taught me the correct way to review hands not just how but when and this alone has been a revelation and if this was the only thing I got from him it would have been worthwhile.

Barry works a lot with a persons "temperament" in a very specific way and although we have only skimmed the surface in relation to poker I know its going to be massively beneficial.

TEMPERAMENT    an individual's character, disposition, and tendencies as revealed in his reactions

 One of the reasons I decide to ask Barry to coach me was because I felt that tilt was subtly interfering with my play, I mean I wasn't throwing huge tantrums as a result of a bad beat and I always thought I was handling it well but it was knocking me off my A game and even my B game in a really subtle way.
  

When I deem myself to be a superior player to the guy who is getting the better of me, I find it really hard to take, I know the guys a fish but he keeps chipping into my stack and I find myself becoming increasingly more frustrated until my decision making process is in bits then I find that all gains and profits I've grinded out in the session disappear in one or two moments of madness. I've called this situation my Inner Fish and I'm convinced if I can keep this crazy aspect of myself subdued I'll be profitable in the long run.
So to combat this I'm just focusing on the present moment, just observing my opponents play without reacting emotionally to it nor judging it just simply focusing on my decision making process and mindfully staying serene and in the NOW, if I can stay in this "state" my game will improve and profits will follow.

 Check out Barrys bit of the interweb at http://bazclark.com/