To answer my above question: The Patriots. Instinctively I felt the Pats were the best team in this game and the experience Mr. Brady has in deep runs/his track record should have been very telling. Unfortunately, I took Atlanta. It was only for a small amount of $ but that was more tilting losing that bet than any poker hand has ever done to me lol. FWIW Atlanta looked dominant the whole first half, and throwing on 3rd and 2 there when they had huge lead seemed absolutely nonsensical. Although, I'm no football expert.
Anyways, what's up my brothers? Time to make a little post after the first month of the year/the first week of the second have come to their conclusion. Here's the facts and results thus far:
Health:
Workouts Completed this week: (3/6)
Times leaving diet guidelines: 3
20 Minute Meditation Session: 5/7
Books Read: 0/1
Body Weight +/-: -6 lbs. (since beginning of year)
Wealth:
Training Videos Watched: 1/1
Hours in the lab: 0/2
Sessions played: 2/4
Hours put into researching new avenues of revenue generation: 1
Weekly Proft: +1228
https://gyazo.com/3afdf65b364f2721839702920117048f
Yearly Profit: -1647
https://gyazo.com/abfedfed72ce8b4dc628f952f5e451a8
Live Poker Profit This Year: +2095
Overall: I know I have so much more in the tank. I'm somewhat happy with a few of the progressions that I've made thus far. I can do better. I will do better.
Story of leaving comfort zone: On Tuesday night I went out with my friend as usual to a local bar. I really didn't want to go out in the slightest but forced myself to. Was very difficult to feel in the mood to enjoy myself/be social. Basically never reached that point and we were pretty disappointed with ourselves as a whole afterwards. It was 3:30 A.M. and we were parked in a random lot, elaborating on our positives/negatives of the night. We wanted to do something so that we could feel better about the night. I know this is going to sound completely maniacal but: we got out of the car and started yelling and screaming as loud as we could. It was really weird/spontaneous but it was quite exhilarating to just go all out. I couldn't even do it at first.
Anyways, was feeling quite depressed all week and really wanted to boost my state. Saturday a bunch of friends came over and we went for dinner/went bowling/went out to the bars after and had an amazing time. For some reason I was just in a euphoric state that evening and I chatted with a lot of random people and felt completely free of outcome. Was more outside of my own head than usual and I see that as some really good progression. I know it will sound pretty stupid to a lot of people/easy to do but we all have our own difficulties and triumphs
I am meeting with my mentor this Thursday and I have a lot of work/reading to prepare before I meet with him. Therefore, going to use this week as a personal development week/time away from poker. Probably going to ban myself until Sunday so that I don't have any temptations.
Hands: Feeling pretty burnt out and don't really feel like talking about poker atm
Random Rant of the Week: I guess I was inspired to write about this when I was watching Tai Lopez (say what you want about "here in my garage" jokes etc). He was saying about how he saw in the news that the 10 richest people in the world have more money than the combined bottom 50% of the world (3.5B ish). He talked about how "The Hustle Mentality" is flawed. Hustle alone didn't separate 10 people from 3.5B, there was so many other factors. If hustle was all that mattered, there wouldn't be people working 3 jobs struggling to put food on the table. There would be a complete correlation between hard work and results. It is important to work hard at times...but working smart is the key. Allotting your time/effort to the appropriate tasks at the right times/to the right people at the right times.
So that brings me to a topic that I thought the most about this week: This system is broken, and it's almost destined to be broken, why only a few can succeed. (These are just my thoughts by the way, could be completely wrong).
Due to societal pressures and teachings we are raised to act/behave/be a certain way. When we grow up we're told that we need to work our asses off in school so that we can eventually go to University/College and get a job. From there: we go to University, meet a soul mate, marry them, buy a home, have kids, raise the kids, and teach the kids to live that same story. Why? Because that's what we're told is a success. If we breach that bubble of socially acceptable we're judged, ridiculed, and labeled by others. When we breach that bubble, we also put ourselves into a land of the unknown, a path less traveled. As humans, we HATE discomfort and uncertainty, but that path of uncertainty, is where our growth and peak is found. Check out this TED Talk:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBvHI1awWaI
I guess it's important to understand: 1) what we want out of life 2) how to get it 3) putting the plan into action. I think it's very easy to get stuck at number one, and be convinced by external forces to want unnecessary things. Number 2 is also a common sticking point. So easy to be deluded about the path to reach our goals. For example if you asked a lot of people they would say the path to success is what I wrote about above: go to Uni, get a job, etc. Then you will have 2 weeks vacation a year and enough money to support your family. Yeah, you will have to hustle at your job and you might hate it, but that's what a good person does, right? Number 3 is the toughest part, for obvious reasons, I won't elaborate.
So why can't we all crush it in life? Well I could list things off for hours but I'll start with a few reasons:
-We can't all crush it. The way the world is mapped out atm, we need people working low end jobs for low wages. Thus, the rich get richer off the backs of low end workers.
-Humans are a degenerative species by nature. We like what feels good NOW. By nature we usually neglect our future states for temporary comfort. For example eating greasy/sugary food feels good in the moment, but leads to our future unhappiness.
-Much like in poker, to achieve wealth, it must be taken from someone else. Big companies often exploit our degenerate tendencies. We're exposed to millions of advertisements and beliefs that trigger our inner degen.
-CocaCola ads teach kids from a young age that this product will help them feel good and happy. They buy into this subconscious belief and buy the product. They drink the product and become addicted to an extent, become diabetic, have hormone problems, get diagnosed with ADHD, big name pharmaceutical companies sell them drugs to put a bandaid over their problems. Profit ensues.
-We would need global co-operation, which will never happen, because this would mean some people would have to give up a lot of their possessions.
Anyways, everyday I'm trying my best to march to the beat of my own drum, and make the best decisions that I can. It's so difficult and so often I'm finding my discipline sucks and I give in to that inner degen instinct all too often. Have been improving a lot but the 180 degree turnaround has been more difficult than originally expected.
Thanks for the love so far guys. If you are still awake after that ramble I'm surprised
I'm enjoying updating this thread once a week and it's helping me hold myself accountable. I'd be ecstatic even if it just helped out one or two more guys as a bonus! I want to look back at this one day and laugh/reminisce on this journey...
"There are no shortcuts to building a team each season. You build the foundation brick by brick." -Bill Belichick
Last edited by WALMARTcnxn; 02-06-2017 at 03:07 AM.