The good news: I finally finished "Zero to One" by Peter Thiel.
The bad news: Nobody will win the 100$ freeroll now
This is probably gonna be a long one. I want to talk a little bit about the book, the weekly update, and I can see the rant getting a little bit out of control. Leggo...
Progress Report:
Health:
Workouts Completed this week: (3/4)
Times leaving diet guidelines: 3
20 Minute Meditation Session: 1/7
Books Read: 1/1
Body Weight +/-: -12 lbs. (since beginning of year)
Wealth:
Training Videos Watched: 0/1
Hours in the lab: 0/2
Sessions played: 3/4
Hours put into researching new avenues of revenue generation: 4
Weekly Proft: -244
Yearly Profit: somewhere around +10k on PS. Idk why sharkscope isn't working atm.
Live Poker Profit This Year: +5908
Book Review: "Zero to One" by Peter Thiel. Overall, great book with some great points that challenge standard paradigms in today's world. Would highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to start a business or curious about innovation.
Peter Thiel is one of the co-founders of PayPal and an expert in start-up companies. Actually want to know something crazy about PayPal, or better known as "The PayPal Mafia"?
-Here is a list of the start-ups that Peter's co-workers founded or helped each other invest in:
-Elon Musk (SpaceX/Tesla)
-Reid Hoffman (Co-founder Linked-in)
-Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, Jawed Karim (Co-founders of YouTube)
-Jeremy Stoppelman (founded Yelp)
If you think about the fact that each of the above companies is worth over 1B$ it musn't just be a sick coincidence right?
Here's a few good takeaway points I got from the book:
Contrary to popular belief, competition is actually a bad thing. In all economics 101 classes they preach about equilibrium markets etc etc. However, the opposite is true. In business, you do not want competitors. For some reason people believe that competition is an indicator of value. Airline industries average something around 30 cents per passenger (while many lose), whereas, Google has far higher profit margins and is in a market of it's own. No other company even comes close to Google in that industry.
-The goal should be having a monopoly on an industry. The price you charge is dictated by you, and not the market. To reach a monopoly you must not be a disruptor. You must find a niche market and grow from that into similar markets. The idea? To start small and crush the niche market before expanding. If you are trying to take a piece of the pie from larger corporations you will get smothered and constantly be fighting an uphill battle.
-The author talks about hiring people for a company. If an employee wants salary instead of equity in the company they may be biased for short term results, and not focusing on the long term growth of the company.
-A grand-master salesperson is someone that you don't even realize they are selling you something.
-I'll talk a little more about some of the more important points below. I didn't make any notes or anything as I read so my review kinda sucks. I also suck at summarizing a book with so many good informational points. Better read it for yourself
Story of Leaving Comfort Zone: This isn't really something that happened over once instance this week it's really something I've been trying to implement and become stronger in the last 6 months or so. Moreover, just being more concerned about my own path in life and not getting deluded or jealous about what other people around me are doing. For instance, there was a time in my life where I might get jealous of my friends for having success in areas that I wasn't (which was probably rooted from some of my insecurities at the time). I've been working to be truly happy for people close to me having success and resonate with that positive energy. In other instances, I've just been trying to focus on doing my own thing and not worry about other people. For example, just doing what makes me happy and what I need to be doing. Making less time for people in my life that don't treat me with respect or we aren't a positive influence on each other.
Hands:
https://www.boomplayer.com/23521857_39D6F739BD
guy was random unknown I had small sample and big-ish bounty on my head. Almost folded the turn/almost jammed the turn, decided maybe he has some complete air balls and called turn lol
https://www.boomplayer.com/23518103_FB1698AED3
I love value betting with a polarized sizing with a wide range on these types of runouts. Villains hero call so much cuz they think v-bet range is so thin yet we have so many bluffs
https://www.boomplayer.com/23481858_DFB42D4D5B
for the fans vs a complete blaster haha
Random Rant of the Week:
Let's kick if off with a little quote: "Winning is better than losing, but everybody loses when the war isn't one worth fighting."This really drove me down a rabbit hole of thought. There are just so many battles in life and poker that just aren't worth fighting. A good example of this in poker would be the Hot 215 field. Basically, an influx of regs fighting for a tiny long term ROI. Everybody gets ****ed by variance (some in a painstaking type of way, and other in an orgasmic kind of way) The bottom line is that EV is small and variance is enormous.
I guess in the book the author talks about going from "Zero to One" as opposed to going from "One to Two". The former relates to creating something from nothing. Finding a totally new area or niche and capitalizing on it. Whereas, the latter refers to building on an idea someone has already done, and improving on it. As I've been doing a lot of thinking about my exit strategy from poker I've been looking into new avenues of revenue generation. Ever realize that most of us (including myself) have just went from 1 to 2 in poker. The idea of a professional poker player was long ago pioneered by many players (depends who you view as the pioneers), we're just here refining our strategies and building upon what others have taught us. This pie that we compete for gets smaller and smaller everyday. Whether it be due to increasing competition, country restrictions, greedy sites getting greedier, etc etc. The bottom line: the net amount of money the population is winning from poker is only getting smaller and smaller.
The Bright Side: When you think about all of the stuff we have learned in poker it often comes from a simple foundation handed down to us from other players. (Things like open somewhere between 1-3x, never open limp, c-bet small on dry boards, c-bet big on wet boards etc) We could possibly go from 0-1 in a sense of trying out new things that haven't been tried. Perhaps, developing a strategy that incorporates open limps, uses a 4x open sizing, employs a 2x over bet strategy on river that is completely balanced etc etc. Of course the game is super refined already, but it is not solved yet, and there is always room for improvement. Not to mention, I can only imagine the population's response to an unorthodox strategy would be completely disastrous. Not saying to actually do this stuff, but might be some good food for thought
Here's a rough action plan for what I have planned for the next few months:
-Possible Alberta trip for ~3 weeks maybe as soon as this week
-SCOOP for ~3 weeks. Will either play this in Alberta or find a SCOOP house somewhere around here.
-Keep improving diet and workouts. Start working harder to burn fat.
-Possibly Vegas for WSOP
-Start spending more time in the dating lab.
-Keep working on myself and enjoying life. Let the rest take care of itself.
I apologize that this post probably lacks coherence as I had to write very quickly and I'm quite tired. Best of luck this week guys, not sure yet if I'll be at the tables!
"Everybody has goals, aspirations or whatever, and everybody has been at a point in their life where nobody believed in them." -Eminem