Gerardo

[Phil Galfond @PhilGalfond]

https://t.co/XmADmPtJ1U

[Jason Su @jasonbsu]

For a poker player who has studied the game, you eventually learn that there are many complicated spots that come up in which you want to bluff sometimes, but not always.

Or call sometimes, but not always.

Often when here, something happens.

Your emotions will decide for you.

Sometimes you’ll just be in a mood in which you always do the thing, and sometimes you’ll be in a mood in which you never do the thing—you’ll fold because you’re losing, you’ll bluff because you’re winning, you’ll call because you’re frustrated, and you’ll check because you’re afraid.

Add it up and it looks pretty good.

Sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t.

Technically, you’re balanced.

Except that in each one of these spots, you were always going to do exactly what you did because of how you felt—because it was the right thing to do to escape the feelings you were having, not because you genuinely felt it was the right thing for this moment.

Because of this?

You are never the one driving the car.

Never the one making a choice from a healthy place, and instead constantly second guessing, regretting, replaying hands in your mind late at night instead of just being able to feel okay knowing it was actually you who did what you did because it felt right and you wanted to.

Emotion will either block your instincts from coming out, or enhance them.

If you want the latter?

You’ll need a reliable way to make sure that you are always present when they come.

===

If you enjoyed this longer style of post, I write one of these and send it out for free via email every day.

It's free to join.

Takes less than 20 seconds to sign up and will help you to win more with less stress.

Link to sign up is my bio.

[Jason Su @jasonbsu]

Context is everything.

It’s so easy in life to get fooled by a single snapshot—whether it’s a car doing something in traffic, a snippet of a conversation you hear out of someone’s mouth, or a single poker hand that you just saw get played.

So easy to just see one thing.

And from there get all excited and start jumping to all sorts of conclusions without understanding the whole picture.

Do this in poker and it gets expensive.

You play one hand with someone (or hell, maybe you weren't even in the hand, or maybe it's even just a hand you heard they played from someone else) and immediately slap the label on them:

"Fish"
"Pro"
"Passive"
"Maniac"

And now, instead of this becoming one part of how you play against them, it becomes the whole thing—you put them in one basket, which means you assume that they are capable or incapable of things when you don't actually know.

Yes, it matters what we see.

But can you take it in without jumping to conclusions and running with them?

That's what will happen when you're not present with your own emotions each time you see someone do anything—you're in the prime state to take something way out of context.

[Jason Su @jasonbsu]

There is no "switch" where you just "get in the zone."

If you're present in all parts of life, the poker table is just another place you go—and it's not hard to be at your best in big moments because this is just how you operate.

If you're not?

Good luck at that final table.

[Jason Su @jasonbsu]

One thing I’ve noticed among successful people:

The goalposts move a lot.

They will do this thing where they set a goal for themselves, like maybe winning a million dollars in poker.

They will reach that goal.

They will notice something is off.

They don’t feel happy, or content, or at peace—and instead, they notice that it kinda feels empty and hollow, which makes them feel not so great about all the time and work and sacrifice that they made to get that money and success.

The words I hear often are:

“I thought it would feel different.”

This is the sign.

The sign for them to see that feeling happy and content was never going to be dependent on whether or not they reached their goal and got what they wanted, but instead they almost always tend to go in the opposite direction, and say something to themselves like:

“I guess I need bigger goals.”

So now they’ll reset, and make a new goal to get 5 million or 10 million dollars, believing that the reason why it didn’t feel how they thought it would feel was because the goal wasn’t large enough.

Many won’t make it to this new goal.

They’ll burn out along the way.

And those who do?

They’ll just find the same problem waiting for them again.

Sadly, the few who can keep moving the goalposts and then reaching those goals, all while shaking off that empty and hollow feeling each time to keep moving forward, get celebrated by society as “high achievers.”

But they know.

And I know.

That they are no real true success, because they feel none of the stuff that they thought they would, and they’re just continuing on in this way because they don’t know what else to do with themselves.

===

Yes, you want the money.

But that’s only going to work for you if you go about getting it in a way that allows you to feel all the good stuff you imagine getting that sweet money would allow you to feel.

Which means:

You need to learn how to feel good along the way.

Because if you’re miserable on the way there, that’s how you’ll feel once you get there.

Lots of people can get money.

Only a tiny few can do it while feeling great inside themselves.

Of those who can do this, all of them are masters in some way of staying present with their emotions as they come—prioritize this skill above all else, and two cool things happen:

1) You start hitting your goals faster and more easily

2) You actually enjoy it when you get there

Try it, and watch what happens.

[Jason Su @jasonbsu]

I have one strong belief around high performance:

At the end of the day, this is always about you.

You learning how to understand and play the game in the way that only you can understand and play it.

Yes, it’s great to learn from others.

But do it in a way that supports you in understanding the game in your way, not as a thing to try and copy.

People always say to each other:

“Just play your game.”

But almost nobody knows what that even is—because until you’ve gotten skilled in the ability to be present with your emotions as they come, you will always keep reverting back to the safety of what is “standard” instead of trusting what you're feeling and discovering new ideas for yourself.

And when you do play “your game”?

Quite often, people will be threatened.

They will mock you.

Or talk shit to you, or behind your back.

All of that comes with even more big emotions, which brings many players back to the pack of being accepted but mediocre.

The best make it to the top for a reason.

I believe this is the top reason.

And that if you have big dreams for yourself but can’t seem to break through, it would be wise to put this aspect of poker or whatever your game is above all else:

You playing the game in only the way you can.

[Jason Su @jasonbsu]

Don't get so caught up in finding the "right" answer to the point where you start to lose your killer instinct.

That ability to sense when the time is right to go for it is the difference between 1st and 15th, between mid-stakes and high stakes.

[Gerardo @_Gerardd_]

@jasonbsu Is it suitable for Spanish speakers?

[Jason Su @jasonbsu]

The big trap every serious poker player must avoid:

Getting so caught up in gaining knowledge that you forget the whole point of the game is to have as much fun as possible while getting the money.

You lose sight of that, and your winrate is toast.

[Naval @naval]

Entropy means that everything falls apart, except knowledge.

[Jason Su @jasonbsu]

People love this formula:

“I’m winning x dollars per hour, I should just play this many hours.”

And they act as if that’s it.

Never seeing the truth, which is that “x” is completely dependent on how present you are in each moment that you play—that when your level of presence sinks to zero, “x” goes to zero right along with it, or worse, it becomes negative.

Same deal with the hours played.

You can’t just force yourself to play.

That has a very temporary shelf life, which either results in you burning out and not being able to play at all, or, once again, having that “x” turn into a zero or negative number.

The only safeguard to protect the “x” and the volume is presence.

It keeps you focused each hand.

Puts you in the state to get great reads, then gives you the confidence to act on them before your mind can talk you out of it.

It makes you excited to play more.

That's what happens when you're crushing the game and having a great time—it makes you want more and more without ever having to force a schedule on yourself.

The real formula is simple:

More presence, more money.

That’s what I do for my people.

If you enjoy my stuff and are interested in working with me to win more than ever while feeling better than you ever have, DM me and I'll be sure to reply soon.

[Jason Su @jasonbsu]

You can learn poker strategy from the best now for dirt cheap.

They give it away because it's not what they know that separates them—it's how they execute and adapt under pressure, and they don't teach you that.

Presence is where the real money's at.

[Jason Su @jasonbsu]

Sometimes we say things and wish we could take them back.

This is not one of those times.

And actually I want to say it again louder this time in case anyone who needs to hear it missed it the first time:

Poker is not “hard,” and it doesn’t “wear you down.”

The way it works is that the game attracts people who want to win, and win a lot. It also attracts people who tend to motivate themselves into action through ways that are designed to burn themselves out, stuff like:

* never thinking you’re good enough or have done enough

* always comparing your achievements to the person above you and wishing you were there instead of here

* convincing yourself that nobody believes in you

When this is how you operate?

The more you do and the more you win, the worse you will feel. Every bit of effort you put in is a burden, one that never gets paid off because winning is never even enjoyable—at best a temporary relief from losing and feeling bad about yourself.

On top of this:

Poker players tend to draw most to all of their self-worth from being a winning player.

Put these together and now you've got a problem.

You need to win in order to feel okay about yourself, but you also need to suffer in order to win—and therefore you need to suffer in order to feel good about yourself. Absent any other source of self-worth, you start to tell yourself during the downswings that the suffering is what makes you special:

“I am special because I struggle.”

“Look at me, I’m still here.”

“Nobody else could have it as tough as I do and still be here doing all this work.”

Repeat this to yourself enough times and you will inevitably start to believe that "poker is hard" and "the game wears you down."

But that's because you need it to feel that way in order to feel any sort of self-worth.

Yes, it require lots of time, effort, and dedication to win big.

And yes, there's a lot of pain, fear, anger, and sadness.

But pain and effort are not the same as suffering.

Suffering is what happens when you're not emotionally equipped to be present with those experiences and still feel okay, still feel like yourself. It's only "hard" when you have to keep going back to the well of beating up on yourself and feeling like you have to prove something to the whole world just to get yourself to study and play. It only "wears you down" when the pain and stress overwhelm you into wishing you were anywhere but here.

But that’s not the game’s fault.

You created that relationship.

Poker doesn’t do anything—it’s just a game, and “it” can never “do” anything to you.

Pain and effort are not the same as suffering.

It only turns into suffering when you have no other way of motivating yourself, no other source of self-esteem, and you lack the ability to be present with the emotions that playing the game brings out.

Why do I speak so confidently about all this?

Because literally 95% of my work time is spent helping people cure themselves of this one issue, and at this point there is now a long line of people who went from "poker is hard" to enjoying playing again like they did in the beginning.

Bottom line, if you want to fix this:

* learn how to fuel yourself into action in ways that make you feel better and more energized, not worse and burned out

* learn how to grow your sense of self-worth beyond winning at this game

* let go of the idea that you are special because you suffer (you are special, just not for that)

* learn how to still feel like yourself and feel like you can handle the experience during the moments when you're feeling your most tired, stressed, anxious, and unhappy

Get those down, and you'll finally get to experience what it is to both win and be happy.

[Jason Su @jasonbsu]

Everyone wants to play with confidence.

But confidence is earned.

Gained each time you stay present enough to sense what your gut is telling you, then execute instead of letting the fear talk you out of it.

If you can't do that, you're just waiting to run good.

[Jason Su @jasonbsu]

Very few people are able to sustain success for long periods of time—where it feels like you just keep growing, having more and more fun, and stay motivated to keep going.

People blame it on the nature of poker.

Variance, degenerates, etc.

But that’s not it.

This issue isn’t unique to poker, it’s everywhere in every industry—and if you get stuck not being able to motivate yourself after having success, it’s probably because the thing that was motivating you was to have a certain level of money and/or success.

Wanting that was what got you out of bed.

Got you to put in the time.

To study, to play, to feel the pain, to keep going.

What happens once you have the thing that you want?

You’re out of fuel.

You can’t use “I want to have a lot of money” to get yourself to do stuff once you have a lot of money. You can’t use “I want to be the best player in the world” to get yourself to do stuff once you are the best player in the world.

The only way to fuel yourself is going to be to put yourself back into that place you were in that got you to do stuff:

If it’s the money, you’ll get lazy and stop working and lose the hunger until you’re down to a level of money that fires you back up again. If you’re the best player in the world, you’ll do all those same things until someone is better than you, then you’ll get fired up again.

That’s all well and good, but it has a couple problems:

1) You never get to enjoy your success

2) You can never sustain motivation without killing your momentum, because this is what’s needed to fire you back up.

It’s fuel, and it gets the job done, but it does not make you feel successful—it makes you feel like you’re wasting your potential, that you’re doing something wrong, and that maybe all the decisions you’ve made in your life were wrong.

But that’s not true.

You’re actually doing everything perfectly.

You’re just carrying out orders perfectly in a game that’s designed for you to fail, because the way you fuel yourself requires for you to struggle and bring yourself down.

The only way out is to learn how to run on better fuel:

* passion
* enjoyment
* curiosity
* confidence
* growth

These sources of fuel, we never get tired of.

We can run on them forever, and none of these require you to bring yourself down in any way. Learn how to tap into these, and everything starts to take care of itself—you’ll be fired up again, ready to go, and you’ll see that the game never changed, and that it’s very much possible to have it feel like it did in the beginning, more and more for as long as you play.

[Gerardo @_Gerardd_]

@xPastorcitox @aless_84 Gracias por compartir y exponerte Juan!! Únicamente las palabras sirven para las personas que pudieron transitar experiencias similares imho. Sigo tus vlogs:)

[Naval @naval]

Every piece of advice must be taken before it’s given.

[Jason Su @jasonbsu]

When you don’t know how to love and accept yourself in the hard moments, you’ll never feel like you’ve done enough even in the best moments.

Success without self-love feels empty—which means it’s not success.

[Gerardo @_Gerardd_]

@Fairy_verde Hola! Brindas asesoramiento y seguimiento en nutrición? No puedo enviarte un mensaje privado porque no estoy verificado. Gracias!

[Jason Su @jasonbsu]

A fact of life:

Emotions will always come out, it's just a matter of how.

When you're not present with your feelings:

* The fear keeps you from bluffing or calling when you deep down know you want to

* The anger makes you fire off a bluff you otherwise never would, or worse, snap at someone you love

* The happiness makes you play too splashy or dumb decisions with your money off the table

* The overwhelm drives you to drink, smoke, eat, binge watch tv, or whatever else your "thing" is that you do but wish you didn't

You can avoid it all by being present with your emotions, accepting them fully, and experiencing them in a healthy way when they show up.

You, your wallet, and your loved ones will all be much happier this way.