$50M Poker Pro Shares His Best Advice For Founders

24:10Cause whatever, you know, you lose you. Now, once you become a big company, I remember I spoke at Kraft Foods once they had me on as a, at a corporate event. And actually one of the people asked is like, what would you do with Kraft mac and cheese? It's been like our staple. And I use the poker analogy. And I said, listen, if I had a$500 bankroll, that's, that's, I can replicate that. Like I can get that. But once I have$2 million, I can't really risk the whole$2 million to go back to 500 because it's too much. Right? So when I was broke, I would take shots like this, but once I've an established brand, if you will, once I've got the money, I wouldn't mess with it too much because they wanted to change the recipe and the packaging and all that.

24:47And I said, you know, listen, if it's working, why mess with it? You know, there's a risk there. And I would say that when you're taking risk, you take risk when you're on the low end of the totem pole. That's exactly when you take them, especially in your 20s, you know, whatever you take risk. But once you've established, you should be less, you should be way more risk averse. So I play poker for a living. But when it comes to investing and all that stuff, I know nothing about it. But I'm very risk averse. I have a guy, you know, Morgan Stanley guy, municipal bonds. I don't even know what it is.

25:15Right. But it's safe stuff. Like I don't I don't gamble needlessly at this point because I've already created the dream life that I want. So what's the point? Right. There was a guy I was in college and I used to I took one class my senior year called Getting Rich. And it was probably I was a premed kid. So this was like I'd done all the hard physics, biology, whatever. This was like my blow off class turned out to be the most valuable class I took my entire college career. they invited in this guy from a hedge fund or maybe his venture capital fund. So this VC comes in and he he's like, okay, cool.

25:48Like who here wants to start a business someday? And so like, I would say like 75 % of the kids raise their hand. Like, Hey, I like the idea. I'd like to own my own business. And he goes, awesome. Who here is going to start a business that you're, you're all graduating seniors, right? So who's going to start a business this may when you graduate. and the 75 % of hands dropped and there was like two or three hands left. And he goes, what just happened? He's like, that is, and so he started asking people, he goes, you, you said you wanted to start a business. Why aren't you doing it now? Like what's coming first?

26:21Oh, I got this great job at McKinsey. I got this job at a bank, Goldman Sachs, wherever. I got this internship. So I'm gonna do that for a few years, get some experience and then I'm gonna go do the business thing. And he goes, he said, you guys have it backwards. He goes, when you're 21 and 22 years old and you can live off of a futon and, you know, you have no mortgage, you have no kids and you have no expectations. He's like, this is the time to just go broke repeatedly. He goes, you should just try so many businesses during this era. Don't wait till you're 28 to 32, because that's when it's going to feel a lot harder and a lot more costly to go start that business because you're going to have a better salary.

27:02You're going to have a job. You're going to have a reputation. You're not going to want to be a beginner in your thirties. You should be a beginner in your twenties. And literally that shifted the course of my life where I was like, oh, he's right. I should just go. I can, I can afford to go broke several times now, similar to poker. Like when you have a small bankroll is when you want to take the most risk. And like you, cause you can recover and bounce back quickly. You don't actually have that much to lose. Today's episode is brought to you by HubSpot. Being a know-it-all used to be considered a bad thing, but in business, knowing it all, it's everything.

27:30Because right now, businesses are only using about 20 % of their data, unless you have HubSpot. That's where they take data that's buried in emails and call logs and meeting notes. They become insights that help you grow your business. Because when you know more, you grow more. You see, being a know-it-all isn't so bad after all. Visit HubSpot.com to learn more today. You said you started when you were in your teens, and you started learning the game, and you would go broke, but then you would borrow some money, get back in it. What happened from there? We're very good. People are very good at thinking of all the reasons why something's not going to work and something's going to fail.

28:01So it's very easy to be like, oh, I want to start this business, but I don't have the money. It's not good timing and do this. And it's like, when I'm set and everything's good, then I'll do it. And I remember I did a course years ago on sort of emotional intelligence and there's a thing called be, do, have, right? Many people think you need to like have everything in order to be something, right? Where the truth is, it's like, be it right you know do it and you'll have it like just just live like you got like go for it a little bit more like you said as for me like to some segue into your second question that's kind of what i did i went for it you know i went to vegas and i remember the first time i went to vegas i had like three thousand dollars 24 hours later i did not but i had three more days in vegas with no money um learning experience got kicked in the nuts went back home to toronto rebuilt kept going back.

28:53So it was a trial and error thing where I went from being the big fish in a small pond in Toronto to the top pros, you know, and I remember a very distinct moment. Um, when that happened, it was like four in the morning and I was playing seven handed seven people at the table and, uh, I lost my money, you know, and I went to the bathroom, washed my hands, you know, came out and they're all gone. And I realized in that moment, I was the sucker. they were only playing because of me i was their ev i was their expected value and i remembered every one of their faces with vengeance right and i said i'm gonna get you one day one of them was a guy named hawaiian bill you know he'd wear those hawaiian shirts or whatever and uh hated him you know at the table because he was take he was playing aggressive you know i was like a bull he was just he just knew how to beat me and then about a year or two later he sort of became a little bit of a mentor of mine you know because i was like oh this guy knows what he's doing you He's been around the block and I'm going to learn from him instead of being angry.

29:53And, you know, I just eventually I had I had persistence. You know, I understood that like and I had many walks home from the casino to my motel where I wondered, like, what am I doing? You know, I'm not in school. I'm not going anywhere. And this is it. So good news is I'd wake up in the morning ready to go. All right. Today's the day. Let's turn it around. There's that one of my favorite scenes is from a movie is a poker movie. It's with Mark Wahlberg, where he's talking to John Goodman. And do you guys know what scene I'm talking about where he basically says, like, I was up$2 million and I lost all of my money.

30:27And John Goodman's like, look, every idiot knows that when you're up$2 million, we all know what to do. You take$1 million and you buy a house and then you buy a really crappy car and you put the rest in savings. And that's your fortress of solitude. You can never mess that up. And then you go and gamble with the rest. But you never screw that one bit up. And he, like, tells this amazing story. Was there a point in your life or at least or rather what point in your life or what age were you? Were you like, OK, I have a base. I have my fortress of solitude. Things feel good. How late into life were you or how early into life were you before you felt some security?

31:00Because it sounds like your line of work. It's a lot of ups and downs. Was there ever like, OK, I'm at a place of safety? The first time it happened, I was very wrong. So I'll go there and then I'll tell you about when it actually happened. And 1999, I had a good year. I won the U.S. Poker Championship to end the year. I had like 400, 500 ,000. I thought, okay, well, we're set. We're good. We're never going to go broke again. Then in the year 2000, I got complacent. I was living the Vegas life. We're going to strip joints. We're going to dinners. I go play poker, gambling, not taking it as serious as I should.

31:37And oh, wow. By the end of the year 2000, the money gone, right? And I was like, it was a good learning experience. I'm glad it happened. Because I watched many of my peers who went through this pattern of building up a bankroll, blowing it all, and then rebuilding it again. And part of that was they didn't have a foundation, like actually a reason. They didn't have a why, right? So they wake up in the morning. What's their goal? They got to go make money, right? Now they have money, okay? Well, what's next? So subconsciously, they self-sabotaged. They would self-sabotage, lose all the money, so they had a purpose again, you know?

32:09And I remember watching my peers do that, and I said to myself, I'm not going to be that guy. So I started to take things more seriously in the early 2000s and probably by my late 20s, early 30s, I'd say, is when I finally realized I got it figured out. I've got enough money. We're for sure not going broke anymore. Even though we're playing higher stakes, I'm much more careful than I was. But that was a very important year for me to fail the way that I did in the year 2000, to really just bottom out in a sense. And then that's a decision point. Am I going to just keep doing what they do and be 50 or 60?

32:42I mean, I watched a guy. No joke. He builds up. You know, I used to play with him in small games where, you know, maybe he had$1 ,000 or$2 ,000. He's playing the big game where he's got$2 million, right? Does that mean he had$2 million saved or he was betting that game $2 million was on the line? He had$2 million total. Like that's what he would, you know, that's his bankroll is$2 million. Now he's up there playing the big game. He's got a couple ladies with him. He's doing blow. He's drinking whatever. Three days later, this guy who had$2 million in front of him, He comes up and he says, hey, man, can I get 500?

33:13Because he's back to nothing, right? So he wants 500. And I saw that. And I was like, wow, man, you had 2 million and you blew all that? And there's a lot of crazy stories like that. And I knew I was never going to be that guy. But it was a real wake-up call, right? Guys I looked up to, in a sense. And I'm like, what are you doing, man? What's the biggest amount that you saw someone have and it go to zero? Well, I don't know the guy personally necessarily. but this famous story was Archie Karras, who was the craps player. A little bit of a cheat and all these kind of things at the Binion's Horseshoe.

33:45He went there and he was winning like a million dollars a day. He had like 45 million. He had every$5 ,000 chip that the Binion's Horseshoe had. He had them all in his safety deposit box. He had 45 million, lost it all. And then for a second time, he was able to build up a bankroll to about 17 or 18 million and lost it all. So this is a degenerate, right? Like his whole life revolves around this. And this is where I don't relate to people that are billionaires in a lot of ways that still are looking to make money. I don't get it. Like I can't relate to it. Like you have a billion dollars. Why do you care so much about a deal that just made you 20 million that's going to do nothing to change your life?

34:25So that sort of obsession of a bigger yacht or matching up with my others. I have friends that are billionaires and stuff like that. And one of them actually wrote a book, Bill Perkins, because he does it right. He wrote a book called Die With Zero, right, which essentially he talks about how money is just a tool to give you opportunities to have happiness. And what is happiness? It's not a bigger yacht. It's not a watch. It's not a car. It's experiences, right? So he talks about spend your money. Think about that. Like if you think if you look back, like in your last 10 years of your life, you bought a watch a while ago.

34:59Did that give you happiness that was long lasting? What about the trip you took with your boys when you went on a golfing trip and you went to like the south of France? Like that's something that's valuable to you now. Like you still have those memories and, you know, a life that's worthwhile. So material objects, material things. I think that's where, frankly, the opposite happens. You'll, it'll, it'll do the, instead of making you happy, it'll make you vehemently unhappy. If that's the only source of happiness that you find. Yeah. It's also funny. Like if you, it's almost frustrating because it's like, I keep going to this well, trying to scoop up some happiness and there's just none there.

35:35Uh, right. If you, if you keep trying the same strategy and it's not working, it's actually not just that you didn't get happiness. You actually get frustrated because diminishing returns, right? You're getting diminishing returns. Yeah, exactly. It's like you get that and you take, but I don't do kick. I've never done cocaine. But the more you do it, you know, you have that little fleeting dopamine hit. But the more you do it, the more your body becomes accustomed. It doesn't even have that same effect. Same thing, I think, with material objects. You have six cars. OK, now, oh, I'm going to buy this seventh car and this eighth car.

36:00What now? Like it becomes like unimportant. So what motivates you then? Because you're, you know, you're playing a game that's literally for money. It's the chips on the table. The goal is to get the chips from the other guy into your little pot. And so, you know, why do you do it? You've made plenty of money and you don't have to keep playing. So what is it for you? Well, that's the hook, really. That's the trick. I think the majority of – or a large percentage of successful people became successful doing what they're doing because they love what they're doing, right? Most – if you don't love what you're doing and you don't – your chances of being successful are very slim.

36:37So if you just say, I want to be rich and famous, okay, but do you want to do the work? Do you like – what do you like to do that gets you there? And if you're doing something because you think it's going to get you money, but you don't enjoy it, you don't have that passion for it. I always did. I love competing. I would love to be an athlete, but I'm like 5 '9 and like a buck six. I'm too tall to be a jockey and too short to be a basketball player, right? So I didn't have any talent in that regard. But poker was a battle of wits, right? And I love the game. And when I started playing it, I wasn't playing for money.

37:09Money was a tool. I wanted to play in bigger games. I wanted to play with the best. Right. So the only way to do that was money. So money wasn't the end goal. Right. Ultimately, you know, what money provided me was and I always ask this whenever I would coach people like what is people say, well, what do you want? What's your dream? I want to make I want to be rich. OK, but what's for what to do? What like what what are you going to use it for? Because money itself is just a pile of notes or a number on your screen. It doesn't do anything. What do you want it for? And for me, it was to provide myself the freedom to be able to do whatever I want.

37:42you know, in my 30s, 40s, and 50s, if I want to travel, if I want to relax, I want to stay home, not have to go to a day job and be my own boss. So that's what I looked at as far as money goes. Like, the truth is my bank account, if it was 10x what it is now, my life wouldn't change much at all. Like, you know, maybe I'd have a plane. But isn't it funny? Isn't it funny how the line between degeneracy and loving it, like we could be describing very similar things. Like, for example, I'm a little bit of a workaholic. I love it. But then my wife or someone else would be like, well, well, you're just a degenerate.

38:18You're a workaholic. Yeah. It's kind of interesting when you describe it in the way that you describe it. I'm like, gambling's awesome. And then when I think of it, I'm like, oh, Larry the Greek or whatever, Archie the Greek, he's a degenerate. But couldn't he describe it as the same way? I loved it. Yeah. You know, Doyle Brunson had that famous quote once. It was on a TV show where they asked him, he said, you know, we're all really just degenerate gamblers. We just found something we could beat. Right. So he was, you know, a lot of the old school guys, they gamble on everything, you know, poker players.

38:52They didn't just play poker. They play, you know, golf for big money, bet on every game, bet on everything, you know, some really famous bets from back in the day and some really cool ones. but they're always looking for action or EV. And a lot of it is because it gets their juices flowing. But I found, like I said, for me, that's not the be all end all. Like it doesn't do it for me. I'm not really a thrill seeker in that way. Like people say, oh, you know, you should bungee jump or jump out of a plane. I'm like, I have zero interest in that. Zero. It's just dumb for me because it doesn't do what it does for other people.

39:22Like some people go, oh, my God, it was a thrill of a lifetime, whatever. I'm like, for me, I just look at it and go, oh, you might die. So what's the point? You know, like if I believe that it would give me that thrill, you know, I would, you know, maybe take it on. But it's I don't it doesn't do it for me. You mentioned loving the competition. Who's the best poker player you've ever sat down at the table with? Has there ever been anybody you sat down? You're like, wow, this guy's this guy's better than me. Yeah, for sure. Several. One of them is my good friend who I've been friends with for 30 years.

39:50And he did what I didn't. I'll tell you, we sort of split in terms of like our focus. He's the best player poker player in the world. as far as I'm concerned, when you count all the games, and that's Phil Ivey, okay? So Phil Ivey and I took different paths. There was a time where poker started to get popular on TV, you know, and there was all these opportunities and this and that. Phil didn't, he was not about that. He didn't like that. He was nose to the grindstone. I'm gonna sit my leather ass in this chair and I'm gonna play for 10 hours. I'm gonna make all the money. And I had that when I was younger, but then I saw these other opportunities to be, you know, sort of a name in the game and potentially get some money through sponsorships or different business side, the business side of poker.

40:26And I was more well-suited to that than he was because I enjoyed it. You know, when I was a very young kid, I wanted to be an actor. So being on camera, speaking, these types of things, that was comfortable for me. So I felt like I could position myself to do quite well that way. And I did, you know, and he went a different path and, you know, did well his way. But the difference is once I start doing that, my focus is now diverted, right? He's focused on one thing, one thing only, just this game of poker, right? I'm playing poker, but I'm also doing this stuff too. Right. So the intensity with which he plays that, I can't reach.

41:01Right. Because I've got other things going on. You know what I mean? Which is fine. I don't regret it, you know, looking back. But yeah, I think that's part of why, you know, what made him so successful. He was completely consumed by poker and nothing else. So he was he's completely intensely focused on it. What's his kind of like superpower? So like if yours is the ability to sort of like get inside the mind of the other person and read them and try to try to. be able to see through the cards what's he what's his superpower he was very like he was quiet he's a quiet assassin when he played but he's paying attention to everything he sees everything right so he'll sit in a game for cash and he'll see like 15 20 minutes in the wrong guys are winning okay what does that mean the wrong guys are winning okay well the wrong guys are winning means they're going to play well because sometimes when people are winning they play well and when they're losing they're going to go off for a big number so sometimes he'd go down there and he place of 15, 20 minutes, see there's nothing here and he'd leave, he'd go home.

41:58Or other days, he's there for four days without leaving his chair because he sees that they're vulnerable, right? Often in that environment, it's all a bunch of sharks. So it's all sharks, right? So every shark is circling each other and they see one shark is wounded. Oh, one shark lost his tail. Oh, we're going to rip this shark apart, right? It's a dog eat dog world in that sense. And he was the king of that. And still, you know, still still has that killer sign of intensity. Yeah, I would say it's just his ability to like dial in and have like uber focus. If you had to teach me someone who, frankly, I've never even been to a casino, really, how to like keep calm under pressure in these high stakes games.

42:41You and Phil, I have you as my coach. We're going to spend like three days in a hotel before we go down, like preparing. not not the actual like math or the cards, you know, what would you teach me? What would be my checklist on how to be calm in a stressful situation? Yeah, well, first of all, virtually impossible. OK, like in three days, because here's the thing, it's an emotional thing, right? I mean, I would you know, you can do like a meditative retreat, a yoga retreat, learn to get Zen, you know, learn to get centered, all these types of things. But in three days, entering an environment you've never really experienced before, dealing with that sort of stress, that's a you thing, right?

43:18Can like, we could like set you right with, you know, explaining like, it's all part of the, you know, there's things you could probably do, but over three days, somebody that's completely new, I would say that you wouldn't be an easy person to help in that regard. You're just going to have to go through it on your own. Now that's different for people that have played the game for years, right? You know, I can, you know, get them to focus on the fundamentals of what they're doing, right? Are you making good decisions? Okay, let's focus on that. Okay, let's not become victims to the idea that like, oh man, I'm so unlucky.

43:49That does you no good. There's no value. So being input focused, not output focused. Being, yeah, focused on the journey, right? So in poker, it's not like other things where if you make the right decision, you make money. That's not how poker works. I can go all in with a pair of aces, right? And Sam could say, I have a nine and a four. I'm going to go all in. Well, that's a good situation for me, but sometimes I'm going to lose. But did I make a mistake? No. In the long run, I'm going to be okay. So for you or for anybody else, I would usually probably ask like what your life experience is with other things, right?

44:20Like so let's say you're somebody who plays the market. Okay, I would maybe make an analogy like, okay, so sometimes you make good investments and then something completely uncontrollable happens. And, you know, your investment goes to nothing. Doesn't make your decision bad, right? Your decision was good, right? So focus on that. Instead of like, woe is me, go, okay, well. Or alternatively, if you lost and it was you, you didn't see something. You're like, oh, I missed this. You know, that was important. Okay. So you use that, you know, you use that mistake or that breakdown, if you will, to plug a hole, you know, and be better prepared the next time you see it.

44:52Poker is like essentially like a big puzzle, right? Where you start out and just make all these mistakes. And now you start to like go, okay, I've got this one figured out. And you continually plug leaks or you've seen these situations so many times where you go, aha, I made this mistake before, but I'm in the same situation now or a very similar one. This time I'm going to do the right thing. what are the most common leaks? Cause you've coached people and people ask you for advice for years. What are the most common leaks that like a smart, competent player still has that kills them? That's really hurting their, their gains.

45:23So like, you know, they're, they're not at that beginner level, but they're sort of like, you know, intermediate and they are a smart person. They have enough talent. What leaks do they have? I'd say a pretty common leak for 99 % of poker players or gamblers in general is when they're winning, you know, everything's great or whatever. they don't play as long. They'll be like, all right, I'm going to take my winnings. I'm going to leave. Whereas when they're losing, they're there for days. I'll give you a perfect example. My friend Evelyn, who used to, or my ex-girlfriend, we'd go, and she'd win like every day almost.

45:56It's like, how'd you do? Well, I won 100. I won 200. I won 300. Then I'd look at like day nine and it says I lost 3 ,700. So you won nine out of 10 days, right? But what's the difference? You won 100, 200, 300. So over those 10 days, because of your mental state, when you were winning, the situation was good and you should be pressing and pushing. That's when you like, you know, a lot of people just like, I'm going to take my winnings. That's the opposite of what a Phil Ivey would do, as I was sort of described. And but when she was losing, she wasn't there for because I looked at the length of play the first six days, one hour, two hour, three hour, nothing more than a four hour session.

46:31That one she lost thirty five hundred. She was there for thirty one hours. Right. So the biggest leak people make is they chase losses in the short run. Right. So I have to get even today. It's not this game isn't today. This game doesn't end today. This game is all year, all, you know, all month, all year. You have to be able to say, OK, well, you know, because the thing is, is when you're losing, your mental state is going to be affected. You know, there's very few robotic minds that can play poker without having that affect them to some degree. So you're better off playing in situations when your mental state is good.

47:02You're winning versus when you're bad. Have you ever read the inner game of tennis, Daniel? No. We talked about it on here. And what you're describing is exactly that. So it's this amazing book. I don't play tennis, but it's about how to play tennis. But it's one of these books where it teaches you about life. And the concept of the book is basically that you have two selves. Self one is like the conscious critical mind where you like judge yourself like, oh, that was a bad hit. That was a bad hand. Self two is like you don't think you feel your body. And that when you like listen to your body and you don't judge yourself, that's oftentimes when hot streaks happen.

47:36So I think about I don't know, Sean, I forget the phrase, but they call it in basketball where you're like on a street. Yeah. Yeah. You're like you can't miss. And people always say, well, don't pull them out. Like, let them just go. And that's that moment where you're listening to self-tune. You're just feeling it. And what you described is exactly that. Golf, too. Like, I don't know if you guys golf, but like when you golf, most people, when they golf, they have a swing thought, something they're working on. You know, like I'll get there's always a swing thought. But I remember the one time when my swing thought was this.

48:04my swing thought was nothing from nothing is nothing which means nothing just swing i would literally go over the ball i'm in my head i'd sing this on nothing from nothing is nothing you know just let the body do it because when you're over technical over analyzing and all that kind of stuff it can actually be a detriment and that's not funny you're describing this you're this author said the exact same thing that's so fascinating to me yes and it's true in poker too you're like you're like you see a move and you're like oh i don't know but do i need to take this risk. I mean, I don't know. It seems kind of crazy.

48:33It might work. What might not? Instead of just being like, and frankly, and this is a secret weapon that I don't use too often, but it really helps is alcohol. Okay. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not saying you should drink and play, but there was a guy named Bill Smith many years ago. They said when he was sober, he was the easiest, weakest player in the game. When he was drunk, he was just a sloppy mess. He couldn't win. But when he was just a little buzz, just a little drunk, they said he was the best player in the world, right? Why would that be? Because with poker, alcohol can lower your inhibition a little bit.

49:04So you're just going to trust your instinct. And whenever I've done that, I feel like it's almost like a superpower because it allows you to sort of get past the fear and the rationalization for why you shouldn't take this risk. And that's all going against what your instincts are saying is going to work, right? So having that little bit of, but learning to create that and trust that without alcohol is the ideal goal. And that's what we all strive for. And I've actually gotten a lot better at that just naturally, just by just saying, okay, listen, if you think this is probably right, you know, forget about all these other reasons.

49:35It's not just do it, man. Just do it. I'm writing this book right now on creativity and getting into creative flow. And in the research I'm looking at, I mean, in writers and authors, it's amazing. These guys are drunks. These guys are all drunks. And they would wake up and they had this discipline part, which is wake up and immediately start writing. But they're like, yeah, our best work was also when we added this other habit where we wake up and right before we start writing, we do the whiskey part or, you know, we start drinking. And there's another analogy to this, which is actually kind of an interesting thing about napping.

50:10And so there's this famous study that was called the Paris Sleep Study. And it's similar, like you get in a state of mind where your inhibition is lower and you're basically, you don't self-censor. So we all have this sort of editor in our head, like in a game of tennis, like the guy, the ump sitting on the tower. We all have that sort of ump who's calling balls in and out. And when you say something, you censor. If you're doing a golf swing, you start to think, you start to censor what you're doing. And if you can get that censor to just shut up and trust yourself, you actually do a lot better.

50:40And so they did this thing in the Paris Sleep Study. They gave people a very complicated pattern, like a math pattern, like a number pattern. And, you know, let's say 10 % of people solved it right away. Great. You guys are done. Congratulations. Here's some chocolate. You guys are out. The rest of the people, they basically let them work at it for something like an hour. And they were all like stuck. They're like, I can't see this pattern. I don't know what the hell it is. So they split the group into two rooms. They're like, hey, we're going to take a quick break, you know, a sort of 20, 30 minute break.

51:08You guys go over here and hang out in the waiting room, do whatever you want. And they took the other group, the other half, and they put them in a, they said, hey, we'd like you to go ahead and take a nap. So you're going to lay down in a calm environment. You're going to take a nap. They took a nap for about 25, 26 minutes. And then when they woke up, they all went back in the room. And the group that had napped basically had a three times higher rate of just solving the problem right when they got it. And there's a state that there's all these great, you know, Edison used to nap and Einstein used to nap and all these guys used to nap.

51:40And they would famously nap with like a spoon in their hand because they didn't want to sleep for a long time. They wanted to get into that state where you just start to fall asleep. And then when you fall asleep, you drop the spoon, it would clang, and then you'd wake up. And they would use that state, which is called a hypogagic state, where you actually are way more creative and you can get into a flow much more easily than if you were just in your normal pattern. That's super fascinating. Yeah, that's wow. I mean, my first thought was that just like obviously sleep in general for poker is the most important thing.

52:09It's like if our mind is a computer, it's the time where it shuts down and it reboots and downloads all the information so that you're ready to do it the next day. I remember hearing that with some, they did similar things where they did some tests with people where they had them, you know, do this test morning, night, and then sleep and then next morning. And, you know, next, and the results the next morning were always better than, you know, the previous night or whatever. So I don't, I mean, I didn't know that napping could do that or this flow state or the state idea, but that sounds cool because I like, I'm a big fan of naps.

52:44You know, we used to go to Europe and play, you know, the jet lag thing. sometimes I'd be at the table with my like a head down and I keep a hand out. And you know, then I could feel the dealer throw the car to my finger and wake up. This is for the folks out there who have a business that does at least$3 million a year in revenue. Because around this point, that's when you're able to look up after being heads down for years building your company. And you realize two things. One, you've done something great, but you're still a long way from your final destination. And two, you look around and you realize I am all alone.

53:15I've outrun my peers, which means you're now making$10 million decisions alone by yourself. And that is when mediocrity can creep in. My company Hampton, we solved this problem by giving a room of vetted peers of other entrepreneurs who are going to hold you accountable, call you out on your nonsense and help show you the way. Because the fact is, is that there's only a tiny number of people in your town who know what you're going through and who have been there. and they're hard to find. The biggest risk is not failing. You have a company and it's working. You're going to be fine. But the biggest risk is waking up 10 years from now and saying, shit, I barely grew in business and in life.

53:53And for people like you who are ambitious, wasted potential and regret is what we want to help you to avoid. We have made so many of these groups and we have a thousand plus members. And I know this stuff actually works. It can change your life. It changed mine and I know it will change yours. So check it out. joinhampton.com you you mentioned at the beginning you said i went to a course or a seminar about emotional intelligence and um that's not what i expected you to say that sounds like you know i don't know i thought you would talk about poker and math and stats and all that stuff that's pretty fascinating why did you go and what did you get out of that yeah it was in vegas i did it in 2013, my manager, Brian, who's a like, just a, you know, super healthy, perfect wife, three great kids, like lawyer guy, you know, all buttoned up.

54:42He did it, right. And we're playing golf. And he said, you know, you should try this thing. And I thought to myself, okay, well, I trust him, right. So he thinks it might have some value. I'll say, I'll go, you know, what's the work? I'm always looking to learn and do different things. It was nothing like I expected it to be. This was no business seminar, if you will. This was a deep dive into what makes you tick, where you decided certain things about yourself, what works about you, what doesn't work about you. And it was a life-changing experience in a lot of ways for me, right? I hated it in the first couple of days, but because I had faith in Brian, I'm like, all right, I'm gonna stick with it.

55:14It's transformational in so many ways. And really like some of the key tenants of what I learned there was just the difference between being a victim to circumstance and responsible completely for everything and for where you are and all the decisions you make, right? You're not responsible for the weather. You're not responsible for a car crash. But you're responsible for your response to it. The word responsible when you break it down is essentially response-able. So the difference between those that succeed and those that fail often are how they respond to things. And there's one story I remember that they told, and it's true actually.

55:49There were two mothers that had the same thing happen to them. They had their child killed in a car accident. Horrifying experience, right? The first mother was grieving, obviously. She, you know, expected she, you know, she drank, she had other children. She has been in, you know, she stayed in that depression six months, a year later and lost her family. Right. Which is sad. And you can you can look at that and you would empathize. Well, yeah, of course. Right. The other mother had the exact same thing happened to her. She grieved, took her time, and then she started an organization called Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

56:20So she said, OK, I'm going to you know what, I'm going to take this. I'm going to respond to this in a way where I'm going to help other people. Right. So the event was the same. It was a neutral event. The event happened to both people. But the response to the event led these lives in a very different trajectory because of how they were responding to it. So learning that with poker is incredibly important. You're going to have bad luck sometimes, good luck. How you respond to it is going to be the difference between you being successful and you being a failure. One of my biggest things that I've learned from Sean is I, for years, I thought, well, I'm very good at that.

56:56I know that I am responsible for my own outcomes. I believe that fully. And one day, I think I was in a bad mood. And he was like, well, why are you in the bad mood? And I said, this person did this and it pissed me off. He's like, well, so you're, you're not responsible for your mood. What's going on? Like this person just, and I, and it, that's when it like clicked. And frankly, it's still really hard. but it was like the this being having that internal locus of control isn't just for like making money or starting a business it's also for how do i feel on the inside and that was the biggest thing sean what do you say like you have some like different version of someone living rent-free in your brain like you have all these like phrases where it's like the one that stuck with me i went to so i went to a tony robbins thing it's very similar like i i kind of intuitively knew hey like i'm a learner i'm i'm a curious guy why i always want to improve why would i not invest in this.

57:43Then I get there and he's like, all right, everybody stand up. I want to hear you. And I'm like, oh God, I'm here just for the learning part. I don't need to dance. Right. And then like five minutes in, I had a choice, a fork of the road. It's like, you're either going to play full out here. You're going to like do the experience or you're going to have to do the experience and get half the results. I was like, whatever, let me do this. Nobody here knows me. I could just, let me dance. And then of course, you know, 45 minutes in I'm dancing. I'm like, this is amazing. This is so good. And he says this thing in his talk.

58:11He's like, and he's like I'm fucking Tony Robbins and he's like he tells the story of when he was on his trip with his like platinum you're like you've you bought all the upsells you're at the like you're paying him a quarter million dollars a year to go on vacation with him and he was with them in India and he meets this guy in a mountain some guru guy or whatever and the guy said um like you know Tony so like how much are you suffering nowadays he's like sorry I don't know if you know me I'm Tony Robbins you know suffering isn't exactly how people describe me typically right um and the guy I was like, well, I can see like, you, you know, you got upset because the, the guy didn't know the schedule and then that, and then you got upset about this.

58:49Like, these were small things. He's like, well, no, I wasn't upset. I just, he starts to be defensive. And then he calms down. He's like, he's like, what are you like? What's the, what's the observation you have here? He goes, basically he's like, how cheap is your happiness? Because all it took was this guy forgetting one thing on the schedule and you lost it. That was so cheap. It took him nothing to take your happiness away. And so this idea of like, your mood is essentially you want the Louis Vuitton of moods, you want it to be so premium, like for somebody to affect your mood to take your mood away from you.

59:23It should come with a very, very high price. And so I started to reframe like when something would happen. I'm like, that's too cheap. I don't, I'm not gonna take that deal. Why would I ever? Why would ever trade my good mood for that small, that small thing? No, I actually love that. That's really good. Because I think we, we all strive to be like, you know, be above that, but we're human, right? Like I get annoyed by the dumbest things. I'm going to use that today. Cause I, like I said, I do streams where sometimes I'm sitting in the brain and you get comments. I get thousands of comments, like while I'm streaming and you know, the brain I've already known this, but like, we naturally going to gravitate toward the negative comment, the one who calls me a bald idiot or whatever.

1:00:00So, I mean, I, so instead of like, I've learned this a long time ago, but like allowing that to affect you and to sort of, you know divert the stream it's like kind of like what they're wanting to do but i've learned to just like sort of respond to positive reinforcement and good stuff and ignore but when let's say for example i play a hand and i lose and i'm already frustrated by the fact that i lost the hand but i'm comfortable with how i played it and then you read a bunch of armchair quarterbacks saying oh what an idiot just gave all his money away it was terrible you're you're the worst and i see that and i want to oh really sam six five nine three four come here and say that to my face how about that i would bust you i'd take all your money dude and i sometimes do that but it's silly like you said because why am i allowing this well sometimes it feels good like i trick myself to thinking it feels good and and the reality is it doesn't feel good because i'm like check i'm refreshing the page i'm like let me see the reply let me see no i can't go out to dinner yet this guy on facebook said something i gotta wait for his reply i will say this though i am a big fan of venting like in the sense that like rather than hold stuff in you know and let it bubble and let to fester i laugh at myself sometimes when i act like an idiot i'm like i get mad about something dumb and i'm like okay that was okay and then i could like very quickly after i know okay that was stupid but i got it off my chest you know what i mean like i see the river card comment i lose i'm like what the hell is going on here how did i lose this whatever and i can laugh at how unhinged i was behaving is but it's not going to be you know it's not but it's now not something that i'm just going okay everything's fine sure right it's better than i think there's some value in sometimes just letting it out like sean you you had that thing in in the in the five tweet tuesday the other day where it was um what was the name of it start with a k something theory which states that like if you write something down if you if you have a problem and you just take the f kindlin's law was basically like um like a problem well defined like if you write down a problem you've already half solved it right like if you actually can write it down inaccurate accurately what is the problem you are already halfway to a solution at that point uh danny i want to ask you about this one thing from that seminar, because when I was thinking about the Tony Robbins experience, they'll tell you something, but it's usually like an exercise you do.

1:02:05There's some like thing you do that you wouldn't have wanted to do, but now you're sitting in the room and you signed up to be there and you paid the money and now you're here. So you go ahead and you do it. And you kind of have this like moment of enlightenment that really only happened because you were actually immersed in it. You actually did a thing versus just listening to like an idea and you know, intellectually, but you didn't get to actually feel it. Did they do anything? Was there an exercise that stood out to you? There's tons. So yeah, the one that I did is called Choice Center. And there are plenty of people, there's a lot of crossover between Anthony Robbins himself and people that have done both.

1:02:33And there, you know, there's a lot of similarities and sounds like, and what you know what you were doing. But as far as a, you know, one specific one, I think, sort of the root of that whole victim responsible idea, the concept is that I remember, you know, there was a girl when I was, she was young, and she was partying, whatever. And we, you know, We were together. I was, I loved her, whatever. But like, we broke up, okay? And I had a story about how I was the victim, you know, about how she did this, she did this, she was bad, and all these types of things. So one of the exercises we did was we tell the story as a victim, okay?

1:03:05Now you must retell the exact same story where you're 100 % responsible for everything that happened. Whoa, right? So now I have to retell it. And all of a sudden, well, she did tell me this. She did say this. And all of a sudden, I'm freed. I'm freed of this victim story that's been a label to me is like, woe is me, poor me. I'm like, no, the signs were there. The choices were not, you know, the choices were there. And I'll say this, after I did this course in 2013, this woman who I was in love with in 2010, 11, okay, she came back to Las Vegas in 2000. I even bought her a ring back then. I never gave her in 2010, 11.

1:03:40And I kept it in my safe for some reason. She came back to Vegas in 2019 and we're married now six years. Yeah. Yeah, we were married. She's, yeah. So, but a lot of that came from me sort of reevaluating the story that I had told myself, right? So, you know, that was probably one of the more impactful ones. And it's like, it's a long, it's like a hundred day process, this course. You know, you go one weekend and, you know, it's pretty intense. Another weekend and, you know. You stuck with it. That's pretty impressive. Yeah, you're doing coaching calls. You're doing all, you actually learn how to coach other people.

1:04:13And, you know, you sort of was speaking to this about writing down stuff because that's part of it, you know, the idea behind journaling as well. But one of the things you, you know, on that note, like sometimes when I would coach other people, you find that like, one of the questions you ask is like, say you came to me for coaching on something. And I said, well, how would you coach yourself on this? Right. So then as you do that and you're like, well, I would probably tell myself this, this, this, this, and this. And then I just look at you and go, there you go. You already know the answer, right?

1:04:44You know, it's just like, but a good coach, what they do is they help ask good questions that sort of help, you know, get you to a place where you may, I don't think a good coach is one that tells you what to do. A good coach is to set you up where you see, you tell me, you know, I'm, I'm helping you see what's possible so that you get there. I like that a lot. When you, um, one of the things about poker is handling downswings. And I think that's not just a thing about poker. That's a thing about life now in poker. It's just very immediate and it's very quantified. I lost this much money just now.

1:05:16My buddy, back in college when I used to gamble a lot, me and my buddy Dan, we would go to Vegas and we would go lose a bunch of money. And we, you know, every once in a while we'd make enough money to keep us coming back to Vegas. But most of the time I would say we didn't do well. And I just remember him, the psychology of losing money is so, it gets you to act so strange. So one thing you were talking about I was like, you chase the loss. You know, I remember going back up to the room. He's going to the ATM machine. It's like, bro, don't do it. But he wants to do it. And then he would lose money.

1:05:48And then he would try to get the pit boss to like comp him a breakfast or the room to like just salvage some dignity out of it. Or he would come back to the room and he would use all the toiletries and wear the robe as if he was getting the value back out of what he just lost. And he would look in the mirror in the hotel. I remember he thought we were asleep. And he just goes, five iPhones. You lost five iPhones. He's hating himself in the mirror. and I just remember thinking like man we focus so much time me and him we used to focus so much time on the strategy of how to win and what actually we needed to be spending time on is the psychology of how to lose because there were always going to be downswings and we handled them so poorly that our strategies went out the window and so I'm curious Daniel like what is the strategy of handling adversity or these downswings what do you tell yourself and what do you think is applicable to people outside of the world of poker.

1:06:37The downswings are probably the most important part of like how you deal with them is the most important part of becoming a professional poker player. And for me, I learned over the years, you call them a breakdown, right? And typically with like a breakdown, things are going badly. That's an opportunity for a breakthrough. When things are going fine, right? You're probably not really delving that much into your strategy. You're like, okay, things are good, you know? But when things are going badly and things are going wrong, it requires you to be more introspective. You have to go, okay, what is really happening here?

1:07:07Let me dive deep. Is there, is what I'm doing working? You know, is my, is there anything I can do better? What strategies can I adjust? What strategies can I chase? And those usually come from breakdowns, whether it's in poker, downstrings or life, right? Like when you're in a downswing in your life or whatever else, that's an opportunity for a breakthrough. You either say, okay, this is the point where I'm at. Am I going to accept where I'm at, you know, and just woe is me or is now the time to reinvent myself, to try a new, you know, a new angle or, or, or try to do things differently to get myself to a better place.

1:07:40And often, you know, people call it rock bottom, right? So if you're a, you know, an addict or something, you know, that's getting by people look at that and say, well, this person's not gonna be able until they hit rock bottom. Cause what's rock bottom rock bottom is the decision point. This is it, right? I'm either going to die here like this or you know some change has to happen there's a quote from jk rowling about this have you guys ever heard that her talk about rock bottom no jk rowling who wrote harry potter and you know billionaire author right uh so she said this thing about when she was i think she had been um rejected and so she said i was set free because my greatest fear had already been realized i was still alive i still had a daughter i adored and i had an old typewriter and a big idea And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

1:08:30That's beautiful. That's so well said. And yeah, essentially concapulates what we're sort of talking about, where I think like the most impactful stages of your life. And like for me too, even with the like going to that course, right? It required me to be in a place where I had that lost love, that breakup, that painful experience of, you know, losing someone that I loved. and I was at a low point. So I went out and I said, okay, well, let's do something. And then boom, completely shifted my relationship with that event. And then eventually became the man that could look past our differences back then and realize like I'm responsible for this relationship working.

1:09:10And now we're happily married. And I constantly think of those things. Like it was one of those courses, I don't know if it's similar for you with the Tony Robbins thing, but I still use in practice a lot of the things that I learned there on a daily basis. Like I'm not perfect by any stretch. I still have my bad times, but I recognize them more quickly. When I'm being an idiot or a jerk or arrogant or whatever, I notice it faster, you know? And I'm able to shift out of it. It's like, I remember thinking afterwards, I was like, dude, I feel like Neo in the Matrix. But I thought that was like, you know, a new Matrix, he's seeing everybody else, but it's actually just seeing yourself.

1:09:46It's like, you see, oh, I'm just acting this way because of this thing. Oh, I'm saying these words instead of saying, I have to go do this. I get to go do this, right? Little shifts, right? A little like two or two word shift, right? Like, I got to go. I have to go pick up my kids. No, I get to go pick up my kids from school right now on this bike. And we're going to spend time. Like, this is amazing. You know, me five years ago, what killed for this? And now it's a now it's a have to what's going on here. And so you get curious about those things. So I totally I totally agree with that. And, you know, I think we came on to this podcast thinking like, hey, there's going to be some poker lessons, you know, as in like, oh, we can learn about, you know, poker and the art of bluffing and reading and all that.

1:10:26But, you know, this turned into a podcast about the mind, right? Right. Can I ask you about your content diet? What do you read and listen to on a daily or weekly basis? Because I find your attitude interesting. And I want to like, I want to be inspired by the same things that inspire you. Well, I'll tell you, I mean, nothing recently, but one of the books that I loved, it was such a simple book. It's by Don Miguel Ruiz. It's four, it's called The Four Agreements. Yeah, I've heard a lot of people talk about it. It's such an easy read. You'll read it in five seconds. It's four basic principles.

1:10:58Number one, be impeccable with your word to yourself and others. Number two, you know, don't take anything personal. And number three, don't make assumptions. And number four, do your best. Do your best is the most important one because the idea behind it is those three things you're going to fail at sometimes, right? But as long as you're doing your best, you're in a good place. And the one, being impeccable with your word, that I take so seriously, not just for others and for myself, to the point where if I said to you guys, I'm going to be here at 9 a.m., if I was here at 904, I'd feel like it's a broken agreement that I did not keep my word, right?

1:11:32Many people go through life and like they just show up at 904 and it's like, hey, what's up, guys? Don't acknowledge the fact that we had an agreement, you failed on this agreement, and you didn't even say anything. Listen, sometimes it's going to happen. You're going to be five minutes late, right? What does a responsive person do? Listen, I acknowledge I'm late. I'm very sorry about that. No excuses. Don't tell me about your kid and the hairdryer. I'm committed to in the future, making sure that I'm on time, you know, that you can respect, right? But somebody who's just always 15, 20 minutes late and thinks it's no big deal.

1:12:00They're disrespecting your time. And I don't trust their word when they say to me, I'll be there at nine. I'm terrible at that. Not just the timing thing, but the keeping your word to yourself. I'm pretty good actually about keeping my word to other people, but keep my word to myself. It's like, well, I'm, I'm the judge, the jury and the executioner. So, you know, I can always let myself off the hook. Like I have a, I have a food coach, so I'm trying to get in great shape. And, you know, obviously I had a personal trainer, but most of getting in great shape is controlling, you know, what you eat.

1:12:27And so she calls me every day at 1045. And she says like, Hey, like, how did yesterday go? We have to talk through it's food therapy basically for 10 minutes a day, every morning. And in that there's all, there's all these little things where it's like, I tell her, Hey, I'm going to do this. I'm deciding I'm going to do this. I'm gonna have this at this time. And then tonight I'm not going to late night snack or anything. I'm going to get to bed on time next day. Uh, you know, I did, um, see the thing, but there was all these crackers out and like, I didn't even actually think about it, but like, I was actually kind of hungry and it was all these compromises.

1:13:00And she was just like the amount of energy you're supposed to like, let me kind of realize like, man, it's not about the crackers or the chips that you're having. Sure. That's not going to kill you. This chip's not going to kill you, but being the guy who breaks his word to himself all the time, like that actually will kill you. You will, you will let yourself down and not even trust yourself because you don't believe what you say. And that has been like, uh, like ironically, like one of the things that I've struggled the most at and like, I'm trying to overcome this year. And if I do learn to play the piano better.

1:13:34And I do do better with my companies. I do do better with this because I become a type of person who I trust myself that if I say something, that's what it's going to be. And that I won't renegotiate and relitigate these things myself. And the problem is I'm a very persuasive person. So I can persuade myself back into anything, but I don't want to use that, you know, use that, that skill against myself. We have a bunch of guests on the pod, like Sean and I aren't particularly like big, big investors or anything, but we love having investors on like, you know, we haven't had him on, but the most famous example of this is Warren Buffett and how he really can teach you about life via investing.

1:14:11And it's very evident that you are in that same category where it's not necessarily the poker thing that is the interesting part about you. Poker is just your vehicle for showing that you have mastery over your own emotions and your own and you're a master in emotional intelligence. And so it's really cool to hear your perspective on these things, because I'm not going to play poker, but you've said many, many things that will change my life just in a non-poker field. Well, I appreciate you saying that. And like I said, I'm a big believer in sort of what you're saying is like looking at successful people, listening to how they got there, there's value in there.

1:14:46This isn't me telling you this is what you need to do with your life. I'm sharing what's worked for me, right? And if you hear some of those things and you think, oh, you know what? That would be something that we've, you know, something beneficial for my life. That's kind of how I look at other successful people too. We didn't get to talk about this, but I do. And the research just came up and I was like, that was really cool of him. So it's a compliment to you, which is you were talking about the young players. And you're like, I never wanted to be that guy who was the old head criticizing the way all the young players are playing now and how the how it's ruined the game and blah, blah, blah.

1:15:17and you've talked about, you said something like, you know, I get really curious. I want to learn from them. I want them to coach me as much as I'm coaching them. And I thought, man, that's a great attitude. I see that in so many, in basketball that happens. It's sort of always criticizing the younger generation and just saying like, you know, they don't get it. They've ruined the game. It's all changed. It's not the same anymore. And I thought that was a pretty cool attitude you had. And I wanted to give you a compliment on that. I remember where it really happened when I was like 22, 23, and I was really grinding and I'm working hard and I'm playing with some big names, you know, like established guys.

1:15:48And I could see they were scoffing at some of the stuff I was doing. And in my, under my breath, I'm like, buddy, I'm already better than you by a lot. You know, you've got that cocky young energy. And I remind you myself in that moment, never be the guy who's, you know, the older guy who looks at the young and the different things are doing and scoff and go, hey, look at these dummies. So every three to four years, I'll update my own software, my mental software by learning the things that they're learning. Now I combine that with the wisdom that I have of 30 years and I become really powerful as a player.

1:16:14but it requires humility because let's say you're in the top in 2004 and you think you still are today just because you rest on your lawyers no the day you stop learning is the day everyone else starts to surpass you because they're going to continue to learn and you're stuck here new new ideas new solvers new approaches they're always going to advance and if you don't advance with them you get worse by by definition because everyone else is getting better that's awesome Daniel, thanks for coming on, man. We really appreciate it. You thought it, guys. It was fun. All right. We appreciate you. That's it.

1:16:47That's the pod. I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like my days off. On the road, let's travel, never looking back.