Detox Files #7: How Do You Live The "Poker Vampire" Lifestyle & Maintain Healthy Relationships With Your Loved Ones?

The pokers legendary champions, next generation stars and tireless ambassadors of the game, sharing their wisdom and guiding your journey to high achievement on the Greenfeld. This is chasing poker greatness with your host, Brad Wilson.

Brad Wilson  (0:31)  Nick, what’s happening my man?

Nick Howard  (0:33)  Hey, Brad, good to be back.

Brad Wilson  (0:37)  It’s great having you back. I can’t say that without laughing because we’ve done like five of these intros in the last 10 minutes. And I’ve said those exact same words to Nick. So it feels a little odd for me, but maybe not you the listener. Next episode of detox files is Andre. To open up. I want to talk about the concept of multi dimensional Evie, could you expand on that before we dive into Andre?

Nick Howard  (1:09)  It’s a cool term, let’s make it simpler to start. A lot of guys are looking at Eevee in a very narrow way, like how do I maximize my win rate. And that’s what this guy’s dealing with in this consulate he was trained. When he came into poker to bomb hunt, basically, that’s how he was mapping to safety, I’m going to have a high winrate so that I don’t expose myself to harsh variance. And so that my hourly rate can be as high as possible when I’m playing makes sense, from a limited dimension. But what we start to see when we poke more at his his overall lifestyle is we find a lot of holes in his schedule, where the sacrifices he’s making in order to play these really soft games, which weren’t even as soft as he thought they were funny enough, relative to his alternative options. We start to see how they were having a negative impact on a lot of other areas of his life. And so we need to sort of reframe his perspective towards life EV, like what are you really going for here? Like you think that this is all about maximizing winrate? But you have you expanded to why you actually care about maximizing when right, because if you’re disturbing all these other areas of your life in order to do that. And I would argue even even just potentially destroying other areas of your life, then what are we really fighting for through this narrow dimension of optimization. So this is one of the biggest skills that I see. Distinguishing a low to medium level performer from a really high level performer is his ability to expand his awareness in this type of way, and really get all the moving parts in alignment, as opposed to overextending himself in one dimension that then creates collateral damage and another dimension.

Brad Wilson  (3:08)  Well, you’re also dealing with a cognitive bias, the ambiguity effect, where he doesn’t know what life is like playing on a different schedule, he doesn’t know whether the results are going to be good or bad. And because he doesn’t know, he just chooses the safer option of playing when he knows his win rate will be x so that his life doesn’t just fall apart. And he automatically gets crushed by you know, the morning crushers, right.

Nick Howard  (3:36)  That’s a huge point. And it’s what makes this concept so fun. Because he doesn’t know what it’s like. But what we do know, and you’ll get, you’ll hear this like about halfway through is we enter a point where the intensity, the energy in the field of this conversation gets visceral. And there’s something profound about it. And the best way I can put it is, I even said this to him. At some point. I was like, you don’t know what it’s like on the other side. But I think you know that we’re in a very truthful conversation right now. Like we are burning in truth in this console. And to acknowledge that is the first step of raising awareness. Because yes, we do not know what the unknown feels like. But we know that we can’t stay in a burning building. And in a lot of ways, I think when I look back on my own journey, that is what did it for me. It’s like, I was somebody who needed to hit rock bottom. And it’s it’s one thing that I tried to offer an alternative to the community. There’s nothing noble about hitting rock bottom, I end up saying that in this console, you’re going to learn a lesson either way. It’s about learning the lesson in the end. And if you’re able to be lucky enough to have a conversation, a truthful conversation with someone who’s been through the motions, and if you’re humble enough to realize that maybe I’m not so Different than this person who had all the same patterns as I did, and all the same blind spots, you have an opportunity to basically accelerate through a very painful experience of rock bottom, which is going to give you the lesson either way, but you get to decide how much suffering you need. Along that that learning journey.

Brad Wilson  (5:17)  Yeah, I love that I love the visualization of a burning building. And it’s almost like the building’s not even scorching yet, right? It’s almost like, you can just force see that eventually, the building is going to just be consumed by flames, and you’re offering a lifeline of help. Before that happens, it’s very compassionate thing to offer. And so with all that said, let’s dive in to your conversation with Andre. Listener stay on the line, when the conversation ends, me and Nick are going to wrap it up with an outro.

Nick Howard  (5:58)  Let’s do it. Can we go back to this piece, this key sentence that you just sort of rolled over, which was the feeling I got when I was playing the earlier schedule was I’m not beating these games. You said that like a minute ago? Okay. And whether or not that’s absolutely true, if it feels like there’s less of a chance that I’ve been in this game that makes a lot of sense, why you would not want to be there,

Andre  (6:30)  I don’t think that I’m not beating, I think that it’s going to be much harder to beat. But I think it’s it’s true for me that they are still beautiful,

Nick Howard  (6:39)  right? And what the emotional bias will do is, as soon as there’s that fear that I’m not beating them for as much, the mind doesn’t have the ability to work in that gradient fashion and be like, Well, my win rate might only be like 20%, less, the mind does this thing where it’s like, Oh, I’m not beating it. So I gotta go back to the other one, it’s the only thing the mind knows how to do is counter from black to white, it doesn’t have that gradient capacity. And that’s the skill that I think sets most poker players apart, especially guys who use the data oriented system really well, like, you know, you’ve been through this cycle a lot with thinking bluffs didn’t perform well. And then realizing the data says they do this is the same thing. It’s just feeling like the bluffs not working. And then seeing that the data says it is over large samples, you feel like the games aren’t soft enough during the day, but then the data says that your teammates win rates are almost the same as yours. So it really just comes down to which one do you want to trust? And why do you keep reverting back to your feeling on the matter when you have resources that could prove it wrong.

Andre  (7:47)  I’m just being dumped.

Nick Howard  (7:49)  Or stubborn. I mean, it’s. But it’s, it’s interesting to see where that preference is stemming from like, it’s because you have a version, you have an unresolved emotional resistance to playing the games that feel tougher, they felt tougher, so you decided I can’t be in those because my win rate is significantly less. So I’ll stop exploring the sample size that could prove me wrong. For some reason, you want it to confirm your emotional bias instead of getting more data. to overturn it, it’s typical. And we’re just sort of revealing that that is a new level of awareness that you now have, that that was a tendency of yours to, to assess the quality of the game too quickly, without having enough data to truly say how strong those players were, that’s all. So it’s not that I want you to go back to a early schedule. It’s not like I’m trying to like enforce that on you, I want you to see that you never had a good reason to justify the late schedule. It’s like, I want you to convince me that you should be playing it at night. And if you can, in a logical way, let’s do it.

Andre  (9:06)  No, I can’t convince you. That’s true, is that it just what makes me more comfortable and problem not giving the credit of the things that you said

Nick Howard  (9:16)  

like, it makes you more comfortable in one dimension in the dimension of how you feel at the table because you have a bias of thinking that the players are way softer. But when you include every other zone of your life, you’re very uncomfortable on that schedule. Your energy levels are not happy.

Andre  (9:32)  And why and why? I mean, we’re gonna make this question. Why? I mean, because I don’t think that should be the case. Like, why this dimension of basically let’s talk about poker in a global way. Sure. Why is that dimension like the first thing that I’m thinking and the first thing because that’s the true like I’m doing everything like and I don’t know the word. But basically first poker and the rest, I can just reach out here and we shall go there. So my first my first instinct was yes, it just like can take care of the poker time and more to work.

Nick Howard  (10:18)  Take care of the game selection you mean. Exactly. Right, exactly.

Andre  (10:24)  So the questions shouldn’t be like that. So I think I should be thinking more on an unhealthy like shatel. Like waking up in the morning, good breakfast, having more time with my wife probably in, in the normal times sleeping with her, like, so I think this should be more important, probably. But why it’s not? That’s I don’t know why it’s like,

Nick Howard  (10:47)  that’s a good question. That’s a that’s a very personally honest question that will get you a really cool upgrade. Do you want me to answer it for you want to try?

Andre  (10:55)  It? I just asked me what I don’t know. Like, but I know that it’s that’s true. Like,

Nick Howard  (10:59)  well, the first step, the first step of the personally honest question is admit that you don’t know why. And then kind of just relax into the frustration around that. And if you do that for long enough, with enough encouragement that it’s okay, that you don’t know why you do that, then typically what happens, and this is why I love working with Anki is because this is what this is what typically happens when you get an upgrade to a card. And when you integrate the new answer. Something just comes to you from a place that you’ve been denying access to. So if we just actually settle in, and I go Jason, Sue on you for a minute. And we actually just settle into the emotional space of this question of why do I only focus on game selection when it should be apparent to me that there are these other dimensions that I should be looking at that can easily justify winrate upgrades and make me a happier person? Like, why would I deny myself those other perspectives? The first thing that comes to mind from like, a compassionate space is maybe you just weren’t trained to think that way. You’re in a heavy momentum. Because you said how you came into poker was like game selection, bomb hunt. That was the method through what you tried to achieve success. It was what you knew. That was just the that was just the path that you sort of carved for yourself because it was familiar. And it makes sense. It does make sense. But it makes sense from one dimension that doesn’t include time and energy and relationships, and overall life fulfillment. So it could just be that, is it okay, if it’s just that you didn’t know? Like, what if you just what if you didn’t have enough training in this department? Up until now? Like, what if it just what if we just needed to have this talk, so that you can raise awareness around how many other dimensions you can be considering? So that that naturally just becomes part of your consideration? Doesn’t have to be like why God dammit, the fuck happened to me that I don’t already know this. That’s a shaming process. I know, I’m exaggerating. But there’s a difference between what I did, which is, let’s ask that question of, maybe I just didn’t know. Like, what if I just didn’t know yet? What if nobody just showed me that there were these three other dimensions that I just mentioned that equally affected? winrate, if not more over time. So it could just be that feels like that is definitely going to be an aspect of it. Because if you were aware, you wouldn’t be doing it. I don’t think you’re someone who like would see the win rate upgrade and in introducing other dimensions then just be like, nope, not doing that still just going to defend this bullshit approach. Bullshit, limited perspective. But what else like is it? Does it feel like there’s something beyond you just maybe not being trained? To think that way? Does it feel like you the only other thing I can think of not to put words in your mouth, but this feels like it could be a thread we could go down? Is the reason you deny thinking outside the box and prioritizing the other dimensions that don’t require you to game select as intensely? Is it possible that you deny those? Because you fear that if you sacrifice winrate it’s more costly than it actually is? In your mind. Does it feel like sacrificing that win rate might be the difference between you being a winner and a loser?

Andre  (14:55)  Sure, because if I if something happened on that channel, I think on If something happened on that shell that I that I liked to have, like if things go wrong, like in, let’s say, two months going, breakeven ish, I’m not going to be enjoying like, the other dimension of sleeping with my wife, right? And having the normal shatel. So I kind of destroys that I kind of need to have like results and basically having having, having money to just be happy. That’s a thing that I know for sure, like.

Nick Howard  (15:32)  So in your mind, if we lower win rate, we increase the possibility that we go on a two month downswing, in which case we’ll be under so much stress, we won’t even be able to enjoy the other aspects of life. Exactly. That feels like it would be doing what it’s doing to you. It feels like a good a good find, to me. That belief if it’s active, would cause you to defend this limited perspective. That’s a good find, bro. Okay, okay. Okay. That’s as important as finding an extra point of winrate. Like, this is the reframe really of like, mindset resilience is like, you don’t I want to teach you how to congratulate yourself for what you just found there. Because if you can actually honor how valuable that insight is, the upgrade you’re going to be able to make from that is way more valuable than you fucking having a 12 DB win rate instead of a 10 DB win rate when you’re running like a mouse on a fucking wheel. You’re just burning yourself out? Yes. So the insight that you just stumbled upon was that if I make a scheduling adjustment, that lowers my win rate, even slightly, I could potentially induce a breakeven stretch, or even a losing stretch, because I increased my volatility that could result in me being in a really nasty, stressful situation two months from now, where none of the Scheduling Optimization was worth anything, because it resulted in a higher probability that I basically crash and burn. So how do we balance that perspective, with something that’s way more complete? Well, first of all, we would need to look at the data for how likely it actually is that you increase your breakeven and losing stretches by subtracting your win rate by 10 to 20%. There’s a sequence to this, like this is the scientific part of this, we find out how much lower your win rate actually should be expected to be. If you switch to the earlier schedule, we use the team database to identify that, then we run some Sims to see over the course of 50 60,000 hands, how much more likely is it over a two month period that my results plummet, that I could have a really bad outcome, you get a percentage for that. And if you find that it’s only like, increasing your risk of ruin by, I don’t know, five or 10%, I think what you’re going to find there, I’m confident that what you’ll find is that you’re exaggerating how much variance you’d be introducing by lowering your win rate by two points, assuming it’s already fairly high, you know, assuming it’s like what the rest of the teams it’s,

Andre  (18:15)  it’s around, like, between eight and 10. Congrats having more than that.

Nick Howard  (18:20)  And that’s going to make it way less likely that you’re going to encounter the situation that you seem to be afraid of encountering if you drop your winrate by 10, or 20%. So that was the scientific part of it sort of got you to the point where just like you were afraid of losing all your win rate. In a game where you weren’t losing more than 10 to 20%. I also just showed you how you project that over time to be well, like that could result in me and during variance that makes this whole thing not worth it. Because then I can’t even enjoy my life, if that happens, looks like you’re trying to minimize the possibility of bad variants. And the way that you’ve trained your mind to do that is game selection. That’s the complete picture of it. That includes time somewhere along the way, you said I don’t ever want to go on a two month breakeven stretch. game selection is the way I’m going to do that. And that’s why you focus on that single dimension, even at the fucking expensive playing at 4am in the morning, to try to play on peak, which affects every other part of your life and then you double down on it and say, Nope, but it’s worth it. Because I’ll never be able to enjoy these parts of my life if I were to run bad. And in order to not run bad. I gotta make sure that I have the highest win rate possible

Andre  (19:36)  because I’m gonna feel like guilty that I because here it just means adapting about to the peak times that I know that they are true they exist and are these ones. But if I just choose other shell, I can just put guilty on myself because I made the that made that choose. So if things go wrong Like with the saddle that I have now, okay, can be variants can be thinking, but I’m playing on the right time in my mind. But if I just choose to the mornings or so, and things go badly, it could be everything like variance playing bed. And the big thing is, I made these changes. Maybe this is gonna be my fault, because I don’t want to feel that I mean, I’m gonna feel more that with a normal channel, then with this one, with this one and more, okay, by just running bad or having poor results.

Nick Howard  (20:35)  So is it safe to say that by continuing on this late night schedule, you feel like you subject yourself to less guilt? Potentially, probably, yes, yes. Because if you were to shift and then things go wrong, you are responsible for that shift. Exactly. Yes. So we’re trying to avoid guilt and shame.

Andre  (20:56)  Kinda, but I think I should be working on that. Go ahead. Because because it’s it’s just a belief that I have in my mind that I should be just not believing. And

Nick Howard  (21:08)  before we go down that rabbit hole, I would just like to pause and congratulate you again, on getting to a deeper level of this mindset issue, because it’s worth pausing for. So you want to go to the next fucking solution. And all I want to do, it’s always like that, yes, dude, you, it’s fucking noble to be able to identify that thing that you just identified, like, in my mind, as I wish I could transplant this into your head. But when you do that, when you actually discover that next level, which was that we’re trying to avoid guilt and shame, that’s what’s driving this entire sequence. I see that as like that moment in a video game where you unlock the next level, and that sound goes off, like denena. That’s what Leveling up is, that’s where the points are scored. And you think you’re scoring points on this horizontal path of mouse on a wheel, the points are scored by unlocking that insight. So take a second and actually just appreciate the fact that now you’re at a deeper, you’re at a deeper level of that belief system. And you’re at the root of it, you’re trying to avoid guilt and shame. By sticking to the schedule, that doesn’t require you to change because you’re bought into this idea of higher winrate. Being Awesome, being the thing that keeps you save for being the thing that reduces variance. So I’m going to give you a different perspective that hopefully counteracts this, I want to create a counterbalance. So that and this is where we’ll probably end the call so that you can actually reflect on this because I think it’s going to take a lot of time for you to actually process maybe not a lot of time, but some silence for you to process what I’m about to say. You’re afraid of feeling guilty. By changing your schedule and potentially inducing more variance. That’s the guilt that you’re afraid of. But you don’t seem to see how guilty you’re going to be if you continue the process that you’ve been on. Because the Andre that I know who’s been defending the late night schedule, and forcing himself to play volume, and really being hard on themselves. That’s the Andre who’s become less capable of supporting himself less happy. Let’s just say you’ve become less happy through that approach. And you don’t seem to have that same guilt around that. You don’t seem to see how if you continue doing what you’re doing, by defending this paradigm, two years from now, your relationship with your wife is going to be affected to the point where you have massive fucking guilt over destroying something that beautiful. And I’m being extreme here, but this is going to

Andre  (23:56)  every truth that I can see that I can’t imagine like I have definitely seen imagined, like two years from now with this path. Or I’m gonna feel

Nick Howard  (24:05)  because how she’s gonna feel? Yes, yes, yes, she’s not getting the best version of you. That should be something that you’re guilty about. If there was any healthy level of guilt to be applied to the balance of this. It should be honestly, assessing how much it’s going to suck. To wake up two years from now and realize that you’ve not been giving your best, the best version of yourself to your wife because you’ve been defending winrate Do you really want to live with that fucking level of regret? No. No, I mean, just frame it like that for a second. Like that’s powerful. I could potentially fuck my relationship up with the most important person in my life, because I’m defending a 10 BB winrate instead of a 12 BB winrate WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT? That’s a Blindspot and it’s not even really helping you long term. Because if you stop defending this slightly higher win rate, your energy levels are gonna go up because all of these zones of your life are going to become more fulfilling, unless you want to play that quick objection, unless you want to sneak in that idea that this could make me go broke because my win rates two points less, which is what you’re doing. And then that invokes the guilt that you feel around that path, because you’re so bought into the fact that winrate is all that matters. So a lot of it is being generated by this, you’re not seeing how fast you collapse, when the mind introduces that objection of like, ah, can’t lower the win rate by two points, we’ll go broke, then you’ll feel guilty. That’s the bluff dude. You’re getting bluffed.

Andre  (25:51)  The square is the goal button,

Nick Howard  (25:52)  you gotta click call. You got this, though, you see this, it’s not comfortable. And I respect you for actually, like enduring it materially, I can see that it’s a lot. And it’s gonna help a lot if you actually respond in the incentivized way, which is to, to accept it. It’s the truth, you know, it’s the truth. What I just said, painted a different picture of what guilt really is. You don’t want that you don’t want that level of guilt?

Andre  (26:27)  No, I don’t. For sure. I’m not think it’s tough for me to make change changes. That’s the true like, I struggle in, in, in mixing with, which is like comfortable, and, and doable. Because I am not like super happy with the shadow. But I’m kind of, okay, and I’m having money. I’m okay with my wife, because she’s already like, kind of customized to this. And other things, you talk a lot about hitting like Bob Rock bottoms and stuff like that. And I never hit mine, like in any I can say like in anything on my life. So I don’t know if that should be happening more often with me to just make more changes in my life. But I leave too much in my comfort zone of it’s working here. So let me stay here and not

Nick Howard  (27:26)  let me give you just something to compare this to. I had a marriage that failed. And another major relationship that failed. By the time I was your age. And that happened, because nobody sat me down and had this conversation and rate and increased my awareness around how I was thinking about this, I was doing the same thing you were doing in different ways, not introducing the relationship dimension and the life fulfillment dimension. And just putting way too much emphasis on win rate and generating guilt around not having higher win rate. So I did that. And it fucked my relationships over. And I’m speaking to you from a place that’s more aware. But just offering you an invitation, you can hit rock bottom if you want, if you if you think there’s so much value in that. But I didn’t have to go through that. If somebody had this convo with me. I just didn’t know. You can deny that this is a true conversation. And that’s fine. You’ll go to rock bottom if you do that. Or you can humbly accept that you can course correct. And you don’t have to go through that. There’s no fucking No, there’s nothing noble about a rock bottom experience. Sure, it’s worth something because you actually wake the fuck up. But it’s no more noble than just Humbly accepting a true conversation. You’re the luxury that the position that you’re in the luxury you have, is it somebody’s actually fucking telling you this? I hit rock bottom because nobody told me. So it’s choice.

Andre  (29:03)  I have to choose Yes, I have to just just think on these and just appreciate like that I that I can have like these insights. Because that’s true. I have someone to talk and show me which is best. It’s not even about

Nick Howard  (29:15)  better or worse, man. It’s just try and get. It’s honestly just about a choice of how much suffering you want to invoke on the way to the learning the same fucking lesson. Because I’m pretty sure we’re both 99.99999% sure that this is a true conversation.

Andre  (29:32)  It is sure. I’m just not giving the credit about oh, it’s going to be the future like this.

Nick Howard  (29:39)  It’s going to be the future. Either way. This lesson is going to be learned either way. You’re either going to learn it through hitting rock bottom, or you’re going to learn it faster, without creating as much collateral damage in your reality. And that’s the choice. This isn’t about better or worse and shaming yourself into making the Swift or choice It’s just about honestly clarifying from a place of maturity what you want. The lesson gets learned either way. Your free will, your relative Free Will here, if you want to just call it that for a second is speed, which I think should be attractive to you because you’re someone who’s trying to fucking get higher win rate to avoid the two month downswing, everything that you’re doing is coming out of urgency to begin with. Everything you’re already doing is rooted in urgency.

Andre  (30:35)  It is less call that we have it was about these like urgency about playing waking up, and I thought that I shouldn’t be playing, I should be just doing something. It’s all about urgency, in my mind. Yes. And

Nick Howard  (30:46)  it’s the urgency of trying to actually avoid rock bottom. And now I offer you a speedy way to bypass rock bottom. And all it requires is your humble maturity to accept the fact that this is a true conversation. And you have resistance to it. That’s really the point that you need to meditate on, is like this is no, realistically, this is a no brainer if you are operating from a incentivized mindset. Unless you hate yourself and you want to suffer, I don’t really see why it’s necessary once you have this awareness. So that’s all that the, the process from here on, it’s just actually letting the sink in. Just yeah. And not trying to fight it from analysis just being like, God, damn, that’s, that’s true. And I don’t have any, I don’t have any objections left. It sucks. How true that is, it really sucks. This is a very true thing. That sucks for your ego. requires change if you want to act on it. And that’s your choice. But I do believe the two year future version of you will, will thank you very much. On average,

Andre  (32:07)  why what can I say I can say that I’m gonna probably reveal this call, again. Try to put this conversation, give more thoroughness to the conversation more and more. Because it’s easy for me to just kind of forget this, like with the, during the routine again, and just like today’s besting and I can, okay, I’m already here, and I’m not giving credit again, to all of these that we talk and you push some things that I’m not thinking at all in my daily basis. So yeah, I’m gonna I’m gonna make the effort of just meditate on this the end, that’s already like a big effort for me, because I don’t stop too much to think, which is best always gonna be like, along here, perspective, watch, I’m doing what I’m doing wrong, what I’m doing. Good. Like, I’m better. I’m thinking, why

Nick Howard  (33:06)  not give yourself enough time. You just don’t you just haven’t learned how to give yourself enough time to actually map where you’re going. And I think what you’re doing is great right now by not, I know how easy it would be to be like, yep, Nick, I’m on board. I’m doing this. That’s usually somebody who’s overcompensating. I also know how easy it is to to not do anything at all. So I like where you’re at. It’s a fucking mature place. So like, wow, I need some time to actually just let this sink in. Because that’s a place that actually demonstrates that you have an interest in changing.

Andre  (33:42)  I have definitely have Yes.

Nick Howard  (33:48)  It’s funny that the guy who instantly jumps out of his chair and says, I’m changing today, I get this, I’m changing today, that guy is usually in denial still. That guy is usually trying to give the impression that he’s going to change and make himself feel less guilty over the fact that he knows that he won’t,

Andre  (34:07)  is basically lying to himself, because I can change these like in one day, that’s, I’m sure of that, like, my mind. I have to, as you said, like meditate and see the benefits probably wrote them, to not forget them. See the not the contradictory of benefits. And just, yeah, think more on these because I’m not doing that at all. So I believe you can say that I’m going to change tomorrow.

Nick Howard  (34:35)  Please don’t change tomorrow, because that won’t be it probably is going to take longer for you to settle into this upgrade. And I just want to leave you with one idea. This entire thing is going to come down to how safe you feel taking the new option. And if there’s one thing that you can keep offering up as the only real piece of analysis us that you should keep presenting to the scared portion of your mind that wants to stay in the pattern that you’re in. It’s reminding it that changing on average is safer. The data can show you that because even the dropped win rate, even though it increases vary and slightly, is not going to be as important as the energy that you waste and the shame that you generate by going down a path that denies this truth. On average, this is the the highest career path. So all you’re doing is reframing Evie. From micro table. Session, Evie to career Evie, that’s the shift here. And if you allow yourself to actually start shifting that value anchored towards I want the highest career Evie and life fulfillment instead of the highest session table. Evie, all of this will fall into place. That’s really the shift. 

Andre  (36:03)  Yes. All right. And you are talking about daily. You are talking about table. Evie, but we I think we can extrapolate to Daily V or monthly V because that compared to the career life like what is one month, what is one year like? Nothing,

Nick Howard  (36:20)  That’s the game that will be super useful for you to play in your head when you’re sort of meditating on this. Keep extending that timeframe in your head and actually seeing like, this does not map or I’m thinking it maps, not if I introduce the level of fulfillment over time, and the relationships that I’m going to fucking destroy with the people I love but getting involved like this. You don’t want to get more involved in this path. You need a new path, if you want to be happy. And I want you to be happy. So please let me know how it’s going. I don’t want you to feel like you’re alone in this meditation process because it’s a fucking Super. It’s uncomfortable. It’s it’s healthy, but it’s uncomfortable because it’s gonna require a lot from you. So reach out to me if you need support. Okay. Thanks. Huge thanks. You’re welcome. And in the meantime, try to try to enjoy the rest of the summer.

Andre  (37:15)  Thanks. I’m gonna try it

Brad Wilson  (37:21)  you’ve heard me talk early and often about how improving your awareness while you’re playing cards so that you make better decisions in the moment and notice trouble spots that merit deeper consideration is one of the most valuable things you can do to make more money on the felt in my conversation with the only four times W PT Main Event champion ever. They are an alias he told me that his ability to shut out all of the distractions in the world and fully focus on making great decision after great decision is his superpower he most attributes to his success and you cannot improve your awareness at the tables without being fully present. When you learn how to stay fully in the moment on the Greenfeld, you can finally have a clear path to becoming the absolute best version of yourself. Which leads me to Jason Sue. Jason is one of the foremost authorities on the planet when it comes to playing poker with presents. As a matter of fact, he even wrote the book on it. Here’s a direct quote from Nick Howard at poker detox on Jason’s ability to help you stay focused, quote, Jason’s work is a new paradigm in poker and performance in quotes. And these aren’t just empty words. Because put his money where his mouth is by hiring Jason, coach of the poker detox crew. And as a loyal listener of chasing poker greatness, you know, by now that I would not be promoting anything I didn’t 100% believe would improve your poker skills and your life. So if you want to master your emotions, and perform at your peak with presence while doing battle in the arena, you’d be doing yourself a great disservice if you didn’t check out Jason’s work at poker with presents.com. One final time. That’s poker with presents.com. All right, Nick, what’s the one big takeaway from this console? With Andre,

Nick Howard  (39:16)  what I was feeling in the session was an opportunity to go to a really deep level of connection within like relatability. Because I’ve been through a lot of cycles in my 20s. Now in my early 30s, where there’s not a lot of patterns I haven’t seen, even not a ton of patterns I haven’t really explored when we’re talking about type A performers, I can usually relate but sometimes there’s opportunities where you can deeply relate because somebody’s specific life situation resembles very closely what you went through. And that’s, it’s a fine balance because you want to be aware that you’re not projecting on them. too intensely. And you also want to honor the fact that there is a very good chance, they’re in a very similar pattern that that you were in and that they’re dealing with a similar blind spot. And to appreciate that that opportunity, the opportunity that that creates, to be able to potentially help them accelerate through that without needing to take on further suffering. So it’s always this balance of is there a chance to upgrade somebody’s awareness so that they can sidestep unnecessary suffering? And sometimes, I think there is. And sometimes we want to believe there is as coaches, and I think the most we can do is just raise awareness and pray for them.

Brad Wilson  (40:45)  I did want to point out that, we talked about it in the pre call, I love the vulnerability and you talking about your ex. And I think this is something that folks may not always understand in the moment. It’s a typically when somebody knows a lot about a specific subject. It’s because they’ve been through it, they’ve been incentivized to learn. And if it’s navigating through suffering with Nick Howard, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that you have dealt with your fair share of suffering in life, which has incentivized you to find the tools to navigate and get through

Nick Howard  (41:28)  it. A friend asked me this recently, what was your incentive for changing because we were talking about how my most recent shift has been to develop a higher preference for emotional work alongside analysis. And what it came down to basically was, I was suffering too much not to change. And I think that’s a critical point where stubborn people need to get to that level, before they truly consider that. It’s like you’re trying to get to the point where you ask yourself a very honest question, what are the odds that continuing to push off in the same direction I’ve been trying to solve life through is actually the right thing to do? What are the odds of that, and you’re trying to get that down to single digits, and then fractions of a percent even so you can take that leap of faith into the unknown territory that seems so naive or so wrong? Just simply wrong from the level that you’re currently trying to solve things from? And so I think that’s, that’s really the type of environment I’m trying to cultivate. In a truthful conversation is like, how close are you to that point? And how can we create avenues of, of thought, and emotion that push you a little bit closer to declaring something extremely honest. And that’s where you make a breakthrough? There’s multiple times in this where you hear me say, can we just pause for a second, so you can congratulate yourself for going to a more honest level than we’ve been to so far in this conversation, you hear that when we expose that he has a guilt thing that’s driving all this. That’s a deeper level of understanding that’s going to provide more potent upgrades if we just actually unpack that. So you’re basically drilling, you’re drilling into the mind to get to these bedrock levels, these core wound levels that are distorting perspectives to make it seem like there’s easy on the table to bomb hunting the softest games, at the expense of destroying a marriage. Sometimes just have to, literally, bluntly, wake them up to that. And then the chips are going to fall where they may, but at least at least there’s been an opportunity provided, where awareness can be, can be glimpsed.

Brad Wilson  (43:46)  If you can glimpse the awareness, glimpse the suffering in your own life, and then you get the lifeline. Well, you know that an upgrade is possible. It is optional, and you’re not just frozen in whatever you think your current options are, will close out or reminds me of something when I was younger, and way stupider, but thought I knew way more. I remember. I remember somebody talking trash about a book on marriage, because the author had been divorced, multiple times. And I remember thinking, Hmm, what an idiot writing a book on marriage when you’ve, you’ve burned down to relationships to marriages, who’s gonna listen this guy. And now as I’m older, I realize that who better to listen to than somebody who has burned down marriages who has failed and who has suffered and thought about it more than most anybody else on how to make these things work, and how to build positive relationships. then this human who has failed? 

Nick Howard  (45:03) Can we pause there for just a second because it’s, it’s fascinating to me. And I hope the viewer believes me when I say this, but hopefully they can tell by the the quality with which I’m going to be stunned by this. The synchronicity, Wayne Yap, who I was just telling you about, prior to this call that I want to introduce you to him, so you guys can do a pod together. He and I are recording another pod. And this concept came up, like two days ago, and we did an episode. And I was struggling to convey what you just said, I think he put it even more eloquently. The concept is basically when you are vetting a new expert in any market, I was saying, I look for the guy who seemingly contradicts his old way of doing things, his old demonstration in that field. Especially, you know, this is especially hard if you have a public platform to say one thing for years, and then come back and be able to say another thing without losing massive amounts of credibility, to be able to make that shift in a logically consistent way and express why I changed. That’s, I think, some that’s a trademark of a humble pioneer in his field. And what Wayne said that I thought was so eloquent was, he said, If you truly understood what it takes to overcome the type of bias that they’ve overcome, to be able to speak about it on the other side, the maturity that it takes to overcome that bias, you would not see this as contradiction, you would see this as maturity and growth and wisdom. And so that’s my hack is like, before you disqualify someone who writes a marriage book because they got divorced three times, question whether or not you’re giving them the benefit of the doubt for having been able to change. Because a lot of times, that’s what it took for them to be able to write that book. And this is meta, but I guess we’ll leave it off on a meta note, since this is one of the more advanced consults, start to see how the inability to give another person the benefit of the doubt, for being able to change is actually a projection of your own deep rooted sense that I cannot change myself. That is a profound level of self inquiry to meditate on so I’ll leave it there.