Karina: Disrupting Mindset & Performance Training

Brad Wilson: Welcome, welcome, welcome my friend to another episode of the chasing poker greatness podcast. As always, this is your host the founder of chasing poker. greatness.com. Coach Brad Wilson. Today’s guests on CPG is Karina, the founder of mindset design, personalized poker coaching that helps you improve your mindset and mental health. Karina has been going up podcast crazy lately having appeared on the chip race wreck poker and now chasing poker greatness while also firing up her own show mindset design. The first three guests on mindset design include best selling poker author and CPG favorite Daraa Oh Kearney, hugely popular poker vlogger Ashley, poker face ash Frank, and one of my all time favorite human beings in the world of poker, one of the goats of online MT T’s John ape styles Van Fleet. What you’re about to find out in today’s episode is that the smart money is on Karina becoming a force in the world of poker sooner rather than later. In today’s episode with Karina you’re going to learn why her brilliant is matched only by her ambition to disrupt the current paradigm of mindset training and performance, her poker origin story all about the innovative tools she’s developing to help the poker world upgrade their mindset and much much more. So Now without any further ado, it is my absolute honor and privilege to bring to you The Once and Future mindset Queen Karina. Karina, welcome to chasing poker greatness. How’re you doing? 

 

Karina (2:07) Oh, I’m doing great. Thanks for having me. 

 

Brad Wilson (2:10) It’s, it’s my pleasure. It always love having on people who are experts of the mind, you know, it’s Poker is kind of a mental game. And so it kind of makes sense that folks like, you know, Elliott row, Jared Tendler. yourself, just other folks in the space. Yeah, it’s just quite an important part of the process of becoming a successful long term poker player.

 

Karina (2:41) Definitely. 

 

Brad Wilson (2:42) And, you know, speaking of you and your story, like, let’s get into it, like how, what, what was the path that led you to the world of coaching and mindset in the poker space?

 

Karina (2:56) Yeah, well, actually, maybe around 10 years ago, I started exploring first from, you know, because of my own interest in curiosity, I started learning more about mindset about the neuroscience and the psychological aspects of that, and how basically, our thinking shapes our entire world, our decisions, the way that our life looks like and on a more even on a bigger scale, the way the world looks like and how even business organizations work based on the mindset of their leaders and everything that is related to that. And so I immersed myself in those topics. And it, it’s, I mean, it’s such a huge and almost, I would say, infinite space that I believe is becoming more and more popular in the late in the last 20 years because of the neuroscience discoveries and breakthroughs. But it was so, so interesting for me, so that I decided to even focus more on building programs, for example, in the beginning, as a corporate trainer, because I come from a corporate background in the you know, back in the back in the days, and I started creating those training programs first for corporations have been working with companies like IBM, like Apple, in many software companies, and also, you know, huge banks and institutions. So I’m just basically I was interested in that at first and then I continued that development, working individually with senior executives with artists, freelancers, entrepreneurs, and then at some point that, you know, during 2020, I decided to come back to one old idea that I had before how to make coaching as you know, as an approach much more automated and how to transform it and how to somehow use technology to to enable, you know, higher, higher levels of interaction and maybe you know, to provide the same value or similar value to the clients but without having a coach in the situation. So I thought that the market is amazing, right? Yeah, it will be super cool if we take the benefits and the philosophy of coaching and, you know, use the technology to provide that service. So I started working on a chatbot that can coach people and in that whole thinking process on how the hell you can imitate or mirror a coaching conversation without having a real person in the in the, I mean, in the role of a coach, I realized that this is the only way for any kind of safe personal development progress to happen. I mean, it has to be somehow we have to use somehow technology to leverage on it. Because otherwise, we are locked in that one on one interactions between people. And that’s not scalable. Also, the whole industry was already unfortunately. So I’d say the reputation of the whole industry was ruined, because, you know, lack of regulation. And with my own clients, and from from their feedback, I realized that they spent some time a lot of money and effort to find the right coach for them. And sometimes, you know, they just waste a lot of a lot of energy in the attempt to get the good match. And in 2021, I thought to come back to that idea with the coaching bot, I realized that I have to establish a whole tech company and approach the challenge on how people change, change their mindset, and change themselves in a more structured way, as a, as a business as an organization that would like to build a product around it. And I wanted to make that a sustainable company that will grow in the future, and that will hopefully transform the whole personal development industry. So 

 

Brad Wilson (6:45) That’s notvery ambitious, is it? Transforming the whole the whole industry? Let’s, before we before we move forward, let’s kind of go back some to you know, young Karina, growing up going to school, why the world of psychology, human beings, understanding, you know, trying to figure out why people do what they do. Like, why why is that resonated with you so much?

 

Karina (7:14) Yeah, well, I guess that we all come, you know, from a background that somehow supports our personal development and professional development as well. So, in my case, my mother, who has a PhD in philosophy was the one that had those conversations with me on a very early age at a very early age. Why? Well, every question that I asked was not just, me know, randomly answered, but it was, I mean, she she gave back interesting questions. And she gave me different perspectives to think on when I was very, very young. I mean, at the age of six or seven, I was reading books on logic, for example, or philosophy or ethics. And even if I didn’t get like, maybe 99% Out of that, even the pictures and you know, the ideas in the way that I thought about Super abstract topics on a very early age, somehow opened those those doors for me. And later on, because I was one of those kids that were not very same. I didn’t behave really well at school, let’s, let’s say it like that. And

 

Brad Wilson (8:14) What do you mean by that? What do we mean by that?

 

Karina (8:17) Well, I mean, that somehow, I felt that the whole system is wrong. And I think that most of the teachers, at least in my school, were not at all really inspired to be to be teachers. And I think that being a teacher is maybe one of the most important careers in this world, because you can either support the student, or a person to become curious about the world or you can completely, you know, somehow make out of that person, either a curious one or someone who is not at all interested in anything in the world. And okay, those are my neighbors.

 

Brad Wilson (8:57) Yeah, we got a podcast going on. What are y’all doing?

 

Karina (9:01) I mean, even what here in Sofia, where I am located, it’s almost 8pm. And I hope that those people know that. So they have to be quiet. Yes, sorry about that. But yeah, my point was that I thought that maybe the majority of the teachers were not at all that was not their vocation that was not at all their life purpose. And I felt some how did they do their work just because they have to, you know, get a salary at the end of the month. And at some point, I became, you know, more and more anxious, even aggressive sometimes and I was more rebellious in a way, because I thought that the whole process has to has to change. And later on, I realized that I also am super interested in education and do it properly do it with a lot of care and empathy for the people. And this is something that we also somehow using in mindset design, because I think that people can and grow and can change only if they are loved. And it may sound abstract, but I really put a lot of love in my work and sessions. Apologies for that if we have to. If we have to boss for for a while

 

Brad Wilson (10:15) It’s okay. It’s okay. The listener they part of the part of the experience of listening to podcast, sometimes neighbors go nuts and you can’t do anything about it.

 

Karina (10:26) Absolutely. And the fun thing is that it’s actually right next to my wall. So somehow they managed to oh my gosh, yeah, I guess that will be the third guest. You know, in the podcast.

 

Brad Wilson (10:38) He does the rumblings of the wall, 

 

Karina (10:41) The rumblings of the wall. Yeah. Yeah, really, apologies for that. So yeah, this is how it all started. And I kept my curiosity for a longer period. So I think that during my 20s, actually, my very first business that I started was when I was 21 years old, and it was called laboratory for personal development. And it was a website that offered you know, different services and discounts and everything. So I think that my whole life was somehow under the mark of personal development and self awareness, in a way.

 

Brad Wilson (11:15) And, you know, I, I’ve been reading quite a bit recently, and like something that I read that I never really made the outright connection, but like, basically, curiosity brings wisdom, like curiosity leads to wisdom. And, to me, I think that my guide, and all the decisions that I’ve made in my life have generally stemmed from Curiosity, something that is like a problem that I’m curious about that I just want to dive into and learn as much as I possibly can about it. That’s been just sort of my, my personal North Star. And I think that like, yeah, just as human beings, this is sort of, at least in my case, one of the reasons why living is so great that I’m curious about something and I get to learn about it, right? Like, I get to explore that thing. And I get to no more, sort of the one regret that I think I have about this existence on earth is that I won’t be able to learn all the things about everything that I want to learn about, because there’s just not enough time or energy. So very much in line with, you know, the way that you think about the world, and you think about education, teaching and communication.

 

Karina (12:31) Yeah, absolutely. I think that curiosity is the the force that and the sparkle that we have to try to keep in ourselves, because that’s the only way for us really, really to progress. And I think that being in being at school actually, somehow completely, you know, works in a in a direction that destroys that curiosity. And afterwards, everything else that people do in their lives, they just lose that sparkle, you know, that they lose that pure, childish interest to to explore the world and themselves as moment.

 

Brad Wilson (13:06) Yeah, it’s, you know, it leads to boredom. Like, in my case, I did not like school, I did not like the educational system, I slept in high school, put forth like minimal effort, like it was just not stimulating, it wasn’t interesting. And anytime that like, you try to solve something kind of on your own, that’s not in the specific structured way that they, you know, the teachers and the staff wanted you to solve it, you get penalized, right, which is like, great. So like me problem solving to the best of my ability is something that is like not allowed, which was extremely frustrating. I think, in my high school journey, I talked to Duncan pehla, pehla, myrtus, about this, who’s UCLA math professor, and, you know, he, us, he told me that like, that’s kind of a tragedy, right? That like kids go through that big like, as somebody that teaches like high level math, you know, the folks that have changed the world are folks that do not think about math the same way that everybody else does. And so, you know, forcing kids to think about things like in that same way, just like really does a major disservice to their growth as human beings.

 

Karina (14:23) Yeah, absolutely. And I think that here, two things are important. Like, maybe the first the first one is that especially for me when I was when I was at school, I realized very early that I have to take care of my own education because the system will not do that for me. And I have to come up with my own way to learn the things that are interesting for me and somehow find sources of information and knowledge outside of school. So I actually started meditating outside of school when I was 16. And I studied music and theatre and all sorts of actually I went to psychotherapy as well, when I was 18. And I discovered, like all those things that were super interesting outside of school, and I realized that the best thing that I can do is to just try to make the most out of those, you know, five years when when I was at high school, but then eventually also create programs for other students. So that I can basically teach almost like people at my age, things that I think are important. So when I was 23, I started making those programs for career development and career orientation for youngsters. Because I also saw that when you are 18, nobody is really telling you like how to proceed with your life after school, like how to set goals, how to find out what really matters to you, what are your values? What is your life philosophy, how to think how to analyze how to understand the world, in systems, how to really cope with life, I mean, everything that you learn in school is so theoretical, so that

 

Brad Wilson (16:00) You, it’s kind of, yeah, kind of kind of a red flag of the education system, right that like, you’re we’re not equipped with these, like necessary skills as adults, when we’re leaving, which like, probably should be the number one priority, I would imagine.

 

Karina (16:15) Yeah, but only if the educational system was made for people to really become functional beings. I mean, the idea behind if we go into conspiracy theories is that educational system is only trying to, you know, take your time without really giving you something valuable in return. And especially at a at an early age, when you form all of your, like the majority, actually, of your belief systems and how you think the world works. The role of this institution, you know, the school is, is super important, but at the moment, it serves more, let’s say other purposes, not not exactly the ones that, you know, will make those people functional. Yeah. jailing. That’s the gist of it. Yeah.

 

Brad Wilson (16:59) jailing the kids, right, like, so that the parents can contribute to the economy and go to work? Yeah, exactly. Let’s, so. Yeah, let’s talk about your chat bot. That’s something that kind of stuck out to me, as you know, against somebody that spent a lot of time thinking about communicating complex ideas and understanding things, you know, the game of poker, like at its core, understanding how humans Yeah, just like the right buttons to press so that human beings can process and integrate information successfully. Doing that automated is a project I do not envy that project, because that is an insane level of, there’s a lot of nuance, there’s a lot of work, like you have to understand communication at a level that is many levels beyond anything that I personally have learned or explored. So tell me about you know, that project specifically.

 

Karina (18:04) Yeah, well, actually, here’s something important that I have to say is that the Chatbot is only one small part of the whole project and about from from the whole product of mindset design. So we what we are trying to do is we design those transformational journeys for people where poker players enter for example, like our our idea is to make that program you know, and that mindset transformation as personalized as possible. So those journeys are meant to help people first of all identify what really, they wanted to achieve, like what are their goals and as I said, we want to make sure we know them in the beginning, like we create those profiles of those players, including we explore how they teach the soul how they how they learn, sorry, so whether it will be more effective for them to have more visual content or more, more audios, etc. And so we want to prepare those programs in order for them to feel like that’s the most productive learning process for them. And then we provide, Yes.

 

Brad Wilson (19:06) Sorry. As it relates to different goals, you know, what are like mapping out the different available you know, goals that people come to you with things that they’re willing to achieve other than like, I just want to make a boatload of money and buy a house in the south of France and

 

Karina (19:25) yeah, well actually, to be honest, those financial goals and the way that people you know, for the actually the drive that they have for poker is very rarely strictly financial. What I see when I work with them and I already work with people from more than 15 countries is that they are much more interested in having the freedom so the freedom is the top value for them and also being able to completely own their life and not you know, go back and work for someone else from you know, from nine to five only to to meet the to make the ends meet, but they are are much more oriented towards freedom and have their own their own time. So I would say that their goals are more about how to achieve that, and also much more about how to improve the way they feel. Because those goals that you mentioned that you know, buy a house or become really profitable, that is something that people will not get at any cost. At some point, if that becomes too painful or too heavy, and all those emotions are too overwhelming, like it happens, in many cases, people will not be willing to sacrifice that. So I think that we all look for somehow, that emotional comfort, and we want to feel good, and we want to achieve something great, but not paying, you know, the big price of that. So the majority of the goals are oriented more towards how to improve the way they feel. And also, they want to increase their motivation. And here, my assumption is that people think that motivation is super important in order to achieve something. And that’s an illusion for me, because I think that motivation is something that comes from results and not the other way around. So you don’t need to be motivated in order to achieve results. You have to you know, push yourself to achieve something, and then from that achievement, you will get motivation. And I think that the whole cliche about motivation, and you know, being a motivational speaker and reading motivational stuff, it’s only because somehow the whole concept was made popular by the American industry of personal development. But in the core of that concept, I think it’s just I mean, it’s a nonsense. And yeah, that’s, that’s actually what we see with players, they want to get motivated and they want to deal with emotions, which is, in its essence, I think that’s not the right way to approach all what is all those heavy emotions around the game. I mean, it’s, I think, for me that the healthy way to approach the whole the whole field of poker is to be more like a stoic, you know, one of those ancient philosophers that embraced all the pain and embraced all that of this journey, and eventually to look for satisfaction from from real results and from hard work and not try to find the way

 

Brad Wilson (22:13) yet the the Matt Berkey brand of playing poker. Yeah, like you mentioned something there that that’s like, quite key. And very important is the motivation aspect. I know that like anecdotally, in my own experience, right, like something that, you know, one thing that people say on Twitter a lot, or just other guests, or whoever it is, or like, wow, like you just churn out so much content, like it’s crazy. Just like you have all these episodes, you’re releasing all the time. And like, I’d never lose motivation, I don’t have to have motivation to have interesting conversations with super intelligent, sharp human beings. Like that’s something that like, I would just do this for fun. You know, like, it’s just like a, it’s not a hassle. And I think that like, yeah, it’s just, it’s just a part of it, the day that I have to be, like, motivated to fire up conversations, I think is the day that I figure out what my next plan is moving away from hosting this podcast, whether it’s like finding somebody else, to continue it on other than myself, but like, yeah, it’s an indicator, and also, you know, money getting into poker, just to make money, there are lots of ways to make money in the world, poker is probably not the most efficient or not the best way to go about doing it. And if you’re in it solely for that, it’s just in my experience has always been a recipe for disaster, it’s not a great motivator. It’s just not a it’s not a great driver of, of just not not a great driver of like investing the time and the energy. Because like, you have to deal with so much suffering at on this journey, that you have to love it, you have to be immersed in the process, you have to love the game, you have to love playing the game. And sort of the irony is that when you love the game, and you’re immersed and you’re kind of obsessed with it, that’s kind of like what where the money comes from? It’s a side effect of that love. That immersion, that obsession.

 

Karina (24:17) Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I think that if people are looking for something that will be entertaining, and it will be easy money, and they will have to just spend some hours here and there. And that will be a very easy, easy path. They just didn’t check the facts. I mean, they didn’t make that reality check before to start, you know, practicing that.

 

Brad Wilson (24:36) Yeah. And get rich quick scheme.

 

Karina (24:38) Oh, no, no, no, not at all. I mean, it may look like that. You know, from the outside, but when you start doing it, it’s like, you basically face your biggest fears you you have that, you know, collision with your own ego. And that’s not at all fun. I mean, it’s everything else but not fun. And I think that people somehow underestimate some time And that thing, but I guess that’s also a filter, you know, for people, because only those who are okay with the, with the, with how the game is and you know the real game, I think that those are the ones that survive. And also something else that I wanted to say here. Because one of the one of the comments that you made before about motivation, I think that motivation comes if somehow you postpone your decision to do something like, for example, in my case, as well, I run a company, actually, I run two companies at the moment. And if I have to ask myself every morning, whether I’m motivated or not to do the work, that means that my decision that I had to take was not made on the right in the, in the right time. I mean, I decided long ago that I will do those two companies. And that’s a decision that I don’t have to consider again and again and ask myself every day about it, I mean, I decided for myself that I will go to that, I will go on that path, I will move and I will make steps on that trajectory. And regardless of what what is happening, that’s the decision that I already take. And it’s somehow, you know, weird for me that people are looking for that motivation, because it means that they don’t have a clear goal, they don’t have a clear purpose. And if they have such, all those holes that need to be motivated, just will disappear. Because yes, you will struggle, but then you will always come back to that decision that you took long ago, I want to be a professional poker player, I want to put six hours a day, eight hours a day, 12 hours, whatever. And I want to do that, regardless of the outcomes. And regardless of how I feel about it, I will just do it, because that’s a decision that I took already. And that’s also an interesting approach that I that I coach my, my players to have. Yeah, because, yeah, it’s not necessary to ask yourself, you know, every morning, whether you’re motivated or not, that’s the thing.

 

Brad Wilson (26:54) I went on the thinking poker podcast about a month or so ago. And, you know, we were talking about, like, just education learning. And what’s interesting, like, for me, study has a negative connotation in my head. I don’t like the word study, because it implies something that like I did in school that I did not like, it was not fun for me. And I think that like, in poker, you kind of know you’re on the right path, when like, you don’t set an hour goal of like, like, people ask me all the time, how much should you study versus play? And I’m like, Yeah, I don’t know the answer to give you like, in my case, it was. There was no set of hours that I was going to study. But I thought about poker. All day long. When I got done playing poker, I was thinking about poker, I was talking to my friends about poker for fun, right? Like learning. My brand of studying was just absolutely fun. I loved it, I couldn’t get enough of it. It wasn’t a chore. It wasn’t a task on my list that I had to, you know, check off, it was just natural to think that I would do even if I wasn’t doing any, like, I would just want to do that over doing anything else. And I think that’s like, just a good indicator that like, you know, that poker is something that is worth pursuing. Because it shouldn’t be like, a major hassle. You know?

 

Karina (28:15) Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

 

Brad Wilson (28:19) And what, you know, you’ve, you’ve worked in a lot of different niches, right? Like with different types of human beings. What about poker? Players? Like what what’s so fascinating Why Why them?

 

Karina (28:34) Well, actually, it was again in 2020, when I realized that first actually I wanted to work with women around you know, in their 30s that are looking for that work life balance, you know, that also popular misconception that I don’t like, but that’s for another conversation. So now it’s

 

Brad Wilson (28:53) first conversation, why don’t you want to work life balance? What about the work life balance?

 

Karina (28:57) Yeah, I’ll come back to that one. But first, I’ll tell you what’s so fascinating about poker players. So yeah, at first I wanted to work with those women, but then I realized that they somehow I mean, they also have emotional challenges and situations they have to deal with in their, in their daily life. But somehow, they they managed to find that balance. I mean, it’s not so painful for them to solve their issues with mindset, while poker players and not only poker players, but also traders, gamers, athletes, all those people that are competitive in that somehow choose a career path that is very volatile, highly, highly risky, and and very dynamic. They have stakes. I mean, they have something that Nassim Taleb called skin in the game. So, when you are on the table and you play with your own money, I mean, you either win or lose. And that’s not something that you can in interpretate you know, and somehow you can analyze and, you know, make excuses about it’s just obvious results. And it’s reality. So what I really liked about poker players and I, somehow it happened like that in my life. So I happen to know a lot of poker players personally. So I spoke with them. And I realized that strategy is only maybe around 50% of the success on the table, you know, and the rest is about mentality. And I didn’t see it like that before, before speaking with so many poker players, and especially those one who are really professionals in the field, like those who spend hours and hours to study who really understand the strategic aspects of the game, and who somehow approach it in a in a different, much more profound and professional way. So with them, what I find fascinating is that they really have that courage to do something that is really hard, and they want to escape of the habit of the regular nine to five system, and they want to make something that will give them freedom. So I really admire people that are courageous, and somehow freedom oriented and free spirits. Also, they’re very smart in a way that it’s different than the way I am smart. Because if you look at our brains even, and because I’m a neuroscience geek, and I explored the brain designs of many players already, because of one of the methodologies that I’m using, called neuro agility. So if you look on their brains, and on my brain, I mean, they’re different in many ways. For example, the poker players that, I wouldn’t say here, the majority of them, because that will not be scientifically correct to say that, but most of them are more oriented to use their logical and mathematical thinking. I’m much more abstract, and I don’t, for example, I don’t understand. So well, the strategic and the mathematical aspect of the game, which is the curious thing here, I was part of a poker school and I was playing myself for a while, so that I can understand, you know, the jargon and the dynamics and the whole, you know, that that part of the that part of the game, but my strength is much more about, you know, the abstract and the psychological aspect, which is somehow lacking for for some of the players, or somehow they didn’t really develop that aspect as much. So I saw that combination of talents that can be useful for them. And I wanted to help those players really succeed, because I see somehow that inspirational, you know, people who want to be free, and who want to, who want to own their own their own career path. And that was the reason why I decided together with the team to start working with them.

 

Brad Wilson (32:25) And how’d you find yourself with so many poker player connections? I don’t know if that’s normal. in day to day life, how did that come about?

 

Karina (32:36) Well, actually, my partner was a professional poker player. And so his coach and his peers, we know them. And actually, they made it possible for us to connect with people from and from, for with players from all around the globe. And the super interesting and super nice thing about the community is that if people like something in that community know that they help each other, and they refer to each other a lot of things, including materials, learning materials, like including people, etc. So very quickly, we managed to form that community around us that helped us, you know, with the first of all, with the customer development interviews in the beginning, so we had lots of conversations with poker players. And then everything basically was was because of recommendations and personal connections that we made. So the whole community supported us very, very actively in the beginning, and still does.

 

Brad Wilson (33:28) Very nice. It makes a lot of sense to me that poker players, brains are more logical and systematic, I think that’s sort of the nature of poker is you need to be very systematic and very logical and very consistent with your decision making. Because, you know, I think what makes it a little bit different from other sports and other competitions is that like, the feedback in poker is distorted. Where, yeah, like, so unless you have like a very large data set, the feedback you’re getting is not direct as to your ability to make decisions at the table. And that’s just like, sort of a wrench in the career of a poker players like, wow, I’m getting totally destroyed, and like you start losing confidence in your decision making process, but the reality is like, you could be making all the right decisions and just getting like a bunch of wrong results. And that’s why, you know, mindset is just incredibly, incredibly valuable in the space. And yeah, I think also just we’re emotional creatures, human beings, and those emotions will naturally manifest at the poker table and then navigating those emotions, those biases, while you’re still trying to be logical and systematic. That can be quite challenging.

 

Karina (34:50) Yeah, exactly. Actually. The majority of my work consists of helping players to realize what part of their thinking is emotional thinking or emotional decision making and what Part is strictly rational, you know, based only on the facts only on on the information, even if it’s imperfect information, but still, what you really know for sure, like without any assumptions without any biases, and it’s hard sometimes because first of all, the game is super dynamic, you don’t have three hours to think about what’s your next move, you know, it’s like, it’s not like that. So you are limited in time. And that time pressure also is somehow not really helping people not to go on autopilot, for example, and stay really highly, highly self aware and highly rational. And yeah, you’re absolutely right, people have issues with their competence, because they somehow make that wrong connection between results and their performance, which is not, which is not the case, if you know, clearly that you made the right decision. I even very often, you know, advise players not to look at their results for a week, for example, because that will not change anything. I mean, those results are shouldn’t be used as a feedback, whether you make the right decision or not. Because if you come back to the same very hand and you review it, you should be able to say what’s the right thing without the result at the end, you know, without really, without knowing what the how the hand developed? So, yeah, I agree on that,

 

Brad Wilson (36:13) intellectually, yes. harder when the rubber meets the road, you know, it’s harder to not be influenced, because, again, like we are human beings, you know, and I think that it’s just a major part of the journey, and like getting help, is just something that most every poker player, I don’t know of anybody that’s come like, just super well equipped, emotionally to handle this journey on their own that couldn’t have benefited from getting some kind of assistance in this area, just because it’s kind of it’s kind of essential, you know, Oh, yeah.

 

Karina (36:51) Well, actually, it’s no different from any other from any other sport. And I think and it mindset design, we call players, cognitive athletes, because it’s absolutely the same, like they have to have those coaches, either a coach on strategy are on mindset, but they perform the same sports activity just in a different area. I mean, they don’t use their, their bodies so much, or natto. But they use their mind, but it’s, again, a field where you have to approach the whole the whole game as an athlete. So it’s, it’s really, really very, very similar.

 

Brad Wilson (37:26) How do you help poker players discern from some sort of emotional response versus some sort of logical response? When I know, internally, they can feel very similar, like a feeling, you know, a gut feeling of intuition, that is based on some kind of subconscious understanding of a situation that’s driving you to choose an action can feel very, very similar to a feeling that is based on some kind of fear. That’s pushing you towards some kind of action and discerning between those two is, in my opinion, one of the major keys between like, being a, an okay, poker player and like a top shelf world class poker player?

 

Karina (38:18) Yeah, absolutely. Well, what we love to say it at mindset design is that any issues that you have with your mindset is something that you have to solve before to, to sit on the table, like that’s not something that you can do while you’re playing. That’s something that you have to consider and think and become more and more aware of, before the session. So you have to explore you like your reactions and how you how you spend your day, what made you tilt, for example, or what triggered you to have an emotional reaction and analyze and put some effort on that, then while you are or the entity on the table and in a real situation where you have to, as you said, either follow your gut feeling or just be completely rational? Like? That’s a tricky question here. Because people overestimate their intuition. And sometimes they think that because they have a lot of experience, and they feel something about the other player. And they feel that somehow they read him or her. By the way, there’s a huge difference between doing it live and doing it online. Because life, we as humans, we are wired, and we are designed to get information from a lot more visual cues about the other person. So when we see for example, their physical behavior, condition, body language, etc. Maybe that intuition can can work. But again, maybe because as I said, Yeah, people over overestimated that one. And intuition is only a way for us to say I don’t know what’s the rational answer, but I have to have an answer. And you know, our brains really love to have an answer. And the quickest answer that enters the system sometimes is the one that wins and what I advise people with to think about okay, That’s the quickest answer, you know that intuition, that’s the thing that your brain is using to have just something, you know an answer and a decision that you take. You have that one. Okay, put it aside for a moment. And now think about the slowest answer, like, what is the slowest decision and the slowest analysis that you can perform at the moment? And what’s the answer of that one? And if those two are the same, then Okay, great, we have something that that somehow matches. But if the slow decision and if the slow thinking and analysis leads to another answer, then always, always choose that one. Because that slow thinking is the rational one, and that’s the one that somehow reduces the emotion and reduces the biases. And it’s really like, you know, pulling the handbrake, you know, and trying not to go through that automatic process of Aha, I know what’s going on here. And having those fast associations and fast, you know, conclusions, because that’s only a way for your brain to come up with with a decision, but that’s not the rational one very often. Also, something else here is that that whole concept about fast and slow decisions would make actually that was made possible and popular by an author called Daniel Kahneman, who is a Nobel Laureate laureate, he speaks a lot about system one and system two. So, those are different ways that our brain operates in like different basically different modes. So, if you are interested to know more about it, there is a huge and very profound work that he did on the on the topic. And the book that is more like popular science in the on the field is called Thinking Fast and Slow. So people can check it out and see how exactly that works. So if people can distinguish when they operate from system one, which is that automatic fast decision making the so called intuition, also, and be able to switch to system two, which is the slow thinking, they have the chance to have a rational decision and and then eventually evaluate which ones one is best. I think

 

Brad Wilson (42:04) the the hedge comes, you know, with poker players will fire up 12 tables, right? You don’t have time to really think so you do the best that you can, analyzing and I do think that like so I don’t think like intuition is some kind of mystical power. I think it’s just sort of honed in your cognitive system that you analyze data, and then an answer gets spat out. Very, very quickly before you can like rationally verbalize or even like explain why you think or feel you should take a certain action in poker.

 

CG Nacz (42:50) Or a fish doc bets the floor. And you don’t know what’s

 

Unknown Speaker (42:55) one man Coach Brad Wilson, because the Surefire plan

 

CG Nacz (43:01) truly neutralize flop leads to shreds. Available now, go to chasing Volker greatness.com/novel.

 

Brad Wilson (43:15) Read. What’s interesting about doing the work off the felt is that it applies to to just playing poker. When you’re playing poker, it’s not a time to be learning, it’s not a time to be. Just like trying to improve your poker game, the time to improve is off the table. That that’s where, you know, in the wolf program, we have like a slogan is like study hard play loose, like just you study hard. And when you play, it’s not the time to be learning, it’s not the time to be integrating is the time to just be do the best that you can and making decisions. We’ll fact check it afterwards. We’ll look at everything when you’re done, so that we can do better next time. But while you’re playing, you’re playing, and it sounds like you know, you advise the same for the mental and emotional side of the game, do the work off the table, don’t use don’t use the time when you’re on the table to be training.

 

Karina (44:14) Yeah, absolutely. Because actually, your brain cannot execute good decisions and reflect on them at the same time. It’s just impossible. And it’s just so much energy consuming so that your brain will decide which one of those two will perform. Because you can either again, think about something and execute it or then reflect on that. And those are again, like two different modes in which your brain operates. So yeah, totally agree that the training happens of the table. And this is what we always we know, you know, encourage players to to consider is that the time that you spent on the table should be at least the same as you as you spent over the table, working on yourself. And like it’s not only about learning strategy and study about it, but also your whole routine around around your poker session. It considers also, it consists also of the way you eat, you know, your healthy eating habits, the way you sleep, your your exercise routine, your workouts, everything around it that you build as a support structure. Because it’s not only those hours that you spend on the table, I mean, it’s impossible to think that only this will give you any progress and will will make you a successful player. Actually, everything around it and the preparation of that. It’s like, it’s much more important than the game itself. You know what, while it happens, actually, that’s, that’s the thing.

 

Brad Wilson (45:34) Yeah. And just like, everything that I know about training, learning, all my experiences, say this, the same exact thing, the data that I have to look at is like, yeah, there’s a time and a place. And when you’re playing, you know, you’re, you’re performing. That’s the performance aspect of it. And we’re gonna study hard afterwards. But right now, your main job is to make decisions and perform to the best of your ability. Yeah, absolutely. Um, let’s see. So what are your What are your ambition, you know, changing the training, the mental game training across all aspects? Like, tell me, just tell me about that. And like, what that kind of looks like projecting into the future for you?

 

Karina (46:26) Yeah, well, first of all, I thought, you know, many years ago that the best way to make, you know, high self awareness, something common and something that people understand better. And, you know, for me, the only way to do that is to use some kind of technology. So that’s why we run mindset design as a tech startup, and we have investors, you know, we raise money, we build tech products, we try to explore that field. Because I mean, for me, it’s inevitable to have that constant interaction with any type of technology and to do it more and more in the future. So we will become either something like transhumans, you don’t win and become a combination between a human being and a technology and it will evolve more and more in the next years. I mean, not only because of the companies that are actively working in that direction, but because people are curious to know that and to explore the world in that way. I mean, if you if we take a look now at the metaverse concept and reality, I would say that is just behind the corner, people are super curious about it, and they are willingly you know, exploring it and look for a way to learn more about it, and more and more people become more interested in all those topics. So I think that technology is unnecessary, too. And somehow, yeah, away an enabler for for us to grow as individuals. And I think that, that aspects, we can even call it spiritual work or psychological work, because those two are for me have hence they overlap somehow. But I think that all that area of exploration and human development should be somehow combined with technology. So my ambition is to find the most productive way for people to get better understanding and to explore themselves freely, using the technology. So at the moment, for example, we work on that chatbot, but in the future, and the vision for our product consists also of other other components. So like building a whole training program that we that we have and onboarding users every two weeks, because we have their regular programs that are running even now as we speak. And creating all that content is only one aspect of that. But I’m also curious to understand how people can, for example, get real time information about how aware they are in a certain moment, and how well they managed to get good decisions, you know, to make good decisions. So this is also another way to to approach the topic. And I think that we can, for example, use technology to measure stuff like heart rate, or, you know, your facial expressions, even or take any type of be your biometric data, so that we can measure how, like what is your mental state at the moment, if you are angry, I would be very curious to know how we can measure that. If you feel for example, too tired, or if you run on autopilot, if you are somehow triggered by something and you make that emotional decision making, I want to know how technology can measure that and observe that. And based on on all those insights, I think that another thing that can be innovate and change and improve for good in the industry is to make that mindset transformation measurable. So how exactly people change their mindset and how that affects their their life, but for like having objective data on that, because one of the reasons why people do not feel comfortable to approach that topic and to make active steps is because they don’t see how exactly this is measured. You know It’s not like going to the gym and say like if you want to lose 20 pounds you have to do this and that we measure you know, your your weight in the beginning of the program we measure it in one month in three months and six months in we track the progress I want to make possible the same process to go for the mindset because I see it for myself and I explored so many things including meditation, psychedelics, like all sorts of crazy stuff and I know exactly that I am a different person compared to the one that I was 10 years ago and I know exactly which areas but I want to make a system and you know a whole methodology that will be able to visualize and objectify that for other people, because it will make the whole field much more approachable and much more interesting and people will even be I think, excited to track and compare themselves with other people because this is what we do as human beings and yeah, I mean I think that the field is the field is huge. And I want to make it you know, visible and meaningful for for more people.

 

Brad Wilson (51:03) lots you are not lacking on ambition that extremely ambitious task I’m I’m I’m very much hopeful and willing for Elon Musk to make me into a cyborg I welcome that day when I can get hooked into neuro link. But I had something on the tip of my tongue and now it’s just it’s it’s gone into the into the ether. There was a thread about a half hour ago that was unexplored. And we’re gonna come back to it and now I’ve lost that thread as well. Like apparently everything in my brain has just like gone straight away.

 

Karina (51:49) Maybe you know, hypnotizing. You know, that’s one of my special skills?

 

Brad Wilson (51:53)  

Yes, yes. I think I think I am just, yeah, I’m hypnotized. I’m not in my right state of mind. Help me out here. Karina.

 

Karina (52:02) Maybe we can make a short meditation now focus on your breathing? Can I can switch to my meditation voice. Actually, I’m curious also to know about what what is interesting for you, in the field of mindset, like, what do you explore at the moment for yourself as a person,

 

Brad Wilson (52:18) as a person, so I’m a really big Sam Harris fan. So like waking up is my go to, I’m very interested in integrating meditation with breath work, sort of getting a signal that something is happening, and then having some sort of actionable thing that I can do to address that signal, whether it be like, anxiety, or whatever it is, and breathwork, at least in my experience has been just kind of a game changer. Like it’s just kind of amazing, the immediate effects that just doing simple breathing exercises can have. So that’s sort of that’s another area that I’m exploring. And then with my coaching for profit group, the CPG wolves. Yeah, I mean, just performance and mindset after the strategic aspect of it. You know, I’ve been working quite hard for the past four or five months building out the strategy side, and now it’s time for, like, performance and mindset. And yeah, just helping those guys progress. You know, like you said, it’s hard to objectively measure progression in the field of mindset. And, yeah, I think I went down a thread recently, somebody posted in greatness village, by Slack community, about the chicken sexers. In I believe it’s Japan, how, basically, there’s a need to identify the sex of like one day old chicks. However, you can’t, the way that they train people to do it is through pure intuition. They have someone, they have someone who can identify the sex of the chicks, and they just watch them do it. And over time, they’re able to just know, through intuition, what the sex of each one day old chicken is, which is just like kind of mystifying to me. And so like, exploring intuition and why intuition can mislead us why we can have mixed signals why these things kind of happen, I think is like a major priority when we’re talking about helping poker players put in significant amounts of volume on a daily, monthly yearly basis. I think that that’s like, just, yeah, like I said, you know, you’re playing 12 tables, and you have to make a decision in a specific amount of time. And so, how navigating the right way to do that and the wrong way to do that and how internal feedback can be misleading, I think is just something that is just absolutely necessary to under better understand better evaluate. And yeah, so those are the things that like really I’m interested in right now, as it relates to, to mindset and performance.

 

Karina (55:14) Actually, what you mentioned about the simple breathing techniques is something that I’m also interested in. And for example, with, like, recently, one of the players asked me, Well, what I can do, but that will take just a few seconds in order for me to come back in a more relaxed state while I play so that I can, you know, reduce the time of being angry and you know, make even more 

 

Brad Wilson (55:36) uncovering, write, increase, recover more quickly. Yeah,

 

Karina (55:40) exactly. And so the simplest one that I that I know that works for me, including for for the players is to just make that that simple exercise that consists of the following, like, when you breathe in, you breathe, for example, you breathe in for five seconds, and then you exhale for 10 seconds. So twice the time, the inhale, you know, so if you inhale, for example, for seven seconds, you exhale for 14 seconds. And you just keep doing that cycle of breathing for three, four minutes, and you just immediately see the effect. Because when you exhale, that’s like, again, to two different modes of operation of your brain, like when you exhale, that’s a more relaxed state for your brain. So if you prolonged that period, your brain slowly but steadily, only for for a couple of minutes, enters to that more relaxed state, and it somehow produces completely different biochemical cocktail in your brain. So it’s like, a way for you to change your your biochemistry, which is, by the way, the most efficient way to change any emotional state that you are in. So working on the physiological level is super, super important. And breathing is doing exactly that. So yeah, a variety of techniques over there. I’m also a big fan of Wim Hof Method, which includes a lot of breathing techniques, but also those cold showers, which is super fun, as soon as you, you know, have the right mindset and right approach to it, because in the beginning, can be really, you know, challenging, but at some point, it’s really so much fun. And the reason why I cope with the majority of my own challenges in my life, I think it was basically because I started practicing that method, maybe three years ago or four years ago, it helped me a lot with being so much like is very, very peaceful at all times. Basically, I now my my threshold for considering something a problem is much higher, I mean, I everything can can explode around me and I will still feel okay. And I think that because I somehow I have that I did that work with my with Wim Hof Method and with my own meditation techniques, and at some point, my neuros, my nervous system is completely redesigned, and I am much, much less neurotic, in a way. And I think that that’s maybe the best way to influence any any change that you want to have, like on a physiological level, working with your body, not only in your mind, because people also I think that they overestimate the thinking process behind the mindset change. While actually it’s a lot about how your body works, what you eat, you know, the healthiness of your good back bacteria, even, you know, the quality of your sleep and the food that you eat everything that is much more physical and much more about your body because the biochemistry again, will dominate always, I mean, regardless of how beautiful thoughts we think, if the biochemistry is fucked up, then we will be in a bad mood, we will be emotionally unstable, we will be tired, you know, less focused, and all those things. So more reactive

 

Brad Wilson (58:48) to more reactive, more reactive to forces, which is something that like as a poker player specifically, you don’t want to be, you don’t want to be ultra reactive to the things that are happening because it’s not a good recipe. I remember my train of thought before I got hypnotized before. You mentioned the word spiritual and quite quite an abstract word. So it’s going to ask you, you know what, what does spiritual mean to you when you talk about the spirit specifically?

 

Karina (59:20) Yeah, well, I think that spirituality is something like an approach to life in general, like you can have a very spiritual life working as a, I don’t know, as a waitress or working as a, I don’t know, as an engineer or whatever, like spirituality is not for people that live kind of mountains and meditate 24/7 And it’s more about your, like the way that you approach life and you can find that depth in life in any in any domain. And I think that especially poker playing is much like being a warrior. And so this is one of maybe the most inspiring spiritual ways for me and I And the one, I’m also a person that is exploring it actively. So I think that we can approach being professional poker players as being warriors. And it’s the equal, it will have the same spiritual value and enlightenment, that being a samurai, we’ll have, you know, and we also have one one very interesting article at mindset design, which compares, and which somehow highlights the similarities between being a samurai and a poker player. And I think that having that mentality also brings a lot more meaning to your game, because you find that deep purpose within and you consider yourself, you know, warrior that somehow explores the, the, the mindset of a warrior. So that spiritual approach, I think, it’s also my way to understand the world and the level of, again, the depth that I want to have in my life. And I think we can we can approach life in that way for, for many areas, and for

 

Brad Wilson (1:01:02) many topics. And, well, I’m probably extremely biased here, because like, I think getting being called a warrior is like something that’s like, it’s a badge of honor, like thinking of Mike my career path, specifically. But it does resonate with me. And I guess, something that like, I’ve experienced throughout my poker career that I have often found that it’s been different from other, you know, my private coaching students or other human beings, sometimes, I encounter, you know, a private coaching student, like John, for instance, my tactical Tuesday co host who also feels the same way. But in poker, throughout my career. It’s interesting when I like fire up a session and immediately lose like three or four by ends. Because I feel more focused and more dialed in. When that happens, it’s like something like kicks in when I get punched in the face. And it’s not tilt, it’s not that I want to play longer just to like recoup my losses, it’s almost just like this focus of like, okay, like, we’re in here, now, we’re battling, like, we’re cannot recover, can I can I keep performing at a high level, despite this adversity, and it’s like a challenge, right? It’s like a challenge to this is within me, that I just want to meet. And I find that like, other poker players, you know, can struggle with that, you know, they can get punched in the face three times, and they just want to quit, and totally collapse. And like, what’s interesting is like, a lot of poker, popular poker, you know, mindset work and feedback and wisdom that folks say to people is, like, you know, you start out losing, you’re in that state of mind, you know, just quit and like, come back to it at another time. And I’ve just found, like, I’m just kind of wired differently, where I get stuck quick. That is, there’s more energy inside of me, there’s more focus. And I’m just like, more willing to just battle at a very high level, which is kind of a weird thing to make sense of when, like, a lot of the, you know, popular poker, wisdom is like to not do that exact thing that I feel like, yeah, it’s just a very valuable component of how I made up.

 

Karina (1:03:29) Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it’s a choice between, you know, remaining in your comfort zone, or just push yourself even harder when, when the shit hits the fan, you know. And last year, I made a very interesting experiment with myself, because I am not a runner. And that was the belief that I had back then, I mean, I practice yoga, I dance, you know, sometimes I swim, but, like, running was not my thing at all. Like, I couldn’t find a way to do it, so that I can also enjoy it. I didn’t have the right places around my house, you know, to to practice it. And I had, you know, all those tons of excuses not to doing that. So one day I woke up, and I thought, well, let’s try if I can run for 15 minutes, you know, 55, zero. And at first, it was like, Well, what what hell, I mean, I didn’t run for five minutes, like, without losing my breath and feel extreme pain, etc, because that was not my thing. And I’m not a trained person in that in that way. So I went to a small stadium near near my house or not so near here, and I just started running and I thought, I will not stop I mean, there are two options here, I will either die, which is I mean, stupid thing to happen, just for the sake of the experiment. I will either die or I will keep those 15 minutes. And there’s no other thing. I mean, those are those are their choices. And if you again, decide that before starting the challenge or before starting the session, then you don’t have to at all feel your feelings during the day. Shouldn’t and that’s what I try to coach my players because feel your feelings is something that you have to do after the session. And yes, we give, we give enough space to that. And we, you know, completely allow, you know, exactly space for for those emotions, but like, while you play just, you have another task, I mean, connecting to your feelings is not in the list, you know, it’s not one of the tasks that you have while while you’re playing. So, yeah, I hit those 15 minutes, I mean, I almost completely destroyed one of my ankles, because I forgot that I have an injury on that ankle or whatever. But it’s, it was just an easy way for me to show myself that I can be a runner if I decide to do that. And I think that when we talk about the concept of being a warrior, that’s actually an identity concept. So who you are really, it’s not about your actions or your skills, it’s about your identity. And so in the moment when I decided, Okay, today, I will be a runner. So those 15 minutes should be something easy peasy for me. And if you change that, you know perspective about yourself, then you can perform and then you can do, actually, you execute your decisions from a completely different place within you. So because that identity changes somehow. So yeah, I really, really liked that concept of being a warrior, and not just follow your feelings, because in this case, you allow your feelings to become the master. And that’s not the case. I mean, emotions really bring information, and really are valuable, and they have to be respected, and you have to feel your emotions, but then who’s the master, like, if you are the master of your emotions, then you can just, you know, put them aside for a while. And then, you know, eventually benefit from having those emotions and analyze the information that they have. But you have to always be the master. And again, it’s I think it’s again, mind over matter. situation here.

 

Brad Wilson (1:06:59) So I guess the challenge just a little bit, so like one, one of my good friends, Jason Sue poker with presence, he’s all about like presence, being being in touch with, with your emotions, while you play poker. And just like understanding and feeling how you feel, and just having awareness of just how you’re feeling internally, which like, in my experience, as well, poker is a highly emotional game, whether people want to admit it or not, I’m not. I’m not too big to admit that, like, you do feel emotions, there is fear, there is anticipation, your heart rate goes up. You know, when you get a bunch of money in the pot, and you’re hoping to hold or whatever it is, like these emotions just kind of pop up and are at least they’re a part of the process. So like, what are your thoughts on you know, that area of like poker mindset?

 

Karina (1:07:58) Yeah, well, I think that here, I will use a quote that last week when we spoke with Daryl Kearney lovely players super experienced, he was a guest in our in our podcast, and he said very something very brilliant. I think he said, Oh, I tilt a lot, but never while I play. And at first I mean, it’s like what what, like, if you say, Well, I know that I will have all those feelings and all those emotional reactions, anger, frustration, disappointment for myself and everything, but right after the game, so one thing is to say, like, while you’re playing, okay, I have those feelings, now, I will just postpone them. So I will be able to feel them later on. But now I will just, you know, somehow register them. So they are there you cannot completely ignore, ignore them. But I will not let them you know, move my decisions and affect my decisions. So it’s not that we can completely see, ignore all those emotions, because it’s, again, it will create tension, but you can keep them running below the surface, you know, and just keep them keep your presence and just acknowledge them, you know, accept them, but do not let them become the dominant force behind your decisions. And yeah, I think it’s about how you approach it. And if you for example, make that as a thought experiment. During your your next session for those of us who are listening, like when something really frustrating happens regardless of the situation or you know, the head, if something triggers you or like just, you can even say out loud, okay, now I feel this, okay, this is something that happens. It’s part of the game. Just take a deep breath in, I mean to verbalize that, again, is something that helps your brain to overcome that super strong emotional charge because when you verbalize something, you switch from emotional to rational mode because our language is related to that, even to that hemisphere. It is responsible for for rational thinking. So language and rational thinking are very related. So just saying out loud, something will switch your brain into more rational mode. And so this is something useful and very simple that you can do and I encourage, you know, players to, to talk out loud their emotions sometimes, but in a constructive way, like just acknowledge, okay, I feel this at the moment, I will take a deep breath. Now my hand is this and that my decision will be clear, everything is okay. I will feel those emotions later. Even saying that out loud, we will already switch a little bit and somehow cool down the situation.

 

Brad Wilson (1:10:36) I love that. That’s great. actionable feedback and wisdom advice to the CPG lessor. Yeah, it’s great stuff. And now we’re nearing the end of of the conversation sounds like your neighbors have, you know, turned, turned off the music in the walls. So just, you know, a couple quick questions here at the end, and we’ll wrap up. If you could put up a billboard, every poker player has got to drive past on the way to the casino. What does your billboard say?

 

Karina (1:11:14) Hmm, that’s a beautiful question. I have few few ideas in my mind, let me pick the best one. Okay, well, maybe the first one is, what if I just take a deep breath and think again. And this is something that they can maybe repeat from time to time modify, just take a deep breath and think again, and just questioning sometimes your decisions but in a new way, like reset and try to approach the situation from like a beginner again, and like having the information with with a clear mind. And, you know, analyzing the information with a clear mind, maybe that’s one of the things. The other one is I already did what I have to, because sometimes players have that, you know, frustration that maybe they didn’t do enough work, maybe they didn’t explored enough, this particular strategy, or this particular graph, or this particular way of thinking about a certain situation, or you know, how to play. So to just feel calm that they already did the work and everything is okay. I mean, from there on. It’s about execution and everything that they could have done, it’s, it doesn’t matter.

 

Brad Wilson (1:12:38) So maybe some idea, even though that second billboard is going to cost you extra. I’m quite a fan like that’s, I think that’s just great. Something for folks to take into their poker session that like, you’ve already done the work. Like, yeah, you’ve already done the work. So now it’s time to be

 

Karina (1:12:57) there. You know, yeah, you’re prepared with

 

Brad Wilson (1:13:00) love that if you could gift all poker players one book to read, and doesn’t have to be about poker, what book would you suggest and why?

 

Karina (1:13:11) I would suggest definitely atomic habits by James clear, because we become our habits. And this is something that I also work on very actively, even now. And I mean, it’s a, it’s such a huge and such an important part of my life. So I think that we all should somehow consider, you know, working on that at every moment. So atomic habit is a very well structured and very simple way to approach habit, buildings, habits building. So yeah, I think that one is the best one.

 

Brad Wilson (1:13:44) Awesome atomic habits by James clear. Besides, you know, changing the world and how we approach mental game and mindset work. Do you have any, any other projects you’re working on that are near and dear to your heart?

 

Karina (1:13:59) Yeah, well, I have another company for corporate training still. So I work with leaders on the concept of conscious leadership. So I think that if I have to say, what is the one word that describes me, it’s, it’s definitely consciousness, self awareness, and everything that I do, you know, circles around that. And it’s much more because of my own curiosity on that, and I want to make the most out of my time so that I can explore the topic and eventually contribute to the world, you know, and being able to push a little further the whole the whole area of development and research. For my own exploration. I mean, I’m curious to see how far we can get in my lifespan to understand how human human consciousness works and how it can be changed. So yeah, those are the projects that I run. 

 

Brad Wilson (1:14:52) Yeah, that’s really awesome, amazing, amazing stuff. And, you know, I think that ultimately As human beings, one of the things that drives me anyway, that I feel fulfillment and purpose with is pushing things beyond where they’re currently at. It’s how we progress as a species, how we learn how we grow, and consciousness is something, you know, in my definition of spirituality, they’re tied very closely together. Spirituality and consciousness is something that I think will bear lots of fruit down the road for humanity. So yeah, great, great projects. And, yeah, so final question here. If the chasing poker greatness wants to learn more about you on the World Wide Web, where can they go?

 

Karina (1:15:42) Yeah, well, they can visit mindset Dot Design. That’s, that’s our website. And they can also follow us on Twitter and Instagram. And also they can join our Discord community, which is mindset design tribe. And I assume that maybe you’ll publish some links about it below. Because we have that completely free online community where we exchange ideas, we support each other, we challenge people to progress. And it’s a very vibrant one. And I think that’s that’s the best way to interact with money mindset design at the moment,

 

Brad Wilson (1:16:15) awesome. Mindset thought design. And yes, we will, we will put up the links in the show page on the website. So you can just click through, we’ll try to link on Twitter as well. And yeah, it’s been great having you on, Karina, I’m very much looking forward to, you know, your trajectory and the progress that you’re making in all of your endeavors. It’s very exciting stuff. And, yeah, I’ll, you know, we’ll have you back on in a year or so see how things are going?

 

Karina (1:16:45) Oh, that’s awesome. Thank you very much for the conversation. And for the positive vibe, it was really, really a pleasure for me to share my thoughts and to hear what I think because sometimes, you know, when you say something out loud, you you understand better yourself and how you see things at the moment. So thanks for that.

 

Brad Wilson (1:17:01) My pleasure. I think that the way I think about it is like you know, verbalization is just a filter right for our thoughts and we have to condense things to be precise when we verbalize so anytime you’re like condensing anything from like a lot of things to fewer things. Just naturally becomes more efficient. But anyway, yeah. All right. We’ll end on that note. Yeah, thank you very much. It’s been an honor pleasure, really just a joy having you on.

 

Karina (1:17:31) Thank you. Thank you Take care.

 

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