Poker…

You do not get what you want in this life. You get, mostly, what you earn. You do not get exactly what you earn, thank God. Life, remember, is not like the game of chess. In chess the best player almost always wins. If the best player loses, she can reverse engineer the moves she made and learn, with great specificity, how to level up next go ‘round. Makes sense, doesn’t it. We oftentimes wish life was more like chess. The good guys would win, you know, most of the time. Life would make so much more sense.

Life is like poker.

In the game of poker, the best player wins just a little bit more than they lose. In other words, professional poker players lose a lot. You don’t know the cards your opponents been dealt. You don’t know if they’re bluffing or being straight. You know the odds but not much else. Life is a lot like that, isn’t it. You and I want certainty. We want to know if we make this move, we’ll get this result. It doesn’t work that way, does it?

Focus on making better decisions instead of focusing on resulting. You cannot control results, you can control decisions (at least the ones you’re making). So, today, I spoke some hard truth to a few leaders who are getting more than they deserve. I told them not to believe their own bullshit. I told them their outcomes are much better than they deserve. I told them to not get intoxicated with outcomes. Make better decisions. They’ve gotten lucky and it’s good, it’s just not sustainable. So, you know, save up, the rainy day is coming…

Life is a lot like poker. Make more bets and make smaller ones. Stop focusing on outcomes and focus on better bets regardless whether you happen to win or lose. I mean come on man, just ‘cause you made it home drunk as a skunk doesn’t mean you made the right call. Slow down, friend. Slow down. Stop resulting. Start thinking critically and logically. Make better bets. Good.

Live hard. Love harder…