Running Good In Life
Poker is such a microcosm for life. If you’re reading this, you know - there are so many ways in which poker and life correspond. So many lessons poker teaches us about life.
With a tournament background, one place in which poker has permeated into my life is in the idea of coin flips. We have situations arise in our everyday lives all the time where we are put into coin-flip situations.
Which lane will move quicker in the checkout aisle?
Will one of two similar routes get me to my destination faster?
Guessing which of two elevators will arrive first at a hotel
For well over a decade, I’d always play a game with myself and see how I was “running” in these scenarios. Oftentimes I’d lose the coin flip, because, well, we lose coin flips half the time. I’d jokingly tell myself, “Oh, I’m running bad!”
Something happened when I turned 30 a couple of years ago. I won’t go too far astray, but something clicked. In my 20s, I felt like I was “supposed to” – I was supposed to have knowledge, an established career, yada yada yada that my childhood idea of some prescribed life had painted. I was always trying to prove what I knew.
All of a sudden when I turned 30, it was like the lights of the world came on. I realized that what was important was all of the things I didn’t know! I have always been humble and strived to keep my ego in check, but this opened the floodgates of opportunity for me. The world was now a blank canvas.
Let’s get back to coin flips now, though. I also had a shift in my perspective about these real-life coin-flip situations. The times I noticed them appear in my world were often in fun instances, and it was harmless to attach a joking “let’s see how I’m running” to them.
But what about all the other bigger coin flips that actually might amount to something when you win them?
Yeah, that’s what I’m onto now. I love losing the trivial coin flips! Every time I lose one I think to myself it was a good flip to lose. I think of the ones that I will win in the future that I will look back on and celebrate.
Just like we lose coin flips half the time, we win them the other half just the same :).
After all, just like in poker, life cannot be lived without taking risk. We just want to calculate that risk and fire when we see fit. From there, three specific examples come to mind for me, and they all have to do with variance.
Number One - I used to watch Twitch streams occasionally for entertainment. One day it was late and I wound up on Michael Loncar’s stream, either intentionally or through a raid after someone else’s session. He quickly thereafter got on the subject of coin flips, saying there was a study done on some asinine number of coin flip trials, and there was an instance in which the same result wound up occurring like 14,000 times in a row.
Of course, this would likely require billions of computerized trials, if not more. Still, it brings to light the tremendous susceptibility humans have to bias. There’s a saying in investing that says markets can stay irrational longer than people can stay solvent. Human bias.
Honestly, I’m not sure why that came to mind but as poker players, we know variance can be insane. It exists everywhere, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Keeping the long term in perspective during the present is crucial.
The third and final idea that comes to mind here came from a friend who mentioned Garrett Adelstein’s three-hour interview on Joey Ingram’s podcast, saying the whole thing was pure gold.
Adelstein has a very different perspective on the world and I appreciated a lot of the back-and-forth. But what stuck to me was one thing: he said he firmly believes he runs in the 99th percentile of people in life. And he is willing to risk it all on that!
Honestly, I run pretty damn good in life too. I’ve been blessed with a lot of talents and I’ve also worked hard to get where I am, consistently working to develop new skills and find new ways to provide value and make a difference in people’s lives. I also look at my place as being the tip of the iceberg in terms of where I want to be. (Now I’ll get off my soapbox.)
Everybody who has attained any level of success has risked it all numerous times to get there. Why shouldn’t I put faith in my skills and talents and go all in on that?! What do I have to lose?
I had a lot of privileges in life growing up. A lot of that was due to the perspective that my parents instilled in me though – they were also split up/divorced from the time I was like five and had their fair share of struggles, up to and including living with my dad through most of high school after my mom was evicted and moved 3,000 miles away to stay with my aunt while she got back on her feet and made a new life.
“Are you a victim, or are you a victor?” – Ryan Michler
“Winners win” – Jason Stapleton
The more I look into things, the more I figure out how I want to create the masterpiece on my blank canvas. At the end of the day to me, It’s about providing value. Every single one of us has so many areas and opportunities in which to find growth.
I say run good in life. Find all the places you’re getting wins in your life. Take note of them and celebrate them. Let the momentum build up, and believe it. Win, and keep winning. I’ll bet your game will see victories, too.
I hope this post was of value to you. Please get in touch with me and let me know what you think.
