So, I’m enjoying writing these blog posts, it’s giving me not only the opportunity to reflect (for myself) but also a chance to put down in words some very nice perspectives. Perspectives that I’ve gathered throughout my poker career, perspectives that I know can help you as a player.
Now, this is the tenth one, I’ll try to make it a special one 😉
Here’s why I believe this can be a special one and how you’ll benefit from it: if I’m able to get through to you and you fully understand my angle, you’ll have a strategy in hands that will serve both your professional career and personal life.
Here it is: stop learning from pain…
Similar to a child that is told “do not stick your finger in that electrical plug”, throughout our lives (teenage, 20’s, 30’s and so on) we go through several moments that we hear from someone not to stick our fingers in some electrical plug (hope you understood the analogy). Yet, we end up doing it, why?
The kid sticks his finger, feels the pain, understands the advice not to do it again, lesson learned. In this case (and several others): pain = learning.
I can understand it, for certain things we do have to go through it ourselves, it is close to impossible to progress/develop ourselves without going through some sort of pain in our lives. Trying to go through life without pain is equal to not living at all.
Although there’s a lot of nice quotes out there correlating pain with learning, with progress, with self-development, and I do believe they all provide a nice/fresh perspective on turning pain to something beneficial, and I don’t want you to exclude any of them, my reflection comes from a strategy perspective.
If you ask someone “what’s your strategy?”, they’ll get back to you with actions and initiatives that are highly subjective to how they view things, their perspective. So, on a principle based approach, strategy becomes a viewpoint, how you position yourself to tackle a certain issue.
Therefore, from a principle based approach on strategy, learning from pain has a reactive stance, rather than a proactive one. This is the problem right here: if you only learn from pain, you’re always positioning yourself on a reactive stance, the process becomes pain and learn, pain and learn, pain and learn.
So here’s my question to you, fellow poker player:
How about we change the viewpoint? How about we expand the concept and take a proactive approach rather than a reactive one?
If you accept my questioning and logic, you’re probably wondering what this would look like, correct?
Very simple, this is where I close off my reasoning so you can understand what’s in my mind:
Learn from pain, yes. However, do realize that not everything needs to go through that process, you can take advice, hints, suggestions from people that have taken the same path you’re on. Understand that learning from pain is reactive. Before you tackle a new subject, ask yourself how you can be proactive about it, ask yourself what pitfalls you can avoid, plan and prepare.
This reflection has an obvious source, getting to high stakes had a lot of pain, you do not have to go through all the pains I went through, I’m here to help, just reach out.
Rene Kuhlman - TheWakko