Have you ever paid attention to your environment the way you should? Have you ever reflected on how much we’re influenced by our surroundings and the impact it has on everything we do?

Don’t underestimate this, it could be the decisive factor to an immense career boost!

This is how I see (I’ve seen) some benefits of a strong network:

• You’re not alone: Poker career can be a very lonely process overall. From this, we end up missing the good parts of having a team environment. We all need that extra effort/push sometimes, motivational components become heavy when you’re in it for the long run. Additionally, you’ll witness that pursuing a poker career relies on a lot of factors apart from just playing poker. If you think you’re already strong alone, imagine the power of a good team supporting you;

• More resources working for you, for free: Think of it like this, how good are you at accurately judging yourself? How biased do you think you are? My first memories of getting feedback were always from a non-progressive mindset, which resulted in me missing out on several improvement opportunities. With a good team around you, others will most likely see your improvement gaps way faster than you normally would, that’s valuable, that’s free, take it!

I can honestly say it would not have been possible to reach the highest levels of poker without my network, I’m sure you’ve heard of phrases like “You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with”, or perhaps “show me your friends and I’ll show you your future”.

We can stay for hours discussing to which extent these phrases are accurate, how much they represent reality, however, fact is: we’re influenced by our surroundings.

From this, what we need to understand is where do we want to go? Who do we wish to become? After that is clarified (at some reasonable level), what would be a great network to help me get there? I can guarantee you, it’s much faster than going solo.

Now, of course, I’m no way near an extremist person, I’ll never tell you to dump your friends or completely change your environment based on a couple of phrases that I’ve seen work in my life.

However, here is the main takeaway that I am sure will help your career, as it has helped mine:

• Do you level up or level down? When you see that your environment has influenced you in a certain way, has that dragged you to become better or worse? Subjective, obviously, but align this with what you initially wanted.

Here’s an example of this: I’m very happy that I have a very diverse group of friends, however, I find it interesting to analyze how I react upon spending time with some of them.

I have some friends that are always up to something, always chasing improvement in some way in their career, that ends up giving me a motivational boost to improve myself.

I also have friends that are happy with things just the way they are, time comes and goes and they remain exactly the same.

Now, thankfully, I’ve matured enough not to judge and not to put my expectations on other people, but considering the case that I still have things to chase and still seek improvements, pay attention to the “level up or level down” question.

You need to be aware on how you’re being influenced, you need to be aware on how you’re reacting to this influence. It is very important to have this clearly aligned with your personal goals.

Do you want to be around a team that always aims to level up? Are you missing out on the great chance of having a team support your poker career?

Reach out, let us help you, that’s why I created Poker Ambition.