Do you want to be a professional poker player? With a little inspiration from Napoleon Hill, Lee Davy, encourages you to find the desire needed to go all of the way.
During a recent conversation with Chris Moneymaker we spoke about the difficulties and uncertainties that exist for a professional poker player.
“Whenever I am asked, I always tell people to keep poker as a hobby. There always needs to be another way of making income.’ Said Moneymaker.
He’s not the first professional poker player to advise people to back off, and I doubt he will be the last. It’s actually a common occurrence. I can count the number of people who would recommend playing poker professionally on one finger.
But why?
Professional poker players exist.
Some of them make the sort of money that you could only dream about, others not so much. But it’s certainly not an unachievable goal.
I say screw what everyone else has to say.
If you want to be a professional poker player then don’t let anybody stop you.
So where do you start?
Napoleon Hill called DESIRE the ‘Starting Point of all Achievement’, so why not start there?
If you want to be a professional poker player then you need to WANT it. It starts with commitment, and the first seeds of commitment are planted well before you have made it. The people who try, and subsequently fail – they had no commitment. You need to have bucket loads of the stuff, because you are going to have so many falls along the way your scabby knees will hurt like hell when you plunge into the bathwater.
The road to poker’s riches is tough…but what road isn’t?
Turning dreams into reality is hard work. There is no getting away with it. Do you think Phil Hellmuth, Daniel Negreanu, and Phil Ivey just became the best poker players in the world overnight??
They failed, they were broke, and they couldn’t see where the next win was coming from.
But they also had desire.
They were never going to give up.
That wasn’t part of the game plan.
They saw their life as a professional poker player, in their dreams, well before they looked into the mirror and saw one smiling right back. Napoleon Hill says, “no one is ever defeated until defeat is accepted as a reality.”
NEVER ACCEPT DEFEAT AS A REALITY.
Start by turning your dreams into organized thought. It’s no different than taking the kids to the zoo. Right, how am I going to get there, how much is it going to cost, how long is this thing open for, do I take packed lunches.
You do exactly the same when you enter the poker world.
I left the railway to become a professional poker player. At no point did I ever believe I WOULDN’T make it. I HAD TO MAKE IT. I created my own little snake pit. I had 12-months worth of back up cash, and once that was gone I had no idea how I would feed my family.
There was no way I was falling into that snake pit and dragging my family with me. We set our own limitations, you and I, and when it came to becoming a professional poker player I didn’t have any.
I also had a bigger picture.
It wasn’t my desire to become a professional poker player – full stop. It was a mere stepping-stone on my way to greatness. I saw it as an exciting way to earn some money, and create time to work on my life purpose – to help people quit alcohol.
Everyone needs that bigger vision.
What do you really think goals are anyway?
It’s all about the lifestyle that you want to live.
How do you want to live?
Why are you not living like that?
What’s stopping you?
Desire is not hope, it’s not a wish, it’s definitive, concrete, and as Ashford & Simpson once sang “solid as a rock.”
If you wanna be a poker player then place all of your energy into being one. Stop watching the football, stop-watching Homeland, stop drinking down the pub, stop playing FIFA15.
Be prepared to do anything to succeed.
When I first fell into the poker industry I asked five Editors of poker magazines if I could write for them. One of them said yes, but they wouldn’t pay me. For the next six months I worked for nothing. It’s all about the bigger picture. Sacrifice short-term gains for long-term posterity. You’re a poker player. You should know that.
Be obsessed about poker.
Read about it, talk to people about it, tick all of the “how to be a professional poker player” boxes. Live, breath, and you know what poker for the rest of your life.
It’s not genetics. It’s belief. If you want an edge and would like to read more in-depth on how to become a professional poker player – you may want to read up on our Top 20 Hold’em Poker Odds and Statistics to help improve your game!
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