Welcome, ven a gozar!

I sometimes joke about all the positive life values poker teaches anyone who wants to play a reasonable game. One of the top needs is learning and studying the game you want to play. A crucial skill is knowing your opponents. The most critical aspect of the game is to be truthful with yourself and know why you are playing. Do you aspire to be a pro, have fun, or beat yourself up?

The better poker players are chameleons. They will try to represent any type of personality necessary to help separate you from your money. They know why they are sitting there, poker is their livelihood and knowing that is part of what they need to maintain their lifestyle.

I had read an interesting book over a decade ago, by an author named Chin-Ning Chu. In her book, Ms. Chu makes an interesting case about an aspect of business that most of us never think about. Ms. Chu suggests that your business must rate at the top in your life. Once you understand this, and other concepts she suggests, you know what you need to do to excel in business.

Professional poker players understand this concept perfectly. If you sit down to play poker, it is their responsibility to do their best to take your money. Anything less than their best effort is a waste of their time, a flaw on their character, a threat to their livelihood, and an insult to you. Everything they do is focused on their ability to win money. That is the career they have chosen for themselves, and they do their utmost to be better at it than anyone else.

Thanks to Ms. Chu, I understood this idea when I started playing poker, I was not aware it applied to gambling. There was a poker game where a regular player was terminally ill. I came to learn that a few regular poker players at the poker room had wagers on when the man would die! I was appalled at the time to think that I was sitting down, next to people who would bet money on when a person would die from their illness.

A few weeks ago, Ms. Chu’s thinking made perfect sense to me, as this betting on death memory popped into my thoughts. In a flash I understood there was nothing appalling about those players! These were businessmen who correctly placed profit above everything else in their life. These people are a shining example of the American Dream for business! Admittedly, in many other cultures, particularly Ms. Chu’s, their action would not rate a second thought.

I have mentioned in a previous post that many business owners will not do whatever needs to be done to maximize profit. These players acting correctly as businessmen, attempted to maximize their profit. There is a lot to learn from this example, as distasteful as you may find it.

Like it or not, we are running our own business. When we are out in public, be it a social event, workplace, or somewhere else, we are selling ourselves, whether we are conscious of it or not. We belong in the business of self management in our daily lives.

People we come into contact with rate us, evaluate us, and put us on some scale of their own making. The question I have for both of us, is what do we do about it? We can’t ignore what is. We rate other people on our list, moving them up or down as we think they fit in our lives, and now we know they do too. Knowing this our options come down to one simple question. What are we willing to do to excel at our own lives and maximize ourselves?

I used to work with a get rich quick master! He was into Bling, lots of it! He was at every show and get together that came through our part of the world. He started out selling household products, then he was selling some other companies household products, he slid into the stock market for a few months, then on to three or four failed pyramid schemes. He was also a new, then used car salesman, tried to get into real estate with an early version of house flipping, precious metals speculation. And I do not know how many other sure fire programs he either tried out, or tried to sell to others. Unfortunately his enthusiasm for getting rich quick thinking cost him his car and his family. But no one could ever accuse him of not having focus!

His involvement in his last and biggest pyramid scheme came under the scrutiny of the Attorney General of the state of Colorado. It is a good time to mention that he did not approach all these ventures all by himself. He always took someone with him. By the time he talked me into joining him at these money ,aking wonders he was near the end of his career. I went with him to listen to more than one or couple who drove up in a sixty foot RV talk about how they made it to that level, and how we could to, with just a little effort. My friend after listening to these ‘talks’ would be twisting and squirming in his chair like a man with pain where the chair meets the seat. He usually looked like he was ready to jump up and scream ‘Amen’ or something similar [I thought] at the end of these talks. We would always have about the same discussion driving home. What do you think?, he would say. I think it is a great program if you are willing to invest the time, I would reply. I think this is the one - like I never heard that one before. And so on and so forth until the next opportunity arrived.

After he explained this last one to me, he asked what I thought. It is a pyramid scheme I told him, this one is so obvious I can’t believe it is still going on! No it’s not, he said, it went to court in ’some state’ and it was declared perfectly legal. But that is not this state, I replied. Doesn’t matter, if it is legal in that state, they will make it legal here too, was his response. He ever the money making optimist. Off he charged with this guaranteed program with fire in his eyes. He definitely was believer this time, he talked about ten people to jump right in with him. His own little empire in the making and he was at the top of it. He told me how the money would be rolling in. I mentioned to him about this getting attention in Colorado, and the Attorney General declaring it illegal. He laughed and said it would not happen here, I was not as up on the law as he was.

Just a few months later and he was scared, terrified actually. Arrest, and prosecution were a very possible future for him. He might be arrested any moment, and could be facing serious prison time for a variety of offenses the State had declared occurred. Several months passed, and for my friend it was a mixed bag. He managed to keep himself from being arrested and going to prison, but it was at a very high price. Remember at the beginning when I mentioned him losing his car and his family? He had put a lot of money into this deal, and what little he kept out, went as a down payment for his legal fees. On top of his car, and his family, went his job, and his self respect. For all his dreams, he went and joined the ranks of those that give up on life and started down the spiral path that is so hard to get out of.

I wish he would have been a little more cautious in his ventures. I said many times that any valid and legal business venture will make anyone wealthy if they are willing to put in the time. He never thought about working to make his dreams come true because he wanted it all right now.

I doubt he had taken the time to even see if his wife was okay with his plans for their ever bright future. He should have at least had her blessings in his ventures. I wish he would have actually put some real effort into his ventures. He went forth into these ventures with stars in his eyes, and in his haste he ended up on the dark side of the moon.

Well over a century ago when things were not simpler, just different. One of my ancestors, most likely my great Grandfather, had some legal problems in Ireland that became serious enough he found his way into a courtroom. He was made a prisoner aboard an English ship, jumped ship in Canada and made his way into the United States, and settled in Michigan.

My great Grandfather saw a lot of things change in his time much like we do today. In his day, in a little town in Michigan, he worked, saved and had a successful life. This was still in the horse and buggy day, so the cost of living was quite low compared to today at the turn of the century. A lot has changed since that time. A few of the changes that took place were railroads and track, automobiles and roads, federal income tax, world wars, the great depression, and that is only the high level view.

For the individuals of their time, people just like like you and I were slowly drawn into a life of consumerism. Suddenly goods that people had been happy with for many years were suddenly old, faded, worn, or there were exciting new products out there that people just could not live without. People went from saving as much of their pay checks as they could, to spending their paychecks, and some spent faster than others.

For many of us learning from our parents and their good life in the fifties and sixties we have become a nation of debtors chasing instant gratification. Over half of us can not always pay our bills on time, nor can many of us afford what we owe. We have evolved not into just buying this we want, but replacing perfectly good items with newer items, primarily our cars. For many of us we do not need a new car, we want a new car.

Unfortunately, because we are creatures of habit, our car spending thinking trickles down to all aspects of our life. We could work our way out of debt, but we choose not to generally. The steps for getting out of debt are easy, while following those steps are not. It is much easier not to put ourselves in that position to start with.

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