Welcome, ven a gozar!

Self Respect and Self Esteem always seem to be something that someone else we know has a lot of, but when we take inventory of us, we seem to come up short. We seem to have little self respect for ourself, and unfortunately that means we have no self esteem either. There is nothing wrong with loving yourself. If you believe there is you need to look deep inside of yourself and find out why you believe this to be true, because outside influences wrongly put this idea in your mind.

There are so many influences on us growing up as children that having self respect and self esteem in one area of our lives seems to be something others have, but we can not find them in us. We think about us and we find we are too this, and too that. We think we are never perfect, or even okay. It is time to change this thinking and put some correct thinking in its place.

I think self respect and self esteem have everything to do with how much, or in many cases how little we love ourselves. Loving ourselves does not imply that we idolize ourselves and can not see past our reflection in the mirror we can’t put down. It does mean that we appreciate and focus on our strong points, whatever they me be, and we also accept our what we see as our weaknesses.

Weakness in our life mean we are human just like everyone else. Loving ourself should be a reflection where we think as much of us as we think of other people. Self love leads to self respect and self esteem, and also correctly loving others. This is because we are giving ourselves permission to see those things in us, that make us who we are. Self love means we allow ourselves to care about ourselves, and once we care about ourselves we care about others by default.

Once we give ourself permission to really look inside ourself and discover what makes us who we are and what makes us unique, we start to see things that we may have never noticed before. We notice that we have gifts that others do and do not have. We notice apply our gifts at times and in places where they are most useful. We may if we allow ourself to be open enough to our world to discover that others appreciate and value us for who we are and what we do. But we have to allow these things for them to happen.

I have no doubt each of know someone who we admire and look up to who has just as many or more faults than we do. The difference between them and each of us, is those people have a better video running in their heads of themselves, and they place themselves in situations that use their strengths more often than we do.

Take some quiet time and think of all the good you do and find more places to put those gifts to use. The difference between you and someone you admire is the person you admire finds places to use their gifts and you wait for the right time.

Also take a few minutes to think about how unique you are. While you are exploring yourself tell yourself you love you. It may feel silly at first, but keep at it daily. The most successful people you know tell themselves daily how much they love themselves at least once a day, and there is no reason why you should not tell yourself you love you too. Once loving yourself becomes a habit, self respect and self esteem will follow shortly.

I was playing Holdem last week and played two non standard hands that both won the pot. In Holdem terminology, I played two pieces of trash and made the nut on the river with each one. In this particular instance in poker terminology it could be said, again in that I was tilting. Nothing new there, we tilt all the time, most of the time without even realizing it.

Tilt applies equally well to everyday life. Driving fast in the morning to make it to work on time, studying for a test late the night before, these are cases of tilt in action. Perhaps you lost your patience with someone for no obvious reason, or the sight of someone you dislike makes you suddenly angry. These are all instances of every day tilt in action away from the poker table.

One of the most interesting things about tilt is it sneaks up on us, and unless we are really aware of how we are behaving and why, we tend to go on and off tilt almost every day. Think about today, and try to remember if there was any time period when you found yourself having feelings or doing something before you realized it? Maybe something as simple as making a biting ‘deserved’ comment before you realized it ‘slipped’ out of your mouth?

These are some simple examples of how we tilt everyday. Tilt for poker players is deadly to their money, and something all good poker players try to avoid. Here is an example of why a poker player going on tilt is so serious. Pretend for example you are a just starting out professional poker player. You payed attention to all the advice and you saved up six months living expenses and enough money for your poker playing bankroll to ensure you will not go broke. You have now left your job behind and you are starting on your new lifestyle.

You wake up in the morning and feel a little tired, perhaps you had a drink to many last night celebrating, and had a little less sleep than you should have to be completely rested. You get ready to eat, but there is nothing in the fridge so you go to a coffee shop for breakfast. Your eggs are not cooked the way you like them to. You send them back and they are closer, but not right, but you eat them anyway. The coffee tastes a little bitter too.

A few more little annoyances happen in your morning and it is off to the poker room. The person who puts your name on the board for a table seat leaves for break, and as some time goes by you realize that people who have arrived after you are being sent to a tables with open seats. The poker room manager apologizes for the error and finally you get to sit down and start playing.

There are a couple of really poor players who are really getting lucky in spite of themselves. They have ran you down (beaten) a couple very good hands you have held. You start to take it personally, and decide you are going to show them who is the best player. Suddenly you realize that the chips you traded your hard earned money for to play in this game today are almost gone! How did that happen you wonder? As you start to think about it dawns on you that you are not in a very good spot. You are tired, angry, and not making good decisions. In poker language, you are on tilt, and just now realized it.

Remember those trash hands I spoke of? I played those on purpose to tilt some players at the table. One player, a pro left the table and took a long break when my second hand tilted him. A second less experience player, became angry and decided to punish me by aggressively playing against me. He lost a lot of money before he went home broke. We all tilt every day. Watch yourself for signs of tilt, so you do not end your day wishing you could do a few things over.

I was looking at the statistics for my blog yesterday. I realized, that this is the fifth month my blog has been in existence. I am grateful that I decided after a few years of thinking about starting a blog. What I am more excited about is you take the time to read what I write, that is the real excitement of my blog!

Some days are fun, and some are hard when I am sit here typing a post. Some days, I am really comfortable with what I am writing, other days I feel like I am really stepping out on a slippery ledge. Through these last months which seem to have been so quick, you have taken the time to read my thoughts, find something useful, or at least a worthwhile read. When I was a poker forum junkie, I would go from site to site, and inhale every word that someone took the time to write. Eventually it dawned on me that I had been reading mostly the same things every day.

That was one of the big hurdles I had with this blog. Power Blogger’s suggest that a blog stick to one main subject, and everything be written towards the blog’s focus. They also suggest that articles be kept to three hundred words or less, because longer posts tend to turn off readers. There are some other rules that are out there that I should have be following too, but I have not. That was one of the things that kept me from starting earlier, I could not imagine how I could have a blog that anyone would actually read, when I was going against all the generally acceptable ideas about blogging.

The five months this blog has been in existence have shown that what is right for me, is absolutely okay. If I was writing this solely for myself, I would still be saying breaking rules is correct. I have read of other who have started their blogs, and they say they are enjoying amazing results, and I am happy for them. I have been to some of their sites, and most of them I will not be going back to because they are targeted at a specific audience for a monetary reason. I wish them the best but that is not my purpose at this time for my blog.

I thought it was kind of interesting the other day, when I was thinking about a comment my wife made to me. My wife had mentioned out of the blue, that if skate boards were out when I was a kid, I would have been a very good Skateboarder. I mentioned in reply, that I would have enjoyed it because fear does not enter in my life very often. My wife replied, “I know.”

Good or bad, everything you have read for the last months is what goes on in my head. If my writing was dragging, or moving fast, you have read my thoughts, and so many of you come back again and again! I am glad what I chose for the correct path for my blog, is something you too enjoy. I hope that you find something worth your time out of what I write, even if it is nothing more, than you mentioning to someone, that you wonder how I manage to get through each day writing what I write.

I am also grateful, that you are not grammar critics. I work full time, and all my typing tutor software has never helped me achieve anything above twenty words a minute. I have this odd three finger, two finger typing style with an occasional flurry of using all my fingers as I should. You have been kind enough to over look my odd wording, and my grammar errors - thank you for your patience.

What makes this a blog and not a personal diary, is you take the time to visit and read. Thank you for being you, and reading what I write! I hope at some level, my blog helps you in your life, even if that is only a laugh, or a how not to for your own life.

Thank you!