Poker With Presence

Learn to stay focused without always needing to put everything on the line.

If something someone says or does bothers you, take it as a sign that it's reflective of something you're already thinking or believing.

The life you've lived and the people you've come across have programmed you to respond to specific things in specific ways. Presence gives you the ability to choose another path if that's what you really want.

Hard things happen, and the pain never really goes away—it's our job to keep growing bigger around that pain so that we can keep moving on with our lives.

Use your emotional intelligence to move through downswings that come right after an upswing.

With great possibility comes great energy and emotions—so much to be presenced and so many edges to explore.

Before you go into deep technical analysis after your sessions, be sure to check in with yourself first to see how you feel about it first.

When we start something we never expect things to snowball out of control—but it does happen, and what you do in that first moment is what really matters.

One key skill in poker and life is the ability to increase your capacity to enjoy what's happening in the moment without splitting your attention elsewhere.

In order to overcome your fear of failure in poker, you have to get completely present with the idea that failure is always on the table—get comfortable with this, and you free yourself up to play your best.

The experience we have of anger is shaped by what the world has told us is okay

There's nothing more frustrating than knowing you should do something, but doing the opposite before you can turn your intuition into action.

Don't try to copy what makes someone else successful—instead, focus on shifting as much of your poker experience to using your natural talents and strengths.

There's room inside you to include both happiness and fear—let both  in together, and you'll enjoy the experience much more while also unlocking your highest levels of performance.

There's always that one person who seems to crush you every time you play, and dealing with that dynamic is a skill worth developing.

When you're in a downswing, resist the temptation to go straight to action—and let yourself feel everything that needs to be felt first.

The more present you get, the more you can recognize when you need to pull back versus when you can keep leaning in and growing into a bigger version of yourself

When big money is on the line, you literally become a different version of yourself with altered thoughts and ideas.

When you master presence, you can start to create huge shifts in outcomes by executing very subtle processes.

"Focus on yourself" is great advice, but it doesn't address what actually caused you to lose that focus in the first place

The more there is at stake, the more valuable it becomes to be the person most able to relax into presence and connection while everyone else gets uncomfortable.

When the action starts heating up at the table, you need a reliable way to notice when you start to "spin out," which is the sign that you're about to do something you'll regret later.

The worst advice you can implement into your game in big moments is to "act like you've been there before," because you haven't—and trying to pretend you have will create tension in your system and take you out of presence.

As you continue to learn how to play with presence, going back to the old way is no longer an option.

Entitlement isn't something you rise above, it's something you learn how to be with and redirect into higher levels of performance.