Work HARD now with the long term in mind New to LiquidPoker? Register here for free! Forum Index > Poker Blogs 1 Joeingram1 United States. Jul 14 2014 04:42. Posts 943 I was watching a video yesterday and a person mentioned how most people that start a business only focus on the short term roi and completely neglect long term roi (return on investment). I've never really said it in that way but I talk about this idea in a different way often with my girlfriend. I talk about how if I work really really really hard now, it will pay off huge in the long term. I can say this confidently now because this is the exact approach I took when I started playing poker about 6 years ago. People who are friends with me on facebook or follow me on twitter saw a point in time where I constantly talked about partying or raging non stop. I had spent the previous 4 years playing poker 8-10 hours/day and thinking about poker 24 hours/day with the idea that if I worked hard enough now, eventually I would be in an extremely comfortable place and be able to take a break and live life. I probably went out to really drink less than 10 times in my life before this point of my life. I lived out the stage of my life that most people experience when they are 18-23 but I was able to do it all around the world and do whatever I wanted to do.





I may have taken it a bit overboard but the lesson I indirectly taught myself is something I am able to apply again now to my life. The idea that if you work extremely hard, harder than anyone else around you, right now....you will put yourself in a position to have an extreme level of success. Doing this does require sacrifice and that is something most people do not know how to do. I've had many poker friends over the years who only looked at the short term who are now unable to play anymore, wishing they worked harder when they had the chance. I think its hard for most people to have that outlook who haven't achieved any success with what they are going for. Most people tend to not have the self-confidence and belief that it can be done. I've started applying this to learning basketball, how to dance, and playing instruments in the past months but I probably wouldn't have been able to had I not had the success with poker. The confidence you get from knowing you can do something if you really put in the work is real. I wish I knew how I was able to instill this into others that I talk about it with but all I can advise to people is that if you have the belief in yourself, put in the time and you give yourself a greater chance success will come.



You can apply this to poker and you can also apply this to anything you are doing with life



I think I meant for this to be longer but I don't get motivated to write much like this so I wanted to take the opportunity to put something down while I did





Joey



0 votes Last edit: 14/07/2014 05:01

1 MysticJoey Poland. Jul 14 2014 07:55. Posts 1430 i am exactly like You when it comes to stuff like this. "I wish I knew how I was able to instill this into others" you can't because most people want to have fun, not to work hard, its not like they dont get it, they just dont want to

1 cariadon Estonia. Jul 14 2014 11:32. Posts 4013 Working hard is status quo, people need to learn how to take it easy.

1 Joeingram1 United States. Jul 14 2014 11:34. Posts 943

On July 14 2014 10:32 cariadon wrote:

Working hard is status quo, people need to learn how to take it easy.







i would say the opposite of that is true Last edit: 14/07/2014 11:35

1 morph1 Sierra Leone. Jul 14 2014 12:14. Posts 2352 thx for this blog post man.. something I really had to read



I don't play plo but I like your podcasts ... keep up the good work

It would be cool if you could talk about mindset stuff like workethics, goals settings,plans, organazation etc.. in one episode (or in your blog) as you are famous for all sick propbets and records that need sick amount of hard work and dedication. How did you manage to accomplish all those things and some problems you have encountered during those challenges... and in general as you played from the lowest to highest stakes in a matter of months Always Look On The Bright Side of Life

0 Rapoza Brasil. Jul 14 2014 12:17. Posts 1612 --- Nuked --- Pouncer Style 4 the win

1 Raidern Brasil. Jul 14 2014 12:51. Posts 4234

On July 14 2014 11:17 Rapoza wrote:

After a while(1-2h) my concentration level slowly drains to the point i get bored and wonder away about things unrelated to whatever i am doing. This is true for poker as for any other job i previously had.

I want to improve but not sure how to do it.





just take a 10min break from poker or whatever you are doing. get off the chair, walk around at your place or look at some decent sight, drink a glass of water and after 10min you're ready to go. i studied a shit ton of hours last year doing this. 1h - 10min break, 1h - 10min break, 1h- 10min break, 1h - 2h break, 1h - 10min break, 1h - 10min break, 1h - 2h break, 1h-10min break, 1h - 10min break

the whole fucking year. im a regular at nl5

1 mnj United States. Jul 14 2014 18:54. Posts 3848

On July 14 2014 10:34 Joeingram1 wrote:

Show nested quote +

On July 14 2014 10:32 cariadon wrote:

Working hard is status quo, people need to learn how to take it easy.







i would say the opposite of that is true



you ain't working hard until your friends think you're obsessed/crazy

1 bigredhoss Cook Islands. Jul 14 2014 20:21. Posts 8646 not disagreeing with anything in the op but it all just feels like laying the groundwork for some type of self-motivational guru career? idk just my first impression



i must say though i have enjoyed your podcasts Truck-Crash Life

1 Joeingram1 United States. Jul 16 2014 05:21. Posts 943

On July 14 2014 11:14 morph1 wrote:

thx for this blog post man.. something I really had to read



I don't play plo but I like your podcasts ... keep up the good work

It would be cool if you could talk about mindset stuff like workethics, goals settings,plans, organazation etc.. in one episode (or in your blog) as you are famous for all sick propbets and records that need sick amount of hard work and dedication. How did you manage to accomplish all those things and some problems you have encountered during those challenges... and in general as you played from the lowest to highest stakes in a matter of months







thanks morph, hopefully its something you can read and then figure out a way to implement a bit into your own mindset.





I think those would be some great topics to talk about or write about. I was actually thinking of writing up something about goal setting right now so I think I will go ahead and do that. I could probably discuss each of those topics for 24 hours straight with someone so I probably can manage to put some of that down into writing.



I'm glad you enjoy the plo pods

1 Joeingram1 United States. Jul 16 2014 05:22. Posts 943

On July 14 2014 17:54 mnj wrote:

Show nested quote +

On July 14 2014 10:34 Joeingram1 wrote:



On July 14 2014 10:32 cariadon wrote:

Working hard is status quo, people need to learn how to take it easy.







i would say the opposite of that is true i would say the opposite of that is true



you ain't working hard until your friends think you're obsessed/crazy





haha real talk mnj, i'm going to have to tweet that out







On July 14 2014 19:21 bigredhoss wrote:

not disagreeing with anything in the op but it all just feels like laying the groundwork for some type of self-motivational guru career? idk just my first impression



i must say though i have enjoyed your podcasts





i had never thought about that but I imagine I wouldn't be the worst at it lol

1 Joeingram1 United States. Jul 16 2014 05:34. Posts 943

On July 14 2014 11:17 Rapoza wrote:

some questions:

1- Tips to stay motivated to grind so hard everyday?

2- How much time you recommend into improve vs grind (assume no need of extra edges to beat current stake)

3- What can i do to increase focus?



After a while(1-2h) my concentration level slowly drains to the point i get bored and wonder away about things unrelated to whatever i am doing. This is true for poker as for any other job i previously had.

I want to improve but not sure how to do it.







On July 14 2014 11:51 Raidern wrote:





just take a 10min break from poker or whatever you are doing. get off the chair, walk around at your place or look at some decent sight, drink a glass of water and after 10min you're ready to go. i studied a shit ton of hours last year doing this. 1h - 10min break, 1h - 10min break, 1h- 10min break, 1h - 2h break, 1h - 10min break, 1h - 10min break, 1h - 2h break, 1h-10min break, 1h - 10min break

the whole fucking year.





I think raidens suggesting for #3 is a great idea. I have the problem sometimes of not being able to focus and it really comes down to how motivated I am to be focused. I've noticed I can make myself do anything for any amount of time but often I don't feel very incentivized to or I don't feel its that important so then I end up doing something else. I'm going to try raiden's suggestion myself when I find myself getting like that.



For #1 that is the million dollar question. I wish I had some type of concrete answer for that, for you and for myself. I think it really comes down to how bad you want something and your ability to feed off of that. For example, I didn't want to be broke anymore when I first starting playing poker, I wanted to be able to get my own place, buy my own car and finally have some money so so so bad and I used that as the first source of motivation and was able to play 600k hands in a month while winning the prop bet I made. After that my source of motivation for the most part was gone and it wasn't until Black Friday happened and I was once again near broke that I was able to find a source of extreme motivation. Thats really not the best example but I might end up typing this out for 30 mins, would probably be much better at explaining on a podcast.



For #2 I think you hit on a leak right away. The assumption you don't need to gain any extra edges to beat the current stake you are playing. Thats a terrible mindset imo. At the stakes I am currently playing my winrate is higher than it has ever been. In the past it never would have gotten to this point because I used to think like that. Well I am winning right now, I will focus all my time on playing and not worry about much else. That can get you by for a certain period of time but it is incredibly hard to progress past your current stake to something bigger or build on your current winrate with that thinking. Don't think it is only you who has that mindset as its a very rare thing to find in most players these days. I think that answered your question Last edit: 16/07/2014 05:35

0 Rapoza Brasil. Jul 16 2014 13:36. Posts 1612 --- Nuked --- Pouncer Style 4 the win

1 RoloTamasi . Jul 16 2014 17:48. Posts 1 Hey great post...I'm just learning PLO and it indeed is a grind. When you were going through your downswings besides the idea of going broke, what motivated you to keep grinding it out? When you were in games where you were under-rolled, what was your mindset while you were playing? Did you play like you were under-rolled? Or like you had 100 BI for the game?

1 chris United States. Jul 24 2014 19:54. Posts 5498 joey your new picture! sexy!



if you do that challenge i suggested or a variant, you should give me a couple free hands of PLO advice!



just kidding



keep blogging man 5 minute showers are my 8 minute abs. - Neilly

1 Romm3l Germany. Jul 27 2014 14:41. Posts 285

On July 16 2014 04:34 Joeingram1 wrote:

Show nested quote +

On July 14 2014 11:17 Rapoza wrote:

some questions:

1- Tips to stay motivated to grind so hard everyday?

2- How much time you recommend into improve vs grind (assume no need of extra edges to beat current stake)

3- What can i do to increase focus?



After a while(1-2h) my concentration level slowly drains to the point i get bored and wonder away about things unrelated to whatever i am doing. This is true for poker as for any other job i previously had.

I want to improve but not sure how to do it.







On July 14 2014 11:51 Raidern wrote:





just take a 10min break from poker or whatever you are doing. get off the chair, walk around at your place or look at some decent sight, drink a glass of water and after 10min you're ready to go. i studied a shit ton of hours last year doing this. 1h - 10min break, 1h - 10min break, 1h- 10min break, 1h - 2h break, 1h - 10min break, 1h - 10min break, 1h - 2h break, 1h-10min break, 1h - 10min break

the whole fucking year.





I think raidens suggesting for #3 is a great idea. I have the problem sometimes of not being able to focus and it really comes down to how motivated I am to be focused. I've noticed I can make myself do anything for any amount of time but often I don't feel very incentivized to or I don't feel its that important so then I end up doing something else. I'm going to try raiden's suggestion myself when I find myself getting like that.



For #1 that is the million dollar question. I wish I had some type of concrete answer for that, for you and for myself. I think it really comes down to how bad you want something and your ability to feed off of that. For example, I didn't want to be broke anymore when I first starting playing poker, I wanted to be able to get my own place, buy my own car and finally have some money so so so bad and I used that as the first source of motivation and was able to play 600k hands in a month while winning the prop bet I made. After that my source of motivation for the most part was gone and it wasn't until Black Friday happened and I was once again near broke that I was able to find a source of extreme motivation. Thats really not the best example but I might end up typing this out for 30 mins, would probably be much better at explaining on a podcast.



For #2 I think you hit on a leak right away. The assumption you don't need to gain any extra edges to beat the current stake you are playing. Thats a terrible mindset imo. At the stakes I am currently playing my winrate is higher than it has ever been. In the past it never would have gotten to this point because I used to think like that. Well I am winning right now, I will focus all my time on playing and not worry about much else. That can get you by for a certain period of time but it is incredibly hard to progress past your current stake to something bigger or build on your current winrate with that thinking. Don't think it is only you who has that mindset as its a very rare thing to find in most players these days. I think that answered your question

Disagree with your answer for nr1.



You just have to fucking love what it is you're grinding on. You need for that thing to be what you'd want to do with your time anyway even if there was no external reward for doing it. Doing it has to be its own enjoyment and reward.



If you're doing something only because of the external benefits you hope to get from doing it successfully (eg money) then you don't have a chance against someone of equal talent doing that same thing because he loves it. when you do it you're grinding and it drains your energy and willpower. When he's doing it he's at play. you'll get outworked and outperformed mercilessly.

1 Joeingram1 United States. Aug 01 2014 12:41. Posts 943

On July 27 2014 13:41 Romm3l wrote:

Disagree with your answer for nr1.



You just have to fucking love what it is you're grinding on. You need for that thing to be what you'd want to do with your time anyway even if there was no external reward for doing it. Doing it has to be its own enjoyment and reward.



If you're doing something only because of the external benefits you hope to get from doing it successfully (eg money) then you don't have a chance against someone of equal talent doing that same thing because he loves it. when you do it you're grinding and it drains your energy and willpower. When he's doing it he's at play. you'll get outworked and outperformed mercilessly.





great point romm3l, well said





On July 24 2014 18:54 chris wrote:

joey your new picture! sexy!



if you do that challenge i suggested or a variant, you should give me a couple free hands of PLO advice!



just kidding



keep blogging man









free plo advice for you anytime you post a hand on here









On July 16 2014 16:48 RoloTamasi wrote:

Hey great post...I'm just learning PLO and it indeed is a grind. When you were going through your downswings besides the idea of going broke, what motivated you to keep grinding it out? When you were in games where you were under-rolled, what was your mindset while you were playing? Did you play like you were under-rolled? Or like you had 100 BI for the game?







I never thought about going broke and what kept me going is that I had nothing else I could do outside of make poker work. I was under-rolled anytime i played higher than 2/4 for a very long time but I never really changed my approach to more conservative (i should have). My mindset was if I lose enough money here, I can drop down no problem and make it all back and then try again. I didn't start going by the 100Bi rule for 5 years



