Poker Anyone?

You know I usually start my day drinking coffee and playing a little Texas Holem on FaceBook. Today was no different. I am not the worlds greatest Poker player (that's really an understatement. lol) but I do win some and I lose some. That's the way the game goes, right? I mean even the best players in the world don't win em all. The thrill of it is, that maybe, just maybe, you might win the NEXT hand. I think it's the NEXT hand that keeps us coming back. You just never know what's coming NEXT. What's the two cards your gonna be dealt and how will you manipulate those cards, whatever they may be, to your favor?

As I sat there playing this morning it dawned on me that life is really the same way. You win some and you lose some but the fact is, if you never play at all, you have no chance of winning at all. Just like the cards that get dealt to you in poker, life is constantly dealing to us. Sometimes it's situations that we are excited to play with and sometimes it's situations we aren't so sure how we are going to play with. There's even times we get dealt a hand that we are excited to play but it turns out to be a loser even though it looked like a winner from the start and visa versa. So where is the pattern? Is there a pattern? Is there some possible way we can win win win? NO NO NO! To win you have to play and as I was taught in Vegas, the very first time I ever went, you can't play with scared money. I think that's why most people never even try to go for it. They are scared they might lose. TIP: There is NOTHING wrong with losing! So rather than gamble they just don't play at all. To me, that seems like a pretty long and boring life. We are here for 50, 60, 70, 80 or even more years. That's a long time to play it safe. To just go through the motions until we die. Now, I am not saying you should go "ALL IN" all the time but sometimes you just gotta take a chance. You just gotta go for it! Even if you don't win, it's not the end of the world. When I was "GOING FOR IT" to become free from the rat race of a JOB, I remember saying to my wife..."Even if we lose the house and the cars and everything, will we survive?" and the answer was "YES". It might not have been my perfect scenario or what I wanted to have happen but the fact was that it wasn't going to kill us. That was enough to keep me pushing. To keep me in the game. It was what was coming NEXT that I saw, not what's happening now.

Take your finger and hold it out in front of you pointing at the ceiling. Look at it. When you look right at it, it's all you see. It's clear as a bell and you don't see anything but your finger. Now instead of looking AT you finger, look at the furthest point you can past your finger. What happens to your finger? It becomes translucent. You hardly see it at all. That, Ladies and Gentlemen, is how you succeed. You look past the obvious right in front of you and see and stay focused on where you are going. Just like your finger, those things that we can usually only see right in front of us, that typically stop us from getting any further, become translucent and we are now able to pass those points to get to a further place in life.

Life is short. Don't worry about what others are doing, saying or thinking. Do what YOU want to do. Accomplish what YOU want to accomplish. Your going to lose some along the way but you will be better and stronger because of it. Why? Because you learn more by losing than you do by winning. Stay a student of life and you can enjoy the riches (not just financial) that life has to offer.

Stay Focused and Feel Good!