A Personal Reflection on Meeting Bankroll and Life Challenge

What did money ever do to me…that I would treat it so poorly?

 

Poker is a game in which there is an exchange of money. I play it to get more of it. Why?

I sometimes hear this question posed to other players at the table: “What would be enough money for you to stop playing poker? A million – two – three?”

 

What if the problem wasn’t about the money, but what it represented? We would be playing a whole different game then, wouldn’t we?

 

Those questions are not surface questions, but ones that I found while digging deeper into my own psyche and searching for an understanding of how and why I manage and operate the way that I do. For I have come to understand that to affect change in others you first have to effect change in yourself. And to change yourself you have to do a lot of digging to unearth some secrets, secrets that are not too easy to find. Who hides them?

We do. 

If you’re tired of digging holes and burying s--t, then this article is for you. If your desire is to handle an issue that is holding your game back, pick up a shovel and follow my example and see what you discover. It might not only change your poker game, it may just change your life. 

 

Is It Just Paper?

 

So I awaken to catch my mind in a state of reflection. It’s Saturday, and I begin thinking about creating my day. The first thing I decide is to just lie there and enjoy my state of reflection. Which went to yesterday and failed attempts at cashing in any of my online tournaments. Actually, I won a large multi-table satellite but that doesn’t count, I guess.

That’s when I realized that nothing counts where money is concerned for me. I began to look objectively at my spending and actions regarding money and how I’ve handled and treated it during my poker career. Like the plague! 

Money is simply paper. However, today it is transforming before our very eyes into just a series of numbers, tracked and recorded as a way of measuring how you are doing in the game of life. The physical exchange of which determines the physical quality of your survival. 

If quality of life is so important, then why would I treat money so poorly? My problem must be emotional. And since I know that I run on emotion, that would take precedence for me over anything physical. Emotion – how you feel about something – is way more important than what you do. Or so I thought! My motto was – “It’s the thought that counts!” Well, not if you’re a money counter.

I imagine seeing one of those old-time movie casino counters who sits at a worktable behind a pile of cash with his green visor, counting and tallying endless piles of cash. If you asked him what counts he probably would simply say, “I do,” because he’s the counter! That line was for me. The ironic simplicity of it amuses me.

So is the answer putting the priority on the physical rather than the emotional? I don’t know, but I venture to guess if you went to the other side of the pendulum you would find others fighting an equally difficult task in dealing with emotional barriers and obstacles.

The key to success must be in a balance of flows. A balance of emotional and physical power working in harmony. That in cooperation we work together with others to create a symphony, and thus the music of our lives.

 

Digging Deeper

 

You must be asking what this has to do with poker. Ah, yes, forgive my digression into an awareness and understanding that I am in a hole. I began digging for a purpose and sometimes when I get into my mind, I get lost. It was in order to find what it is that painted my distaste for money. Understanding first that it must be distaste or I wouldn’t have treated it so poorly.

I start digging at home in the back yard. Which I actually did growing up, ironically enough.

My mother was an orphan. She was a pack rat and couldn’t throw anything out. She loved the heel of the bread. Probably because growing up it was the piece she got most often. The leftovers. Which was a common dish in our home.

My father, I recently found out, came from a wealthy family but never let it be known. A hardware salesman, he provided an average income for his family of four. It seemed to me looking back that his desire was to survive on a basic level. His operating motto was: “If you never want, you’ll never be disappointed.” It was definitely reflected in how he lived his life. I now wonder what happened to bring him to that decision.

With four kids to feed and a sister who needed special education, there was not a lot of extra money from the selling of key blanks and safes. My dad considered himself lucky to have an extra $20 in his wallet. He worked hard for it. Both my parents valued it. 

Now notice the subtle transition in my writing from the word “money,” to “it.” That is no accident, you see, because “it” became my enemy. How did “it” do that? Well, when dad was so busy working for “it” that he never came to see one of my sports games, or when mom was picking up second-end jobs to meet the bills and I was left alone, I transferred the reason for my loneliness to the attainment of money. 

 

Demonization

 

These pieces of paper (remember, it’s the ’70s) became subtly demonized in my mind. The lack of attention I was getting I subconsciously attributed to the chase for money. So lack of attention was my problem, and money was the answer. So in high school when I became successful at public speaking, I found my solution. The answer was fame and fortune. So I began my journey to become a famous actor by throwing everything in the trunk of my car and driving to California.

I thought this was the pursuit of a dream, but really it was nothing more than a vain attempt at solving a problem. A feeling that I was not worth more than money.

This crystallized in my mind when I remembered being emotionally shaken when I received a $200 check from my dad for acting pictures that I needed for my portfolio. I remember another time he wired me $300 via Western Union. Ironically, I stopped in Las Vegas to pick it up. I wasn’t a gambler at the time. It was 1982 and I was just passing through on my way to California.

These instances were few and far between, but emotionally they were like finding a canteen of water in the desert. I knew how much the money meant to them, and for them to send it to me must have meant something. Yet, I didn’t want to believe it, so I kept searching. Searching for the gold, I guess, but not really wanting to find it. For if I ever did I would have to face the lie I had been telling myself all along: That money was more important than me. That I, me, myself – would never be enough.

So I disrespected not only money, but myself. In so doing I disrespected others. I made and lost more money than most people make in a lifetime. I was living a selfish, self-indulgent lifestyle to distract me from managing and handling life responsibly. In short, myself.

 

Facing Reality

 

That reality is not easy to come by. Nor is it easy to write. Yet it is easier than keeping it buried deep inside where it festers like a boiling wound beneath the skin waiting to burst. Well, I always was one to pick at my sores rather than let them heal. And while that may be a gross fact it happens to be the reality I created. A reality that may be self-indulgent even in this writing. But perhaps with this writing I can begin to be an example to others and in so doing begin to make a difference by changing an affliction that plagues so many people who struggle with money management.

One thing is for sure. The culprit was never the money or the lack of attention. It was me. Simply me. I guess that is why I am attracted to the quote: “Self-command is the main discipline.”

In taking control and responsibility for my own actions today I will be a winner at a game bigger than poker. A game called life – a much greater game that I am now interested in not only playing, but becoming a champion in. Remembering always that success is a journey, not a destination.