Brave New Kitty

Related to challenging yourself is the idea of doing the hard thing. By this, I mean that sometimes, you have to push yourself to take on the things that intimidate you the most.

Human nature naturally seeks out the path of least resistance. “Getting by” is kind of how nature works: animals expend the energy they must to eat, and save what’s left for survival. In many areas of life, there’s nothing wrong with this. But not when we’re talking about personal development. If you want to become really expert at something, or overcome a fear, or move into uncharted territory, you must be willing to do the hard thing.

Here’s another example from the world of poker. Poker, Texas Holdem specifically, has become a big hobby of mine. It is perhaps the world’s most sophisticated game. I realize how silly that might sound to the uninitiated, but it’s true. It draws on skills of logic, strategy, psychology, patience, observation, aggression, courage, and salesmanship. It is deceptively simple, taking just a few minutes to learn but a lifetime to master. In the words of one professional player, “Poker has a lot to offer a person.” I have found this to be true. If you’re a serious student of the game, you can really find out what you’re made of at a poker table. (The inverse is that if you’re not a serious student, you can still have immense fun playing. That’s what makes the game so multi-layered, complex, and fascinating.)

Texas Holdem strategy is divided into two main categories: pre-flop and post-flop. Pre-flop (also called “starting hand” play) decisions are fairly mechanical: you get dealt two cards, and you have to decide how you want to play them. Certain hands have certain values, and you can memorize tables and statistics so you know how you should play a hand in a given situation. Sometimes you deviate from this, but you do so for a logical reason. For example, if you want to be in hand with a maniac bluffer, or are trying to steal the antes, or are advertising that you’re a “bad” player so you can get more action when you get dealt a big hand (if you’re in a game where that sort of thing works). You get the general idea.

The “flop” is three community cards, dealt after the initial betting round and shared by all players in the hand. This is the meat of the game. You may have “flopped” two pair, which is a big hand, but somebody else may have flopped three of a kind, a straight, or a strong draw to a powerhouse hand like this. It’s your job to figure out whether your two pair is the best hand or not and if it isn’t, what your next move should be; this is where the aforementioned skills come into play.

Among serious Holdem students, there is a tendency to get stuck on pre-flop strategy. I’ve seen this over and over. People analyze starting hands to death and avoid developing their post-flop strategy. Pre-flop strategy is necessary to know, but insufficient if you want to become a world-class player. It’s the easy part of the game. Why do people do this? To avoid the hard thing.

There is a means/end dichotomy that happens when a person wants to see herself as a serious student, but isn’t doing the work required to actually be a serious student. When we value knowledge, it’s easy—and important—to see ourselves as people who strive for it. But there can be a world of difference between seeing yourself as someone who seeks knowledge, and someone who actually does. Obtaining real knowledge is hard work. You have to separate yourself from the herd, delve into the deep end of the pool, and empower yourself with the willingness to look stupid and to fail.

If you truly want to learn, you must ask yourself: Am I putting in the effort required? Then you must strive to answer this question as honestly as you can. This is harder than you might think. You might start by asking yourself questions such as these:

• When I read how-to or self-help books, do I go through them once, or do I study the material until I understand it? Do I do the exercises? Do I follow up with suggested reading?
• Am I willing to forego other, less challenging things I enjoy doing for the sake of learning?
• Do I have a sense of satisfaction, or do I feel a nagging discomfort about how I’m approaching a topic? And if I do have a nagging discomfort, what is the source of it?
• Am I caught up in the excitement of learning something new, or am I more likely to distract myself from the learning by focusing on superficial aspects of the topic? (What are the superficial aspects? What are the deeper aspects?)
• What am I satisfied with? What do I want to do differently?

Be ruthless about uncovering the truth. This is how you will get what you really want, whatever that may be.

It’s okay not to push yourself, too; you don’t have to become an expert at everything you do. But it’s not okay to lie to yourself about your motivations and desires. Be clear about what you want to accomplish, and you’ll have a much better chance of getting there. More importantly, because you’ve aligned your conscious awareness with your true desires, you will be at peace with yourself, even if those true desires are difficult to swallow at first, which they can sometimes be.

If you want to grow, you must be willing to do the hard thing, and you must be willing to see yourself as you really are, which is sometimes the most difficult task of all. At the poker table, and in life.

Related Posts:

Challenge Yourself