LemOn[5thF] Czech Republic. Nov 12 2013 18:23. Posts 15163
The importance of positive attitude.
During my over a yearlong sales “career” there was one thing that was by far the most important – positive attitude. In sales you face a lot of setbacks in the form of rejection. Sometimes even 96% sales attempts don’t go well because people don’t need what you sell, can’t afford it, don’t trust you or you plain used the wrong approach or you asked one wrong question. But even with 4% conversion rate you make a good living.
Now why is positive attitude important in a profession where you deal with a lot of setbacks?
Well in sales, you’d simply make more sales as nobody want to talk to a depressed dude with a frown on his face. But what was the real importance of attitude and what made the difference between the short comers and the people that stayed on and were successful was the effect of the true inner positive attitude – perseverance.
Because when you stay positive and you believe in what you are doing and you know it will lead you to the goals that you set for yourself you just don’t give up, no matter how many setbacks face you keep working hard, keep working on getting better and what’s more – you are enjoying the process itself.
Now I always imagined my attitude as an inner canister that gets depleted with every setback, every negative thing that happens, and gets replenished when positive things happen. Using immense computational power of the most modern computers I have analysed this thought and can bring you the results of my scientific approach in the form of the following diagrams: Stage one: your cup is full
Remember last night? It was your first threesome. One of them was Asian. You just found out that you win the 25k AI shootout on stars. Your parents called, they overnight studied mathematics of poker and only now realize you have the most noble, not at all gambling like profession in the world and they are proud of you choosing dropping out of college.
Now your attitude is way there, you are confident, positive yet strangely in control. You went to a club and tried the most awesomest chat up line “feel my shirt –can you feel that? Yeah baby. Boyfriend material” while flashing your manly hair fluffy 150kg body. 10 girls told you to fuckoff yet you didn’t flinch. Stage two half emptyfull
Well you woke up alone, had an okay breakfast, missed the bus but no big deal.
You go through your day as usual, nothing creative comes out of you your work just to do what you got to do and it feels fine. But then...
Stage 3
You skipped breakfast and decide to eat entire KFC bucket to “catch up”. Open your cashier – 2k is missing. Your mum called – did you get a normal job yet so we didn’t waste our money on your education? But wait it gets worse. You open the ROFL thread as every morning – all reposts. What’s more, you just found out that your revolver doesn’t fit her holster
Our attitude is really down now, any setback just sends you into frenzy or depression, everything seems forced you feel beat and don’t want to do anything. Stage 4
Well it was too much, so many negatives that you depleted your reserves and you became this :
And we all know how that ends.
The fuck is your point man
Well why do I tell you this? I tell you that because poker, very much like sales, is one of the professions that actively drain your attitude. Human brain is dumb not logical, and no matter what you do the pain from losses will always be higher than the gain from wins: + Show Spoiler +
In other words, you are facing setbacks hundreds of time every day in your profession that deplete your attitude, your cup is being drained and as you all know if something external adds to that your results directly suffer. There are many processes that have influence on your performance but one thing setbacks have an effect on are the levels of neurotransmitters in your brain and you can fall into the vicious circle of setbacks causing lowering positive attitude and the processes in the body behind it and worse attitude causing setbacks as you lose control more often, give up faster and stop believing in what you are doing. You can just look at poker forums and you shall find all the negativity you need.
What to do
Well I’m not your doctor? This is my random midnight ramble of an idea that just popped into my mind from a career I failed in because I lost my attitude. But I was always a super depressed person and now I can act normally, and even be one of the best people to be around when I manage to get my attitude levels full. Things that work for me are generally those that are believed to raise the levels of neurotransmitters like serotonin in the brain – cardio vascular exercise, healthy carbs throughout the day, a social contact, but also accepting who I am and where I am, not being friends with negative people and instead of watching news reading a good book, or constructive audio. The most difficult part is not knowing what to do – but doing it regularly, as with depleted attitude comes depleted self-control and people that always have their attitudes levels high that do things right keep moving forward keep refilling their attitude cup and those that come near depletion often struggle to summon enough energy to keep it at present levels and not allowing it drop and balance every new bad beat, every new setback in life with something positive that will help keep the balance.
So the question I have for you is – how do you regain positive attitude?
How do you keep going when things are rough?
What tips do you have that people that are down from the latest downswing/regulation lockdown/too tight vagina discovery could use?
0 votes
93% Sure!
Last edit: 13/11/2013 10:42
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YoMeR United States. Nov 12 2013 19:39. Posts 12438
do a nice hard work out, eat a good meal, then smoke some weed...
winning
eZ Life.
1
Silver_nz New Zealand. Nov 12 2013 21:15. Posts 5647
bretty nice blog, good explanations effort. Its true, we need to be reminded about how logically inconsistent we are, in order to make good decisions and lead a happier life.
How to regain a positive attitude is a tough one, I don't have any good answers even after years of battling with this question while on the grind. There are times I have felt great, and clear and motivated. Trying to bring to mind reasons why I have been upbeat in the past helps only a little, I can never fully re-grasp the powerful feeling again. The only thing that seems to work is writing down a specific, short term goal that I can reasonably achieve today and just keeping hammering on it.
They say faking a smile, and standing tall feet should width apart standing up straight are ways to get a definite confidence boost.
Oh one thing that definitely works for me is going for a long run, or hitting the gym. If Ive had a bad session it will really put it in perspective and allow me to move forward logically.
It's why Neilly is as good as he is at MTT's. He just has a great attitude generally
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LemOn[5thF] Czech Republic. Nov 13 2013 04:16. Posts 15163
On November 13 2013 01:35 Trav94 wrote:
It's why Neilly is as good as he is at MTT's. He just has a great attitude generally
I think this is true - self affirmation should reinforce positive attitude. Also when you simply choose to ignore problems they are less likely to bring you down.
That's one of the processes in the brain - it shields you from cognitive dissonance, from being wrong and automatically creates biases consistent with your thoughts and always tries to interpret events in a way consistent with your beliefs (why "realists" are pretty much never realists).
Obviously it's better to have your attitude levels in the best possible state, then you are confident from within and don't need denial to stay that way. But when say you are at average levels and you "fake it till you make it" like Hellmuth does for example - you simply ignore many negatives and at the same time you boost your attitude up on your own by self-affirmation.
Sure these people are annoying, but you are more likely to stick to something and work harder when you blindly believe in yourself than when you are pessimistic and let your attitude drop to levels so low you stop finding the energy to keep going and give up.
Nitewin United States. Nov 13 2013 12:06. Posts 1552
Could not agree more with this post and its relevance to poker. Good nutrition, exercise, having friends, living align with your values, and having things to do outside of poker is important for me.
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