#Positivity

When I was a child, my mother taped a sign to our bathroom mirror that read: You are what you think; You become what you think; What you think becomes reality. Every morning for ten years, my siblings and I—all five of us—read that sign.

As soon as I walked into my apartment, I sat down at my desk, pulled out a pen and some paper, and asked myself one question: What, exactly, am I going to do with my life? Drawing on the energy of my sunlight-fueled awakening, I wrote the following: Life Goals Win the Main Event at the WSOP (World Series of Poker). Meet and marry a wonderful woman, one who can abide me. Write a New York Times best-selling book. Buy a beautiful house. Buy a beautiful car. Win tons of big poker tournaments.

That winter day in Wisconsin, something shifted in me; I began to think bigger, and I began to capture that thinking on paper.

I believe that writing a list of life goals is an essential ingredient in reaching serious levels of success—it’s one of the single most powerful actions you can take toward reaching your dreams. Writing down your goals gives you something clear and precise to go after. Otherwise, how will you know exactly what you want to accomplish in your life? I recommend that you pull out your Life Goals list once or twice a month, and use it as a compass to guide you where you want to go.

I don’t look at that list constantly. But I do pull it out regularly to touch base with my purpose, and to make sure I’m on track. I do, however, see my yearly goals list every single day, because—no surprise—it’s taped to my bathroom mirror.

My Yearly Goals list is shorter-term—it covers just one calendar year. But it helps guide me toward achieving the larger, lifetime goals that might take longer to reach, or require more steps.

Yearly Goals Win 3 World Series of Poker bracelets Win 2 World Poker Tour tournaments Make my autobiography Poker Brat hit the New York Times bestseller list Get good time with Kathy, Phillip, Nick

Get good time with my best friends Chamath and Bill and their families  Sign a few big contracts! Walk 10,000 steps a day Finish my next book #POSITIVITY Get the television show Lodden Thinks greenlit (I will produce and co-star) Raise money for OR help grow Kimo Sabe Mezcal, Muzik One Headphones, Essential Phones, and BlitzPredict

My call to action to you right now is simple: write down a list of your yearly goals. Start the list this minute—do it on your phone, on a blank piece of paper near you, or even on the back of a napkin. Just do it!  Start by writing at the top, in big letters Yearly Goals. Include the current calendar year.

Make two copies of your Yearly Goals list, and tape one of those paper copies to your bathroom mirror. Place the other copy where you have continual access to it.

Side-by-side with the Yearly Goals list on my bathroom mirror is another piece of paper. I call it my Blessings List. It’s a list of things I’m grateful for.

It’s time for action. Write down your own list of blessings right now. The order doesn’t matter—just write them down. Write until you’ve gotten everything you can think of, but don’t worry about being perfect.

When you’re satisfied with your Blessings, print them out and tape it on your bathroom mirror, right next to your Yearly Goals list.

The pyramid was a triangle made from ten blocks, with each block representing a key skill I needed to master. I listed them in order of importance, with the bottom being the least important, and easiest to implement (at least for me personally), and the top being the most important, but also the most challenging to master.

Row 1: Avoid Leaks

On the bottom row of the pyramid, I put the biggest leaks. In poker, a leak is a trap, like playing craps, that drains cash from your bankroll. Leaks can destroy a poker career, but many poker players still seem to tolerate them. In order to build and maintain the funds I needed to play, I’d have to avoid leaks. The bottom row of my pyramid became: avoid casino games, avoid sports betting, avoid drugs, and avoid alcohol in excess.

Creating my pyramid was a turning point in my life. I had already written down my life goals and for the first time I clearly understood where I wanted to go and who I wanted to be. Now, with the Winning Pyramid, I knew exactly how to get there.

If you’ve been following my calls to action in the previous chapters, then you’ve written down both your life goals and your yearly goals; you now have a good idea of what you want to do with your life. It’s now time to clarify the skills you need to get there by designing your own Winning Pyramid.

Begin by taking a long and honest look at your weaknesses. Perhaps drinking alcohol in excess is an issue for you? Or drugs? Maybe you spend too much money or have trouble saving. Do you have trouble eating a healthy diet? Be honest and put these blocks in your pyramid.

I’ll wager that be disciplined and get proper rest are two of those building blocks—both are certainly two big keys to my success. And I’m sure great money management fits on your pyramid of success somewhere.

Sit down right now and create your own personalized pyramid for success! Build a pyramid that you can be proud of, one that captures (on a single page) all the skills you need to reach for the stars.

When I pull out my own Winning Pyramid (once a month or so), I study its rows. I ask myself: Have I managed to honor each block? At this point in my life, do I need to work on one (or more) of the skills?

The more I looked at those who crashed and burned underpressure, the more I began to see a common thread through all their stories. They tended to fall apart—often just mere hours away from mega-success—because they lacked a sense of entitlement.

For me, however, the opposite was true. I didn’t understand how you could expect to succeed at a high level if you didn’t believe you deserved to. When I looked around, it was clear to me that those who lacked entitlement simply felt that they didn’t deserve more success than they already had. I believe that those who abused substances, were abusive to others, made bad decisions, or destroyed relationships would then self-destruct when their moment in the sun arrived.

By making poor choices they drove their own self-esteem and sense of entitlement down, down, down.

If you want to be successful, you need a healthy sense of entitlement. The question is: how do you get it?

Point by point, I began to list reasons why I felt I was deserving of success.  I am loyal to my wife; I have never cheated on her. I have nearly perfect honor and ethics. I’m a man of my word. I am a good family man.  I try to be inspiring. In 2001, a gentleman approached me to tell me that he had been in a coma, and had only survived because he thought about playing me heads up at poker! I am always inspired by watching my heroes, and hope to do the same for others. I am a good person. I try my best. I am honest and caring. I give money to my parents, my brother, and my sisters, and I give heavily to charities.

Did I deserve to be the greatest? Did I deserve to use all my powers? Why not me? I found the answer to all those questions was yes.

I suspect that you know what your code is, as does everyone. You may not have considered it or articulated it, but deep inside, you know it. Here is your call to action, and it’s easy: spend one minute reviewing your code. Why? First, so that you know it exists, and second, so that you know what it is. I know my code; I live my code. And while my code may change over time, I’ll continue to honor it.

Live by your code and give yourself a chance to say, “I deserve success. I’ll accept success. I won’t sabotage myself.” Live by your code, and when the opportunity for success arrives, be it great or small, ask yourself, “Why not me?”

It’s time to open a door. If there is no obvious door, give it a few days, always asking yourself: What is the next logical step toward achieving my dream?  What door can I open to move toward it? Remember: you are always in the right place at the right time.

Through my Buddhist studies, however, I’d learned to ask myself a simple question in these situations: Who is being hurt? When you answer that question honestly, you realize that it’s you, as the hater, who feels the negativity and stress of the emotion.

When I finally won, I didn’t feel very well at all. I felt almost physically ill.  At first, I didn’t understand why. After all, this is what I’d wanted! Upon reflection, and the wise counsel of my mother, I realized that I was having trouble dealing with my newfound success. It simply felt unnatural.   Over time, as I started climbing the poker ranks, I grew more accustomed to winning—it began to feel far more natural to me. But there were still challenges to be faced as I accomplished more. Hopefully, you’ll have many new successes after reading #POSITIVITY. But be wary: a lot of sudden success can be more difficult than you might imagine.

Gay Hendricks covers how hard it is to deal with new successes in his book The Big Leap. Essentially, our nervous systems are hard wired to keep us in a narrow band of what we consider to be uncomfortable; new successes are just as uncomfortable to the nervous system as hunger, poverty, and the like.

Blessings External praise is no shortcut to validation. When you need a boost, look to your Blessings list. Don’t let the world and outside forces determine whether you’re happy or sad.

If I want to feel good about myself, my Blessings list cheers me up every time. And if I’m feeling too cocky I can take a long look at the list and feel good for the right reasons—ones that aren’t about material success or adulation.