On my lonely, two-hour drive home from a women's poker tournament on Saturday, I realized that I was on post-game-tilt. That's what I call it when I allow my head trash to drown out my sanity and reason.
It's our human tendency to mistrust our decisions and to look for fault. Regardless of how confident you are or how correctly you play, you can still have doubts and garbage that undermine your game.
Before I had my poker blog, I never openly admitted it. Now I welcome the opportunity to shout out to the world, "I still need my poker coach to debrief me!"
I'm fortunate because I married my poker coach. He's my life coach, mentor, best friend, and business partner, and we are on this journey together. However, I was reluctant to call during the drive home because he was working on a project for us.
He had stayed home to concentrate on the next lesson for our coaching program. Since he is a linear thinker and single-minded when he focuses on a task, I didn't want to break his train of thought. A 5-minute phone call can destroy 6-hours of work.
However, I finally realized that since I'm already in training for the 2010 WSOP® Main Event Championship, this is business, not weakness. Regardless of the size of the buy-in or how insignificant the payout, I always play with the seriousness and conviction of the Main Event. Since I needed perspective and grounding, I finally called.
It never ceases to amaze me how a simple phone call and his voice of reason settle me down. We spent a few minutes working through our debriefing process about whether I had made the correct decisions throughout the tournament, and then, I could let it go.
Sure, it's more fun to win, but in the process, we must embrace the lessons within our losses. My lesson on Saturday… even tho' I'm the Big Girl of Poker and I leave my skirt at home when I play, I still need my own poker life coach. That's not needy, it's just good business and smart poker.
Remember, until next time…
If you can't raise, don't call.
Donna
Donna Blevins
Poker Coach
Stay home and get poker book camp results. Join us in this 8-week live poker coaching… you can still get in, if you hurry:
April 21-May 27, 2010
What is FLEX-Start? You can start any time during the FLEX-Start period and still receive your 8 full weeks of live poker coaching in real time. You will automatically get your step-by-step lesson modules each week starting with the orientation. Then, you will fluidly join the live poker coaching at the end of your first week.