Today, we're trying something new! I had this idea a few days ago, and I'm eager to see what you think.
I often jot down notes for topic ideas, then come back to them later and write a newsletter. I wanted to see what would happen if, instead of writing it out, I talked it out, to you.
So, this is a voice note newsletter. It's intended to be listened to, but you can, of course, opt to read it instead.
Let me know what you think. Depending on your feedback, there might be more of these, or there might be none 😃. I hope you enjoy it.
Prefer to read? Cleaned-up transcript below.
The idea I want to talk about came from a BTG member I'll call Matt. I was on a call with him and a few others – we do a format where people take turns sharing a challenge they're going through, something they'd like their peers' perspective on. Matt was going through a downswing.
Now, normally I don't love downswings as a topic. It comes up a lot, because we're all poker players and it's something we inevitably deal with. The advice can be helpful, but it tends to be generic – it's a problem where people usually need support more than they need advice. So normally, a conversation about a downswing wouldn't leave me with an idea worth sharing with you all. But something came up in this one that I wanted to keep thinking about.
Some background on Matt: he's been a winner for a really long time, and he's always played below his means and his skill level. He's fairly conservative that way. But recently – for reasons we won't get into, and that I can't even say I fully know – he'd pushed himself to step up to higher stakes, where the games were quite good. He'd been beating the lower stakes with such a large edge for so long that this was certainly going to be higher EV, and he'd set goals to make more money this year. This was the way to do it.
It went well for a few months. Then he hit a multi-month downswing.
Because he'd always played below his means and skill level, he'd only ever had mild downswings, despite his very long career. So this was new to him – I think literally new. A three-month downswing had maybe never happened to him before.
So he was asking, essentially: Am I doing something wrong? How do I deal with the constant disappointment? He was checking his results – and look, some players like to check their results and some don't, but that's not the interesting part here. The interesting part was that he knew he could win in these games, and it was painful to keep being shown losses. To not be able to prove it to himself yet.
People were sharing ideas, and I asked him a question: What if you continued to lose this way for four more months? What would you do then?
I asked for a couple of reasons. One, I was genuinely curious what he'd say. Two, it's something I learned from Elliot Roe – an exercise he took me through once. His version was much more involved (he's a hypnotherapist; there was a whole process), but even a simple version can serve the same purpose.
Here's the idea: when we have a fear or an anxiety or a dread, it's usually nebulous. Undefined and vague. When you make it real by actually imagining it coming true, it – perhaps unintuitively – shrinks. It becomes less scary as it becomes more real.
And when you ask yourself what would I do next? and actually engage with the exercise, you realize that in this reality you're so afraid of, you'd still be there.
You'd be alive. You'd make a decision, and life would go on. Usually you land somewhere like: "Oh, I'd do this or that. It would be a little disappointing, but it'd be fine. I'd still have my health, my family, my ability to support myself." And you kind of see what you were actually scared of.
Matt's answer: "If I lost for four more months, I would keep playing in these games."
He was that confident. And I can't always tell the difference between someone who has confidence when they shouldn't and someone who should – but I've known Matt a while, and I know he should. He's played essentially as long as I have, with huge win rates at his previous stakes, and he understands how to evaluate edge. He's a really strong player and thinker.
So here's what I said to him: "Okay – if you'd lose for four more months and keep playing, then between now and then, there's no need to evaluate whether you should be in these games. And there's not really a need to judge yourself against what's happening week to week. You feel this desire to prove you can win. Fine. But why don't we check back in six months? Ignore the results as much as you can – easier said than done, I know. Let's just reconvene in six months, see how you did, and make a decision from there."
That was helpful for him. He did turn it around – which he was going to do inevitably; I don't think my advice did it. But what he shared with me afterward (this happened a while ago, and I don't want to miscite the details)... was that the reframe pushed away the urgency. Or maybe I should say: that's what it could do for you in a similar spot.
He stopped treating each session and each week as "I have to stop this downswing now to prove to myself that I'm winning." Because when that's the frame, every week that goes by without winning – even the idea that another week might go by – turns into this painful waiting game.
Everybody experiences these emotions differently, but I'm sure you can imagine how it feels. You step up into new games hoping to prove to yourself you can win. You have a lot of confidence going in, for good reason. And the results just aren't coming. I've been there – my first Galfond Challenge is the perfect example. It wasn't stepping up in stakes exactly, but it was coming back from not playing, believing I could win, and then losing again and again.
Matt's exact situation isn't ultra common, and I don't imagine the full story is one most of you can relate to. But I imagine some piece of it is. I hope it was a little helpful.
I expected to ramble for quite a while – that's something I do – but unfortunately I wrote a short outline before I started, and I've now reached the end of it. Maybe next time, depending on your feedback, I'll just write down some thoughts and questions and ramble for a while. It might be a bit unstructured, but I'd enjoy it, and hopefully some of you would too.
Thanks for listening, thanks for being a subscriber, and take care. Good luck.