Even though I mostly speak from the point of view of a professional gambler whose specialty is poker, for the most part these sorts of channels which many of us find a way to monetise in some way were originally meant to make for some entertainment. Taking into account other forms of entertainment like movies and everything we watch on TV as well, we can learn quite a lot out of what is meant to be entertainment, simply because all this entertainment is usually a mirror of real life.
So, one of the biggest lessons I’ve personally taken away from my professional poker-playing exploits is that life appears to be a constant chase of that one big break which will set you up and have you living out pretty much the rest of your life shaped by that big break. This is what will define the general pathway of your life, but by no means does it mean that that’s it and things can’t change in future.
This is how it is in the movies too – any storyline pretty much leads up to one major event, perhaps after some kind of struggle, which then sets up the remaining course in a certain way.
Life is indeed a constant search for that one big break, but unfortunately most people aren’t even aware of this, so they don’t even make an effort to search for something which constitutes a big break that falls in line with how they would love their lives to play out.
That’s why you have many people who are miserable because they’re stuck in some dead-end jobs that are uninspiring and have them doing just enough not to get fired while being paid just enough to keep them from quitting and walking away from it all.
Many professional poker players in fact come from the corporate sector, having spent a good chunk of their time in careers which had them questioning things and seeking some major event to alter the course of their lives. If we get a little bit more specific about those dynamics specifically surrounding poker, as a pro poker player there is one definitive event which you can point back to in the legitimisation of your claim to being a professional.
Normally it would be walking away from some tournament with some big winnings, whether you’ve won the overall tournament or indeed if you just won a big pot once, but then what often happens is that you start moving away from solely relying on your participation in events to keep generating your earnings and moving closer towards other means though which to milk that one major big break for all the earnings potential it has.
Some poker players who have gained some kind of fame in this way (winning big) would perhaps go on to do paid promotions and the likes, while others like me choose to go into publishing. I have this mere blog on which you’re reading this piece, but some of my peers and “colleagues” have books out, training courses, etc.
