How to Maintain your Most Important Machine

(Video Transcript)

Hi Everyone.  I’m just outside the Venetian Poker Room in Las Vegas, Nevada where I was playing poker yesterday.  And I learned a really valuable lesson.  And I actually learned it the easy way – meaning I’m not the one who had to bear the Consequences of the result.

So, I’m sitting next to this guy playing poker and he gets into this big hand with one of the guys at our table.  And the flop has all small cards on it – and there are three clubs.  On the River – the fifth card – a club came.  Which means it’s very likely that someone has a flush!

And the guy I was sitting next to, he bet three times the amount of the pot.  If you play poker, you know that is a huge over-bet.  And his opponent “tanked.”  In other words, what that means is, he stopped and he thought for about four minutes.  Someone called the clock on him.

So, the floorman came over and said, “Okay, you have 30 seconds to act and if you don’t act within 30 seconds, your hand is going to be dead.”  So just when there are 5 seconds left, his opponent called, and he turned over “AK.”  All his opponent had was an Ace.  He had Ace-High.  But there was something about that guy – that he just knew that the one who was sitting next to me – that he was bluffing.

Now, when that happened…if you play poker…it’s very easy when you get caught bluffing to think to yourself, Oh my gosh…I’m so awful…what an awful place to bluff…I’m such an idiot.

And it’s easy to sit there for even 30 minutes just berating yourself silently and feeling badly about yourself and just talking all kind of negative things about yourself.  But instead of that, as soon as the dealer pushed the pot to this guy’s opponent, he turned and looked at me and he put his ankle over his knee, and he said really quietly…

“I just created the perfect situation.”  Now what he meant is that now he’s known to be a “bluffer.”  So, if he gets into a big hand with someone else at the table, he’ll just wait.  And when he has the “nuts,” which means the best hand in poker, he’ll make the same kind of bet and he’ll get paid off.

So, the lesson that I learned easily was a reminder.  And it can serve as a reminder to all of us.  It’s very important to watch our thoughts – and especially the thoughts that we have about ourselves, and the kinds of things that we say to ourselves every day.

So, there you have it.  Instead of sitting there and berating yourself for how awful you are for making a terribly planned bluff, instead, turn it into a positive.  Watch your thoughts about yourself and about your thoughts in general.

Because our thoughts have a frequency and a vibration.  And they attract like frequencies and vibrations.  I’m Nancy Regan from Las Vegas, Nevada.  Thank you for watching.