I moved to Minnesota when I was 18 by 19 I met the woman I would eventually marry and I took her on a roller coaster ride that is still going on today. My first business was simple, there was no fresh shrimp in Minnesota and I thought I would be the man to deliver it. So off I went devising a scheme that involved ice chests and overnight delivery from Northwest Airlines (with a little help from some friends in La. where I am originally from). The idea was good enough, I went to the farmers market and I always sold all of the shrimp but often it was at cost to the farmers at the end of the day. Now that took some hustle but it did not take me away from having to work for someone else.
I am going to skip a few minor hustles but they are all similar to the shrimp idea. Low cost, easy to decide whether or not there was a market. Which brought me to sportscards. I was never really into sportscards as a collector, I was a speculator and I seemed to have a knack for micromarkets that not everyone has. For instance, I was into the business about 3 weeks before I figured out that promo cards were a big thing and they were cheap. All you really needed to do was be in the location they were being given out. So when I went to Chicago (3 weeks into this particular adventure) I saw people selling promo cards for $30 that people got for free when they came into the door. That was a bingo moment. I would go to the next big show and become one of these guys buying cards for $5 and selling them for $30. Then I got a little lucky, fact is, my idea was not spectacular, so I needed a little luck. On a hunch I drove to San Francisco to reap all of these promo cards that I was going to make a killing on. I had maybe $1000 on me, at the most $2000. As I went through the door they were handing out a hockey card, which greatly disappointed me, there was no way I was getting rich off of this thing, and that is when it occurred to me that this was not all that would be given out that day. Randomly they inserted Chris Webber limited edition autographs, I figured that out on instinct and nothing more. Now if I was an idiot I would have seen the hockey cards, got disappointed and went back to working for someone else. I turned about 50 of those cards Chris Webber cards into about $30,000 and that started me off on a journey that eventually saw me in debt over $100,000. A magnificent failure that has made me millions of dollars over the years. The lessons you learn in failure stick with you.
My next business was Beanie Babies as you have imagined by now (given the name). All of these examples have great and colorful stories of a time where I was willing to do anything or go anywhere to make a few dollars. I did not have a real good concept of a time/value equation, I just figured I was making good money and it was not like I had anything else to do with my time. My business partner and I came up with the idea to establish stores to buy Beanie Babies considering that the market was so hot that wholesale and retail were blurred, blah blah blah. While Beanie Babies was a great success I was still in a hole when it started so I did not break the bank, but I did well.
If you are still reading this you might be wondering what the hell this has to do with poker, after all this is a poker blog, right? Stick with me and I think I can make the connection.
Right around Beanie Babies was when I read Advanced Texas Holdem by David Sklansky. So as I was traveling the country opening up Beanie Baby stores I was also playing decent stakes even back then. Pretty much every card room I visited I was playing the highest games available, which usually maxed out at about 30-60 Limit Holdem. There really was not a lot of No Limit Holdem when I started and there were very few tournaments. I mostly was treading water paying for vacations and televisions and such, poker was a hobby but I wanted it to be more, there just were not enough games, not enough suckers and I was not good enough to quit what I was doing daily.
That took me into mortgages during the last mortgage boom, with the money I made from Beanie Babies I was buying a house and needed a small mortgage. I eventually began working with the company I got my mortgage from. I peaked at about 30-40 mortgages a month and it was really the first legitimate thing that I could talk about without feeling awkward. Though it was infinitely uninteresting it was based around markets and numbers and really worked to my strengths. I loved it. In fact, there really is not one thing that I can look back on and say I disliked because almost all of it had me dealing with people and that is what I like to do most.
They say that fortune favors the bold, well it sometimes helps to go broke too. When mortgages began to get slow I started playing more poker. Poker was on television now and I became obsessed with tournament strategy, if anyone can recall there was virtually nothing written on the subject at the time. Since I was a little ahead of the curve on new poker players I took to it well. So well that I quit my job. Folks I am going to tell you right now that is a tough conversation to have with your wife no matter how much money you are winning. Not to mention I had to let go of staff and have other mortgage guys wonder why the hell I would quit when I was doing so well.
Fact was the potential for poker just offered me more and I knew it was something I was passionate about so I would be able to give it my all. I wrote on a piece of paper that I would become a professional poker player before I was 50 and gave it my wife, who was then my fiancee just so she really understood what she was getting into. I have been doing this for about 5 years now. In that time I have moved from micro stakes to the highest limits available and then back to the middle. I have won a lot of tournaments at all levels. I am no huge baller but I am no sucker either. Along the way some people noticed that I had a bit of understanding of how business works and that has afforded me some consulting opportunities, which have been nice. It is a way to not be forced to play poker and as many of you know that is what I spend most of my time doing these days.
All along the way I tried to keep with a forward moving motion. My hustles now have respect for my time and family. I can not for instance just drive to San Francisco for 2 weeks on a hunch. I would challenge everyone playing poker today to consider whether their hustle is dramatically better than it was when you started. Have you plateaued? Or are you maintaining a forward moving motion?
No matter who you are or what you do, you should be getting better. Better does not have to mean you are making more money but it should factor into the equation. Most importantly any hustle is easier when you are passionate about it, if you have lost that passion try and regain it by doing what you like most. Trial and mostly error come easy to me, I am very forgiving to myself. For everyone that is not the case so try and see what works best for you. Your poker game should evolve in a way that has you waking up early because you are so excited about the opportunities that the day presents for you.
One last thing, taking extended breaks can do wonders when it comes to poker. Poker players have not figured out what a lot of people have that burn out is real and that time off from something can help you remember why you enjoyed it so much in the beginning.
