Hacking Envy: A Wake-Up Call

It’s World Series of Poker season.

That means lots of poker to play, tons of content to watch, and many people winning life-changing money.

It’s a time for nonstop poker updates, a time for watching players battle for coveted WSOP bracelets, and, for many, a time for not feeling so good as you watch people who aren’t you win millions.

I figured this would be the perfect time to upgrade your perspective on envy.

The Beginning

The number one way I fast-tracked my growth as a poker player was by surrounding myself with poker friends, starting early in my career.

Learning together, rooting for each other, supporting each other when times were tough – there were so many benefits to surrounding myself with great people working towards the same goal. I often find myself smiling when I think back to those times.

But there are also some bittersweet memories.

I can recall the first time one of my friends had a huge score. I was rooting for him the whole time. It was exciting, and I was so thrilled for him to win.

…Or was I?

What a strange feeling to have the thing I wanted to happen come true, only to feel more sadness than happiness.

Why haven’t I broken through like this?

He’s not a better player than me. Does he deserve this?

That Feeling

I’d have told you I was experiencing jealousy, but I've since learned that the appropriate term is envy*.

My friend achieved something big – something I wanted, and I couldn’t be happy for him because I was busy feeling envious.

Obviously, I kept it to myself. I felt terrible about the thoughts going through my head. I felt like a horrible friend.

Poker's significant luck factor often makes us feel we deserve better results, and that others don't deserve theirs. It’s a game in which your status is measured primarily by how much money you’ve won, so it’s easy to keep score. Plus, it’s a zero-sum game. You and I can’t win the same tournament.

In a prior post, I talked about ​blaming bad luck​, and how it can truly hold you back from success.

Today, I want to talk to you about my journey with envy, and how you can turn that negativity into something positive.

*(Though they’re often used interchangeably, envy refers to wanting what someone else has, whereas jealousy means you’re afraid of someone else taking what’s yours.)

The Illusion of Enlightenment

When my career passed the five-year mark, I was regularly playing the highest stakes available.

I’d grown tremendously as a player, and I’d grown as a person, too. In addition to all I’d experienced in the game, I was no longer a teenager!

One of the many things that had changed for me was envy. I watched my friends experience big scores or year-long heaters, and I felt purely happy for them. What a big man I’d become!

How did I conquer envy?

I wasn’t really sure. I figured I’d probably learned so much about logic, reason, psychology, and mindset from my years in the game that I’d risen above it.

Or perhaps I just matured.

Either way, I was proud of myself. By overcoming my envy, I could experience nothing but joy when my friends crushed it, and I absolutely loved that!

Growing Up

Over a decade of virtue passed before I became… unenlightened.

Many of my friends were doing great, which is awesome! But something strange was happening: I didn’t feel awesome about it.

I found myself not rooting for their successes in the way I used to. I wanted them to win – at least in my head. But what was this feeling that came up in the instant I learned of their achievements? I barely recognized my long-lost companion.

Even more than in my early years, I was disgusted with myself for envying people I cared about. I thought I was above this.

What is going on? I conquered this forever ago! And I’m years more mature, conscious, and evolved than I was then. This makes no sense!

The Unpleasant Truth

Why was something I conquered coming back?

Because I never conquered it in the first place; its voice had just become quieter as I became more successful.

It’s easy to be happy for your friend when their big score makes them 1/3rd as successful as you are.

I hadn’t evolved like I thought. I hadn’t become a bigger person. The only thing that had grown was my bank account.

The Decline

After 2015, I became more involved in running my businesses and less active in poker.

I had a couple of good years in the live cash games here in Vegas, playing a handful of times per month.

By 2018, I was playing only sporadically and not doing as well.

In 2019, I barely played at all. Poker income wasn’t coming in, and business expenses were going out.

2020 brought the Galfond Challenges, which were extremely fulfilling for me, but the wins were for much smaller stakes than I’d been playing for before – I couldn’t afford to play bigger – and my business costs exceeded them.

2021 was far and away the toughest year of my life. (I won’t get into it now, but you’ll get a very high-production-value behind-the-scenes breakdown on my ​YouTube channel​ next week!)

As my bankroll, life, and fulfillment declined, envy rediscovered his power. Even as I got back on my feet the next year, he would speak up from time to time.

I now had many friends doing better than I was, and logically, I was thrilled for them.

But that knee-jerk reaction – I hated it so much. I wanted to be better than that. So, I sought to become better.

Over the past few years, I’ve done more work on personal growth than in the rest of my life combined (which was already more than 98% of people!). I’ve hired an absurd number of coaches (all worth it). And I became a coach – to share what I’d learned, to reinforce it for myself, and, primarily, because one of the many things I’ve discovered is how fulfilling it is for me. I’ve done more reading than ever before. I’ve done much more writing, too (hi!).

When I coach, I combine the things I’ve learned from others that resonate most with my own reflections and experience. From all of that, here are a couple of things I believe can help with envy: one realization, and one path to growth.

The Reality: Look The Other Way

You watch someone achieve something you want, and it feels bad. If your envy is really loud, it might keep on saying things like:

She’s so lucky. Must be nice to own three houses. Does he really deserve to win again and again?

You may imagine what their life is like, or think about how free they must feel to spend $50k without thinking about it, how carefree their life must be, and how they don’t even realize or appreciate it.

Obviously, your perception of their life will be out of touch with reality, but that’s beside the point. Your real problem is this:

You’re thinking about the wrong person.

Envy isn’t about them. It’s about you.

When I watched other people crush it, I wasn’t bothered that they were doing well. I was bothered that I wasn’t.

Every time I watched them win, it reminded me that I wasn’t winning. While they’d spent the past several years growing their bankrolls and businesses, mine had stood still. The decisions I made – passing on certain opportunities while acting on others, moving out of Vancouver and away from online poker, not learning this game or that, focusing on my business, and all the small choices along the way – led me to the least successful financial years of my career.

Did I work hard enough? Were my decisions good or bad? Who knows. We’ll see.

The point is, the pain I was feeling was nothing other than disappointment in myself. The successes I envied just brought it out.

The Growth: A Wake-Up Call

It was during a conversation with a coach, Dr. Aaron Wilkerson, that I felt “re-enlightened” on this topic. I’ll share with you what I took from it, mixed with a few of my own thoughts:

Envy is a resource – a valuable one if used correctly. Here are the things you can get from it if you know how to use it:

Information

When you feel envious, it’s a notification from your mind that there’s something you want and don’t have. Don’t get upset. Get curious.

Don’t think, “Some people have all the luck.”

Think, “Oh wow… I want that too.”

You probably already knew you’d like to be more successful, but has it been front of mind? For some, the first step is literally just admitting to yourself, out loud or on paper, what you truly want.

So, do you have a specific dream? Do you have a plan to achieve it? This is your chance to make one.

The key here is to realize that, barring some rare exceptions, you don’t actually want the precise thing you saw someone else get. You don’t want that WSOP bracelet. You don’t want their beautiful family.

You want your own version of what they have. Your own achievements. Your own family.

Maybe you don’t even care about poker tournaments; you just want more success in your career as an engineer. Maybe you don’t want more money, fame, or family; you just see someone looking happy and realize you’re not.

When you recognize this – that your envy is simply a signal that something in your life isn’t where you want it to be – you can start looking at it more practically and productively.

When you stop making it about them and focus on yourself, you can use your envy as a tool for clarity and let it inform your vision of the future.

Direction

After looking at the right person, you next need to ensure you’re looking in the right direction. You can’t change your past, so there’s no sense in focusing on it beyond the lessons it has taught you.

My path has led me here. I’ve learned a lot and grown a lot. It doesn’t matter what decisions I made… I have an opportunity to make a great decision right now.

This is the time to get clear on your vision of your ideal future and work backwards from it to goals, milestones, and first steps.

If it’s so important to you, what steps are you going to take to reach the next level in your career? Or to get in great shape? How will you make your priorities a priority?

Fuel

It’s one thing to know you want something; it’s another to make a plan, and it’s yet another to actually get off your ass and start working towards it.

There are many reasons we struggle to move towards the things we want (another topic for another day), but when we lack that motivation to push through the friction that lies ahead, envy can be our friend.

Use it! Feel that envy. Let it give you the energy to push through the inertia.

“Enough with the excuses! Enough waiting for my dreams to come to me. Enough of my fears holding me back. I’m done with this shit. I’m done playing small. Let’s go.”

Information + Direction + Fuel =

If you use envy this way – if you took the information to learn about your desires, made a plan, and finally acted on it – what was that envy?

Inspiration.

The person whose success you thought 'hurt' you didn't cause you harm; they inspired you to achieve a dream of yours.

Whether it’s a friend, a stranger, or even someone you hate, you can change your perspective on their achievements. As you watch them realize their dreams, don’t get sad. Get moving.

Go from:

“Wow. Must be nice to have it all,”

to:

“I’m happy for you, and I’m inspired by you. Thank you.”