Make 2025 Different. Actually.
Allow me to start with a hypothetical:
Imagine you met a new friend at an event, and made dinner plans with them. Dinner time rolls around, and they stand you up, saying “I’m so sorry – work was crazy today. Let’s do tomorrow.”
The next day, you show up at the restaurant, wait 30 minutes, and then leave. They text an hour later: “I can’t believe this happened again. My cousin was going through something and really needed my help. Tomorrow I will be there!”
The following day, you only wait 15 minutes after the no-show and no response. Later that night, this friend says, “Okay, I know I said this a couple times now, but let’s do tomorrow and I won’t miss it.”
Would you agree to dinner for the fourth time in a row?
I probably wouldn’t, and I’d bet most of you would pass, too.
Why not?
Your new friend is telling you they’ll be there. They’ve acknowledged what’s happened in the past, and they’ve said that it will be different this time. Everything they’re saying indicates they’ll show up.
So why don’t we fully believe what they said?
Because behavior is a language, too.
And their behavior is saying that even if they might make it, there’s at least a pretty good chance you’ll be wasting your time again. I (and most of you) intuitively know to listen not only to the words they speak, but the words their actions tell us.
Their actions say they can’t be trusted to keep their word, and we don’t want to risk another hour of our time on a bad bet.
So then, why are we so easily fooled when it comes to ourselves?
This Year Will Be Different
“I know that I’ve dedicated myself to a study habit, a bankroll management strategy, or a regular pre-session routine in the past and not followed through. I know I’ve started workout plans and diets and all of them fizzled out before I expected them to.
But this time will be different.”
Really? Seriously?
Why?
Why should I believe you won’t miss dinner for the fourth night in a row?
And how are you willing to risk so much – your year of poker, health, important relationships, or whatever your resolution is about – on a bet that has proven, time and time again, to be a terrible one?
Selective Amnesia
With our friend, we didn’t know what he really intended to do. He might be misleading us about the chances he’ll show up on the fourth night, or he might fully intend to. We can’t know for sure, so it’s easier not to trust him.
Perhaps we believe ourselves in these scenarios because we know that we intend to do it this time.
But was that not our intention in the past?
What is our past behavior loudly telling us?
Many people plan on the next year being different than the others. They set a goal, and this time, they’re going to stick with it.
But the data doesn’t lie. Depending which study you reference, somewhere between 40% and 80% of people have failed on their New Year’s Resolution by February.
You’re different than the average person, of course, so simply look at your own track record. You have perfect data to reference. What has your batting average been?
When I Followed Through
The first time I got in great shape (the most common New Year’s Resolution) as an adult was in 2011. I was 26. I’d recently ended a long-term relationship, and I’d just moved to Vancouver, BC, far away from all of my non-poker friends.
New country, newly single, with lots of new free time. I was excited to dedicate myself to poker and my health after they’d shared time and focus with my old social life.
First, I did the procrastination-disguised-as-research thing.
I pored over different ways to get in shape for weeks. Eventually, I landed on intermittent fasting. But I needed a workout plan, too.
(If you’ve been down this road of research before, you may know how much of a setback it can be to wait until you have the perfect plan!)
In my research, I’d come across Martin Berkhan, considered by many to be the “godfather of intermittent fasting.” Fortunately, he offered 1:1 coaching, so I clicked around on his website to figure out how it worked.
As I got excited and was ready to apply, I saw the words: “There is currently a waitlist of several months for private coaching.”
Damn.
There was no way I was going to wait that long. I needed a solution now.
So, what did I do?
I sent him an email with the subject line: “Private Coaching: I’ll Pay Triple” (Note: I had no idea what the training costed normally)
Martin was nice enough to accept me without charging me triple. He could get me right in because he had a special training program for… what would eventually be called “influencers” – we didn’t know the word for that back then!
What Happened Next
I got started with Martin right away. Because he was so revered in the fitness world by those familiar with his work, I followed his every word.
Did I mess up sometimes? Sure, but rarely. And I always told him when I did, so he could offer advice, support, or yell at me!
After the first four months, I was the leanest and strongest I’d ever been, and I continued in that direction. I worked with Martin for nearly a year, at which point he became too busy to continue.
After parting ways, I continued to follow the plan he’d set out for me for a few months, at which point I crossed paths with poker crusher Ben Tollerene. We became fast friends, and the main way we spent time together was by going to the gym and lunch (which was breakfast for me) most days of the week before separating and playing our online poker sessions.
Jason Koon eventually moved to Vancouver and roomed with Ben, and we quickly connected, too.
Ben and Jason were the type of people who more or less never missed a workout. In fact, I can’t recall a single instance of either of them missing one that they intended to do.
I’d later learn – or hear about and come to believe – that certain people are built differently as it relates to taking action when they intend to. We normally call that being disciplined and consider discipline something you can change, but I’ve formed the opinion that, while this is partly true, there’s a much larger component than I previously thought that is predetermined.
Regardless, going from working with a fitness mentor I respected to surrounding myself with peers like Ben and Jason worked great. I stayed in great shape for a few years.
The Downswing
I thought this was the new me. I thought I was never going back. After all, my friends never fell off.
And now I was like them! I was a fit guy.
Unfortunately, I was wrong.
I began dating Farah (my wife) in late 2012. We started off long-distance, and I continued in my routines. Eventually, we spent most days together, splitting time between Vancouver, LA (where she lived when we met), and Las Vegas.
My workouts with Ben and Jason were no longer routine. I’d join them sometimes when I was around. But missing most of them because I was traveling led to me more or less stopping.
I still kept things up on my own for a while.
Until I didn’t.
Things eventually came up that “got in the way,” and after many years, I returned to my old ways – rarely working out, eating terribly.
I gained a lot of weight – and not the good kind. I was back where I was before… just a little bit stronger.
Resolutions
At this point, despite being out of shape, I knew exactly what to do to get back in fighting form. I just wasn’t doing it yet.
I sometimes toyed with the idea of another virtual trainer, but it felt silly. “I know how to eat. I know how to workout. I don’t need a plan – I just need to stick with it. I’ve done it before and I can do it again.”
I started several times, and I failed several times. I lost and gained 30lbs at least five times. I lost and gained 15lbs more times than I can keep track of.
I didn’t understand. Why couldn’t I just be disciplined? I thought I proved that I was! Where did that discipline go?
And why did my resolutions (be it New Year’s or otherwise), keep fizzling out?
Sustained Successes
Eventually, in late 2020, I hired another fitness coach. And, over the following years, another. And another.
I found that the accountability aspect played a big part for me. Once I worked with someone long enough, and I saw that nothing bad happened when I failed and reported back, that coach lost some accountability influence over me.
Over these past years, I’ve done better than I had in the five years prior. It hasn’t been perfect, but it’s been better.
Living with my wife, having a son – there’s always been food in the house that I don’t want to be eating. There have been more dinners out – more social plans. I’ve had less control of my schedule.
This isn’t to blame them, or my circumstances – I wouldn’t trade them for anything.
But what I’ve come to learn is that for me, and for most people, it’s not so much about discipline as it is infrastructure – the things around you that make it easier, or harder, to do what you intend to do.
The Shoulds
Motivational content is very popular, especially this time of year. Influencers telling you to “just do the work,” “no more excuses,” “It’s easy. You just do these things and you’ll get the results.”
And they’re right. Excuses suck. And it often is as simple as routinely engaging in behaviors that lead to the outcomes you want.
Simple. But not easy.
If it were easy, you’d already be doing it.
While these people are often trying to help you with motivation, I believe it can be detrimental to those of us who can’t simply start doing something and stick with it at the snap of their fingers — aka, the majority of the world.
It makes us think we shouldn’t need help.
We shouldn’t need a study group to meet every Wednesday and report back on our solver homework because we can simply not slack off this time and do it on our own.
We shouldn’t need to keep cereal out of the house because we should just be able to not give into weakness and eat it.
We shouldn’t need a trainer to come to our house because we should just workout on our own when we say we will.
Shift The Odds in Your Favor
Having the right things in the house, easy access to a gym, a schedule that accommodates exercise and meal prep, a meal delivery service, coaches, trainers, accountability partners, friends to exercise with… these are the things that lead to more success.
Can you do it without them?
Sure. You can.
But why would you not give yourself every advantage to succeed at the things that matter to you?
Why not stack as many of these edges on top of each other as possible, so that your success becomes easy?
The truth is, for most of us, discipline has let us down time and time again, despite our best intentions.
Yes, sometimes we can get something to stick over time. But is that discipline? Or were our circumstances supporting us? And was the 30th week in a row of a habit easier than the third?
Make 2025 Different
If you are expecting big things from yourself this next year – awesome! I’d invite you to ask yourself a question:
If you do what you’ve always done (not what you intend to do – what you’ve done), are you going to get where you want to go?
If not, don’t leave this up to your flaky friend, discipline. Give him every opportunity to show up to dinner. And I don’t just mean making one small change. I mean taking drastic action.
Buy him an alarm clock. Send a courier to retrieve him. Tie him up if you have to! (This is a metaphor. Don’t do this to someone.)
Don’t just decide to do something. Change your environment to support it.
Make this year fundamentally different than the last.
Mentorship
You’re here reading my emails, which means you’ve chosen me as one of your mentors. I truly appreciate it. I also recognize that as someone you respect enough to give space in your inbox, my advice carries some weight, much like Martin’s did to me.
I hope you’ll take the above to heart and set yourself up to succeed this year.
If you want more of my support this year, there is an opportunity to take that mentorship to the next level and work much more closely with me, which I’ll share with you now. (There is a big promotion ending tomorrow that I want to make sure you don’t miss!)
If you’re not interested, I don’t want to waste your time – go set up an infrastructure to support your resolutions and kick some ass in 2025!
This is the end of the email for you.
For the rest of you, I built a program designed to help higher-stakes poker players level up using the concepts I talked about above (and many more).
Before I ask you to consider investing the time and money to work with me, let me first share my own approach to investing in myself.
You Are Your Greatest Asset
I want you to know that I wouldn’t ask you to do anything I wouldn’t do.
I’ve invested in myself throughout my career. In fact, it’s been a cornerstone of my approach to life, and I credit a lot of my success to it.
I’ve had four long-term fitness coaches, nine mindset/performance/life coaches, three psychiatrists/therapists, three business coaches, a handful of poker coaches, and many other mentors or mentors for miscellaneous things I wanted to improve at.
I’ve been to several retreats/masterminds/workshops and have joined multiple long-term peer group communities.
(Plus, without paying, I’ve constantly worked closely with peers in whatever I endeavor to get better at.)
I’d estimate the most I spent in a year at around $80k, and I’d ballpark the total financial investment in myself so far at around $500k.
Some will consider that an absurd price to pay.
To me, it has felt like a steal. Thanks in large part to my approach to learning from others, I’ve had a very successful career for 20 years, and the knowledge, experience, and mindset I’ve equipped myself with will pay dividends for years to come.
I’ve also armed myself to teach others some of the things I’ve learned, not only from the investments above, but also the years of experience playing nosebleed-stakes poker against the best in the world, the handful of businesses I’ve founded, the life experience I’ve gained, and the peers I’ve been lucky enough to learn with.
Going Beyond The Game
I started Beyond The Game because I realized so many of the lessons I’ve learned from outside of poker are ones I desperately needed during the early and middle parts of my career. And I realized nobody was teaching most of them – at least with the infrastructure I wanted to create.
After a few iterations of imparting these lessons and mentoring groups of poker players, I settled on the current version of BTG: A one-year program, centered around weekly 90-minute calls, led by me, and a Discord community.
There’s more to it than that, but that’s the core of what it is.
While poker strategy obviously comes up, our focus is largely on everything surrounding that. Things like:
Studying Effectively
Choosing a Career Path
Switching Game Types
Making your way to higher-stakes games
Handling downswings, roadblocks, and challenges
“Balancing” poker with the rest of your life
Finding training resources
Mindset
Performance
Becoming a Poker Coach
Content Creation
Leaving Poker for Another Career
Etc.
We also end up covering lessons and topics that apply outside of poker. Some BTG members have made big changes to their health. Others have leveled up their relationships. Some have left relationships, business partnerships, or backing deals.
BTG members have hired other BTG members as coaches, joined other members’ stables, and formed study groups. Members meet up with others at tournament stops – myself included! And some have surely made new lifelong friends.
The environment I aim to create at BTG is one of limitless possibilities because that’s something I’ve experienced in somewhat similar settings outside of poker.
As I tell members at the start, you never know when one lesson, one realization, or one connection will change the trajectory of your career (and even your life).
For now, Beyond The Game is accessible to anyone for a one-time investment of $8,000 ($667/mo).
If you have the bankroll and are right for the program, I believe this is an absolute steal, but perhaps I’m biased. I don’t want you to take my word for it…
Listen to Them
Me going on about how much I believe in Beyond The Game is doesn’t really tell you much, so I’ll stop now and let you hear from BTG members:
Here’s what BTG members are saying about it:
I felt stuck in my poker career and was not sure what I needed to be doing differently. BTG is perfect for the poker pro who's been struggling at mid-stakes for a long time. You're working hard, getting coaching, studying with friends, watching the latest content on video sites, but you're not getting the results you want. BTG can help you get there.
Jake, BTG Member
When I joined BTG, I was completely burned out after almost 20 years as a poker pro and was already exploring other career options. Within a couple weeks I realized that it wasn't that I disliked being a professional poker player, I just hated the way I was approaching the game. Now poker excites me. Playing, studying, talking poker - I love it again.
BTG would be perfect for someone who is either at a roadblock, or just looking to take "the next step" in their career and in life. It doesn't matter what exactly you're trying to accomplish because BTG is all about giving you the tools, the community and the support to reach your goals. BTG will work for anyone who is willing to put the work in.
Jason, BTG Member
Before BTG there was a lot of guesswork - uncertainty over both known unknowns and unknown unknowns. I no longer have to guess what the right approach will be when it comes to issues that arise in poker. I can consult Phil or the group, and the weekly meetings equip me with useful wisdom and information to tackle problems.
BTG is perfect for those who feel like they have untapped potential in their poker career and are looking for the missing piece.
Lawrence, BTG Member
Before BTG, I would get distracted easily playing poker and I was always on my phone on social media or texting people. I was not a good listener and there were times when I was difficult to deal with. That isn’t the case anymore. My mental game in poker is so much better. I’m so much more focused and I’ve never been more motivated to succeed. Also, outside of poker, my relationship with my girlfriend is a lot better. I’m a much better listener and I get more tasks done around the house.
BTG is perfect for someone that wants to take their mental game to the next level. Not just in poker, but in life.
Jarod, BTG Member
Pretty much my entire experience with BTG had exceeded expectations. I’m really happy with how much everyone contributes to the community. And the weekly lectures from Phil are great. They provide something to ponder over each week and something to use to grow.
BTG is perfect for anyone who wants to improve their results but isn’t sure how to go about it outside of just studying.
Michael, BTG Member
Since retiring, I've struggled with daily structure and BTG has inspired me to build and maintain daily routines. I recently made a deep run in a WSOP circuit main event finishing in 4th place. Healthy morning routines combined with exercise goals and poker study goals have greatly contributed to my ability to do well in tournaments.
I've also lost nearly 30lbs.
BTG is perfect for anyone looking to level up in poker or life. The community is full of great advice on a myriad of topics and the weekly meetings and small groups help hold oneself accountable. Anyone struggling with structure would benefit greatly from a program such as BTG.
Brian, BTG Member
BTG will teach and empower you to drive your own career and life to success, whatever that may look like for you personally. It will not force you to conform to one thing, like many courses may do. BTG has not only improved my approach to executing and improving in poker, but in all aspects of my life.
Conor, BTG Member
New Year’s Offer
If you’ve missed the promotion so far, here’s your chance.
Join Beyond The Game by Jan 1st and get a free Run It Once Course. (Most top courses are $999 in value. My advanced PLO course is $2499 in value.)
If you’re interested in joining, learning a bit more, or reading even more words from BTG members, you can find all of that here:
Either way, I’m rooting for you in 2025, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping to take it on together.
