By Nathalie Lussier

We often hear of people traveling across the world and experiencing profound life changing epiphanies. Well I’m here to tell you that’s not how it happens.

Sure traveling around the world will change your life, but not exactly in the way you expect it to.

At this time last year my boyfriend Robin and I were just two travelers visiting East Asian countries like China, Korea, and Singapore. We considered ourselves to be independent, non-confirmist souls.

We had all these notions of inner change taking place. Or at least I did.

Nathalie at the great wall of China

When we returned to Canada after our four months of travel, I was hit with a simple truth. We weren’t really all that independent after all.

In fact, we were pretty idealistic about the world and society at large. Even if we had seen a lot of it with our own eyes.

Coming Back to Reality

It took me awhile to adjust to being home again. Call it culture shock, call it moving back in with your parents.

After experiencing the freedom of traveling, making our own decisions about where to go and what to do, it felt strange to be back in a familiar place.

The Profound Life Changing Stuff Happens Close to Home

You know how people seem to experience these life changing shifts when they travel abroad for extended periods of time? Well I think that’s a myth. Or at least it’s not how it happened for me or for those I’ve spoken to about it.

Everything changes, that part is true. But all the decisions and shifts take place when you get back home. When you’re integrating back into that routine.

The shifts happen when you make the decisions that change the course of your life. Not when you’re exploring and visiting new parts of the world.

Honestly, my feet were too worn out and my mind overstimulated by all the sights and sounds to make any decisions about my life.

But as soon as I got home, it was time to chart the course my life would take.

Choosing to Work For Myself

Before setting off on our grand adventure abroad, I made the decision to go into business for myself.

I believe I’ve had the entrepreneurial gene my whole life, but this was the first time I would be making a living entirely through an entrepreneurial venture.

While living with my parents for the summer I began to build the business that would grow to support me and help thousands of people in the process.

All while planting the seeds in our backyard that grew to feed and support us and our health.

It was very symbolic, and the parallels did not escape me. As I worked to grow my audience and fine tune my offerings, I worked the earth and tilled the soil to produce great vegetables.

Although it rained a lot that summer, and it took awhile to get my business going, the process was very important to my personal growth.

Forging a Life Together

Meanwhile, Robin had returned to live with his parents for the summer as well. We were doing the long distance relationship dance, one that we had endured before.

This time we both had one goal in common: forging a life together.

While I was busy planting the seeds and nurturing the processes that would support me, Robin was busy applying for and landing a job.

Soon after he started working we devised a plan to move in together. When the fall came we signed a lease on an apartment where we currently live together.

Now our lives are starting to blend into a routine. Yet there is nothing unsatisfactory about that, quite to the contrary.

We appreciate and love each other and our time together all the more. The adventure and the intruige of the other lands was great. But now we have the mental and physical space to grow from within and to do so together.

This is where the true transformation takes place.

Author bio: Nathalie Lussier is an entrepreneur who takes her passion for health out into the world by helping people eat more fruits and vegetables. Follow her on twitter @NathLussier.

By Mark Harrison

“If you hear a voice within you say “you cannot paint,” then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.”  ~ Vincent Van Gogh

We are all beset with doubts sometimes. Even the most self-assured and successful people can be unsure of themselves. Some people are clearly more confident than others, though. To what extent this is ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’ is unclear, though I suspect that ‘nurture’ has a lot to do with it. I’ve seen my own confidence wax and wane over the years, and external factors have certainly played a part. Some signs that you might be lacking somewhat in confidence are:

• Thinking that other people are better than you
• Expecting the worst outcome
• Engaging in negative self-talk
• Feeling the need to justify your behavior to others
• Overreacting to criticism
• Not having many friends or avoiding social situations
• Body language that is defensive and closed.

If you have some of these traits, perhaps you need to consider building more confidence. Can this be done? I think it’s clear is that confidence, like most other traits, can be developed. Like a muscle, with training and in time, it can become strong and powerful. To put it another way: confidence is a habit – confidence begets confidence. Here are some training ideas to develop this most important of habits.

Make friends with your failings and limitations

This is a key area. Obviously, you are not perfect – far from it. So long as you are challenging yourself, stepping out of your comfort zone and seeking to develop, you will be making mistakes. The mistakes are signs of growth and nothing to be ashamed of.. Confident people are comfortable in their own skin, happy with themselves in all their imperfection. They have nothing to prove.

Don’t be pushy or aggressive

Confidence can manifest itself in many different ways, and sometimes there is a visibly assertive quality to it, but there is also a quieter and more restrained confidence. When you meet a confident person, you tend to pick up that the person is happy with himself and feels comfortable in her own skin. Confidence does not mean aggressive, pushy, loud or superior, which is often a sign of over-compensation for some kind of inferiority complex.

Don’t be defensive

Listening to and acting on criticism is an important part of being confident. It is often very hard for us to be objective about ourselves, and other people can give us great insights into our strengths and weaknesses. Of course, we have to be critical about the things that people tell us, not falling into credulity and taking everything they say at face value. But the insights afforded by others can be very valuable. If people laugh at you or attack you, this probably says more about them than about you. Insecure people often try to cover up their feelings of inadequacy by falling into such behaviors.

Do what you believe to be right

Confident people tend to rely on an internal guidance system to keep them going along the right track, whereas those with less confidence can be buffeted around by other people’s opinions and agendas. Having an inner compass is an essential part of living assertively and confidently, and following the compass can sometimes mean having to take risks. But without risk, there is no growth.

Set challenging goals

Confident people tend to live in a more conscious and deliberate way, setting goals for themselves. They are secure enough to tolerate failure, and are comfortable with not getting things right first time. If we are not growing, then we are falling back – there is always movement. As we challenge ourselves, our comfort zone grows, and this growth often involves the pain of failure. This pain is too much for insecure people to bear. But to confident people, failure is only a stepping-stone, not the destination. Success, for confident people, is inevitable. It’s only a matter of time.

Keep a record of your achievements

It is common for people with limited self-confidence to compare themselves unfavorably with others. Such people may assume that others are ‘better’ and have achieved more, so it can be very helpful to make a list of achievements. If you do this, you may find that the list is longer than you thought. Imagine what you would think if this were a list of someone else’s achievements. Would you be impressed? Would you think highly of that person?

Learn to be optimistic

People who lack self-confidence are often pessimistic about the future and tend to think the worst. It’s important to replace negative, self-defeating mental chatter with upbeat, positive self-talk. All day long, thoughts are swirling around inside our head and we need to be conscious about this. Such self awareness isn’t easy, but with some gentle persistence you can become more aware of your thoughts and, when you catch yourself thinking in a negative way, replace the thought with something more positive. Examples of negative thinking are: exaggerating the negative aspects of things, taking things personally, feeling you are being blamed for things or feeling like a victim, to name just a few. Simply being aware of negative thinking modalities can be a great help in overcoming them. When you catch yourself thinking in such negative ways, try to replace the thought with something more self-affirming.

Take a balanced approach

The benefits of confidence are clear but, as with most things, too much of it can be unhealthy. Over-confidence, which can lead to errors of judgment and under-performance, is dangerous and should be guarded against. Confidence is about getting the balance right.

Relax

Confident people are more relaxed, happier and enjoy situations, however challenging, a lot more than those with low self-esteem, trusting that they can deal with whatever problems and challenges might arise. If you fail, if you get it all wrong, it won’t be the end of the world. If you’re tense and worried about how you’re being perceived, your energy is being wasted – it’s not going into the matter at hand. So let go, take the focus of attention off yourself, relax and enjoy the ride.

“Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.”  ~ Norman Vincent Peale

The benefits of being confident are clear: you’ll be happier, more relaxed and probably healthier. You’ll use time more effectively because you won’t be worrying endlessly about other people’s opinions, and you’ll have a clearer sense of purpose, so you’ll be a lot more effective. Confidence, in a sense, is the key to happiness and fulfillment.

“What a fool am I, thus to lie in a stinking dungeon, when I may as well walk at liberty!  I have a key in my bosom, called Promise, that will, I am persuaded, open any lock in Doubting Castle.” ~ John Bunyan

Author bio: Mark Harrison writes at Effortless Abundance. Check out his latest book, Thirty Days to Change Your Life.

By Ali Hale

Broadly speaking, there are two political outlooks on change. Reactionaries see change as a bad thing, something to be treated with caution. Revolutionaries celebrate and embrace change.

Take, for instance, attitudes towards the rapid changes in society due to technology. A reactionary would voice concerns about children playing video games, about the short attention spans caused by the internet, and about security and privacy risks. A revolutionary would talk about the new possibilities created – new ways of working, new art forms, and new connections with people all around the world.

Who’s right? Neither. Sometimes, we need change in order to get rid of things which aren’t working. And sometimes, we need to recognize the value of what we already have.

Are You Reactionary or Revolutionary?

I suspect that you’ll find your attitudes towards personal change tend towards one end of the spectrum or the other. Maybe you’re very cautious about change and you feel very anxious at the thought of leaving your job, or moving to a new city or even country. Or maybe you get bored if you stick in one place too long, and you want to always be on the move.

I think the healthiest attitude of change blends both the reactionary and the revolutionary outlooks. It’s a flexible way of looking at change and making the best of each situation.

Advantages of the Reactionary Mindset

Adopting a reactionary viewpoint lets you celebrate the achievements of the past. It means you can look at the times when things have worked for you – and you can learn from these. I find that a good way to do this is to keep up my achievements book and to look at what’s already going well.

A reactionary mindset can help you avoid making unnecessary changes. Sometimes, we end up wanting change for its own sake – whether or not it’s really going to make things better for us. We can end up wasting a lot of time on this. Being reactionary can help keep us on track, especially with long-term goals and projects. Sticking with what worked yesterday or last week may actually be the best way to reach towards many of our goals.

Advantages of the Revolutionary Mindset

When you take a revolutionary viewpoint, you don’t limit yourself by what seems easy or comfortable – or even necessarily possible. You might write out your dream for the future – even if it looks very different to how your life is today. This can help create the motivation that you need to move forwards.

Sometimes, our life does need sweeping change, and there’s no half-way house. When Peter gave up playing online poker, that was a revolutionary change – he recognized that it was not working for him, and he didn’t just cut back, he stopped altogether.

Blending the Two

So how do you know which way to approach change? I’d suggest that a good place to start is with your usual bias. For me, I know that I get itchy feet easily and I sometimes think that I need to make big, sweeping changes – when actually, I just need to make some small adjustments. Consciously taking a reactionary approach can help me stay balanced.

It’s also often useful to get an outside opinion. You probably have a family member or close friend who’s the polar opposite to you: my fiancé, for instance, tends to be more cautious about change than I am. Having someone to balance your excesses can help you avoid blind spots and potential mistakes.

I find that these are useful questions to ask myself, especially when faced with big changes (we’ve got a lot coming up this year!)

Reactionary

• How can I make small changes now to improve things?
• Where is life going well at the moment?
• Which relationships do I want to foster – and which do I want to let quietly fade?
• How can I build on the successes of the past year?

Revolutionary

• What would my ideal day look like?
• What would I like to do which isn’t easily possible in my current circumstances?
• Where do I need a fresh start, and how can I get it?
• Is there a U-turn that I need to make?

Best of luck in all the changes that you choose to make this year – but also in all the things which you decide to keep the same!

About the author: Ali writes about personal growth and development on her blog, Aliventures. As well as blogging, she writes fiction, and is studying for an MA in Creative Writing.

By CA Mobley

My recent birthday gave me ample opportunity to reflect, as I always do, on my life thus far and what the forthcoming year means to me. As a woman I’ve become very aware of how our society puts an extreme amount of emphasis on aging as a marketing tool for beauty products (most of which are completely unnecessary and useless- but they smell good and look pretty!)

I find it fascinating how aggressive the marketing is aimed at being anything other than your age. Specifically if you’re a woman over 40- that is the target demo. Those are the ones to be convinced that everything about that age is wrong and must be changed immediately or something very bad may happen…. Everything is centered around: reclaiming youth, stopping the aging process, reversing signs of aging, stopping the clock, etc etc etc….

First of all, I believe whatever is going to happen to our skin/hair/nails/teeth is pre-genetically determined and there really isn’t anything we can do about it other than surgery (which I am completely in support of if it makes you feel good).

Secondly- I have no desire to go back in time. I lived through my 20s and 30’s and it was not all that fun all the time. Tight skin or not -there is a lot of emotional shit, angst, debt, insecurity and instability in those ages that I do not miss at all.  Those are the years to get to know yourself, experiment, overspend, over-drink, overeat, fuck up, re-do, try out, try again, quit, fail, keep trying and start figuring out what you want your life to really look like.

40 and over is the time to enjoy all that effort – not want to go back there!

“Signs of Aging” seems to be a big catch phrase with advertisers. To sell their creams, lotions, shampoo, sprays, ointments, or whatever.  They have pronounced signs of aging to be: fine lines, wrinkles, sagging skin, thinning hair, dry cracked skin, bags under eyes, crows feet, grey hair, etc etc etc etc etc……

None of that sounds appealing to me, however I believe that it IS GOING TO HAPPEN to all of us- sooner or later and there’s nothing we can do about it. Nothing. Except accept it, and be happy and love yourself and enjoy life.

I think about the phrase signs of aging and to me it means something completely different. To me aging should equal evolving. Hopefully the longer we’re on this earth the more chances we’ve had to evolve into better human beings- inside, not just outside. So I came up with my own signs of aging list. These really can only be achieved by living life for several decades, focusing on what goes on inside as much as what’s going on with your body outside

Here is MY list of signs of aging:

• Confidence – knowing what you want and knowing how to get it: job, parking spot, relationship, car, house, good table at restaurant, etc.
• Going out to eat alone without announcing it like you’ve just found a cure for cancer.
• Same goes for vacationing alone (it is an awesome experience!).
• Knowing how to make money, and hopefully having a pretty good amount of it by this point.
• Not getting caught up or sucked into anyone else’s drama. So boring after awhile. Been there done that, several times.
• Not allowing people to treat you poorly. Speaking up for yourself.
• Treating other people well with no agenda or expectations.
• Knowing exactly what clothes, shoes, lingerie work for you and look great.
• Same with hair color and make-up.
• Not 2nd guessing every single thing you say, do or act upon. Because you know what you believe and you trust yourself.
• Knowing better than to fall for gimmicks, bad personal relationships, or risky financial investments
• Appreciating and knowing the value of: fresh fruit in season, expensive shoes, good bubble-bath, days off, early nights in bed, stretching, great movies, manners, good grammar, style, classic music (any genre), good wine, and a great financial adviser.
• Knowing good books can sometimes be better company than most people.
• Getting out sooner.
• Forgiving faster.
• Moving on faster.
• Opening up faster.
• Being vulnerable but keeping your eyes open.
• Changing what you don’t like rather than complain about it.
• Knowing and asking directly for what you need with no hesitation – a napkin, a raise, a fresh drink, a divorce.
• Knowing how to turn down invitations with finesse and not feel guilty.
• Eating a Goddamn cupcake with a ton of frosting on it if you want it.
• Re-evaluating what is important in life: good weather, amazing friends, healthy relationships with family, your HEALTH, feeling good, dancing, moving, connecting, laughing/crying, breathing, waking up…..really and truly this cannot be done until you realize you’re closer to death than birth!!

Just wanted to share this with you- whether you’re my age or not- I hope you value yourself EXACTLY where you are in your life!!!

About the author: written by CA Mobley

By Henri Junttila

Poker is a tricky game. If you aren’t familiar with the game it can seem like a game of random events, when in reality the game has intricate patterns and a culture of its own. Poker has a large degree of luck, which means that it will take longer for the true results to converge.

In case you haven’t read my story, I was a professional online poker player for almost five years until I jumped over to making money online with websites. I stopped playing because it was destroying my soul (more on this later).

While I’m no longer a professional poker player, I do appreciate the positives ways in which poker transformed my life:

Discipline

In poker, if you do not have discipline, you’re dead. You have to care for your bankroll (your money). You have to be strategic about everything you do. The risk and reward has to be constantly calculated. Not with a calculator, in your head.

This requires brutal honesty. You have to know your strengths and your weaknesses. If you don’t, you will eventually go broke. As they say, poker is a hard way to make an easy living.

Hard Work

When I first started playing poker during a hot summer day in 2004, it was August and I had just bought my first book on poker. I thought I was entitled to win just because I knew the basics. I quickly realized that it wasn’t as easy as I thought, so I gave it up (temporarily) and blamed it on luck—this game could not be beat.

This is how a lot of people approach life. They act like life owes them something. When they don’t succeed after 6 weeks, they give up.

After a few weeks of feeling like a victim and blaming bad luck, I was suddenly struck by a new-found determination. I studied the game day and night. I failed over and over again, until one day, it clicked.

Patience

Patience and discipline go hand in hand. In poker, if you’re playing a normal game with 9-10 people, the large majority of hands you get have to be folded. If you’re playing too many hands you’re going to lose money in the long-run. The number of hands you can play differs depending on talent, the amount of players on the table and what you want to accomplish.

The same applies to real life. I’m a very impatient kind of guy, so I know what it’s like to want things to manifest right away. There’s a reason why almost all sales letters talk about making $65,341 within 24 hours of pushing a button, it makes sales.

In life and in business, you have to work hard, be disciplined, have focus and be patient.

Strategy

Poker is a lot like chess, but with incomplete information. In chess, you have all the information you need, but in poker, you do not get to see what cards your opponents holds and there are a lot of other factors that come into play.

We cannot predict the future. We can only do our best. Sometimes we miscalculate, but that is a part of life. As long as we learn all is well. It’s all about the process.

Objectivity

In poker you have to be objective, but at the same time you have to listen to your instinct. It is an extremely hard thing to do, because your emotions can easily get the best of you.

The same applies to life. You have to be objective about your decisions, but you still have to listen to your heart and let it guide you.

Intuition

The more you can apply your intuition in poker, the better you’ll do. Intuition comes partly from experience (your brain recognizing patterns) and partly from other unknown places. Sometimes you just know.

Listening to your heart and following your feelings is one of the best things you can do in life. Working on something you love makes you feel good, right? Why wouldn’t you want to do that all of the time?

Why I Quit

I quit poker because I had gradually lost my enthusiasm for the game. I started playing poker mainly to make money and when I had made enough, the reasons for me playing weren’t there anymore. On top of this, I really didn’t enjoy the strategic aspect either. It had become a job and I had created my own 9-5 without even knowing it.

The last two years of poker were gruelling, because poker can be tough psychologically, especially when it is your sole income. Why did it take me two years to quit? Because I was afraid, I didn’t know if I would be able to make money anywhere else. An illogical fear, but we all carry them around without noticing.

Wanna Try Poker?

If you’re interested in trying poker, I have to caution you that it can be very addictive. I never had that problem, but it sucks most people in. Be aware of what’s going on when you start playing. Keep it fun, light and play within your means.

About the author: written by Henri Junttila of The Wake Up Cloud.

By Peter Clemens

Prior to 2009 I had very little experience with gambling. This changed, however, when one night in early 2009 I was invited to play Texas hold’em poker with some friends. I had no idea what I was doing, and unsurprisingly came away little bit poorer (say $20). Despite this small loss my interest in poker was sparked.

In the middle of 2009 I was invited to celebrate my brother-in-law’s birthday in Las Vegas. While I had now read a couple of books on Texas hold’em, I had very little experience actually playing the game (just two subsequent occasions with the same friends). Not wanting to be seen as a donkey (that’s a poker term for a bad player) in Vegas, I decided to gain some experience by playing online.

While you can play online poker with pretend money, it is basically a waste of time because people don’t act as they do when real money is at stake. This hints at the major reason I enjoy poker – there is a good deal of psychology involved. Because poker is a game of incomplete information, players must make educated guesses as to what will happen next and what their opponents are holding.

After a month or two of regularly playing online poker, the time finally came to head to Vegas. I was the only person in our group interested in poker, so most of the gambling I did in the first night/ day was at the blackjack table. I didn’t have much luck playing blackjack, but I found it a fun and sociable game to play. On the second night I decided to split from my group and hit the poker tables solo.

The first sit-and-go tournament (that’s a one table tournament) I played was fairly uneventful and I was knocked out early on. The second tournament, however, was an experience I will never forget. I received some good hands, and every decision I made just seemed to turn out right. Gradually other people at the table were knocked out, until finally it was just myself and one other guy remaining. At this stage I was unbelievably excited; even if I didn’t win I was guaranteed a nice pay-out for second place. After a few hands of limited action I received Ace-Queen off-suit, a strong hand in heads up hold’em. My opponent liked his hand as well and we both ended up all-in pre-flop. When he turned over his cards I sighed; he had Ace-King off-suit meaning I was dominated and my chances of winning the hand were only around 24%. Thankfully, however, I caught a Queen on the flop and this was enough to win the hand. I had handed my opponent a bad beat, but I didn’t care; I had won in Vegas!

Initially I had started playing online poker to prepare for Vegas, but on returning home I found the game hard to give up. Almost every night after the kids had gone to bed I would play for 1-2 hours. While I was enjoying myself, I became aware that playing this much was having some negative consequences:

1. It was annoying my wife (and as they say, “happy wife, happy life”).
2. It was distracting me from activities I consider to have lasting value (eg maintaining this blog).
3. While I was only playing after the kids were had gone to bed, I was so keen to start playing in the evening that I was less tolerant with the kids as I put them to bed. My older son Xavier (at the time around 2.5 years) could be particularly difficult, and I found myself frequently losing my cool with him.
4. As I was going to bed later than normal, I was tired the next day and my work performance suffered.

I was aware of these negatives for awhile, but still I found it hard to stop playing. What finally did it was one night when I found myself back at a point where I had neither won nor lost money playing online poker over the preceding months. I realized I had nothing to show for all those nights I had stayed up late, staring at the computer screen. I subsequently cashed out (the site sent me a cheque in the mail) and then uninstalled the poker software from my computer.

Thoughts On Online Poker

I experienced the high of winning in Vegas and the low of a mild online poker addiction that was interfering with my life. So what do I think of gambling and, in particular, online poker? The following are some of my thoughts:

1. Online poker can be fun and exciting.

“The urge to gamble is so universal and its practice so pleasurable that I assume it must be evil.” ~ Heywood Hale Broun

It is human nature to feel excited when taking risks and the positive feeling gained from gambling is no different. The sense of anticipation creates a natural high, an adrenalin rush, a feeling that very many of us seek when looking for fun and entertainment. Also, gambling provides an escape from everyday life.

2. Online poker can be addictive.

“You don’t gamble to win. You gamble so you can gamble the next day.” ~ Bert Ambrose

For many people gambling gets out of hand, resulting in a compulsive gambling problem. Compulsive gamblers are characterized by their inability to control their gambling urges to the point that all they think about is gambling and ways to support this habit.

Interestingly, as I was writing this article my blogging friend Daniel Richard sent me a copy of his first e-book, Breaking the Gambling Addiction. In the book Daniel tells of how winning his very first bet at the age of 16 led to a 5-year gambling addiction. This addiction escalated to the point where he was stealing from his employer to support his habit.

3. Online poker can cost you a lot of money.

“There is a very easy way to return from a casino with a small fortune: go there with a large one.” ~ Jack Yelton

This is not a problem I personally experienced, but it is obvious that gambling costs some people a lot of money. If gamblers start to losing they may keep spending more and more money in the hope that they will win again soon. Often this can result in them getting into debt in an attempt to win back the money they have lost.

4. Online poker can give you false hope.

“A gambler is nothing but a man who makes his living out of hope.”  ~ William Bolitho

In 2003 Chris Moneymaker won the World Series of Poker. According to Wikipedia, this win “revolutionized poker because he was the first person to become a world champion by qualifying at an online poker site.” Since Chris’ win there have others just as Peter Eastgate (2008) and Joe Cada (2009) who have won the World Series of Poker after learning to play poker online. For their wins, Eastgate (22 at the time) and Cada (21 at the time) pocketed $9,152,416 and $8,546,435 respectively.

This clearly shows that some people make good money, strike it rich even, from gambling. However, such people are in the minority (just think, those millions have to come from somewhere). It follows, then, that for most people a hope to strike it rich playing poker will go unfulfilled.

5. Online poker can interfere with the important things in life.

“By gaming we lose both our time and treasure – two things most precious to the life of man.”  ~ Owen Felltham

The other day I was talking to a co-worker who plays online poker. He mentioned that many of his friends no longer play online. “Why?” I asked. “I guess they just have better things to do” he replied.

“Exactly” I thought.

Given that poker can be fun and exciting I’m ok with it playing it on the odd occasion. But it’s not an activity that nourishes (in fact, after a couple hours playing online I would often feel a certain emptiness). It doesn’t provide any lasting value (unless you win some serious coin, of course, but see my previous point about false hope). Instead I could be devoting my time to a legacy project – that is, creating something that will outlast me.  Doing something amazing. Something EPIC (as Daniel says in his e-book).

* * *

Epilogue: it’s now approximately 4 months since I uninstalled the poker software on my computer. Having not played for 3 months, a month ago I decided to re-install the software and play some poker. I was bored, and I guess I figured I was over my addiction. I played for a few hours over two nights, but I suffered some bad beats and just didn’t have the patience required to do well. I uninstalled the software again and decided to get on with my life.

These are my thoughts of online poker/ gambling. What are yours? I would be interested to hear your experiences and stories.

Further reading:

• Breaking the Gambling Addiction by Daniel Richard. Recommended for anyone who is addicted to gambling, or who has a friend or loved one who is.

Also, later this week I will be publishing an article from a former online poker pro about how poker changed his life (the good & the bad).