The $100K Grind

Hey, pizdunar, thanks for your response. This books seems interesting. I think I will read it as soon as I have time.

About the "clean" or "clean mind" idea I honestly think it's one of the best ideas you can possibly implement in your life.
Mine might be slightly different than what you have in mind because I personalize them to my own taste and needs most of the time. For this one I borrowed a Japanese business term - Kaizen - which roughly translates to "constant improvement", and I instilled in it so much "thinking" that It's enough to remind myself of it to stir in me a crazy will to get myself back up and keep on "kaizening"....

To me this idea you speak of means "constant improvement", a gradual improvement, a long life war where defeats might happen at every point. I'm really careful how I approach it, cause I've failed with reforming "too much" of myself or my life at the same time, although I am completely different compared to how I was when I started, and all the changes aren't accidental, they are deliberate and according to my vision.
But even so, I am constantly failing at completing it entirely. I am not even sure if it's possible. Why? Because I'm "full of dirt" and every day to me is a struggle to become a little bit cleaner. And sometimes I even pick some more dirt, which adds even more work to this life long task. Or some days I simply don't have enough energy to fight all the "dirt" and some of it might ignite a thought or even an action (example of a thought might be winning about something or feeling frustrated over something you have no control over; action - relapsing in some way etc.).
I even stretched this idea to a point where I have a "document" of "who I am" and "how I am" and I am governing myself according to that. Those of course are prone to scrutiny and reiterations, as everything else, but hey, it's a good fkin starting point. So I have a pretty clear idea towards what I try to move but I still find it incredibly hard. Reforming yourself, character, personality, life, habits, call it whatever you want is super hard but totally worth it. Change can be hard, but some changes are necessary.
So I really like your idea of a clean 2019 but I would like to extend it to a clean life instead. I'm going for that one as well, to me it's always a must. That is the primary reason I study, I study for pragmatic purposes, I wanna be a pro at life, and to be a pro you gotta have the skills, and having the skills means having the knowledge as well. There will be times when you will feel like shit and get discouraged because you might fail some parts of this "clean 2019" imo. But Just consider how much better of you are just by trying to do it compared to another you who isn't even doing it. And now imagine in 10 years those 2 of you. How one will look and how will the other one look. It's a no brainer imo.

I could write a hundred pages about this topic, what I've tried, where I failed, what changes I had, what was the price and so on, I have so many examples, so many thing I've tried... A really fascinating topic.
I've been doing it for almost 8 years, so I've tried a lot of things)) And I think it's totally worth it. I've had so much success with it in every area.

Btw, I think that for a crusher in life not jerking of and learning to control your impulses is pretty damn good. I'm not saying that jerking of is bad or something. Although I might point to some research that shows how complementing it with porn can be ♦. I've been doing that for some time already and I got better at it. I've got pretty damn good overall.

For a more avid reader I would recommend The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, or the Inner Citadel. And I'll just throw around two words that you might search on your own time in case you decide you need one more strategy in your toolbox for certain occasions: "contemptuous expressions"...

My "mindful decision protocol" again are some words I put together that sounded good to me ♦ I have a rough idea of how it should be and what results I want from it, but I need to work on it to make sure I have something here that is actually applicable and sustainable, cause your remark is valid, being mindful of even the most trivial decision is an effort in some sense too, so I need to see how it works out in practice. To get to a "stable" version I believe a certain number of iterations will be required in practice. So it's a bit premature to talk about it now. But I think we'll get something out of it in the end. Maybe some day I'll make a blog post about it if I'll have any success with it and this blog will keep running smoothly.

Sorry about these long posts, people are probably annoyed with me already ♦. But I just really think that the "clean 2019" idea is a killer one so I had to speak my mind on it...

PS: I won't verify for mistakes or if everything makes absolutely sense cause I should be grinding now lol. May all my spelling errors be excused and poorly formulated words ignored.
Cheers!

wow, thanks for the elaborate answer. Yes I've heard of Kaizen and read The Meditations(as well as The obstacle is the way), never heard of "contemptuous expressions" tho. With your 8 years of experimenting with this seems like you're about 6 years ahead of me with this which is clearly evident from your post, so thanks for sharing the wisdom and don't worry about grammar man, most of us are not native speakers and even if we were I think the content is way more important.

I feel like your post is just older me writing it lol about being pro at life, being in it for life, failing because of too much change at the same time, having documents about my values, etc. I could write a lot more about what you said, all the things I agree with that happened/are happening to me as well and a lot more on top of it, an interesting topic indeed but this would be way too long of a post ha ha
so you actually inspired me to maybe start my own blog here early next year and write more of this things down considering I'm not the only one interested with this "uber" self-improvement and I hope we can have some more insightful conversations.

Wow, just realize you are a perfectionist with real work ethics! Congrats! You will get to where you want to be with your mindset. But dont burn yourself out. Allow yourself to breath once in a while! I wish, I had your mentality!:f_drink::f_drink::f_drink::f_thumbsup::f_thumbsup::f_thumbsup:

fivealive1231, Thanks! My mentality still sucks at times. It's a constant struggle, but it's getting better from my last huge fall (around 1 year and something ago). There was a time when I was feeling amazing and life was like never before, but that feels like a lifetime ago, I am working on finding my way back to it though. But I'm sure you can achieve even a better mindset if you work on it more than me Or maybe work smarter. I might work on stuff, but hey, if you do it smarter, you'll crush me ♦

And my work ethic is still miles away from what I want it to be. But that is the good part. It means I have so much room for improvement that it makes me happy.

And now about this month. It's been a really hard one for me. In fact the whole year has been a shitty one because of real life stuff. It affected me really bad at times and that translated to poker as well. But I am enraged and I will never back down, throw whatever the fu%k you want at me lil bi%ch. You will never leave me down unless you kill me. I will always find a way. I know where I'm going, it's a really cool place, I managed to taste it it was the most phenomenal time of my life. It was simply incredible. So I need to reach it again no matter what. It's worth everything I have to invest towards achieving it. And I will do so for as long as I will live...

Now about my light grind; I didn't play too much in general. Not too much sample on 60's. I was mixing 30's with that. At some point it started getting a little bit rough so I decided to move down for a bit and then it started getting really bad lol. So there was no point in moving up, I was getting rekt good enough at 30's ♦ So I just chilled there and played some 15's when It got too ugly. Didn't like too much this month, I was hoping to print some real damn money but hey, all is good. We'll get there.

As mentioned, I'll cut back on my posts because I got bored by them a bit. I will post some milestones and when something meaningful will occur. Otherwise everything will be pretty standard. Slowly but surely we'll get that $100K.

Happy New Year, Everyone!
All the best wishes and good luck in the new year!!!

Last year I've read an interesting excerpt in a stoic book: "...a father looks with love at his new born daughter, gives her a good night kiss, and in his mind says to himself: 'perhaps you too shall die tomorrow...'"
Now how messed up is that according to conventional thinking.
Yet I wonder which archetype of thought suffers from delusion.

These last couple of months I descended into the bowels of hell. In fact, the last year and a half has been the worst of my life. My mother was diagnosed with cancer. I've experienced it all from paralyzing helplessness to consuming anger, all spiced up with some old fashioned depression. It fvcked me up more than I would like to admit.
It's ironic really considering the fact that I actually studied subjects like these in preparation for this inevitable, at least in our current times, part of life.

But my trip to Hell unveiled promising "revelations" along the way. Hopefully they all lead to my gradual dissolution, which pragmatically would put me in a viable position to consume as "successful" as I can this joke of an existence.

I know that I speak in riddles and everything seems too esoteric to make any sense, but don't worry about any of it. In the end the most powerful argument of an orator should be his life not his eloquence.
There is always a probability of me dying or getting ill or some shit, but as long as that doesn't happen I think interesting things will happen in the next 5 years, with immense changes. It's funny how I am most miserable than ever and yet I am more "optimistic" than ever.

One such argument will be presented later this month, I am close to reaching a milestone and to celebrate it I will share some stats about higher stakes and maybe a graph as well.

Author of the month: Jordan Peterson

As promised, here is the milestone I was projecting to reach at some point this month.

I wanted to reach my first 1kk in Cev before touching the 100$ games. I'll request a move up and I plan to mix 100's and 60's next month. Shouldn't be a problem. My cEv was always more than enough. My volume though. I'm not too happy with it yet. But we'll get there like we got to the 100's, I have no doubt.

I also wanted to share some interesting stats with you.
At 60's 30% of all my games were with 8.18% of the population. And 10% of all my games were with the same 21 regs.
The worst downswing I had was 113 BI's. I had two 100+ BI's downswings in 4,5k games, and a stretch of 6200 games were I made no profit. I've also had good stretches were I made as many BI's if not even more. Cause in spins you can bleed for a long time and then boom, you are up 100 BI's like it's nothing. But for that to happen and be sustainable you need to git gud.
Overall I've had a lot of fun. Loosing a lot of money is fun, making a lot of money is fun. Playing when my mindset is in the right place is fun.

Besides poker, this month has been crushed so far just as I planned. It was so far the best month I've ever had in terms of productivity, work ethic, effort and all that good sh!t. I was depressed at the end of the last month and worked really hard to get myself out of it. I told myself at the beginning of the month after a lot of thinking and meditating that If I manage to crush this month despite all the shit that's going on inside of me, I'll be unstoppable. And so I did.

In the end it doesn't really matter how hard it gets. The choice is always the same. How do you deal with it?
Do you let it crush you or do you crush it?

Nice man! Good stuff!
See you on 100s 😁

Hey!
Very interesting stats, now go and crush $100

Congrats on picking yourself up from last month! Hope good life things will follow.

congrats, very cool:f_drink:

Congrats! You put in the work and the results shows! I am jealous and inspired by your results! Keep it up!!

Thanks, guys!

The journey was more rewarding than the results.
I'm so happy that the journey only started.

And now let's get back to it.
Although action must be tailored according to circumstance as much as your knowledge and skill allows for the highest probability of success in any enterprise, I do believe that there are certain "thought archetypes" that can serve as inspiration for future moves in this game of life.
One that I hold in high regard is Marcus Aurelius's The impediment of action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way. So simple. Yet so powerful.

So what stands in my way? Well, I have 2 problems that need to be solved rather sooner than later. And they are as good as gone because I thought about them the same way as I did about reaching 100's. I rarely think this way.
I can't explain this type of thinking, but as soon as it occurs, that which is thought gets fvcking done no matter what. Ever caught yourself thinking this way?

Anyways, let's not digress too much, so I want to work on my diet and lack of exerice for the remainder of the month. I thought about it for almost 2 months already, making small improvements but yesterday I woke up obsessed with making a solid foundation for thesse 2 and sticking to the new regime. Boy, I'm so pumped. They became the imperative of my existence. Everything is on pause until I work on these two. So nice. I'm so happy about that. Feels good. After working on these my next step will be to reach an average of 10 hrs/day of "work". That's my short term goals. Nothing regarding poker until I work on these 3.

I've researched before dieting, nutrition, exercising, and practiced them so I have a good starting point, but advice is always appreciated.

And btw, what stands in your way right now? And why does it still stand there?

I advice to eat yoghurt and fermentated vegetables like sourcabbage etc.
Drink kefir, I like it very much.
And lemon and other citrusfruits are also good.
And don't eat much meat, about 100 -200 gram a week is enough.

I'm heartbroken by the news about your mother's illness, OP. I hope she wins the battle or, at least, makes the most out of her life.

Sometimes I have an irrational suspicion that fate likes to test exactly those who're ready for it. (Another hard-working blogger, an ex-spinner, IvicaIliev77 lost his mother to cancer in 2014.) Or maybe it indeed works in the reverse way - we build the spiritual muscle when it's stressed; what doesn't kill us, makes us stronger.

Originally posted by adelaar
Drink kefir, I like it very much.

Actually, kefir is a commonplace drink in Eastern Europe. Here in Russia, an 800 ml bag costs 60 cents It's cured my reflux. I assume it's similarly cheap in Moldova.

Originally posted by tonypmm
I'm heartbroken by the news about your mother's illness, OP. I hope she wins the battle or, at least, makes the most out of her life.

Thank you, Tony.
Unfortunately she passed away in the beginning of the new year. My trip to hell was just a consequence of that.

Anyways, thanks for the advice, guys. I was actually debating about having probiotics in my diet. My best options are kefir & yougurt (probably kefir).

Besides that, I want to bulk so I need to eat a lot. I don't want to make my life too complicated though. Don't have all day to cook and eat. So making it easy was very important for me. That's why I picked 'base' foods whose job will be to put me in a slight caloric surplus as needed for bulking. I tried to keep it as clean as possible and put as many foods that have additional benefits besides just the calories or protein. And I will also supplement those base foods with "superfoods".
I have a rough estimate of what I'm going for. I will do modifications as I go about it but I need to have a solid plan till the end of the month.
I had Whey so I will use and won't use it after probably if I can eat enough as it seems that it's not cost efficient (to my surprise).

Here is the rough plan:

The price there is in Lei/mdl (lions :D), my country's currency. 1 mdl is around 17,5$. You can clearly see that some foods are considered really cheap while others not so much. But just looking at how much 1 kilo of something costs doesn't really say the whole story. Ignoring phytonutrients, vitamins, anti-bad stuff properties and so on, I thought it would be cool to have an index of how much you get for your money in terms of "fuel" (Calories). So I came up with CPL (Calorie Per Leu). The more calorie you get for 1 Leu the more "fuel" efficient those foods are. It is a very simplistic way of doing cost analysis (considering you are ignoring so many other properties, but it's still better than nothing).

For example look at Peanut Butter or Olive Oil, products that are considered really pricey in my country. They have a pretty solid CPL and are actually more cost efficient when it comes to calories than Chicken Breast, which in my country is probably the most popular because is the "cheapest". Obviously those are fats though, so I wouldn't advice getting your whole daily requirements from them, but you get the point. Sometimes the price can be misleading.
Flaxseeds and Oats are the surprises that I found doing this. Oats are insanely efficient. Just look at how high that number is compared to everything else. The bad part is I can't stand eating a lot of it. 100g will probably already kill me lol.
Salmon, just as expected, is the most expensive, but I didn't think it'll have such a low CPL. Now I just want to look for an alternative if I'm being honest. (yes, I adjusted the CPL formula for tuna, salmon and beef - because they are not used everyday).

And so, my base diet seems to be around $175, which is a bit more than what I was hoping for. But the good part is I have a lot of good sh!t in it. So meh, prolly worth the extra bucks without a doubt.
The good thing is I have something to build on. My plan is to see how I feel on this diet and adjust it as I go, and look for ways to improve it, search for more CPL gems like flaxseeds and oats and if they are healthy put them in my diet. Hopefully I will optimize it more over time as It feel pricey for my country for sure. Which annoys me a bit.
Besides this, I need to re-plan my workouts and the easy part will be done

Feedback is welcome as always.
Cheers.

Originally posted by Constantin11
Unfortunately she passed away in the beginning of the new year. My trip to hell was just a consequence of that.

I'm so sorry. Those were indeed the bowels of hell, worse than any poker downswing you'll ever have...

It may be too late now, but in case the grief is still holding you back, let me share the most touching advice I've ever heard, coming from one of the most stoic people I've ever known.

The price there is in Lei/mdl (lions ♦), my country's currency. 1 mdl is around 17,5$.

Of course, it's vice versa: $1 ~ 17.88 mdl, 1 mdl ~ $0.056. So the numbers in the table need to be divided by 18 to get $ prices.

So I came up with CPL (Calorie Per Leu). The more calorie you get for 1 Leu the more "fuel" efficient those foods are. It is a very simplistic way of doing cost analysis (considering you are ignoring so many other properties, but it's still better than nothing).

It's not a secret that the worst sorts of bread and pasta have the highest CPL (~400), but they contain so much gluten that eating them for a long period is unhealthy 'Legitimate' (preferably whole grain) sorts of bread and pasta have about a hundred CPL but are poor in protein anyway. The protein per leu ratio is the biggest in legumes, and a diet of eggs and beans is quite balanced in macronutrients, but of course, special measures (like the Beano pills) have to be taken against stomach bloating caused by excessive consumption of legumes, which nullifies the cost advantage over meat.

Flaxseeds and Oats are the surprises that I found doing this. Oats are insanely efficient. Just look at how high that number is compared to everything else. The bad part is I can't stand eating a lot of it. 100g will probably already kill me lol.

Oats are satiating; they're actually better for weight loss, not bulking.

Flax seeds are a more cost-efficient source of an omega-3 fatty acid (namely, alpha-linoleic acid) than fish, a much better source of fats than, say, sunflower oil. Chia seeds are another great source of omega-3 with ~15 CPL, though they taste rather bland; I bought a pack a couple of years ago and haven't used it fully yet

And so, my base diet seems to be around $175, which is a bit more than what I was hoping for. But the good part is I have a lot of good sh!t in it. So meh, prolly worth the extra bucks without a doubt.

Your monthly $EV is so much bigger that I'd stop worrying about CPL, start prioritising quality and even invest into weekly consultations with a nutritionist. Even if this gives you as few as 2 extra hours of peak productivity per week, it will be +$EV and also massively +EV in terms of life satisfaction.

Actually, I'm surprised that SpinLegends don't have a staff dietitian yet

Generally, the foods with the highest CPL are those that are eaten by students living in dorms whose only source of income is state scholarship (which is tiny in Eastern Europe, like $25 a month): the said :censored:ty sorts of rye bread and pasta, sunflower oil (400+ CPL according to the Russian prices in cheap grocery shops like Auchan; 100% fat, mostly omega-6 acids, so flax seeds have to be added as an omega-3 source anyway*), mayonnaise (200+ CPL, known as the fastest amplifier of gastritis), Doshirak noodles (100+ CPL) for those who're missing the taste of meat but can't afford it, and buckwheat that I'm addicted to (~300 CPL, 1.5 times less protein per leu than in peas but much less stomach bloating and, unlike in pasta, no gluten whatsoever).

I'd mostly fuel myself with buckwheat if its aroma didn't make me overeat (I'm not bulking; I'm just making my ends meet while keeping the weight under control.)

CPL is a rather useless metric; there's a reason why people move away from such a diet once they get proper jobs

* See charts of omega-6 to omega-3 ratios like the one in Wiki.

Originally posted by tonypmm
...Even if this gives you as few as 2 extra hours of peak productivity per week, it will be +$EV and also massively +EV in terms of life satisfaction...

This right here. That's what I was thinking exactly.

Yeah, I meant 1$=17,8 mdl, It was just late when I wrote and made a "small" mistake

Originally posted by tonypmm
Oats are satiating; they're actually better for weight loss, not bulking.

I agree. They can be really cost efficient if you can eat a lot of it. My concern was that I'm going too much into protein and fats so I just need to have oats for some much needed carbs. But for me eating oats are a nightmare when it comes to eating them, It just takes so much time for me to eat them. Well, my plan is to eat 50g in the morning and 50g divided into 2 shakes, this should make it easier. I'll see as I go, besides that I need to see where I can squeeze some veggies as well. I think eating all these will be a real pain in the a$$. At least it always was for me as soon as I was bulking. So if some foods might be a bit too heavy on me I will probably look for alternatives even if they are more expensive, as long as they allow me to hit my goals and are reasonably healthy.

I'm already content with this cause I removed all junk. Lately my diet has been unbalanced af. So this is good.

Thanks for the video, Tony. I'll watch it. I actually did a whole psychology/personality course this month which helped me a lot and brought more understanding into my life.

And now I have my plan for poker as I go about these other things as well.
I will 3 table 60's to gather sample only 3 tabling and do my standard 2 table grind at 100's.
We'll see how it goes. I have no rigid goals right now except putting everything in place and sticking to it. And studying. Studying is my constant always. The volume goals will come a bit later and If everything goes as I plan, they will be glorious.
Until then, cheers!

Originally posted by Constantin11
My concern was that I'm going too much into protein and fats so I just need to have oats for some much needed carbs.

When looking for alternatives to oats, be mindful of the glycemic index! Low GI carbs keep the blood glucose level more stable, which is beneficial for the cognition during long poker sessions.

On a related note:

(I'm obviously not invested into any life coaching program - I just watch free stuff that's based on science.)

You've likely already read Schnitzelfisch's good old articles on this forum, but in case you missed them:

The guide to productivity
The guide to motivation

Also, the health and fitness forum on 2+2 is surprisingly rich in good advice. You can even start an exercise and nutrition log there, posting about everything that you eat and lift, and get feedback.