First off, I'm finally done with school, so I will start making videos again soon. I'm going to make what I hope will be some very good videos within the next few days and hopfully they'll come out relatively soon, I already started a flopzilla video on multiway pots and will likely make one on 3-bet pots as well. I of course haven't forgotten about the theory series and will continue to make leakfinders/replayers as well, so feel free to send me content.

Now on to the main focus on this blog: I'm starting to think there are more several more variables that go into success than I originally thought, and that natural intelligence is pretty overrated. Like most people, I used to think success was some combination of natural talent, hard work, and luck, with some other variables being relevent very niche jobs (such as looks being the most important factor for modeling). I've thought about this a lot in the past, and one of my friends who I think is very intelligent has told me several times he thinks intelligence is very, very overrated despite the fact that he knew many people who thought he was smart enough that he could accomplish almost anything. I've been told a similar thing throughout my life, and remember one of the biggest compliments I've ever had coming from my high school biology teacher in letter of recommendation to get a scholorship in science saying "Matt is smart enough to do just about anything he wants to do. I'd like him to get this scholarship, because I'd like him to go into science."

I don't think I ever became arrogant, as I actually hate the amount of variance which naturally occurs in the world whether it be in the form of some people being born super smart while others are very stupid, some people gorgeous while others very ugly, and worst of all on a totally seperate issue which I'm not going to touch here some people incredibly rich and healthy and others incredibly poor or sick. I dislike variance in general despite running incredibly good with it so far in life, and I always thought if you were dealt a bad hand in intelligence/looks/athleticism you were just about always going to be outclassed by someone who is more naturally talented than you. After a lot of thought and just taking some very intensive classes the last two months, I now think there's a lot more variables that go into success than I orginally thought which are incredibly important and easy to overlook. The first one I want to talk blog about today is pride.

Pride is an incredibly interesting emotion to me because most people don't expect it to be nearly as self-destructive of an emotion as it is and it's very hard to detect. Most people have a huge sense of entitlement and self-importance, and hate to be proven wrong. One of the reasons why I actually love math/theory/binary logic so much in general is I made the following realization over the last few years- "I either believe what I've always believed about this certain subject, and am likely incredibly biased, or I no longer believe what I used to believe about this certain subject and have experienced being confident when I now think I was likely wrong." I don't know a better way to describe it other than the fact that it somewhat made me "life agnostic," which doens't mean I don't have strong feelings or beliefs about certain subjects or areas, but rather I now try even harder to entertain the idea that I might be wrong and no matter what I believe their are other intelligent people who disagree with me. Math and theory somewhat avoid this problem, since by expressing your beliefs in mathematical terms you're able to see if their contradictions and even if it doesn't tell you exactly where you are wrong, you at least know you are wrong somewhere and you can futher investigate it.

Most people unfortunately do not think this way. I realize the irony in the previous sentence right after the previous paragraph, but just like in my theory videos where people sometimes love to point out I didn't "technically" prove something, it's annoying to go way out of my way to showcase that I understand the need to be "open to the idea of not being open to ideas" or whatever when people start becoming philosophy nits. My point is simply this: most people are often too confident about what they think (they overestimate their ability to accurately anlalyze data and make predictions about the future), and rather than simply saying "oh wow, I've sucked a lot at analyzing data in the past, I probably should just be less certatin of things in the future and more open to the idea of being wrong" they get incredibly defensive and refuse to learn and grow as a person. This is bad and will prevent you from getting places in life.

Acknowledging you are wrong and being willing to listen to others who disagree with you is an absolutely hugely important quality for getting faster/smarter/better/stronger/etc. Some of the worst two traits many people have, whether they're smart or not, is...

1) They define intelligence based on how much someone else agrees with them. "I can tell if someone is smart or not after talking with them a few minutes" often means "I define how smart someone is based on how much they agree with me. And since I agree with myself 100% of the time, I must be super smart!

2) "I'm awesome at everything which can't be tested quantitatively." How often do you see someone say they're awesome at running the 100 yard dash? Probably not very often, because you just respond "really? how fast are you? why don't you go try it right now and see how quick you are?" Yet how often do people say they're really, really good at stuff that you can't test for directly, such as driving, being funny, or just being smart (most people don't know their IQ score, and an IQ test itself probably isn't the best indicator)? Probably close to nonstop.

Rather than focusing on just working harder (since you can't control how talented you are), a better way to get better at something and increase your chance at success is likely to be more willing to admit you're wrong. I'm going to work hard in the next few years about not being afraid to just "go for it," and not be too prideful to fail at something while being open to ways that I can improve.

Anyways GL everyone and take care,

Matt