Beyond Poker

After Nick watched Kristy Arnett’s video, A "Sexy" Photoshoot Triggered 8 Years of Social Anxiety, he knew he needed to talk with her. He was astounded by Kristy’s ability to unpack eight years of social anxiety, mental struggle, and battle in about eight minutes.

Kristy began her career as a writer, host, and video producer for Card Player Magazine and PokerNews before leaving to play professionally in 2014. On her YouTube channel, she creates content about love, relationships, and lifestyles, including lessons learned from her experiences within the world of poker.

In this episode, Kristy joins Nick for an open, honest, and direct conversation about mental health, processing and healing from trauma, and the power of sharing stories - as well as how the challenges we face by ourselves and in our relationships impact our lives in poker.

Key Takeaways

• How Kristy deals with self-criticism and adversity on a daily basis, both in poker and in life.
• Why experiencing trauma as adults often retriggers things we buried earlier in our lives - and how to navigate it.
• What Kristy learned about overcoming limiting beliefs by working as a dating coach for poker players who were afraid to approach women or pursue relationships.
• The power of setting intentions.
• How to sense someone’s integrity.
• What Kristy learned from being on the brink of divorce with her husband - and the skills she cultivated to save her marriage and ensure they could truly grow together. 

Get Access to the Show Notes

To get access to the full show notes, including all the resources mentioned during the interview, visit BeyondPoker.com/11

Check Us Out On: 

• BeyondPoker.com
• Wayne Yap on Instagram
• Nick Howard on Instagram
• Nick Howard on Twitter
• PokerDetox.com

How do you vet people who belong in your network? This isn’t a question about who they are on a fundamental level - it’s about quality of communication, integrity, and the difference between healthy connection and drama within your inner circle.

This episode took almost a year to craft, and the degree of nuance that we explore should explain why. It goes deep into one of the most valuable zones of expertise that a network-oriented person can develop: optics. Specifically, we focus on the intricacies of relationship vetting.

From the importance of setting a vision for your ideal network, to the types of signals to hone in on in the process of getting to know someone new, to the healthy boundaries that you’ll need to put in place when people demonstrate unsafe behavior. This episode is packed full of real life examples and case studies that will provide you with a clear and versatile map to high level relationship building, no matter what types of business or social circles you run in.

Key Takeaways

• Why greater abundance creates more options to meet new people and higher quality people - and why these are almost always people with a high level of integrity or emotional maturity.
• How to navigate the social pressure that comes with building an effective network.
• How to effectively assess someone’s communicational or integrity maturity - and why this almost always requires a lot of self-reflection.
• What it means when someone is trying to convince you that their past behavior is anomalous.
• How high requirements for transparency and connection can make people feel like nothing is ever good enough.
• What to do when people in your network, or people you are vetting to be part of your network, display unsafe behavior.

Get Access to the Show Notes

To get access to the full show notes, including all the resources mentioned during the interview, visit BeyondPoker.com/10

Check Us Out On: 

• BeyondPoker.com
• Wayne Yap on Instagram
• Nick Howard on Instagram
• Nick Howard on Twitter
• PokerDetox.com

Today’s episode picks up where last week’s left off. Nick and Wayne continue their conversation about communication by delving into the dangers of perfectionism. They explore how poker forces you to fight off perfectionist impulses, cope with mistakes, and conquer performance deficiencies once and for all.

Key Takeaways

• How perfectionism can set you up to burn out, quit, or fail.
• How compassion can help you resolve major emotional conflicts.
• How unresolved trauma and feelings of unsafety from the past stop us from dealing directly with our most complicated emotions.
• How to use self-inquiry to unpack these feelings, act more logically, and stop distorting your perception. 

Get Access to the Show Notes

To get access to the full show notes, including all the resources mentioned during the interview, visit BeyondPoker.com/9

Check Us Out On: 

• BeyondPoker.com
• Wayne Yap on Instagram
• Nick Howard on Instagram
• Nick Howard on Twitter
• PokerDetox.com

Recently, one of Nick’s players had a rough month of play. He needed his account to be reloaded more often than normal, and sidestepped the chain of command and normal communications hierarchy to complain. Higher level officers got frustrated with this player, so Nick spoke to him personally. The player told Nick that he was being demanding because he deeply craved more connection, more efficient systems, and more trust - and Nick had to explain to him that his behavior was having the exact opposite effect.

As entrepreneurs and poker players, we are always trying to have full information in incomplete games. We want to be able to trust people fully, for people to be able to trust us, and to minimize our risk - and our behavior in our communications on how we’re perceived, respected, and able to perform.

In this episode, Nick and Wayne share stories about communication from their careers in poker and in business, the value of vulnerable communication, and how to communicate with yourself to get unstuck when you need to.

Key Takeaways

• How our communication can accidentally do the exact opposite of what we intend it to.
• Why poker forces you to give up the factors outside your control.
• How striving for perfection drains your energy and makes you less effective.

Get Access to the Show Notes

To get access to the full show notes, including all the resources mentioned during the interview, visit BeyondPoker.com/8

Check Us Out On: 

• BeyondPoker.com
• Wayne Yap on Instagram
• Nick Howard on Instagram
• Nick Howard on Twitter
• PokerDetox.com

As a high performer, you can sometimes feel your batteries have only output. You can never recharge, you can’t relax, and as a consequence, you find yourself on the verge of burnout.

For many high performers, the problem isn’t just that their schedules aren’t optimized. It’s that they don’t know how to relax or recharge, especially when taking tons of meetings, traveling, or between events.

Today, Nick and Wayne take a deep dive into the nuances of energy management on a high performance path. This one is packed with a lot of daily energy hacks, as well as a broader description of the different types of scheduling that Nick and Wayne use. You’ll walk away from this one with a keen sense of how to optimize your logistics based on your own personality and stage of development. You’ll learn when to allow for scheduling flexibility and when to stick to the plan, how to identify blindspots in your scheduling system, and the power of communication in your daily life -- all told from the dual perspective of the poker player and the entrepreneur.

Key Takeaways

• What rest activities can look like for the high-performing entrepreneur or poker player.
• How the ungrounded energy state and the feeling of “not doing enough” when we’re idle can drain our energy when we’re trying to relax, how to identify if this is dissociation, and how to learn to work through this feeling.
• How to identify your peak productivity times to eliminate friction, stop feeling decision fatigue, and 10x your output.
• How to add freedom to a highly regimented schedule without sacrificing what’s working effectively.
• Tools you can use to calm your brain down.

Get Access to the Show Notes

To get access to the full show notes, including all the resources mentioned during the interview, visit BeyondPoker.com/7

Check Us Out On: 

• BeyondPoker.com
• Wayne Yap on Instagram
• Nick Howard on Instagram
• Nick Howard on Twitter
• PokerDetox.com

A while back, one of Nick’s poker players was struggling. This player was performing well, but relied on support and handouts from friends because his parents didn’t approve of his career. He spent months hovering between being in a financially stable place and never quite getting there.

When he consulted Nick, the player expressed frustration that he was going to have to go back to a toxic home life in London. On the call, Nick rejected this player’s belief that he had no friends, challenged him to find a way to use his network to move out on his own, and put himself out there. Within one minute of asking our group chat to help him, another player invested in his future performance and gave him the freedom to rent his own apartment.

Almost everyone has trouble asking for help on the come up. We think it makes us weak or entitled in some way. The reality is that asking for help is one of the biggest differentiators between a successful entrepreneur and the rest of the pack.

In this episode, we document some different case studies on the topic and provide insights with how you can go about asking for help more effectively on your own journey. Whether you’re a poker player or an entrepreneur trying to navigate bigger business, this episode is jam packed with win rate for building out your network in a powerfully vulnerable way.

Key Takeaways

• Why we’re all so afraid of asking for help - and why we shouldn’t be.
• Why asking the right people for the right help makes all the difference.
• How Nick’s problem player positioned his ask for help in a way that both benefited him and anyone who chose to help him.
• Why requests for help sent via direct message from strangers almost never go answered - and why the people who read these messages often think the senders are completely deluded.
• Why people who are at rock bottom and think they have nothing to offer often have more resources (and more to give) than they think they do.
• Tools you can use to assess your values in a meaningful way.

Get Access to the Show Notes

To get access to the full show notes, including all the resources mentioned during the interview, visit BeyondPoker.com/6

Check Us Out On: 

• BeyondPoker.com
• Wayne Yap on Instagram
• Nick Howard on Instagram
• Nick Howard on Twitter
• PokerDetox.com

Rate & Review
If you enjoyed today’s episode of Beyond Poker, hit the subscribe button in Apple Podcasts (or wherever you listen) so future episodes are automatically downloaded directly to your device.

You can also help by providing an honest rating & review over on Apple Podcasts. Reviews go a long way in helping us build awareness so that we can impact even more people. THANK YOU!

High-performing individuals of all kinds fixate on imperfections. The quest for efficiency can lead us to live in extremely hostile environments without even realizing it. We collapse under time-based pressure and trap ourselves in situations we simply cannot make work on our terms.

Today’s episode is one of the more meta episodes in this series. It revolves around the considerations that people often overlook when considering the most beneficial path for their growth. A lot of the examples in this conversation come from real case studies from poker players operating from narrow viewpoints that cause them to justify unhealthy choices, unbeknownst to them. Nick and Wayne also open up with examples from their own journeys where they uncovered similar blindspots and provide insight on how they overcame them.

Key Takeaways

• What Nick learned from talking to a player who convinced him that he had to play at peak hours, even though he wasn’t benefiting from this decision.
• Why it’s so hard to overcome biases in logically consistent ways.
• How to create a path that takes you from being purely analytical to getting more in touch with your emotions.
• Why being self-critical often gives way to being self-hostile - and why this often leads to self-sabotage.
• Why effective leaders have to be willing to exit power struggles.
• How Type A personalities can turn methodologies like breathwork or meditation toxic.
• Why the win-loss mentality rarely serves people as well as they think it does. 

Get Access to the Show Notes

To get access to the full show notes, including all the resources mentioned during the interview, visit BeyondPoker.com/5

Check Us Out On: 

• BeyondPoker.com
• Wayne Yap on Instagram
• Nick Howard on Instagram
• Nick Howard on Twitter
• PokerDetox.com

Rate & Review
If you enjoyed today’s episode of Beyond Poker, hit the subscribe button in Apple Podcasts (or wherever you listen) so future episodes are automatically downloaded directly to your device.

You can also help by providing an honest rating & review over on Apple Podcasts. Reviews go a long way in helping us build awareness so that we can impact even more people. THANK YOU!

In this episode, we revisit the origins of the Beyond Poker project by giving you a backstage pass to the conversation that inspired it. We never intended to release this call to the public, but upon revisiting it in the building phase of our episode list we just couldn’t resist. Our hope is that it gives our listeners a chance to tap into the energy we were in at that time, and to come away with the confidence to pursue a project that feels true, even if you don’t quite know where it leads.

Key Takeaways

• Why Type A personalities are prone to succeed - and why so many of them need help to create sustainable, lasting careers and happy lives.
• Why loading more stress on yourself does not guarantee you’ll make more money - and how this misguided belief distracts and confuses a lot of Type A personalities.
• Why people like Michael Jordan and David Goggins who perform at an incredible level for years or decades are outliers - and why so many Type A personalities can barely rest or take time off.
• How to understand the difference between control energy and cooperative energy - and why it’s always in your best interest not to engage with people who need to be right.
• How to clarify your intent, surround yourself with people who will lift your abilities, and see the value in other journeys that people might be taking.

Get Access to the Show Notes

To get access to the full show notes, including all the resources mentioned during the interview, visit BeyondPoker.com/4

Check Us Out On: 

• BeyondPoker.com
• Wayne Yap on Instagram
• Nick Howard on Instagram
• Nick Howard on Twitter
• PokerDetox.com

Rate & Review
If you enjoyed today’s episode of Beyond Poker, hit the subscribe button in Apple Podcasts (or wherever you listen) so future episodes are automatically downloaded directly to your device.

You can also help by providing an honest rating & review over on Apple Podcasts. Reviews go a long way in helping us build awareness so that we can impact even more people. THANK YOU!

When are things “enough,” and when do you want more? What do you want to think about in life and in work? What are the skill sets that poker players have that serve them best in life after poker?

Today, we’re answering these questions and more. Nick dives into Wayne’s mind to better understand how Wayne amassed the confidence to transition out of poker, and what skills he found most valuable when making the shift. The ensuing discussion focuses on the most common career blind spots among poker players, particularly the lack of vision they have over their implieds as developing entrepreneurs. This is a must watch episode for any poker player looking for guidance on how to start diversifying from poker and connect with the vision of the Beyond Poker network.

Key Takeaways

• How to find projects that interest you and get involved in them as you transition out of a career in poker - and how to learn from the mistakes you might make along the way.
• Who should think about finding a conventional job after walking away from poker - and why this is almost never an option that will make high-level players happy.
• Why the skills cultivated in poker lend themselves to business development, strategy, and investing - and why now is such a great time to learn highly transferable skill sets.
• How to rewire your brain as you think about business and risk in contexts outside of poker.
• Why it’s okay to make mistakes as you pursue opportunities and projects.

Check Us Out On: 

• BeyondPoker.com
• Wayne Yap on Instagram
• Nick Howard on Instagram
• Nick Howard on Twitter
• PokerDetox.com

Rate & Review
If you enjoyed today’s episode of Beyond Poker, hit the subscribe button in Apple Podcasts (or wherever you listen) so future episodes are automatically downloaded directly to your device.

You can also help by providing an honest rating & review over on Apple Podcasts. Reviews go a long way in helping us build awareness so that we can impact even more people. THANK YOU!

Building Poker Detox from the ground up started off as a lonely road for Nick Howard. As he built the company, he recognized the importance of surrounding himself with a group of high performers that he could relate to, support, and empower.

Join us as we explore the nuances of team building through the evolution of the Poker Detox CFP Team. Nick takes us back to the energy he built the Detox culture from, and explains how he reverse engineered it from the question “What do the people on this team need to FEEL?” What follows is a detailed, behind the scenes look at what it takes to hone the structures and communicational balances necessary to support a high performance community.

Key Takeaways

• Why Nick built Poker Detox to be a cooperative unit of high performers, rather than a traditional corporate hierarchy.
• How an effective community helps players work through struggles in their careers by learning from peers, rather than just coaches.
• What stops so many great poker players from taking the leap and thriving outside of poker.
• Why it’s almost impossible for poker to be a perfectly fulfilling career - and why the best poker players can never free themselves from competitive stress.
• How Poker Detox is changing in the face of a global pandemic and a drastically shifted economy.

Check Us Out On: 

• BeyondPoker.com
• Wayne Yap on Instagram
• Nick Howard on Instagram
• Nick Howard on Twitter
• PokerDetox.com

Rate & Review
If you enjoyed today’s episode of Beyond Poker, hit the subscribe button in Apple Podcasts (or wherever you listen) so future episodes are automatically downloaded directly to your device.

You can also help by providing an honest rating & review over on Apple Podcasts. Reviews go a long way in helping us build awareness so that we can impact even more people. THANK YOU!