A few years ago, I realized something none of us likes to admit, I was scared of failing. It was so important to me not to be seen as a failure that I would rather do very little than risk putting all my effort into a project and failing. It didn’t help that I was surrounded by many who lived by the ‘only fools and horses work’ philosophy.
I always find it amazing that I regularly have to remind myself how the game Texas hold-em works. You see, I’ve been playing this game for 22 years and you would expect it to have become 2nd nature to me by now. It looks like a card game, it plays like a card game but it is actually a game about people. The tools that are used to become successful are your hidden cards, the community cards, your limited knowledge of your opponents, your knowledge of mathematics and your knowledge of yourself.
Many years ago, I felt honoured to manage a football team in the Wanstead Church league. I had wanted to be a professional footballer when I was very young but it never happened so this was the closest I got to fulfilling this dream. I have always been very competitive so I assumed the team would battle hard to win.
My Dad once said he had a generous and thoughtful child because I often bought the evening paper and left it on his desk for his perusal. The truth was that I bought the evening paper so I could read the comic script at the back and left it on his desk afterward as I no longer had use for it. There was no reason to correct him as it seemed to make him happy. He was always giving us little presents so it became our little tradition.
The button on my tuxedo flew off right in the middle of a fun casino function. I had leaned over to hand over some chips and the button flew off. A few weeks later, I lost two buttons off a rented tuxedo during the wedding of my close friend. I was his best man so I had to stand around with missing buttons and give a speech. I stood on a scale and weighed myself in the bathroom. It was no surprise that I had put on almost a stone since my last weigh in.