Beta Testing a New Coaching Offering/Outing Myself on 2+2

I am still staying pretty reclusive these days on the one-on-one coaching scene but a few days ago I had a session with a DTB member that was really cool that I wanted to share. I am excited to say that based on the results of my first Zero to Hero video I have gotten some really good response from people about setting goals with regards to poker.

As a result, one of the DTB members contacted me asking for more help with regards to setting goals and coaching. I agreed on a 1 time per month basis to coach him over a period of 6 months to help him transition to a point where he can play more poker for income and pursue other life goals that have been floundering. I am not going to out him here unless he responds on his own but he may do so.

He is a very interesting fellow who teaches rock climbing, yoga, and has an interest in therapy through physical activity. Our first session was really cool. We discussed a lot of aspects of his life and why he wanted to make changes. One of his interests was in moving a little more toward poker income so that he had the flexibility to teach more yoga. He wants to move away from his main job of teaching climbing. There are some really legitimate reasons for believing that these are realistic changes he can make in his life.

We spent a lot of time talking about his background and flushing out his motivations for wanting to make the switch. We also touched on an idea he had given up on which is getting more schooling so that he can become a therapist. This month he is taking direct action to start to explore whether these changes in his life are a realistic possibility. Based on the results he is going to set a 6 month plan to act to change things for himself.

Also we spent a lot of time relating his definite major purpose to his goals so that he can set short-term and mid-term goals effectively. Its all very exciting and got me thinking that this is a valuable coaching service that I don't know many people who are offering (obviously Jared being an exception). Its a more comprehensive approach than just talking poker all the time since there are many things that influence us away from the game.

Now I would never profess to be any kind of therapist and am very aware that I need to stay away from those kinds of topics. I also in some ways really believe that life coaching services are somewhat BS. If you have not watched the Penn and Teller - Bull$h*T episode on this I would highly recommend it if you want a few laughs and to see a few naked girls. However, taking a look at the broader perspective about why a student is motivated to play poker poker does seem to have a relevant and useful purpose.

Since that first lesson, I have done a similar lesson with a different student. He is at a similar crossroads where he is going through some life changes and thinking about playing more for income. Afterwords I polled him about the importance of the session and he told me that it was maybe one of the most important coaching sessions that we had done together. It made me feel really good that this is something I may start to integrate into my coaching curriculum when I start to ramp back up to taking on more students.

In other news, I have started a new 2+2 account under the name zerosum79. To those who don't know I used to post there as +EV and on another now defunct training site as positiveEV. I am trying hard to reconcile these different online identities to provide transparency between my coaching and playing activities. There is no longer an issue in my mind with people knowing my poker screen names as I outed those when I joined DTB. With all the recent flap over unqualified coaches I think that this extra level of transparency is necessary so that when I give strategy advice in other arenas (2+2 etc) that I am fully accountable for it. Call me crazy...

The climate for coaching is becoming very consumer oriented and I think that this is a positive step. People want to know who they are talking to and what their qualifications are at all times. I think this is reasonable. So in the future any new accounts I generate will be under the zerosum79 screen name. Feel free to ping me now on other sites.

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