[Edit: On the September 3, 2014 edition of the 2+2 PokerCast, an edited version of the Matt Hawrilenko interview was played. If you got here through the PokerCast, you'll want to click through to the Life After Poker page to see what parts of the interview were excerpted.]
Like most people, I enjoy conversation with my favourite people. I've been fortunate enough in my life to find truly fascinating people, and I often wish that I could capture these conversations with people and present them to the world.
I've also been a big fan of audio content and podcasts for many years. I'm a huge fan of those who do it well. I've had some experience with podcasting including being an occasional co-host on the Two Plus Two PokerCast and had my own brief foray into hosting my own show with Under The Gun +1 at Ultimate Gaming when I interviewed some of my coworkers. But until now, I have never had a full creative outlet to have a candid conversation with personal friends and acquaintances, made for public consumption. I've also never had to manage all the other, non-talking aspects of content creation and putting it online. That changes today.
Today, I'm introducing "Life After Poker", a series (I hope) of interviews with former professional poker players who have moved on either partially or completely from playing pro poker. Many of the people I hope to talk to were big winners during the poker boom of the mid-2000s, but for some reason or another, decided to move on from full-time play. Given my own personal situation where I did the same (giving up pro poker to work for Ultimate Gaming) and then subsequently retired from that position, I feel that this is a great time for me to have some conversations with these individuals and explore the themes associated with a life after poker.
My reasons for doing this are to improve my own skills at speaking and interviewing, to learn about what people are doing in their lives after poker, and because I'm a self-obsessed egotist who likes hearing the sound of his own voice.
This first interview is with one of the people I know best in the entire poker world, Matt Hawrilenko. Matt is one of my best friends, which made my first outing into the solo interview world very easy. The interview went well and was a lot of fun mostly because Matt is an eloquent, thoughtful speaker. We cover a really wide range of topics including his academic career in clinical psychology, being on the mats in Brazilian Jiujitsu, optimizing utility in life, how to assess your own life decisions, and what Bill Chen thinks of him as a poker player.
I would really love to hear your comments on anything that pertains to the interview whether it's content, length, audio quality -- whatever! Specific is always better than general, but even if your only comment is "I loved it!" or "I hated it!" I'd still love to hear it. Also, if you have ideas for future guests (I have about 6-8 people in mind already), that'd be great too.
Links:
http://lifeafterpoker.libsyn.com is where all episodes will be.
And this is the link to the first (and presently, only) interview.
Finally, here's the iTunes link.
Thank you for listening!
Monday, August 25, 2014
Saturday, August 23, 2014
First-time float tank experience
I first heard about isolation tanks (aka float tanks or sensory-deprivation tanks) on the Joe Rogan podcast. I'll try nearly all non-injurious things once so when an offer showed up in my e-mail for Float House Vancouver, I was pretty excited to give it a try.
I'll skip the generic trip report that you can read about on every site: you watch a video, you get undressed, shower off, and get into the chamber which is filled with water heated to skin temperature and with so much salt in it that the density matches that of the human body. The chamber is completely black on the inside, there is minimal sound, a fairly neutral smell, and the only sensation you feel is the water on your body which again is very minimal and very comfortable. You can get out at any time, you can prop the door open, and they give you a foam pillow to support your neck if you want it.
The allure of float tanks, as I understood it before my experience, is a tremendously deep meditative state. I've heard many people say they experience very deep thoughts, perceive the world in a different way, achieve some form of creative enlightenment, and so on. Perhaps comments like those overly raised my expectations. I would say the most adequate description of what occurred in my 90 minutes in the float tank was that it was just like the feeling that you have just before you fall asleep. One does think very thoughtfully about things in your life, in a way very different from what one's typical conscious mind thinks about them. But the thoughts are not absurd or dissonant with reality the way they are in a dream. Thus it seems to be in an "in-between state" where your consciousness is very aware of the rules of reality, but is perhaps willing to bend them. I'm not confident that's a great assessment, but it's about as close as I can elucidate.
So what did I actually think about?
For the first 15 (10? 25? 40? It's truly hard to say) minutes, I was simply getting used to the sensation and decreased sensory input. Unless you live near the Dead Sea, it is a very foreign feeling to be completely suspended in the water without any external resistance, and with minimal feeling on your skin. The complete darkness means that you get the sensation of movement, often rotating or drifting from side to side, and the tank was large enough that I wasn't constantly bumping into the walls, although it did happen. But for the most part, I thought about the same things I think about during my conscious day: martial arts, friends, work I want to do, and so on. I did not ponder the origins of the universe, the meaning of life, the key to enlightenment, or such thing.
At some point I'm pretty sure I did fall asleep, though I wouldn't be able to guess the duration. It could have been anywhere from 2-30 minutes. I do know that a few minutes after waking up, I started to become slightly antsy for the session to be done. I have a slightly pathological tendency to always want new experiences to be "as intended" so even though the intro video said specifically that it was fine to crack the door open or take a break, or do any of a number of comfort-increasing things, I didn't do any of them. But somewhere around probably the 70th minute, I started to become a bit anxious to quit or at least take a break. I stuck it out and waited, considering it a mental challenge and telling my brain to calm down, and it did not feel too long before the 90 minutes expired. I do suspect that being very awake, well-rested, or caffeinated would probably be a bad idea for the float tank. As one person on Yelp says:
Afterwards, I still felt slightly disoriented. It wasn't as bad as a typical "nap hangover", but I certainly did not feel in any hurry to move too quickly or use my brain too aggressively. I chatted with some girls in the waiting/recovery area and they seemed to feel the same way.
So, the obvious questions.
Do I recommend that other people do this? Absolutely yes. This is the kind of thing that I suspect has dramatically different results for different people. It's unique, reasonably priced, and available in most big cities. Some people will love it and think it's the greatest thing ever, others will absolutely hate it and quit in 10 minutes, others will likely be indifferent. But you don't know if you don't try. So you should do it.
Many people have expressed the idea that they would feel uncomfortable in complete blackness, or without any sound, or lying in an enclosed area that vaguely resembles a coffin. Sure, I'm sure this would cause some anxiety. I don't much like closed spaces myself, and my brain is super active all the time. But I would argue that this is more a reason in favour of doing it as opposed to against. People with fear of heights skydive. So suck it up.
Would I do it again? The answer to this is harder. I think I will probably do it again. I think it's unlikely that it needs to be a highly regular part of my life, or that it will be dramatically life-changing for me. And if it were the case that I never did this again, do I think that I would be tremendously disappointed? Probably not. But overall, I would say it was positive, and I think that doing it occasionally will provide value.
Happy floating!
I'll skip the generic trip report that you can read about on every site: you watch a video, you get undressed, shower off, and get into the chamber which is filled with water heated to skin temperature and with so much salt in it that the density matches that of the human body. The chamber is completely black on the inside, there is minimal sound, a fairly neutral smell, and the only sensation you feel is the water on your body which again is very minimal and very comfortable. You can get out at any time, you can prop the door open, and they give you a foam pillow to support your neck if you want it.
The allure of float tanks, as I understood it before my experience, is a tremendously deep meditative state. I've heard many people say they experience very deep thoughts, perceive the world in a different way, achieve some form of creative enlightenment, and so on. Perhaps comments like those overly raised my expectations. I would say the most adequate description of what occurred in my 90 minutes in the float tank was that it was just like the feeling that you have just before you fall asleep. One does think very thoughtfully about things in your life, in a way very different from what one's typical conscious mind thinks about them. But the thoughts are not absurd or dissonant with reality the way they are in a dream. Thus it seems to be in an "in-between state" where your consciousness is very aware of the rules of reality, but is perhaps willing to bend them. I'm not confident that's a great assessment, but it's about as close as I can elucidate.
So what did I actually think about?
For the first 15 (10? 25? 40? It's truly hard to say) minutes, I was simply getting used to the sensation and decreased sensory input. Unless you live near the Dead Sea, it is a very foreign feeling to be completely suspended in the water without any external resistance, and with minimal feeling on your skin. The complete darkness means that you get the sensation of movement, often rotating or drifting from side to side, and the tank was large enough that I wasn't constantly bumping into the walls, although it did happen. But for the most part, I thought about the same things I think about during my conscious day: martial arts, friends, work I want to do, and so on. I did not ponder the origins of the universe, the meaning of life, the key to enlightenment, or such thing.
At some point I'm pretty sure I did fall asleep, though I wouldn't be able to guess the duration. It could have been anywhere from 2-30 minutes. I do know that a few minutes after waking up, I started to become slightly antsy for the session to be done. I have a slightly pathological tendency to always want new experiences to be "as intended" so even though the intro video said specifically that it was fine to crack the door open or take a break, or do any of a number of comfort-increasing things, I didn't do any of them. But somewhere around probably the 70th minute, I started to become a bit anxious to quit or at least take a break. I stuck it out and waited, considering it a mental challenge and telling my brain to calm down, and it did not feel too long before the 90 minutes expired. I do suspect that being very awake, well-rested, or caffeinated would probably be a bad idea for the float tank. As one person on Yelp says:
don't go when you're super well-rested. I find that you need to be right in that Goldilocks zone of being not too sleepy, but not too awake either. If you're too well-rested, you tend to get a bit shifty and therefore unable to get comfortable in the experience.I think that is a very accurate description.
Afterwards, I still felt slightly disoriented. It wasn't as bad as a typical "nap hangover", but I certainly did not feel in any hurry to move too quickly or use my brain too aggressively. I chatted with some girls in the waiting/recovery area and they seemed to feel the same way.
So, the obvious questions.
Do I recommend that other people do this? Absolutely yes. This is the kind of thing that I suspect has dramatically different results for different people. It's unique, reasonably priced, and available in most big cities. Some people will love it and think it's the greatest thing ever, others will absolutely hate it and quit in 10 minutes, others will likely be indifferent. But you don't know if you don't try. So you should do it.
Many people have expressed the idea that they would feel uncomfortable in complete blackness, or without any sound, or lying in an enclosed area that vaguely resembles a coffin. Sure, I'm sure this would cause some anxiety. I don't much like closed spaces myself, and my brain is super active all the time. But I would argue that this is more a reason in favour of doing it as opposed to against. People with fear of heights skydive. So suck it up.
Would I do it again? The answer to this is harder. I think I will probably do it again. I think it's unlikely that it needs to be a highly regular part of my life, or that it will be dramatically life-changing for me. And if it were the case that I never did this again, do I think that I would be tremendously disappointed? Probably not. But overall, I would say it was positive, and I think that doing it occasionally will provide value.
Happy floating!
Monday, August 18, 2014
Peer-based marketplaces are awesome!
I recently got back from visiting friends in Boston. Like almost every civilized city in North American now, Boston has Uber. Two major cities which don't have Uber? Las Vegas and Vancouver, the place I just moved from, and the place I'm in right now. The reason, naturally, is taxicab companies being dickheads and using their lawyers to protect their government-granted monopolies (Vancouver, Vegas) . So until my trip to Boston, I'd never used Uber, but I was seriously impressed! It does seem that any consumer mentions Uber, it is with the most glowing of terms.
Is there any doubt that these peer-based marketplaces are the future? Uber and Airbnb seem like the biggest and most used ones so far. I also just hired someone off of Odesk.com to do some software work for me. It's not that it was cheaper (though it was), it's that I literally probably wouldn't have been able to find someone with the skills I was looking for without combing through my social network and asking everyone I know.
This is some serious democratization of both the capital and labour markets, which is awesome. Uber reduces the cost of transportation, Airbnb reduces the cost of housing, Odesk reduces the cost of skilled freelance work. And in many ways, they're not just cheaper than the traditional model, they're better. I way prefer apartments to hotels. I want a fridge and a kitchen, not maid service and a lobby bar. Airbnb was freakin' made for me. Uber has your payment information pre-stored, so you don't have to carry around cash and cards. Odesk -- well, I don't even know where I would have found the person I was looking for if it weren't for Odesk.
There's others that I've heard of but never used like Etsy (arts and crafts), Prosper (loans), Taskrabbit (errands) that continue to break down commerce walls in unique ways to unite buyers and sellers. Of course, the traditional companies (taxi companies, hotels, b&m retail, banks) will try to use their corporate goons to prevent this, but it can't be stopped. It's too awesome.*
This is all exciting as hell to me, and makes me wonder what other peer-based marketplace companies I might not be aware of. Is there a complete list of these anywhere? Please tell me of ones you know of in the comments.
* The more I think about this, the more that I think that the Ubers, Airbnbs, etc of the world have the potential to unify people of differing political views. Left-wing folk often complain about the power of major corporations and that they leverage their size and economies of scale to such an extent that it is bad for the consumer or worker. Right-wing folk are theoretically supposed to be in favour of free markets and lack of government intervention, so it'd be pretty damn hypocritical of them to oppose this. In the end, getting an Uber off a random guy who owns a car and knows the city well is basically the transportation equivalent of buying your produce from the farmers market, instead of the supermarket.
Is there any doubt that these peer-based marketplaces are the future? Uber and Airbnb seem like the biggest and most used ones so far. I also just hired someone off of Odesk.com to do some software work for me. It's not that it was cheaper (though it was), it's that I literally probably wouldn't have been able to find someone with the skills I was looking for without combing through my social network and asking everyone I know.
This is some serious democratization of both the capital and labour markets, which is awesome. Uber reduces the cost of transportation, Airbnb reduces the cost of housing, Odesk reduces the cost of skilled freelance work. And in many ways, they're not just cheaper than the traditional model, they're better. I way prefer apartments to hotels. I want a fridge and a kitchen, not maid service and a lobby bar. Airbnb was freakin' made for me. Uber has your payment information pre-stored, so you don't have to carry around cash and cards. Odesk -- well, I don't even know where I would have found the person I was looking for if it weren't for Odesk.
There's others that I've heard of but never used like Etsy (arts and crafts), Prosper (loans), Taskrabbit (errands) that continue to break down commerce walls in unique ways to unite buyers and sellers. Of course, the traditional companies (taxi companies, hotels, b&m retail, banks) will try to use their corporate goons to prevent this, but it can't be stopped. It's too awesome.*
This is all exciting as hell to me, and makes me wonder what other peer-based marketplace companies I might not be aware of. Is there a complete list of these anywhere? Please tell me of ones you know of in the comments.
* The more I think about this, the more that I think that the Ubers, Airbnbs, etc of the world have the potential to unify people of differing political views. Left-wing folk often complain about the power of major corporations and that they leverage their size and economies of scale to such an extent that it is bad for the consumer or worker. Right-wing folk are theoretically supposed to be in favour of free markets and lack of government intervention, so it'd be pretty damn hypocritical of them to oppose this. In the end, getting an Uber off a random guy who owns a car and knows the city well is basically the transportation equivalent of buying your produce from the farmers market, instead of the supermarket.
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