At one point in recent memory, Team PokerStars Pro Vanessa Selbst was fighting a three-front battle against time. She was at Yale carrying out her law degree, she was playing poker for insane amounts of money, and--believe it or not--she had a life within the real world.
Forget for a moment that--for most obvious human beings--getting a law degree from considered one of America's finest institutions can be greater than an entire time job. Forget that Selbst was becoming a mid-20s millionaire playing on poker's toughest circuit, a role that may sap the mental and physical energy from the easiest. She was doing both, maintaining a relationship with the girl she would eventually marry, and finding time to hit the city along with her friends.
It's easy to think about Selbst as a superhero, and he or she rather well is also (I've never seen her and Batman within the same place on the same time...), but when you look a bit deeper into how she handles her life, you will see how she managed to do it all--successfully, no less--and not lose her mind.
At first, it was easier for her. Although she already had a large reputation in poker, it wasn't an entire time pursuit.
"I quit playing poker full time with the intention to visit law school, as I DID NOT think it was feasible to do both well simultaneously," she said.
During the primary couple years of school, she only played online occasionally. She didn't play live tournaments unless she was on a semester break or the tournaments were with reference to Yale.
"Putting poker at the back burner was the fitting choice. Doing so allowed me to completely immerse myself into my studies and channel my energy into establishing a life for myself at law school--working on law clinics, making a close-knit friend group, and establishing healthy routines," Selbst said.
But then everything changed. The PokerStars North American Poker Tour traveled to the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut. It was just down the street from New Haven. Selbst went...and she won for $750,000. It was, at that point, her biggest score. Only a few months later, she got signed to a Team PokerStars Pro sponsorship.
"As I had given law school my undivided attention, I felt it essential to give poker the similar time," she said.
So she took a handy guide a rough break--one semester--from Yale and occupied with poker for a little bit.
For a large number of students, getting a PokerStars sponsorship and having a pile of cash would mean the top in their studies. Not so for Selbst. She was going to get her law degree it doesn't matter what it took. So, she set to work to determine how she could get all of it done and never lose her mind.
Recently, PokerStars asked some of its players to take part in an exercise. The effects help explain how the brains of those highly successful people work to regulate their time effectively.
Using author Stephen Covey's time management matrix, Selbst laid out how she handled fighting that three-front battle. She broke down everything into the quadrants below in response to matters of urgency and importance.
You might have a look at that (it's only a screen shot from a document she was nice enough to fill out for the PokerStars folks) and think, "Well, sure, that is smart. What's so cool about that?"
Well, that's exactly it. It clearly is smart because Selbst was capable of make sense of it. That's where a super many of us trip up. LOTS OF PEOPLE have a hard time seeing the adaptation between importance and urgency.
Take, for instance, how Selbst looks at social media. Where a good portion of her peer group takes to Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, etc. all day, everyday, you nearly never see Selbst's face pop up for your Twitter feed (will probably be a whole accident if she sees this newsletter on Twitter, I guarantee you). She calls herself "notoriously neglectful" of social media, but she makes no real apologies for it. It's simply one of the vital things she doesn't see as necessarily important or urgent. The similar thing goes for shopping, mundane household chores, and sitting in front of the tube. Not important, and definitely not urgent.
But that wasn't the tip of it, because, Selbst still needed to determine easy methods to prioritize the $64000 matters in her life. Whether by trial and mistake or instinct, she made it happen: she was getting her law degree, she was going to have a poker career, she she was going to be healthy--both mentally and physically--while doing it.
She used a nap app and tried to verify she got eight hours of shuteye an evening. She walked to campus, worked out within the Yale gym, and put aside time for friends.
"This was an enormous a part of law school and was super important to make time for," she said. "Being surrounded by a community is what keeps me truly happy, and happiness is integral to poker success."
Still, she needed to slot in the non-urgent matters of importance. So she found some way. She did not have time to maintain her fridge stocked, so she ate on campus or grabbed a bite when she was out with friends.
"My refrigerator was also referred to as 'the beer fridge' with 50 bottles left over from whatever party I had recently had," she said. "IT IS ALSO hard to maintain a stocked fridge in case you have a busy travel schedule."
She studied for classes while on planes, and often on the poker table. She used forums and Skype to take care of with any moves in poker strategy she had to stay alongside of. When it came time to present a poker interview, she'd time it so she could do it while walking to class.
Somehow all of it worked.
"I went back for the spring 2012 semester, and knowing I only had yet one more year to go, I took a lighter course load and un-enrolled from my clinics so I MAY skip classes regularly for poker tournaments," she said. "Much of my time was also spent writing a thesis paper, which enabled me to be at the road more often."
When it was all said and done, Selbst had earned her law degree, married the affection of her life, and won a couple of more poker titles. In that time, she has earned greater than $10 million in live poker tournaments, nearly twice the second one most successful woman, Kathy Liebert. Selbst could also be a number of the Top 25 most successful live tournament players on the planet overall.
How does she do all of it? Well, again, she may well be a superhero, but a little bit time management doesn't hurt.
On Wednesday, Team Pro Online's Adrienne Rowsome opens up about how finds time to play poker together with her first baby in the home.
Brad Willis is the PokerStars Head of Blogging
Read More... [Source: PokerStarsBlog.com]
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