When I was young my dad wanted to sign me up for some sports he gave me an option to pick either hockey or soccer. I’ve always been very conscious of money so I asked my dad, which one is more expensive. My dad told me soccer is much cheaper because it requires less equipment to play. Some of my close friends played hockey, I told my dad sign me up for soccer because it’s cheaper, I never wanted to waste money, I still remember this, I was like 4 or 5 years old at the time. When I started playing I was in the league with all the older/bigger kids. I was lucky we had the best team we won every game, no thanks to me at the time. I barely knew the rules I mostly just watched and tried to avoid getting injured. But at the end of the game. My dad would tell me I won and that would make me happy. I enjoyed it and played the league every year. I got quite good at soccer. I usually wasn’t the best player on the team but was one of them after a few years of practice. What I was most proud of was that every year they would give out an award called “The Hustler Award,” they would give this prize to the player on the team that went hard for the whole game and never stopped going at it. They would give out an MVP Medal (Most Valuable Player) and a Hustler Award. I would always get the Hustler Award. When the tournaments were on my dad would tell me “This is it, don’t worry about conserving your energy, go all out, give it your all, never give up!” I would do that when I played sports and was successful with that method. I got selected to represent the city in games around the BC area. When I was in grade 7, the oldest grade in elementary school (I would have been the senior in school) I had been playing soccer more than everyone else in the grade, I was confidently the best soccer player in the school and tried out for the team. The coach was the French teacher that taught in the class besides mine, I was in French Immersion but he taught the other class so I didn’t know the coach that well. We had a few practices, then he posted on the door all the players that made the team and all the players that were cut to the B team. To my surprise, I was cut from the team. The French teacher had simply cut everyone that wasn’t in his French class and everyone he didn’t know he put them on the B team. Haha Which turned out fine because I was in a B league with all the rookies, casuals and worst soccer players, it was fun to run circles around them, boosted my confidence even more haha But anyways the lesson I learned early was that nobody will hire you just for the value you could potentially produce, doesn’t seem fair. They might not know, they might hire whoever they like, it’s not a system you can bank on. Also, nobody will pay you for the value you produce, they will most likely try to pay you the minimum they can get away with, they control the pay, you’ve simply got to make your own game. When you count on judges or people to hire you, it’s rarely fair. You simply can’t count on people to put you on their team. I got into poker after high school, it’s an honest game. I’m now my own boss, nobody can fire me. I'm completely free and I have no need to impress anyone but myself. What I like about it is that when you produce value, you earn equity. Equity = money in the long run. I become my own boss and pay myself by creating value. I’m paid fair for my honest work. I hustle everyday, study and train hard; nobody pays me but me. I take the money with skill and am paid almost exactly what I put into the game. I learned the motto “never give up,” it ain’t about who’s the strongest it’s about who lasts the longest. It made the difference that we strong too. Remember never give up.