Every year the World Series of Poker is held in Las Vegas – the world championship of the game. It’s a game with, seemingly, a large element of chance attached. The players can, after all, only play with the cards they’re given.

In the long term, the law of averages dictates that luck will be pretty evenly distributed amongst the players. You would therefore expect that the outcome of tournaments to fluctuate widely depending on the varying fortunes of those taking part. That’s not what happens. Although results do vary, the same good players perform consistently well, irrespective of the cards they’re dealt. And it’s the same in life.

It’s all too easy to complain about the cards you’ve been dealt and use that as an excuse for failure. The top players accept the cards they’re given – there’s nothing you can do about that –and then work out how best to use them to get the results they’re after. Even when people are dealt great cards, it’s all too easy to waste them.

At the risk of boring anyone not interested in football, it does provide us with an excellent example, showing why the ‘cards’ you’re dealt in life are less important than how they are used.

There can be few footballers dealt a better hand than George Best. Most experts agree that he was one of the most naturally gifted players of all time. And yet by the age of 26, when he should have been at his best, he virtually disappeared from the game, as did his opportunity to become the richest and most successful player of his generation. Few have achieved so little with so much.

At the same time as Best was ending his career, Kevin Keegan was just starting his. He was too small, too thin, and by his own admission, lacked great natural footballing ability. It would have been all too easy for him to give in to the hand he’d been dealt and accept that he would never be a top player because he didn’t have Best’s ability. But through hard work and determination he rose to become captain of his country and to win practically every honour in the game, making a not inconsiderable fortune for himself in the process.

Hard work and determination are not the only ways to overcome a terrible hand. For the moment, I’m going to stick with my football analogy…

A player who few would place in the ‘gifted’ category is Vinnie Jones. In fact, few would place him in their pub first team if footballing skill were the sole criteria! And yet he consistently played in the top division, represented his country and made a lot of money in the process. There are literally thousands of ‘Vinnie Joneses’ out there, but few get to play professionally at all. Certainly hard work and determination played a part, but so did a commitment to playing the game on his own terms.

If Jones had tried to play the game like George Best, he wouldn’t have lasted five minutes. What he had to do was establish his strengths and play to them. He concentrated on what he could do, not what he couldn’t. Occasionally that may have meant bending some of the rules, but that’s what ordinary players have to do sometimes to stay in the game.

Jones was to prove that what he achieved in football was no fluke. He later used the same flare for playing his hand to the maximum in a completely separate field – one to which he would seem equally illsuited. ‘Vinnie Jones the footballer’ became ‘Vinnie Jones the Hollywood film star’. Just as he didn’t try to emulate Best on the football field, he didn’t try to emulate Sir John Gielgud, Sir Ian McKellen or even Tom Cruise on screen. But he did play the hand he had been dealt to great effect.

It doesn’t take a massive leap of logic to see that there’s a message here for anyone aiming for a business or personal goal. You may not have been dealt the hand of a George Best, or a Lionel Messi but that is no barrier to success. Learn to play your hand well, and you can usually beat most of those dealt a better one.

The key to success is accepting your hand (you won’t get another one!) and adapting to it where necessary. Certainly it may involve hard work, and you may have to make the rules work for you, rather than the other way round. But the end result when you achieve it will be all the more rewarding.

Kind Regards

John Harrison  

PUBLISHERS NOTICE  

 Hello,

You have been hand-picked to receive this letter for a special reason. You’ll find out exactly why you were chosen when you take a look at the on line link below.

Here’s what it’s all about……

A few months ago, we sent a guy called Graham Carter, what he called a ‘crummy disc’ (the cheek of it!) in a plain brown envelope. On the disc were the words ‘Project X’, hand-written in red felt tip.

Why did we send it to him?

Because he was broke and we wanted him to try something out. We needed someone who was down on his luck…someone with none of the advantages which a lot of people set out with on a new project. Someone whose position was pretty hopeless really. Here’s what we figured…

     If Graham could make this work, anyone could. 

For the full story visit: 

http://www.streetwisenews.com/carter/

Very Best Wishes,

John Harrison    

  PS.  This could turn the way you live (and make a living) on its head. If 
         you’re looking for more freedom, more money and to have your
         computer doing all the hard work for you while you get on with your
         day, you really should get on this right away.

  PPS  I’m only looking for five people to come in on this today. There will
          be other opportunities later, but just five today. We’re not going to
          rush this. It’s special.

         Visit:

 www.streetwisenews.com/carter

 This comes with a full 90 day test drive money back guarantee. Take a look today.

I have a friend who’s mad about cars, but he never keeps one for longer than about six months. And what’s more, when he buys his cars, he knows he won’t be keeping them for a long time. So he doesn’t really look after them.

Servicing doesn’t get done, cleaning is never more than a quick run through the car wash, and he isn’t averse to giving them a fair amount of ‘stick’. You see he knows that any ill effects from this rough treatment will be someone else’s problem, because he’ll just trade in – and move on.

I have another friend who isn’t crazy about work, but he does tend to keep his jobs for about the same length of time as my first friend keeps his cars. Not that he gets the sack; it’s just that he gets bored very quickly. He knows from the very first day on a job that his stay will be short lived, and because he knows that, his commitment is less than 100%.

He does just enough to get by. Corners are cut, liberties are taken and he never goes that extra inch (let alone that extra mile) to impress the people he’s working for to progress in the organisation. He knows that long before the chickens come home to roost, he’ll have resigned and moved on.

These friends are cavalier with their car and their job because they know they have an escape route – an easy way to avoid the nasty consequences of their actions. What happens in the long run in these specific situations doesn’t really matter to them.

Now you might not like what they do… and you certainly won’t if you’re the next poor person to step into that particular car or job… but you have to admit that there’s a certain logic to it.

The trade-in and resignation offer a pre-planned escape… one that makes doing ‘the right thing’, a matter of choice rather than necessity. But how do you explain the behaviour of people who live their whole life the same way… as if they will soon be able to resign from it, or trade it in for a new one?

You see the hard truth is that you can’t resign from yourself – nor can you trade yourself in. You have no choice but to persevere with what you’ve got and work with it. You’re stuck with you!

In automotive terms, you are the only car you’re ever going to have. In career terms you’re the only employer you’ll ever work for. There are no ‘dealers’ where you can trade in your life, when your personal neglect gets the outcome it deserves.

And as far as I know, there’s only one guaranteed resignation option in life, but it’s not one that results in you finding another position. (Not above ground at least!) This is so fundamentally important, it underpins and supports just about everything you do in life.

Imagine you have a company, and you are allowed just one employee. Not only is he your only employee – he’s also the only employee you can ever have. You can’t replace him and he can’t leave. The success or failure of your entire enterprise rests with him. So how are you going to treat him?

Are you going to let him vegetate on a sofa eating junk food and smoking Player’s Full Strength while watching Sky Sports – or are you going to encourage him in the direction of healthy eating, cleaner living and regular exercise? Are you going to leave him to pick up the job by trial and error, or are you going to invest in the best possible training so that he can operate at the absolute limits of his ability?

Are you going to leave him to his own devices, or are you going to continually monitor and analyse his performance – identifying any weaknesses and taking steps to put them right?

Are you going to assume that once he’s been trained, you can forget about him, or are you going to take the view that the world is in a continual state of change and he needs to be regularly updated and trained on new ideas and developments?

If he becomes unhappy or dissatisfied, are you going to conclude that there’s nothing you can do about it, or are you going to take the time to ‘nail down’ the problem, and come up with a solution for him?

Think very carefully before you answer, because you are that employee and the enterprise is your life. When you look at it like that, wouldn’t it be astounding if you didn’t invest the maximum time, money and effort in developing and maintaining yourself so that you are the best you can possibly be?

Kind Regards

John Harrison  

PUBLISHERS NOTICE  

 Hello,

You have been hand-picked to receive this letter for a special reason. You’ll find out exactly why you were chosen when you take a look at the on line link below.

Here’s what it’s all about……

A few months ago, we sent a guy called Graham Carter, what he called a ‘crummy disc’ (the cheek of it!) in a plain brown envelope. On the disc were the words ‘Project X’, hand-written in red felt tip.

Why did we send it to him?

Because he was broke and we wanted him to try something out. We needed someone who was down on his luck…someone with none of the advantages which a lot of people set out with on a new project. Someone whose position was pretty hopeless really. Here’s what we figured…

     If Graham could make this work, anyone could. 

For the full story visit: 

http://www.streetwisenews.com/carter/

Very Best Wishes,

John Harrison    

  PS.  This could turn the way you live (and make a living) on its head. If 
         you’re looking for more freedom, more money and to have your
         computer doing all the hard work for you while you get on with your
         day, you really should get on this right away.

  PPS  I’m only looking for five people to come in on this today. There will
          be other opportunities later, but just five today. We’re not going to
          rush this. It’s special.

         Visit:

 www.streetwisenews.com/carter

 This comes with a full 90 day test drive money back guarantee. Take a look today.

Here’s something you need to accept and work with, very quickly. We first hear kids in the playground complaining that “it’s not fair”, and, if it goes unchecked, they’re still saying the same thing when they’re drawing their pension. It’s pointless and self-defeating. 

Life isn’t fair. Nobody ever said that it was. People are born with differing natural attributes and some of these attributes have an impact on what we see as fairness. Sometimes, people will be given favourable treatment because of these attributes, which isn’t warranted. Good looking people, for example, are often favoured in situations where looks don’t really matter.

Quiet, thoughtful and sensible people are often passed over in favour of the charismatic, dogmatic and wayward. The kind and virtuous often receive no reward, while calculation and deceit goes unpunished. The talented, hard-working and able often lose out to those with the ‘right connections’. Fairness just doesn’t come into any of it.

Why is this important? Because many go through life waiting for things to become fair and recoiling from situations where they are not. If you do this, you will become severely disenchanted and miss out on a lot of opportunities. Life will never be fair. If you’re on the positive side of unfairness, don’t feel guilty. Capitalise on it.

If you’re on the negative side, don’t moan or give up. Recognise what’s happening and take action. Unfairness can usually be overcome by effort and application. Those who are unfairly favoured have a tendency towards complacency that makes them easier to prevail over than you might think.

Kind Regards

John Harrison  

PUBLISHERS NOTICE  

URGENT – Partners Wanted!    

Hello,  

Over the last few weeks, I’ve putting the finishing touches to a unique opportunity, the like of which we’ve never been able to offer before. It’s the opportunity for a small number of customers to partner with Streetwise Publications and take the helm of a micro-business we’ve created which has already pulled in £1,642,742 as I write this.  

Well now it’s ready, and you are one of the very first people I’m alerting to this today.  

You can find full details online here:

www.streetwisepartners.co.uk 

The recent Coronavirus lockdown and an announcement at the last budget which went unnoticed by most people, has turbocharged what was already a highly profitable business. What happened in lockdown and a loophole created by the budget announcement are real game changers. It’s an unprecedented opportunity.   

Who is this perfect for? Anyone who wants to make a great deal of moneyworking in their spare time from home and has access to a PC or laptop.  

Anyway, take a look now. As you’ll see, places on this are very limited (for obvious reasons) so don’t delay taking a look. 

    Very Best Wishes,

John Harrison    

PS When you join us in this, we will be on hand to provide full back up and support to ensure you succeed.

When you’re young it’s very easy to bemoan your lack of experience and resources, but you currently sit on some huge untapped resources that older people can’t hope to match.

Here’s a little test for you…

Name a song written by Paul McCartney. Too easy? Okay, how about a song written by Barry Manilow. I’m not really testing you am I? Here’s the last one – name a song written by Elton John.

Anyone with an average interest in popular music would fairly easily be able to name at least one song by each songwriter, and in most cases, be able to name quite a few. But now I’m going to make that question a bit harder by adding five words – so hard in fact, that I suspect that not one in a 100 people could answer it. Here are those five extra words… “In the last ten years.”

You see, each of those songwriters is still actively writing songs, and yet their ‘best’ work – the work for which they will be remembered long after they are dead – was condensed into a short ‘hot’ period early in their career. Despite being older and (in theory) more experienced, their later work somehow hasn’t carried the same resonance as that which they created in the early days.

Now I haven’t picked these songwriters out because they are exceptions. Choose any popular songwriter from the last 40 years and you’ll find the same thing – a comparatively short ‘hot’ period early in their careers followed by an awful lot of plodding… Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Billy Joel – all the same. As I write this, Ed Sheeran is going through a similar ‘hot’ period. So what’s going on?

Everyone has an untapped source of creativity lurking just below the surface. It’s a hidden store of wonderful ideas and inspiration that lies there, waiting to be released. The scale of this untapped source will vary from person to person of course, (we don’t all have a McCartney-sized well of musical ideas in there for example) but what we have, isn’t unlimited. Once the creative flow has started, ideas flood out very quickly, but eventually the flow will diminish, as will the quality of those ideas. In the case of songwriters, they come to rely on perspiration rather than inspiration after that – on what they know and have learned, rather than what flows from within. But it’s never the same.

It appears that a similar process takes place, no matter what the purpose of your creativity – whether that is art, literature, music or something more mundane like a business or career progression. When you embark on a business or money-making venture for the first time for example, the ideas for products, advertising and promotions you come up with in the early days will be amongst the most creative you ever have, because they will come from within. They will be the equivalent of McCartney’s Yesterday – not one of the countless pop songs he’s penned in the last 25 years or so.

And that’s why, contrary to what you might think, you start with a massive advantage over the established players in any field requiring creativity – an advantage that helps counteract some of the experiences and advantages which older people have. Your well of ideas is both untapped and full.

This will be a golden period for you, and the really good news is that you have total exclusivity over it. Your combination of skills, experience, ability, personality and innate talent is unique. And the ideas and inspirations that spring from that combination will be unique too.

Kind Regards

John Harrison  

PUBLISHERS NOTICE  

URGENT – Partners Wanted!    

Hello,  

Over the last few weeks, I’ve putting the finishing touches to a unique opportunity, the like of which we’ve never been able to offer before. It’s the opportunity for a small number of customers to partner with Streetwise Publications and take the helm of a micro-business we’ve created which has already pulled in £1,642,742 as I write this.  

Well now it’s ready, and you are one of the very first people I’m alerting to this today.  

You can find full details online here:

www.streetwisepartners.co.uk 

The recent Coronavirus lockdown and an announcement at the last budget which went unnoticed by most people, has turbocharged what was already a highly profitable business. What happened in lockdown and a loophole created by the budget announcement are real game changers. It’s an unprecedented opportunity.   

Who is this perfect for? Anyone who wants to make a great deal of moneyworking in their spare time from home and has access to a PC or laptop.  

Anyway, take a look now. As you’ll see, places on this are very limited (for obvious reasons) so don’t delay taking a look. 

    Very Best Wishes,

John Harrison    

PS When you join us in this, we will be on hand to provide full back up and support to ensure you succeed.

When my daughter was eight she moved from one primary school to another. The new place was completely different. Educational standards were much higher and structure and discipline were right at the top of the list of priorities. Everybody was expected to dress and behave correctly and treat each other with respect. I’d have hated it, but she absolutely loved the place.

A few days after starting she came in from school, excited about the afternoon they’d just spent preparing and practising for sports day the following week. “It’s so much better than at the other place,” she said, “It’s a lot stricter… there’s no thumbs on eggs!”

I wasn’t sure whether this was a good or bad thing because I know one thing for sure – out in the real world, she’s almost certain to come up against people with thumbs planted firmly on eggs. It doesn’t matter what she wants to do, she’ll inevitably come up against people who are bending or breaking the rules in order to win. And that’s the same for you. So how should you react?

Well the universal default solution seems to be to whine and whinge about the injustice and unfairness of it. This is usually accompanied by feelings of anger and stress. So you’ll moan and groan and let off a few expletives. You’ll use the word unfair a lot. But does that do any good? Of course it doesn’t, and it can only have a damaging effect on your health if you allow yourself to be affected like that. So what CAN you do?

Well you could complain to the ‘referee’. Depending on the field you’re operating in, and the seriousness of the thumb-on-egg transgression, that referee could be the police, a court, a trade association, a regulatory body, an ombudsman or some other higher authority. There may be times when that’s a sensible course of action, but most of the time, it won’t be.

Why? Because it will be time-consuming, expensive and will divert you from your primary goals. When you’re eight years old and at school, telling the teacher is a viable solution. It’s quick, cost-free and usually effective. In the real world, it’s slow, expensive and the outcome is uncertain. Over the years, I’ve had cause to appeal to the ‘referee’ on a number of occasions, and although I’ve almost always won, it’s rarely felt like it.

So is there an alternative? Actually there are three…

You can stick your own thumb on the egg. Pretty simple this one. If you can’t beat ’em, you decide to join ’em. There are, however, two key considerations here – your moral position and the possible consequences of sliding your thumb over that egg. If your moral position is such that any egg holding is completely out of the question, then the consequences are largely irrelevant. This option just isn’t for you. You have to live with yourself and you have to sleep soundly at night.

But if you find yourself wavering a little, you need to assess the possible consequences, the potential rewards, and whether one justifies the other. It’s impossible to generalise here because in one situation you may be risking jail for a few hundred pounds and in another you may be risking a mild rebuke from a trade association for a million. In reality, your situation will fall somewhere between the two, and the course of action you choose will be a very personal decision.

Your second option is to just accept it. So you find out as much as you can about the way these people work, counteract it where you can, and don’t worry about the places where you can’t. You work within your own moral code and framework at all times, and don’t concern yourself with people who operate within a different framework. If you want to continue in your field, and aren’t comfortable stretching the boundaries, then this is the only sensible long-term option. The main shift you need to make is a psychological one, and I can’t pretend it’s easy. Simple – yes. Easy – no. Because like a drug-free athlete in the Olympic Games, you have to accept that the price of your stance is that you’re not going to win, and lesser performers will beat you.

Your final option is to get out of the race altogether. You’re in a race. Your competitors are cheating. You don’t like it. You may decide to go and compete in another race where the competitors aren’t so nasty. Now this may be an option if you happen to have found yourself in the dirtiest race in town, but you need to be sure of that first. The harsh truth is that you may find yourself jumping from the frying pan into the fire. As any hardened eight-year-old egg-and-spoon race contestant will tell you, you often can’t see the thumbs on eggs until you’re in the race and running alongside.

I can’t and won’t tell you what you should do. All I can do is to alert you to the undeniable fact that whatever race you get involved in in life, a number of your competitors will be keeping their egg in place with something other than skill and ability. I’m not going to say you should bend the rules; call in the referee; just accept it or get out of the game altogether. But I am going to tell you not to whinge and whine about how unfair it all is, because it won’t change a damned thing. Nobody ever said it was fair. The only question is what are you going to do about it?

There’s one more solution I haven’t told you about yet. You see, not all egg-and-spoon-race cheats are as obvious as to put their thumbs on their eggs. The really canny ones are a little cleverer than that and use a small piece of Blu Tack to attach the egg to the spoon. It’s almost as effective, but totally undetectable to either the referee or fellow competitors – even when they’re running alongside.

If I were looking to secure an unfair advantage, I’d choose the Blu Tack on the spoon every time. I’ll leave you to ponder where the Blu Tack opportunities might be in your life.

Kind Regards

John Harrison  

PUBLISHERS NOTICE  

Just In…  

Hello,

We have just received the email below from one of our customers. I thought you might be interested in what he has to say…

From: John C******* [john********@*****.com]  
Sent: 09 August 2020 09:58
To: Admin
Subject: “The Hermes Strategy “

Dear Bill, 

Well that was a result —- I certainly wasn’t expecting the system to pay for itself in 2 days with 66/1 shot Star of Emaraaty! I have backed 66/1 shots before, but I don’t think I would have picked this one!

Once again ——Thank You Very Much.

Kind Regards,

John

If you’d like full details on what he is talking about please Click Here 

 All The best 

John