Everyone has someone they look up to that inspires them in one way or another. I mean for me, my overall inspirations in life come from my parents who I truly look up to, but then you also have people with whom you don't know exactly, but would like to follow in their footsteps in one way or another. Some look up to musicians. Some look up to athletes. Some look up to actors or actresses. For me, since I consider myself a poker player, (part-time for now), and also a huge fan of the game itself, I happen to look up to some professional poker players that inspire and motivate me to keep pushing on. I joined Run It Once because I'm a huge fan of Galfond, and if he has something to do with a website, I'm gonna follow along because I look up to him. He's very knowledgeable about the game, he has ton's of experience, he was brought up during the poker boom and made a positive name for himself in the poker community. He's a winning player. Now it seems like he's taking good care of himself by losing weight due to exercise and eating healthier, which is inspiring to me, and I'm guessing others, because I need to do the same. There's others too who I look up to in the poker world such as Dusty Schmidt, who wrote a fantastic poker book in my opinion with, "Treat Your Poker Like A Business". I look up to Jason Koon. Besides being a great poker player, he's dedicated to leading a healthy lifestyle and I admire that completely. Ivey is in there for me as well. He just lives that baller lifestyle that we all wanna grasp but deep down we kinda all know it's probably not going to happen, but for sure it's a motivator. 

The cool thing about these people and I'm guessing others as well is that they don't mind reaching out to the public, their fans if you will, and communicating with them. Whether it's a follow from them to you on Twitter, a message on Facebook or a poker forum, or even a Like on a picture of yours on Instagram, they don't mind doing it. For example, today I got a message from Dusty Schmidt on Facebook telling me that I pretty much made his day by complementing his book and by saying it's one of the best ones out there. I mean, for him take the time out of his day to write that to me, and even accept my Facebook friend request that I sent him, is cool. Galfond has retweeted some of my tweets, and Koon has favorited some of mine, it's flattering in a way.

I guess where I'm getting at is, with poker, anybody can be a star. Their almost no different from you or me, besides their earnings obviously. If you choose to put in the hard work, dedication, the time, taking the bad beats, taking your licks so to speak, lose amounts of money, win amounts of money, lose for lengthy time periods only to come back stronger and more confident the next session, and most of all, to not give up, it is a lot different than rather trying to become a professional athlete, a high earning musician, or a Hollywood film star. I don't know. It seems like we all can relate to the poker pro just a little bit better for some reason. Maybe Moneymaker gave me that thought, I'm not sure, but there is that chance, almost like the lottery, you can land that big score and change your life completely, and that's the beauty of it. 

Poker can make or break people, but it always gives that person the thought, "Hey, maybe that could be me one day." Maybe it can be.