Chris Sparks is a retired professional poker player, recently ranked in the top 20 online cash game players in the world. He’s also the Founder of Forcing Function where he teaches elite poker frameworks to a select group of twelve investors and executives in meaningful companies, and the author of Experiment Without Limits, a comprehensive workbook for achieving peak performance and leads workshops on decision-making, systems thinking, and performance architecture to organisations and investment teams. In the conversation we talk about what we can learn from the world of poker around high performance and how systems thinking and decision making is crucial for success. Enjoy!(00:00) Intro (02:17) Being a professional poker player(06:00) The 'Red Queen' Effect(08:18) The psychological advantage and self-deception(13:04) Online vs real life poker(20:16) Relativistic skills(25:24) Having a mindset of abundance (32:27) Applying lessons from poker to your life(50:15) Understanding other peoples' problems better than our own(54:21) Experiment Without Limits (01:02:14) The power of objectivity (01:18:25) Perfectionistic tendencies(01:25:00) Deciding your priorities (01:28:22) Being a performance coach (01:42:31) Realising everything is a choice (01:47:40) The status quo bias and forcing functions(01:58:27) Chris' Free Performance Assessment 🔗 CONNECT WITH CHRIS  💻 Website 🎙Forcing Function Hour Podcast 🐦 Twitter 📸 Instagram🔗 CONNECT WITH ALI💌  Sign up to my weekly email newsletter🎥 YouTube Channel💻 Website📸  Instagram🐦  Twitter👥 Linkedin📚Check out my New York Times Bestselling book Feel-Good Productivity!Amazon Website 📚 RESOURCES MENTIONEDForcing Function Performance Assessment - https://www.forcingfunction.com/assessmentPeak Performance Workbook (free download) - http://www.experimentwithoutlimits.comForcing Function Hour Podcast - http://www.forcingfunctionhour.comGroup Coaching Program (Cohort 4 launches Sept) - https://www.teamperformancetraining.comForcing Function Performance Library - https://www.forcingfunction.com/libraryDeep Dive with Noah Kagan - https://youtu.be/B4rVZW1YJB0Deep Dive with Grace Beverley - https://youtu.be/7_hNRR6K6z4Find the show notes and the transcript on the website: https://aliabdaal.com/podcast/Sponsored by ShortformThis episode is kindly brought to you by Shortform, the world's best provider of guides for non-fiction books. Shortform gives you comprehensive coverage of thousands of books, the key ideas, clearly and simply explained, plus smart commentary and analysis. It’s like your smartest friend teaching you about a book. Go to https://shortform.com/deepdive to get 20% off the annual premium subscription.Sponsored by ShopifyThis episode is kindly brought to you by Shopify. Shopify offers an easy to use, all-in-one commerce platform for anyone -regardless of technical ability and experience - to start, grow, and manage a business. Shopify lets you sell online, in-person and on all major social platforms and it’s what I’m using to sell my essentali stationary as well as upcoming digital and physical products. To give Shopify a try, go to https://shopify.com/aliabdaal.Leave a reviewIf you enjoy listening to the podcast, please do leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts - even one line helps! You can also Tweet @AliAbdaal with any feedback, thoughts from the lessons you've learnt from the episodes and we can thank you personally for tuning in 🙏Want to start your own podcast? We use Transistor! https://go.aliabdaal.com/transistorCheck out the episode on the Deep Dive YouTube Channel.See privacy policy at https://transistor.fm/privacy

Chris Sparks is the former #4 online poker player on the planet, a productivity coach and an investor.Having a high performance mindset is something everyone wants. Being able to achieve without stress or anxiety, maximising output whilst minimising suffering. As someone who coaches both himself and some of the world's brightest on getting more out of their game, Chris has learned a lot about balancing growth, goals and internal peace.Expect to learn what it feels like to play in an invite-only Bitcoin Poker Tournament, how Chris evens out his hard-charging nature to become more at ease, whether the outcomes you get in life are impacted by how neurotic you are, my theory around the Anxiety Cost of delayed actions, how to balance intuition with cognition and much more...Sponsors:Join the Modern Wisdom Community to connect with me & other listeners - https://modernwisdom.locals.com/Get 83% discount & 3 months free from Surfshark VPN at https://surfshark.deals/MODERNWISDOM (use code MODERNWISDOM)Get perfect teeth 70% cheaper than other invisible aligners from DW Aligners at http://dwaligners.co.uk/modernwisdomExtra Stuff:Check out Chris' website - https://www.forcingfunction.com/Follow Chris on Twitter - https://twitter.com/SparksRemarks Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom-Get in touch.Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillxTwitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillxYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcastEmail: https://chriswillx.com/contact/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chris Sparks, professional poker player and host of the Forcing Function Hour Podcast, shares valuable lessons on negotiation, collaboration, leadership, and development of intuition. He discusses reducing uncertainty through information gathering and experimentation. Embracing emotions and personal narratives can contribute to success. The connection between poker and productivity is explored, including the importance of probabilistic thinking and creating conditions for success. The chapter also delves into decision making with limited information and learning from failure.

Chris Sparks, founder of The Forcing Function and a Former Top 20 Worldwide Online Poker Player, discusses effective goal setting, building better habits, maximizing time, attention & energy, avoiding procrastination, accelerating learning, and the value of reading fiction in this episode.

Chris Sparks, a Productivity Coach and Former Top 20 Online Poker Player, shares his process for conducting an end-of-year review and setting goals for the new year. They discuss reflecting on personal achievements, the importance of being anti fragile, changing context to optimize effectiveness, creating a vision for the future, improving relationships, applying marketing principles to life, and the reflective nature of the end of the year.