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
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💻 Website
📸 Instagram
🐦 Twitter
👥 Linkedin

📚Check out my New York Times Bestselling book Feel-Good Productivity!
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📚 RESOURCES MENTIONED

Forcing Function Performance Assessment - https://www.forcingfunction.com/assessment
Peak Performance Workbook (free download) - http://www.experimentwithoutlimits.com
Forcing Function Hour Podcast - http://www.forcingfunctionhour.com
Group Coaching Program (Cohort 4 launches Sept) - https://www.teamperformancetraining.com
Forcing Function Performance Library - https://www.forcingfunction.com/library
Deep Dive with Noah Kagan - https://youtu.be/B4rVZW1YJB0
Deep Dive with Grace Beverley - https://youtu.be/7_hNRR6K6z4

Find the show notes and the transcript on the website: https://aliabdaal.com/podcast/

World Poker Champion On The Science Of Decision Making - Chris Sparks

Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal