A couple weeks ago, I sat down at a poker table in the World Series of Poker “Millionaire Maker” tournament in Las Vegas.
The energy was insane.
Imagine a room packed wall-to-wall with people from every walk of life — millionaires, retirees, accountants, construction workers, Wall Street guys, engineers, Uber drivers. All at the same tables. All laser-focused. All convinced this might be their year.
There were 11,996 entrants. Only 1,800 got paid. The rest walked away with nothing.
I made it to Day 3. Finished 311th. Won $7,730 minus the $1,500 buy-in.
That’s $6,230 over 27 hours of live play. Roughly $231 an hour.
Not bad, right? Most would call that a success.
But still… I’m not sure I’d do it again.
Because I couldn’t stop thinking about something else.
The Math That Doesn’t Add Up
When you step back and look at it, 12,000 people showed up and collectively dropped $18 million on a dream.
Only a fraction of them won anything. The rest walked away with empty pockets and “maybe next year” on repeat.
And that’s the design of poker. It’s a zero-sum game. For someone to win big, most people have to lose.
But what if it wasn’t that way?
What if 12,000 people brought that same money, energy, focus, and intelligence — and put it toward something that created value instead of just transferring it?
Imagine if the goal wasn’t to win at someone else’s expense, but to build something that made everyone richer, in ways that actually mattered.
You Don’t Have to Win for Someone Else to Lose
Poker makes the zero-sum game obvious. But this limiting mindset shows up everywhere.
Business leaders hoarding secrets instead of building partnerships.
Families playing status games while missing actual connection.
Investors chasing short-term wins, hoping to “beat” the market, instead of aligning their money with their values.
Even the way we talk about success sounds like a scoreboard.
We forget that in real life, the biggest wins aren’t zero-sum.
When you build WELLth, the kind of wealth that includes energy, alignment, purpose, and peace, it doesn’t take anything from anyone else.
It actually invites others to do the same.
The Most Underrated Currency
After I busted out, I walked around the room and watched the other tables.
Tired eyes. Tense jaws. People down five figures still locked in.
The energy in the room wasn’t victory. It was survival. Grasping. Scarcity.
And that’s when it hit me.
Energy is the most underrated currency in your life.
Because you can have all the strategy, skill, and money in the world, but if you don’t have the energy to play the long game, you’ll keep looking for short ones.
That’s what I walked away with.
Not a bracelet. Not a trophy. Just a burning question:
What If This Energy Built Something Bigger?
I saw the talent at those tables and wondered…
What if we took that same $18 million and directed it toward something that generated asymmetric wins for everyone?
What if we harnessed this level of commitment, concentration, and strategy…
And pointed it at something more transformational than “survive the blinds and hope for a heater”?
What if 12,000 people decided to build something together, instead of just hoping to outlast each other?
That’s the part that stuck with me.
All this power. All this drive. All this human capital.
Pointed at a zero-sum outcome.
The Freedom to Choose a Better Game
One of my friends and mentors, Garrett Gunderson, said something years ago that still rattles around in my head:
“When you chase money without alignment, even winning can feel like losing.”
He was right.
Because despite my finish, and that hourly rate that looks pretty solid on paper, I drove home feeling off.
Not because I lost. But because I wasn’t building anything. I wasn’t creating freedom. I was just chasing a payout.
And that’s not what I want my life or my work to be about.
From Transactional to Transformational
This is what I mean when I talk about NeuroFinancial Alignment™.
It’s not about budgets and spreadsheets. It’s about direction and design.
Most people live transactionally, chasing the next hit, the next deal, the next milestone.
But transformational wealth comes from a different place. It comes from aligning your decisions with your values. From investing your energy, not just your money. From choosing to play a game where winning doesn’t come at someone else’s expense — and where even when you “lose,” you still grow.
Poker taught me a lot. I respect the game.
But I’m more interested in games where everyone walks away with more than they brought in.
Clarity. Purpose. Ownership. WELLth.
Because if 12,000 people can pool their resources to chase a dream over a felt table in Vegas, imagine what we could build if we aligned that energy with something that actually mattered.
Where’s your shift?
Your biggest wins won’t come from outsmarting the table. They’ll come from shifting the game entirely.
From zero-sum to collective value. From extraction to creation. From survival to alignment.
That’s the kind of WELLth I want to help people build.
And if you missed it — this mindset shift is exactly what we unpack with NFA.
It’s not just about money. It’s about designing a life that actually feels good to live.
– Pete
