In This Issue:

• Wealthy Spirit Letter from Chellie
• Article: "Winning Poker Lessons for Life and Business ”
• The Dolphin Club News and Bonus Offers
• Chellie's TV, Radio, Teleclass, and Live Speaking Appearances

Dear Dolphins,

I love winning, don’t you? The sweet smell of success, the cheers of the crowd, the approbation of your peers, great press notices – fame, fortune, and glory! Yes, yes, yes!!

Of course, the price of winning is losing, and ain’t that a bitch? No matter how I try to figure out another way, it does seem that before you get good at something, you first have to be willing to be bad at it while you learn. Malcolm Gladwell, in Outliers, says it takes 10,000 hours or ten years to achieve excellence. I was talking about that with my friend Zeda Speigel who’s with the Trump network and she agreed. “That’s why I never took ballet lessons,”she said. “I just wasn’t willing to be bad at it for as long as it would take to get good at it.”

I understood completely. I certainly was bad at poker in the beginning when I started learning to play. Oh, and those lessons cost me plenty, too! But I found that learning this game taught me many useful skills that I could also apply to my business – patience, how to read people (watch “Lie to Me” on Fox!), to suffer “bad beats” with grace, how to figure risk/reward ratios, that I could have the best odds and still lose, not to chase “sunk costs” and that luck was important but how I played my luck was even more important. I enjoyed the game, took classes, read books, and practiced. I was determined to improve. And I did.

So one recent bright Sunday afternoon in October, I zoomed down the 5 freeway and played in the Queen of Clubs Ladies International Poker Series (LIPS) Poker Tour no-limit hold’em tournament at the Bicycle Club Casino in Bell Gardens. LIPS was founded by the fabulous Lupe Soto – read all about it at www.lipstour.com). My hard-won lessons paid off and I won first place, money, a trophy, and a free entrance to the LIPS Grand Championship in Las Vegas next year. Whoo hooo!
Now of course I want to do it again...

Isn’t it the same way in business? You win an award, get an article published, meet your sales goals, get a standing ovation, get a good review, help another person become a winning player in the Game of Life…and then you just want to repeat it all again because it makes you feel so good.

The World Series of Poker main event comes to a conclusion this week – you can see it on ESPN, so check your local listings. Read the article below, and watch and see how you can apply poker lessons to your life and business. Email me if you would be interested in a class or a book on this topic.

And have fun today in pursuit of happiness!

Love and hugs,
Chellie

Here are the links to find out about Financial Stress Reduction® - Live Workshops, Telecourses, Coaches in your area, daily pages from “The Wealthy Spirit”, all available at www.chellie.com.

The next 8-week Financial Stress Reduction® Telecourses will begin October 5th and 6th helping people make more money and have more time off for fun, too! Small class sizes mean not everyone can participate in the next session. – Fill Out This Form Now!

We have an amazing team of Financial Stress Reduction® Coaches who can help you survive the storms and take advantage of the new opportunities surrounding you right now. Find the next live workshop in your area: Click here http://www.chellie.com/financial-workshops-local.html

Don’t see your city? Become a certified Financial Stress Reduction® Coach yourself! Our next training will be held in the spring of 2010. We’d love to have you join us! For details, click here http://www.chellie.com/financial-certification-program.html

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Winning Poker Lessons for Life and Business

“If you bet on a horse, that’s gambling. If you bet you can make three spades, that’s entertainment. If you bet cotton will go up three points, that’s business. See the difference?”—Blackie Sherrode

People often wonder why I like playing poker so much. “You’re a financial coach and you gamble?” they ask incredulously.

“And what part of life isn’t a gamble?” I retort. “The stock market? Going into business for yourself? Taking a new job? Moving to a new city? Getting married? Getting divorced? You take your life in your hands when you get behind the wheel of a car, jump on an airplane, or just walk across the street.

“You’re playing the odds every day of your life, calculating the risks versus the rewards of any given action. Putting money in a savings account has low risk but also low reward, investing in a new business has a higher risk but a potentially much greater reward.”

Playing poker is a fun game to play, but in addition it has helped me develop many useful skills that have helped me in my business. Do you have a hobby that is fun, teaches you valuable skills, and can make you money too? Here are some business lessons I learned at the poker tables :]

1. Patience. A poker professional once said, “To teach people to play poker, my first lesson would be to tell them to go outside and watch the grass grow for two hours. My second lesson would be for them to go outside and watch the grass grow for four hours.” Sigh. When the cards aren’t falling your way, you can’t make them come. You have to wait for the right cards, right position, or right situation. Trying to make a bad situation work will only get you busted. I once played in a poker tournament for 1 ½ hours without playing a hand, but my patience paid off and I finished in the money. I thought about that when the economy turned south and the public stopped buying…well, just about everything. So you wait it out, knowing the shift will come. It always does.

2. How to read people. You’ve heard about people having a “poker face”? That means they have the same facial expression whether they are happy or sad, strong or weak. Poker players are trying not to show their excitement when they have a strong hand, or to look strong when they are weak. Most people never school their expressions, and everything they think is writ large across their faces. When I talk with someone or teach my classes, I can see on their faces whether or not they agree with me – they smile and nod their heads, or they frown and shake their heads. They roll their eyes when they don’t believe me and they grimace when they hit their issue. When I teach teleclasses and don’t have the visual clues, I’ve been blown away to discover how clearly facial expressions show up in the voice! This skill alone has helped me improve my teaching skills and my ability to help others.

3. How to suffer “bad beats” with grace. If you have an anger management problem, you probably shouldn’t play poker. Some of the “injustices” of poker will have you steaming! In the recent World Series of poker, Joe Cada of Michigan went all in with two deuces, and Antoine Saout of France called with two Queens, far and away the best hand. The odds of Antoine winning were 4 to 1. But when a deuce came on the board, Joe had three of a kind and won the hand, while Antoine lost most of his chips and a few hands later was busted out of the tournament in third place. “That’s poker,” is the common refrain of poker professionals in these situations. Business owners say, “That’s business.” You have to be able to recover from your failures, your misses, your bad luck. Luck happens – both bad and good. Roll with it. Getting angry about it will just make you “go on tilt” and blow all the rest of your money. Because you just really don’t make great decisions when you’re angry.

4. How to figure risk/reward ratios. Poker players with math skills have an advantage in the game. If the pot has $5 in it and somebody bets $20, there’s now $25 in the pot - but you’ll have to pay $20 to win $25. Not a good bet. Even if you have the best starting hand and the best odds, you can still lose, so this is not a great investment of your $20. The guy who bet $20 has given you “bad pot odds” to call. Many players get caught up in the thrill of the game and ignore the odds. Similarly, it always amazes me how many business owners aren’t regularly counting their money and figuring out their profitability on each sector of their business. Poker is a game of making good decisions, and so is business. Use your money wisely, when the odds of success are with you, and the reward is worth the risk.

5. Don’t chase “sunk costs”. Or in other words, “know when to fold ‘em” and “don’t throw good money after bad.” Once you have invested money in a poker hand, you have to figure out if the other player has a better hand than you do. For example, I was in a tournament in Las Vegas and had Ace-King as my starting cards. I raised the pot. A friend of mine playing behind me re-raised and everyone else folded. Now I’m thinking that if she has two Aces or two Kings, she is going to be a 90% favorite in this hand. If she has two Queens or a lower pair, we are in a “race” and the odds are 50-50. I want to test how strong she is before I give up, so I raised her back. She promptly raised again, and I folded my hand. She told me later she had two Aces, so I escaped with a minimum of damage. Had I called “because I had already invested a lot of money” I probably would have busted out of the tournament right there. But a lot of players won’t give up when they think they are beat. In business, it’s the same. If you have a losing business strategy, throwing more money at it isn’t going to help you.

6. Be lucky! “I’d rather be lucky than good” if a famous poker saying. In the Queen of Clubs tournament I won, there was a key hand where I didn’t have the best hand, but I got lucky. Like Joe Cada, I made three-of-a-kind to beat the other person’s bigger pair. In poker and in life, you have to take risks and get lucky. That’s why the average millionaire has filed bankruptcy 3.5 times. No one wins every time. But if you keep studying and improving your game, your odds will improve, and you’ll win more than you lose in the long run. The main thing is to stay within your budget and have fun.

And that is success – in poker, in business, and in life!

Please feel free to copy this article and use it wherever you like. Just include the following “author box” for attribution:

Chellie Campbell is the creator of the Financial Stress Reduction® Workshops, and author of The Wealthy Spirit and Zero to Zillionaire. She has been prominently quoted as a financial expert in the Los Angeles Times, Good Housekeeping, Lifetime, Essence, Woman’s World and more than 50 popular books. She can be reached at Chellie@chellie.com

The Dolphin Club News:

This is one of the best subscription values on the web today! For only $25 per month, you can join with other Dolphin Business Leaders, advertise your products and services, network, and share ideas in our private Forums. Only Dolphin Club members are eligible to receive our Affiliate 20% referral bonuses, and will receive advance notice and discounts on all special events (I’m thinking a Dolphin Club cruise would be terrific. Watch for that!)

Our membership continues to grow, and our web site gets over 100,000 hits per month. If you want to find a wonderful business professional, be sure to check our listings on the home page at www.chellie.com.

In 2010, the Dolphin Club will be an exclusive club for graduates of the Financial Stress Reduction® Workshops only. Of course, anyone who is currently a member will be grandfathered in, so join today!

Would you like to donate a bonus gift to the Dolphin Club members and be advertised in this space? Contact Chellie@chellie.com about your downloadable bonus gift for the Dolphin Club and you may be our next spotlighted business!

Chellie Live in Ontario, CA January 22-23:

Chellie has been invited by Lisa Marie Platske to be a keynote speaker for the January 2010 Leadership Success Summit at the Ontario Convention Center, 2000 Convention Center Way, Ontario, CA 91720. For information and registration, visit www.upsidethinking.com or contact Sheri@UpsideThinking.com.

Print, Radio, Internet, and Teleclasses:

CHELLIE’S UPCOMING APPEARANCES:

Chellie on Own It, Sister Radio show with Whitney Wogan on Monday, December 14th at 1:00 pm (PT). The purpose of Own it Sister is to help women embrace their worth, embody their wisdom and claim their wealth while being supported by the power of a dynamic Sisterhood. We will be talking about the body, mind, and spirit of a woman’s relationship with money. Listen live in Seattle on KWRM 106.9 FM or on the web at www.ownitsister.com/radio/.

Print: Chellie’s article “Selling is Serving” was featured in the June “How to Make More Money in Your Coaching Business” issue of Choice, the magazine of professional coaching.

Print: Partners Federal Credit Union featured Chellie in their cover article “Walking the Talk: Chellie Campbell shares her amazing financial turnaround” in the Fall issue of Partners Magazine. Click here to read the PDF online: http://viewer.zmags.com/showmag.php?mid=wqffgw&pageid=8#/page8/

Podcast: Chellie Interviewed by John Assaraf, author of The Answer and featured teacher in The Secret – audio now posted at ww.chellie.com under “Press Room”. John and I had a great conversation about money, business, and success – at the end of it, he said, “You're a breath of fresh air! I love your attitude and the wisdom you've imparted around the world."

Author, Speaker
Chellie Campbell

The next Financial Stress Reduction® Workshop Telecourses are beginning soon:  

8 Monday Evenings
5:00 – 7:00 p.m. (Pacific Time)
• Feb 1 – March 22, 2009

8 Tuesday Afternoons
12:00 -2:00 p.m. (Pacific Time)
• Feb 2 – March 23, 2009

 A LITTLE ABOUT CHELLIE . . .

Chellie Campbell is the creator of the popular Financial Stress Reduction® Workshops, and the author of The Wealthy Spirit and Zero to Zillionaire, both published by Sourcebooks, Inc. She is one of Marci Shimoff's “Happy 100” and I of 18 who wrote a story for Marci’s current NYT bestseller Happy for No Reason. Chellie contributed stories to Jack Canfield’s recent books You’ve Got to Read This Book! and Life Lessons from Chicken Soup for the Soul , and is featured in How to Run Your Business Like a Girl by Elizabeth Cogswell Baskin and Money, A Memoir: Women, Emotions, and Cash by Liz Perle. She is prominently quoted as a financial expert in The Los Angeles Times, Pink, Good Housekeeping, Lifetime, Essence, Woman’s World and more than 40 popular books. For more information, visit her web site www.Chellie.com or email her at Chellie@Chellie.com.

CONTACT CHELLIE!
Chellie can be reached at chellie@chellie.com or call 310-476-1622.
Chellie Campbell
Campbell Consulting Company
409 Bonhill Road, Los Angeles, CA 90049
Author, "The Wealthy Spirit" (Sourcebooks, 2002)
and "Zero to Zillionaire" (Sourcebooks, 2006)
Financial Stress Reduction® Workshops
www.chellie.com
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