About Jared Alderman
A Story of Three Failures
Where It Started
United States Memory Championship
My life in the realm of performance has been marked by failure.
I learned many hard lessons throughout trying and failing to do a myriad of things.
I’m hoping I went through this so you don’t have to.
The first was my experience the 2012 USA Memory Championship.
I had been training for 9 months straight, almost 8 hours a day every day.
I could beat all the records in practice.
I knew in theory I was the strongest competitor there.
Performing when it mattered was a different story.
When I sat down amongst all my fellow competitors that day in New York I knew before I even got started. I wasn’t going to win this.
That was the problem. I knew I wasn’t going to. I didn’t believe I deserved to. I was winning this to feel deserving. Not because I thought winning was the natural path for my abilities. But to prove something.
But when push came to shove, I thought I was a failure. So I failed.
Failing to Become a
Navy Seal
When I couldn’t perform at one thing, I just moved on to the next.
This time I chose the most extreme thing I could.
Getting through BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL Training), and becoming a Navy Seal.
Surely if I could get through this I would believe I was worth something. Believe I was good enough. Not knowing that as long as I was using my performance at things to prove something to myself, it meant I didn’t really believe in myself. That my starting point was the same.
I went much further with this for much longer than anything else I had done up that point in my life.
3 years of training and working to get selected for the contract to go to BUD/S.
Then 2 months of boot camp.
2 months of a Prepartory school.
1 month of Basic Orientation to BUD/S.
3 weeks of BUD/S lead to biggest test of BUD/S. Hell Week.
5 and a half days, no sleep, no rest.
Each step of the way being propelled by self loathing.
Each step being sure the next would complete me.
In Hell Week, it wasn’t enough. As soon as I began to struggle, I interpretted that struggle as what I thought was true. I was a failure. I could never do this. What was I thinking?
I quit. I wept. I sank back into the sense that I wasn’t good enough. Of course I wasn’t.
Ranked Last
After quiting from BUD/S I was offered a chance to become an EOD Tech.
A similiarly competitive program in the Navy in a different community.
Again I thought I found a chance to earn my self worth.
I entered EOD Training bitter and depresesd, though. My self loathing slowly working its way to the surface.
I was performing great in training, but there was a different problem.
People couldn’t stand me.
I was demeaning, dismissive, distant and cold.
My inner relationship projecting out to my class mates.
Regular peer evals are a big part of training.
Everyone sits down and ranks everyone in the class.
I was dead last.
It broke me.
All I wanted was to be good enough, and here I was performing well at this training, and it still didn’t matter.
When Performance Clicked
Something clicked at this time.
I thought what I had wanted was to accomplish these big things, to be this impressive person.
I didn’t. I wanted to be loved and accepted. By my peers, my family, my friends.
By myself.
The stain of my self loathing had worked itself into every part of my being. Robbing from me joy in anything.
I was spending all day, everyday, with people I really liked, but I treated them terribly.
I was doing fun, creative work in training, but I hated it.
I was suceeding, finally, at something many people would fail at.
It meant nothing.
Every experience turned to ash in my mouth because of one thing.
I didn’t accept myself. My experience. My life as it was.
Poker was the ultimate test of this.
As I moved up in stakes, equiped with this new understanding, slowly but surely I began to accept myself more and more, and with that able to perform with ease at a higher and higher level.
Poker Coaching Turned Into Mindset Coaching
As I improved at poker eventually I was being asked to coach.
I worked with people to improve their technical understanding of the game but it became clear there was one area I had done work many hadn’t.
Not trying to earn something from poker it couldn’t deliver.
I knew poker couldn’t give me self worth, a sense of being valued.
It was clear to me many of my students were pursuing poker the way I had pursued being a Navy SEAL.
By doing so they creating a self fulfilling prophecy of failure just as I had.
I helped many students accept themselves and in doing so, massively reduce the amount of pressure they felt while playing.
Since then I have worked with people in business, sports, and other industries to do the same.
If this story sounds at all like you. I promise I can help.
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I was able to learn how to perform at the top of my abilities.
Whether it was playing poker professionally or exiting multi million dollar deals, learning how to perform at my highest level has made it possible.