Ep.5 | From the blackjack table to the boardroom - Mike Aponte

Mike Aponte, a famed MIT Blackjack Team leader, whose story was depicted in "Bringing Down The House" and "21". Mike reveals how they used mathematics to outsmart casinos, earning millions legally. Beyond card counting, he shares lessons on business, team management, and human behavior. After retiring, Mike returned to the tables, winning the inaugural World Series of Blackjack Championship. We sit down with Mike as he recounts his journey from MIT, the blackjack glory to his everyday life today, and the enduring lessons he learned along the way.

Mike Aponte

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All right. Hello, everybody, and welcome to episode five of Shaking Hands. I'm your host, Jack Moran. You can find me on Instagram at Blue Collar kid that is blue Collar K-E-H-D We have a super interesting guest today, Michael Aponte. he's one of the leaders of the MIT card counting team that inspired the book Bringing Down the House and the critically acclaimed movie 21. Now he works as a data analytics consultant, and is working on a couple projects at the same time, doing some documentary series about blackjack. Yeah. Related documentary series we've been on production on for a year and then, developing a few television shows as well. So kind of like we always like to start by, you know, giving you a chance to, like, talk about your story. Like, what is your story? How did you get into card counting? That's a, you know, pretty wild story. Yeah. So I think the thing that I'm most known for is as being one of the leaders of the MIT card counting team. So this was something that I didn't plan on at all. Like growing up, I was never even into card games, like I was far more interested in in sports and doing well in school. And then my senior year at MIT, one of my best friends recruited me to join a card counting team, and so I didn't know what to make of what he was saying. I didn't know the first thing about card counting, much less that it could be a team activity. But of course I was really intrigued. So I agreed to attend my first team meeting. And then that's when I learned that card counting. It's this legitimate, mathematically based system that can legally give players an edge over the house. So that was pretty cool because I've always been a math guy. And then there was a whole visceral appeal that with, it would appeal to any college student. Right? I would have done, yeah. The opportunity to if I could make it through the training and they became good at it, I could be come what they call the big player. So I would have the opportunity to bet like thousands of dollars. And they get treated like a king by the casinos. So kind of that, that more super official appeal was pretty big in the beginning. But then once I got into it, I just really became engrossed with, the challenge of both the art and science of it, like executing the system perfectly while completely fooling the casino because the the art of it's really important. You have to be able to fly on their radar because, as everyone know, the casinos kind of have a double standard as to your skill. It's fine if you don't if you're not very knowledgeable about a game, but if you're actually a skill, then you win over the long run. You know they have the right and they will ask you not to fly. So how similar is the story that I haven't read the book, but I've seen the movie? How similar is that story to like what it actually was? Is it pretty aligned or is it's a little more dramatized? Well, as far as the movie, which is how most people are familiar with the story of our team, it's completely Hollywood version, right? Like could not really be much further removed. No way. But that's I mean, it's not surprising. It's Hollywood. Like, what are the main differences? Well, I mean, obviously with the movie you're you're restricted to it up to two, two hours. Yeah. Basically everything. Nothing was accurate at all other than at MIT students counting cards. But as far as what's interesting about the team, like the whole origin actually goes way back to the early 1960s. There was a professor at MIT named Ed Thought who, purely out of intellectual curiosity, was curious if you could actually gain an advantage in blackjack. And so at the time, he had access to MIT supercomputers. So they I mean, those computers were the biggest, baddest computers in the world. I think you might maybe you've heard of them. They're the ones that had the huge tubes and they would take up like multiple floors. Have you ever heard about the. The old school was like an enigma. I've heard of that supercomputer. similar, similar. But I mean, the but it's, what's interesting is that it's like that supercomputer is like, so much it's so weak compared to our iPhones these days. Obviously, the with technology it's part of is just our ability over time to make things really small. but with, supercomputers, he was able to derive, card counting. That was the first strategy that could legally give players an advantage through, betting strategy. And so simply put, in blackjack, as the cards come out, they give you real information about the probability of what's going to happen next. Right? So that's very different than a game like roulette. Like roulette. Every time you spin the wheel, it's a brand new ball game, right? The odds are permanently fixed in roulette. So there's no such thing as a good roulette player or a bad roulette player. Everyone's equally losing player. It's just a matter of the more hours you play, the more you bet, the more you're going to lose, right? So the odds are static in that they're called independent amount based games. But blackjack is based on dependent events because the odds of what happens next depends on like what's happened in the past. So a simple example if you're playing single deck blackjack. And for aces that come out in the first round, like what would your odds be of getting blackjack the next round, given that there are only four aces, is very low, right? It would be zero zero. Exactly. So that would be a bad time to bet a lot of money, you know. And so the odds in blackjack are constantly fluctuating up and down in terms of the house edge. Whereas, a game like craps, roulette, the house edge is constant, it's flat, but over time. So when you have a, a game in which the house edge is flat, there's zero skill. Like your decisions have no impact on your long term outcome, but pretty irrational to even play them. Yeah, yeah. I mean, for me, I would have never I might well, I definitely would have never played, any casino game if it wasn't for card counting, because it is irrational, right, to wager money when you're, more than likely to lose. Right. So what is like the premise of the card counting analytics? Like, how do you get that edge over the casino? Well, the way a card counting works is a card counting system. It's much simpler than people think. So I had the same misconceptions, before I joined the team and learned what it was really about. My only reference point to card counting was the movie Rainman. So I thought you had to have a photographic memory, which, I mean, I have a decent memory, but I don't have a photographic memory, so thinking card counting, you're not actually memorizing the cards, you're just keeping track. the net difference between high cards and low cards. So you have the high cards are ten. Jack, queen, king, ace. Those cards, favor the player over the long run. Because first and foremost, those are the cards that give you blackjack, which pays 3 to 2. That's 150% on your return. if you think about it, when the dealer gets blackjack, the dealer only gets even money from you. You're not required to pay them 3 to 2. So that's big for the player. Also, players have options to do or doesn't have to do. It has to play like a robot, right? But players can, for example, double down. They can split. So when you take advantage of those, options, if there's more high cards remaining, right, that's where you make your money, right? As a card. When you double down 11, you want to get a ten out of two, right? For example. So ten through Ace Dozer at a high cards. And now on the flip side two, two, three, four, five and six. Those are the low cards. Those favored a dealer. So for anyone that's played blackjack they know the pain of like the dealer having 15. And you're excited because you think, the dealer is going to bust and then pulling, a four of 5 or 6 and like wiping out the whole table. So that's one of the ways in which world cards, favor the dealer. They also help out the house. And that the more low cards remaining than the fewer player blackjack, and then the less favorable draw is when players do double down and split. And then there's a equal amount in in any number of decks, like at the start of a new shuffle, regardless of whether it's single deck, double deck, six decker, eight deck. At the start of a new shuffle, there's an equal amount of high cards and low cards. They balance each other out, but as you can imagine, as soon as the dealer starts dealing the difference and that difference between them is going to be going up and down. So it stands to reason that if you've seen a surplus of low cards, that there has to be a surplus of high cards remaining, which means that's when the van starts moving into the player's favor, right? When you're more likely to get the blackjacks and the get double downs and splits over time. So the idea is the approach is to bet little or nothing when you don't have the advantage. And then when the vintage moves into your favor as a card counter, you bet proportionally more based on how much how big the advantages. So it's really actually straightforward. You can explain card counting to someone literally in a few minutes, but the the hard part, as in as in many things is the the art of it. You have to practice because there's a skill component to be able to apply that strategy flawlessly, which takes practice. What is that skill component? It's actually have to be pretty focused to keep keep an eye on the count focus. It's like any skill, it's just you have to put in the time. What the reason why most, people that try to count cards fail is that it's human nature. They they learn the system on YouTube and it it is simple, but there's a big distance between knowing how something works and then being able to actually do it, apply it, apply it, and you can't take that shortcut, right? You have to practice, right. It's like if you had a great, you know, the best golf coach in the world and he's telling you like, methods and techniques to improve your swing. Well, that doesn't automatically make you a better golfer. yeah. You have to go out and practice, right? You got to put that into. You got to put that into motion such that it becomes a wired into into your system. Does that make sense? So with enough practice, card counting becomes so second nature that you don't even think about it. And so that was one of the big keys to success. We had a whole training system that everyone had to go through and pass before they're ever allowed to set foot in the casino. What did that look like? The first test was basic strategy. So basic strategy is the set of playing decisions for every hand in blackjack. So for example, have you played blackjack? Not many times. I like poker, but blackjack is just like there's a lot of strategy involved that I get laughed at by the guys at the table. And it's I'm a better player. They're like, don't hit here. You hit. And we're like, well, one of the things I love about blackjack, it's actually much simpler and it's a much shorter learning curve. If you put in the time to become, to master as compared to poker. Right. But like, for example, if you have a 12 and the dealer has a three, that's a hand that gambler is probably they waffle on all the time. Like half of them are here. Half understand. And then it's a good number of them will alternate between hitting and standing. Whereas a professional blackjack player, they know that the correct way for that hand is to hit. And so that's. And then so for every single hand there's a correct optimal decision. And we didn't figure this out that as a team, in the same way that we did in bank card counting, basic strategy has been around since the mid 1950s. That's when some army mathematicians derived it. So this is just knowledge that's been there had been there for decades. We were just the first group to actually like, learn how to, master it and then leverage it and scale it in a business sense. And I'm like, still just using the movie as, like the perspective, like how it went down. And I know you said it's kind of pretty far from it, but there's like in the movie, there was a big piece of like evade evading the casinos. Was that like a legitimate piece of it? How did you guys fly under the radar and not get caught? that dynamics very real. Yeah. in terms of for longevity, right. You got to fold the casino. So one of the things that was really key to our success was when we made it a team activity, because most people who count cards do so on an individual basis. But we employed a team strategy. So the way it worked is we called it the big player strategy. So for example, like if I would go to Vegas, I play the part of the big player. And so as the big player, I would go into a casino with multiple spotters. Now the job of the spotter, they were just to blend into the casino crowd, and then they would keep track of the count from the start of New Shuffle. And in the beginning they would just they wouldn't even play. They would just stand behind the tables and watch. And then now and then when the count moved into the player's favor, they would signal that they had a We call that our hot shoe. And our signal was so simple they just crossed their arms. Right. This is very natural, like in the movie. I don't know if you remember. They like crossed behind their back, which was so ridiculous, but obviously they did it for the sake of the movie. Yeah, yeah. yeah, I remember, the Laurence Fishburne, casino security character saying, oh, did you see that? As if, like, how could you not see it was like this? You be so ridiculous. it's one of the many things that made me laugh, in the movie. Now, as soon as I saw that hot signal, I would then, approach the table. And when I arrived, the spotter would pass off the count using a code word. So for the number 11, we used the code word football. Right. Some very obvious associations, right? 11 players on offense and defense. Now, the key when we passed the transfer to count off was to not make eye contact at all, because the camera is obviously recording the visual, but they don't record audio. So the spotter, they'd be aware that I was coming. But then as I arrived, they just looked the other way and they just say, football, And as soon as I hear football, I know the counts. 11 and then I can just take sit down and then capitalize on the on the advantage with the big bets, you know, betting proportionally to what that advantages. And then as soon as I took over, the spotter would then walk away to find another barrel table. So with multiple spotters, your sampling rate goes way up as compared to someone playing solo. Right? So if you have, four spotters with you, you're going to get a minimum four times as many, tables counted per hour. But even more, because a spotter can be really mobile because since they weren't even playing, like if the count of a table went pretty negative, they could just jump to another new table. So it was actually even more that it was actually greater than a linear increase. Right. so the more tables you count per hour, the more favorable counts you're going to get and the more money you're going to make. It's pretty pretty straightforward, right? So from a mathematical standpoint, it really, boosted our expected outcome. But then the second aspect of that strategy, which was so critical, was the whole art of the game, because you have to fool the casino, as you pointed out. So when we started to employ this strategy, for example, when I got called into a hot shoe, the casinos didn't suspect me of anything because from their vantage point, how can I possibly know what the countless I was it because Kurt counted? You have to count from the beginning of a you shuffle? I wasn't even there. Yeah. And so that camouflage was really, really pivotal and powerful. So then I would just be jumping from table to table. Ideal situation. I get called in and put down the big bets, take advantage of that advantage. The count is going to drop on average, right? Because, the count it wants to go back to zero, right. Because the when the all those high cards come out, the count is going to go back to zero. It's going to even out right. And then hopefully at that point a different spot is going to have a hot shoe for me and I can just bounce over there. So that's how it worked. A team strategy like really significantly boosted the sampling rate, the hourly win rate. And then provided that, that really important advantage of the camouflage for longevity, where you guys are really wearing disguises or is that not that was dramatized. Now over time, we did have to start employing some disguises because with high stakes blackjack, one of the the hard things is even if you have like a good act and a good persona and they like you over time, the thing that's going to kind of give you away is just the consistency and magnitude of your win, sir, I never loses. I mean, it's one thing to win on one trip like, that's good for the casinos, right? The gambler gamblers have to win. Yeah, sometimes. Like if they never won, they'd never come back. They would never come back. Right. So it's kind of this the house advantage is kind of in the ideal range where it gives players just like this false illusion they can win. but yeah, if you're winning consistent enough over time, then at some point, someone in the casino who has some concept of, probability and statistics is going to look at your outcome and say, hey, this player should have lost X, but they've won. Why? Like, wow, that doesn't match up. And so once they start watching you closely, it's, it's pretty tough. So once you I started to get asked not to play at certain casinos. Then we started to use disguises. We first started off with, like, low tech, like baseball caps, maybe glasses, and then moved into some, for the guys, like, fake mustaches and so forth. I think the most elaborate we tried was I actually, I flew to LA and met with the Hollywood makeup artists, and we got a whole, Batman suit made, which was actually it looked pretty good. but then you have to do the rest of the whole getup was pretty good and being pretty time consuming. And then for all the effort, they don't. It didn't work as well as we had. Hope. The problem is, like once someone from a casino or anyone knows you really well, they're looking for you. Yeah. And you come back in there and they might not recognize you right away. But then if they're directed to watch you. Yeah. Watch this player because they're winning. Yeah. They're probably going to recognize you. Right. I mean so like yeah, the Hollywood, make up stuff, it doesn't work as well in real life as it does in the movies. Right? Right. Because in the movies, you're kind of like you're going along with it, right? and obviously, like, you're not a card counter anymore. Maybe you are. But what was kind of like the demise of the job is obviously there's just one too much. Right? Is that kind of how it ended? Yeah. Ultimately, yeah. Just victims of our, own success over time. so we had a really good six year run, after which gradually, over time, the casinos I began to identify, like, all of our key players. And then our team actually had a had a profound impact on the industry, too, because they they started to learn more about our employees, how we operated. And then the information sharing really improved, like between casinos, for example, and, and different like network security networks. And so that really exponentially, kind of burned and will burn down your career. Right. Because if every single casino had to figure out on their own that I was a card counter, I would have been able to play 100 times as much. Yeah. And then once you get to a certain level of notoriety and the information sharing increases and this this happened the, lot towards the end of my career, I could come into a casino for the first time and they would know who I am. Right? Just from the the quote unquote black book was lit with you guys playing. Well, I might I wasn't really aware. I mean, discretion is like a huge part of professional, blackjack. They weren't really, aware of it. I think they didn't become fully aware until after the movie came out. Oh, really? Wow. Yeah, that's very interesting. Yeah. They've never wanted to have, like, any type of official association with the team. Like, for example, they wanted to film the movie or at least part of it and MIT. But MIT refused, particularly when they saw how the professor in the movie was kind of unscrupulous. Yeah. and I get it. They have a great reputation so they can gain all the advantages of the MIT card counting time story, but they don't want to have any, official affiliation. Have you ever tried since to just, like, show up at a casino just to see if you can fly again? Or do they notice you right away? Oh, they noticed me right away. Really? I mean, like, funny story. After I was forced into retirement and then I got into, I got into the data science consulting. So I used to have a business partner with the, the analytics. So back when the Cosmopolitan casino first opened, I went there with my business partner, Brian, to meet with the head of marketing because they're interested in us doing an engagement, analytics engagement. And so as we're walking through the casino, Brian, he's not a gambler card counter. But of course, he's very familiar with my card counting background. So as we're passing through, Brian turns to me and says, why do you think that the security, the casino knows you're here? And I looked at him like he's being silly. I said, why would they know I'm here? I'm not. I'm not even near a blackjack table. And then, funnily enough, we get to the restaurant where we're going to have our meeting where we lean out, right. My cell phone ring, and I see it's Jeff Murphy, who's the head of surveillance, cosmopolitan. Because ironically, I become really good friends with all, a lot of the top surveillance people in the country, because after the movie, 21 came out, I would get invited to come speak at conferences. And so I knew it wasn't a coincidence that Jeff was calling me. So I answer, and the first thing I said was how the hell do you know? Yeah. And he was laughing. He wasn't mad. He just said, And I told him why we were there, and he said, hey, so after your meeting, do you want to did a tour toward the surveillance room? My team would love to meet you. And I said, sure. So we had the meeting. Then Jeff comes down and meets us, and it was pretty cool because he brought us up to it was like literally floor 3.5. Because the thing about surveillance, teams in casinos, they're like sequestered from all the other employees because they're kind of the overseers. And so not many people get to go in the into the surveillance rooms. And as we got to the door, what was so funny is when Brian and I were waiting from the restaurant, we were looking at that one of the cosmopolitan like, amazing chandeliers. I don't know if you've ever been there, but they have these a number of these crazy, like, ridiculously amazing chandelier. It's on the property. They took a picture of us. So we look kind of a little bit suspicious because we're like looking at a place, you know? But what they did is they printed that fixture out and they blew it up, printed it out, and then they taped it to the door and they wrote Public Enemy for a prank. If he got to the door. And it was hilarious. So, I mean, Brian loved it. He asked if we could take it with him, and he was like, yeah, you guys are going to put me in the black book? That right there? Yeah. So I got to meet like the surveillance team. They were great. And then I kind of learned how they recognized me. It turned out that the newest member of the team had only been there for four months, new to the industry. Well, some of the surveillance teams, they'll get tasked with being the face person. And their job is to learn like, oh, these are the top. They call them advantage players. Players, like myself, who legally gain an edge over the house. So they have to learn the faces and names. And I've heard this from so many surveillance people. Like, I was like the first face really that they learn. So he just happened to see me walk by the kids and he's like, oh, isn't that that guy Mike? Mike Aponte? And then he contacted Jeff and Jeff like, oh, that's Mike. And so, so give me a call. You had to like go back eventually to, you know, after your six year run like being a normal guy. how what were your like takeaways from that experience that you can apply into your life now? Like what did you learn from that experience being a card counter and working for the team? With the team? Yeah, there were some big takeaways and a number of them I didn't didn't crystallize right away. They kind of crystallized over time in my post card counting career. I mean, one of the the obvious ones that I was cognitive, during my card counting experience was like the power of making data driven decisions. Obviously, that's kind of what card counting is about, right? Making decisions based on the true odds, which is the complete opposite of how gamblers play. Right? They're going based off, like, intuition and and maybe some advice they get from their buddy, at the table and power. I mean, the the the interesting thing for me about card counting, it was my first real life application in probability and statistics. And so it's one thing to study something in school, but it's another to like, you know, go and like lose $20,000 on the hand, right. Or win 100,000 in the weekend. Right. You're getting that real world, feedback. Right. So it has a very, very different, impact. And so the value of making data driven decisions, it comes from the fact that as human beings, like we all inherently just have blind spots in terms of how we perceive the world, we make decisions often like we're very emotional creatures. And I'm I'm prone to the same thing. Yeah. That, this day, like, emotions and subconscious motivations, optimism bias. A lot of times we think something is right because we want it to be true. Right? I'm sure you've you've seen that kind of versa, especially with entrepreneurs. Right. Like, no, this is the right strategy. Right? This this is going to this, I call it drinking the Kool-Aid or mad scientist disease. Yeah. Exactly. Right. It's the same thing. And so what I kind of realized over time is that. And then once I got into the real world and got into doing data science analytics, I realized that even like, it was amazing, even at the sea level of like, these big corporations, I would have these like meetings, consultations, and they were making decisions in much the same way that gamblers do at the blackjack tables, right? Just based on feelings or intuitions and not really not being cognizant of it. Right? and I think that's a good point. Yeah. Well, you're talking about drinking the Kool-Aid. That's a big part of it, right? You get I witnessed it so many times that you'll have the most senior person in the room. They have an idea, and then everyone just says, oh, yeah, that's a great idea, right? I mean, they just reinforce it, right? Because it's in their best interest. And then now it just kind of snowballs. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I remember meeting with the head of, the chief marketing officer for like a major corporation. She was refreshingly honest. She said, you know, and they they weren't doing well at that time. She say, honestly, I feel like we're just kind of guessing, you know, at what we're, you know, these marketing decisions. Right? I think the key is to get to a point where you kind of have that balance, where you you have to have objective, data. But then intuition, if it's cultivated and developed over time, that definitely has a really powerful place to I agree, and there are some decisions that where intuition has no place like if you have, you know, if you have ace four and blackjack and the dealer has a six, there's no intuition. You double down. But then there's other decisions where you know when, especially when you're dealing with people or you're deciding whether to take on some, new partnership, you know, strategically, intuition has to play or should play a key role in that. Right? Because there's things that go beyond, variables that you can quantify clearly making that transition from card counting into, you know, what the common man would say is the normal life. Did you, like, hit some adversity? Like, was it difficult to make that transition? It was very difficult. Yeah, I real the thing I quickly realized when I transitioned into the quote unquote real world is that I had been in a bit of a vacuum for quite a while since, the start of my freshman year at MIT. So obviously at MIT, people are very for rational. They're good at, you know, math and science and then take that to a whole new level with the card counting team. Right. We're actually like leveraging that in a way. But then also, I was really lucky in that I worked with people that not only were intelligent, but they were really reliable. And, you know, I did have a big hand in that being one of the the chief recruiters for the team. And so obviously we looked for the, the soft skills and the trust. That was really big. But then when I entered in the real world, I think the thing I grappled with the most is that people are unreliable. They, for example, they don't do what they say they're going to do. And I was in a bit of denial, you know, it's kind of stuck on like, why are they like this? And then my and now wife, I, she told me because she had been working in the real world, if like, you're going to have to readjust your perception of how things should be, you know, otherwise it's going to be tough for you. And so, yeah, that's I think that's one of the that's arguably the toughest thing to deal with from a business standpoint, especially for an entrepreneur, is people in. We had the conversation the other day when I was at the airport. and you had a really interesting perspective how you described, like, how those things that seem like kind of abstract, like a person, it's like out of control, but it is really just like a there's a statistical foundation to it. And same with adversity, like encountering adversity, although it feels like it's out of your control and may make you feel like you want to run. Really, it's just like a statistical data point on your way to that success. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Like you can articulate it better than I can? Yeah, no, that's a great point. I over time I've kind of I've, I like to use this analogy. I think blackjack like card counting. There's so many useful analogies for me at least as far as kind of the, analogies examples in the real world. Right? So for example, in terms of dealing with adversity and quote unquote bad luck, like back during my plane, it's like the count could be really high. I could bet two hands at 10,000 because it is clearly in my favor. And then the dealer, for example, could pull like five car 21, which is really unlikely. And that's obviously improbable and unlucky. But back when I played, and this is one of the reasons I was successful, it didn't faze me even for a second. I would just like move on to the next round, like, what's the next bet? What's the next play? Right? But then I what I realized over time is that when it's after card counting, when I would have quote unquote bad luck, it was a lot harder for me to deal with emotionally because, yeah, you have a real person to actually blame. There were times where I would definitely, like, start slipping into a bit of like, victim mentality. But then I kind of realized I'm like, this is exactly the same thing as the dealer pulling five card 21 right? It's a statistical distribution. I mean, another really simple, example that everyone can relate to. I used to I'm like a pretty calm, laid back guy, but one of my, weaknesses used to be getting upset at bad drivers. Like, I never had, like, outright road rage or anything, but just internally I would get really worked up. And then I just one of the things that helped me was like, this is it's part of the statistical terrain. Like there is going to be x percent of drivers that are bad. Like, why are you surprised? Yeah, it's good to be able to separate the emotion from the, you know, I see you a lot of times with my sales guys. They get so it's so personal to them when they get rejected on the phones or something. And it's like, it's really just like a statistical data point. If you just take the emotion out of it and say, okay, like every person that rejects me just puts me that much closer to someone who is going to need the services, that it's like a smaller pill to swallow. Exactly. I mean, you realize not only is it doesn't it serve you, but to take it another step, you're you realize you're actually you're being irrational. It's it's like, do you really expect there to be zero bad drivers? Like, what world are you living in? Right? Right. In the same way there's a salesman is the reality. They're they're going to close 100% of we. No way, no way. Yeah. So that's just part of the the whole process. And so I mean that's like another big lesson that took me a while to crystallize when I look back at the card counting one, the reason I was so good is I just focused on the process, like control what you can control. So in cart as a cart counter, the things you can control with 100%, certainty is keeping accurate track of the count, making the correct playing decision on your hand every time, putting out the optimal bet, every time it moves in into your favor. The advantage. but the thing is, you could have done all that perfectly. And then when you put out the big bets, at that point, you don't have control. the cards that come out, you could lose, right? And I was really good at dealing with, those losses and then focusing on the process over and over. But it is it was much tougher for me, to deal with the same dynamic, away from the blackjack tables. Right. So that's the key. Like focus. process. You have to know what the outcome is like the long term there. But to be consistent, right? Be consistent and don't get cut. I think for entrepreneurs. And I know from experience you just there's a strong tendency to measure like, oh, I didn't make any significant progress, seemingly significant progress towards my end goal, when in reality, if you actually just did the things you're supposed to do, you did. And there will be days where you actually feel like you went backwards. But if you're objective about it, you're like, no, you actually did the right things. And so like failure in in life, in entrepreneurship and in blackjack is the key to success because most people are surprised when they ask me, oh, what what percentage of hands, blackjack hands do card counters win? And they're expecting me to say like 70, 80, 90 to some crazy percentage. The fact is that all blackjack players, including the best card counters in the world, will always lose more hands than they win. And that comes from the fact that you have the opportunity to bust first as a player. So as soon as you bust, you lose. Even if the dealer busts, that's where the house really gets its advantage. So then naturally, the question that comes on the heels of that is what? Often how do you win as a card counter? If you're going to lose most of your hands? It's like, well, you just you have to just play consistently and then identified in situations where you where your advantage is, is in your favor, and then you bet more money. Right? So the path in terms of like win, loss of a card counter is very volatile. It's up and down, and most of the time it's actually down right. If you're losing over half, you have to your hands you're going to be you're taking bets or small in those time. Right. Like that's under control. It is about fluctuating the bets. And when it's hot then you're betting did and winning big. Exactly right. Yeah. So you most of your bankroll most of the time as a card counter is below its all time high. It's not a smooth linear set It's up and down. And I think entrepreneurship is very much like that. You're going to have days and definitely even stretches where you feel like not only aren't you making any progress, but you're going backwards and you actually might very well be negative in terms of, you know, your bottom line rate, your your burn rate. But it's all about like, yeah, just got to stay on track. Like consistency is going to win out over intensity over the long run. I think intensity, it's definitely called for at certain times where you're going to have to pull all night or work crazy hours a particular week, but I think it's it's over rated and over praised by our culture and the clients being consistent every day. That's something that I think should be talked about more and it's we had a really big realization with my company recently and over the past, like year, year and a half, we we've got a CRM system. So we try to started tracking a lot more data, with the cold callers. And on this most recent batch of cold calling guys, and I have, you know, straight commission sales guys. So it's pretty like there's a big psychological aspect to it is showing them to defer the gratification and, and realize that if you put in the time and you just take the emotion out of it and make it a numbers game, like I'll show you exactly what the projection is. If you make X amount of calls like this, should it be the translation? But when we do the calls in the morning, the guys like, you know, they're trading tips back. And for someone saying like, oh, I said this and it worked in life, I use this strategy. And what's really funny that I realized is that every single person on our team had the exact same percentage of worldly outcome. We're trying to get us site inspections, the exact same percentage of site inspections, two calls they made so all the other variables didn't matter. It just came down to who made the most calls, got the most site inspections. I mean, that's pretty profound to me outside, which I've backed off a lot on like nit picking training because it's just like if you're consistent and you show up every single day, eventually the results are going to come and it's not weighted. There is no like I mean, I'm sure you can get an advantage, you know, on that process. But at the end of the day, the more calls that they make, like that distribution becomes more even between the team, which I thought was pretty interesting. Yeah. You're just just showing up and putting in the work. Yeah. Is over half the battle, right? Absolutely. Although it's interesting, I'm it's interesting that you didn't see a maybe a little bit of variation, but you said it pretty much 2% across the board. Wow. Yeah. Well and that might be true. I mean, there's different when it comes to it. We just got lucky. And when I check the report but well and you know, different types of like sales and processes that there's going to be less variability. Right. And it it is really just going to be driven in by the volume. And, and there's going to be other instances where the potential variability would be greater. And it's it's hard to have like the with people when you're like communicating with people, which is like what cold sales is to say, one strategy is going to give you an edge. Like you have so many different variables of the people that you're communicating with. So I feel like, you know, the advantage that you're getting using this strategy that works with ten people, like, ends up hurting you with the opposite type of person. So it ends up evening out just to the amount of calls you would have to to really get an edge. You'd have to be able to have super strong interpersonal skills and be able to read every lead, do an interrogation, and analyze what that personality type is, and then curtail your strategy to that person. instead of just using one strategy and thinking that's going to give you the edge. So maybe you can get an edge. But they weren't, you know, through their strategies, their little tips and tricks, like it was still an even district. But it's usually the case with like most processes, like there's going to be that one simple thing that if you do right, it's going to get you 70, 90% right. And the result and I think, yeah, we're always as human nature. We're always looking for that silver bullet. Right, right. And obviously that for then still, there's so many people out there selling the magic solution right in your entrepreneurial journey. Like, what is your silver bullet? Like, if there's one thing that you, Mike, today could tell Mike, that started off early in his career, like what piece of advice would you give yourself? Well, I definitely don't have any silver bullets for sure. Right. I guess this is more, insight. I wish I could say wisdom because I learned I had to learn the hard way, but I if if I could tell the younger version of myself something, I would say I would tell the younger version of myself is that when you want to do things that are really aspirational, like in business or take on certain projects, you just have to know that hand in hand with that are going to be a lot of like ups and downs like that, that statistical variation, a lot of like bad luck. And I think just knowing that from the beginning, will you just kind of accept it. And in a way you can, you know, often like human, human emotion and disappointment stems from there being that gap between expectations and reality. Right. But from the beginning, if you can like, set, you know, set the proper framework, you're going to have that gaps going to be minimal. And then if you really kind of really develop yourself, you can actually use those trials and tribulations. You can actually just change the whole frame on it and say, and look at it as a challenge and even enjoy it. Right? I think that's what the most successful people do. How do you define success? It's different from everyone. So I always like to ask that question and see like what? That is a great. Yeah, there's definitely different aspects of success. I would say that there's clearly the financial success, business success. I think that's another I mean, you you asked me what I would tell my younger self. That's a perfect segue. I think when it comes to like, for example, ROI, we think of ROI in terms of financial terms naturally, because that's something we can quantify. Now, one of the big lenses I look through in terms of how to spend my time, because time is so valuable. That's something when you're younger, you don't value your time as much. I think part of it, too, you also do tend to have more time the younger you are because you have less responsibility, right? family, for example. But now, I look at things, it's like, okay, there are things that I have to do, right? Like, we. Yeah, I just had to spend, you know, a few days preparing taxes. Right? That's not fun. I always never look forward to that. But that's something you objectively have to do. But, you know, our have to do list is actually much smarter than we think it is, right? For example, in in the past, there would be people that would maybe want to meet or have dinner, when in reality I don't really like with them. I'm sure we kind of have all that like there. There's not going to be like a mutual benefit. But I would go spend two, three hours with them just out of some sense of obligation, right, of being like quote unquote, nice person. So now like for example, even like be joining you here today. They went through my filter like, is this something I really want to do? And the answer is yes. Right. And it doesn't come from a financial return. Right. it comes from like, oh, is this something that I'm going to enjoy doing? Obviously. Like when I actually spoke to you on the phone, that's where I could instantly, you know, get that confirmation. Oh, this is the you know, we definitely have, a good meeting of the minds and so on that, you know, I appreciate you saying I would want to have a good conversation. And then it also helps that we were referred by a really good, mutual friend. You know, Connor Holloway, who who acts as, he. Yeah, that was a great filter. So as you get older, you need to have a finer filter for how you spend your time and energy. And I think one of the big, checkboxes now is especially if I'm going to be taking, like, a major undertaking, like a major project, I ask myself if this thing is fails, which it can be. It can feel like, you know, you don't want, optimism bias always wants to make you think, oh, this is definitely going to succeed. But no, the reality is it can fail. If it fails, will I look back and regret having, you know, worked with these people or spent the time and energy on this work? That's a great point. And if the answer is no, then I'll do it right. But if the answer is like I'm not sure or yes to now, I won't make that type of investment. and part of that is just you just have to learn over time. When you're young, you don't know what you don't know. So it's okay. You have to have increase your surface area. Right. It's better you need to get out there. Right? It goes back to the whole failure is the key to success. Like you have to get real world feedback, right? You can plan and strategize and analyze, which I'm very prone to do, to a fault. But at some point you do have to get like real world feedback. You do have to get out there and and meet people. You do have to go out there and actually try things. Right. So that's yeah, that's where the whole part of it is, like you have had a how do you balance and optimize it. And it's so individual too because we all have different different values. Is increasing your surface area like one of the biggest pieces of advice that you would give, like a new entrepreneur that's like someone who's trying to make the leap. You're obviously an advocate for entrepreneurship, so why would you recommend someone who's on the coast trying to make that decision if they want to, go into entrepreneurship where kind of like the benefits pros and cons of entrepreneurship, of entrepreneurship. Yeah, I think I mean, the, the pros are that you have the opportunity to pursue something that you are truly passionate about, and that can bring you like the ultimate fulfillment. Right? Because you know, that old saying, like some things that work, if you truly love it and, and you know, this, like if you actually really do love what you're doing, you're going to need that for when it gets hard, right? Like for the card counting, for example, people just naturally, especially if they see the movie, they focus on, on all the, the superficial. They think it was just like fighting games and we're like, we're out there party. It's a grind. You know, like when I, we flew out to Vegas, we were a party that was like valuable time to play. Like we were. We'd arrive in Vegas, get the hotel, we'd play till like 4:00 and, you know, rest during the day, get back at it. And there are times where it's definitely a grind, but I almost I even enjoyed the grind because I just, you know, I loved, all of it. Right. Whereas if you were just doing it and this happened, we had recruits where and maybe it wasn't their fault because card counting so unique, you can't really know what it's all about until you do it where they just ended up dropping out or or they couldn't really cut it. Not because they didn't have the ability. They just didn't have, the drive to do that. So that's like, yeah, entrepreneurship really provides you that the ultimate opportunity, right, to do something meaningful and purposeful. And it's a great way to really learn a lot about yourself as well. Like you, it's one of the best tools for growth, right? Without a doubt. So what kind of wrap it up here after that spot, is there any final comments that you would give to like someone that's listening to this? Like a big underlying theme of this show is trying to catalyze that decision, for people to chase their dreams and journey into entrepreneurship. What would be your like, kind of final comments to to someone of that demographic? Yeah, I think if you're someone that's thinking about taking that leap, one of the biggest obstacles is fear, right? Like humans, we're just going back to our, early days. We're just wired to be averse to uncertainty. So, like, fear it. Fear is something we really magnify. I can't remember who it was, but I heard this quote where fear is like for most of us, it looks like an ocean where it looks so huge. But when you actually step into it and see for it. So it turns out that it's only most of the time it's only a foot deep where, and, and I think the best, the best way to get into entrepreneurship is to just start. And you can do that on a, on a part time basis. Right? Just start off and then think of it. You have to go for the long game. Right. You're going to have to put in and you've probably heard this right with your podcast. So one of the biggest with podcasts, there is a some really impressive stat that if you can make it to your it was some low number of like 2020 episodes that would put you in the top one percentile. Wow podcast and you've got a goal now. But yeah you hear like the top podcasters or you hear this. yeah. For even for YouTube, you know, YouTube, channels like the go. The people that are really successful, they say, don't even think about money or sick or the final outcome. Your goal should be to make 100 videos or 100 podcast episodes and then learn along the way. Your hundredth podcast is going to be infinitely better than the first, than the first one. And you hear this from like the top, like Chris Williams in Modern Wisdom is like one of my favorite. He he says it's great to look back at his early stuff. He kind of, laughed. It's like looking at that, five year old version of himself. but at the same time that he has to be really proud. Yeah. You watch like, Joe Rogan has an episode where he talks about his first episode, and if you go back and watch his first episode, they were doing it on like Skype or Zoom or something, and there's like bubbles coming up on the camera because they couldn't figure out how to take the filter off on Skype. So the entire podcast that's there's like animated bubbles coming up the screen because they added that and that blew. I mean, you look where he's at now, but like it's just like hilarious to think about. Yeah. I mean, things that are meaningful and worthwhile. They take time like the the power of consistency. Right. So that look at it in terms of the long game and then focus on the process and then try this. This is something I've been really bad at, but I'm working hard at like really try to be in the moment too. And enjoy it and yeah, and enjoy your little victories and enjoy, you know, getting some in a given day if you get to get some tasks which, which is a lot of people might look at as Monday and give yourself credit for that. Right? So if people want to find you and learn more about you, or maybe reach out where is like a good place for them to, to look for, is there any, any channels you have, a website or anything like that that yeah, they can reach out to me, or learn more information on my website, which is simply Mike upon taken. Okay, great. Well, Mike, I appreciate you coming out and joining us. This is, extremely interesting. So thanks again. had a great time. Thanks so much for having me. Absolutely. All right, guys, that concludes this episode of Shaken Hands. I'm your host, Jack Moran. You can find me on Instagram at Blue Collar Kid, if you like what you saw. please continue watching and if you have any feedback, people that you want to see, questions that you want to hear asked, please reach out to me. But other than that, tune in next time for some more interesting conversations and people.