Hi guys! My name is Martin and I currently live in the beautiful city of Salzburg, Austria. And this is me:
“Why don’t you …? ” – This is the question, that I got asked at least 1000x times in the last few years. Some people just wouldn’t understand me. And you probably won’t as well.
Let’s jump back a few years
In 2011 I was an eighteen-year-old boy, who had just finished school and was about to enter the medical university of our capital, Vienna. With all my friends not making it into university yet, I was thrown into the big town completely by myself. Luckily, I got accepted into a popular Dorm where I instantly met many people like me without having to do anything. And with all those new characters around me, my life changed in a rapid manner. I will get into more details about that period of my life in following posts. But the biggest adventure started in a cold winter night of December 2011.
In the evening, some new friends and I played a round of poker. Of course, I had played this card game before – but that night still changed my life. Talking to the other players we got into online poker and how some students earned good money with it. I was stunned. After our game finished I rushed to my computer and googled “poker strategy”.
A few hours later I had registered with and online poker platform and an online-poker-school. A few days later, I had turned my starting bankroll of 50$ into 200$. But that was just the beginning. I looked up some poker-coaches and got a long-term deal with one of them. The guy coached me once a week, therefore he received 20% of my winnings. I don’t want to get into too much detail for now. But let’s just say I became very good at online poker. This is how my desktop would look like while playing.
Within months, I even was a coach myself. That was the first real break point of my view on money.
Money couldn't buy me happiness
At the age of 19, I could earn shit loads of money by just sitting in front of my computer and playing cards. And it wasn’t even particularly hard. Remembering a few basic rules and applying some basic math really did most of the job. At first I was flashed. Suddenly I could buy pretty much everything I wanted at that point of time: Eating out at expensive restaurants every night – possible. Buying the latest cellphone/PlayStation/etc. – not a problem. I even looked up big flats and calculated, how long it would take me to get them payed of. But luckily, my inner self won over my greed. With time I found out, that money and the things you can do with it are not the sole key to happiness. Within the next months, I reduced my poker activities by as much as 90%. My friends thought that I was crazy to stop this – “Why don’t you quit university and focus on poker?”, “Why don’t you play even more?” – I heard questions like this almost every day. But I stuck to my decision. After two more years of playing and being a poker-coach, I completely stopped. And I do not regret it up to date.
After my career as a semi-professional poker player, my life had changed. Changed in a positive way. While many of my co-students were thinking about money a lot of their time, I was over that part. I knew that I would be able to make nice amounts of money whenever I needed it. But I also knew, that “too much” money would not make me happy. So, in my mind I already had mastered a really important step of my career. But let us jump back to my student life.
During the first three years of university, I had not invested more in my studying than I had to. I just was never happy with the traditional teaching system. I think it is just outdated. Looking back, I probably learned way more from awesome YouTube tutorials and presentations than from shitty auditions and bad university courses. That is probably the reason why I never wanted to start a career at university, even though I like to teach and make presentations. The environment there is just not made for thinkers and new ways of learning and teaching. It is more about personal careers and political relationships. My friends did not understand me: “Why don’t to you stay at college?”, “Why don’t you study more to get A’s at your tests?”. Yes, I might have had the necessary IQ and willpower for those things. But why should I “waste” my talent on things which I knew that they would not fulfill me. But let us not get too deep into that topic - I will get into my view on modern education in one of my next posts.
The journey to a better version of myself
Along my studies I invested a lot of my time in self-development. I read dozens of books and browsed through forum after forum. From day to day I was more fascinated about how people and their brains work. With time I realized, why I always felt different than other people. Suddenly I understood, why I was never “mainstream”. I began to understand dynamics in my surrounding communities that most of the people in my life where not even aware of. In a lot of aspects this was great. But it also could be hard and frustrating. For example, one of the things that bothered me the most, was human irrationality. This is so upsetting to me, since this is the key factor of why many people are exactly how they are. It is the reason why they are not healthy, not successful and in the end not happy in the long term. My first post after this introduction will cover my view on this topic. I just think it is one of the key concepts on the way to success. The next big problem for many people is the fear of new things. This will also be one of the topics I will cover up soon. Eventually this is linked to human irrationality as well. But for now, let’s get back to my life.
Football Soccer - my love
Besides my academic and financial career, I always was and still am addicted to sports. Since being a little boy I love the sport of European football– or how you Americans for some reason refer to it: soccer. Today I am still playing in the club of my hometown at semiprofessional level. I am not particularly talented in soccer, so receiving money for kicking a ball really feels kind of strange for me. But what really counts is the fact, that I enjoy every minute of practice and playing time. It also helps me to get out of my academic environment and to stay connected with the “real world”. Relaxing with my colleagues and enjoying a cold beer after practice gives me just so much more than having the same talks over medical stuff over and over again. Eventually this also helps me to understand how my patients think and what they expect when they look up a doctor’s help. At least I hope it will help me to stay grounded even when I am finished and working as a doctor.
There are three more things I can’t skip when describing myself:
1. My obsession for jumping into water from high distances: This is just one of the things I really love to do when I have some spare time. It just gives me an awesome kick and it makes so much fun. Some of my best experiences are from holidays where we went cliff diving. Just look at this picture – how could you not feel jumping into this clear mountain lake?
2. My love for nature: Living in the beautiful country of Austria I had the luck to grow up surrounded by many presents mother nature made to us. From beautiful lakes to stunning mountains – Austria offers something for everybody. So, expect to see beautiful pictures out of the nature on my channel frequently. As a little teaser - here is a picture of beautiful Golling-Waterfall:
3. My addiction to sushi: When it comes to food I have a clear favorite – Sushi! A few years ago, I didn’t even want to try raw fish. But luckily, I still tried it out – after my first bites I was stunned. Since that day, I developed an obsession for eating sushi. Be sure to get some good tips and pictures about the best sushi places I know. Unfortunately, I don’t have a good picture right now. But time will deal with this problem. Promise.
So now let’s come back to today. In the last months, I got a little bit into cryptocurrencies. And that is how I found this forum. From the first minute on steemit I realized, that this forum is way different to all the others out there – I had no doubt that I had to become part of this.
And here I am, trying to share my view on things with as many interested people as possible. Hopefully I will be able to help as many of you guys as possible. And hopefully, this community will make me better. A better doctor. A better person. A better human.
Drop a comment and let me know what you think. Follow me if you think I may be helpful to you. And if you have a question - feel free to ask!
Thank you!
P.S.: I want to apologize for any grammatical mistakes in advance. Please forgive me, English is not my mother language ;)