That moment ended up changing how I look at business completely.
And it wasn’t something I planned.
It started because I finally found something I was actually passionate about.
At the time, I had just come off playing in the World Series of Poker.
Made it to day three, my first time.
Poker had always been part of my life.
My grandpa taught me when I was around 12.
For years, I played every Friday night.
Small buy-ins.
$40 tournaments.
Two or three games a night.
Nothing crazy.
But I loved it.
Then over time, I started playing bigger cash games.
And when I was in the Navy in the nuclear power program…
I learned how to study.
So I applied that to poker.
I wasn’t just playing anymore.
I was studying.
Poker coaching websites.
YouTube.
Breaking hands down.
Running spots over and over.
I was all in.
I loved poker for a deeper reason too.
At its core, it’s a game of decisions.
You’re constantly making the best decision you can…
with incomplete information.
You don’t know what the other person has.
You don’t know what’s coming next.
You just make the best move you can with what you have.
And I didn’t realize it at the time…
but that’s exactly how real life works too.
Living in Maui, there aren’t any casinos.
So if I wanted to really learn tournaments…
I had to go to Vegas.
That’s what pushed everything forward.
And for the first time, I felt like:
This is something I could actually build around.
So I started a brand.
Royal Nugget Poker.
I hired a branding company
and went through their program.
Spent about two months building out the website.
And I paid for it.
Around $6,000 for the branding side
and another $3,000 working with a media company.
And that was just part of it.
Subscriptions.
Tools.
Courses.
Time.
I was fully invested in figuring it out.
The whole idea was simple:
Run ads → sell product → scale.
That was the plan.
But what I didn’t realize…
was that I couldn’t just run ads.
I needed content that actually converted first.
And it took me getting all the way through that process
before anyone actually told me that.
That was the piece I was missing.
And I didn’t realize it on my own.
So everything shifted.
What started as building a clothing brand…
turned into me having to learn how to create content differently.
And that was the key.
I already knew how to create.
I had been doing it for years as a promoter.
Social media.
Photos.
Videos.
But I had never learned how to create for business.
So I had to adapt.
I went through courses.
Learned hooks.
Studied how content actually works.
That’s what led me into using tools like ChatGPT and CapCut.
And I started figuring it out.
I taught myself how to:
make skits
create educational poker content
film product videos
edit everything with intention
I was doing it all.
One of my friends, Alana, modeled some of the pieces.
Ryan Silva bought shirts for everyone I worked with.
Guys I met playing poker in Vegas wore my stuff.
One of them even wore it while winning a tournament.
A couple of guys opened the merch on their podcast and talked about it.
I was networking, sending stuff out, building relationships.
People supported me.
And one of my favorite parts…
was designing custom shirts for my friends.
Some weren’t even poker-related.
But it taught me how to create.
It felt like it was working.
But it wasn’t.
And then one day…
I’m playing in this game in West Maui.
Near Kapalua.
Not a normal game.
My friend Bam had a connection to a guy high up in one of those big delivery app companies.
Massive house.
Pool in the backyard.
Beautiful spot.
Guys like Bam, Cowboy, Sneaky…
solid players.
Sneaky was the oldest one in the group.
Kind of like the grandpa of the table.
And I remember sitting there between hands…
just looking around.
Not at the cards.
At what people were wearing.
And I had this thought:
Why isn’t anyone wearing poker gear?
So I really started paying attention.
And that’s when it hit me.
Nobody was wearing poker anything.
No shirts.
No hats.
Nothing.
They were wearing surf brands.
Golf shirts.
Business casual.
Sports teams.
Just normal stuff.
The only person I could even think of was Sneaky.
And even his shirts weren’t what I was trying to build.
They were those goofy ones…
like something off Amazon or Walmart.
Cartoon king on it.
“I raise, I call, I fold” type stuff.
The kind of shirt someone gives as a joke.
And that’s when it hit even harder.
I’m trying to sell $30–$35 shirts…
to people who don’t even buy $12 ones.
And then the real realization came in.
I’ve been playing poker all this time…
And I’ve never bought one either.
That was the moment everything clicked.
I wasn’t building something wrong.
I was building something nobody needed.
At one point, I even looked up why most businesses fail.
The number one reason was a lack of money.
That wasn’t my problem.
I had money.
I had resources.
The number two reason…
was a lack of need.
And that was exactly what I was facing.
So I stopped.
And yeah…
That wasn’t easy.
I had put real time into it.
Real energy.
Told people about it.
I even had people like Micah telling me straight up
it wasn’t going to work.
And he was right.
But what I didn’t realize at the time…
was how valuable the process actually was.
Because everything I learned building that…
is exactly what I use today to build Nugget Speaks.
The difference now is:
I’m not starting with a product.
I’m starting with value.
Sharing stories.
Lessons.
Experiences.
Figuring out who I can help…
and how I can help them.
And building something around that.
Then, creating products later.
Not the other way around.
That was the shift.
And recently, I saw an interview with a guy who talks to billionaires and multi-millionaires.
One of them said it took him around 40 businesses…
before one finally worked.
And that made a lot more sense to me.
Because not everything you build is supposed to succeed.
Some things are just preparing you for what will.
If you can turn it into a lesson instead of a loss…
You never really lose.
I share one real story each week, a
Along with the lessons behind it.
