Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Breathe in. Breathe out. As Happy Gilmore once said, “Go to your happy place.” Sometimes success in poker is all about taking a step back and appreciating life, no matter what challenges are thrown your way.

Take Peter ‘winwin07’ Nigh, for example, who lives in Costa Rica and is the #2 ranked player in the province of Guanacaste. His recent attempts to appreciate life have paid off in a big way, namely a $27,000 cash for finishing fourth in the PokerStars Sunday Warm-Up last weekend.

“I’ve been making a really concerted effort to learn to appreciate life,” Nigh revealed. “The poker lifestyle allows a person to be free in pretty much all aspects of life and yet so many of us, most often myself included, just choose to be giant life fish. We can pretty much go explore the world, but because we’re the types who are attracted to a game that primarily exists in our own brains, we end up getting lost in our own heads a lot.”

Think about that for a second. Poker players have the freedom to go anywhere at any time, assuming they have the funds to do so. You could pick up tomorrow and fly to Tokyo, or go get takeout sushi, and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop you.

“Enjoying life is vital to poker success,” Nigh argued. “You’re not going to win just being obsessive about the game. I do things like go to the beach every evening for sunset or take a couple of minutes throughout the day to take deep breaths and enjoy my surroundings. We are all so fortunate to have this life. The acknowledgement of our fortune is probably a good thing.”

In case you’re wondering, Nigh didn’t have some near-death experience or sudden realization that he should be grateful for what he has. Instead, his outlook came over time through reading as well as the general amusement, befuddlement, and gratitude for all that life has brought him.

In 2002, Stephen Pressfield authored a book called The War of Art. It got 4.5 out of 5 starts on Amazon, where it’s priced under $10, and, according to High, is a must-read for any poker player. While The War of Art is not about raising UTG +1, the book is instead “a good kick-in-the-ass life-wise,” according to Nigh. “It’s all about professionalism, what that means and what it doesn’t mean.”

Nigh has $1.8 million in career online tournament winnings, including $1.3 million on PokerStars, and said he has recently started taking hypnotherapy sessions and consistently working on meditating. His mentor in that realm: Elliot Roe.

On Sundays and Tuesdays, two of the busiest grinding days of the week, Nigh listens to pre-recorded MP3s produced by Roe. He also gets the benefit of live sessions in which he can interact with Roe in real-time.

“The live sessions are basically about unpacking what holds you up in poker, sometimes getting deep into life stuff to figure out and then address what’s holding you back,” Nigh explained. “For me, it was a lot about maintaining focus and discipline, taking those quiet, deep breaths in the middle of sessions to recalibrate and get my focus back.”

The Warm-Up final table was Nigh’s sixth largest cash all-time. He won the WCOOP’s kickoff event last year, defeating EPT founder John Duthie heads-up, and earned over $200,000. Two months later, he took fifth in the Super Tuesday for another $28,000.

“I’ve been more comfortable and relaxed when I grind,” he said of his recent performance. “The game is still easy if you let it be. There are lots of staking groups and coaches that are teaching the wrong things. MTTs are a very unique animal within the poker ecosystem and most people don’t appreciate that or believe it’s the case. There are still lots of good players, but they are definitely the minority and they are seemingly transitioning to playing more and more live poker.”

“We as poker players need to have a greater appreciation for how crazy it is that we have this opportunity,” Nigh summarized. “There are lights beaming through tubes that when we, in correspondence with those lights, click certain buttons in the right order are given money. It is insane and we all just ignore the insanity. It is a classic example of hedonic adaptation, which is something we should resist in all facets of life.”