Harvey Specter Poker
I have a confession: I spent the majority of the Easter weekend that’s just passsed, binged-watching on old reruns of “Suits” (psst, don’t tell my mum, who was conscripting for the annual family spring-cleaning fest). Boston Legal and The Good Wife will always be my perennial favourites but by golly, when it comes TV legal eagles, the closer of all closers, Harvey Specter, absolutely blows!
Harvey Specter Poker Bar
Visit my Znappy profile and play with me for free the coolest multiplayer games in Romania. Join a virtual world and try the games: Poker, Texas Holdem, Rentz, Whist, Rummy, Backgammon, Chess, Stack Rummy and Videopoker. You can play directly from your cellphone or with your friends on Facebook. Harvey Specter: Well, I guess you're the expert, because the only thing you graduated from.is. high school. We both know you tracked her down because of your lifelong, never-gonna-happen dream to beat me. The mobile casino has taken the concept of personalized Harvey Specter Poker gaming to a whole new level. Now you can play on the go 24×7 regardless of where you are. All you need is a smartphone that gives you Internet access via 3G, 4G, LTE, or Wi-F. It is not an easy feat to be Harvey, but these few things may help you get there. Harvey can act in the way he does, talk to people the way he does and still have everyone’s respect because he works so hard.
In one episode, Harvey challenges the opposition to a game of poker to win back the company that Harvey’s client had carelessly lost to the opposition in an earlier card game. Harvey’s sidekick, Mike, who has the ultimate photographic memory, offers to play the poker game for him. Harvey rejects Mike’s help with this brilliant one-liner: “I don’t play the odds, I play the man.”
True enough, at the poker game, and in spite of his bad hand, Harvey wins back the company by unnerving the opposition by playing on the opposition’s past and deep insecurities. Harvey’s genius is that he understands that anybody can play the odds at poker (and indeed, life); whether by chance as his gambler of a client did or by logic, as good card players like Mike do. However, what makes a great card player is one, who respects the human element of the game, one that not only reads the play but more importantly, the players.
Great designers read people
Design is a game of poker, where designers are often sitting at cross-roads trying to anticipate and fulfill the ever-changing needs of users, through the use of every logic and / or emotion. Simple as that may appear to be, it can also be downright difficult because you will very often have to challenge the very people that you are serving (and desperately want to please) in order to give them what they really need.
Jennifer Aldrich, in her post about “Good Designers vs Great Designers“, tells the story of a designer friend, whose mentor in what appeared to be rather brazen move, had stood up against a client’s brief. The mentor challenged the brief, albeit diplomatically, which while detailed in its design requirements, was absent on the client’s goals. When questioned on his approach, the mentor had these wise words to say:
I wasn’t standing up to them, I was making sure that I clearly understood the problems that they need to solve. Good designers take orders and hand over exactly what a client wants. Great designers dive deep to uncover what a client actually needs.
It is that last line, which resonates most with me, that you have to courageously commit to your client’s success and not just your client. Mike Monteiro wrote about this and the many battles that they have had to “fight” against clients, over years of running a design service, in order to ultimately work together with clients to win the war. In other words, the goal is not to make clients happy, but rather to make them succeed. Go above and beyond to understand what makes them them tick and then, give them what they need – even if they do not know it themselves yet.
And, how do you do that? Well, again, I take leave from the great Harvey Specter:
You do what they or they shoot you, right? Wrong! You take the gun. You pull out a a bigger gun or you call their bluff or you do one of another 146 other things.
Risky, yes, but that is what it takes to be THE DESIGNER (MAN / WOMAN).
Harvey Specter is a fucking bad-ass. For those of you who don’t know, Harvey Specter (played by Gabriel Macht) is a senior partner from the fictional law firm Pearson Hardman, in the critically acclaimed law drama on the USA Network – Suits. Yes, the show is pretty enjoyable. It’s smart and thrilling, but there’s more to the show than just entertainment. I’ve actually managed to pick up tips for success in business and life in general, by watching the ways of Harvey Specter.
1. Win your battles before they’ve even been fought – Harvey likes to win his cases outside of court because going to court is expensive. Just like with anything else, if you can find an option that allows you to win your battles without actually having to go to war, take it.
2. Be a risk taker – If you never take any chances, I guarantee you will have a dull, boring and shitty life.
3. Don’t try to lose small, try to win big – This is one of those glass half empty or glass half full kinda things. If you frame your mind in a way that always looks to minimize your losses, you’re never going to make it big in life.
4. Take control of and own your responsibilities – Harvey brought Mike on board so he knows that if Mike screws up, it’s on him. You choose your behaviour, so you choose your consequences.
5. Following every single rule gets you nowhere – If you’re not willing to break the rules once in a while, you’re going to be at a huge disadvantage. By following the rules every single time, you’re only letting your competition get ahead by being naive enough to believe that they will do the same.
6. Play the man, not the odds – If you structure your life in a way that only uses logic, 99% of the time you’re going to come up short. Anybody can play the odds. Anybody can use logic to try and sell a product, land a client or create a business. It’s those who know how to adjust their strategies based on the emotional intelligence gathered from others, who will come up on top.
7. Appearances are important – Understand that the way you look has a direct impact on the way others perceive you. First impressions are everything and the way you present yourself to a prospective employer or client has everything to do with whether or not they choose you.
8. The success of your client is a success of yours – This is straight forward enough. Your goal shouldn’t be to make your client happy, your goal should be to make them succeed.
9. Master the art of reading people – Harvey Specter plays poker on his off days. Maybe that’s how he learned to be so good at reading people. It’s an important skill to have. People around you are always giving out tiny signals and if you are able to catch them and use them to your advantage, you will be extremely successful in business. Learn to predict what others are going to do before they actually do it.
10. Be cool and keep your composure – Be cool even in tough situations. Keeping your composure during difficult times allows others to have confidence in you.
Harvey Specter Poker Play
11. Do what you have to do – “Sometimes the good guys gotta do bad things to make the bad guys pay.”
12. Have interests and hobbies outside of work – I don’t know about you but I want that vinyl record collection he has in his office.
13. There’s no such thing as lying to protect someone -“Lying to me doesn’t protect me. It betrays me.”
14. Sometimes being cocky is okay – If you’re good at what you do, there’s no reason you can’t brag about it.
15. Study, learn and know your competition – You always have to be one step ahead.
16. Don’t think like a rookie even if you are one – Everyone has to start somewhere, but that doesn’t mean you can’t open your mind up to think like a veteran.
17. Don’t waste time trying to explain the problem, fix it instead – When you come across a problem, people appreciate it more when you spend your time wisely, trying to fix the problem rather than reporting the issues to someone else (like your boss). In the time constrained society that we live in today, every second counts and a second spent talking rather than doing is a second wasted.
18. Don’t wear a damn skinny tie to work – Seriously, just dont.