Prich has won over $300k the past 3 years and has found an edge in understanding the field biases and more importantly his own biases when building rosters.
I got into studying bias as a theology teacher and a campus minister. A friend of mine, Fr. Jack was a retired Catholic priest with a bit of a flair for the dramatic. He had an alter ego, Fitz, who sometimes showed up in his ministry to young people. He would dress up in a glittery jacket with a wig of long hair, and no one thought he was pulling off an aging rock star, but he was a musician and used music as a way to cut through bias and get to people’s hearts. Ultimately, he wanted people to experience the power of gratitude. Fr. Jack studied positive psychology in his retirement. He attended workshops and achieved certifications. He shared everything that amazed him about gratitude with the kids at our school and it had amazing effects.
Our brains are basically plastic and therefore able to be molded, but we often get very set in our thoughts. These biases are often pathways in our brains that transmit negative thoughts. Maybe these negative thoughts are meant to keep us feeling safe, but they can also lead to depression in a world where we are more and more isolated from each other. An experience could trigger a thought in our brain that, no matter where it originates, will follow a similar path in our brain that determines our reaction to the thought. In particular, people who had experienced trauma would have coping mechanisms built into their brains and sometimes these coping mechanisms were not healthy. They were negatively biased, causing people to drink to numb the pain or to practice self-harm. Gratitude was sort of a magical manipulator of the brain. Kids who practiced sharing gratitude could develop more positive outlooks by creating pathways in their brains that were looking for blessings, rather than curses. A normal experience was more likely to trigger positive emotions in the brain just by keeping a normal daily gratitude journal and sharing that with another person. Gratitude was able to cut through the bias that was entrenched in the brain.
We have a Thanksgiving slate for DFS every year and I know some of you are super excited to spend your day sweating these games. Many of us will be checking in from our phones, enjoying (also dreading, let’s be real here) family and food as well as football. It really is a time to be grateful, but more than that, to commit ourselves to living with an attitude of gratitude. When we do this we can create pathways in our brains that look for the positive and not the negative in our everyday experiences. Negative bias can paralyze us and confuse our abilities to make decisions. Positive bias helps us to be more open, real, and true. This is far more important in the context of our real world, but in DFS this can also help us to be better players. OWS is all about this mentality and I think it’s one reason why OWS subs are more successful in DFS. We know that one week can change our entire season (or life) and that you have to stay positive if you want to keep grinding and eventually hit on that one lineup. Dive into gratitude this holiday. Right now, think of three things you are grateful for and keep doing that every day. It will change your life and just might make you see this slate better.
