Money is the great equalizer.
Molly Bloom
You can tell a lot about a man's character by watching him win or lose money.
Life is about making choices, seeing those choices through, and living through consequences.
I approach everything, including sobriety, with the same mentality I approached sports with. You're going to put in the time. You've got to suit up, show up, and keep your eyes on the win.
Look at the things you've done and ask for forgiveness. After clearing out that wreckage from the past, you can move forward, in a way, to keep your finger on the pulse.
I know for sure that you have to re-define power as power that comes from within. Success needs to be more comprehensive and attached to something with meaning.
In sports, especially skiing, you have to be comfortable with risk. You have to have a relationship with fear, and it can't dominate the decision-making process.
High stakes, low stakes, poor or rich - people will find a way to gamble.
Everyone has their dreams and their rise and their own version of a fall from grace.
Ideally, I would like to not be in the public eye.
Tobey Maguire and I had a tough relationship - it was a tough working relationship. We butted heads, and ultimately, I lost the Los Angeles game because of differences with him. But then I moved to New York and built a bigger game, five times bigger, making more money, and that was pretty exciting.
Know when to fold. Pay attention to the signs. They're there.
Even if there are people around to help you, you don't suffer with an audience; you don't triumph with an audience.
I lived across from a cornfield when I was growing up.
I believe that to get what you want as a woman is to use your brain, to have a job, and to not need someone or have to make decisions based on that.
Being humble got me very far when I went to L.A., because it was in stark contrast to this town of people who were so cutthroat.
The human spirit is so resilient, and failure teaches you so much.
I created a lot of drama and mess in my life.
When I'm in a hectic crowd of people, I don't feel great. I'm looking over my shoulder. I feel exposed.
I moved to Los Angeles. My parents were not on board with that, and so I had to get a lot of different jobs. One of them was working for a man in Hollywood who had a weekly poker game.
Tobey Maguire was the worst tipper, the best player, and the absolute worst loser.
I saw someone lose $100 million in one night. When you watch that, as an owner-operator of a game, you realize that these numbers are incredibly unsustainable, incredibly unhealthy. So, I was not happy about this loss. It brought me no joy or adrenaline.
When you're willing to play poker for two days and lose millions of dollars, it's no longer recreation. It's taking over.
I kept these games pretty intimate. You know, with this much money on the table, with this much risk, you wanted to make people feel safe. They don't want to feel like they're part of a spectator's sport - well, the winners do, but the losers do not.
Every card player in Hollywood wanted to come to the games. Everyone's friends and their friends wanted to come to watch.
I'm definitely a gambler, as exemplified by the massive risks I've taken.
I had a full-time driver, or I would take my Bentley. I'd have big houses in the Hamptons for the summer, taking seaplanes or helicopters out. I did a lot of flying privately to Miami. A lot of shopping.
I grew up in a very high-achieving family. I have a brother who's a Harvard-educated cardiothoracic surgeon. My other brother is a two-time Olympian, fifth-round draft pick for the Philadelphia Eagles, and an entrepreneur and philanthropist.
This was 2008, you know. The economy was falling apart, spiraling. And I was hosting a game in New York, and there was $5 to $7 million on the table.
My mom had put her house up to bail me out of jail!
I believed that writing my story was my best shot to be able to pay my mom and my attorneys back and pull myself out of this massive crisis that I had put myself in.
I believe that refusing to quit and refusing to fail will trump talent and brilliance in the end.
I did a little soul searching to explore where I had gone wrong, why I made the decisions I did, how my definitions of success and ambition were off. I love a great new pair of shoes - I love to look at my bank account and see zeroes - but what is it attached to?
You're as sick as your secrets, and my whole life was a secret, so it's just... it's been really healing, and I've found a lot of inner peace by just owning everything and moving forward from there.
Getting the book published and the movie made was not an easy task. But it helped. Because even though it's a difficult life to explain, I lived it.
I was in the company of movie stars, important directors, and powerful business tycoons. I felt like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole.
I hang out with my grandma, go to sleep at 8:30, and that's it.
I've always been very ambitious and very determined and very compassionate at the same time.
I've been rich; I've been poor. I've been successful; I've been decimated. And the way I felt inside didn't change dramatically. It's less stressful to have money, that's for sure. But that doesn't mean I felt fulfilled. So I've learned to live in the smaller moments of life.
You're going up against the billionaire boys' club or trying to find your way into something you have no basis for, and it's bigger than anything you ever imagined - and then actually having that work. Having that risk pan out. It taught me to be very fearless - maybe too fearless in the end.
In terms of my own life and the mistakes I made and the struggles I had, I'm grateful for them. It taught me more than success and opportunity ever did.
My regular game in New York City was a $250,000 buy-in, no limit. So people were burning through that, a lot of times in the first 30 minutes.
I don't think anyone's private life stands up to public scrutiny.
I'm really kind of a behind-the-scenes person.
I'm finally my dad's favourite because Kevin Costner is playing him.
I built the most exclusive and decadent high-profile club for powerful men.
I logged into my bank accounts, and they were all seized, all frozen. So that was a pretty clear indication that I was in big trouble.
I don't really miss the Hollywood lifestyle.
My father is a psychologist who wouldn't let fear stop us. Particularly with me, he was hell bent on requiring us and teaching us to walk through fear. I don't know if I would've become someone who taps into their ability to push through those tough situations without him.
I felt invisible in my family, and I wanted to be significant like my brothers were significant. I wanted my parents to pay attention, so I went out into the world with that driving me, that grasping, that seeking validation.
