I am immensely proud to be British.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not xenophobic, because I hope you too are immensely proud of where you come from, wherever that may happen to be.

(Back when I was at  school, the day we had that spelling test, I never seriously thought I’d ever have the need or inclination to write down the word ‘xenophobic’ again, but how glad I am now that I learned to spell it!)

And have you noticed when you’re abroad, how people seem to home-in on the British accent?

In America you get treated almost like royalty. In fact I’m sure every American thinks we are all in some way related to the Queen!

But the funny thing is, once recognised, your accent seems to get even more British, doesn’t it? To the point where even your own mother would swear Hugh Grant was somewhere in the room.

My wife and I were having dinner one night in the famous Wolfgang Puck’s steak-house in Las Vegas not too long ago. When the waiter came over to take our order he was quick to point out we were from England.

I wanted to *thank* him for letting us know, but resisted the temptation. He asked the occasion for us being in town, and I explained I had come over on business to meet with some colleagues at a marketing seminar.

You’ve travelled one heck of a long way to get in the same room as those guys, he said, You must be SERIOUSLY into this stuff?

He wasn’t wrong!!

I’ll stick my neck out at this point and say that if you’ve been following this here blog for any length of time, and perhaps also reading my newsletters, you too are seriously into making your betting pay.

Because you’re still with me, and you haven’t yet clicked on the ‘X’ top right, never to return, then presumably you also take me (at least a little bit) seriously?

You’ve also travelled a long way to reach this point, and indeed you should be congratulated (hurrah, well done!).

And you’re showing you possess one of the key traits which characterises the truly successful professional punter….

…. and that’s PERSISTENCY

98% of punters who fail to make money, flutter from system to system, from tipster to tipster, just like a butterfly, unhappy when they find they are not enjoying “Instant Wealth” within the first week.

I get emails regularly from people who have unsubscribed from my newsletter messages, after perhaps just a week or two.

I’ve had my messages described as “pure drivel” before now, and I remember one guy telling me the only positive thing about “SkyBlueKangaroo” was that at least by sending emails I wasn’t responsible for wasting any trees!

It’s all fair comment, and of course everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and I’m not so far up my own backside to think I know it all. And I do not think I hold the key to some “secret betting formula”.

I know I get on some peoples’ nerves, but hey, I’m not about to change how I am.

However, reading between the lines I’m guessing a percentage of these people who quit my newsletter, are also the very same indecisive *butterflies* who cannot settle on any one course of action for any significant length of time.

If you have decided you are NOT a butterfly, then that’s great, and a fundamental step forward.

The lesson I hope you will take from this particular post is to adopt a degree of persistency with a method or strategy you have shown yourself can be profitable.

You will find time and again that results go in ‘cycles’. You may find yourself testing a system and during the first week you see profits way ahead of what you expected. Do not make the mistake of thinking you have stumbled across the “Holy Grail” of betting that is going to make you millions.

Instead you should be expecting the inevitable “reversal”.

You’re testing a laying system and you’ve seen a sequence of twenty consecutive losers – BEWARE the winner at 12/1 is only just around the corner, believe me.

You are trying a new method to back winners, and this week alone you are 30 points in front. You’ve enjoyed a 20/1 winner, two at a tasty 11/1 and half a dozen further winners….

…. MAKE NO MISTAKE you are going to see that losing run of fifteen very soon.

• These are facts of life, and the successful punter takes them on the chin
• But he does not give up at the very first sign of trouble
• He carries on with his testing, through several cycles of “feast and famine”
• Until, he is able to conclude whether the system has merit, or indeed not

Adopting this discipline of persistency will give you the confidence to keep going when you encounter a poor period, and also the ability to curb your enthusiasm when the system is “playing out of its socks”.

Slowly but surely, you WILL catch that monkey…

Evaluating a system, or a method, or a strategy, takes time…. and I am talking months rather than days or weeks. You will invest many months building your own personal winning portfolio, and you will discard many systems along the way.

If you are quite sure you have the patience, then you can start your quest for betting profits in earnest.