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Other than not breaking your post up into paragraphs I find that you write refreshingly well for a 22 year old. The reason I mention that is because it is nice to see someone contemplating pro pool as a career who is seemingly aware of the limited income opportunities.
I haven't read the rest of the thread so whatever I say is likely to have been said many times over already. But since I have 25+ years in this industry already and have dealt with dozens of pro players over the years I will give you my advice from my perspective anyway.
Let's start with the concept. Professional Pool Player. This is a job that has no requirement other than to declare yourself a professional. Unfortunately there is no structure on the planet where you can get a tour card or any other certification that you are a professional. So the only way to keep score as a professional player is to make a living only from your winnings and endorsements. Most people don't even know or think that there is such a thing as a professional pool player. So with that in mind don't expect a lot of prestige outside the pool world or respect from mainstream America. However if you treat your career as a business from day one you can actually have a shot at building a solid money-making operation which will look respectable to banks and lenders.
Most pros fail horribly at life and money management. For two major reasons. One is that they never had to learn to manage money for the real world and two is that they don't have a steady stream of income to manage. And when they do come into money they generally don't have any good advisor to help them invest that money wisely. So make a commitment to budget and plan. Look hard at what your expenses are expected to be vs. the earning potential. This way you can maximize your travel to have a decent balance between what you spend and what you can earn. Sometimes while you are growing as a player it's wiser to avoid the bigger events where finishing low pays little but comes wth high expense and instead attend regional events where you can have a better chance to finish high with lower expenses. The payout might not be as high as winning the big event but the net profit might be greater based on your real chances at either event.
Skill building. My advice is to get a coach. Make a deal with the best instructor you can find and get to work mastering every bit you can. In China and Taiwan coaches take a percentage of the winnings for the players they contract with. This is not normal in the United States but there is no reason why you can't do what pros in other sports do. You also shouldn't make any "forever" commitments. This isn't a marriage and till death do us part type of deal. You want someone who can take you as far as they can and then find someone who can take you farther. If you are lucky you will find someone who can take you all the way and stick with you but don't count on it.
Practice until your fingers bleed and beyond. SVB is an excellent example to follow in this regard. He was asked once what the longest amount of time he spent in sone session working on the break was and he said 18 hours iirc. You can regularly see him practicing at events when all the other pros are off doing other things. He works hard to keep his game sharp and his arm loose.
Study. At 22 you are in a world that has hundreds of thousands of hours of match video available to you 24 hours a day. You should study those videos of both amateurs and pro matches as intently as an NFL team studies game film of their opponents. Basically everything that the world's best players know how to do is archived for your use. Use it. You don't have to reinvent the wheel or lose $100,000 dollars over ten years to learn what those pros know. And for instructional videos and physics knowledge there are dozens of good resources out there now. Most people who acquire these materials don't really study them and don't really absorb the knowledge or build the skill that they could by having access to this knowledge. I am myself guilty of this.
Honesty. Be honest with yourself as to where you are and where you need to go. use benchmarks to test yourself and when you practice don't cheat yourself. Be hard on yourself even when it hurts. Don't give into ego when people start to tell you how good you are and what great talent you have. Everything you will do in pool will come through your own efforts to acquire the skill and knowledge to perform at the highest level. You were not born with a pool gene. You might be able to see angles right away, or have a decent stroke out of the box but that's just a slight starting advantage. Everything after that is up to how honest you are with yourself and your willingness to put in the time diligently.
Heart. Don't fall into the handicap trap. Nothing stunts a player's growth more than constantly judging themselves against other players and trying to "match up". Matching up right means two things...either you're honest and you want a game that is 50/50 on the chance of winning OR you are hustling and you want to have an edge that gives a way better than 50% chance of winning. The first way guarantees that you will break even most of the time. Somedays you will win and somedays you will lose and the net result will be that you don't earn money but you spend money every time. The second way will either find you trapped a lot and losing a lot OR it will find you turning into a despicable person who lies in wait for players to trap. This won't build your skill at playing it will build your skill at deception. And for all players of this type the income stream dries up as the victims wise up. in my opinion the ONLY way to develop the requisite heart of a champion is to act like one out of the gate. Seek out the strongest players you can and get them to play hard for as much as you can afford to lose. These are lessons you are paying for which you MUST be alert to every move used against you, every pattern chosen, every physical position they adopt, every stroke they use. You must observe and remember these things and immediately practice them until you own them. In this way you will become the player that outruns the nuts rather than the one who needs them.
Professionalism. From day one treat this as a business venture. Your product is YOU. Everyone you meet has to want to be around you, to help you, to wish you success, to pay to see you, to pay to play you, to pay you to endorse them, to buy things associated with you, to invite you to their events, to back you, in short they should want to consume your brand at every opportunity they can. What does this mean? Well, first you can get some business cards made. Have a phone number than will never change. Put up a simple website so that you can keep your contact information there to be easily found. Register a business. (before all that learn what this entails and how to keep your books, it's not hard these days.)
When I owned Instroke Cue Cases we started talking to Ralf Souquet. He sent us his proposal on a nice piece of stationary which listed his sponsors down one side. As soon as I opened this letter my very first thought was that I wanted my logo to be on that page. That seems quaint now since everyone communicates via text and email but the same principle applies - be professional in your communication and promote your sponsors and you will be attractive to others who can sponsor you.
Goals. Well, going back to the idea that the only way to keep score is being able to live off of pool playing and endorsements/licensing.....one of your goals should be financial. You have to have a number that you need to live and a way to reach it. Then you need a number that reflects how you want to live and a determination and plan to move towards it. You may think if you just build the skill the money will come because of results. That might be true but then you might not be able to fade setbacks if you are not well budgeted. SVB for example had a solid base of operations. A home to go back to where he grew up with a solid group of friends and supporters there to welcome him back from his travels and pump him up to go out again. When you're out there by yourself and living a nomadic existence it's really hard to get the emotional and physical support when things don't go right.
So your other goal is to have a solid base to work from and go back to. A foundation that is unshakeable where you can relax and be you and work from.
Skill goals. These days there are quantifiable and measurable benchmarks you can use to figure out where you really are. Use them. You don't need to report these number publicly but you should be diligent and honest about where you are at and what you need to do.
In short you have all the opportunity one could wish for to become a pro player. I guess the only other thing you could want would be to be wealthy enough to lock yourself in a room with the best players for a year. Beyond that though with proper planning you should see some success. There is no logical reason that you can't get there if you have the desire and proceed smartly. But if you allow yourself to fall into the old ways of thinking and acting that have pervaded poolrooms as long as there have been poolrooms....you will have it very tough to find a decent place among the world's elite players in my opinion.
You can do the math and look at the earnings vs. events played in to see that it's not easy to earn six figures per year through tournament prize money. In order for you to earn the same money as SVB and Appleton for example you will need to be beating them regularly. There are very good reasons why seemingly equally skilled players don't beat them regularly. Don't be one of those statistics.
There you go. Good luck and I hope you reach your goals.
