Enhancing Golf Performance with Emotional Intelligence with Laura Scott

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Unlock the secrets to mastering the mental game of golf with Laura Scott, a remarkable UK-based golf mental coach, as she shares her transformative journey from competitive sports to becoming an expert in the mental strategies that enhance performance and joy on the course. Discover how Laura's holistic approach, which combines goal-setting, belief examination, and self-awareness, can lead to significant improvements in your golf experience. Her collaboration with teaching and fitness professionals provides a comprehensive pathway to success, and her insights into understanding the 'why' behind your desire to play are particularly illuminating.

Imagine the power of transforming your mindset by simply changing "should" to "could." Laura and I delve into how these minor language tweaks can empower you both on and off the course, drawing inspiration from legends like Tom Watson and Greg Norman. Through engaging stories, we explore the art of reframing negative situations into opportunities for growth, encouraging you to embrace mistakes and simplify the mental game. By focusing on emotional intelligence and being present, we reveal strategies to boost confidence and self-worth, fostering a mindset that supports you through life's challenges.

Finally, gain valuable insights into the world of emotional IQ in golf, with examples from iconic players like Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods. Uncover techniques such as visualization and post-shot routines that can transform your emotional responses, both on the course and in everyday situations. Laura shares actionable strategies for maintaining a neutral emotional baseline, emphasizing the individuality of the mental game and encouraging you to define your own success. Whether you're a high-level competitor or simply enjoying a round with friends, this episode offers a wealth of knowledge to enhance your mental performance and overall enjoyment of golf.
To find Laura best, go to Instagram @coachingforsuccess
To find Justin Tang, email him at [e-mail]
To Find Jesse, text him at [phone]

     A big thank you to TaylorMade AND JUMBOMAX grips for their support 🙏

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello and welcome to another edition of the Flag
Hunters Golf Podcast this earlymorning for us here in
California, and my guest thisweek is in the UK, in England to
be exact.
Her name is Laura Scott.
She's got a great thing going.
I found her on Instagram and Ireached out to her, and what

(00:22):
she's teaching and helping folksdo and overcome is very much in
alignment with with what Ithink, with what Justin thinks
and and how we can betterourselves, not only on.
I really appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
No, thank you very much, jesse, for having me.
It's definitely not earlymorning where I am, but it's not
too late.
So, yeah, I'm really reallythrilled to be here and, yeah, I
can't wait to get into thisconversation.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
Let's dive in.
How'd you get started?
What brought you here, firstand foremost, what brought you
to where you are right now?

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Oh gosh, I mean, how far do you go back?
How far do you go back?

Speaker 1 (01:20):
Give us the cliff notes, the cliff notes.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Yeah, the cliff notes , okay.
So I picked up golf latterly.
So I was in my 30s when Ipicked up golf Always did
competitive sport prior to that,javelin football or soccer, for
you guys and when I picked upgolf, it was probably like most
golfers you know how good can Iget at this and how quickly can

(01:44):
I do it.
You know this addictivenessthat is this, this sport, and
that worked for a while and thenit absolutely didn't and my
golf game became, yeah, pretty,pretty, pretty awkward, shall we
say, and the frustration hitand I started studying the
mental game um background insort of executive coaching

(02:06):
degree in psychology and anaccredited life coach.
And so, having had anxietyovercoming my own sort of
personal challenges prior to allof this, and then channeling
that through golf and learningthe golf mental game, I just
found that things that are quite, almost intangible in life can

(02:31):
be made quite tangible throughgolf as a metaphor for life, and
I just felt like I had to sharethat with others.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Yeah, absolutely, to share that with others.
Yeah, absolutely.
That's a pretty big thing tocontemplate and think about.
And let's just say, somebodyhits you up, somebody finds you,
they hear this podcast.
Where does somebody begin withyou, Laura?
I mean, first and foremost,what are some of the
frustrations, concerns problemsthat people come to you with?

(03:04):
You know out of the gate, Sure.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
So most of my clients come to me that they want to
play better golf OK, andpotentially they want to enjoy
the game more.
So whether they've got utterlyfrustrated, they're about to
give up.
You know I do a lot of workwith with PGA pros, teaching
professionals that have.
You know there's an ongoingjoke that you know teaching
professionals are failed, failedgolfers.

(03:30):
You know, because if you can'tdo, then teach.
But you know these expectationsthat people have that they
should be doing something, theyshould be scoring a certain
score and, generally speaking,if people want to get better at
golf, then they should belooking at their should.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
They could be looking at their mental game as a
really easy sort of way to dothat so if somebody comes to you
and they say laura, I'mstruggling with you, know,
whatever my thinking, my thought, processing my game, it's
translating or it's hurting mygolf swing, where does where

(04:10):
does somebody begin?
Where does somebody begin withyou with this process?

Speaker 2 (04:16):
okay, cool.
So generally I'll have a chatwith them and I'll always start
with what they want, because noteverybody wants to be a better
golfer.
Some people want to find theenjoyment again.
And then I ask them why?
Why do they want that?
Why is that important?
What do they believe about thatand why?

(04:37):
Now?
What's happened?
What's changed?
So it always starts with thegoals and I come at this from
almost a bit of a, I guess, likea three-pronged attack.
So I like to complementteaching professionals and what
they're doing with the technicalelement, equally fitness

(04:57):
professionals, and make it quitea holistic journey for a golfer
.
But typically speaking, I will.
I will tackle goals, as I'vejust sort of talked through
beliefs.
So what do they believe aboutthemselves?
What do they believe aboutothers?
What do they believe about theworld?
What do they believe about golf?
Okay, and human skills, soself-narrative, uh, their

(05:22):
awareness of themselves.
You know that's a huge thinggenerally where it all starts,
as you'll know, jesse concepts,perspectives, you know, and
taking those three sort of keyareas and then just really
simplifying them into processesboth for golf and for life,

(05:44):
practical processes that theycan then embed into their games.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
What a great answer.
What a great way to start, whata great way to start a working
relationship, what a great wayto get the practitioner to.
As we said before, when astudent starts to think about
the why, that's, in my opinion,that's when the magic starts to

(06:11):
happen.
The why will open up thefloodgates to a lot of knowledge
.
When you start getting honestwith yourself and a lot of us
have a really difficult timedoing that and we need help.
We really do.
We need a guide, we need ateacher, a coach such as
yourself, to help us and give usthe encouragement to look at

(06:35):
ourselves in the mirror and askourselves why in the hell do we
subjugate ourselves on theweekends or whenever, to a lot
of frustration, a lot ofdisappointment, a lot of missed
putts, a lot of missed hits,golf shots and things like that,
and I think that's important.
I've asked that same thing of afew of my friends why do you
play?

(06:56):
I know exactly why I play.
I know exactly to a T and youknow, for me, golf is.
It's the ultimate holisticchallenge and it's the ultimate
holistic expression and form ofacceptance, because there's a
lot of things that you cannotcontrol and how you respond to

(07:16):
those things is going todetermine, in my opinion,
whether you win or lose.
Whether you win or loseexternally.
If you win internally, you'regoing to set yourself up, you're
going to stack the deck in yourfavor for a lot of good years
of playing golf.
So sorry for the quick rant,but I just think that's so
important to really takeownership of the why and that

(07:39):
really sets the precedent forhow you can work with somebody
moving forward 100%.

Speaker 2 (07:48):
I'm sat here smiling and nodding.
You know it's, it's, it's.
It's far from a rant, it's justbrilliantly put.
I don't think I could have putit to myself, to be honest
thanks um, yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:03):
Yeah, so take us through the process.
Laura, just say, for example,I'm hitting you up.
I say, laura, I'm strugglingwith my game, and we start this
process.
What does that look like?
Do you work with somebody viaZoom?
Do you have them write to you?
What is that?
How does?

Speaker 2 (08:25):
somebody begin this process, yeah, sure.
So I think, like, first off, weI'd always jump on a call,
ideally a video call, you know,because I think you can really
gauge a lot from from, you know,interacting with someone in
that way.
And I think one of themisconceptions is a
misconception there's a lot ofpeople out there in golf and in

(08:48):
life they're after a quick fix.
Okay, like the plaster effect.
You guys use plaster is that wedo?
yeah, okay, that's it yeah sothe plaster effect and, and
ultimately, you, I've got atournament tomorrow, you know,
and I'm nervous, fix me.
And it's like, okay, yeah,there's a few things that we can

(09:13):
talk about there in terms ofyou know the concepts that
you'll have heard with mentalperformance, you know your
visualization, your breathing,your mindfulness, you know.
But in terms of the root cause,you know the mindset, the
perspective shift that's alwaysgoing to come to the surface and
there's only so many plastersyou can put on the surface.
So I think, in essence, it'sunderstanding.

(09:37):
How committed is this person?
You know, what does this personactually want to change?
Do they want this quick fix orare they prepared to work from
it?
And I guess it's the same whenyou go to, you know, a teaching
professional and you know, fixmy swing in one lesson.
And then I want to be a singlefinger handicap.
That's what you do, right,jesse?

(09:58):
no, I wish I wish, wish, I wish.
So it's like just gauging howcommitted is someone to this
journey, you know.
And then the beautiful thingwith, with, I guess, how I try

(10:18):
and approach this, you know, andI I genuinely don't want to
generalize as such, but and Ican only really speak for
england, more so here, but thereis a generation of um, of males
that play golf that, if were,would even mention you know,
how's your mental performance,how's your mental game?

(10:40):
There's this stigma behind yeah, I don't need any of that, you
know that's.
I don't need that wishy fluffystuff.
You know I'm gonna.
Yeah, I just need to practicemore.
You know, I just need to feel abit more confident, hit more
balls, and there's thismisconception that the mental
game is is, you know when you'reabsolutely at breaking point.

(11:03):
So a really nice thing goingthrough this process with people
is just actually helping themto expand their understanding
that, for example, if they getreally frustrated with
themselves because they'replaying with a friend who hits
the ball out of bounds and thenloses his head, all right, and

(11:31):
this player then findsthemselves doing everything they
can to make this other playerwho's frustrated enjoy their
time on the golf course more, tothe absolute detriment of their
own round.
You know, that's kind of apeople pleasing tendency, and if
that's showing up in your golf,there's a real high possibility
that that's showing up in yourgolf.
There's a real high possibilitythat that's showing up outside
of golf.
Okay, so so it's this kind ofalmost this metaphor as, as golf

(11:55):
, you know, golf and life and Iguess throughout everything I do
and the process I take peoplethrough, you know my passion is
rooted in helping individualsbecome the best version of
themselves, full stop.
Yeah, that's it.
And what better place, in myopinion, to start with than golf

(12:16):
?
Because golf has a tendency,you know, you tell me how you
feel about this, jessie but golfhas a tendency to bring forward
sometimes our most suppressedqualities.
You know, whether we like it ornot, yeah, I agree.

Speaker 1 (12:33):
I mean, when you step on the first tee, just rip the
Band-Aid off, especially underthe gun, especially in
tournament play and competitiveplay, the gremlins are going to
come out.
Yeah, you know, for whatever,whatever reason, the very nature
of golf I mean, I've beenreally deeply contemplating this

(12:53):
lately, laura but you're,you're tested in every way.
You're tested physically,mentally, emotionally, and you
can.
It's really one of the fewgames where you can do something
perfectly and not get rewardedfor it.
And you know, I'll give you theexample of if you, if you just
crash or smash a drive rightdown the middle and you're right

(13:15):
in the middle of a nasty divot,you know there's nothing you
could do about that.
And that, at least, tests me tono end.
Because the self talk is how inthe F did that happen?
I just hit a perfect drive, Ihit exactly where I wanted to
him, in the middle of an F anddivot.

(13:37):
And then the negative talkcomes why isn't the USGA or the
RNA?
Why didn't they fix this rule?
You start to blame things thatare outside of your control, and
I think that provides a greatopportunity.
You know this is talking aboutnow actually getting into the
work of accepting what it is,being great, satisfied that you

(14:02):
hit a drive the way that you hitit where you wanted to do,
where you wanted to hit it whereyou wanted to do it, where you
wanted to hit it, exactly whereyou wanted to hit it.
And you get a break like that.
I think that it really testsour acceptance levels, because
the best players in the worldare the best acceptors in the
world.
They may not like it, they mayhave a fit about it, but it's

(14:23):
over.
It doesn't impale their abilityto be aware in the moment and
proceed.
I mean, there's a greatspiritual verse that be in the
case how shall I proceed?
It's hard to do in real time.
It's hard to do when you'replaying with your buddies or

(14:45):
you're playing in a competitiveround, and then you start to
think about can you believe this, can you believe this effing
shit?
You know that, can you.
And then you start complainingto your friends and and then it
just further exacerbates theproblem.
So how can you, how can, howcan we, as golfers, through what

(15:07):
you teach Laura say thatexample?
I mean, that's a tough one, butit's important because it
happens.
It happens a lot when you play.
There are things that areoutside of your control that
will trigger what you just said,our deepest, most innermost,
whatever it is anger, anxiety,embarrassment, fear or, even

(15:32):
worse, you start to have tapesthat are pulling your head.
Why does this always happen tome?
So, as soon as you say thatyour power's gone, it's, you've
just given it away, but peopleare not aware of that.
They're absolutely not aware ofthat.
It's okay to be frustrated witha bad break, but it's not okay

(15:53):
to let it permeate yourconsciousness.
Where you start losing, whereyou're at, you're no longer
inside of your body, you arepissed off and you're.
You know, can you believe this?
You just, and it's.
It's a never-ending cycle, andthen, all of a sudden, the
energy perpetuates to the nextshot, yeah, and then the next
shot.

(16:13):
And then you look back andyou're on the next tee and
you're still back there going.
How the hell did that happen?

Speaker 2 (16:21):
I want to play around with Red Jesse Like this guy
sounds like fun.

Speaker 1 (16:29):
Oh God, oh, I can make people crack up out there.
I promise you that, becausethat very scenario of what I
just said happened and I caught,you know, the other day.
I'm playing a game and I'mplaying great, and I hit my
drive right down the middle ofthe fairway and I'm in a nasty
debit.
My first thing was F, the RNA,f the USGA.

(16:50):
They should have changed this Fand rule F this.
Why should I get punished forexecuting a perfect shot?
Why should I?
I shouldn't, but you know what.
You can do a lot of great thingsin life and still get a bad
break.
How?
But you know what?
You can do a lot of greatthings in life and still get a
bad break.
How do you handle that?
How do you move forward fromthat?
And then you start to thinknext level.
How can I use this to myadvantage?

(17:13):
How can I turn lemons intolemonade here?
How can I hit this great shot?
What can I do with this?
Yes, it's in a divot, but whatcan I do with this?
Yes, it's in a divot, but whatcan I do with this?

(17:34):
I remember hearing Pete Bender,one of the old-time caddies out
there.
I think he caddies for RoccoMediate now, but he used to
caddy for Tom Watson and hecaddied for Greg Norman or I
think this was Bruce Edwards,tom Watson's original caddy, who
unfortunately passed from ALSand he said the difference
between Greg Norman and TomWatson was if Tom hit it in a
divot in the fairway, he wouldsay Bruce, watch this, watch

(17:59):
what I do with this, whereasGreg Norman would do the latter.
F this, f that.
That's something that I wouldhave done.
Truth be told, I would havedone the same thing as greg
norman did f this.
Why should I get punished forhitting a bad shot?
Both are valid.
However, one is infinitely morepowerful than the other one.

(18:19):
As far as self-empowerment, andyou know, I think that part of
the mental game really islearning how to recontextualize
things that happen out there anduse it as a self empowerment,
and that is a lot of work, thattakes a real committed mind and

(18:40):
that obviously, is someone whowants to take their game to a
very high level, because that'swhat the high level players do.
That's what they do.

Speaker 2 (18:52):
Yeah, and I think I noticed something as you were
describing that, and it'ssomething that is extremely
common.
In fact I've corrected myselfon it earlier in this
conversation and in fact I'vecorrected myself on it on it
earlier in this conversation themoment that we can start taking
should out of our vocabulary,the word should and all that is

(19:13):
associated with that word, youknow shame, you know I mean.
Listen to these two sentences.
You know that should have had agood lie, that could have had a
good lie.
The thing is, if we can takethe expectations that something
should be something to us, okay,so someone should have fixed

(19:40):
that divot.
I shouldn't have landed in thatdivot because of that shot.
It was so great, I should get agood break here.
I should get a good lie.
It was so, it was so great.
You know, I should get a goodbreak here.
I should get a good lie.
If we can take that entitlementor that, that almost shaming of
a situation and just replace itwith the word could, immediately
in terms of sort of NLP, how,how we then process that

(20:00):
information is very, verydifferent in terms of how our
thoughts lead to our emotionsand actions and results.
So I talked a little bit aboutthe plaster effect.
One of the the almost it's notquick fix, but it's a, it's a
simple change is to just takethe word should and notice when

(20:20):
you're saying the word should inyour game.
You, you know, you will hear itall the time.
I should have hit the greenfrom there, I should have made
that put, you know, and all ofthese feelings of shame will
absolutely, as you say,counteract the next shot, the
next hole, the next tournament.
You know I should have brokenan 80 there.

(20:41):
Replacing it with could willjust bring that perspective
level, bring that motivation,bring that feeling of, of
self-worth, you know, and I talka lot about confidence, a lot
about self-worth, self-worth,self-belief in what I do,
because if those two things arehigh, the likelihood of
producing a good performance isis much more prominent, you know

(21:04):
.
So.
If there is some I mean know so.
If there is some, I mean thereare, there are plaster, there
are quick you know quick fixes.
What would you call theirplaster effects?
And if there is one plastereffect that I would advise to
anybody, take the word shouldout of your game and become more
aware of when you're saying itand change that word to could,
and just see how that affectsthe way that you see things,

(21:28):
your perspective yeah, I meanyou can.

Speaker 1 (21:31):
You can analyze both words should and could, and
realize and just feel what theeffect is on possibilities.
And the other one is, uh, is,is defeatism, could or should?
Should have done this?
I should have done that.

(21:52):
You're.
You know you're.
You're taking yourself away,first and foremost for the
present moment, and when you'recontinuing to linger on things
that are outside of your control, not only you're giving your
own power, but you'redisempowering yourself from the
inside out.
You know, if somebody were toclose their eyes and really
think about the difference,vibrationally, between the two

(22:13):
words, one would be veryempowered and one would be.
You may feel drained, it maydrain you physically, and you
know we want to.
We want to really be our ownbest friend out there and
encourage ourselves.
Which leads me to my nextquestion.

(22:33):
I think that's.
I want to comment, I want tojust celebrate what you just
said taking should out of yourvocabulary.
Boy, I'll tell you what that'sbig.
In my opinion, that's big, it'sreally big.
Thank you for sharing that,laura.
That's a big one.
Everyone who's listening tothis right now.
I want you to just take a pauseand really think about that.

(22:56):
How many times you've saidshould, and how many times it
just hasn't helped and it's madeit worse.
Whatever that is doesn't help.
I don.

Speaker 2 (23:11):
I mean, it's definitely not helped me.
Has it helped you?

Speaker 1 (23:17):
I mean it just, it just invokes some sort of a
magical spell where I can go andre reverse the hands of time
and erase the number on thescorecard that I just posted.
Then yeah, if you're intomagical thinking, sure it can
help you.
But you know we're dealingsquare with reality and and I
kind of lost my train of thought, but I think you know.

(23:40):
My next question is laura howdo you, how do you, get the
student to realize the power,the real power, of the self-talk
, and how encouraging it couldbe and or how destructive it
could be?

Speaker 2 (23:58):
I see it's quite funny really.
So I mean most of the stuff Ido online, most of my coaching,
but on the occasion I do get outon the course with people,
obviously predominantly inEngland, and I was literally
speaking to one of my clients,who's a competing professional,
the other day and she waslaughing saying that she was

(24:19):
telling her students about ourfirst session and I forgot about
this.
But we walked down the secondhole and I just said to her
right, I'm, I had observed herfor a little while.
I said I'm going to speak toyou exactly how you've spoken to
yourself for the last two holes, and I went into.

Speaker 1 (24:38):
You know she hit her give me an example, give us an
example okay, so driver off thet?

Speaker 2 (24:45):
um just goes into the the sort of the rough, short,
rough.
And she said what are you doing?
You, absolute idiot.
Why would you even try that?
You know you should have hit adifferent club off the tee there
.
And you just went and did thatand she looked at me as if well
as you would like shocked.

(25:06):
And then we walked to the ball.
And while we're walking to theball, you know it was a I can't
believe.
You just did that and nowyou're not gonna be able to get
a decent shot in.
Okay, and you know how manytimes are you going to do that
today?
Because you did something likethat back there and then we got
to the next ball.
It's not even a good lie.
What are you going to do withthat?
You're not going to be able toget that out, are you?

(25:28):
I'd be quite nervous about that, that.
I mean, what am I going tothink when you don't get that
out?
You know?
And then she, she, so I, butand yeah, it's quite harsh,
isn't it?

Speaker 1 (25:39):
and I, you know, I yeah, but that's how we talk to
ourselves the realization.

Speaker 2 (25:44):
Yeah, I mean, obviously that's quite an
extreme example, but I alwayssay to people, let's just say
and this resonates with with alot of people um, let's say you
were, you were caddying for afriend or maybe your child.
You know, if you've got a childthat plays golf and they hit a

(26:05):
duff shot and it's 10 yardsfurther advanced, what would you
say to them?
What would you say?

Speaker 1 (26:16):
I just keep encouraging them.
It's all right, everybody makesmistakes, you know.
If they're beginners or they'rejust kind of getting started
with the game, hey, it's okay tomake mistakes, that's how we
learn.
Go ahead and duff away, shankaway, top away, snap, hook it to

(26:38):
hell and gone, just go ahead.
Go ahead.

Speaker 2 (26:43):
You can't say that word.

Speaker 1 (26:45):
Oh, shank, horizontal fade, whatever you want to call
it.

Speaker 2 (26:50):
The Tom Hanks.

Speaker 1 (26:54):
Yeah, yeah.
But what you know, know, Ithink that a lot of and sort of
the origin of some of the angstis especially here in the United
States, where mistakes havebeen demonized, and you know,
thankfully, the circle that Ihave and the people that I
converse with regularly mistakesare not only an important part

(27:21):
of evolution, it's a necessity.

Speaker 2 (27:28):
You have to make mistakes.

Speaker 1 (27:29):
You have to.
It's a part of the process.
How you manage those mistakes Iie how you contemplate them and
then, more importantly, how youapply them is going to be some
of the greatest gifts that we'llever have, particularly on the

(27:50):
golf course.
Mistakes are gifts and you knowI'm going to go back to the
scenario of mirroring somebody'sself-talk.
I would reverse it and say whenyou're going to get up over a
shot, and if somebody, the awareperson, say, for example, the
lady, the professional thatwanted to hit driver or

(28:11):
shouldn't hit driver, let'srecontextualize it.
If she wants to hit driver, Iwould tell her to accept the
outcome.
If you're going to hit that club, knowing that, potentially, if
you do not execute it, this isgoing to be the situation.
You accept that in advance, whynot?

(28:31):
Hey, you know what.
I'm going to go ahead and hitthis thing.
If it, if, if I, if I don'tturn it over and I blow it
through the dog leg and it'sbehind a tree, I'm going to
accept that because I'm the onewho made that decision.
It's, it's such a, it's such adifferent energetic value when
you think about that.
But you know what, laura, Imean.
That's why we're having thisconversation.

(28:52):
It takes a lot of work to getthere, that.
But you know what, laura, Imean.
That's why we're having thisconversation.
It takes a lot of work to getthere, yeah it takes work to get
there.

Speaker 2 (28:58):
Yeah, it does, it does.
And you know, yeah, there's somany different elements.
What what I found with withmental performance, the mental
game.
You can make it as complicatedor as simple as you want,
depending on the level of play.
And you know you've had someabsolutely fantastic guests on

(29:22):
this podcast and I lovelistening to it regularly and
some of the concepts of some ofyour guests is just mind-blowing
.
And then some of the topicsthat you talk about it's you
know, it's really enjoyable.
As an amateur golfer myself, Ithink when I kind of started

(29:44):
this journey and this is notjust golf, this is anything the
amount of information you canget from YouTube, from all
different sources now can bequite overwhelming, and I think
sometimes it's about findingwhat fits for you.
So, depending on the person infront of me, I may.

(30:04):
If they've got low self-esteem,for example, if they're not
particularly confident, it'sunlikely that I would tear into
them to give them that sort ofperspective.
I'm like, how did you feelafter that hole?
And generally speaking, they'renot going to feel great.
So that gives them thatperspective.
But the voice that we hear themost is our own through life.

(30:27):
So I think when peopleunderstand that and then
understand the impact that thatcan have have, it does tend to
bring about these sort of lightbulb moments, these, these sort
of breakthroughs, these shiftsin perspective that you know,
it's okay to be kind to myself,you know and this whole sort of

(30:48):
thought process that and youknow I found this with a lot of
high achievers and I hold my ownhand up to this growing up we
think that if we're hard onourselves it will push us to do
better, it will push us to domore.
All right.
But then if you put yourself inthe context, if you think about
a job that you've ever had or orany sort of sporting coach, and

(31:09):
you think about a coach that,literally, or a teacher that
beat you with a stick notliterally perhaps, but beat you
with a stick, never really gaveyou any praise but really was
really quick to come down on youif you did anything wrong and
you think about how confidentyou you were in that lesson or
job or whatever else, and andhow much you were motivated to
do better, and then you putyourself in a context of

(31:31):
thinking about a coach or a bossthat was really motivating.
You know, bags of praise.
Picture it when you were down,just had your back, you felt
like they were in it with you.
How motivated were you to dobetter, to get in every day, to
do more, to go beyond.
How confident did you feel inyour own skin, in your own skin?

(31:55):
And you know, if you thinkabout that context and then
think about how you speak toyourself, how you drive yourself
, you know it starts to build abit of a picture that people
suddenly think all right, okay,yeah, I get it now, you know,
and that's quite huge.
But going back to where I camefrom, what I try and do with
clients is I try to reallysimplify things.
All right, I haven't got thenatural background growing up in

(32:19):
golf, competing on the tour oranything like that, and I don't
protest to have.
You know, I have a lot of lifeexperience.
I have a lot of experience withlife coaching and I genuinely
believe that we have one mindand whether that's off the golf
course or whether it's on thegolf course, that mind is still
going to be the same mind.

(32:40):
So, you know, for me,simplifying it made it work,
okay, understanding what thatperson resonates with.
So stats, you know stats is anopportunity for me.
The analytical side.
I'm quite feel-based, you knowgut, sort of initiative, sorry,

(33:06):
intuition, and so statistics forme are a challenge and for some
golfers that's the case.
For some golfers it's more thattheir emotional intelligence is
the the opportunity and yougive them a bunch of stats and
that's great.
But their awareness, you know.
If you ask them, you knowwhat's your recipe for your best
round of golf.
You know what are you thinking,what are you doing, who are you

(33:28):
talking with?
You know what do you do inbetween holes and they they look
at you blank, it's like what.
And so I think knowing youraudience, knowing where you need
to simplify things, where youcan ramp up things, make them
slightly more deeper in sort ofmeaning, is yeah, with this kind

(33:48):
of thing, it's really it goes along way.
What would you say?
What would you say?
You're more statistically basedor feel based, higher EQ, what
would you?
How would you summarizeyourself with regards to golf?

Speaker 1 (34:03):
All the above.
All the above, laura, but it'staken me a long time to get
there because I tried to do theanalytical, statistical route
and I do have a little bit ofthat in me out and I do have a
little bit of that in me, um,but what really has tipped the
scale for me, where I'm at rightnow with my golf game and and

(34:27):
my perception of it, is myemotional iq.
My emotional iq really is theglue that binds them all.
Um, because if, if anindividual is able to I'm going
to speak for myself if I'm ableto look at things as they are,
as they are, without any cloudedperception of anything from my
past in my nervous system, I canlook at my game as it is,

(34:51):
without judgment, and I candecide where I'm on the the pie
chart we like to call the piechart where I need the most work
.
But I do know that individualsthat have a high emotional iq
have the ability to see wherethey need to work.
And then I also think thatpeople that have a high

(35:15):
emotional iq they simplify it somuch.
It's like a zen riddle and whenyou, when you hear something
that somebody might say like,say, for example, jack nicholas,
potentially maybe the highestemotional I IQ ever on the golf

(35:36):
course, potentially maybe youknow he he's on Mount Rushmore,
you know he's up there and therewas things that he did.
That seems so simple, you know.
I use the example of Jack in the.
I think I want to say it's the80 U open.
It was the 80 or I don't knowsomething like that was that

(35:57):
baltimore second round.
In warming up he snap hooked acouple of drivers down the range
warming up and I think it wason the second hole.
He hit driver and he snaphooked it and he handed his
driver back to his caddy andsaid angelo.

(36:18):
He said, uh, we're this, thedriver's on the bench today.
So he benched his driver.
He sacked his driver, as youall like to say in england for
the day because he didn't havethe bandwidth to deal with
dealing with the driver in themiddle, literally, of the United
States open.
He recognized his limitationsin the moment under the arguably

(36:44):
probably the toughest golftournament in the world every
year and that takes a high levelof emotional, and that takes a
high level of emotionalintelligence.
Hey, I may not have my best gametoday, but that's okay, because
I'm not going to shoot myselfout of it by wrestling with my
driver all day trying to figureit out as soon as the mind knows

(37:07):
that something is amiss.
It's going to be hard to letthe shots go out there.
It's going to be really, reallydifficult, I mean.
And another thing too, laura Ithink that you know for me, me
accepting the fact that I'm notgoing to have the speed as Rory
McIlroy ever.

(37:28):
That's just not the way I'mbuilt, so why try to do that?
But I can continue to crime theemotional iq ladder.
How can I use that to myadvantage?
How can I use that to stack thedeck in my favor?
And that's the beautiful thingabout golf is there's not one
way to play.
And there's a beautiful thingabout life there's not one way

(37:50):
to play yeah how can we identifythat best pathway for ourselves
?
In my opinion, I think thatstriving for a higher emotional
IQ on the golf course I'm notgoing to say it's the lowest
hanging fruit, but it's thesweetest Go ahead.
No, I was going to say realquick.

(38:12):
There's many examples of menand women out there who have had
less than technicallyproficient golf swings that are
in the hall of fame yeah youknow, let that, let that wash
over you y'all, because Iknowthink people yeah, yeah, I

(38:39):
totally agree.

Speaker 2 (38:39):
And and you know for most, again, generalizing, for
most golfers, building a bettermental game, mental performance,
is the low-hanging fruit yeahyou know, because once you've
invested money in new equipment,once you've invested money in
in technical lessons, you know,and I don't think I don't think

(39:04):
enough golfers amateur, you knowlevel I don't think enough
golfers appreciate where doesthe mental game start, like,
where does the the technicalfitness, physical game stop and
the mental game start?
And there's obviously crossoverwith all of it.

(39:24):
But I was having a conversationlast week with someone about
you know, oh, I don't need that,that kind mental game.
I've got a strong mental gameand there's certain things,
there's certain phrases thatcome out.
You know that I'm quite attunedinto when people are talking

(39:44):
about their game and it'd beinteresting for some of the
listeners to you know, I guess,to hear these phrases, see if
they resonate with themselves.
You know if they've notpotentially looked into their
mental game particularly much.
But you know I'm frustratedbecause I should be scoring
better.
All right, so immediately,we've got this should coming

(40:07):
through, we've got this kind ofscore focus coming through
rather than the process focusthat ultimately will help us
shoot our best scores.
You know, I hit it great on therange but I can't take it onto
the course.
You know, if, fundamentally,you can't get out of bunkers in
practice and on the course, thenyeah, technically there's

(40:29):
something going on there.
But if if you're like you know,laura davies or somebody
phenomenal out the bunkers inpractice and you're stuck in the
bunkers in play, then there's amental game opportunity right
there.
Okay, you know I'll never beamazing at putting driving.
You know limiting beliefs,challenge them.

(40:51):
Um, it depends on playing withto how well I play.
You know this whole and I'vebeen there.
Have you been there before?
oh, yeah, absolutely and thissort of surrounding that we
almost going back to thatcontrol of the divot and and
actually ask yourself, what canI control in this situation?

(41:12):
Okay, similar to outcome,outcome and processes, right,
what can I control?
And it is difficult becausesome people will push your
buttons right and probably thesame buttons that will be pushed
off the golf course.
You know, for me, rudeness,unfairness is, is a is a bit of

(41:35):
a trigger off the course if I'min a four ball with somebody
that is displaying thosequalities.
There's a lot of of digginginto my mental game toolkit that
has to be done, but thefundamental is you cannot
control who you're playing with,especially if you're going to
enter competitions etc.
So how do you make thatsituation like neutral to you?

(41:59):
How do you put in processes toanticipate?
You know this mental gametoolbox of and the mental
performance or mental game.
It is an infinite game.
There is no finish line, okay,and and it's not that quick fix,
it's not do three sessions andthen you sorted every single
situation or otherwise you putyourself in, you have the

(42:22):
ability to learn from it, and soyou know, I had one of these
not long ago at all.
Um, I encountered a situationthat was just incredible, in
that I was playing with somebodyand I'll tell you this story
very quickly but I was playingwith somebody that I didn't know
.
Now, obviously, me being superaware of how I'm talking to

(42:46):
myself on the golf course, Iwould not tend to tell myself
all the bad things I did for ashot.
And this, this other player,proceeded to tell me all the bad
things I'd done with my ownshot.
I never encountered it, neverencountered this before, and I

(43:07):
had to laugh.
But at the same time, you know,I'm sort of stood there
thinking that's, that's pushinga button.
So how, how do I neutralizethis situation in my mind?
Now?
Um and I think it was for me Ididn't deal with it as well as I
will do next time, but it was agreat learn, and I chose in

(43:32):
that situation to, um, quiteloudly, uh, declare that it was
a good enough shot and I canstill do something good with the
next one.
Um, but yeah, we're gonna havethese niggles, aren't we?
And we're gonna learn, and it'sall about adding to the toolbox

(43:52):
so that when something comesaround next time, you've got
that to hand.
I mean, is there anything foryou that you've overcome.
Specifically, you know you saidI wish you'd been working on on
your emotional intelligence andit's made you the better player
than even you were before.
But is there anything now thatyou approach where you used to

(44:15):
go?
Absolutely bonkers.

Speaker 1 (44:17):
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
I'll give you an example.
One of the things that I havecome to term with, especially
playing in a tournament, is slowplay.
Oh my God, slow play used tojust absolutely drive me just
batshit crazy.
And uh, you know, I go and playat my club laura, and whoever I

(44:43):
bring out, I mean we'll playfive swims in three hours.
We're done, boom gone, done.
Just get up and hit it go.
You know, and in my opinion, in, I'm going to say in my opinion
, that's the way golf is, I'mgoing to say I'm going to break
a cardinal sin here.

Speaker 2 (45:00):
It should be played I could see it coming.
And then there's your, there'sanother should, exactly it's a
should.
Then any change to thatexpectation that you have is
causing frustration.
Sorry, go on.

Speaker 1 (45:16):
No, exactly.
So you know how that used toimpact me was I would.
If I hit a bad shot, I wouldblame that shot on.
I've been waiting all day, youknow, and you know I'm just I'm
trying not to swear, but anyway.
So what's really turned thataround for me is the acceptance
of, hey, that's outside of mycontrol.

(45:37):
The people in front of me orthey're trying their best.
They're trying their best tokeep up in their own way and to
accept it and and to actuallyallow myself to ingratiate
myself emotionally, physically,psychologically.
Where I'm at, and where I'm atis I'm on a golf course and most

(46:00):
likely it's a beautiful place.
I mean, this sounds esoteric orit sounds a little, you know,
foo, foo or like fluffy, butit's true.
Because if I can accept thefact that people are in front of
me, are going, gonna, are,they're playing slow, that's
outside of my control, I'm notgonna give my energy there, I'm
not gonna sit there and resistwhat is.

(46:21):
And another thing, too, is justrecognizing my own resistance.
If something comes up in mybody, uh, where I'm noticing it,
it's gonna.
I'm, I need to be aware of ittypically.
So if I resist what is, youknow what is is going to come
back and just bite me right inthe ass, and it's going to bite

(46:43):
me at inopportune momentsbecause it always has.
That's the way the universeworks.
It's going to keep beating yourass until you figure out whoa,
okay, maybe I not, maybe Ishouldn't do that.
Until you figure out whoa, okay, maybe I shouldn't do that.
Coming from a spirit, I lovethis.
My great friend, kira Yang, isone of the preeminent

(47:05):
performance coaches in Canadaand her words resonate with me a
lot, and that is a spirit ofneutrality.
We said neutral, you mentionedneutral neutrality.
We said neutral, you mentionedneutral.
Taking the charge out of asituation, even if it's not
where I want it to be, has beenone of the single most
empowering things I've ever donein my life on and off the golf
course.
Another thing that drives mecrazy is traffic.

(47:28):
I get so pissed off in traffic.
Oh my God, I just lose my mindand it is just, it's like a
spiritual exercise.
Every time I'm stuck in traffic, I swear to God, it's so bad.
So of course, you know whathappens in life is going to
correlate.
On the golf course, I get pissedoff behind slow play, accepting

(47:50):
what is taking responsibilityfor that.
You know, more importantly,take having an actionable
program to take responsibilityfor that.
It's easy to say, well, youshouldn't.
You know, here's a shouldn'tshouldn't let slow play affect
you, you shouldn't let trafficaffect you.
But let's identify the why isit?
And then deal with that andthen have that transmuted to

(48:13):
where that we can come to aneutral baseline and not let
things that are outside of ourcontrol permeate and penetrate
our internal environment.
My internal environment iseverything.
It doesn't matter what I doexternally, because internally,
if I can control or at leastwork with what's going on with

(48:36):
me internally, for that day I'mgoing to stack the deck in my
favor.
You know, once again, this isit's deep work.
However, it's very simple.
You really look at it, you lookat it.
Then it's through that where wefind and express and we can

(48:59):
have simplicity be a part of ourperception, our reality.
You know, and it's like athousand steps to make it look
easy.
You know what a compliment ifsomebody says Laurie, your golf
swing looks so simpleno-transcript to this podcast

(49:39):
that are going to hear yourvoice for the first time.
Laura are high level people,high level on the golf course.
And you know, for somebody whojust wants to play casually, why
don't you accept the fact thatyou can go out and just hit it
all over the lot, just have agood time with it?
Who cares?
You know who cares?
Because this game, it requiresa lot.

(50:03):
If you want to play it at ahigh level, you're going to have
to look at yourself in themirror up and down a lot and
then try to figure out where onthe pie chart you need to do the
work.
There's some technical stuff,sure, but in my opinion and
since we're on the subject,having a high emotional IQ or

(50:24):
aspiring to have a highemotional IQ, whatever that
looks like for the individual,because you can generalize that,
I like to think of myself asnot losing my humanity in the
effort to achieve a highemotional IQ.
If I get pissed off, I allowmyself to get pissed off out
there, but I don't let it go tothe next shot.
You know I've said this beforeand this, one of the great

(50:48):
examples of this, is tiger.
I keep repeating the story, butit's just so powerful to me
tiger woods.
Everybody knows who tiger woodsis yeah potentially the
greatest winner of all time.
He's up there on mount rushmorewith jack nichols, with ben
hogan, with you know whoever heallowed himself 10 feet tiger

(51:12):
head up man, he would have somepretty pissed off reactions to
shots.
He would lose his mind if hehit a bad shot and he would blow
every different combination ofF bomb there was known to man.
Right he, this is one of thegreatest players of all time and

(51:33):
he beat people mentally outthere.
He beat people so many timeswithout his best golf swing.
I mean I guarantee you he wouldsay out of 84 of his victories,
20 of them as were.
He really felt really goodabout his golf swing and he was
striping it and hitting it.
That's a lot of otherobservable data that we can look

(51:53):
at, but a big low hanging fruithere, laura, is he allowed
himself to blow that energy off?
He had a 10 foot radius as soonas he got outside the 10 feet
of the previous shot.
That shot was gone, gone In hiswhole body.
It was gone.
That's powerful.

(52:15):
You don't lose yourself in thisjourney.

Speaker 2 (52:24):
You don't lose the blueprint of how you were wired
up in the womb.
No, no, you absolutely don't.
And the first thing I say to toanybody I work with, speak to,
I say a lot on on the socials,on Instagram, et cetera.
The mental game is unique toyou.
It's one of the reasons why Istart with goals Okay, what do
you want and why do you want it?
What does success look or soundlike to you?

(52:48):
You know, because if success tosomeone is just going out once
a week and having fun with withtheir mates and not getting
frustrated, then they need toforget about school.
you know, because they're goingout, their version of success is
having a laugh and so ifsomebody comes and says you know
, my version of success isbecoming a single figure

(53:12):
handicap or or a scratch golfer,you know, then it's about
actually how much work are youprepared to put in with this?
You know, because you don'tjust have your golf swing like
that and equally, you, you know,you don't have your mental game
like that.
This is a constant effort, butthe transformations that you'll
find on the course are ones thatwill portray into into life.

(53:36):
It's I don't know, you know.
I just think there's, there'sprocesses, there's, there's
things that people will haveheard about.
With regards to mentalperformance, you know your
breathing, your visualization,your pre-shot routine, your
potentially post-shot routine,which, interestingly, the
post-shot routine is the thingthat I tend to work with clients

(53:58):
the most on, um.
You know your pre-round, yourreflection, your journaling.
You know all of this kind ofcourse management, that stuff
that people think is the mentalgame, which in essence, it is,
but it runs so much deeper thanthat, as we've discussed today.

(54:19):
Post-shot routine.
Do you talk a lot about thatwith others?
Do you have your own sort ofstructured post-shot routine?

Speaker 1 (54:29):
Sure, absolutely.
Maybe not so much on the golfcourse in a tournament, but
certainly after.
I might do a littleaccountability.
What did I do well?
What could I do better tomorrowif the situation presents
itself again?

(54:49):
Because typically it does, andat least mentally it does.
How we choose to respond to theoutcome typically is my post
round uh accountability.
If you will post a post shotroutine, post round routine for
me would look like, if there'sanything that I need to change

(55:09):
strategically on the golf coursethat I may have made a
technical mistake or at least acourse management mistake, I try
to keep it as simple aspossible.
Uh, and I might, and I alwaysI've been pretty adamant about
this, lauren, it bears repeating.
And, uh, one of my post-roundbig things that I think about is

(55:32):
did I adhere to my intention Iset for that day?
Whatever that intention is, itcould be as simple as have fun,
just have fun with it.
Wherever it goes, it goes.
Did I adhere to that?
Did I have my eyes and myvision set on that North Star

(55:53):
throughout the day and I look atit as best as I could, as best
as I could, did I do that?
Great?
Okay, mission accomplished?
You'd be surprised.
I mean, I do want to score well, but the key for me to scoring

(56:13):
well is to adhere to thoseintentions that I set.
Those are post-round intentions, post pre-round intentions.
And then how did I follow thatpost round?
And then, typically, answersjust come.
You know, that's a such asimple thing for me to think
about In the moment.
Though, if I make a mistake inthe moment, I might take a look

(56:38):
at that if I have the mentalbandwidth that day, and that's
subjective.
Some days I'm very grounded, Imeditate, I'm a meditator, I
meditate every day.
Some days I wake up and I'mvery secure in my body, and some
days I might be all over theplace.
So, accepting that, um, if Iwake up in the morning and I

(57:01):
might feel a little bit tight, Imight set the intention of
swinging 70% that day.
So it's, it's so subjective,but I think that post-round sort
of accountability is going tobe determined by what your
intention is for that day.
Hey, if you're with your buddies, like if you're with your

(57:23):
girlfriends and you guys arethere in England and you're all
really good athletes and youwant to have some pints out
there and just hit the ball hard, set the intention to have that
.
I'm going to go out and drinksome beers here in the US.
I'm going to go out and havesome cocktails with my buddies
and I'm going to take wildswings at it and I'm going to
crank something on my Bluetoothspeaker on my golf cart.

(57:46):
Great, have at it, have fun.
There's your North Star rightthere.
Did you have a good time?
Yeah, we had a great time.
How'd you play?
Who cares?
We had fun.
Typically, when somebody saysthat they play well, typically
Not all the time, but typicallyand for the serious competitor,
that intention may be, hey, I'mgoing to swing within myself

(58:09):
today or I'm not going to tryanything that is outside my
skill level.
That's a big one right there,laura.
I see it all the time playingwith my buddies trying dumb shit
shots that are outside theirskill level.
People do that all the time.
And what is that?
That's ego.
I'm going to try this, why not?
They don't think about theconsequences, and then they get

(58:31):
pissed off that they do that.
It's, it's really a viciouscycle.
So you can, you can eliminatethat yeah you can eliminate that
.

Speaker 2 (58:40):
That's a simple one right there, very simple it's
like it's really interestingthat whole that concept.
You know this, this sort ofhitting, hitting shots that you
know in hindsight, golf youprobably wouldn't hit, but it's
this sort of this randomreinforcement.
You know that you get in insort of well, you get gambling,

(59:03):
don't you where, ultimately,these random results, you don't
know what's going to happen.
And it's this, this sort ofaddictive nature of that.
Without going into sort of downanother rabbit hole, but golf,
ultimately we, it's the risktaking sometimes that makes it,

(59:24):
makes it what it is.
You know, bored.
And you know I speak to a lotof higher handicaps that are
desperate to get their handicapsdown, desperate.
And you know, sometimes I sayto them well, you know what's.
You know if you've got ahandicap of 25, for example, and

(59:45):
you've got a par five withultimately two shots, you know,
if you're playing Stableford,you know why are you taking the
driver.

Speaker 1 (59:52):
Why don't you just?

Speaker 2 (59:52):
take seven iron, seven iron seven, but it's not
that sort of hero shot, thatreward.
And and this is going back tothe the what is your version of
success in that round?
Is it hitting hero, ship shot,hero shots and and dealing with
and accepting those consequences, or is it?

(01:00:14):
Are you playing for the result?
And I say that you know loosely, because you're playing too
much for the result in essence,but you're playing safe.
What do you want from thatround?
Figure that out, becauseeverybody is very quick to say
what they don't want.
Sometimes the first start ofanything is, rather than what

(01:00:36):
you don't want, let's figure outwhat you actually want.
You know what's the opposite ofanxiety, what's the opposite of
feeling, you know, frustrated.
What do you want?
How do we create that?

Speaker 1 (01:00:48):
let's go yeah, that's it.
That's the wellspring of it all.
I know that for me, laura, oneof the things that really
clicked this year I had a reallygood year on the golf course
and one of the things thatreally quick clicked was I'm
going to do what I'm supposed todo out there and I'm not going

(01:01:10):
to do, I'm not supposed to do so.
This, the the law, break thatdown.
I'm going to hit shots that aregoing to be according to my
skill level.
Okay, now, I can hit somedecent shots out there, but if
there's a situation thatpresents itself where it would
take one of my best shots toaccess a pin, I'm going to

(01:01:33):
rethink that and say, hey,there's some days where I have
that, but it's not every day,it's just not.
You know I I've talked toseveral people on the various
tours in a 72 hole event.
Uh, how, how many of those daysare you hitting it how you want
to hit it?
Two in a good week.

(01:01:56):
And these are the best playersin the world.
Hmm, best players in the world?
Two out of four days they'rehitting it like they want to hit
it in a good week.
Well, what am I doing here?
Because I'm certainly not thebest players, one of the best
players in the world.
But how can I, how can I takethat and apply that to my own

(01:02:16):
game?
By not trying hero, hero golf isonce in a blue moon.
You know, it really is.
Hero golf is is based on theego and it's based on things
that are outside of your control.
When, when you have days whereall systems are go sure, those

(01:02:37):
are magical days, you want totake advantage of those because
they don't come very often, butmore often, but more often than
not, accepting the fact that,hey, I'm a human being, I'm
imperfect, I'm going to makemistakes.
How can I maximize that verystatement to my advantage?
And I think that it's moreimpressive to me for players to

(01:03:01):
go out and play without theirbest golf swing on that
particular day and still makesomething of it.
And I've had those days wherethat's been the most deeply
satisfying rounds where I'vejust you know I might hit six,
that I one time I hit eightgrains of regulation and shot 66
.
I felt like I got away withmurder in that day.

(01:03:23):
But it was a day where I wasthinking.
I knew that I didn't have mybest stuff, but I was thinking
where to mess.
And there there's another thingtoo, a little low-hanging fruit
for your students, laura is thebest players figure out where
their outs are the best place tomiss?

(01:03:44):
They're not thinking of thebest place where they want to
hit it Well, sure they are, butthey're also thinking in their
thought process, the best placeto miss.
That's pretty profound, simpleit's interesting, isn't it?

Speaker 2 (01:04:00):
and it and it goes on to whatever, depending on the
level, the level and the levelof awareness, the level of
mental game, because I I'mabsolutely on board with where
you're at and there is a I thinkwith my own game I'm bordering
on that and it's a conversationI have a lot of times with with

(01:04:21):
the lower handicapped scratchgolfers and sometimes, sometimes
it's that whole.
Do you?
How much focus do you put onwhere you don't want to miss?
You know, are you?
Are you stood behind the ball,thinking the good miss is here,
and is that actually encouragingthat thought process of of you

(01:04:45):
ending up going towards the missitself, you know, in terms of
that positive intention yes, themiss is here Sort of that
analysis of the danger, risk,reward, better place and then
channeling that focus intoactually but that's where I'm
going that positive intentionbehind the ball that I imagine,

(01:05:08):
or I did imagine, came quitenaturally to the much better
standard of players.
But I don't know what yourexperience of this is, but over
the last 12 months I've had theopportunity of playing with, of
coaching and playing with someabsolutely phenomenal golfers
and it's not always a given thatthey understand that.

(01:05:31):
That last sort of thought, thatlast intention of where the
ball is going is likely to wherethe ball goes.
So you know, miss, left of thebunker is planting bunker.
You know thinking about NLP andand how you know this, the
language is, is is facing.

(01:05:53):
But what's your experience ofthat with the level and the
standard that you've played with?
Is this well known?
In my experience so far, ittells me not that it perhaps
isn't well known.

Speaker 1 (01:06:06):
No, and it's one of the lowest hanging fruits, in my
opinion, laura, and that's sucha great comment and a great
question.
For it's, in my opinion, laura,and that's such a great comment
and a great question Inside themind of a good golfer.
I would suspect that if he orshe is sizing up a shot and
there's a pin, there's a wholelocation that may be inviting

(01:06:29):
it's risk reward.
It's really satisfying if youpull the shot off, but if you
don't, the consequences arepretty severe.

(01:06:49):
You know, for me, I wouldcontemplate that situation, as
where's my best these decisionsis how can I make the most
aggressive swing at the mostconservative target in relation
to this particular shot?
You know, dr Rotella was, youknow, a big, aggressive, cocky
attitude, conservative or cockyswing, conservative attitude,

(01:07:11):
something like that, and thatreally permeates as far as how
you measure a shot, as far aswhere I'm going to leave myself
and out the best miss.
That would be most likely ongoing for a par five and two or

(01:07:31):
a tougher shot.
You know, a mid to a long ironshot.
That would be more likely thecase shorter irons.
I'm going to be more aggressive.
I'm definitely going to be moreaggressive.
I've been working very hard onmy wedge game.
I'm a big fan of wedges and I'mgoing to use those to my

(01:07:52):
advantage.
So what I want to dostrategically is take the big
miss out of play by the shotselection.
It's taking a club that I canswing aggressively, that I know.
Say, for example, if long isdead, then I'm going to take a
club that I know I'm not goingto hit long.

(01:08:13):
If left is dead, I'm going totake a strategy where I know I'm
not going to miss it left.
I just know these things.
There's things that you canstack in your favor simply by
learning how to take the rightgolf club and take the right
strategy.
I think, in terms of observingwhat is doesn't have a

(01:08:37):
necessarily, necessarily anegative charge on your body.
If you notice well, I don'twant to, I mean we're, we're NLP
will kick in and where you'llimprint whatever is going to
happen, you say, well, if you're, if only if you are lining up a
shot, and you say, well, ifyou're, if only if you are
lining up a shot, and you say,well, I don't want to miss it
left.
Okay, look at that, thoughObjectively.

(01:09:00):
That's your consciousnessgiving you a boundary.
Okay, All right, yeah, sure Idon't want to miss it left
because that's a bogey or adouble or whatever it is.
So if your body or your mind istelling you that's a problem,
listen to it.
Take a club where it's nolonger a problem.

(01:09:20):
Then you will.
You'll basically disinfect thatcharge because you already are
going on a different road.
So I think that's reallyimportant.
But you know that to get tothat level of awareness, it has
to be at the forefront of yourconsciousness.
You have to set thoseintentions.

(01:09:41):
When I'm playing in a golftournament, I don't try hero
shots ever, hardly ever, unlessit's one of those magical days
where all systems are go.
You know, all systems go Sure,but that's few and far between.
I accept that it's okay.
It's okay because I can stillmake birdie the other way, I

(01:10:06):
could still make par the otherway.
And and another thing too,where I want to share with your
students and something that I'vebeen thinking about A bogey is
not a bad score.
It's not a bad score, providedthat you don't self-inflict a
bogey.
And how to apply your emotionalintelligence through working

(01:10:47):
with you, folks like you, is, inmy opinion, going to help
someone a lot more than justgoing and beating balls on the
range.
Like I said before and I say itagain, you're not going to
outwork your fear Sorry, you'renot.
You're going to have to work onthat separately.
You're not going to outworkyour anxiety Sorry, you're going
to have to work on thatseparately.
And when you do, you cantransmute that anxiety into
excitement.
It's really addictive.
When you get under the gun inwhatever it is, and you're in

(01:11:13):
the hunt, there's no greaterfeeling in the world.
Sure, it's disappointing tolose, but getting yourself there
it's a lot of fun.
It's like going on a rollercoaster.
It's like learning how to swimfor the first time.
It's terrifying at first, butonce you get in the ocean or you
get into a body of water, youlearn to love it.

(01:11:36):
And I mean I'm going to end theconversation by saying, at least
on my end, by saying enjoy thechallenge and gratiate yourself
in the process.
And I'm really grateful thatpeople like you exist, laura,
because there's a lot of greatcoaches.
There's a lot of great golfcoaches and I'm not poo-pooing

(01:11:57):
any technical coach at all, butthe best players in the world
know this information, they knowthis technology and they have
for a long time and they've beensaying it in their interviews.
But it's not sexy, it's not amassive headline.
It's like if Tiger Woods says,well, I keep it as simple as

(01:12:19):
possible, a reporter might letthat go right over his or her
head and ask about somethingcompletely different.
I mean, scotty Scheffler saysthe one thing I do, that my
greatest strength is I have theability I have always had the
ability to be in the presentmoment.

(01:12:40):
It's the best player on theplanet.

Speaker 2 (01:12:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:12:43):
The best player on the planet by far as says it
every time he's interviewed.
It's like you guys are allidiots.
I stay in the moment.
Who cares what my feet do?
You guys all want to talk aboutwhat my feet do, but what I do
is I stay in the moment.
It's like no, no, no.
Scotty Shuffler's feet are allover the place and he's thinking

(01:13:05):
to myself.
He's thinking so.
I'm kicking everybody's ass.
Right now.
Let's talk about what I really,really, really think about, and
I have the ability to stay inthe present moment.
That doesn't make him a cyborg,that doesn't make him less than
human.
He gets pissed too and he getsexcited too.
Embrace that you as a humanbeing.

(01:13:26):
Embrace that.
You embrace those emotions, butyou don't let them control you.
You don't let them take overbased on things that are outside
of your external circumstances.
I mean, I'll leave you withthis thought Just think what it
would be like to go out on thegolf course and be 100%

(01:13:49):
comfortable in your own skin andyou literally do not give a
shit what anybody thinks of you.
You, it doesn't even enter yourmind.
How much freedom will you have?
How much freedom will you havephysically, emotionally, psycho,
psychologically and, ultimately, if you can go out and you can
play golf free, you're going toplay pretty well and you're

(01:14:12):
going to have the time of yourlife.

Speaker 2 (01:14:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:14:16):
Yeah, anything to add on that?

Speaker 2 (01:14:20):
I'd love to say you took the words right out of my
mouth, but I think you perhapssaid them slightly better than I
would have done.
But yeah, everything you'vesaid, absolutely everything
you've said.
And the Scotty sheffield pointis really interesting because he
literally does say that in mostof his interviews at some point

(01:14:41):
.
And people don't run and get amental game coach or a mental
performance coach, but they'reall trying his new swing or
they're also new, not a newswing, but they're all trying
his new swing, or they're alsonew, not a new swing, but
they're all trying his footworkyeah it's just.
It's interesting, isn't it?
But no, I think you've.

(01:15:02):
You've ended it phenomenallywell and just thank you very
much, jesse, for the opportunity.
It's been a super conversation.
I've learned a lot.
I'm not sure how much you'velearned, but it's been a great
conversation nonetheless.

Speaker 1 (01:15:13):
Always do, and I'd love to have you on again, laura
.
I think this is a conversationthat you and I can continue ad
infinitum, so I'd love to haveyou back on several times and
let's continue this, because Ithink that this needs to be
spoken a lot more than it is.
Yeah, yeah, thank you very much, um, and yeah, I would love to

(01:15:49):
come back.
Love to laura scott, everyoneyou, thank you.