And then you imagine that feeling where you've just hit a good shot. You've
got that contact off the ball, the noise of the ball flying through the
air, and in that moment you feel completely calm, composed and present.
So what we do then is we anchor that feeling to your index finger and
thumb. As an example, so I'd get you to press your indexinger and
thumb together during hypnotherapy. Once we've done that a few times on the golf
course, you can press your thumb and index finger together and subconsciously we're then
creating that presence for you. So before the shot, your routine is you
can press your index finger and thumb together, cultivate that feeling of presence we've
anchored drawn a hypnotherapy session and you can physically change your state there on the
golf course. Hi, this is still why Rick from Jacksonville, Florida and
I play at the Castle Inda golf Course on the Naval Air Station Jacksonville.
This is Golf Smarter number nine hundred and twenty three. Peak performance is no
sustainable, but high performance is. With Leohausen, this is Golf Smarter,
sharing stories, tips and insights from great Golf minds to help you lower your
score and raise your golf IQ. Here's your host, Fred Green. Welcome
to the Golf Smurterer Podcast. Leo, Hi, Fred, how you doing.
I'm doing well, and it's great to talk to you today. I'm
really fascinated because I love talking about the mental game of golf. Yep,
me too. There's a so many interesting areas that have have been really interesting
for me to dive into over the years. So it's some Yeah, there's
so many little tweaks and fascinating and areas that I think make a huge difference.
To be honest, Well, let's see if we can flesh that out
and make a huge difference in golfers' lives. You know, ninety golf is
ninety percent mental and ten percent mental. But you know, it's if you
have your mechanics. Even if you're not perfectly there with your mechanics, you
can still play pretty good golf if you have your head under control, right,
Yeah, you definitely can. And that and that was my aim with
a lot of what I've a lot of where I've come and a lot of
the research I've done is well, one, how can I take my swing
out from the range onto the course because I must be capable of having a
if I go around and I you know, I played top tracer in the
UK and all I get a low score and I go out and I'm like,
where's that gone? So it's then working out what am I doing and
how can I prevent that happening? And then, especially as a relatively newcomer,
to go if I've sort of dropped in and out of it whilst playing
football and rugby, and then I've been like really really deep into golf probably
the last eighteen months to two years. So I was, you know,
like thirty four handicapper, I'm dropping that down to well, I sprayed my
ankle so while was getting down to near fourteen, so I'm say hovering around
the sixteen. So most of that drop has just been mental game and why
was I doing the things I was doing on the course. And as as
a hypnotherapist and mindset coach, surely I can work out myself what I need
to do to some myself doing these things. You're worst, the worst possible
patient you can have is yourself, right, Yeah, And it's sometimes it's
almost knowing too much that you overthink it and you're just creating more problems for
yourself. So it's been really interesting, like self diagnosing and then using that
for the people I work with as well al most to say well, this
is what worked for me, this is what I was doing wrong and this
helped. Let's see if it works for you and does it I mean does
it? Can you transfer it from person person So there's always the bespoke area
of each person. So hypnotherapy is an example something I heavily rely on.
But it's then working out what works for you personally to be hypnotized in a
certain way and almost align with the golf swing. If I get told to
feel wider on my takeaway, what does that actually translate to me and my
body and how does that feel. It's the same with the coaching of working
out the language and the way I need to talk to you and your subconscious
with hypnotherapy to then find the fit of what works and the language that works
for you because it's such a feelings game. In my opinion, I'm not
familiar with hypnotherapy. Walk me through this. Yeah, that's a good place
to start. So good. Yeah, So I've been a hypnotherapist so for
four years longer than I have been doing it specifically for golf and performance,
so I specialize now as a performance coach and performance hypnotherapist, so I work
with athletes, golfers, combat sports. Hypnotherapy specifically is actually working with the
subconscious part of your mind. So it's anticipated that consciously that's only around five
percent of our mind, and the subconscious is around ninety five percent of our
mind. So hypnotherapy specifically concentrates on the subconscious, which will be your habits.
And you know that when you do something and you think why did I
do that? I didn't want to do that, I just did it,
That's that's the subconscious at play. So it's working specifically by putting you into
a trance state and it allows me to access your subconscious and work with you
at just a much much deeper level than you can consciously, which is why
I love it for golf, because you know, it's like, well,
you need to get into flow state to get in to peak performance, which
is which is great, But how do you do that? Right? You
know, it's not just as simple of right, Yeah, I know I
want to get into flow state, but consciously, how do I do that?
You need to be more present to play the best golf. Yeah,
we know that, but how do you become more president? It's all these
all these best practices of you must do this, you must do this and
that, And I've almost come up with probably like six or seven key areas
that I think are fundamental to work on, and we do those consciously and
subconsciously, because then we're reinforcing the habits you're building. And then ideally you
get to point we don't have to think about being present. You are just
present in the moment for a golf shot, which is a completely different way
of looking at it. Of rather than saying, right, getting out of
the buggy, I'm putting my tea down. I need to be present,
okay, But just saying it and wanting to be it is not often enough.
Wow, so many conversations about how do I get that my game from
the driving range right? Golfers battle with doubt and can hypnotherapy work against doubt?
Can it conquer it? Yep? Anxiety, yips? Stress? And
actually, what I've actually worked out by doing this as well is you could
actually just concentrate on becoming more of a high performer or more performance based just
in your life in general, and that directly and transfers to golf, and
the link is huge because you think you've had that great day, you feel
good, you feel calm, you've turned up to the golf course an hour
before, you've had a good session on the range, and you go out.
That's probably when you play your best golf when you turn up and you've
got ten minutes your tea time and you're driving, and you're hopping out getting
you grabbing your bag, running up and your friends are there and you're then
fifty to fifty. What are you going to hit off your first t shot
for that day? Is that terriff slice? Is it straight? What's going
to happen? Yeah, you have no idea what your swing's going to be
that time. Yeah, I mean it's it's I don't like coming to the
golf course lane. I like to get there, you know, at least
an hour ahead of time, do some chipping for a while, a little
bit of putting, then go to the driving range and it needs I've found
that when I get there even thirty minutes ahead of time, my mind is
and I can't calm down to get even then I'll walk up to the first
tea and my hand will be shaking trying to put the ball under the tee.
Stab it. Yeah, and you've almost allowed again. This is where
your subconscious comes in because you'll be thinking, I'm fine, I've had half
an hour, but subconsciously you wanted longer, so you feel you needed longer.
And I've got many of friends I'll play with that. Will they stress
me out turning up fifteen minutes before our tea time because I'm thinking, we
hurry up, we need to go so right. It's to that part of
it too, when someone's showing up late. I mean I've recently I won't
name my friend, but I've had to start the first hole. Do it,
do it. He's not lessening, he might do or might give him
a nut, but I was. He was so late. I was I
had to get start the first hole and I was on the green putting the
time he teed off. Luckily, the group of heads said yeah, go
on, catch up, and he had to. So you know, it's
I mean, there's a certain maybe about amount of golf etiquette and that as
well, but yeah, we're just not helping ourselves by doing that full stop.
So there's there's there what i'd call the conscious coaching hacks or or common
sense maybe, and and he's like so apologetic hopefully by the time he gets
there and like yeah, yeah, yeah, you've messed my game up already
to hand up every shot and like waving, like really sorry. And so
luckily we play quick golf. And that's something I've really had to address myself
because I used to get really frustrated with slow golfers to the point that it
would destroy my round. So that's something with like the key areas we can
run over in a second of you know, the the key points of what
I think works and what I would work on with a client, specifically for
golf as a as an amateur golfer. So yeah, this little things.
You have to have the skills to take yourself outside of the situation for a
second to then prepare for that next shot and ultimately enjoy it, because I
see so many people getting stressed, like you're supposed to be just enjoying it
out there and the scores, the score, But you're out in the fresh
air, you get an excise, you're walking, you're with socially connecting with
people. Just think about that, and everything else is easy, right right,
Wow, all right, this is going in a lot of different places
that I'm fascinated to continue. We're going to take a time out. We'll
be back right after this. It's interesting how you talk about your frustration playing
slow and playing with people who are slow. My friends have accused me of
not being fast, not being slow, but not being fast. And I'm
very deliberate in everything that i do because my preshot routine, you know,
lighting up my putts, all these things. And when when I play with
people that make me rush, what I feel is rushing, I get very
uncomfortable and my everything just completely falls apart. So feeling rushed, feeling slow.
Either way, if you can't play within your rhythm, how do you
change your rhythm effectively without messing your head up. I think it's not changing
your rhythm, but being comfortable with not changing your rhythm because you know how
you play best. But it's just being completely comfortable present in that moment of
This is how I play golf. Wh it's quicker or slower, so you
can still have your So for me, it's the waiting around. Then I'm
like, yeah, I need to take my shot. When I to take
my shot because I like to. So then it's okay, Well, I
have triggers to keep me present and in the moment to remove that middle ground.
So say for someone where you're there trying to speed you up, they
might be rushing to the shot and making you feel rush. But then it's
okay, I'm now bringing myself to the present and this is how I take
my shot. So it's the trigger is to become comfortable with how you play
and just not worrying. So that's the key. I just love to worry
about as there is exactly. So if you're worried about, oh I need,
I need to hit quicker, but that's not how you play, then
you're gonna be thinking I'm gonna hit a bad shot here, and I bet
you hit a bad shot. Yeah, So I mean that's where presence comes
in. So that's that's one of the main elements that I would work on
with people of how do you cultivate presents drawing and before around Funny, I
was going to ask you the same question, how do you cultivate presence?
You're around so we get the this is where we get the conscious and subconscious.
So and where there's such a big link with outside of golf and inside
golf. So you've got mindfulness as a really easy one like at a base.
So just taken ten minutes to meditate, that's good for you, full
stop. So if you if you're starting to meditate ten minutes cleaning your mind,
you're going to be much more present on the golf course because you've removed
all of the did I do this, and I forget to do this?
If I call this person, I've ha done that, or and then into
the swing, how's my takeaway, how's my turn? And I turn my
chest and just get rid of all that. Start by medical, then I
specifically work with people on what is called anchors. So an anchor within hypnotherapy,
as an example, is I would ask you within hypnotherapy to go to
a calm, happy place. So funny enough for a lot of golfers that
will be in a moment where they might have just hit a good shot,
and then you imagine that feeling where you've just hit a good shot. You've
got that contact off the ball, the noise of the ball flying through the
air, and in that moment you feel completely calm, composed and present.
So what we do then is we anchor that feeling to your index finger and
thumb as an example, so I'd get you to press your index finger and
thumb together during hypnotherapy. So once we've done that a few times on the
golf course, you can press your thumb and indexinger together and subconsciously we're then
creating that presence for you. So before the shot, your routine is you
could press your index finger and thumb together, cultivate that feeling of presence with
anger drawing a hypnotherapy session and you can physically change your state there on the
golf course to cultivate presence, which is it's huge and it works for so
many people I've worked with. So we can literally change your state for you
during around Wow. Is there a way to do that without going through hypnotherapy?
Is there a way of training yourself? So within NLP as well,
which is neurolinguistic program programming that I use within hypnotherapy as well, so you
can consciously an anchor. So I would say for me, that would be
the reinforcement. So next time you play golf and you hit that good shot,
you just think, Okay, I'm going to press my thumb and indexing
together and you think, Okay, this is my anchor. It's my anchor
for this feeling right now, that presence feeling, and you say to yourself,
presence, presence, and so you're consciously programming your subconscious to get that
feeling of presence. And whilst that does work and is powerful, it's not
as impactful and powerful as doing it during hypnosis as well. So let's say
you get a ten times effect by doing it consciously, you might get a
hundred times effect with doing it with hypnotherapy and consciously. Those numbers of me
just give an example of the potential difference with working really in the subconscious and
presence is just one anchor we work on. Can you explain to me the
difference between flow state, because we're hearing that term a lot lately. It
seems to be a new term, but we're hearing it a lot, and
how how that differs from mindfulness. Yes, so mindfulness would be more say
meditation, So whether that's so, I I'll get onto Hackler, which is
something you'll find interesting with regards to what that is. But it's a form
of Hawaiian meditation. So so meditation is more of the focus in the moment
of being present, so making sure you are in the moment, Whereas flow
state is an optimal state of consciousness. So meditation would be Okay, we're
going to stop now, we're going to breathe, we're going to calm ourselves
down, and we're going to work on removing the thoughts in that particular moment.
But you couldn't meditate and play golf at the same time, Whereas a
flow state is a state that you get into actively and then that would be
your optimal state of consciousness, which would link to peak performance. And I
think sometimes the word flow states thrown around too often when the meaning isn't necessarily
there. I will you need to get into flow to play your best golf,
Well, you couldn't be in a flow state for hopefully three and a
half to four hour round unless you playing longer, so you couldn't You couldn't
be in a flow state for four hours. So then what we're talking about
is state presence and deliberate visualization, but they're separate from flow state. Flow
state would be the accumulation of being present and in the moment and having challenge
and skill balanced perfectly. That would then put you into flow state and not
to be too sciencey, but flow state is something called transient hypo frontality,
which is actually the quieting down of your prefrontal cortex and your frontal lobes.
So is actually your mind, your brain quieting down, and that's what allows
you to become at your optimal state of consciousness, Whereas I think there's a
lot of people think it's the opposite, where you've almost got access to more
brain power. But it's the opposite. Okay, we're going to take another
time out right now, and when we come back. I just realized that
my microphone is not working right now. I've been talking through my AirPods the
entire time. And when we come back, hopefully we'll have a better sounding
microphone and I won't be back right after this, Okay, Leo, I
hope you can actually hear an honest to goodness microphone now. And I apologize
to the audience, said like, why does he sound so weird? I
couldn't hear the difference. I can't hear me, so I don't know if
there's a difference on your end or not. I hope there is, all
right. I spent a lot of money on microphones. I didn't need to
spend. All right, let's get let's get back to this. Let's talk
about the importance of the mindset in high performance. I mean, we're trying
to play our best golf we possibly can every time out. Yeah, so
mindset's huge. There's no way around it. And again, like I've said
a few times, it always feeds back in from your mindset, not just
on the course and during a shot, but I think your mindset comes into
it through from when you wake up in the morning until when you get into
the golf course. It's actually having that mindset that's instilled in you so you
make good decisions and have the tools to make good shots and avoid Ultimately,
it's making our bad shots less bad. In my opinion as an amateur is
the key. It's not oh, I've hit a good shot. It's when
I've hit a bad shot. Minimizing the extent of that bad shot is one
of the biggest impacts to lower and your score of well. Rather than slicing
it out into the trees and into the water, I've just hit it into
the right rough and it's findable. I've hit it into the left rough and
it's findable. Not to say you won't get the bad shot. So it's
having that overall encompassing mindset. And there's so many elements of mindset. I
mean, I've I try and pick out like, I've got six areas that
I like to work on that leads to flow in my opinion. Okay,
let's talk about those six areas. So the first thing I always check is
the mindset around nutrition and hydration. Now you might not think why as a
hypnotherapist and performance coach are you asking about that, because it's so simple to
change. But if you're going around the course and an hour in you're drinking
a fizzy drink and you've had a chocolate bar and your blood sugar spike and
crashes, that's one hundred percent going to affect your game, no question.
So always check that. So water hydrates them well, and little things like
just taking a sip of water before taking your next T shot. Now we
could make that an anchor as well to keep you into presents. There's little
things we can link to link you having a little sip of water to make
a you present ready for your T shot. So that would always always be
number one for me because it's such an easy win. Wow, Yeah,
it's something that we've talked about for years here on the podcast of Saying Hydrated.
And a thing that I learned early on in the podcast that I've always
brought with me to the golf course is called sip and nibble, which is
little water, you know, after every shot, just a sip you don't
have to gulp, right, and and just grazing with you know, like
peanut butter, pretzels, peanuts, you know, maybe a cliff bar or
something like that, but just little bits at a time to last the whole
round makes a huge difference. And I found ever since I've started doing that,
I've never said to anybody, oh boy, the wheels are really falling
off here at the end of the round. Oh I'm getting tired. It
just doesn't happen when you stay when you stay hydrated, definitely, just grace.
You can't implement all the other mindfulness and the hypnotherapy and the flow state,
you can't do any of that unless your body's got what it needs in
the first place. It's like huge, getting you back from minus one.
Just that's just getting you back to zero. That's allowing us to do the
work right. Yeah, that's always, always number one, and yeah,
cliff Bars, I like a Cliff bar as well. That's good, okay,
all right, area number two. So two I would classify as as
state, so being able to acknowledge and change your state. So let's say
you're stepping up to the first T. You're in your sympathetic nervous system,
so you're feeling people are watching me, how's my shot going to be?
What am I going to do? Am I going to hit it left?
Am I going to hit it right? Well, we don't want any of
that. We want you to get up and hit your shot. So that
would be under state change. So within that we would have the anchors we've
already discussed, and I'd always put in breath work in there as well,
so just you know, you could do box breathing of four seconds out,
hold four seconds, four seconds in hold four seconds just to calm your nervous
system down, just to get you back into that parasympathetic nervous system and allow
you to acknowledge your state isn't where it should be and change it back to
give you the best chance of hitting that shot. And you could do that
on every T mid round. You know, if you're on a buggy walk,
you know, or good example of that is you've just walked up Especially
in the UK, we've got some very hilly, downhill uphill courses. If
you've got trolley in the winter because there's no buggies allowed, you've just pushed,
pushed up a big hill and you can feel you're out of breath.
It would probably be a good idea just to pause for a second to catch
a breath. Yep. Yeah, we have those kind of hills here in
northern California as well flat golf courses. Yeah. So yeah, just acknowledging
I have just walked up hill and it's okay that I'm out of breath.
That's just pause a second, right, right to move on under the third
area of mindset. So third we've touched on, But Hunsen would be cultivating
present, so present, so with mindfulness anchors and hypnotherapy within that. So
cultivating presence for you might be I've been I've had a bit of anxiety and
I've been playing golf recently, so we need to do something on anxiety or
it might be specifically off the tea, I get the yips and I've got
no idea why we could work on that within hypnotherapy, so we would find
out what it is it's causing you not to be present and then work on
that to allow you to be present. And yeah, and then the anchor
again is a huge part of that. So we could say, okay,
well, you're feeling stressed, I've acknowledged that, I can start doing my
breath work, I can put my anchor, and then within hypnotherapy we've worked
on you being present. So we're just always slowly moving you back to that
place of not worrying, not overthinking, because it doesn't matter. At the
point you're having your T shirt, your practices have been done on the range,
so just hit the ball right right. Are you familiar with the clear
key system? Uh? No, I don't forget. I'm actually I might
be Okay, then we'll go on and talk about other things. But there's
a lot of that anchoring, just saying something that's going to anchor you and
keep you away from being distracted. All right. Four your fourth one.
So four is to visualize because you're actively giving your brain your subconscious direction.
And it's as simple as that, just stepping up, Okay, I'm picking
that tree, I'm going to hit the ball. With a cut at that
tree, it's going to bounce around here and it's going to go with a
chip. I want to land it here, and I can see the ball
landing here and it's going to skid on. It's because you're just giving your
brain so it's concentrate on again cultivating presence. I love when I'm watching professional
golf on TV and you see a guy stepping up to the tee and just
before he walks up to the ball, he'll close his eyes and you could
just see like he's visualizing his swing, is visualizing his his setup, his
swing, the ballflight. You could just get the sense of where he's going
with that, she's going with that? Yeah. I like with potting as
well, when you can only see drawing the lines back and forth, drawing
the line of well, that was gonna that's a good one. It's amazing
how many times, like if I've made a decent length putt and it's like
I saw that before I even took the stroke, I saw exactly where it
was supposed to go, and it's so hard to recreate that. It's like,
I know I can do what I've done it, how do I recreate
that? The question is practice swing or no practice swing when you put And
the answer is I don't know. I personally I don't. I've started not
to have a practice swing because I've read a lot of reports of that you're
less intentional, that you're almost your body just needs to get up and swing
because you know what you're doing that first swing, and I'm very rarely three
parts. That's one of the stronger part of my gainment. So I'm sticking
to no practice swing at the moment. I in my effort to try to
pick up my pace, I don't take practice swings anymore either, And as
long as I try to focus on getting a hitting in the center of the
face of the putter, I do much better and keeping my rhythm the same.
It's just the one to one rhythm of the back swing to swing on
the putter, but just making sure that I do that at the same pace
each time, just different distance depending on how far the part's going to be.
But yeah, I don't. I don't take a practice swing very often
either. And if I do take a practice swing, I'm usually looking at
the hole. Yeah, yeah, visualizing almost telling your body and brain where
am I going to put this ball? Where does it need to go Yeah,
yeah, looking at the targets. Interesting. I do the same with
irons sometimes as well. Sometimes I will sometimes I'll take a practicing in my
iron and it will be like for me, like feel like the perfect swing,
and it almost feels like I've wasted a swing. So sometimes sometimes I'll
say, I'll just get the feeling like the rocking take away in the turn
and then just just hit the ball. And sometimes if depends on how well
I'm playing, that works really well for me as well. Interesting. Right,
let's take one more time out find out what's going on in the archives
of Golf Smarter, and then we'll pick up number five and six on your
six areas of mindset with Leohausen. We'll be right back. This week on
Golf Smarterulligans is part two of our conversation with doctor Joe Parent as we celebrate
ten years of his incredibly popular book Zen Golf, Mastering the Mental Game,
as we talk about hypnotherapy with Leo on this episode of Golf Smarter, Our
Mulligan's episode this week is the perfect compliment, as this time we focus on
how to utilize zen golf in your short game and how to control your anger
on the golf course. Well, you know, I had an interesting experience
about an angry golfer. We got him calm down and he actually played better,
and he said, you know what, I miss being angry. Some
people use anger on the golf course as their way of venting because they can't
get mad at their boss, and they can't get mad and take it out
on their wives, and they can't take it out on their kids and their
dogs. And the only place that they feel like it's okay to get mad
is the golf course problem because it isn't fun for other people. But there
are some people who that's their place to get mad. And you try to
say, I'm sorry, you're not having a good time, and they sort
of say they're not having a good time, but underneath they are having a
good time in that they're getting their anger out and they're cursing and moaning and
angry, it seems like all through the round, and they finish and they
go, I hate this game. What time do we play tomorrow? Originally
published in twenty twelve as a member's only episode of Golf Smarter, this is
the first time that this conversation has ever been shared publicly for free. It's
episode two hundred and thirty nine of Golf Smarter Mulligans with doctor Joe Parrott,
author of Zen Golf, Zen Putting Golf, The Art of the Mental Game,
How to Make Every Putt, and his latest is Zen Tennis. So
if Golf Smarter is one of your favorite golf podcasts, thank you, and
don't miss the chance to have the experts give you free lessons on how to
improve your game twice each week with Golf Smarter and golf Smarter Mulligans. They're
both available for free from wherever you're listening right now. All right, Leo,
let's pick it up at number five. Here we've the first four areas
of mindset that you have. One nutrition, hydration, two your state breathing,
three presents using anchors mindfulness, four visualize. I love that one.
What's number five? Say five? Not to be negative, but it's bad
shots. They happen, They happen, Just let them go. It's learning
to so okay, I bat shot, have that ten seconds of I came
out of at the top. I needs if the next shot, I needs
to concentrate on feeling like I'm hitting a draw swing and not a fade,
that's fine, but then just let it go. Don't let it determine your
round. Just that one bad shot, so just just learning, just just
let it go, just say yourself is gone, right. And I don't
know if you're old enough to remember the toy, the etch a sketch,
but doctor Joe Parent says, pull out down a bad shot, Just pull
out the edge of sketch, shake it off, move on. I've always
loved that that visually, that visual of doing that, and it's helped me
too. The other thing that I find, and I hope this isn't number
six and I'm getting ahead of myself, is the way you talk to yourself
on a bad shot. I mean you yell at yourself, you use your
name right, Ah, Fred? What are you doing? You know those
kind of things. It's like, you know, I wouldn't. I wouldn't
talk to other people that way, let alone friends or family. Why am
I talking to myself like that? Is that become an issue as well?
I mean when people just start yelling at themselves, that that becomes on the
issue that I would work on within hypnotherapy, because what you're actually doing is
talking to your subconscious. So you're affecting and you're subconscious by saying you're rubbish
what you're doing, So you're subconscious then looks out for signs to agree with
you, so it will look for something to say, yeah, you are
rubbish, Yeah you are bad, Yeah you're you're not very good, So
that you're actively programming your subconscious by using that sort of language with yourself,
where you could just say I've hit a bad shot. I saw Tommy Fleet
would hit a bad shot when I was watching on TV last week. He's
a professional. I'm going to hit a bad shot. It's God's hard.
It happens, you know, And sometimes you have a good swing. You
like what happens and the result is bad. Let it go. What are
you doing song? As you hit a bad, bad shot and it ends
up with the green? Yeah right, oh man, I hated that swing.
That was a bad swing with a great result. So yes, the
self talk is is massive to to all of it, but often that's something
root course subconsciously that we have to We have to say, well, why
are you doing that? Why are you saying that? Why why aren't you
respecting yourself and the way you should respect yourself. You're playing amount of golf.
Hmmm. So yeah, the bad shot, the self talk within the
bad shot. But ye, just we're all gonnahit a bad shot. Yeah,
put it into perspective. Yeah, exactly. It's it's not how many
great shots you had on any given day, it's how many bad shots you
limited yourself to. Right, that's the difference between a good golf in a
average, mediocre, poor golfer. Yeah, what's number six? Six sounds
funny, but it's just practice. So when I first started, I started
off on the range and playing nine holes, and I wondered why when I
went and played eighteen, I wasn't sustaining eighteen and I couldn't get score eighteen.
And I've know lots of people that play a nine hole and nine hole
and nine hell, they're going to play eighteen once a month with their friends,
and they won't perform on the eighteen eighteen holes because they're not practicing eighteen
holes. They're not geared up for the eighteen holes. So someone's like,
you need to play twenty holes. Go and play twenty holes, Go and
play twenty two holes, go right, you know, and go eighteen and
then go do some practice and on the range, after you've hit the eighteen,
So prepare your body your energy levels to play eighteen holes, because it
sounds really simple. But the amount of people I know can't perform around eighteen
that can't sustain eighteen holes just because they never play eighteen or they didn't play
eighteen holes enough. Oh, it's because they're not hydrating and eating. Yeah,
yeah, how do you How do you suggest we practice eighteen holes?
I mean you actually go out on the chorus and play eighteen or so you
just use that as practice. I never consider when I'm out on the golf
course that this is a practice round. It's always because I don't play competitively,
So every round I'm competing against myself, all right, and and my
how I do knowing that there's going to be a range of scores at the
end of the day. But it's always to me it's I'm playing, not
practicing. Practicing is hitting into the net going to the driving range, and
I think that's good practice. But sometimes so we play scramble a lot where
with four of us playing, we take the best the best ball. So
we may play that one every couple of weeks where there's four of us that
go out and if you say you're the last person driving, someone's already got
a good ball in the fair way. You've got a free card to hit
whatever shot you choose, the amount that's improved my golf by hitting shots I
didn't think I was capable of in a practice situation on the course. Then
I've hit that and said, oh, actually I am capable. I've hitting
that shot, shape hitting that, and I can do that. And then
I take that out when I play an eighteen, I'm scoring because I've done
it in a stress free situation out on the course. Yes, so this
the sustainable high performance. This is something that we talk about trying to get
to, whether it's flow, a state, mindfulness, all these other things.
Is it do you from where you're sitting your perspective. Is this happening
more often or is it kind of falling falling away? Are we seeing more
and more people who are achieving and sustaining their high performance. I think it's
a mixed bag because flow state isn't high performance. Flow state is peak performance
and is not sustainable. So if you were always looking to get into flow
state, you're going to be disappointed because you will not always be in flow
state. So then the level under that is, could can you continuously be
in a high performance a high performance state? Well, yes you can,
and that goes back into nutrition and hydration, sleeping properly, that goes back
into mindfulness, meditation, it goes into all the little things that just do
the basics all of the time correctly, you're going to outperform ninety percent of
people. Okay, how so with eating properly, the drinker probably sleeping seven
to eight hours, just those three things. Huge gratitude in the morning is
another huge one. Change your thoughts. Just sit down in the morning and
write three to five positive things. Change where we're talking about that self talk.
You're changing that self talk because you're saying, these are the positive things
I noticed yesterday, and let's do it in the morning. So you start
noticing the positive things of the day. So those things make dramatic changes,
and I would classify those as the basic things we should be doing. Flow
state is amazing, but it's a higher level hack that we can work towards
flow state all the time. And yes, once you're in flow state,
you can have the round of your life, but you're going to drop in,
You're going to drop out are you then going to get this pointed that
you're currently not in flow state drawing around and are you going to blow your
round up huge? So it's acknowledge, and yes, flow state's amazing.
But all these little high performance things of hydration, sleep, gratitude, our
cold shower is a huge one for me in terms of rebalancing the dopamine.
So, and TV goes off at TV goes off at night at a certain
time, and I read blue light at night to make sure your circadian rhythms
balance properly, and you're getting sunlight in your eyes. Just all those basic
human needs that we fall out of habit of because of technology, because of
our phones, because of Netflix, the ease of all these things we create
such an out of balance human that let's take for golf, you're completely out
of balance. You've been up late night, you've been up late watching TV.
You go on the golf course and you're thinking, but I've been hitting
it really well on the range, but the rest of your life says otherwise.
So you're you're implying that there's a cultural or a societal shift going on
here that's impacting our flow state, our mindfulness. Yes, yeah, there's
more and more people now acknowledging that there has been a real problem with all
of these areas, and people are vying for our attention. Our attention should
be the most guarded thing we have. Our attention should be we only give
our attention to the things that matter, to the things that move us forwards.
But currently a lot of us give our attention away very cheaply, and
it really affects our day to day and it affects our family, it affects
our work, it affects our sleep, it affects ours eating, and it
affects our golf. So wow, the link between the two is is undeniable,
really fascinating. Now, are you able to work with people remotely,
especially with the hypnotherapy, or do you have to be in person with him?
No? I work with people in person and remotely. So I've actually
yeah, and I put I've put a dedicated specific golf program together running over
what we've just discussed. And I'm just about to finish up doing my TPI
qualifications for screening and fitness and strength as well, so I'm probably going to
double down on the golfer side of it quite quickly. Wow, very cool,
How do people follow you, get in touch with you, read more
about you. Yeah. So my website's great place start, which is Leohausen
dot com. My Instagram's the same Leo Housen and that's howso n that's correct.
Yeah, yeah, so the website and Instagram on Instagram in the morning
is usually because I banned myself from it in the in the evenings in line
with my recommended device. Good idea, but yeah, I work work on
Zoom work in person. Yeah. You can do hypnotherapy remotely, yeah,
yeah, it works really well. So there's a couple of requirements in terms
of making sure someone sat in a comfortable place so they're head supported because you
do sort of fall back onto your chair. And I always like good quality
headphones for remote because that just really then brings you into that present moment as
we discussed and absorbed in the moment. Wow, fascinating, Leo. This
has really been fascinating. I wish you all the luck in the world and
news success and I've learned a lot today. Thank you so much for coming
on the show. Yeah, thanks, Rev, it's being pretty good.
I loved hearing from our newest Golf Smarter ambassador, Phil wirek of Jacksonville,
Florida. Not sure what it is about playing near an airfield, but I
love watching the planes take off and land during my round. It's never been
a negative distraction, but something that can pull my attention away from my game
just for a few seconds, especially if I'm frustrated. Now, whether it's
my favorite course, Rooster Run that has a lot of private planes, ultra
lights and the occasional private jet with the four pm Russia FedEx planes, I
guess it's consistent with me having my head in the clouds. The other two
courses that I've played with airports are Metropolitan next to the smaller section of the
Oakland International Airport. I once played at Teeth of the Dog at Cosa de
Campo and Dominican Republican. Have you ever played there? It's amazing to be
well it was at the time, be on the eighteenth tea box and see
a plane coming right at you and you have to drive the ball over the
runway. Since I played there, the airport's been updated and all that remains
is a white picket fence that is between you and the runway. But the
runway is so much larger now and allows planes as big as seven to twenty
sevens to land there. But Phil says he plays at Kasa Linda golf course
at the Naval Air Station Jacksonville. I can only imagine the jets that he
gets to see are pretty spectacular. What about you? Have you played next
to a runway before? Do you like it? Or is it an unwanted
distraction? What features that run next to a golf course do you prefer,
hopefully not just tracked homes? Anyway, right to me, let me know.
I'm curious to hear what you say. And Phil, if you're listening,
right back to me and tell me what you see and feel about that
Naval air station when you're playing Kasselinda. Wow. Anyway, Phil chose to
receive Tony Manzoni's video of the Lost Fundamental, which, as you can tell
each week, there are other two great gifts you can get for free,
but Tony Manzoni's video seems to be the hands down winner. So do what
Phil did and become a Golf Smarter Ambassador so that you too can receive a
free gift of your choice just for telling us where you're from and where you
play. Choices include Tony Manzoni's video, a glove and glove storage compartment from
redroostergolf dot com, or a box of Odin X one balls with the golf
Smarter logo. All you need to do to get that free gift is write
directly to me and I'll send you some simple instructions on how to record an
episode opening that takes less than one minute. Check out today's show notes to
find links about each gift that you can choose from to see and hear the
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