Speaker 1: Ah.
Speaker 2: This is Lewis for Requt from Jacksonville, Alabama, and I
Speaker 2: play at the Cane Creek Golf Course in Aniston, Alabama.
Speaker 1: This is Golf Smarter number nine eighty two. In terms
Speaker 1: of what you say about flow states, Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 1: It's actually a very relaxed state of mind. Your brain
Speaker 1: goes into a relaxed brainwave state. It's off an alpha
Speaker 1: state or a theta brainwave state, rather than a really
Speaker 1: deeply focused state in the conventional sense. You know, the
Speaker 1: kind wave you are solving a mass problem. You might
Speaker 1: be spunching up your eyebrows. You know, the lines would
Speaker 1: come onto your forehead. That's not how we want to
Speaker 1: play golf. It's not how we want to perform in
Speaker 1: a lot of these scenarios, whether it's forming at the
Speaker 1: poker table, whether it's making a speech. Lots of studies incidentally,
Speaker 1: on jazz musicians in flow states. They go into a
Speaker 1: very relaxed state. But what they're doing is they're executing
Speaker 1: their skills in a very relaxed brainwave state, and you
Speaker 1: just slip into it, and it's the kind of thing
Speaker 1: where you come out of it and you go, wow,
Speaker 1: that felt so easy. And yet I was performing so well.
Speaker 3: The four stages of the flow state in golf and
Speaker 3: in life with Stephen Baker. This is Golf's Murder, sharing stories,
Speaker 3: tips and insights from great golf minds to help you
Speaker 3: lower your score and raise your golf IQ.
Speaker 1: There's your host, Fred Green.
Speaker 3: Welcome to the Golf Smurder Podcast. Stephen.
Speaker 1: Oh hey, Fred, great to be here.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Thank you so much for joining me today.
Speaker 3: Tell me what it is that you love about golf.
Speaker 1: Well, look, I like a lot of sport, and golf
Speaker 1: was something I came to in my mid twenties, and
Speaker 1: for me at that time, I was a courtroom lawyer.
Speaker 1: It was just the perfect escape. I used to on
Speaker 1: days when I knew I wasn't going to be in
Speaker 1: court the next day. I would put the clubs in
Speaker 1: my car, head off either to the range or to
Speaker 1: the golf course and play around. And it was just
Speaker 1: the perfect escape. And it was completely different. I mean
Speaker 1: I was used to playing. I suppose my first love
Speaker 1: in sport was soccer, of course, but you know it's
Speaker 1: not something you can just say, oh, I'm not in
Speaker 1: court tomorrow's let's go and play a game of football.
Speaker 1: You need a lot of people to do that. And
Speaker 1: I got into golf. It was really through my father
Speaker 1: in law, who was a very good golfer. He was
Speaker 1: a scratch golfer and he got me into it and
Speaker 1: I was fascinated, because I'll be honest with you, at first,
Speaker 1: I found it so hard. You know. I was used
Speaker 1: to sports where I could just instinctively, you know, I
Speaker 1: could see a ball, I could make connection with it,
Speaker 1: and I couldn't really believe how badly frankly I was
Speaker 1: playing with a ball that was stationary. I mean, how
Speaker 1: how can it be this hard? But it was. But
Speaker 1: it soon bit me, and yeah, I really got into it.
Speaker 1: I moved to a part of the world here where
Speaker 1: there are some beautiful golf courses. You know, my local
Speaker 1: course is a wonderful links course. I love links courses.
Speaker 1: Just down the coast from me, there's a great course
Speaker 1: place called Burnham and Barrow. Further down the coast there's
Speaker 1: some wonderful courses in Cornwall and then up in Scotland.
Speaker 1: Scotland is golfing heaven. And you know what I really
Speaker 1: love about it is you can you can build a
Speaker 1: holiday around going going and playing golf and everybody has
Speaker 1: a good time because you're usually in beautiful parts of
Speaker 1: the world. So yeah, that was really how I got
Speaker 1: into it. I'd love to say I was a wonderful golfer.
Speaker 1: I'm a modest golfer, but doesn't stop me enjoying it
Speaker 1: a lot, and it doesn't stop me being fascinated with
Speaker 1: how to improve, which kind of ties in with what
Speaker 1: I do generally in terms of mental performance across the
Speaker 1: whole range of fields.
Speaker 3: Okay, so you got there before I did, but that's
Speaker 3: where we were going. Were you ever in a place
Speaker 3: where you can incorporate what you're teaching today to your
Speaker 3: golf game or you've they've not really met in the
Speaker 3: middle yet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean definitely. It's I've brought more calmness to
Speaker 1: my golf game. I used to get you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna lie. I got frustrated them, absolutely, But now I,
Speaker 1: you know, a enjoy it more and b think as
Speaker 1: a result, I am better. You know. Sure, I've still
Speaker 1: got huge amounts of technical skills I need to upgrade on,
Speaker 1: but what I have managed to do is at least
Speaker 1: make sure that when I do play, not this big
Speaker 1: gap between you know, my technical game and how I
Speaker 1: execute because of my emotions. And definitely the old one
Speaker 1: of the old traits of you know, you hit a
Speaker 1: bad shot and then you go immediately and hit another
Speaker 1: one because you're still mad about the last one. That's
Speaker 1: something I've eradicated.
Speaker 3: That's good. You know, we have a saying here on
Speaker 3: Golf Smarter that's been around almost as long as the podcast,
Speaker 3: which is never follow a bad shot with a stupid.
Speaker 1: Shot, exactly exactly. And that's easier said than done. Right,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you know, because effectively what happens there is
Speaker 1: our emotions just get a grip.
Speaker 2: Of us and exactly exactly, and that effectively, I suppose
Speaker 2: the lessons I've learned through effectively my coaching practice are
Speaker 2: something I've been able to transfer.
Speaker 1: I wish I'd had them earlier in my life. Not
Speaker 1: just in golf, but I mean I work with not
Speaker 1: just professional sports people, but I work with people in business,
Speaker 1: in professional fields, knowledge professionals, and effectively, the same processes apply.
Speaker 1: What we want to do is be able to get
Speaker 1: control of our emotions rather than allowing them to carry
Speaker 1: us along. And that happens on the golf course, but
Speaker 1: it happens in a whole host of other contexts as well.
Speaker 3: So he said, you were a courtroom lawyer. Yes, I
Speaker 3: read that you were also a professional poker.
Speaker 1: Player, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 3: And now you're a life coach.
Speaker 1: Absolutely yeah. Yeah. I one thing I came to realize
Speaker 1: I became a professional poker player. And then there's this
Speaker 1: thing within poker that they're called stables, And basically what
Speaker 1: it is is it's groups of players who are backed
Speaker 1: by a financial backer to play. It's a way of
Speaker 1: scaling within poker. So if you think, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: we can coach these people to play at a certain level,
Speaker 1: we can make money off all of them. Well, they'll
Speaker 1: take some of the profits, we keep some of the profits.
Speaker 1: And I joined one of these organizations, did well within it,
Speaker 1: and then I became a poker coach. So I then
Speaker 1: became one of the people who coached the players who
Speaker 1: came into the organization. And one of the things that
Speaker 1: I really realized was I love coaching. So that was
Speaker 1: number one. I love coaching. I kind of look back
Speaker 1: on my time as a lawyer when I had a
Speaker 1: law firm, and I realized that actually I really enjoyed
Speaker 1: mentoring people within the law firm. And helping them be better.
Speaker 1: But the other thing that I realized was I was
Speaker 1: really fascinated with the way psychology worked. One of the
Speaker 1: things that happens in poker is we again. You'd think
Speaker 1: it's a bit like golf. You think we'll wait anek,
Speaker 1: I've got time to make a decision here. How can
Speaker 1: I make a bad decision? But it happens all the
Speaker 1: time in poker. People can immediately and I experienced this myself. Well,
Speaker 1: they can say, right, I know what I should do here,
Speaker 1: and yet somehow I've come away not having made the
Speaker 1: right decision. And I was really fascinated in that it
Speaker 1: tied in with what i'd work The field i'd worked
Speaker 1: in within the law predominantly was clients who'd had psychiatric
Speaker 1: and psychological injuries. So you have to become very familiar
Speaker 1: with psychology and psychiatry to understand how the brain works
Speaker 1: so that you can cross examine experts and that kind
Speaker 1: of that love of coaching plus that interest in psychology
Speaker 1: really led me down the path of coaching, and that's
Speaker 1: that's why I'm doing what I'm doing today.
Speaker 3: Hmm. Fascinating. I never made the connection between, you know,
Speaker 3: poker and golf neither being reactive, if you can use
Speaker 3: the word sport being reactive are like you know, playing soccer,
Speaker 3: football or basketball tennis. You're really you're on a reactive
Speaker 3: level there. But with those two competitions you can think
Speaker 3: about it absolutely, which is probably the deadliest part of
Speaker 3: the game, right because you can say you second guess
Speaker 3: yourself absolutely.
Speaker 1: And you see this even within soccer. There's particular moments
Speaker 1: in soccer. A classic one is is a penalty kick
Speaker 1: and you'll see in a big, high pressure situation and
Speaker 1: you can look at a player as they're walking up
Speaker 1: to that penalty spot with the ball under their arm,
Speaker 1: and you can say, this guy is feeling it. This
Speaker 1: guy ishaking absolutely, and he's all the time in the
Speaker 1: world to think. And that is where some problematical things
Speaker 1: can happen unless you've trained your brain to cope with them.
Speaker 1: I can still remember it's like an image in my
Speaker 1: mind coming up to a shot on my home course
Speaker 1: and thinking, you know, as my mind I could hear
Speaker 1: the thoughts going through my mind about, oh my goodness,
Speaker 1: because because to the right was the sea is the sea,
Speaker 1: and and I developed a slice and as I was
Speaker 1: walking up to this shot. My mind was going, don't
Speaker 1: slice it, don't slice it, you know, and and it's like,
Speaker 1: guess what, you know. It's it's when when somebody says,
Speaker 1: don't think about pink elephants, all you can think about
Speaker 1: is pink elephants, right, And.
Speaker 3: Well, when you say don't slice it, don't slice it.
Speaker 3: To me, the only two words you're hearing the last
Speaker 3: two slice.
Speaker 4: It, yeah, slicing, Yeah, you know when you don't absolutely
Speaker 4: and you know, it's it's interesting because like for me,
Speaker 4: soccer was just instinctive.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've you know, done martial arts as well.
Speaker 1: When I when I when I fought, and you know,
Speaker 1: I've won won my regional championship. I remember just not
Speaker 1: thinking and I think high level sports, you what you
Speaker 1: do is you train your skills. But then when you're
Speaker 1: in performance in a flow state, there's no thinking, it's
Speaker 1: just doing. And it's that ability, as you say, to
Speaker 1: just be in the moment, leave your ego to one side.
Speaker 1: And this is actually something we know from the study
Speaker 1: of flow states that something that happens in a flow
Speaker 1: state is it's quite a mouthful. It's called transient hypofontality,
Speaker 1: and it means that the prefrontal cortex is actually downgraded. Now,
Speaker 1: the prefrontal cortex is associated with with, you know, the
Speaker 1: logical thinking part of our brain, the decision making part
Speaker 1: of our brain, and we might think, well, why would
Speaker 1: we want to downgrade that, We want it all engaged,
Speaker 1: But it's definitely true that we can overthink when we're
Speaker 1: actually performing in sport, and that part of our brains
Speaker 1: also associated with ego and emotions. And one of the
Speaker 1: things that happens in a flow state is you let
Speaker 1: all of that go and you just do But you
Speaker 1: have to train the brain to get into that state.
Speaker 1: That's that's the difficulty. We've probably all experienced flow states
Speaker 1: from time to time, but what we now know is
Speaker 1: we can definitely do things to get there more often,
Speaker 1: and that's useful whether you're making decisions at a poker table,
Speaker 1: in a in a you know, courtroom, you know, in
Speaker 1: a business negotiation, or on a golf course.
Speaker 3: The fascinating part about flow state, and I want to
Speaker 3: get really deep into this it d Somebody wrote a
Speaker 3: review about our podcast, and because Fred is obsessed with
Speaker 3: the mental game, it's like, are you saying that as
Speaker 3: a good thing or a bad thing because we all
Speaker 3: know what golf is not just about hitting a ball, right,
Speaker 3: you know, playing golf and hitting golf balls are very
Speaker 3: different things, and you know a lot of it is
Speaker 3: that doesn't get discussed and you're taking lessons because you're
Speaker 3: just learning how to hit a ball. Is you know,
Speaker 3: the strategic part and the mental part. So yeah, I
Speaker 3: do get obsessed with this kind of a topic, but
Speaker 3: I think it's really really helpful for all. Now, you
Speaker 3: were talking about flow state. You know, when you're getting
Speaker 3: into the flow state, you really don't recognize it while
Speaker 3: you're there. It's almost like a post mortem. It's always like, oh,
Speaker 3: I was in a flow state, Then how did I
Speaker 3: get there? How did I fall out? How do I
Speaker 3: get back? And I think that's primarily what we're discussing today, right.
Speaker 1: It is it is. I mean, just circling back to
Speaker 1: what you said a second ago about the importance of
Speaker 1: mental gain. I think anybody who stood on the driving
Speaker 1: range and hit a sequence of very good shots and
Speaker 1: then gone to the course and when it's a shot
Speaker 1: which matters, has not been able to reproduce anything like
Speaker 1: that shot that might there is the importance of the
Speaker 1: mental game, because there is a gap very often between
Speaker 1: what our theoretical technical skills should produce and what when
Speaker 1: we are put under pressure, we actually do produce. And
Speaker 1: this is true in a whole realm of fields. You know,
Speaker 1: as I say, I work with I work with knowledge professionals,
Speaker 1: I work with sports professionals, and very often what we
Speaker 1: are focusing on is this question of, well, why am
Speaker 1: I not producing the skills at the level I am
Speaker 1: capable of. So if we if we sort of gave
Speaker 1: ourselves a scale of zero to one hundred on our
Speaker 1: golf skills, yes, there's work to do with your you know,
Speaker 1: your professional, your instructor, your coach, who is going to
Speaker 1: work on actually hitting the ball well. If you get
Speaker 1: to the point where it's like, you know, I can
Speaker 1: hit that shot well nine times out of ten in practice,
Speaker 1: but I get to the course and guess what, it's
Speaker 1: nothing like nine out of ten. That, right there is
Speaker 1: is the mental game. And when somebody says, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: why are we bothering about the mental game, Just learn
Speaker 1: to hit the ball better, that's it's missing the point.
Speaker 1: In terms of what you say about flow states, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right, this is the whole point, it's actually a
Speaker 1: very relaxed state of mind. Your brain actually goes into
Speaker 1: a relaxed brainwave state. It's often an alpha state or
Speaker 1: a THET brainwave state, rather than a really deeply focused
Speaker 1: state in the conventional sense, you know, the kind where
Speaker 1: you're you know, if you're solving a math problem, you
Speaker 1: might be scrunching up your eyebrows and your you know,
Speaker 1: the lines would come onto your forehead. That's not how
Speaker 1: we want to play golf. It's not how we want
Speaker 1: to perform in a lot of these scenarios, you know,
Speaker 1: whether it's performing at the poker table, whether it's making
Speaker 1: a speech. Lots of studies incidentally on jazz musicians in
Speaker 1: flow states, and again it's very they go into a
Speaker 1: very relaxed state. But what they're doing is they're executing
Speaker 1: their skills in a very relaxed brain wave state, and
Speaker 1: you just slip into it and it's the kind of
Speaker 1: thing where you come out of it and you go, wow,
Speaker 1: that felt so easy, and yet I was performing so well.
Speaker 1: And we've learned more about the brain in the last
Speaker 1: twenty years as a result of modern brain imaging techniques,
Speaker 1: and we kind of knew in the previous two thousand years,
Speaker 1: and what we actually know now is how we can
Speaker 1: actually manipulate our environment and the way we prepare to
Speaker 1: get into these flow states more often. And the great
Speaker 1: news is it's actually extremely efficient to be in a
Speaker 1: flow state. Involve huge amounts of hard work. It does involve. Look,
Speaker 1: you know, if somebody said I've not practiced a bunker
Speaker 1: shot for two years, If you put me in a
Speaker 1: bunker and I was that person, I'll it'd be very
Speaker 1: hard to get into a flow state because my mind
Speaker 1: will recognize the fact that I've not got the core
Speaker 1: skills to perform. If I've done the right kind of
Speaker 1: practice and I've done the work around getting into a
Speaker 1: flow state, I will be able to relax and be
Speaker 1: much more likely to reproduce what I do, what I'm
Speaker 1: capable of from the training ground on the actual field
Speaker 1: of play. And that's what happens in a flow state.
Speaker 1: You are able to relax. And we've seen it with
Speaker 1: great sports people, right you know, we think about I
Speaker 1: was thinking before this podcast of moments where I've thought
Speaker 1: of great golfers and you see them in flow and
Speaker 1: it was a shot Fred Couples played. I think it
Speaker 1: was years ago in the Masters, and he hit it
Speaker 1: and he just went oh baby as he hit it,
Speaker 1: and that was just like that was flow. It was
Speaker 1: just pure relaxation, just doing his thing, not overthinking. You know,
Speaker 1: you took Ernie L's to be easy. Everything looked effortless, right,
Speaker 1: and that's how Yeah, and that's what we want to produce.
Speaker 1: Whereas a lot of a lot of people bring tension
Speaker 1: to what they do, be it round of golf, making
Speaker 1: a speech, pearing. You know. Again as a lawyer, you know,
Speaker 1: used to be involved in a lot of negotiations, but
Speaker 1: you want to be relaxed. That conveys authority. So this
Speaker 1: is what this is what the training I do with
Speaker 1: clients in whatever context tries to bring about this state
Speaker 1: of relaxed focus. So it's the ability to zone in
Speaker 1: on what you want to do, but without bringing all
Speaker 1: sorts of thoughts which are unhelpful into the moment.
Speaker 3: Flow state jazz, it's the perfect combination. It's the perfect
Speaker 3: description of flow state is jazz. Yeah, you know, pure jazz.
Speaker 3: It's just letting it go, trusting what's there and letting
Speaker 3: it let it come through you. I love that, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean that's awesome.
Speaker 1: You know, Basically, the science has identified that there were
Speaker 1: four stages to the flow cycle. And I won't go
Speaker 1: through the morning detail today, but number one is.
Speaker 3: The four stages don't tease me and leave me.
Speaker 1: Okay, So the four stages are struggle. Now, people don't
Speaker 1: want to hear that when when they're talking about flow states.
Speaker 1: But that is where you learn your core skills. So
Speaker 1: when we're talking about the jazz musician who produces this
Speaker 1: beautiful improvisation, at some point they will have learned the
Speaker 1: core skills. They will have done their scales, they will
Speaker 1: have learnt that piece of music in its most basic
Speaker 1: for but they'll have got that down. So like for us,
Speaker 1: it will be okay, I'm going to basically have some
Speaker 1: core skills in terms of the way I drive the ball,
Speaker 1: the way I hit my iron shots, the way I
Speaker 1: hit the ball out of a bunker. I'm going to
Speaker 1: get that, and I'm going to get it to a
Speaker 1: point where it feels I've at least got something which
Speaker 1: is reliable and repeatable. That's that's unavoidable work. Then there's release. Now,
Speaker 1: this is the interesting thing, and this is the lesson
Speaker 1: I wish I'd had when I started playing golf, I
Speaker 1: you know, when I went to the driving range, I
Speaker 1: just wanted to hit as many balls as possible. And
Speaker 1: one of the things that the brain does is it
Speaker 1: wants to break every now and then. So let's say
Speaker 1: I do it the way I should have done, which
Speaker 1: was okay, let's just focus on a particular technique that
Speaker 1: I want to integrate into my swing. Then step away,
Speaker 1: step away, go for a walk, go and have a
Speaker 1: cup of coffee for fifteen minutes, and the brain will
Speaker 1: subconsciously work on integrating that it's learning. And you only
Speaker 1: even need to think about You only need to go
Speaker 1: away and say I just need to think a bit
Speaker 1: more about this. The brain will do it. This is
Speaker 1: really vital for a lot of skills. It probably seems
Speaker 1: more logical to apply it to knowledge professionals. I mean,
Speaker 1: Albert Einstein used to after he'd done his working the lab,
Speaker 1: he used to go on late Geneva and go fishing,
Speaker 1: and he actually found he had his greatest insights there.
Speaker 1: This was this release phase of the flow cycle in operation.
Speaker 1: The brain goes into a more relaxed state and it
Speaker 1: actually knits all that you've been trying to work on together,
Speaker 1: So that's really important. And then there's the flow phase itself,
Speaker 1: and what happens in the flow phase is there's huge
Speaker 1: amounts of dope men and Europe and ethrine driven to
Speaker 1: the brain and they drive this state of effortless focus.
Speaker 1: And then also important is the recovery phase, and there's
Speaker 1: lots we can talk about there. There's physical recovery, but
Speaker 1: there's also mental recovery. Again, I tend to do talk
Speaker 1: about this in more detail with professional athletes, but it's
Speaker 1: definitely applicable to people you know who are working, for example,
Speaker 1: in a knowledge profession, and I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people just work extremely hard and don't understand the importance
Speaker 1: of giving themselves proper recovery to allow themselves to get
Speaker 1: into a high performance state. Again, so those are the
Speaker 1: four phases. Now, what that actually looks like for an
Speaker 1: individual very much depends on what their life looks like,
Speaker 1: but that's something we work on. I then use one
Speaker 1: of the tools I do use, and I know you've
Speaker 1: had other podcast guests talk about hypnotherapy, but I use
Speaker 1: hypnotherapy to help integrate these skills into the way people
Speaker 1: approach whatever it is their challenge is. So you know,
Speaker 1: if it's a round of golf, I will get them
Speaker 1: to visualize being in a flow state. They have experienced
Speaker 1: probably moments of a flow state in their life before,
Speaker 1: and we will leverage that to get them back into
Speaker 1: that state on the golf course. We'll do other work
Speaker 1: to make sure that everything's aligned to achieve that, but
Speaker 1: we'll also engage memories of having been in that state,
Speaker 1: even if it's not in a golf a round of golf.
Speaker 1: I mean, if somebody says to me, I've never been
Speaker 1: in a flow state on the golf course, I'll say,
Speaker 1: have you ever been in a flow state anywhere? And
Speaker 1: they usually will have been, and I will use that
Speaker 1: memory to transfer that state of mind to the golf course.
Speaker 3: When we're on the driving range and we hit ten
Speaker 3: shots as we're working on something and nine of them,
Speaker 3: as you said, go, well, that one doesn't. That's the
Speaker 3: one that we get nervous about when we're walking up
Speaker 3: to the shot on the course because the course, on
Speaker 3: the driving range, obviously there's no pressure to perform. That's why,
Speaker 3: like when I'm when I'm warming up for putting before around,
Speaker 3: I'll ask my playing pardon, let's let's have a little
Speaker 3: competition here, just to put a little bit of pressure
Speaker 3: on these putts, because if I put four in a
Speaker 3: row and one of the four goes in, I'm like, oh, okay,
Speaker 3: I'm ready to go. Well really yeah, you know, so
Speaker 3: we want to try to find the time. You know,
Speaker 3: golf is even the best golfers in the world make
Speaker 3: bad shots. It's about how you recover from them. That's
Speaker 3: that's the point. But I don't know do we want
Speaker 3: to There's two things I want to go after. One,
Speaker 3: I want to talk more about the recovery phase, but
Speaker 3: also you talk about, you know, professional athletes, professional poker players,
Speaker 3: professional golfers, how they get there on that flow state.
Speaker 3: I want to know how do we as recreational as amateur,
Speaker 3: no matter what our skill level, whether we're an eighteen
Speaker 3: twenty handicap or we're scratch or one or two, can
Speaker 3: we get there?
Speaker 1: Yes? You can, absolutely you can. We've got to recognize
Speaker 1: that a flow state for a fifteen handicapped golfer is
Speaker 1: not going to look like a flow state for you know,
Speaker 1: somebody who's a musician, Yeah yeah, or somebody who's competing
Speaker 1: down the stretch in the Masters. Okay, what it will
Speaker 1: look like is, hey, I am playing my best golf
Speaker 1: and I why it will look where it will look
Speaker 1: similar is that they will be getting out of their
Speaker 1: own way, they won't be getting in their own head,
Speaker 1: and they will be performing at their level. Okay, so
Speaker 1: they will be performing at a level commensurate with their skills,
Speaker 1: because that's what we're talking about here. What we want
Speaker 1: to do is at least perform and a level commensurate
Speaker 1: with our technical skills. And what very often happens for
Speaker 1: a lot of golfers is that they fall below what
Speaker 1: they're capable of, you know. In other words, to come
Speaker 1: back to our example of the person who hits nine
Speaker 1: out of ten good shots on the range a particular
Speaker 1: type of shot, and they go to the course and
Speaker 1: they're not hitting it with anything like that frequency. So
Speaker 1: we can definitely prepare the recreational golfer to perform at
Speaker 1: their level. Now, they have to still do the hard
Speaker 1: work if they want to improve their game to take
Speaker 1: it to the next technical level, but mentally they can
Speaker 1: do working. It can be very time efficient by the way,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean when I work one of one
Speaker 1: of the most common kinds of clients I have. I
Speaker 1: do have professional sports people, but I also have clients
Speaker 1: who are in business or in a professional line of work,
Speaker 1: and they also are extremely interested in sports, so I do.
Speaker 1: I've got a client now who's very keen golfer. He's
Speaker 1: a lawyer and he loves his golf, and we will
Speaker 1: do work on that because that is his big passion,
Speaker 1: it's his big outlet. I've got clients who are into tennis.
Speaker 1: Same thing. Very common one for me given my background
Speaker 1: is I've got clients who are maybe in business, but
Speaker 1: they love poker. And what I do with all of
Speaker 1: these clients is work on basically ensuring that we've got
Speaker 1: techniques that we can build into their lifestyle. And it's
Speaker 1: a busy lifestyle for most of these people, which they
Speaker 1: can they can transfer to their passion, their recreational passion.
Speaker 1: And the good news about this is that, well two
Speaker 1: good pieces of good news. Number One, you can be
Speaker 1: time efficient with this stuff, and secondly, these skills tend
Speaker 1: to transfer to the other things you're doing in life.
Speaker 1: So if you can get into flow states when you're
Speaker 1: on the golf course but you're not a professional golfer,
Speaker 1: you can actually use these same approaches to perform better
Speaker 1: in your business because they are skills which transfer I've
Speaker 1: mentioned jazz musicians, I've mentioned professional poker players, tennis players, golfers,
Speaker 1: people in business, traders you know, I act for a
Speaker 1: number of people who are crypto traders and four x traders,
Speaker 1: and being able to perform in a flow state there
Speaker 1: is important. So these skills are very transferable across all
Speaker 1: of these spheres. And the good news is they, as
Speaker 1: I say, you can do it in a way which
Speaker 1: is extremely time effiicient. It has to be. It's slightly different. Obviously,
Speaker 1: if somebody is a full time professional sports person, they've
Speaker 1: got all the time in the world to prepare themselves,
Speaker 1: and it is their business to prepare themselves. But it's
Speaker 1: definitely true that you can develop techniques to get into
Speaker 1: flow in a way which is extremely time efficient, even
Speaker 1: if you just you know, are playing around on a Saturday.
Speaker 3: But what does it take for you to recognize that
Speaker 3: you're in it? I mean, how much I guess how
Speaker 3: much work does it take? Do you have to be
Speaker 3: at that level? Or can can an amateur golfer go, WHOA,
Speaker 3: I'm in the flow state right now? Or is that
Speaker 3: identification immediately the opportunity to self sabotage.
Speaker 1: No, well, let me ask you.
Speaker 3: The first question is asking two questions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, the first question answer. The first question is
Speaker 1: an amateur golfer absolutely can be in a flow state.
Speaker 1: As I said before, the question is what does that
Speaker 1: look like given their skill level. But the point is
Speaker 1: what does a flow state mean for an amateur golfer.
Speaker 1: Let's say it was me, a mid handicapper. It just
Speaker 1: means I am executing the shots the way I know
Speaker 1: I can. Now, that's not going to be anything like
Speaker 1: a professional golfer, let's be honest, but I will be
Speaker 1: playing my game. In other words, if I am hitting
Speaker 1: that shot ten times well on the range, I will
Speaker 1: be hitting it nine out of ten times well on
Speaker 1: the course. That's what it looks like for me. I
Speaker 1: won't be hitting it as far or as accurately as
Speaker 1: a pro, but I will be getting out of my
Speaker 1: own way. I won't be overthinking. I'll just be in
Speaker 1: that state of flow. So it can look and feel. Certainly,
Speaker 1: it can feel exactly the same as it would for
Speaker 1: a professional sportsperson. Because flow is essentially a person experience,
Speaker 1: you still will perform on a level which reflects your
Speaker 1: your actual technical skills. But the good news is, you know,
Speaker 1: as so often isn't the case, we are actually at
Speaker 1: least performing at the level of our technical skills. You know.
Speaker 1: That's that's the point I'm making here about close states
Speaker 1: that one of the things that happens is you perform
Speaker 1: at the level of your capabilities. And so often when
Speaker 1: we go to the golf course and when we're playing
Speaker 1: in that situation where it matters, hitting that shot matters
Speaker 1: as opposed to I get five more to get it
Speaker 1: right on the range, you know, don't We don't play
Speaker 1: at that level when we're on the course when it
Speaker 1: really matters, But when we're in a flow state, that's
Speaker 1: exactly what we achieve, and that's what we want to do, right.
Speaker 1: All that practice is designed to produce a shot which
Speaker 1: we're proud of on the course when it really matters,
Speaker 1: and that can be achieved for the recreational golfer in
Speaker 1: just the way it can for the professional golfer.
Speaker 3: But that's the thing about golf is as comfortable as
Speaker 3: you are with this shot, it may leave you with
Speaker 3: the next one as a shot that you're going I'm
Speaker 3: not comfortable with this. I'm not confident in myself in this.
Speaker 3: And again we're back to the self sabotage part I.
Speaker 3: For myself, I have recognized times that I was in
Speaker 3: the flow state. Afterwards it's like, oh, that's why today
Speaker 3: was so comfortable. Yeah, that's why, because I was just
Speaker 3: there and not getting my getting in as you say,
Speaker 3: as doctor Joe Parent says from the very first episode
Speaker 3: that we did I help golfers get out of their
Speaker 3: own way. We get in our own way.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. I mean one of the one of the exercises
Speaker 1: I do with clients is I will do visualization with
Speaker 1: them under hypnosis and I'll record I actually record an
Speaker 1: MP three for clients, and usually it will be some
Speaker 1: thing I will update from time to time. So somebody
Speaker 1: may go through a phase of finding a particular shot
Speaker 1: difficult and a particular situation difficult. So let's say you're
Speaker 1: in a flow state, you're hitting, you've hit some good shots,
Speaker 1: and then you find yourself in a bunker, and let's
Speaker 1: say that that that's your bet noir. Being in a
Speaker 1: bunker is is something where you're you're not feeling comfortable.
Speaker 1: So obviously number one you've got to work with your
Speaker 1: your coach, your technical coach on being as good as
Speaker 1: you can be. But what we will then do, having
Speaker 1: done that work is I will get you to visualize
Speaker 1: being in that situation and being comfortable with it. So
Speaker 1: part of visualization, a really important part of visualization, isn't
Speaker 1: just seeing everything going great, because that's just not the
Speaker 1: way life works and it's not the way golf works. Right,
Speaker 1: you know, you will hit that ball in the bunker sometimes,
Speaker 1: and what we will do is get your mind to
Speaker 1: be comfortable with facing that situation and you know, maybe
Speaker 1: even playing a bad shot, you know, because that's also
Speaker 1: going to happen. Hey, you know, you sit down and
Speaker 1: watch any great player, they will hit a bad shot sometimes.
Speaker 1: And what we want is is for the mind to
Speaker 1: already be comfortable with the idea that Okay, that's gone.
Speaker 1: I now deal with the next thing. And you can
Speaker 1: definitely improve that state of mind by actually using these techniques,
Speaker 1: by using a combination of what we know from flow
Speaker 1: states and what we know from hypnotherapy, what's happening there
Speaker 1: in those moments where things go wrong, and playing it.
Speaker 1: I do remember playing a round of golf with a
Speaker 1: good friend of mine, and he was one of the
Speaker 1: most calm, chilled guys I've ever known. And I remember
Speaker 1: him being in a bunker and I was across, I
Speaker 1: was on the fairway watching him across in this bunker.
Speaker 1: He was turning like a different shade of lead as
Speaker 1: he hit multiple shots and they weren't coming out of
Speaker 1: the bunker. And that was, you know, a classic case
Speaker 1: of an emotional hijack on the golf course. You know,
Speaker 1: your your subconscious is just like, I hate this, this
Speaker 1: feels bad. And what we want to do is mentally
Speaker 1: prepare for those moments so that we actually can keep
Speaker 1: that same state of mind, so even if you are
Speaker 1: in a difficult situation, you can train the mind to
Speaker 1: actually say, hey, we've got this. There's been lots of
Speaker 1: examples of this from sports psychology. I mean, a really
Speaker 1: well known example is Michael Phelps, the swimmer, and one
Speaker 1: way he was prepared by his coach was the coach
Speaker 1: used to break his goggles so that the goggles and
Speaker 1: then make him swim we've broken goggles. And it turned
Speaker 1: out for one of his Olympic races his goggles were
Speaker 1: actually broken, and mentally he was then not just technically
Speaker 1: prepared as to okay, how do I keep swimming straight
Speaker 1: and quickly, but also mentally he was already in the
Speaker 1: zone where it's like I can cope with this. I've
Speaker 1: been here before. So one of the things I do
Speaker 1: with clients is prepare them for the difficult things that
Speaker 1: can happen. I do think hypnotherapy is an extremely powerful
Speaker 1: way of basically getting the mind prepared for that. I
Speaker 1: know you've had Dr David Spieger on one of your podcasts,
Speaker 1: and you know he can talk at some length about
Speaker 1: the what's actually happening at a level of mural structures.
Speaker 1: But effectively, what we're doing is we're teaching the mind
Speaker 1: to learn how it's going to respond to these challenges.
Speaker 1: And with this kind of approach I use with clients,
Speaker 1: you can prepare your mind for those difficult moments so
Speaker 1: you won't be kicked out of the flow state.
Speaker 3: You said emotional hijack. I've never heard that term, and
Speaker 3: I absolutely love it, but I want to dig into it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, I mean I'm not the first one to
Speaker 1: come up with that.
Speaker 3: I'm going to give you credit for it.
Speaker 1: No, I think I think the first person who came
Speaker 1: up with it is a psychologist called Daniel Goleman. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to remember the book. I think it was Emotional
Speaker 1: Intelligence was the book, and he talks about the amigdala hijack.
Speaker 1: So what happens is is this that we and will
Speaker 1: recognize this. We get into a tense situation and often
Speaker 1: we'll feel a physical response in our body. Strong emotions
Speaker 1: produce strong physical reactions in our body. So if you've
Speaker 1: ever got really angry or upset, you might feel attention
Speaker 1: in your shoulders or your chest, and the amigdala recognizes that.
Speaker 1: The brain recognizes it, and it tends to then send
Speaker 1: a message to the fight, flight or freeze mechanism in
Speaker 1: our body, which is in the mind, which is really
Speaker 1: part of our evolutionary programming, and it says, hey, this
Speaker 1: is this is a threat, and we then respond accordingly. Now, fight,
Speaker 1: fight or freeze was a very useful evolutionary program, you know,
Speaker 1: kept us alive as a species. It's highly unlikely to
Speaker 1: be particularly useful as a response on the golf course.
Speaker 1: You know, we are never going to be in a
Speaker 1: situation where we need to fight, fight, or fly or freeze.
Speaker 1: What we want is a much more calibrated, calm response.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, I found myself in the rough. That's
Speaker 1: not a fight, flight or freeze situation. But we have
Speaker 1: to train the mind to recognize that, because that may
Speaker 1: be the situation if you're playing a money game or
Speaker 1: you're playing for whatever stake's the matter. You know, it
Speaker 1: may just be a four ball where there's a little
Speaker 1: bit of private stake. The brain might still go to
Speaker 1: that over exaggerated response. And what we what we have
Speaker 1: to do is train the book the mind to say, hey,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, there's a better way of dealing with this.
Speaker 1: And this is something that comes across in lots and
Speaker 1: lots of contexts. You know. One of the things I
Speaker 1: work with a lot of clients on is fear of
Speaker 1: public speaking. There's been some amazing studies. It's showing that
Speaker 1: people are more scared of giving a speech than dying.
Speaker 1: It's crazy, but that is that's an emotional hijack. Nothing
Speaker 1: terrible is going to happen, but quite often we are
Speaker 1: wired to respond in that way. And some of the
Speaker 1: problems go back to the way we I mean, particularly
Speaker 1: childhood experiences you might have had to have given a
Speaker 1: think of a client who had to give a talk
Speaker 1: in a classroom as a child, and the teacher was
Speaker 1: unplayed and classmates were unpleasant about it, and so they
Speaker 1: had a lot of difficulty at a point in their
Speaker 1: life where they had to give a speech. They found
Speaker 1: it hugely stressful, and what we had to do was
Speaker 1: unravel that and teach their mind a new way to
Speaker 1: thinking about it. Because it's really important for us to
Speaker 1: be accepted playing a good shot on the golf course
Speaker 1: and not letting your partner down if you're in a
Speaker 1: if you're in a four ball, you know that still
Speaker 1: matters to us. And it's no good just saying to somebody, oh,
Speaker 1: come on, put it all in perspective. What we have
Speaker 1: to do is train the mind to say, hey, let's
Speaker 1: just create a good way of approaching how we're going
Speaker 1: to deal with this situation. And you're not going to
Speaker 1: be able to just do that on the hoof. You're
Speaker 1: going to need to prepare for it mentally. But the
Speaker 1: good news is there are ways of doing it. You know,
Speaker 1: Daniel Goldman's book around Emotional Intelligence really is saying there
Speaker 1: is a better way of approaching many many situations in
Speaker 1: life where we have an instinctive emotional response. We can
Speaker 1: retrain that response.
Speaker 3: You know, it's interesting. I see the correlation between an
Speaker 3: unpracticed bunker shot and getting up on stage to make
Speaker 3: a speech in front of a crowd of people as
Speaker 3: not wanting to embarrass yourself in front of others for
Speaker 3: something you're not comfortable doing in front of others, right,
Speaker 3: I mean, it's like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, well again, think of this. You know, I've
Speaker 1: already referred to the fact that this fight, fight or
Speaker 1: freeze response is evolutionary. Think about one of the most
Speaker 1: important things for us in evolutionary terms was to be
Speaker 1: part of a tribe, to be accepted. And if you
Speaker 1: stand on a stage and make a speech and it's
Speaker 1: embarrassingly bad, your brain hates that because it's like, oh
Speaker 1: my goodness, I'm not being accepted. If you let your
Speaker 1: teammate down in a four ball you know that that's
Speaker 1: that's a difficult feeling because it's the same thing. You know,
Speaker 1: think of those guys in the Ryder Cup, you know,
Speaker 1: and you know final holes, and you know you've got
Speaker 1: to make that put You're you're not just looking after yourself,
Speaker 1: You're you're basically it's hard. I mean look, even if
Speaker 1: it was just you, you don't want to be known
Speaker 1: as the choker, you know, So even then there's an
Speaker 1: element of how do others perceive me? But again, this
Speaker 1: is what we want to achieve when we go into
Speaker 1: a flow state. We get all of that out of
Speaker 1: the way. We don't want all of that extra stuff
Speaker 1: on our shoulders. We just want to We just want
Speaker 1: to play, We just want to hit the shot, and
Speaker 1: we want to be able to get all of that
Speaker 1: out of our heads. And that's what happens automatically in
Speaker 1: a flow state. And through this combination of I mean
Speaker 1: there's multiple leavers I use within the coaching I do,
Speaker 1: but it is the flow states, the hypnotherapy, some body
Speaker 1: to mind techniques like breathwork, my other mind to body
Speaker 1: techniques like meditation. It all sounds like quite a lot,
Speaker 1: but I find the right balance for clients and something
Speaker 1: that they can fit into their everyday lives. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: the good news is that, you know, it actually does
Speaker 1: not take that much effort or time to actually achieve this.
Speaker 1: It just takes a little bit of consistency in a
Speaker 1: little bit of planning, and with that, you know, you
Speaker 1: can get all the benefits.
Speaker 3: So you were saying that the four stages of flow stata, struggle, release,
Speaker 3: the flow phase, and the recovery phase. Yes, and I
Speaker 3: wanted to follow up on the recovery phase.
Speaker 1: Okay, So recovery is really well known as a concept
Speaker 1: for professional athletes, and what people have in mind there
Speaker 1: is Okay, make sure you're resting a lot, maybe getting
Speaker 1: some massage for your muscles.
Speaker 3: But it's not an immediate phase. I mean, as far
Speaker 3: as the fourth phase, it's not something that's all incorporated
Speaker 3: in say a golf swing.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, absolutely not so so for example, Okay,
Speaker 1: so the struggle phase, and let's let's translate this to
Speaker 1: somebody who's playing golf. The struggle phase is what you're
Speaker 1: going to be doing on the on the practice ground.
Speaker 1: That's where you where you where you with your coach,
Speaker 1: will break down your swing, will work out what you're
Speaker 1: not doing right and having to do some hard work
Speaker 1: to actually, you know, model the swing on a particular
Speaker 1: shot the way that you need to, and that will
Speaker 1: be difficult. You've got to try and build your skills
Speaker 1: to the point of unconscious competence. There's there's no getting
Speaker 1: around that. And it's going to be impossible to get
Speaker 1: into a flow. As I say, you know, if I
Speaker 1: now go into let's imagine I haven't played a round
Speaker 1: of golf, will practice my bunker shot for a year.
Speaker 1: Guess what if I then try and get into a
Speaker 1: flow state and I find myself in a bunker, I
Speaker 1: won't because I haven't gone through the struggle phase of
Speaker 1: actually improving that technical skill. No amount of mental magic
Speaker 1: I can do with the client is going to overcome
Speaker 1: the fact that the client's conscious brain is going to say,
Speaker 1: don't tell me to be relaxed here. I don't know
Speaker 1: how to play this shot. I haven't practiced it enough,
Speaker 1: so you have to do that work. The release phase
Speaker 1: is something you can do at the practice ground, and
Speaker 1: I would recommend it. It is just stepping away. I
Speaker 1: do this. I play tennis every week and my coach,
Speaker 1: you know, I will say to my coach sometimes just
Speaker 1: give me five minutes. I've hit a number of serves.
Speaker 1: Give me a few minutes. And I actually find that beneficial,
Speaker 1: firstly physically to recover, but secondly just to let me
Speaker 1: my brain just compute the way I've been hitting those serves.
Speaker 1: That's really important. The same you know, when you're practicing
Speaker 1: those shots. It's not a case of let's get the
Speaker 1: most out of what. Let's say you've paid for an
Speaker 1: hour of tuition with your golf coach. It may be
Speaker 1: that it's a really smart use of time. Maybe golf
Speaker 1: coaches feel they can't do this, but I would say
Speaker 1: it's a really smart use of time to say to somebody, right,
Speaker 1: you've been hitting that shot for the last ten minutes,
Speaker 1: just take it easy. Let's just you know, sit here,
Speaker 1: have a chat, have a cup of coffee for a minute,
Speaker 1: and just let that all percolate effectively in your mind.
Speaker 1: That's kind of what the re release phase looks like,
Speaker 1: the flow phase looks after itself. That's the whole It's natural.
Speaker 1: Recovery will be something that you will do after the event,
Speaker 1: whatever that event is. What happens in a flow state,
Speaker 1: and I think I've touched on this already, is and
Speaker 1: a mental and neurologic level, what's happening is huge amounts
Speaker 1: of dopamine and europin ethrin are being driven to your brain,
Speaker 1: and those are extremely expensive neurochemicals for the body to produce.
Speaker 1: So when we're talking about recovery in the context of
Speaker 1: flow states. We're not simply talking about physical recovery. We're
Speaker 1: talking about the recovery of the ability to regenerate these
Speaker 1: flow neurochemicals. So things that are really important. This is
Speaker 1: going to apply to any of your listeners who are
Speaker 1: working extremely hard in a knowledge professional environment. You know,
Speaker 1: they're working in an office, and a lot of people
Speaker 1: just work, work, work, and think, I'm going to have
Speaker 1: to solve this project. I'm going to have to solve
Speaker 1: this problem I'm working on. But what's really important is
Speaker 1: that they, after maybe some concentrated time working on the problem,
Speaker 1: they actually step away and they do things like go
Speaker 1: and have a sauna, go and have a massage, make
Speaker 1: sure you do not compromise on sleep, go and do
Speaker 1: some light exercise. You know, all of these things are
Speaker 1: proven ways to regenerate those neurochemicals, and they then start
Speaker 1: the flow cycle again. They then help you get back
Speaker 1: into float. Without recovery, you don't get back into flow.
Speaker 1: That's why it's a cycle. It restarts where a lot
Speaker 1: of people, where a lot of people who really want
Speaker 1: to achieve a lot in whatever field fail is. They
Speaker 1: work hard, they get into the flow state, but then
Speaker 1: they just say I've got to keep working. I've got
Speaker 1: to keep grinding. And what you do need to do
Speaker 1: is recognize the importance of recovery in starting that flow
Speaker 1: cycle all over again.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, that you know. Golfers have to be
Speaker 3: able to identify how important what you just said is
Speaker 3: for their overall game, their overall you know, start to finish.
Speaker 3: It's not just shitting balls, and so much of that
Speaker 3: is so important. Thank you, Oh my god, that's incredible.
Speaker 3: Take the last minute. If you can to promote yourself,
Speaker 3: your podcast, your books, your poker game, whatever you'd like.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, Well, you can find me on www dot
Speaker 1: s Baker s for Stephenbaker dot life, and you can
Speaker 1: be a k e R. That's right, yes, and you
Speaker 1: can have a free consultation if you there, there's a
Speaker 1: there's a link. And yeah, if you think that I
Speaker 1: can help you improve your golf care game or your
Speaker 1: business decision making, anything where performance is important, just feel
Speaker 1: free to reach out to me then and we can
Speaker 1: we can spend half an hour chatting about how I
Speaker 1: can help you.
Speaker 3: And just to make sure people understand, don't go to
Speaker 3: s Baker dot com, It's s Baker dot life.
Speaker 1: That's correct.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh wow, Steve even this has really been informative
Speaker 3: and enlightening. I feel like I need to recover from
Speaker 3: the flow scrape here on this conversation. Thanks so much
Speaker 3: for your time. Really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Fred really enjoyed it.