Deepening your level of ACCEPTANCE – Raymond Prior PhD #350

mind caddy Hello everybody, it's good to be back with you on the mind caddy for another week another opportunity to share some ideas with you to help your game I'm Cal Morris. I've been working as a performance coach the past 25 years or so working with some of the best plays in the world But players at every single level look into explore what could be possible in terms of your game and your experience we've talked previously on the show about the What I believe is the cornerstone of a strong mental game that allows you to access your skills on the course and that is the skill of Acceptance and it's really important to understand what acceptance and Acceptance is and perhaps more importantly what it isn't but it it does provide that foundational support That allows you to deal with the reality of the game and deal with it in terms of what is today Not what you were hoping for not what you would like it to be but what it actually is and I think anybody struggling to express their capabilities On the course and what they know is their true potential could gain so much from developing these skills on the mind caddy app It's self there's a specific program dedicated to this area around acceptance is a specific step by step program that you can go to work on So if you haven't joined us yet on the mind caddy journey just go to the website the mind caddy website or the app store Download you can download a version that gives you a trial for a short number of days There are many people that were reporting back the profound difference it's starting to making their understanding of the mental side of the game But perhaps more importantly having some kind of systematic approach to developing some of those skills But on today's show it's to supplement that is wonderful to welcome back a good friend and colleague Raymond prior, Raymond is an outstanding performance consultant performance psychologist. He's worked I'll does work with some of the best players in the world and the PGA tour He also has written a tremendous book groundbreaking book called golf beneath the surface which I know an awful lot of players and coaches have really benefited from He works with other athletes in other sports but also people really interesting people in the performing arts Actors and performers singers It was so it was being challenged in the same way that we are in the game of golf about how can you access those Performances when you actually need them in the situations that you deem important So it was great to get what Raymond back we collaborated on a A program the stable confidence program which is still available on the the mind factor website very popular program that we did together But what we go into much more detail today on the show is the nuts and bolts of Acceptance the understanding of what's actually happening now brain as we develop those skills and how it is Ultimately the source of being able to get much closer to your true potential So I know you're going to enjoy what Raymond has to say. He's an incredible mind a font of tremendous knowledge By deep research over many years, but perhaps more importantly the practical application in the in the real world Take a look at Raymond's work the book as I mentioned, but also the link to his website is in the show notes I also Mentioned last week the places will go very quickly for this very special 2-day experience with Garinicle and myself up at Archerfield a lost out of golf school two days They're 18th to the 20th of 18th or 18th and 19th of May if you're interested in getting one of those last couple of spots on that take action on it and come and join us for it a really special couple of days in a wonderfully spectacular location up there in in Scotland Mind caddy But for now let's spend some time in the company of Raymond Pryor good to see you Kara We were saying earlier on we didn't realize that a year had gone by since we last spoke and During that time we put that program together on unstable confidence Which I know a lot of people have really enjoyed and got a lot from Raymond I wanted to just go a little bit deeper in in that area today in in terms of when we when you talked about stable confidence and we looked at it that Correct me if I'm wrong the the fundamental other foundation of that is is a will in acceptance of of all outcomes What what would you say that players who've looked at that if they may be struggling at it? What what would be some ways that you could practically develop these skills around acceptance? Yeah, sure Let's define acceptance again just for those listening. So acceptance is not That you don't care about something Acceptance is not that you're necessarily comfortable Not that you're necessarily certain not that there's no risk involved. It doesn't mean you're settling for something forever And it doesn't mean that you are Uninvested in the outcome What it means is that you're willing to possibly experience all of what comes with whatever you're into So that means what happened in the past has happened and all the future possibilities are indeed possibilities to whatever You know, percent chance that they might happen. So what we're looking at practical example if I have a put of 20 feet There is a possibility that I don't match the line and speed quite well And it doesn't go in and then also accepting all the consequences that come with that which is how that impacts my score Where I'm standing in a match what other people might think about it how that it works in relation to whether I win or lose You know, and if you're a professional tour that's your finances are attached to those outcomes You know public opinion and all this stuff is attached to it what criticism on TV or praise on TV is fed to us So there's a lot that comes with anything in our life. So essentially we don't ever have really a consequence free experience or decision What acceptance means is I'm willing to take on all that comes with that Right and what we see with that on a neurological level is that the more I'm willing to accept the things that I typically resist Is that on a neurological level it takes it off of the priority list of tasks for our brain So our brain doesn't think positive or negative right or wrong should or shouldn't It thinks at least the Processing information parts of it in tasks essentially what are you asking me to do So as a direct example if I went okay, I've got this slippery put I want to get it started on this line in this speed that is a pursuit based present task So we in psychological research you would use this is a active task It's something I can do something about right now essentially I can determine what I do and how I do it with this task to a large degree Well, if I'm also going uh-oh don't three put This is what we put under the category of a passive task which is you're trying to control an outcome that exists in the future A near future but still in the future which means you don't really have control over it It's an avoidance based task meaning don't do this so it's not a negative thought It's an avoidance based task and an avoidance based task is not only Competing with your pursuit based task meaning you have multiple tasks But it's also now oppositional meaning it's moving in the opposite direction And as we've talked about on our you know our conversations before our brain is specifically designed that if I give you an avoidance based task Don't let this happen and go pursue this. Let's go try to do this in this way that when push comes to shove meaning at like the point of Impact or may I say the point of inflection it is designed to prioritize avoidance based task because that's what kept us alive for However many thousands of years to get to where we are And so what happens when anything we want so to our conversation here anything that goes on the non acceptable list Meaning this is unacceptable. This is unacceptable. This is unacceptable Becomes a competing or oppositional or both task Right, so if I go you cannot embarrass yourself today. Well that becomes now at the top of the priority list for my brain Not hey, this golf balls here. We're gonna try to freely move it as close to our target as we can and then we're gonna see how it shakes out That would be your pursuit based task that is required for any golf shot at any point under any circumstances But if that other task meaning don't embarrass yourself is the priority all day Well, now our brain is designed to give us what we get When we tell it this is an unavoidable thing, which is anxiety Yeah, right. So best case scenario with things that are unacceptable It's where quote unquote multitasking meaning my focus is jumping back and forth between things So for anybody who's been standing over a putt really trying to make it but really Ah, I don't want a three putt and have a really difficult time figuring out line and speed based on those two different But kind of we might say competing commands or felt the anxiety of trying to make a putt but at the same time really not trying to three putt That's your brain doing exactly what it's designed to do when you say this this this this this is unacceptable Right, so if we're putting in this in the context for golfers listening Anything that we put on our checklist of I need this I should have this I got to have this or can't let this happen These all become competing an oppositional task. So whatever we say is unacceptable. So even if I say I have to be comfortable in order to play freely Well, what you're really telling your brain is it's unacceptable for me to be uncomfortable. Yeah. So you have to have that's exactly right. So now the priority becomes trying to feel a certain way rather than actually try to play a certain way. Yeah. And by the way, I get the four-fire alarm when I'm not feeling a certain way because I have said I need that in order to do something. So now, if I don't have that, not only is changing my feelings, the priority, but what if I can't? Now I'm in trouble, right? Also, you know, anything that goes down that list. So if I have to be comfortable to play, well, if I have to have hit a good quote unquote good shot in order to feel like I can hit a good shot, that now becomes, well, that means the shots that don't make me feel a certain way are unacceptable. So we have this laundry list. And essentially what we see is those who play with a higher level of acceptance for all of the things that come with playing golf, all of them, not just the on-course, you know, we might say micro level, mezzo level, and macro level, all that comes with that. What we see is it's not that their brain is specifically designed to be handled pressure and all the stuff what they're doing is they're not asking them them or their brain to do anything more than it's required in the present moment in order to function at a free level, right? Which means now I have more access to my skills, to my strategies, to using my equipment, all that stuff because I'm only asking myself to do the one thing that is required right now. So we might say the opposite of a long list of unacceptable things is what we see in flow state. In flow state, there's only one active task, right? It's immersion in the task at hand, which means this ball is here, I'm going to try to get it to there in a way that is authentic and free to me, period end of sentence. What we see is people aren't even really attached to the outcome, right? Because even I have to hit this thing close or it has to go in that kind of task. That's a passive task, even though it's a positive task, it's still passive. You don't really have control over it. And so in flow state, part of the reason flow state feels easy, even though golf is still hard, is because I'm not making it any harder than it needs to be with tasks that are not actually required and are either competing or oppositional. So all that being said, the more accepting we are of the things that we typically resist, the more runway we have to focus on and act on the things that we want to pursue. Now, we might notice acceptance is not a guarantee that things will go our way. But what we see is when we have this really long list of can't have this, can't have this, can't have this, can't have this, got to do this, can't like all of these like extra tasks is golf feels a whole lot harder because it is because I have to do that and a bunch of other stuff. We feel like our skills are handcuffed and in, you know, in large part they are because you only have as much access to them as you have tasks available. And then ultimately what happens is like it becomes a less enjoyable experience too, which we know for sure multi-tasking for us or what we would call multi-tasking makes things less enjoyable on a neurological level to where we're basically just running kind of on adrenaline with no dopamine involved. Dopamine is that neuromodulator that makes effort feel good. Hence why flow state feels really good. And it also impacts how we experience the passage of time, which basically means when I'm really present and I'm only asking myself to do this thing and not save myself from all of these things, my brain rewards me with this neurochemical that makes time feel like it's going slowly. But then afterward feels like it went by in a blink. So that time distortion for us when we are really present doesn't season some magical flow state thing. That's what our brain gives us when we're only asking it to do the thing that's in front of us and do so freely. So long story short, that's a lot of Raymond talking for. The higher our level of acceptance is for the things that we typically resist. The more psychological and neurological space and runway we have to pursue the things that we want, the challenge for us is it's hard for us to accept things that we don't want to happen or things that have happened that we don't want to happen again. And it's hard for us to accept the fact that I might be feeling something or experiencing something right now that I don't want to. Hence the reason that it's so powerful this learning to be more accepting is because it's really difficult to do. Yeah. And the reason it's also powerful is because that if you're really asking, well, okay, everyone knows we want to be present when we're playing golf. But that's not really the question. Most of our research now is asking the question, why aren't you present in the first place? And if I told you your level of acceptance for this, this, this, this possibility, this shaking out, your access points to being present are just only situations where those things are not possibilities. Like for example, the driving range versus the golf course. But I think the point that you made that I mean, it's so, it's so important that to see this for a player, anybody listening as a skill, as a skill to develop, it's not all or nothing. You don't just suddenly conceptually like the idea of acceptance and off you go and that happens on the golf course. I think there's practical steps and tools that you need to reinforce to keep getting closer to this. Even on a shot basis, I think, some of the players I think back in the past, that there's been some freedom in pre-accepting whatever's going to happen on a shot before you even start to go into any kind of pre-shot routine. Yeah. There's, to your point, acceptance is a capacity that we develop. Yeah. Right. So anything psychological for us is not you either have it or you don't. We all have access to it, provided we develop it. Right. And typically we develop resistance and avoidance. That capacity we also have, but we have trained that through our lives, just trying to resist all the things that we want. Right. So, for example, anxiety and frustration are resistance-based responses. Right. And we typically learn those and reinforce those over time. Hence what, in part, why acceptance is hard for us because it's kind of the opposite of what we've been doing in many ways. Right. But there are many ways that we can start to develop more acceptance two things, both in like just behavioral, like experiential things. And then also through some like what we're trying to do is take the concept of acceptance and marry it with our procedural, meaning our direct experience with something. So, for example, if you wanted to do this kind of, as you said, kind of start preloading my acceptance and start developing that capacity away from the course, we know something like cold exposure where you're doing kind of like either a cold shower or a cold blunge ice bath, whatever, where you are actively choosing to step into discomfort that normally we resist. And just choosing to accept it for a short period of time. And that experience in and of itself starts to develop our capacity to accept things like physical discomfort without feeling the need to just jump out of it because we're in it. Right. And you can gradually work your way up in something like that. So, that is a super practical, like kind of daily thing that people can do just as simple protocols. Keep your water level above 55 degrees Fahrenheit, whatever that might come to Celsius, you don't want. Developing acceptance and you're improving your tolerance to discomfort doesn't need to come with frostbite. But even something like that, where you're working into, I'm choosing to engage with something that I would normally resist, which is maybe a certain level of cold, for a short period of time. The cool thing about that is, we go, okay, psychologically we go, okay, I can be uncomfortable, like this sucks, but I can be uncomfortable. Nurologically, our brain rewards us for being uncomfortable and choosing to do so. It gives us a burst of long, long release dopamine and norepinephrine, which is a fancy way of saying focus and energy. So we see the research on that type of thing where we're learning to be physically uncomfortable. For example, anxiety is physically uncomfortable. And we also know that when we are anxious, us trying to escape that physical discomfort often leads to things that basically let me just hit this golf shot to get it over with as fast as possible. Or the long term of that relationship with discomfort that comes with anxiety is I'll eventually quit golf. Because the only way to avoid that discomfort is to avoid the thing where I feel that anxiety and that is golf itself. So if anyone who hears listening is experienced stages of burnout, burnout is I do this thing that I love, but it's totally aversive. And you can only do that for so long before you're like, I got to get out of here, right? So just one like super practical method for learning to accept physical discomfort would be something like that where you're engaging. It could also be a different type of exercise. Like oftentimes the fundamentals of like a yoga practice are leaning into the discomfort of a stretch. Like not trying to get to maximum flexibility all the time, but like I'm increasing flexibility. And I'm increasing really the strength of yoga is not the flexibility you get. It's the I learned to be present in discomfort for a period of time, right? Some of the more, like we might say psychologically based skills are learning to observe when you feel the need to resist stuff or the jack button as I call it with clients where I'm over a shot. I'm just like, oh, you got to get this over with or I'm even just feeling anxiety. And then we have a couple of different ways that we can start to increase our acceptance. So I'll go through what we like might too, but kind of two different avenues. One is kind of our rational thinking brain area. And one might be just more of an awareness and experientially driven one. So the first is I call this logical four. So for those listening who are psychologically tuned in, this is your irrational emotive behavioral therapy route, which is the first is you're just kind of ask yourself like, what am I feeling right now? Let's just say we feel it in my anxiety or it might be frustration or embarrassment or whatever that might be. Then the next thing you, so again, you're not judging yourself or doing it, you're not telling yourself to get out of it or you can't feel this, you're just saving what it is, acknowledging it and being aware of it. So awareness is the first line of information processing for us. If we want to make a change, a pivot, we need to be aware of this is where I usually go down this route. Therefore, it offers me the opportunity to pivot if I can be aware of where it is. Number two, you just might ask, what is it that I'm telling myself right now that is causing this feeling? So certainly some things in our lives trigger feelings, but most of the time it's an event happens and then I tell myself a story about it, like it would be totally unacceptable for me to hit of all here or you cannot tolerate being judged by other people. So there's some narrative that I'm giving myself that is going, well, when this happens, of course, you're going to get anxiety. So essentially this is, what am I telling myself is unacceptable here that my brain would go, okay, here's some anxiety for you, right? Then the next step would be like, let's think critically about this story you're telling yourself. Something just tell yourself a different story, which we know doesn't really work for us. We have to address the story that we're telling ourselves first before we might consider a different one. And here we're not trying to go, is this positive or negative? Is this story you should or shouldn't be saying? What we're actually looking for is two questions. The first is, is this a fact? Is this true? Is it true that you cannot tolerate somebody else judging you in a way that you don't like? Now, we're not saying you wouldn't like that you would like it. We're not saying that it wouldn't be inconvenient. We're also not saying that it wouldn't be a bit of a, you know, make your experience a little bit worse. But is it something that you legitimately cannot accept at all, right? And if the answer is no, now what happens is that story becomes a little bit less credible because it's not a fact. Okay. Now again, this is us needing to be willing to orient around truth rather than what we've been telling ourselves for a while. The second question here we might ask is, is this beneficial for you based on what you want? Right? Is telling yourself that being judged by other people in a sport that is social, is that helpful to you playing the kind of golf that you want to play in terms of how well and also the type of experience you want, meaning do you want it to be even somewhat enjoyable to you? And if the answer is no and no to both of these, again, what we're doing is we're chipping away at the credibility of that initial story of, I can't tolerate or I cannot accept it and then fill it in whatever blank. Right? You start to do that and we kind of discredit the credibility of the story that I feel like is very true, but I can acknowledge it's not. It might feel like I'm helping myself along, but I actually can observe, no, you are not. It opens a little bit of a window for them to ask ourselves, well, what's actually true and what's actually beneficial here? Well, what's true is I don't like being judged, but I can tolerate it. And what's beneficial is, what if I actually played this the way that I wanted to because there's no way I can stop being judged by other people? Anyway, so what if I was the main architect of this experience, instead of outsourcing it to whatever people may or may not think about me? Again, just starts to open a window where I might have a different experience. I might do something differently, even though I initially felt anxiety based on what I was telling myself. So for those who are kind of more rational thinkers and kind of fall into that category, that might be a way, and again, to your point, when I have kind of preloaded some of those before I get to the golf course, that starts to, I don't have to do that in real time to the same degree, where if I have, I've done, I've kind of filtered that through. So that would be an exercise that we will call a front loading exercise where I'm using the rational conscious thinking part of my brain to really conceptualize something as it relates to my direct experience beforehand. For those who are a little bit more or not nearly as like rational thinkers and by not rational, I mean, like, yes, I understand that conceptually, but my direct experience does not tell me that. We might take a little bit of a different route. This is what I call a mindful five. First step is still the same. I want to pay attention to, ooh, here's what I'm feeling, here's what I'm thinking, here's the pattern that I'm falling into. Let's say, for example, it's anger, like, I hit a shot that I don't like, and I'm just furious about it, okay, it's not something you shouldn't be doing or you can't be doing, you could, if you wanted to. We're just noticing that's where you're both, right? Now we're just getting into our direct experience. So the next question we'd ask, so that's number one is awareness. Two would be a question. I call it a high quality question. High quality question is, when I answer it, I get a productive answer. So why do I suck at golf is a low quality question because you don't get a productive answer from it? In this case, what we're asking is, okay, I'm noticing I'm getting really angry. First question I would ask is, what am I hoping to gain from this anchor? And what we're seeing is, most of our responses are very well-intentioned. Well, what am I hoping to get from anger? I'm hoping to never hit the golf shot that I just hit ever again. I'm trying to motivate myself to do better. I put that in quotes for those who are only listening. And by the way, I'm also trying to show the people around me that I'm a better golfer than the shot that I just hit. Therefore, I have to get angry because golfers is good at me. They're not satisfied with shots of this nature, right? So that's what I'm hoping to gain, which would be do better, feel better, and protect my ego. Okay. But the next question I would ask is, what are you actually getting? Not what does it feel like you're getting? Not what are you hoping to get? Not what does it seem like you're getting? What are you actually getting? And you could do this laundry list out like, does it make golf more enjoyable or less enjoyable for you? Ooh, less enjoyable. That's interesting. Does it actually help you hit your next shot better or do you tend to play that shot too quickly, make a rash decision or, you know, do you tend to have more disrupted skills because you're dwelling on something that's already happened. So again, like basically, I'm multitasking with my next shot. All the way to, does that make you more resilient or less resilient? Because if you get angry after every shot, eventually what's going to happen is you're going to get sick of getting angry and then the easiest way out of anger or anxiety is to give up trying, right? All the way to like, you know, just how it doesn't make it easier or harder for you to recover, easier or harder for you to score, right? So basically you're looking at, well, these are what my intended consequences are of this response, but these are the actual consequences again. So less than, so you don't have to think very rationally to look at these two and go, wow, that's a significant disparity between the two. The example I give with a lot of people I work with is imagine if instead of anger or anxiety, it was the golf ball you're playing. I noticed you're playing a range ball with no dimples on it. What are you hoping to gain from this golf ball? A lot of control, better scoring, a really enjoyable round of golf, recover faster from shots, spin around the greens, et cetera, et cetera. Okay, that's really cool. Oh, the exact opposite. And for any golfer in the world, if you pointed out the golf ball you're using, you're hoping it works in this way, but it actually gives you the exact opposite. It would not be a difficult or challenging decision or a long term decision for them to decide to change. It would be, where's the better golf ball starting right now, right? To that degree, our next question or a mindful five is, what would you do and how would you do it right now? If you weren't, and then feeling whatever blank, weren't angry, weren't anxious, weren't telling yourself that you can't be judged by other people, like, how would you play this t-shot right now if you weren't at all, if you didn't care at all about what other people thought about it? Now, we're not saying that you're not feeling anger or not feeling anxiety or that you're not perhaps a little bit worried about somebody thinking a certain thing about you on a t-shot. What we're saying is, what would it look like for you to be the primary driver of this experience, meaning the pursuit based active task, you choose how you do it, rather than externalizing it and determined by something else, right? So one is just awareness, two is, what am I hoping to gain from this response? Three is, what am I actually getting from it? That's again, that's our disenchantment process in there. Four is, what would you do and how would you do this if you were going to, if you did it the way that you want it to, not the way that you might feel or, by the way, not leaving it up to something more external? And then number five is, follow your response to number four. So with both of these responses or both of these, so whether it's the logical four or the mindful five, what we're saying is, if I am willing to accept more external things and more things in my internal experience that I don't like, what starts to happen is the experience starts to become architected internally first, externally second. So if we're just talking about like, what is the definition of freedom? It's an internal drive, meaning I'm going to do this the way that I want to, how I want to. It's an internal there first into an external expression. So how I play this shot is driven by me, not given up to the hands of something external. If you wanted a definition of unstable confidence, aka the formula for anxiety and anger, it's I have given up a control of my freedom to a variety of external things that when they are not in place or they are in place and I told them they cannot be in that place, now I cannot operate freely. So essentially what we're doing is taking ownership of our level of freedom, our operating systems driven internally first or perhaps solely rather than something external or something even internal like a feeling or a thought, these things, these things that are by definition unstable, they're temporary, they're not necessarily a reflection of truth or what the actual reality might be and instead I am becoming the main architect, which is just essentially like, if we're just talking like our psychological principles, that's autonomy and agency, agency and autonomy, it's a combination of essentially a feeling of a human feeling powerful and the reason they feel powerful is because they go, all of this stuff is fluctuating or it may even be adverse. And yet I'm deciding how I'm going to do something in a way that is credible to me. That's the definition of autonomy. So what we're doing is we're shifting focus in a way where we decide what we do rather than leaving it in the hands of something else instead of smothering something with positivity and trying to just be sure that something's going to work out or got to just trust which again is very vague terminology for the parts of our brain that run our operations. Mind Cady. Mind Cady, an exclusive app created by Carl Morris, which focuses on enhancing your mental game to achieve lower scores on the course. Join thousands of golfers including six major champions and download Mind Cady from the App Store today. Mind Cady, with Carl Morris. And the thing is with all of this Raymond that at whatever level if somebody's resistant to looking at this is ultimately this drum that I've been beating for a long time that in golf or baseball or cricket or football, you need to develop some skills clearly. But then you need to be able to access those skills and trying to develop more skills doesn't give you access to those skills. That seems to be the wheel that many people are on that just look at developing more skill or a different version of that skill and refuse in many ways to look at this. What is getting in the way of me accessing these skills? Yeah. So, we may have references before but the way our nervous system works is humans. There's a domino effect, right? And the first two dominoes are always the same. At least for anything that we're doing intentionally, right? The first domino is your psychology, which is determining what access you have some. Do am I free here? So, for example, simple psychological shift of get this put started on this line with this speed. Let's see if it goes in. That's one psychological command versus don't three put. So, if you're just thinking that's the first domino in line. Well, the next line, the next domino line is our neurology, that's how our brain then operates. So, the first one is software, your psychological framework. The next one is the hardware, that's your brain. And it runs based on the software program you gave it. So, if I go, don't you dare let this happen while I'm trying to make a put. Now my neurology is multitasking and we know that the neurological activity and the neurochemical cocktail there is different than, okay, line and speed, see if you can make it. Then after neurology, now our physiology, so that's what our body feels like. That's how much our access we have to our muscles, to our skills. So, as you said, now we start either becoming free, so freedom here, I have access to my skills, or I start hand coughing, all starting with this first domino. Look, there's something to be said, Carl, like having a certain level of skill in order to be successful at something, that is a real thing. Also we're seeing more and more that like technique is super important, but the training in the gym, whether you're flexible enough or your muscles are stable enough to be able to execute that skill and golf, vitally important. So more and more tour players are spending more time in the gym than they are on the range these days, because again, if my body cannot move in the way, so golfers are hitting fewer golf balls and doing more reps in the gym and getting better. So their body is more capable of executing a skill. Again, they have to practice, they do that a lot, don't get me wrong. But they're seeing that there's a domino before the skill execution, which is what is my biomechanical capacity right now. And if it's not high enough, then they have to go develop it and increase it in order to have access to the technical skill, right, then also, okay, well, my technical skill is this, well, what strategy matches my average dispersion, right? So now we're starting to see like our core strategy systems about, okay, can I do this? But again, all of these are dependent upon the first domino, which is do I actually have freedom to operate? So as we, you and I talked about before, we got to talking today on like recording. I just got back from Augusta National working with the client. Two days that we were there, the priority number one for everything that we did is, is this being done through freedom, right? So that we just did a simple check. Anytime he hit a shot, I was in his ear. Was it or was it not executed freely? If the answer is yes, then he was in a neurological state. He might not be comfortable, he's definitely not certain because none of us really are. And there's risk involved. And by the way, it was cold and it was wet, that course was playing all every single yardage, every inch of the length, maybe even a little bit more. And the bottom line is that's a really demanding thing, but he's in a psychological and neurological state now, where then his physiology can follow the fact that he does do the body working he's to. He is tremendously skilled and he does have sound strategy and equipment that is a fit. All of this was now then uncompromised because he's operating from the state of freedom versus he really struggles to play even easy courses when there's not freedom behind it because now he's in a neurological state that doesn't allow him to actually be present with what he's doing and makes it feel worse. And then of course, his physiology is in a way, there's a difference between I'm feeling uncomfortable because I'm nervous and the physiology that comes with being anxious. Those do not feel the same. Anyone here who's been nervous knows, oh, I feel this is uncomfortable, but there's a little bit of life. Okay. I'm cool with that. This is anxiety, which is just adrenaline, there's no dopamine involved. The adrenaline by itself without anything else feels awful to us, right? And then of course, now he has access to your point. Now he has uncuffed access to his skills. And when he does, I think you got around both days and like seven under par or something on a course that was probably playing closer to 8,000 yards than 750, which is the, you know, scorecard thing. And the bottom line is like, but he's been struggling a lot this year. But the bottom line is that there wasn't enough freedom to begin with for him to be able to access the stuff that he's actually good at. So point being here for coming back to beginning of our conversation, the more things I tell myself are unacceptable, the less access I have as I go down this domino effect in order to get to what I'm trying to do, which is play well and enjoy myself and be competitive in the experience. But ultimately, Raymond, the actual experience of freedom and the movement that emerges as a result of freedom in and of itself is an inherently pleasurable thing, isn't it? Yeah. To literally let go. And I think, you know, for me, things like journals and making some kind of commitment and staying with a commitment towards freedom, it's a long-term project, but it's inherently rewarding in the actual experience itself, isn't it just to stand there and let go and swing freely. It feels good at a level. It does. There's again, that different neurological state with freedom, so there's dopamine involved, which feels better to us. It makes effort feel good, even if the outcome isn't what we want. If we're kind of getting into like a humanistic view of this, Carl, we as humans get to experience three types of regret, okay? Like one regret is I tried my best and it didn't work out. So I did this thing freely and authentically. It didn't go the way that I wanted to. And by the way, what we regret there is that it didn't go our way. And we don't like that. It's not great, but it's not the worst thing in the world, because you can still be satisfied with the way that you did something. So everyone here has had an experience in their life where they took a risk to try something. They went for it freely. They said what they needed to say. They pitched that idea, they did whatever. And it didn't work out. I told that person that I love them and they didn't love me back. And they get the regret of, ah, that sucks. But they don't have to live with what we call type 2 regret. Type 2 regret is I didn't do it. Or I did it in a way that I regret. So not only did it not work out, I regret that I did this in a way where it had almost no chance to work out, right? So type 1 regret in golf is I tried to make that put and I missed it too far and I ended up 3 putting where I tried my best, it didn't work out. So essentially like just human error, which happens. Type 2 regret is I played that thing trying not to 3 put and it never had a chance to go in the first time and then I left it 5 feet short and then of course I 3 put it, right? That's type 2 regret. Type 2 regret comes from us being unwilling to accept type 1 regret. So if you've got a long list of type 1 things. So many people, if you look at what they regret on their deathbed, they regret valuing other people's opinions so much. So they get there and there's not that I regret that I didn't try something and someone judge me. What they regret is I was worried about people judging me and then I didn't do something in the way that I really wanted to do it. Or I did it in a way that I was worried about their opinions instead of just doing it based on what was true to me. Type 3 regret is I keep getting type 2 regret because I won't make a change. Like just keep doing something so whether that's a romantic, every time I get to a romantic relationship, I hold somebody at arm's length because I don't want them to break my heart, type 1 regret. And so I keep getting the same relationship where I fall in love but that person we can't ever connect deeply enough to move forward. Or I keep playing golf through anxiety and it keeps getting like so type 3 regret is what leads to burnout for us. So for us, if we're just kind of putting this in practical terms, the more I front load and I'm willing to accept all the things that come with an experience, then I can do it in a way that is self-directed rather than externally directed, then I don't get type 2 regret. you played a really round of golf where you didn't score well, but you really liked how freely you operated or how you managed that. You're going to regret that you shot an 80 or whatever score is commiserate with your skill, but you're going to love, you're going to have enjoyed the experience to a degree. But if I told you, oh yeah, you shot a 75, but it was through anxiety the whole time. You're going to be less regretful about the outcome, but the experience itself is going to be worse for you. So to your point, doing something freely, even when the outcome doesn't match for us, there is some regret to that, but the experience offers us some reward, literally and figuratively. They're being actually rewards us with some feel good stuff. But when we do something, always trying to avoid that type one regret. We get type two regret, and when we do that over and over again, we get type three regret. That all stems from, what is it that I am and I am not willing to accept about this experience. And it's challenging for us because we often fall for the trap of, well, if I try to avoid type one regret at all costs, I won't have to experience it, which is not true. Nobody gets to avoid type one regret in anything. We all experience heartbreak, we all experience pain, we all hit shots, we don't like, we all get judged by people in ways that we don't want. All of these things happen to us regardless of how good you are at something, regardless of how likable you are, regardless of how wealthy you are, where you come from, we all get type one regret. What I wish for all of my clients is you just have a life filled with type one regret, because then you wouldn't have any type two regret and that's the type of stuff that starts to ruin experiences for us and handcuffs our skills. And then when we do that over and over again, that's where we start to be really depressed, really, really anxious, and oftentimes things become a dreadful experience for us, you might say. It is that, it is that giving yourself permission to experience life, isn't it? Not just golf, it's just the whole, the whole deal really. If we were going to give a layman's definition of acceptance, it's permission to try and possibly fail. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think within that, I've heard you say this, and I've you sort of similar words on a practical level, a real good key within this as you're actually playing, is understanding the difference. Let's say if we say putting for an example, the difference between something that's important or relevant. So, you know, it might be really important to me that I don't three put this within the frame of the tournament, but it's actually not relevant to holding the post, is it? Right, so here now you're looking at, is this an active or a passive task? Is another, so basically we're using kind of more accessible language and less jargon to say something is passive versus active. It's really, really important, everybody, the outcomes of everyone's performance are important to them to a very degree, right? And especially if you're trying to figure out how good you can be at something, one of the measures for that are the outcomes that you're able to produce. They're really important. Any client that I have, the outcomes that they produce, the experience is really, really important. It's not always relevant. So, if I'm on the 11th hall, my final score is important to me, it's not relevant to what I'm doing right now. So, the criteria is, is it happening right now? Is it something that I can focus and act upon in a way that gives me control right now? If the answer's no, it means it's not relevant to what you're doing right now. It will be relevant when it exists, which is going to be in however time, but right now it is not. And the challenge with all the things that we say are unacceptable is our brain starts to recognize those as not just important, but relevant, even when they're not. And so, I start multitasking with a bunch of things, these passive tasks, so I get consumed with a relevancy, important, but irrelevant things while I'm doing something that is not just important right now, but valuable to me, meaning when I focus on it and I act on it in a way that is consistent and true to me, I become again, I am the architect of the experience rather than doing a bunch of stuff that doesn't exist, right? So, yeah, to your point, the question I often ask people is what's important to you in this? What's actually valuable to you? And the important list is usually really long. The valuable list is usually very short. Yeah. Raymond, as ever, a wonderful conversation. I always regret when it takes us a long time to get together and chat. It's always great to share time with you. We've obviously got the program that's still available that we did together, stable confidence, but let people know about other other things that I know your book has been gunned down so well. So, where are the other sort of opportunities people can find out more about the great work you do? The book has got entitled Golf Beneath the Surface. You can find that wherever books are sold. Our good friend, Chase Cooper and I, co-host a podcast, also entitled Golf Beneath the Surface. You can find it on Instagram and somewhere I don't know. Chase handles the online stuff, so I'm not quite sure the handle off the top of my head. You can also catch me at www.bts-mineset.bts beneath the surface-mineset.com. And those are probably the main places. Raymond, thanks a bit so much. Really appreciate it. Well, thanks for having me. Thanks, Raymond. Really wonderful conversation. We've spoke many times before. I think some of the content within that conversation there, it really can make such a difference, a deeper understanding of these ideas around acceptance and why it's such a foundational skill to get the most from your experience. And how that does ultimately lead to a stability in your confidence, stability in your confidence that from day to day, with the variety of thoughts and feelings and sensations, the difference in the way our golf swing feels. We're able to navigate our way through all of that and just get a much richer and deeper experience of the game. And that sense, when you come off the golf course, it might not always be the score that you wanted, when you set out there, but you manage to get it round, you manage to dig in deep and find a way of getting the best out of it. You use the skills that you had on that day. So as I said, but the start, take a look at Raymond's work. Definitely his book, "Golf Beneath the Surface" is well worth to re-plick on the link in the show notes. Come and join us with the mind caddy, that specific programme within the mind caddy app about acceptance. You can join us on a free trial to begin with. So many people are reporting back the differences starting to me, having that companion, that coach in the car that they can keep referring back to and working systematically through those programmes, getting ready for the season ahead. And then finally, the golf school with Gary, Gary Nickel, great opportunity to join us for a couple of days there at that most beautiful stunning of location on my favourite places on earth. It truly is worth coming to Archville for the experience of seeing that venue and playing the golf course is there and all around your field and going north beric places like that. So take action on that if you want to come and join us for a really, really special couple of days, 18th and 19th of May. Click on the link in the show notes and get in touch with us. Thanks ever so much for joining us on today, sure with Raymond. If you've enjoyed the content, if you feel there's other people that you might benefit from it, please pass it along, subscribe to the podcast channel. If you get chance to do a review, it really would be tremendously appreciated, it does help us spread the word. In this sense of gaining a little bit of momentum, looking at the game differently, the holistic view of the game, that it's not just about positions in the swing, we never will and never do dismiss the golf swing, never dismiss the idea of developing golfing skills, but can you then access those skills in a way that's important for you in a way that creates an experience called golf that to your brain says this is fun, this is engaging, this is what I want to do so that your brain starts to seek out more of those experiences. So thanks ever so much for joining us on today, sure, and I look forward to seeing you the very next time. Mind caddy. Carl Morris, proud ambassador of Fenix clothing and apparel for more go to FenixExcel.com.