Permission to Fail | Dr Raymond Prior on Playing Golf Freely

Speaker 1 Before we get into today's episode, just a quick word about how low can you go live? We have had a brilliant response from listeners to our proposed 2 day event with Carl Morris, golfers like Chris and myself who really want to take action and see what's possible with their game. We've decided to push the event back into 2027 just to give ourselves the proper runway to do it right rather than rush it. And this is something we really want to explore in the new year, bringing together a small group of golfers to learn in person from some of the world class guests we've had on this podcast. So if that sounds like your kind of thing, why not sign up for Hilo? Can you go live at the link in the show notes? And we will keep you posted on what is coming in 2027. I can tell you we are very excited about all of this. Speaker 2 So this isn't a think positive or negative or believe in yourself and just trust. It's a question of what am I asking myself to do right now? If you're going to invest all of this, you better not screw it up. If you're going to put yourself in front of all these other people, so on and so forth. So if we just might acknowledge like these aren't negative thoughts. It's not a quote unquote negative narrative. It's a narrative that prioritises avoidance, particularly when you go play and score counts, because now your score needs to validate your investment and that is a very heavy task load when you're going to go play G1 of the things about stable confidence is that requires permission to fail. Speaker 3 Permission to fail? That might sound like a strange place to start an episode. Speaker 1 Of a golf improvement podcast. Speaker 3 Because we're all trying to get better, aren't we? Lower scores, lower handicaps, better golf. We practise, we take lessons, We buy new drivers, new putters and maybe even buy launch monitors. We convince ourselves that this next thing might finally be the answer. We invest a lot in this game. We invest a lot of our time, our energy and our money and today we're welcoming back one of our favourite ever guests on How Low Can You Go, Doctor Raymond Pryor and this time I wanted to talk to Doctor Raymond about my season. I have improved, my handicap has come down, I made the semi finals of our club championship but I still haven't had that breakthrough. I've been chasing and in that semi final something happened that I think a lot of golfers will recognise. My opponent actually started to fall apart and instead of me thinking right, let's go and win this thing, I started thinking just don't screw this up more than he does. And what followed was an absolute car crash. So why does that happen? Why can trying not to hit the bad shot actually make things worse? And what does it really mean to play golf freely? Let's get into it. This is Doctor Raymond Pryor. This is high, Low. Can you go? Speaker 4 High low can you go? Speaker 5 OK. Welcome back everyone once again to high, Low. Can you go the golf improvement podcast Born in Scotland, the home of golf. Today we welcome back a good friend of our show, Doctor Raymond Pryor, one of the most sought after names in performance psychology by the world's best performers, including some of the world's best golfers, but also including non sport performers, including Grammy winners, Oscar winners. And he is also, I think Chris, statistically, possibly our most popular guest that we've had on high low. Can you go so far? So there's another another accolade that you can list in your in your achievements. Doctor Raymond, welcome. Speaker 2 Yeah, I, I, I really need that type of external validation here, so that's really good. Speaker 5 Well. Speaker 2 That'll that'll get, that'll just give me the boost that I needed. Speaker 5 Glad to hear it. Well, that's what we're trying to do, you know, and we, we really, I think, feel like we do need a boost. Well, I certainly feel like I need a boost. Chris. We're going to frame this episode a bit. Doctor Raymond, if you'd be willing around a summary of my season and Chris's season so far, but I think there's quite a few common scenarios that you've probably seen that club golfers can relate to and getting your take would always be of course, extremely valuable. Umm Chris, how would you feel if I go first? I know it's all just me, me, me here. But I think like, just to give you a bit of context here, Raymond, you know, Chris is the one who's been playing quite well. He's shot his two best ever rounds in the last month. I think he shot 260 sevens recently, whereas I've been struggling quite a lot in recent times. So I feel like, are you happy with that, Chris? I'll go first and then you go. Speaker 6 Yes, I'm more than happy with that, Dave. I think just where I've seen the game in the head has kind of went in the past month playing with you. I think we need to deep dive into that brain. Speaker 5 Yeah, I think so. Yes, I think the handicap has come down OK. So as you know, I think about a year ago I was in around a kind of 1516 handicap. In the last year I wanted to get the single figures. I haven't reached that, but I'm down to about a 13.6. So it is moving in the right direction and I've got to always remind myself of that. Things have gone reasonably this season without me feeling like I've kind of broken through. My main scoring barrier of 81 of the highlights of the season would be I reached the semi finals of our club championship, albeit it was the club championship section of the 12 handicaps and over. I wouldn't mind maybe just starting there because interestingly in the semi final I was going OK and I was pretty much tied with my opponent until I think the 13th green. And then kind of weirdly, not just my game seemed to totally collapse. His game also collapsed, right? But it was almost a case of who can collapse more here. I don't know if you've seen anything like that. It seemed like a phenomenon, like he lost his ball on the next T box. And then in my mind, I think I was kind of going, oh, well, this is, you know, this is your, your big chance. But I was also thinking, right, he's really screwing up here. Wouldn't it be terrible if I screwed up even more? And by the end of that, it was a par 5. And I'm not even joking. We kind of were saying to each other like, let's never speak of this again. I'm glad nobody is actually watching this because I think we both tied the hole with a nine each. You know, that's how bad it was, I guess. Yeah. So that was one highlight, followed by what I felt was like a total collapse. And Raymond, I was thinking about lots of the stuff that you've told us about, lots of the stuff that we've heard from great people on our show. But I just could not get out of it. I, I tried to tell myself, just swing as if you don't care, swing as freely as possible, you know, all of this. And I just could not dig myself out of what was just a catastrophic collapse. And then I just folded. And then he won by default on the 16th green. Over to you. Speaker 2 It sounds like in this experience that both of you, for a lack of a better phrase, perhaps in a more American vernacular, is kind of put your foot on the brake hoping that somebody else was going to crash before you did. So we could look at this from the standpoint of, oh, I started thinking negatively, but that's not a language that our brain speaks really. It speaks in pursuit and avoidance. And it sounds like both of you prioritise an avoidance based task of just don't screw this up. And then an extra layer of that don't screw, just don't screw this up more than the other person. So you got kind of two layers of avoidance based tasks and your brains were probably doing their best to fit those tasks, right? What's important in these situations when we find ourselves doing that as we can very clearly sometimes be like, hey, just don't do that or you need to just swing freely or just trust yourself. And we kind of just try to replace 1 task with another. It might be really important for listeners and people going through the experiences to understand our brain doesn't replace avoidance based tasks with pursuit based tasks. It is not designed to do so. In order for us to have a pursuit based task at the top of the priorities, we have to let go of the avoidance based task, which requires us to be like the possibility of screwing this up more than somebody else who is actually screwing this up in real time has to be something that we're willing to accept. Basically meaning whatever version of failure that I'm kind of like, could I just avoid my way out of this or not screw this up has to be something that I am willing to perhaps have happened in order for me to actually prioritise. Now, while this other person is really struggling with that, I'm just going to pursue playing as well as I can. So if I'm getting really practical with anyone in that situation, got to ask the question, what are the avoidance based tasks that I've added to this in this moment? And how do I know I've done that? And to I have to understanding like I got to let those go if I want to pursue what I'm doing. Can't just replace those two things. Our brain is not designed to be able to do that. You know, it's basically saying like hit it down the middle of the fairway and don't hit it left. For me to actually have freedom to hit it down the middle, I have to let go of trying to avoid left or right or whatever version of that might be. So our brain does not multitask very well and it does not multitask between pursuit and avoidance. When push comes to shove, it is designed to prioritise avoidance. So until I let go of those, I don't have space to be able to pursue freely what the situation sounds like it made it easy for you to go as well. If I just grizzle a little bit of avoidance on this situation, but just less than whatever the other person is doing, that'll be enough to get through, right? A common trap. Like I work with a lot of basketball players who play in the NBA, and they do this all the time. Like what? They'll come out gangbusters and be up by like 40 at halftime. And then what they'll do in the second-half is like, ah, well, let's just not screw this up for the rest of the game. And then, surprise, surprise, the other team makes a massive comeback. And now all of a sudden, you're in a dogfight as the, you know, final minutes of the game are happening. Because what happened is I just started sprinkling a little bit of avoidance on my performance. But to your brain, a little bit of avoidance goes straight to the top of the priority list. And so if I'm waiting for somebody else to screw up more than I am in my performance, it's not that necessarily that's a bad strategy in terms of like a performance strategy from a psychological and neurological standpoint, you've created a whole new priority system that requires all the defence mechanisms that come out of us. Play safe, play Siri, here's some anxiety. I'm going to overthink all kinds of things. I'm going to be more interested in what somebody else is doing. All of these are just the very natural and predictable mechanisms that come with, there's something in avoidance based at the top of my list. And for me to actually get that get pursuit to the top list, I have to let go of that avoidance based task that makes me feel like quote unquote, I'm doing finger quotes for those listening. I'm doing something to be able to either move towards success or move away from failure. But again, neurologically, that's not how our brain is designed. Speaker 5 And like, yeah, and we talked a bit about this the last time, the kind of avoidance fee pursuit where you see it very often. And so many golfers listening will have heard this before where you're saying right, anywhere but left, I just cannot hit this tee shot left. And then because you're trying to avoid it so much, then you hit it so far right, it's nearly off the planet, right. OK. Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, That is basically your brain following your instructions, right? So if I'm going, I want to hit this ball here, but dear God, don't go left. My brain goes, there's a pursuit based task in here and there's an avoidance based task in here. Not a negative thought. It's an avoidance based task. Don't hit it left, right and for whatever reasons I have attached to it. So your brain being the hardware that it is that prioritises avoidance, goes well, we'd like to hit it there, but we cannot let it go left Well to our brain again, it doesn't really know the difference between golf and other ventures in our life. We do. But our brain, like the fastest, strongest hardware in our brain, does not. It just knows. I told you left is dangerous. Well, again, think about this from a logical standpoint, which our brain doesn't really do logic, but it does very simple logic, which is, well, if left is dangerous, where's as things get safer, where would they need to go? And that's farther and farther right. OK, so if I told you Sabre tooth tigers on the left, well, right down the middle of the fairways, not the safest place. Way, way, way to the right is the safest place, right? And so, and again, in a game like golf where the degrees on a club face, if I changed your driver, let's just say you have a as a round #100 mile an hour drive swing speed with the driver, and I change your face angle by 2 1/2°, you're talking, depending on your path, you're talking somewhere between like 35 and 70 yards in either direction, right? So if I tell my brain left is dead, don't go there. Cannot, must avoid that at all cost. All it's got to do is make a finite, like a, a very finite and very small change to a club face in order for it to get quote unquote safe in the opposite direction. Which is why when players tell me out, there's kind of two types of double cross on the PJ and LPJ tours. There's the innocent double cross, which is I was aiming in One Direction, trying to hit it in Leo, basically aiming left, trying to hit it right or aiming right trying to hit it left. And I just squared the face to the path and it just stayed there right that, but just like I just didn't execute it. And then there's the well, I was aiming left. We're trying to go right with it. But really what I was saying is this ball cannot go too far in One Direction. And then your brain takes over at the top of your backswing and you get a massive like double cross, right? The same goes for like, you don't have to be super skilled to get those types of double crosses, right? So if I'm a club golfer, my brain works the same, in which case then if I give it, this is an avoiding space task, it's going to the top of the priority list. And I'm going to get some type of response neurologically, physiologically, and then like physically and mechanically in order to try to meet that task that I have given my brain, right. So this isn't a think positive or negative or believe in yourself and just trust. It's a question of what am I asking myself to do right now that my brain is going to try to do for me in the way that it's designed to do. And so really good psychology and neuroscience isn't asking us to do more. It's asking us to do less. That makes us reductionists in a way where I reduce the amount of avoidance based tasks that I'm bringing to something and probably a bunch of pursuit based tasks that are not actually relevant to the task at hand. So as soon as I start adding those, my brain is going to try to do its best to multitask and multitask with avoidance. And it is a very natural and predictable pattern that comes from those, which is going to be some type of defensive focus and defensive actions. Speaker 6 And and you've said this before where it's basically that voice comes into your head. Just be OK with it coming into your head and just letting it go, being comfortable enough to with letting it go. And I think I've done that in this this season, kind of like what you're saying, if I'm going don't hit it left, I then go, it's OK. Just commit to the shot and play your stock shot and trust your process and I find that has worked this year in my games. Speaker 2 You know, what we might notice about that response is you're not fighting your thoughts or labelling them or judging them. We also might notice you didn't treat it as if it was a precursor to the future that like, if I thought it, then that's going to happen and therefore I need to guard against it. You didn't treat it as if it was a command that you have to follow. It was just a thought that popped up based on whatever history you have with whatever version of golf is in there. And instead just went, it's just a thought. It's basically my brain spitting this idea to me. Do you want me to guard from this? And you going no, that's an option I'm willing to accept with this. And when you tell it no, that is a possibility I'm willing to accept. You are in essence telling your the hardware of your brain keep, keep pursuit. The priority avoidance does not need to be part of this equation. Now does that guarantee outcome? No, but it guarantees that you're actually playing a shot as you are intending to play, or at least makes the likelihood much higher in a way where then the deck is stacked in your favour for better execution, which stacks the deck in your favour for better outcomes. Right. So we might know it's a very, very mindful interaction with your thoughts there rather than what we say is kind of either mindless, meaning I'm not even paying attention to them and they're running anyway. Or what would these more kind of sticky forceful where I try to push this thought away or sweep it under the rug or replace it with something else or, you know, so these kind of ways, what we know like only try to suppress these thoughts rather than just allowing for them. And one of the things we know for sure is the more we suppress our internal experience, the more amplified it becomes guns and then the more difficult it becomes to have a very reductionist priority list for our brain when we're operating. Speaker 5 And what is your expert take on whenever you're standing on tee box and you are filling your head with avoidance, like, please don't do this. Please don't go left like and then rather than your brain blasting it right or you're you blasting it right, you end up just doing the thing that you've just said. Please don't, please don't, please don't because that happens to a lot of golfers. That has happened to me. I think almost probably more than the scenario where you send it the opposite way, like really far. I feel like I'm fascinated as to why is it that that if your brain is really trying to avoid and has been told this is where the danger is that it will just kind of gravitate and hit a ball into the trees that way or out of bounds that way. Speaker 2 Yeah. Then you're talking about how your brain is doing it's best to compensate depending on what like your current skill level is. So your brain is like, like we as humans are like master compensators. And by that I mean our brain is like, it's wildly effective at trying to compensate for us. But if I tell you your nervous system is attuned to enough, let's just say again, the scenario is don't hit this thing a lot, OK? Well, that probably means you're going to roll the club face open at the top of your backswing and your brain is going to recognise that club face is open. And now it's going to recognise, oh man, that's way too far, right? In which case then now it's in a battle on the way down of trying to square it. And again, if it goes from just a couple degrees open to a couple degrees closed, now I get that outcome that I was actually trying to avoid. So this does happen at the top end of the learning curve sometimes, but the frequency is much lower because they're the skill level at the top of the learning curve allows them to recognise, oh, the face is open but not too far open or their compensations are just more efficient on the way down. So you're talking to skill stability. But the bottom line is if I tell you don't do this, your brain is going to try its best to do that. But then it can also in real time and like instantly recognise, oh, this is an overcorrection and then it tends to overcorrect on the way back. So again, all this being said that when we add these avoidance based tasks and multitasking, I'm asking my brain to switch between tasks in a very short period of time. And it's pretty efficient at doing that, just not for the thing that we're actually doing, right? Like it can compensate in a lot of different ways in a very short amount of time. But all of that means that like the thing I'm actually doing gets lost in the shuffle, right? So you are going to see that from time to time. My understanding with like the amateur statistics, if you're looking at different like data collection with like an ARCO system or something, is that you basically see two way misses for pretty much all golfers, particularly those who are in like the teens. Like if you have like a 20 or 30 handicap, it's more likely to be a one way scenario because their skill is so unstable. It's stable enough that they can make contact, but they don't really have any face and path control. Then you start getting into the teens where there's some level of face and path control, but it's not a lot, which means you're going to have a lot of variability, which means you're going to get balls going in both directions. And then even if you get to the top of learning curve, there's nobody misses on one side of the golf course ever. Like everybody has a two way miss. Technically that's how a dispersion works, right? However, having said that, to your question, like you, sometimes we get exactly what we're trying to avoid because we're trying to avoid it and my brain is doing it's very, very, very best. And then the pachinko machine of different options as it's kind of stifling between tasks. Like it might just come up one of those as well, particularly depending on what your, you know, motor pattern produces. Like if I play a draw and I go, oh, this thing can't go left, chances are I'm going to get a big old block to the right or I'm going to get a ball that's left going left because my brain knows how to shut the face. But it's going to the path moves left, it's going to go. Speaker 5 Left, that is really interesting because like, obviously, yeah, you're depend on your skill level, depending on where you're at with your game. If you are a drawer of a ball, then you know, you that are going to have hands that can kind of close the face down and therefore, you know, that makes so much sense and you know the block, then if you've got a path for a draw, then you're maybe holding on because of that avoidance. Yeah. Speaker 2 You know, because so basically when I do kind of like club events and do talks, that someone will ask the same question. I'll ask him, like, what is your predominant ball flight? And if you're somebody who hits a slice, they'll go. My slice gets either bigger when I'm trying to not hit it right, usually because their path moves farther left because intuitively the brain knows, well, left is the opposite of right. But then if the face stays square to the path or leave, I leave it the same. I'm getting more of a slice. Again, these are just ball flight dynamics, right ball flight laws. Or if they say, well, my predominant shape is a draw. Well, what that means is if I leave the, if I try to make sure ball doesn't go left and I leave the face, hold it open a little bit. Now it's square to the to the path, but the path is to the right. That's your block or your brain goes, well, this is way too far to the right. Well, it knows how to shut it down. And now I've got a path that is farther right and a face that is square to what my preview, my stock path is, which means now I've got more variance between my path and face, which means I'm going to get a massive overdraw, right? So again, bald physics are physics. Behind it is my psychology and my neurology and my Physiology. But physics are physics, right? So if I give my brain certain tasks as I'm doing something that is going to impact the physics of what I'm doing in a way that creates more variability. And sometimes we want more variability. Like if you're in a spot and you're like, now I need to hook this thing 40 yards, that might be really functional. But most of the time what we try to do is go, I'm going to try to eliminate variability, to try to eliminate a miss, to avoidance based tasks. And in order to try to avoid, my brain adds variance, right? Because if I go, it can't go left. It's going to try to create variance to make sure that it doesn't go left, which then means it could go too far right and it could try to compensate for that. All this saying, our brain is a master compensator in a very short period of time based on what we ask it. But the thing that we're doing in the way we want to do it gets lost in that shuffle, which is why things can get pretty sideways for us if we're not paying attention to. What is it that I'm actually asking myself to do that? Speaker 5 That's what it all comes back to is what do you actually want to do here? Speaker 2 That's right. And what is it that I'm willing to accept in this? So again, if you think about the hardware of our brain, it is an association. Making associations are things that we experience together and the relationship I'm putting in quotes, we build with them the explanation, explanation making machine, like will the stories we tell ourselves about those associations, which then create a task priority system for our brain. And that priority is either pursuit or avoidance. And if it comes out this association, this explanation to a avoidance based task, it's going to the top of the priority list. We do not get a choice in that. That is how our brain is designed. And that's not a bad thing because it keeps us alive and all of us are alive now because we had ancestors who were very avoidant in a, in a time where the world was very dangerous and there was a very limited amount of resources, right? So all that being said, it's really important for us to go what kind of associations, explanations and what is the task that is actually at the top of the priority list right now before we go do something. And then be able to pay attention to that in real time and be able to not just go focus on this, but also you need to let go of this stuff that you've attached to it in order to get to that. Speaker 6 Yeah, I think Dave, we will. We will carry on deep diving and do head. But while we're on the topic of match play that you were talking about. So I've found myself playing in the scratch league team at my club. And basically I'd say that I'm probably on the tail end of the list of players with quality and handicap, which I'm fine with by enjoying dipping into play that kind of and competitive goal. Speaker 5 Sorry, Kristen, whenever you say, when you say you're the tail end, do you mean like you're playing with with players here, slightly lower handicaps in New Year? Yeah. Speaker 6 Yeah, so like plus 2 + 1 and I'm A1 handicap just now. So let's say, for example, I'll be put out last and then I feel that coming down the home street, although I'm at the tail end of it, I then all of a sudden have this pressure of, right, we need a point. And it's one of those things where I know you deal with players during the season when they're playing for themselves. But I know that you've got the Presidents Cup coming up and you're going to be dealing with players are playing in that match place situation. Could you give me kind of insight and how it's different from playing for yourself and for myself, playing a match play where I feel like I've got the team on my shoulders, for instance, when I'm playing golf out there. Speaker 2 One of the added risks of team sport is that other people's success and failure are now dependent upon yours, right? So the risk is, is this going to negatively impact other people negatively, you know, however people might take it. But what that means is that like, if I screw up, it does have impact on other people. And for a lot of golfers playing stroke play events, when we get to Solheim Cup, Presidents Cup, Ryder Cups, a lot of the conversations I'm having with them is, have you accepted the fact that you might screw up in a way that kind of ruins it for other people, either in a small dose or a big dose? Because somebody's going to win this thing. And the bottom line is that means that somebody will have outperformed somebody at some point, right? That's how team works. And they're going to be in like, there's no team sport, whether it's a football match, an American football game, whatever, where somebody doesn't screw up or get outperformed by somebody else in a way that determines the outcome. That's the risk. It is unavoidable, right? So all that being said, now we're kind of getting into the social risk and the competitive risk mixture of match play, which is if I'm going to do this and the task list includes you're not allowed to screw this up for other people, You'll play defensive steerie golf, right? One of the things I recommend to all the players I work with is have you talked with your teammates and particularly you're playing partners in match play. If it's like a four ball event or something of any, just like have you talked with them about how you want them to play and how they want you to play in just some basic like I don't want you playing trying to not put me in a tough spot or to disappoint me or to let me down because then all you're going to be doing is having that in the background the entire time while you're playing. So if you have an opportunity to stick one close, you'll bail out and leave it in the middle of the green because you don't want to short side me. Or you have a tee shot that's pretty tough. You'll try to not hit it left so that you're not having to retee for me. Like all of these things or I'm the anchor in this match. And if I'm not willing to lose my match and perhaps let down and the team loses the entire match, then that is going to be a task that I bring to it, In which case then I'm not going to be playing very freely. OK, so the challenge here is essentially asking a question. Am I willing to accept all that comes with not just playing a team event, but where I am in the order of that team event, which people wait differently? Like I would argue, well, if you're in the first match or the last match and you win or lose, it still discounts as a point, right? But to humans, the context matters in a subjective way where if the matches ties 5 people against 5 people and it comes down to last match or three versus three, well, we need a point. It's on you. So if you won, we'd have won this match. Well, technically what's true is, well, if you'd won your match, I wouldn't even need to win right now. But our brain, our brain can kind of figure that out. But at the same time, it knows well if you win, good things happen for you and the people on your team. And if you don't, things don't, which it just recognises us, there's risk. There's something here to be gained and there's something to be lost. And that isn't just the match. That's also how other people feel and also how other people think and feel about me specifically. So if I go into this not willing to take on that risk, that is an unacceptable risk, then I will probably be trying to play away from it because that's an avoidance based task rather than that's what I signed up for. And I'm willing to be like judged and I'm willing to perhaps play in a way that might not serve other people. If you're willing to accept those risks, you'll be able to play much more freely. You know, if you're looking at like analogies, we're talking about like penalty kick takers, like who's last in line for that in America? You're talking about like who's going to take free throws toward the end of a a game or the last shot in a basketball game? Like you don't just want your best shooter. You also want a shooter who's willing to miss and to cut and everything that comes with that. The criticism, the let down, the heartbreak for teammates, for fans, like because you want somebody who's shooting to actually try to make that shot, not trying to avoid all the stuff that comes with it if you don't. And we could argue whether that's fair or not, but the bottom line is like, that's the reality of competition. It's not meant to be fair. It's meant to be risky in a way that makes it exciting. Speaker 5 Like that? Like that? Speaker 6 I have, yeah. I've found that with that, I'm at that point of say, if I'm not wanting to be the person that takes the last shot or in the last group or the free throw kind of thing, and I'm sitting with that and I'm like, I don't actually want to do that. Do I then take myself out of that position even though I like the competition golf and that moment, I'm just like, this isn't serving me. I've had, I've spoke to Dave about that this, this season. I'm just like, this is not serving me as I need to in my current state in my life. So am I kind of losing? They're going, Oh yeah, I'm shying away from that and I'm seeing that as a loss or as I just know you're actually being very responsible and pulling away from that. Speaker 2 Yeah, you could make an argument for both. I would always say this. I always ask people like what kind of golf experience or what kind of performance experience do you want, right. If you play at the highest levels and you're like, I don't really want pressure, then you know, you might be in the wrong place, right? Like, I talk with college kids all the time. I want to play in the NBA or in the NFL. And I'm like, you know what comes with that, right? And they think about it and they're like, man, I really want to play in the NBA, but I don't want all the smoke that comes with it. Like you always have the option to not do it. That is available to us. My pushback on people with that is like, Are you sure? Or is it that you really want that, but you just really don't want to deal with your relationship with failure and other people's opinions and and change that, which comes with some scratchiness and some work, right? Like if I'm a, you know, we had the World Cup just this last summer and plenty of players I work with, the question I'll ask him for him is what happens if you're taking a penalty and it comes down to you, right? And if my default response is bail out, you have that option like somebody else will take it. But what if you're the best option if you actually just do that freely, right? Like what if you're the best option for your team to win? Not a guarantee, just the best option. And is, you know, like, can we lean into that risk a little bit? And then probably having conversations about like, what does it mean for you? The narratives, the associations, the explanations you give yourself for if that doesn't work out and if people think a certain way about that, right? So again, I would be just starting with like, well, what kind of golf experience do you want? And if it's a more comfortable one, then there's no rule anywhere that says that you have to lean into the discomfort and the risk that comes with competitive ball. If it's one where you're like, I'm actually trying to see how good I can be and experience the things that come with like, you know, winning those things under pressure and all the benefits that come with that. And then it's like, well, then are we willing to also risk the stuff that comes with it if it doesn't work out? Because nobody gets that guarantee, right? So it would still start to me with like really asking question like, what do you really want? Not necessarily what are you afraid of? Like what are you? What do you really want? And then you have the option desk because a lot of people tell me like club golfers were like, I don't, I'm not here to try to shoot the low scores. I can't. I'm here to hang out with my Bros, to probably have some drinks, listen to some music. And if I shoot a good score, I shoot a good score or whatever. I'm actually kind of like attached to my handicap, which is fine. For others, it's like, no, I'd like to see how good I can be and some a million different variations in between. So again, I'd always come back to like, what is it that you really want your golf experience to be like? And then you're asking the questions, OK, well, what kind of competitive situations does that mean that I want to put myself in? What kind of practise am I going to have to do and how often? What kind of investment am I going to make in my psychological training, my physical training? Like different experiences require kind of different levels of investment and risk taking that other levels might not. Speaker 5 I find that hard to believe as well, by the way, when guys say, Oh yeah, I don't really care what I should, I just want to go out and have a laugh with my friends and drink a few beers or whatever, yeah. Speaker 2 Come on, You'd be surprised. You'd be surprised. It's pretty. It's pretty popular here in America where people just want to go out and kind of walk around. They don't really keep score, but it gives them an opportunity to hang out with people to to drink. It's not that they don't want to shoot good scores, but if they're the exchange rate of, well, for me to actually play better and get better, what I would need to, to not do, meaning, you know, the music, the golf cart, the the alcohol, the whatever, the cigars, whatever to do that versus like, well, if I let go of all of that stuff, this might not be as fun immediately for me to actually put in the work to do that. Like I wouldn't pretend that every golfer is interested in like how to shoot the lowest scores. A lot of people, it's more social than it is competitive or it's more, more of a reprieve from things than it is an investment and a pursuit. So it can vary. I think there's some cultural differences, you know, country to country in the same way that here in America, the likelihood of someone driving a car is much higher than where you guys are, where they're either going to be carrying their bag or pushing it on a push cart. Like there's a lot of cultural differences in some pockets here in America. People, I play golf twice a month, don't care what I shoot. The experience is going to be very predictably enjoyable, but not necessarily very high performing. You know, I would say that when I do, you know, club workshops and stuff, there's a good chunk of people there who are legitimately like, OK, this is some information that could help me get better. Others are just kind of interested and maybe trying to pick a tidbit here and there that might make things more comfortable for them, even though that's not necessarily what it offers. So it can vary. But though anytime I'm working with anyone, first question I'm going to ask is like, tell me about what kind of performance experience you actually want. Because one of the things that we see is if you don't really want to be a high performer and you start engaging with things that are about high performance, it becomes a pretty aversive experience. It feels like you're being forced into something you don't want to do, like a job you don't want to have. Conversely, if what I really want is a high performing golf experience, but I'm guarding myself against the let down of if it's not as high as performing as I want it to be from time to time, then I'll kind of sabotage it a little bit. In which case then that is also a pretty aversive experience because you know, for some reason, like I've kind of got 1 foot on the brake and the gas at the same time and that keeps us from going as fast as we can go at times. So you know, the long and the short of it is like when we do something in a way that is inconsistent with what we genuinely want and that can evolve. But at least currently where we are, it starts to become kind of an inauthentic experience that then starts to get, I would say, pretty scratchy for us. Speaker 5 And just back on team sports and I guess what Chris was talking about in team golf, would you say that the best team sport coaches are the ones who instil that willingness to take a risk and accept all outcomes within that group of players? Speaker 2 I would say some of them are, some of them say that, but the way they coach is not really consistent with that. For example, if I'm telling you I need you to be confident, be brave, whatever, you know, terminology people use, hopefully they're defining those terms like, you know, it's to say it's football and it's World Cup and like, I want you to be willing to step up and take this penalty and if you miss, you miss whatever. But then every time you miss, I crush you or I punish you for making mistakes. What I'm coaching and what I'm saying don't mix. And there's quite a bit of that, you know, even in like high level sport. But for many coaches, if you are indeed helping people develop stable confidence. One of the things about stable confidence is it requires permission to fail, right? So if I'm asking you to take the last shot, whether it's at the end of a basketball game or a penalty kick, or I'm putting you in the anchor match of a team match play event, if I'm not going go out there, play really freely, play as well as you can, trying to win again, not recklessly strategically, but trying to win. And if you don't, OK. We can accept that we won't like it, we won't necessarily be satisfied with it and it'll sting for a bit, but that is not something I want you to guard against while you're out there playing. And if my actions don't actually match that, then I've got to disconnect. But if my actions match that, then what you are teaching people is you have permission to really freely try and permission to fail, which then if we go to the hardware of our brain goes, no, the only thing you have to do today is try to pursue freely. Then there's no avoidance based tasks attached to it, right? At least coming at least coming from the coach. But if I'm a coach who punishes people for making mistakes, I am implicitly giving their brain instructions. Don't screw up or else you'll get punished. In which case, you know when we see this in youth sport all the time where kids make a mistake and they get benched or they have to go do fitness. Like American youth sports have taken fitness, which is a very valuable thing and turned it into a punishment, breeding essentially generations of players who are afraid to make mistakes because if I make a mistake, I got to go run or do push ups or do whatever, right. So this coaching and we're just kind of talking the larger arc of confidence in sport, but kind of any performance realm when people are developing, if we give them as adults, go do this and do it well, I demand perfection and don't you dare screw this up. Otherwise, when you get in the car, I'm going to give you the riot act or I'm going to give you the Oh my God, I can't believe you screwed that up. Look on silent. What we're basically saying is there is a cost to failure beyond just failing. Yeah. In which case then we're giving people the association they make is that failing comes with punishment. The explanation is that's not an acceptable thing to do. And then the task prioritisation is avoidance based. And we're teaching people anxiety, right. Then on top of that, there's the world, which is if you're a professional or a World Cup soccer player and you miss a penalty, you are going to get crushed by the general public, right. So, so basically like if you're getting into like the nuts and bolts, if I'm in a team event, the leadership there has to provide some level of you have permission to try and fail, not to try in a certain way. Like there are behavioural standards here, but if you meet those and you end up failing, that is an acceptable outcome to a certain degree. And anything that happens outside of this team realm is just stuff that like, like, we'll help you deal with, but that is not what's going to be coming from inside this organisation. Like, you know, basically if every time a player screws up, they get crushed in the media, which then matches the, you know, global or national criticism being fed. Like, don't be surprised when people don't want to take penalty kicks or don't want to play in an anchor match or, you know, like, there's quite a few players. Again, Like, this might burst the bubble for a lot of people about players playing on the highest tours. But there are a lot of players out there who do not want to play in a President's Cup or a Ryder Cup or a Sohan Cup because there's so much pressure and criticism that it comes with that, that they might want to avoid it. Like, you know, when you see like, well, how did that player get picked and how they did it? Like, don't assume every single player there was like, oh, yes, I want the smoke that comes with this experience. Like, that is not necessarily true in the same way. Not like we saw a bunch of players in the World Cup being like, no, I don't want to take a penalty. Yeah, right. And we see it in the NBA. There's a lot of players they will throw like they will put put somebody in gaol for the last shot of a game because they don't want to take an open shot because what if I'd miss it, right? So again, all this kind of coming back to our brain, the hardware is avoidance and pursuit. And if there's some avoiding space stuff, the behaviours of avoidance will take over versus the behaviours of pursuit. If I actually want a golf experience that is more comfortable, there are things that I can avoid to make it more comfortable, including what do I play and how. Like, there are a tonne of people who will never play in a competitive golf tournament ever and just play casual rounds with their friends and that will be exactly what they want. There will also be a plenty of people who only do that. They want to play competitive rounds, but they're not ready to handle the risk or willing to examine what it is they bring to the experience that would make that risk so avoidable to them if they played competitively. There are also people who are so good that their best option is to play competitively, but they don't really want the smoke that comes with it. And if you gave them an option to bail out to something more comfortable, they might. Speaker 3 OK, Just jumping in here very quickly. This idea of pursuit versus avoidance really resonates because it's very easy to stand on a tee and tell yourself, just swing freely. Stop worrying about the outcome. Just trust it. Speaker 1 But can you actually just decide to do that like? Speaker 3 Flick a switch. Speaker 1 And away you go. Speaker 3 Well, this is where the conversation starts to get quite personal for me because Chris is about to ask Raymond a very simple question. Has Dave actually been playing golf freely this year? And Raymond's answer might explain a lot. OK, back to the conversation. Speaker 6 Yeah. And I think, Dave, asking the question oversee for your season that you've had, do you think you've approached the season playing freely? Speaker 5 I guess this is this is the what would be the word being able to play freely. It feels like this kind of Nirvana in some ways this, this sort of Holy Grail, Raymond that I totally understand who doesn't understand the concept. Everybody kind of gets it, but it's something I don't think that you can just stand there and just do it on command necessarily. I feel a bit like that. Speaker 2 Yeah, it requires some work away from the course, some front loaded work to be able to for lack of a better place to be able to flip that switch, which is not really how it works. But just Ferb analogy here. Like I have have to done some electrical work long before I get to those places because the parts of my brain that are more instinctive and emotional are going to be firing off with, Are you sure you don't want me to guard against? And then fill in whatever blank. And if I haven't done some work about how to interact backed with those thoughts and feelings in real time and addressed my larger relationship with the risk involved with this venture, then my brain just turning that off because I asked it to turn the light off is not very lightly right. Like you know, you're talking about hold on a second. What is my overall relationship with and then fill in the blank. Failure, discomfort, uncertainty, not being in control, judgement from other people, investing in this thing to the degree I have and maybe it not working out and the way I want to like. Speaker 5 These are all the things. Speaker 2 These are all the things that if I don't do some work with this front loaded before I get there, they're going to fire off in a very strong way. And my brain is designed to make it so that I cannot ignore these, right? So until I've and the, you know, the thing for us, we're human beings. We're social creatures. Our brain is designed to be attuned to the people around us. It's a massive survival mechanism for us. But in our modern world, we grossly overestimate people's opinions and grossly overvalue them. And then therefore they have the power to be fearful to us until I start to address my relationship with them, Like, why do I need to be approved of? And why do I need to be accepted by other people based on this type of a thing? And again, that's not a wagging my finger Why? It's a curious why, Like, why is it that I'm so interested in what such and such thinks about my golf game, right? And then, of course, for any time any of us go, this is something I want to pursue. So again, here's the risk involved. Let's say I do want my golf experience to be a high performing one, meaning I want to play in that anchor match. I want the putt at the end of like I genuinely deep down, I really want those things. I want my handicap to see how low it can go if that means I'm going to need to invest in some things in a way that I wouldn't if I'm just fine with a casual golf experience. OK, What that now means is I've become more vulnerable to failure, not less, right. So the thing about like, we go, well, if you're massively prepared, you're more likely to succeed and all that. Technically, no, that what that your brain recognises is we put in a whole lot into this and now it's going to ask the question, what if this doesn't work out, right? So it's not asking if there's, This is why I always push back on people. Like if I just believe in myself, it's going to work out. When has that ever worked out for people? What's worked out is you stack the deck in your favour over time and it's never a 100% chance that it's going to be successful. So if I'm not willing to go, I want my golf experience to be this, this, this, this, and this, which means I'm going to have to train this, this and this, do this, this, put myself in these situations that probably only come around periodically, meaning I don't get a second chance. If this one doesn't work, cow, that means I am now more vulnerable to the thing that I want to happen in a certain way, perhaps not happening in a certain way, not less vulnerable. Now, the likelihood of it going away a certain way might be increased, but my vulnerability has now increased. So if I'm not willing to accept that vulnerability and everything that comes with it, there will be a layer of me that is wanting to guard against it the entire time. Again, this is not my personal opinion. This is how our brain is designed to work, right? Because way, way back when, if you invested that much and it didn't work out, it was probably life and limb on the line. Now it's not, but it sure feels like it sometimes unless I go hey, I'm going to go walking through where the Sabre tooth tigers are and I'm willing to accept the fact that I might get bit or die If I'm not willing to do that, those things will show up and try to keep me from putting myself in in quote unquote danger. Yeah, right. So now we're talking just based like, have I addressed my relationship with the various forms of risk involved with pursuing something that is genuinely important to me And there are ways that I really, really wanted to go. Speaker 5 Hmm. Like on that, Yeah, definitely those last two that you mentioned, like I still probably not as bad as I once was, but I still deep down care far too much about other people watching me play golf and what they're thinking. And I think wrapped around that is because I've worked very hard at golf and I've started a podcast with with Chris. So I've got this voice in my head going. Well, you've spoken to Doctor Raymond Pryor, for goodness sake. You've spoken. Speaker 2 Yeah, sure, you've. Speaker 5 Spoken to TS Cooper, you've spoken to Carl Morris, you've spoken to Scott Fawcett. You know all of this and all of the work that goes on. Like, I practise quite regularly, I play a lot. I've got all of that in my head going. This is crazy how bad you are at this game considering you've done this, this, this and this and this Nobody else out there would have done all of that and still be that bad at golf. Like that's that's the voice that I am hearing and I guess the. Speaker 2 Point, yeah, but that that is that is the exponent. That's the explanation portion of your brain. So the narrative section, this is the story I'm telling myself. And what we might notice in that, in that story, failure is something that you by by definition, that narrative is prioritising avoidance, right? It's basically going, if you're going to invest all of this, you better not screw it up if you're going to put yourself in front of all these other people, so on and so forth. So if we just might acknowledge like these aren't negative thoughts, it's not a quote unquote negative narrative. It's a narrative that prioritises avoidance, particularly when you go play and score counts because now your score needs to validate your investment. And that is a very heavy task load when you're going to go go play golf. Speaker 3 Doctor Raymond Pryor, we're going to leave Part 1 there and I have to say that last bit from Raymond really hit pretty close to home for me. You put all this time into your golf, you practise, you take lessons, you listen to podcasts, or in our case, you start a podcast, and somehow you end up speaking to some of the best coaches and performance psychologists in the world. And then you start thinking, surely, surely I should be better than this at golf by now. And suddenly your score isn't just your score anymore. It starts to feel like it has to justify all of that work and all of that effort. Does that sound like you as well? Because the obvious question I had for Raymond was, OK, got it. So how do we fix it? And that's exactly where we're going to pick things up. In Part 2 next week, Doctor Raymond gives us some really practical advice on the work we can actually do away from the golf course to change our relationship with failure, expectation and what other people might think of us and ultimately give ourselves a better chance of playing freely. So we will see you next time for Part 2 with Doctor Raymond Pryor. Speaker 1 On. Speaker 3 How low can you go? Speaker 1 If you've made it all the way to the end of this then you're clearly as obsessed with getting better at golf as Chris and I. So if you're interested in Harlow, can you go live in 2027? World class coaching, small groups and actually putting what we talk about on the podcast into practise. Then sign up via the link in the show notes. We hope that we will see you there in 2027.