157. Tim O'Connor: The Unconscious Patterns Keeping You Stuck in a Pattern of Repetitive, Destructive Swing Thoughts (and Swings)

Understanding the Feeling of Being Stuck in Golf Tim O'Connor is a performance coach with more than 30 years of experience in golf as both an author and a coach. You may know his voice and his incredible depth of wisdom as the Co host of the Swing Thoughts Podcast or one better. Maybe you've read some of his fascinating work, especially his latest book, Getting Unstuck. 7 Transformational Practices for Golf Nerds and in today's conversation, Tim and I unpack why so many golfers stay trapped in the same frustrating cycles year after year. Tim explains why being stuck has less to do with mechanics and more to do with unconscious patterns, repetitive thinking, fear based control, and a disconnect from the physical experience of playing golf. If you've ever chased swing tips mid round, sabotaged a great start, overthought every shot, or felt like your scores no longer reflect your ability, this conversation's going to hit home and I'm excited to share it with you. So without further ado, let's dive in. Please help me welcome Tim O'Connor to the show. Speaker 2 Tim. Speaker 1 You talk about it a lot. You've written countless words about it getting stuck. What does being stuck actually feel like internally for a golfer, and how can someone recognize it before their results began to expose it? Speaker 2 Well, commonly what I found in a drawing on my own experience as a total nut bar obsessive golfer is we're doing the same thing over and over again, even though we know that these things are contrary to good performance forsake of example. Let's say, you know, a golfer's hitting right-handed golfer's hitting his his driver's right into the trees. So what does he or she do? Usually they'll go into fix it mode. They'll go into, you know, try to harken back to some swing thoughts that worked in the past or maybe a swing tip that they saw in golf digest or somewhere. And so while they're playing a game of golf, they'll try and fix their swing and that just never works very well at all. So but that behavior, a lot of golfers will know that's what they do and they know it doesn't help them, but they do it all the time. The Importance of Awareness in Overcoming Stuckness It happens to us in so many parts of of our golf and in their life is that we engage in behaviors over and over again, like we're kind of in this loop that we can't get out of. And so that's kind of the feeling of being stuck also the feeling that, you know, how come I can't break a scoring barrier, whether it be, you know, A11019080, how come I can't get below that? How come I can't close a tournament? So many, I I coach a lot of golfers, everyone from from amateurs to college players. And it's just a common experience that in a casual game or in sort of low stakes tournaments they could perform, but when they want to really bring it and close a tournament, they can't. So getting stuck is just the feeling of I want to make progress, I want to go forward, but I'm spinning my wheels. Speaker 1 Yeah, like what I really hear, which I love, is that the individual who feels stuck knows what to do, but continues to do what is generating the poor outcome and the stuck feeling over and over. So it's almost like a resistance to doing different. So we go back to that example of the right-handed golfer constantly pushing, dare I say, maybe even slicing into the woods trying to fall back on a previous swing thought or swing feel. What is the solution? Someone comes to you with that exact problem or a similar variation. Where do you initiate that conversation to create a different outcome? Speaker 2 I always start with this and I always sort of make sort of a joke. It's the a word awareness. Start with awareness. You cannot change what you're not aware of. And most of us are not aware of our thoughts. We're not aware of how we get trapped in the same thoughts. There's neuroscientists say that we have upwards between somewhat, you know, 30,070 thousand thoughts a day, 69,000 of which we had the same ones the day before. So we get caught in this, in this loop of thinking, which sparks feeling and we get in this cycle going. And, but unless we're aware of that, unless we're aware of the behaviors that we're into, we can't, we cannot change what starts with that. It's like, oh, I'm doing that thing again in which I'm trying to fix my swing or look for some solution. And just once you have that awareness, then you can respond. So it starts with that. And so usually, I mean, most golfers find after they've been playing for a while, once you kind of get back past the intermediate stage and you start to, you know, kind of a pretty good swing and whatnot, most golfers have the experience when they let go of trying hard, trying to do it right, trying to make the perfect swing. Experiencing the Physical Sensation of the Swing You'll get my right elbow in the right spot. You'll turn my left hip. Choose whatever tip you want once you just sort of let go of that and allow yourself to swing, Lee Trevino, the great legendary golfer, said. Dance with the one that brung you, Meaning you just show up with whatever swing you got that day and then just try and hit shots. That's the the key to golf is hitting shots, not having the perfect swing. You know, if you got a shot you want to hit low to the the green, then just you just try your best to do that. And that is the way we could play some good golf. But when you're stuck in this fix it mode, you become hyper aware of what you're doing and it just leads to tension, more anxiety and frustration. Speaker 1 So you're speaking to an audience who is largely composed of the Type A fixers, the tinkerers that you're beginning to describe. And I always tell my audience and my clients I work with, a lot of your superpowers will take the entrepreneur listening, the ambition, the tenacity, the work ethic. It gets you really far. It's responsible for a lot of successes in your life. Yet simultaneously, there's always a point at which that superpower becomes a kryptonite. In this case, that tinkering, that need to fix, fix, fix, it ultimately becomes your own worst enemy or behavior. So someone who has that propensity, maybe it's all they know. Where do you begin helping them unlearn and let go of that to see another option? Speaker 2 Well, in, in terms of golf, what the key thing that I find that most people, what helps them the most is when they actually experience their swing as a physical sensation. And it's quite, it's very hard to imagine, but most golfers have never actually felt their swing. They usually tried it whether they're on the range or they're on the carpet at home with the putter or they're playing the game. They're thinking of something they need to do. We'll go back to that. You know, let's say I'm going to finish my backswing. There's one thing and then I'm going to let my right elbow fall in front of my right hip. I'm going to turn my left hip and I'm going to finish at full height, transferring my weight. And that's not an exaggeration of stuff that people think of. It's crazy, but when you're thinking, when you're caught in your mind, in your frontal cortex, when you're thinking, you're disconnected from your body. You cannot think and feel what's going on at the same time. So what I what I work with clients around who are struggling with this is let's make golf, which it, it is a physical experience. Breaking Through Performance Barriers So it could be feeling the club head for the first time. It could be just put your hand, put your, your, your, your attention. There's another a word into your hands. It could be just look at the T in Titleist or whatever. So let's, let's have a physical experience. So what's actually really happening? And you'd be shocked how many golfers have never felt what their swing feels like 'cause they're trapped in their head. So once you can get them to have an experience, a physical experience, what the club felt like, the collision into the ball, all that stuff, then they start to have a different experience. And most people actually really like it. They like the feeling, it leads to a better ball striking, all that kind of stuff. And so once you get them feeling, then you can start. We can start leading them down that road in which they can start to get unhooked from that addiction to thinking so much. Speaker 1 Very well said. I really appreciate and admire that. So I'm curious. Hypothetical example, so play with me here. If I dropped you into a golfer's life for 30 days, let's say someone stuck around a 12 handicap. Their immediate goal is to break 82 part. Question number one, what would you have this individual stop doing immediately? And two, what would you have them start doing immediately to break that goal? Speaker 2 In terms of stopping, it would be stop taking a swing tip some, you know, a swing thought to the golf course. Just just let that go. Just as I said before, just come to the golf course, which whatever you have now, I'll give you a great example of that which I learned through through doing improv work for two years. I used to think that whenever I that the instructor would give me the it's all what we do, games and improv. I always thought you had to have some kind of strategy on what to do. And I would always just screw up the sketch with my fellow improv people because I didn't allow what I had to just spill out and allow it. I was just, so I screwed it up. So it's the same thing happens in golf. You just show up with what you got and you and you do your best. So that's the stopping part. The starting part would be, I would say it could be something like it could be let's approach the game like you. You have like like every we talk about playing one shot at a time. It's a cliche of golf. Well, if you approach golf as the golf course is asking you a question that you need to answer, so you have a shot into a green. The Role of Surrender and Letting Go in Golf The question is where do you want this to go? Where do you not want this to go? What would be the optimal trajectory? What might be the right shape? And you just do your best to hit a shot to answer that question. And then you're done with that shot. And then you give your full attention to your next shot and answer the questions, 'cause you 'cause you hit the ball. Let's say you hit the ball on the green. OK, great. So now the course is asking you a question of, OK, I've got a 25 footer. It's downhill a bit. It looks like it's got a bit of a, a, a slope from right to left. So how do, what do I need to do to get that ball into the hole? So it would be so that's there's a number of different ways, but that would be 1. Speaker 1 Fantastic. I mean, excuse me, am I supposed to respond to yes? And it's not the role of improv. Well done, Sir. I'll tell you what it might be Episode 30 or 35 of this show is all about the yes and framework. I, I worked alongside a guy, Travis Thomas, who was a leadership and performance coach who did a lot of improv. And this was 15 years ago. And he always would teach and joke about that with us colleagues and whatnot. And it really stuck with me just in terms of how applicable it is as a, as a life skill to apply that yes and philosophy. So I've had 150 shows on this on this podcast so far. That personally is one of my favourites I've ever recorded. So it's fun to hear that you have two years of that background. Speaker 2 Yeah, well, it was one of the most interesting things I did because I knew as someone who worked with golfers and I also, you know, I, as I said, a total obsessed nut bar golfer myself. But I'm also a musician. I play bass in a band and I do, you know, public speaking and working. So performance is a big part of of what I do and everything. So I thought improv would be a really great way to sharpen those skills. And what I found is that it just really sharpened my awareness particularly, particularly of those behaviors that would, that would undermine me in performance. And, and that would be things like trying to do it right, you know, and, and like I said, that example of, of I would hear the, the, the instructor give instructions and I would immediately start to plan what I would do in the sketch and all that. And I would just undermine it because it's about allowing something to come up. Someone says something and then you have to yes. And to it, you have to respond in a way. So if I have preconceived notions of what I'm going to do, I undermine the whole enterprise. Speaker 1 Yeah, and you bring up a good word that I have a couple synonyms allowing surrendering, letting go. Paradoxically, we know the more you let go of control, the more control you gain. Creating a Warm-Up Routine for Success And I personally struggled with a lot, still do on occasion. For the listener who that really vibes with them, they struggle with that control aspect of the game. Where do you help them turn their awareness and attention to to find more ease and letting go? Speaker 2 Well, a lot of times I'll just ask them to reflect on their own experience and perhaps in different performance scenarios. So you mentioned that you work with a lot of type A, you know, CC level type of executives. Well, a lot of them have. The reason they're at that level is that they're able, they're they have been able to perform in, in different levels, particularly with stress, whether it's presenting to an AGM, perhaps it's doing a sales presentation, something like that. And you ask them, you ask them how much were you focused on, on doing things the right way or maybe following the script very tightly and all that. And most of them say, well, I, I didn't, I've been doing this for 20 years and I just let it happen and allowed. And, and so when they reflect on that, they go, oh, why wouldn't that work in golf? And once they get that, once they can reflect on their own experience that had some success, they can see, Oh yeah, you're right. Now, the problem, I'll just be brief on this one, is that unfortunately, golf is part of a culture. And that culture tells us, I mean, we have the tsunami of information coming to us through, you know, those, those, these stupid addictive things we keep in our pockets here. And I'm as addicted as everyone else. That tells us there are the right ways and the wrong ways to do things. And as adults, we want to do it the right way. And particularly men, we, we all want to look good. We don't want to feel it's a squishy word for most men's shame that, you know, we look bad. We don't know what we're doing. We want to look competent. So what do we do? We fall back on on on measures that we think will keep us safe. So we try to do all the right things. And so it's just kind of operating in a fear based way. And again, back to the, the executive who's got experience in, in, you know, executing at a high level in a performance way, they can relate to that and go, Oh yeah, I, I, I don't need to be afraid and I can let things go. Adapting to Your Game on the Course And as you say, you can use whatever words you want. Surrender. Allow. Speaker 1 Such a timely response, one I personally appreciate because if you recall moments before I hit the record button, I tell you straight up, I don't have a script for this. I've got a couple areas I pride myself on doing my research at prep, and that's a good reminder for me that I can surrender, let go, go with the flow, trust myself. And as I'm listening, I'm like, yeah, why can't I bring that exact thing to setting my hands at the top of my backswing and just trusting I can let it go and swing fluidly. So thank you for that. Speaker 2 Oh, you're welcome. But you know, there's all kinds of really interesting research into how the brain works and particularly around physical movements. And so there's kind of like an open, we have an open psych. I'm not getting the word exactly right, but it's an open sort of connection and closed. And it's kind of works the opposite. So when we're trying to say, engage in an activity like hitting a ball at regular speed, but introduce a thought, say at the top of my backswing, I'm going to pause like our good friend Cameron Young, we watched in the Masters that pause. Amazing, eh? So someone say I'm going to pause at the top and then I'm going to transfer my weight. Well, when you're swinging at at what? At whether it be half speed or full speed that you know, trying to introduce that thought interferes with the process of physical movement. It's like you're throwing sand in the gears and you just it just won't happen. However, but you can make changes in your golf swing if you're choosing to do that. If you swing very slowly, you cannot and you feel what you're doing. But if you're trying to do it at even half speed or, you know, to regular speed, that's why we run into trouble when we're trying to fix our swing. And so that's why if you just go with what you got on the golf course, then you'll you'll do much better. I'll just I'll just go on a little bit more. There's a very cool interview with Victor Hovland. And basically he was answering a question of a reporter asking, you know, how do you, you know, what do you do when your golf swings? You're not hitting it great on the golf course. And he said, well, you just adapt. So if you're tended to pull it left that day, well, maybe aim a little bit more right. It's as simple as that. You just you just tried to adapt with what you got. Now, if you got a two way miss going, well, that might be harder, but it's just the game is not. There's no great secret to this game and there's there's no there's no secret sauce to getting into the zone or anything like that. But generally the more we I'll go back to your word and and you see, men hate this stuff. Really the idea of surrender. Are you kidding? Run away. That doesn't sound like what men do. We're supposed to be ride our horse and you know, into battle and we're gonna we're gonna wrestle this to the ground. But when you allow things to happen, we then can. Access this natural talent and skill that we already have. I mean, if you, you know, you probably because of your podcast, you probably draw insane people as I do. And our, our show, we get very good golfers to amateurs. So we get, we get men who shoot, you know, anywhere from like, you know, 70s to 85, nineties or so. If you could shoot 90, you're a competent golfer, you've already got a fairly functional swing and with women, you shoot 100 or so, the same thing. So when you just go to the golf course and, and allow that to happen and hit your shots and just do your best, good things can happen. That said, you know you still need to work on your on your awareness of things like fundamentals like alignment, ball position, posture, things like that. And yes, you can improve your game if you work in little segments on areas of improvement. Everyone wants to improve their ball striking. Speaker 1 So take us a step further because you know it coming back to that Lee Trevino quote and even the Victor Hovland example, you just this, this is the swing that you've shown up with today. You make it work. And I love how you reiterated there isn't some secret sauce at the at the top level. That's still the adaptability is as strong as ever. Talk to me about your approach or your stance on the warm up period before a round. The goal is to get out there on the course, to trust, to surrender, to let it go, to not be Mr. Fix It or Mr. Tinkerer. How do you educate, let's say your clients on creating a warm up routine prior to a round that sets them up for success and gives them the chance to play to their potential? Speaker 2 OK, First off, I always allow, I always have a discussion with golfers about what type of person are you and how can you be true to yourself? And so if you're someone who thinks it's necessary to hit through the bag from wedge to driver, now you know, you might go like, you know, wedge 8 iron 6 iron 4 hybrid driver, fine, that's fine. But I there's also people who want to just hit a few putts, hit a few wedge shots, maybe hit a couple drivers and they're good to go. Or you're like Bruce Litzke from the 70s and 80s who never went to the range. So but golfers have this, a lot of golfers have this self consciousness that they have to do it right. So a lot of them have this idea that they have to go to the range, you know, an hour in advance and do all this stuff and you don't, you just do what feels right to you. So to me, OK, so there's that bit. So be true to yourself, to what what you feel is is will make you comfortable. But they call it a warm up for a reason. You want to warm up your body. That's it. And one of the things is no one keeps score in the warm up. OK, so your idea is to go there, get yourself physically warmed up. I know lots of players who they'll even take a towel, they'll lie on the ground because you know, they don't have time to go in the locker room and they'll do some stretching or some yoga type stuff and people will look at you weird while screw them, who cares? And but get that body warmed up. And, and that's the key thing there. Hit some shots, get used to the what the club feels. And yeah, you might start to have a sense of what your dominant shot might be that day. So once you start hitting some say some irons are dry and you notice that let's say you normally draw the ball, but it's hanging out to the right that day. Well, that's your shot that day. No, it's not a time to fix that. And it's just the last thing I'll say about a warm up is you might hit a few shots where you're going to imagine yourself on the say the first two or three holes if you know the course. So you get might hit, you know, might hit a driver, then a seven hour and then you get a part three, you're going to hit. But you know, always have a target in mind. You can also create a fairway with trees in the distance or with flags on the range. And the last thing I would say is leave yourself some time to, to, to putt. And when you putt, just get a feel for the green, how the balls rolling, that kind of thing. Putts of the fringe is a really great way to do it. But I would say end your warm up as if you're going to do 3 putts, as if that's what you're doing on the course. What I'm saying is that you're going to putt as if there's consequence for this. So you say you have a 20 footer, you leave it 2 feet short, you mark it, you go through your routine. And so you do that with about three more putts. Because a lot of times people will go from their warm up to the golf course and now there's a shift in what they're thinking and now it matters. Breaking Free from Expectations And if you haven't prepared yourself for the fact that now it, you know, to you, it matters, you're keeping score, you're not ready for it. So that's just a little little way to to get yourself ready to move into, say, competition mode. Speaker 1 I think you just gave so many of our listeners permission to perhaps lessen their warm up routine or at least do different. Predictable Sabotage in Golf I'm so grateful you shared that. You know, candidly, my listeners know I golfed a good amount in like elementary, middle school, little and high school. Then I didn't touch a club for 16 years. And when I started playing again, like I'm not exact example, I just recall when I was younger, you go through your bag every other club. Maybe one day it's odd, one day it's even irons and then you go to the putting green, you chip and you putt. That's just all I ever knew and I started to recognize my Type A tendencies coming out. It was taking me 60 to 70 minutes. I got to drive to the club. I've got a newborn. I can't be gone that long. But there was an internal friction to doing different for a while, and so I started coaching myself. Why are you doing it this way? Where does it come from? So I'm so grateful you shared that. It's a good reminder for me and everybody listening. Speaker 2 Yeah, well I'll give you 2 really good examples. So I used to coach the University of GG team, and one of the best players in the province, a guy named Charles Fitzsimmons, he's actually a sports psychologist, PhD. And it was really interesting. The guys on my team and the women would want to be on the range an hour before and they're earnestly hitting shots, you know, doing that thing we just talked about going through the bag all that. Well, Charles would usually show up on the range about 20 minutes before his tea time and he just sort of wriggle around a bit. I forget the name of that Spanish golfer plays on the Champions Tour. He's such a character. He's got like the ponytail and the and and the cigars. I forget his name. He's just a real character. But like it, he just kind of wiggle around a bit, just get himself warmed up and he might hit half a dozen shots while talking to team mates and other people. And then they'd saunter over to the first tee, talk with everybody and then just nuke it down the fairway. The Complexity of Golf Performance And you know, Charles, he won a lot of events like that. So, you know, he just had that approach. But also, I coach a high school player and he's like, a lot of high school players become very, very good very fast. And so like, this young man could shoot 60 sevens like this. But once he went to tournaments, he thought he had to do this long warm up. And I went, Max, just do what? Just do what you want to do. And he says, well, I don't even like warming up. I said, well, just do what you need to do, man. And so he didn't even really, he, he might go to the range a little bit and maybe 10 minutes or 5 minutes and then he'd go and then he could perform. So Max started to play the way Max plays, not like everyone expects him to do or what is the right way to do it. We get trapped into this right way of doing it. It's it's, it's, it's like putting the shackles on. Speaker 1 Yeah, really. Well said. So building off of that, you know, you've been coaching and around the game for a long period of time, enough to see some of these common patterns repeat themselves. I'm curious, what's one of the most, let's say, predictable ways that golfers sabotage a breakthrough right before it's about to happen? Understanding Variance in Golf Sabotage a breakthrough? Well, I would say a lot of times people want to nail down the exact thing that they're doing. So let's say someone has a couple of rounds in which they had a a particular swing, thought it could be, we'll come back. And usually it's something, usually it's something technical in their swing. So let's go with someone felt that they transferred their weight, you know, so they felt at the top of the swing, they felt, you know, a good portion of their weight. Again, the right-hander had had come in to their trail leg. And then they really felt that, wow, they made this nice transference, you know, posted up as as a lot of people say, now onto that left leg. And so he has a good round or even a good nine and starts. And so he thinks, this is the thing, this is my thing. I, I, I'm going to join the tour now, you know, my index is going to drop. I'm going to wax all my buddies and win the money, all this. And so then they go out. And so they become, this is the thing they fixate on. And then they go out and then and it doesn't work and it doesn't work again. And they went like, what happened to this? This magic thing went poof and there's again, there's science there because it's not into working memory. It's just it's just something that they're thinking about and now their body works differently. So a lot of times golfers will sabotage themselves by thinking about it's it's a specific swing move. Expectation Management in Golf And sometimes we just kind of get lucky that, you know, in that day that where we're moving and it feels, but it's rarely the thing it's everything gets a whole golf is golf is technical, physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and social. It's all those things. So if you take it down to just one thing technical, well then you're not paying attention to the other 5. Speaker 1 Yeah, I, I love that example and it's something I found like it can be so difficult to determine what was actually responsible for that really great round or the string of great rounds. And I can draw back on my poker experience a lot. And when I used to play professionally, like, it was really easy to mistake of a very profitable session as a great, oh, I'm the best player in the world. I made all the right decisions. But that's why, you know, I had a coach to go unpack those decisions. Like, actually, you made 15 horrible decisions, but variance was on your side and the numbers worked out in your favor. And similarly, on a golf course, whether it's one of those six things in place or a couple good lies, bouncers are, as we often joke, as Country Club members, you know, members bounce off the trees. That should have been OB, but somehow it's in the fairway. Cameron Young got a good taste of that a couple times this last weekend. There's always so much more to it and golf it, at least in my experience. The Writing Journey of 'Getting Unstuck' It can be difficult to pinpoint, which is why you have to focus on continuing to improve your whole self because you bring your whole self to the course. Speaker 2 Yeah, right. Well, the word that I'm going to glom onto that you use, there was variance. I mean, no one operates at at an optimal level all the time. It's part of being human. Like we're flawed. We're flawed beings. It just happened. Things happen all the time. So we're flawed, but we also have all these these these gifts. And the more we develop our skill, then we're able to perform better than whatever we're at. But we're always going to have variance. And so that's why one of the things I tell golfers is stop trying to make birdies. Seriously, stop trying to make birdies because usually what ends up happening is you hit end up hitting it too far past and then you make a three putt, which is a totally unforced error. So you have to allow for the variances that sometimes the ball will come up a little bit short. That's fine. You just, you have a tap in for, you know, par for your bogey. And other times it'll go maybe a bit past, but sometimes a bit further past, but it'll balance out in the wash. And, and so variance is a great, is a great way to look at it over the long term. Look at Rory McIlroy, he's, you know, talk about variance. You know, 2 amazing rounds Wednesday, sorry, Thursday, Friday, and then Saturday variance showed up, you know, in terms of, of some decisions he made that weren't that great #11 Oh my gosh. And he had the lefts going and then he went had a range session and kind of got it figured out a little bit and, and then he it, it balanced out for him. I'll just leave you with this one part about we're on variance. So Scott Fawcett, I think is this wonderful guy who has the the decade system. And I love what he says about putting. He says sometimes the hole gets in the way. I. Speaker 1 Was thinking the same thing as you said that I've had Scott on here many times and that's it. That resonated immediately. Speaker 2 Yeah, he's that guy has done so much, I think in terms of allowing golfers to reduce the pressure on themselves because of what he's called expectation management. And when we'd expect ourselves to be perfect and look good and always play well, Yeah, you're setting yourself up for for some pretty crappy golf through that. So if you, if you know, I mean, that's like I was talking one of my college players this week and he's in a qualifier and he talks about he's got he's one under cruising around If you get 7 or eight holes and he makes a double bogey and then he makes a bogey because he's still sort of upset about it. Target Audience for 'Getting Unstuck' And I said double bogeys happened to everybody. You know, Walter Hagen, you know a legend of I think the 1920s golfer, he just said, I expect, you know, I make one double bogey around and when it comes I go, OK, there it is, done and move on. Speaker 1 I like that. So I'd love to hear, before we get into the meat and potatoes of the book you've written, what was your experience like writing this particular book? And this is coming from an author currently working on another book myself and just loving how challenging yet rewarding the writing process is. So my question for you, Tim, is what's one thing you learned about yourself in writing this book? Speaker 2 Now you're referring to the Getting Unstuck book. Speaker 1 Correct. Yes, I probably should have included the title, but there you go. Thank you. Well. Speaker 2 That's fine. That's fine. Yeah. OK. What did I learn about myself? I learned that it's. It's OK to have a plan and it's sort of two things and not to be so worried about doing it right. So this was the first book that I wrote from my personal professional and experiential. There's a bit of redundancy here experience. Most of the other books that I wrote were based on my approach as a as a journalist. I wrote the biography of MO Norman. So it's like narrate what went on. But this this book. So I was trying to do what non fiction coaches say to do, and that is to just write and write and write and then worry about it later, you know, bringing it all together. The Key Takeaway: Awareness And so I ended up writing for about, oh, I don't know what it's 14-16 months and I had this freaking epic tome and I went, wait a SEC, I am not going to get this edited and no one's going to read. Want to read, you know, all this words. So it just came to me and went, you know what, there's some pretty solid practices that I have in this book. So I just went, OK, what can we do in terms of putting out something that's, that's concrete? I, I tend to get into the, I, I tend to get kind of high, not high, yeah, high minded, whatever. I look at things from a very big picture aspect. And I, and one of the things I need to do more of my life is to drill down and be more practical. And if my wife was listening to this, she'd be howling, laughing right now. So it just occurred to me that there were 7 pretty solid practices that I had in that book. So I went, you know what? We're just going to focus on those and we'll create, put some little stories, first person experiences between them. And it came out really nicely. I was really pleased with how it came out. It's been out for about, I don't know, 18 months now. And the reception was really, really nice. And I'm, I was, you know, from a, from a readability standpoint coming into, I don't know, it's 160 pages or something. 150 said it read well and stood up. And, and so I just learned, I think a little bit more about let's, let's, let's be really practical with how we're going to do do this. So there was that. Speaker 1 I love that. So who's the book specifically for? Who were you keeping in mind as you wrote that book and brought it all together? Speaker 2 Well, the book title is getting unstuck. 7 Transformational Practices for Golf Nerds. That's the audience. So the audience is not, you know, someone who plays, you know, 3-4 times a year in company tournaments and you know the, you know, the, the, the scramble with, you know, that type of thing. And that's, that's all fine, that's good. But my experience as someone who's just totally obsessed, obsessed deep golf nerd, you know, I've been through the wars as a golfer and, and, and as a coach, I've seen it. And so I went, I've got to do something to try to alleviate the suffering out there. So it's, it's the golf, It's the person who you know, they, you know, they're, they're in an elevator and there's a mirror and they went, oh, I'm going to check out my stance here a little bit, you know, or they're, you know, they're, you know, they get, they get back from the golf course and, and they're significant. How was your day? Not very good. And, you know, they spend all afternoon fixating on what they did wrong. You know, they're going to try and do chores around the house or outside, but the whole time they're thinking about their golf swing and they're sneaking looks at their phone and and then they're going to they're dying to get back to the range to try and figure things out. So it's for people like that who just, I mean, they have golf in their soul, but that love of the game can also be, can also torment you because you, you, you want to play at such a high level. You love the game, everything about it. But that, that craving that, that desiring so much of that is what in fact creates your suffering. And as the Buddhists say, you know, it's, you know, the, we create our own suffering. And largely it's through that that desiring that wanting it so bad. Speaker 1 Really well said. Is there one key take away that you especially hope every reader takes from this book? Speaker 2 OK, Key take away would be that we'll come back to the a word awareness. If if you, if you want to change something, whatever it is in your life, in your golf, you need to have an awareness of what you actually do. And most of us do not. I mean, it happens to us all in terms of thinking, you know, on the golf course. So they had we, you know, say we're going along, we're even par for for three or four holes and think, oh, maybe today's the day I break, you know, whatever. And then next thing you know, that double, then a bogey. And then it's like, Oh my God, I suck. You know what's wrong with me? You know again. And the usual thing is to try and fix what's going on. It's just like a disease that golfers have. So if we have the awareness, oh wait a SEC, I'm doing that thing again. I'm ranting at myself, I'm calling myself names, I'm tense, I'm not paying attention to my partners. I'm not even, you know, it's a beautiful day and I have 0 awareness of that. But mainly I don't. I have 0 awareness of what I am doing. But when you're aware, then you can change. So I'm going to look up here. So one of my favorite quotes that I use in coaching comes from Viktor Frankel, who wrote an amazing book called Man's Search for Meaning and tough read, but amazing book. So what he says, and I'm looking up at my board here where I have it, the quote against it says between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom. I can't think of a much better quote that a a golfer, a business person, a person in the personal relationship could take and apply to their life. So we're not captured by our habitual ways of doing things because most of the things that we do are defensive measures. We've used since we were children to keep ourselves safe, to protect us strategy stop working and they become particularly apparent in golf. So when we come aware stimulus a double bow, you know, a slice, you know a couple of three putts stimulus Well, I have a choice on how I'm going to behave. Come on, let's be some, let's be some grown up people here. And, and then I can choose how I'm going to respond. And, and once we're sort of in that space of a, of awareness of what's going on, it's called meta. It's like being aware of being aware. It's like meta awareness. And you would know that if we could be in that space even just a little bit, we can start to make little changes and not get caught up in those habitual behaviors as much and start to develop some some new approaches that do serve us. Incredibly well said for those of you listening. Speaker 1 Those last five minutes, absolute gold. Go back and re listen. So Tim, I want to get you out of here on this question, one of my favorite questions to ask every guest that has chosen to join me for this fantastic conversation. I want you to imagine that centrally located on a golf course, gigantic billboard viewable from all 18 tea boxes and you have the opportunity to write one single last message on that billboard for all to see. What are you writing on that billboard? Speaker 2 Gratitude, gratitude, Gratitude that you have the financial means to play golf gratitude you have a healthy body that allows you to do this. Gratitude that you can go out and swing a ball. Gratitude that you get to be on God's green earth and enjoy it and be with friends and, and to, to give thanks to whatever your belief system works, whether you believe, you know in universe, a tree, a God, a God, whatever. When we say thank you, it brings us to present moment, which we're all seeking. You hear it over and over again, the present moment. So when we have gratitude, we're not shooting. It should be this or it could be another way. No, we're in this space where everything's pretty good. Not I It may be not be ideal, it may be the rain might be coming sideways that day, but you get to be a chance and have an adventure. And to me, that's what a round of golf is. It's like get on the first tee. It's like you and three other people, you push that RAF into the river and you go along together and you get off on the at the 18th tee and you shake hands and maybe you never see those people again. But you've been able to have this adventure together with other people in the world and particularly with with yourself playing an amazing game. I love that. Speaker 1 Thank you for sharing that and thank you for joining me. I'm curious, where can our listeners go to learn more about you, connect with you and to, of course, buy your book well. Speaker 2 Thank you. Well, in terms of buying the book Amazon as just go on there and the it's called getting unstuck 7 transformational practices for Golf nerds and my website, isoconnorgolf.ca. And if you're interested in reading articles about the game, about life, I write A blog on sub stack and it's T oconnor.subsec.com or just go on sub stack and search for my name, Tim O'Connor and you'll find my stuff. And I do a podcast. Fantastic. Yes, you do. I do. Yeah, the podcast I do with an amazing Co host named Humble Howard Glassman, who is he's been a plus handicap a few years and legendary broadcaster in the Ontario, in Ontario province and a stand up comedian. So we've been doing we're in our 11th year now. We just did our 314th episode I think. So it's really congratulations. It's really fun. Speaker 1 Yeah, so. Speaker 2 Thanks for allowing me to shamelessly plug all the different things that I do. Absolutely, and I'll put links in the. Speaker 1 Show notes below for everybody listening. Tim, thank you so much for this enjoyable and incredibly impactful conversation. Thank you. Thanks. Speaker 2 For the invite, everyone enjoyed it, absolutely. And for? Speaker 1 Those of you listening, thank you for tuning into another conversation. I know there was so much value, tangible action steps, and relatability wrapped up into the last 4550 minutes. Go back and listen again, take notes, and most importantly, take action on what it is Tim has taught you here today. And if you haven't done so already, it takes 30 seconds to leave a genuine rating and review, whether that be on Apple podcast, Spotify, or wherever you're listening to today's show. Again, your ratings or reviews give me the street cred to help have a phenomenal guest just like Tim on the show. So thank you so much for doing that. Have a great rest of your day. Hit him straight this weekend and we'll catch you in the next.