Attitude – Five attitudes

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Here are five attitudes that will change your life:

  1. People can change anything
  2. There is no failure, only feedback
  3. People are NOT their behaviours
  4. Respect the other person’s model of the world
  5. The meaning of communication is the response you get

The attitude you portray outwardly is a result of your inner state. You might like to think of your inner state as a feeling. Most often, our state is described by a ‘feeling’ word: angry, happiness, joyful, accepted, guilty, peaceful for example.

I’m going to look at these one at a time and we’ll discuss the implications for your golf and for your leadership.

Attitude 1 – People can change anything!

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It’s obvious that some states are good for you, and some are not so good right? Anyone like to feel angry – I mean actually enjoy it? I don’t think so… if you believe that you enjoy feeling angry, I’d suggest that you have a more powerful result from your anger that – perhaps it’s power? The angry boss who persists in it because it’s the only way they can feel powerful – strip away their anger and they crumble.

Anger – directed at self, others or the outside world – for whatever ‘justifiable reason’ harms you. Firstly. think about something really pleasant. Remember the time when you were ecstatically happy or joyful? Whenever that time was, whatever you were doing (and there’s no need to be shy, but keep it to yourself OK ☺ ) live in that moment, see what you saw then, hear what you heard, feel how you felt, smell what you smelled, and taste what you tasted. There? Good isn’t it. Now remember that moment, because I want you to quickly get back here in a moment.

Allow the good feeling to dissipate – quick wasn’t it? Still nice and lingering just a little.

Now, remember the last time you were angry. Whatever you were angry about – a poor shot, a child misbehaving, an argument with your better half, your boss at work, a customer… what do you see? what do you hear? What do you feel? Nasty isn’t it? Unpleasant, perhaps a knotted feeling, certainly you’ll notice that certain muscles are tense. Now, go back to the happy memory and stay there as long as it takes to replace the feeling.

As you come back into the room with me, you’ll have noticed a difference between anger and happiness (or joy or whatever word you like to use). It’s likely that you took longer to dissipate the feeling of anger than that of happiness? Why is this? Well, the feeling of anger most often manifests itself in tension – physical tension – most often in the stomach, the shoulders and the head – but it can be anywhere in the body. Where’s yours?

You are an athlete right? Well you play golf, perhaps athlete is a little too strong for now, but you are nonetheless. So you are aware of having muscle ache, or ‘the stitch’? When you tense your muscles intensely or over a prolonged period – the muscles burn energy much faster – too fast for proper nutrition – and a toxin is left in the muscle tissue – which takes a while for the blood system to clear up. Anger creates tension which leaves a toxin in the body which takes time to clean. Too much, too often and your body will tire of this – requiring more replacement energy – that’s why angry people eat more than happy people – oh and usually they eat faster too. IT’s not the only reason, some people are just lazy and fat, but you, you are an athlete and do exercise and stretch plenty. You know that you need to keep stretching those muscles don’t you? The more flexibility and elasticity in your muscles, the better right? So, if anger creates tension – does this benefit flexibility and elasticity? No, of course not. So not only does anger fill you with toxins, it reduces your ability to swing well. Convinced that this anger thing isn’t good for you yet? Good, let’s move on with what you want instead.

Alignment – The hardest thing in golf is not hitting the ball!

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Many people who play golf have never taken a lesson!
They get introduced to the game by a friend or family member and learn to play by going along to the golf course and playing.
When you learn this way, by instinct as it were, you develop a muscle memory of your technique and a discovery process of what works and what doesn’t, hopefully repeating the positive patterns that achieve roughly what you want to achieve. Someone who finds that their ‘natural” swing slices the ball, will compensate by aiming to the left of the ball so that it will slice back onto the fairway.

The hardest thing in golf is not hitting the ball, it is consistently hitting the ball straight – or at least in the direction intended. You’ll hear many a golfer say something along the lines of “I was hitting the ball really well today, but my score doesn’t reflect it”. The reason for most is that they aren’t aligning their body and their swing with the target.

Thinking back to the blog on Goals and Vision for a moment. If you can clearly see your goal, both in your mind?s eye and in reality – it would be strange if you faced your club at a 90 degree angle to it? How about 5 degrees? How about 1 degree? Perhaps if you are compensating for your very “natural” slicing habit but let?s take a quick trigonometry reminder. You see, those maths classes were going to prove useful!

Let’s assume, for a moment that you have a clean fairway shot to the green 135 yards straight ahead and plan to use your trusty 7-iron in that straight line, oh, and you would strike the ball clean and straight. Aligning yourself and your club just 5 degrees away from the straight line will put your ball about 6 yards away from your target – assuming that you still hit the ball the full yardage. You don’t need me to tell you that 6 yards from the hole is usually the rough, or a bunker, or a pond. And this is when everything else is working very very well indeed. The added complication with alignment in golf is the club face alignment. 5 degrees off centre alignment with an open or closed face, will reduce the yardage of the ball because the ball will not loft as high – it’ll hit the ground sooner which robs the ball of some momentum depending on the friction between the ball and the ground. You don’t need me to tell you that a ball landing on the fairway rolls further than a ball rolling in the rough. Oh well, I told you anyway.

So how do you ensure alignment with your target. In the words of Harvey Pennick, “Take Dead Aim”. Well that’s pretty simple and something you can easily practice on the range. Many practice ranges have sticks or plastic arrows – you align one with your feet and another with your tee or ball, directing them both in parallel to your target. Swing, thwack and low and behold, on the practice range, the ball flies straight to the target. You do it again, and again, and again – eventually removing the visual markers and “imagining” them. Settling yourself calmly and your G.A.S.P. (grip, address, stance, posture) and “thwack” off the ball flies straight to target. If it were that easy, we’d all be able to do it. The physics is unarguable, the theory straightforward, the requirements from you are not overly demanding – yet, somehow, the swing just doesn?t align to the target. You spend a small fortune on your highly-engineered custom clubs to eradicate the anomaly, and still you miss the target.

The physical process is important, don’t let anyone persuade you different. A good golf coach will see if there is anything to correct in your swing that may be causing the problem, but only if the problem is physical. 95% plus of the problem is not physical, it’s mental. It comes back to your unconscious giving your body instructions. When you?re on the range, you?re hitting ball after ball after ball. Concentrating on your technique and getting into a rhythm.

Out on the course, your hitting a ball, club back in bag, pick up bag, walk, walk, walk, chatter, talk, “oh that’s interesting?”, thinking, “I wonder if my better half is still angry with me?”, “I must finish that report”. “oh and that email I received.” “so and so was a bit odd today.” walk walk walk, and then getting closer to your ball. “ah there it is, a bit of long grass around it, but otherwise, a pretty nice lie, hey and not bad – a couple of feet further to the side than I wanted, but I’m getting better. I wonder if I’m going to get this right, now which club, hmm” and on and on. How much of your game is hitting balls, and how much is not hitting balls? 
See, if you play a game like squash, say. You don’t have  much time after hitting the ball, before it’s your turn to hit it again – and that short time is spent focussing on where the ball is, your opponent is and so on – a few seconds at most. Now the brain works very very quickly, but essentially you don?t have much time to drift into other matters – it’s all about the ball.
How much time do you spend aligning yourself – and by now I think you realise that I mean mentally and physically, before each shot.

Alignment is not just a physical process – that funny little waggle that golfers do. It’s about training your mind to align as well. Taking each goal for each and every shot, envisioning how it is going to be successful. Settling the body and focussing your mind – trusting your technique to deliver what it delivers. What you focus on, you will get more of?

In training your mind to give you an advantage, there is an important element. Do NOT reinforce the bad. Now if you’ve stayed with me so far, you know that the unconscious cannot process negatives, and I just gave you a negative. But that’s to get it out of the way so we can now focus on the positive. Reinforce the good.

I’ll believe it when I see it!

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In almost every session we run, someone will raise their requirement for empirical evidence or “solid proof” before they will commit to applying the tools and techniques that will bring them benefit.

Beliefs are similar to values in that they are part of our personal guidance system. Beliefs often inform values, and values in turn re-inforce our standing in regard to our beliefs.

Beliefs are a critical part of what makes us who we are, but there is a distinction that I find helpful. A belief is something that we have no tangible, undeniable evidence to support. It is impossible to measure beliefs. We simply believe this to be so. Values, on the other hand, are measurable and quantifiable in some form – this does not make them all tangible, but the very fact that we place the word ‘value’ on something means that we can measure it in relation to other values. It is true that you can value your beliefs, and you can believe in your values (if you didn’t you wouldn’t hold them!)

I don’t want to lose anyone here, so bear with me as we delve briefly into the world of quantum physics. Have you ever heard someone, perhaps yourself, say ,”I’ll believe it when I see it”. Whatever this is about, from the belief in God to the belief that someone will do as they have said they will do, matters not. According to quantum physics, we have to believe it before we see it.

Let me take a short detour here. You believe that you exist right? You believe that what you see in front of you right now exists, right? Can you prove it? I hear of chorus of “of course I can!”, go on then, prove it!

…

You see, I can prove that you are in fact made up of more space than of matter (or rather there are many very clever scientific people who can prove it), so do ‘you’ exist, or are you merely a collection of atoms that appear to have a tangible presence. So when you ‘miss’ the ball on a swing, you can rightfully state that you chose to move a few lighter atoms but you have in fact struck the air above the ball with great accuracy and that air is now exactly where you wanted it.

Now, you dream, right? You’ve had dreams that are very real to you. How do you know that they were the dreams and this is reality? You believe it!

Why am I saying this? Because you cannot see something that you don’t believe in!

You cannot prove something if you don’t believe first! I am constantly asked for ‘proof’ that this or that works, that this is THE way to improve your golf, or that this is THE right way to develop your leadership. The problem is that, until you believe it works, you won’t see that it does work.

Those in the know about this already know that we work from victory not for victory.

Let’s take another small example? you watch television I assume, and you’ve grown up knowing that television works – that radio waves containing a signal are transmitted from a TV station, are picked up by your television through the air, or through cables. Have you ever actually seen a radio wave? No? You believe they exist though.

‘Yes, but the evidence is seen on the TV’.

OK, little voice of disbelief, turn the TV off. Do radio waves still exist?

It’s a little like the question ‘If a tree falls down in the woods and nobody is there to see it, does it make a noise?’. When you were a child, you climbed into the fridge to see if the light stayed on when the door was shut? No, that’s just me, you are wiser than I – by the way, it goes off.

Why is this important? Well, your belief in yourself and using these tools and techniques is critical to their success. Your belief informs your unconscious mind about any particular shot – and this will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
You step up to the tee on your least favourite hole on the course. You prepare for the shot, you utter to yourself “I will make this drive, this time it will be different, this time, I will strike the ball square on, the ball will soar through the air, and following a graceful arc it will land right smack in the middle of the fairway exactly where I’m aligned”. Your unconscious mind is informed by this belief and promptly provides you with a swing that will support your belief.

How do you train yourself to do this? You spend several practice sessions building a new belief about your ‘nemesis’ hole (any hole for that matter). You visualise making the stroke, sending the ball to exactly where you want it. You do this in your mind’s eye, calmly, cool-ly. Not only have you seen what you will see with your own eyes, you’ve heard what you will hear with your own ears, you’ve felt how you will feel having made the shot, you’ll taste victory and smell success, exactly as if you had achieved it. I’ll repeat that, exactly as if you had achieved it. Let this be true, and it will be so.

By doing this, you are stepping into the future and acting as if you had conquered the hole and provided your unconscious with new images and new neural pathways to access now and in the future.

This is altering your belief. With practice, you will indeed step up to that tee and your unconscious self belief is of someone who has conquered that hole and will do so now.

In order for us to improve ourselves, in any field of life, we must reach beyond our senses – those of our conscious mind – to what we can be and do with the vast, often untapped, capabilities of our mind. I’m sure that you have seen or read the metaphor of the mind being like an iceberg. What we see above the surface, the readily experienced part of our mind is a tiny fraction of what lies beneath normal awareness. If you consider that our conscious mind makes up only about 5% of our total awareness, we all give a disproportionate power over our lives to our conscious mind – and it our conscious mind that prevents us from reaching our full potential.

This is why, in visualisation, we go beyond simply ‘seeing’ a picture of our success to the full range of senses – building a rich, realistic, high fidelity experience as if it were real. This is stepping into the future. And you all know that it is much easier to look back into the past and see what happened to get here than it is to see the future. Hindsight is 20/20 – and stepping into the future provides you with just that. Now that you believe in the tangible, real, success of winning that competition, striking that perfect drive, chipping that perfect lie onto the green and sinking that 50ft put – you can look back and see how you got there – that’s your training plan!

Diligence and understanding – the means of success

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Imagine being 10 times richer than Bill Gates and Warren Buffet combined! Not possible? But it is!

There’s plenty of books on Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, to discover how they made their fortunes. All you have to do is create the next critical component of everyone’s lives, or invest in absolutely the right thing at exactly the right time. The track records and phenomenal success of these businessmen are inspiring, yet how can we apply this to our own lives? Yet, there’s another whose wealth utterly dwarfs that of today’s richest people, if the accounts of his wealth are accurate. King Solomon’s wealth would today top 1 trillion dollars!

King Solomon’s secret? At the age of 12, he ascended the thrown of Israel when, according to the Old Testament, God appeared to him and offered to grant him one desire. Solomon did not ask for riches and honour, he asked for wisdom. Concerned that he was young and inexperienced, Solomon asked God for something that would help him rule effectively and judiciously lead the people. Because Solomon asked for wisdom (or a ‘Hearing Heart) and did not ask for riches and honour, God blessed him with wealth also.

Solomon was bestowed with riches and honour far greater than any king before or after him. His sage advice was sought by rulers of nations. His success and wealth increased beyond even your vivid imagination. His gold reserves are the subject of legend, his palace immense. He wrote the book of Proverbs in the Bible which not only survives but his writing on being diligent and understanding have influenced the world for 3 thousand years.

So what can we learn from Solomon about diligence and understanding?

He who cultivates his land will have plenty of bread, but he who follows worthless people and pursuits will have poverty enough. (Proverbs 28:19 – Amplified)

Surf around the Internet and you soon find people guaranteeing you instant riches with little or no work. Follow such get-rich-quick schemes and you show your naivety and ignorance. Solomon cautions against following worthless people as leading to poverty – those who work hard will reap the rewards of their efforts.

The appetite of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, but the appetite of the diligent is abundantly supplied. (Proverbs 13:4 – Amplified)

Those whose desire is high yet their diligence to work is slight remain unfulfilled. Having a great dream is one thing, now to put in the effort required to achieve it.

The hand of the diligent will rule, but the slothful will be put to forced labor. (Proverbs 12:24 – Amplified)

Lazy or slothful people have their time and effort dictated by others. Most commonly these days, the banks or some mother financial institution become the rulers of the lives of those lazy with their finances. Instead of choosing how to enjoy our disposable income, we are forced to sue it to repay debts from living beyond ourselves earlier.

But I’ve worked hard, very hard! I put in more hours than anyone else. I just haven’t had the breaks I need. It’s not my lack of diligence, it’s the economy, the government, the system, the market, the competition… (choose one or many). Yes, but what is it all for?

Define your dream

Where there is no vision, the people perish (Proverbs 29:18 – KJV).

Without a vision or a dream, we are directionless. We lose motivation to do much at all, we’re not committed to anything. Our energy is sapped and our joy disappears. But bring your dream forward into a clear vision and the opposite is true. You’ll find the spark that ignites the fuel to send you rocketing towards your dream.

Wake up and smell the coffee.

How long will you sleep, O sluggard? When will you arise out of your sleep?… poverty come like a robber or one who travels [with slowly but surely approaching steps] and your want like an armed man [making you helpless] (Proverbs 9,11 – Amplified).

Procrastination and excuses are real enemies that cause ineffective hours that lead to inactive days, unproductive weeks, meaningless months and wasted years. Pointless activities that yield no fruit and a life of regret and unfulfilled dreams.

What I need is time management! Time is relative, but it simply isn’t within your powers to manage it. Get off the sofa and give your dream a chance.

Partner with others

A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire; he rages against all wise judgement (Proverbs 18:1 – NKJV)

A wise leader develops a team of talented people around them and a network of friends and partners who support so that they become rich in social capital. When we isolate ourselves, we cut off that all important support. Have you ever met a wealthy, successful and fulfilled person who was completely isolated and did it entirely alone? I didn’t think so.

Solomon was the richest man who ever lived, yet his true wealth was in his godly wisdom. We can all learn from this – and whilst we may not like the advice, you know that living a life of purpose and godly diligence will satisfy.