Golf Beneath The Surface
Performance Consultant Dr. Raymond Prior and Golf Instructor Chase Cooper talk about all things golf in their new podcast titled 'Golf Beneath The Surface.' Dr. Raymond has worked with some of the best players in the world and brings a unique perspective on what it takes to get in the right mindset to perform when the stakes are the highest. Chase Cooper has travelled the world educating coaches how to use some of the latest golf technologies, taught some of the games greatest golfers, and played at a very high level. Together Dr. Raymond and Chase make a team unmatched in helping you the listener play better golf.
Golf Beneath The Surface
The Thoughts That Create Pressure
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In this episode of Golf Beneath the Surface, Chase and Raymond unpack how the way we think about our thoughts can either create freedom or create pressure. They explore why self-talk is more than just “positive vs. negative,” how players unknowingly shrink their margin for error, and why that leads to anxiety, rigidity, and unstable confidence.
Raymond breaks down the difference between A-shaped and V-shaped thoughts—one style creating constriction and fear, the other creating space, resilience, and a more stable kind of confidence. This is a powerful episode for golfers, parents, and coaches who want to better understand pressure, self-talk, and how to perform with more freedom.
Raymond Prior (00:02.421)
Welcome everyone to the Golf Beneath the Surface podcast. I am your cohost, Raymond Pryor with me as always, my cohost, Chase Cooper, golf instructor extraordinaire. Chase, do think there are more tornado warnings where you live or where I live right now? No. I was hoping you weren't going to say that.
Chase Cooper (00:16.62)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Again, you heard my take on tornadoes. They're not as exciting as everybody makes them out to be.
Raymond Prior (00:28.565)
What I just saw a movie that called tornadoes or twisters or something and they're very exciting and romantic apparently too.
Chase Cooper (00:32.65)
Vvvvv
That's funny. My dad saw that movie and I was like, can I take the kids to it? And he goes, you better not. It's going to scare the tar out of them.
Raymond Prior (00:39.639)
No, don't do that. do that. You know, when I, speaking of fear, when I was 12, I saw Jaws for the first time. I loved sharks growing up, but like actually watching the movie, I didn't swim for like two summers, dude. Not even in like, even in the pool, not a chance, you know? It sure, sure felt pretty real.
Chase Cooper (00:54.83)
Not going in the water dude.
Dun dun dun dun dun. It's funny too, I remember little movies growing up. I remember watching the Wizard of Oz and the flying monkeys. I always thought monkeys could fly for the longest time. And I just remember those things scared the crap out of me. It's funny how those traumatic events play a role in our experiences.
Raymond Prior (01:19.029)
It's in how we think about things and then how, whether we actually engage with them and if we do, how we actually do that, which kind of an interesting segue into the topic of today, which is kind of looking at our thoughts and how they impact us as we interact with the experiences of our lives.
Chase Cooper (01:41.09)
Yeah, I get a lot of questions about self-talk. How does self-talk play? and you've covered it on here. We've talked about it some, like, I'm just trying to get my kids to recognize, you know, when they're, you know, I kind of joke with them and say, are you adding drama to the result? Are you making it bigger than it needs to be? You know, and like, if I hit a bad shot, does it mean I'm a bad player? Does it mean I suck or I'm terrible or all that stuff? And so, you know,
One of the things that you cover in the book is A versus V shape thoughts. And I've seen you do a presentation on it too that I thought was really good, but we haven't really covered it specifically or dedicated a whole podcast to this. like kind of walk us through some of these, how these thoughts can play a role in our experiences and how they can shape the way we think.
Raymond Prior (02:30.007)
So we might just start by acknowledging that our brain is designed to think. So anything that we are going to talk about today is not about turning thoughts off or suppressing them or ignoring them or.
trying to label them as positive or negative, good or bad, right or wrong, something you should or shouldn't be thinking. But it is important for us to kind of think about our thoughts. So this is a process in psychology, or at least something we're capable of, a capacity we have, which is to think about our thoughts. We call this metacognition, which is what are my thoughts about my thoughts? And so our brain is designed to think. We have...
categorically kind of two types of thoughts as they are presented to us from our brain and nervous system. So the first type is a spontaneous thought, and this is the thought that just pops up. And our brain is designed to think spontaneously in response to both our internal and external environment to try to help us navigate it. You know, our thoughts are essentially either providing us information about our environment or giving our brain tasks to run or representative of those tasks that our brain is running.
Chase Cooper (03:40.43)
So don't shank it, don't hit it right, don't hit it left, like for golf or something.
Raymond Prior (03:42.132)
Yeah, like if I just I always joke around with the players I work with and I'm like, hey, I'm just going to tell you, hey, but just don't think about anything other than trying to play great all day. And they're like, if I said that, what would you say? And then we have a joke where they're basically like, screw yourself. Right. And be like, you're absolutely right. Or if I told you just go think positively all day at one. So I'm not supposed to have a negative thought all day. And two, by the way, what's a positive thought and what's a negative thought. Right.
Chase Cooper (03:54.498)
Yeah.
Raymond Prior (04:05.503)
So spontaneous thoughts just pop up. If you're going to go do anything in your life, your brain is going to spit you thoughts. If it doesn't, that's a real problem for us in the same way that if your heart's not pumping blood and your lungs aren't moving oxygen, it's a real problem for us, right?
Chase Cooper (04:17.742)
So back up to kind of how we started, why is this necessary for the brain? Why it's the reasoning behind it? Yeah.
Raymond Prior (04:22.807)
spontaneous thoughts.
because our brain needs to think way faster than we can recognize our environment. It needs to be able to anticipate things. It needs to take information from our past to help us try to predict our future. Now, again, it's not very good at that in certain ways, but it is very good at that in things that are pretty the same every day. So recognizing certain things or I'm in traffic, let's say I'm driving and someone cuts out in front of me, I need the thought, crap, hit the brakes ASAP. So I need it to be spontaneous. I can't deliberately come up with that or else it'll be too slow.
Right? So again, our brain thinks very fast processes, information is very fast and in a way that we do not directly control spontaneously as a means to try to help us navigate things that are happening very quickly and may indeed be costly to us. Right? Then we also have what we call deliberate thoughts. Deliberate thoughts are like
ones that we often speak where let me think about what I want to think and say, or asking the question, what do I think about this? Where I'm doing so consciously and I'm also doing so on purpose. So we have these two types of thoughts. Spontaneous thoughts just happen. They often come from the faster, kind of stronger parts of our brain. And then our deliberate thoughts are often generated and organized by our prefrontal cortex, which again is the rational conscious
rational thinking creative part of our brain, but that's also the slower weaker part of our brain. Right. So we have all these memories that are stored. have all these motor patterns that are stored, all these experiences that are being held in parts of our brain. And oftentimes spontaneous thoughts come from the faster, stronger parts because kind of procedural memory or procedural thinking. And then there's declarative, which is kind of more deliberate stuff coming more from the frontal lobes of our brain. Interesting.
Raymond Prior (06:07.989)
before we continue here. So one of the things that we do as golfers to try to gain control over our circumstances or our golf club or our golf ball is to try to consciously think through technique. We've talked about this before. So consciously thinking through technique in part doesn't work one because it's just too many tasks for our brain to be able to run. And the other part is it is being run from a very slow, weak part of our brain. So it's just far less effective than
you what we might say playing subconsciously, which is not really what it is subconsciously. It's coming from procedural memory, which is much faster and a much stronger part of our brain. This is particularly amplified the better you get at something. So when we're not very good at something or we're trying something new, there's often a lot of working memory, conscious, deliberate thought about what we're doing. But as that becomes a habit, that starts to move more toward.
the stronger, faster parts of our brain procedural memory and these thoughts become very spontaneous. So when players tell me I play my best when I'm not thinking, it's actually that's what their experience with it direct. What's actually happening is the thoughts that they're having, the things they focus on are coming from the fastest, strongest parts of their learning that don't require any effort from you to create.
in which case then it's very fast. And again, your brain is thinking about how to move a golf club and move your body, but it's not having to do so from the slowest we get parts of our brain, which is particularly important when we talk about the types of thoughts we have and whether we have access to that procedural memory.
or the fastest, strongest parts of our brain running tasks that we actually want it to be running in those moments. So just an important thing to understand about how our brain and we generate thoughts that they come in kind of, well, they're gonna happen, but some of them I can control, some of them I can't, and really we don't control our thoughts. So whenever someone says like, I just don't wanna think, I'm like, good luck with that. I don't know how you can do that.
Chase Cooper (07:59.95)
Yeah. You've made an analogy that I've used with a bunch of my players about, know, your thoughts are kind of like waves crashing up against the seashore or the rocks on the shore. Like they're just going to happen. And a lot of times we just don't want to bring judgment to those spontaneous thoughts. The other conversation I've had a lot lately with my players is like, are we supposed to be brain dead when during the one second we're hitting a golf shot and I see you shaking your head no. And I say the same thing. I'm like, to me, and correct me if I'm wrong on this, to me, being brain dead almost opens up.
Raymond Prior (08:25.089)
Yeah.
Chase Cooper (08:29.684)
opens up your brain to more spontaneous thoughts too, if there's not a, if there's not a focus per se or an attention.
Raymond Prior (08:34.071)
Perhaps, but brain dead means like it's not working, right? You're in a coma. So again, and you could kind of say like, okay, well, we get the intention behind that wording about the direct, which is really saying, I don't want to be overthinking, but brain dead means your brain's not producing electricity, which means it's not producing thoughts, which means it can't control your body. So we definitely don't want that. What we might say is that we want our focus to be on what we're doing and doing it freely.
Chase Cooper (08:38.274)
Yeah. Yeah.
Raymond Prior (09:01.161)
when it's actually happening. And what we've talked about in our brain multitasking is that's one task at a time, which doesn't require a ton of thinking. So we've talked about brain waves before. When we are present and in a pursuit-based approach to something, our brain is typically running on low frequency, low intensity brain waves. These are these alpha and theta waves that are basically between four and 12 megahertz, which is another way of saying there's not a ton to think about, so there's not a whole lot of thinking required.
Right? So it's not that your brain's not thinking that it's dead. It's only thinking as much as you need. So think about it like if I'm at rest, I don't have to breathe very deeply and I don't have to breathe very fast because I don't, it's not required. If I go play soccer,
and I'm running like crazy, I'm gonna need to breathe deeper and deep faster because I'm gonna need more oxygen, which is gonna require a different frequency and intensity of breathing. Same thing happens with our heart rate, so on and so forth. So when people are like, I don't wanna think, it's like, no, we wanna think, but we only wanna be thinking about the thing we're doing in the way that we want to do it. And oftentimes, not for everybody, but for many people in an external target type of a way. Having said that.
depending on whatever thoughts we bring to this experience to begin with, and whatever spontaneous thoughts pop up, we may or may not have access to that type of brain activity. So I always push back on the neuroscience that just says, all you gotta do is get somebody target focused. Like technically that is true based on how our brain works in order to create the brain activity that we know is associated with really well played free to free play shots, even close to flow state.
My pushback on that is that caveat is that I'm not bringing anything to that that would add extra tasks to it. Right. And what we can see is based on how we think about things we either do or we do not have space to be present with a task that we're in. Right. Or there are other things that are at the top of the necessity list. So if I just told you, you better not screw this round of golf up.
Raymond Prior (11:04.447)
And then go be present with whatever shot you're about to play in front of you. The window for you to actually do that is really, really narrow. Or it's a very, very circumstantial, which the likelihood of the circumstances meeting your brain in a place where it doesn't feel the need to check off, uh-oh, better not screw this up, is basically you have to play so poorly that you've already screwed it up, which we might notice is a pretty poor strategy for trying to play consistently and to try to play well. So.
Chase Cooper (11:29.23)
So is that why a lot of players like, you know, working with really good players or even talking to some of the great players that have played the game, like sometimes you'll hear them say, yeah, like seeing the line on putting like, yeah, I really saw the line that week or visually, like I always hit really good wet shots through windows, but then sometimes I wouldn't see the windows in the sky or sometimes like, is that a level of freedom or is it still sometimes even more random than that?
Raymond Prior (11:54.454)
be little bit of both. What I would say is the primary influencer on that is what task is your brain really running? If I tell you, dude, you're totally free to hit this putt. If you miss it, you miss it. Not that you want to, but you are. So you're totally free to just try to see this putt, hit it and try to make it. Period. End of sentence. No other tasks attached. No avoidance attached. It's going to be a lot easier for your brain to see a pursuit based line that just kind of feels like it just appears to you. Right. And some days that might come easier than others.
from a like brain, my eyes seeing types of things. But dude, if I tell you, you better not three putt here. On top of that, so now I have a very significant pursuit, I'm sorry, avoidance based task trying to protect me from a future of two putts that doesn't exist yet. So double threat. The idea that you're just gonna really see a line and go, man, I really think that's it because your eyes, which are part of our brain, are gonna be looking for all the places where you could hit it that would cause a three putt.
Chase Cooper (12:31.192)
have to make.
Raymond Prior (12:52.343)
So it's going to be really hard to find a pursuit based thing. So oftentimes when players tell me all I see is hazards, I'm like, what is the avoidance based task? Or as we get into later in our conversation here, what is the A shape thought running the experience right now that of course your focus visually and attentionally is on all the stuff that would you would want to avoid rather than what you would want to pursue. And that's not in a strategic kind of way. That's in a psychological avoidance kind of way, anxiety.
Right? So if I put you in a place where you have basically avoidance based tasks, it's going to be very difficult for us to find pursuit based targets, lines, landing spots, windows, shot shapes, so on and so forth. And certainly to be able to hold those as a visual target or as even an intentional target for however much time we need over a golf ball, which is usually measured in seconds. Right.
Chase Cooper (13:46.678)
So obviously goal of this podcast is A versus V. We've kind of gone a little deeper into some pursuit versus avoidance. But I want to cover this real quick one more time because we've talked about a lot, but I think it's so important. So in a perfect world, if we're bringing freedom to it, the research shows that if we can be on an external target and we're hitting to something or swinging to something that's kind of in the perfect world, that's the goal. We're not saying, and I'll let you rephrase it in a second, but like.
We're not saying that swing thoughts don't work as long as we're not relying on the swing thoughts for comfort or guarantees. Cause that that's the part that doesn't work. We, if, if we're filling a inside takeaway because it gives us the best chance to find the middle of the face or we're feeling a little deeper backswing or we're feeling something similar, something small where it gets tricky is the multitasking part of it where we're trying to hit multiple positions in a split second. That's when it becomes difficult. That's when it becomes more of a distraction than necessarily us.
Raymond Prior (14:39.645)
especially trying to consciously think your way into those positions that they are happening physically faster than your conscious thinking brain can really organize that for sure.
Chase Cooper (14:50.134)
Okay, so in the end, the goal is to pursue freely. If you need to have a simple concept or a plan to go give yourself the best chance to swing freely or the best chance to perform your best while swinging freely, then a simple swing thought is never a problem. In a perfect world, if we could do that, it would be again as external as we can get it and chasing more of that focus onto a specific target that's a window in the sky or a distance or whatever.
Raymond Prior (14:53.484)
Yep.
Raymond Prior (15:18.047)
there is a significant body of research that supports itself for saying that getting people more externally focused, meaning target oriented, vision oriented, something is really, really helpful. There's no body of research anywhere that says having some type of internal or emotion or technical thought is an inhibitor to that until I start adding too many, or there are things that I can't really think through that fast.
or I'm using those to try to create comfort certainty or control. Right, so if I tell you make this swing thought in order to 100 % guarantee your golf ball does not go somewhere, then I'm using a conscious slower, weaker thought to try to create certainty of outcome, meaning really avoid the one I don't. So me hitting it toward a target is first of all, it's not really the primary task. And then the way I'm going about trying to avoid the one I'm doing.
just from a neurological standpoint is really inefficient, meaning it's too slow and it's too weak to keep up with the speed of motion. Again, there's also another body of research that shows that the lower your skill level is or the more newer you are to a skill set, the newer emotion is that oftentimes we need swing thoughts or things to focus on in the motion in order to try to get it to correct. So it is almost never.
that players even at the highest level tell me I don't have any type of swing thought or some type of swing cue or whatever phrasing they use for it. What I'm always just trying to make sure for them is are you using that in pursuit of the target that you are after instead of trying to guarantee.
certainty of outcome because if you do that, now you're using the slowest, weakest parts of your brain to try to corral a future outcome that doesn't exist and you can't control in a way that we might say gets disruptive. And then when that doesn't work, which it's very unlikely to do so, I got to jump to the next swing thought or add one. And then the, if I'm using swing costs to try to create certainty of outcome, there is no end to how many I can shuffle through or no end to how many I need to add to it. And then what we might say is we're not really playing golf anymore.
Chase Cooper (17:30.296)
Yeah. And that's where confidence gets lost. We find that fill in the range that we think is going to produce that perfect shot and our glass house gets broken real fast.
Raymond Prior (17:30.815)
Right. So.
Raymond Prior (17:36.502)
Yeah.
Yeah, we might say, look, again, we've acknowledged this on the podcast a ton of times. want to get back like golf is about trying to get the ball in the hole in as few strokes as possible. It's not about having a perfectly repeatable swing or being a hundred percent consistent. What we might see from the best players in the world is they have some pretty repeatable skills, but mostly they're very adaptable, right? Which means we have to think in ways that allow for adaptability or adaptation as we go along. So
I would even ask you Chase, like how many times did you have a terrible range session and then went out and just kind of figured out a way to get it in the hole? And the reason you were able to figure out how to get it in the hole is because you weren't thinking in ways that restricted your ability to do that. Conversely, how many times did you have a great range session, but thought about it in a way that now became more restrictive?
and then went out and couldn't figure out a way to get in the hole. Cause now you're actually trying to perfect your golf swing instead of trying to figure out this ball is here. How do I get it as close to where I want it to go as possible. Right. So let's not forget we are playing golf. The golf swing, the putting stroke, chipping motions are an integral skill in that they are not the only skill and they are technically speaking not required at least to be, at least to be repeatable or like a flawless.
Chase Cooper (18:51.694)
I feel like, you know, the season started here. It starts in March in Oklahoma and I've had these conversations. I feel like I've given 30 of these lessons this week. Like just continuing to try to convince like, look, you need your mechanical tools. You need your mental tools. It starts with the mental tools first. If you're bringing the right mental tools to the work area, then can you tap into the mechanical tools if you're not hitting it the way you want to. But like, I cannot guarantee you're never going to shoot 85 again. I cannot guarantee you that you're.
You're not going to hook this ball left. And that was my whole thing. I was like, I got a field. It's never going left again. And then it went left. And then I, you know, you titled this whole thing, stable confidence. My confidence was never stable. It was always stable if my results were great. And I think this conversation is so important to continue to have, because I think golf gets us off kilter all the time with, with this subject. think it's so
Raymond Prior (19:39.959)
Yeah.
No doubt. So we're kind of talking about thoughts today. Oftentimes what we're really the underlying and foundational, we might say psychological element that we're talking about is confidence. And then essentially, how do we think about things that makes it stable? And how do we think about things that makes it pretty unstable? Right. So confidence, let's, let's, let's start there though, Chase. Let's get a definition of confidence. So, I'll acknowledge like my field, performance psychology did a very poor job of defining confidence about 50 years ago.
We didn't know as much as we do now, so they were doing the best they could, but the definition of confidence from our field, which kind of adopted from a variety of different things, including just like common vernacular, is essentially some sense of certainty and trust and predictability of the future, right? And a feeling of that, not itself, right? So I said, hey, how confident are you that you're gonna play well today? It's me asking you essentially, how certain are you that you're gonna play well?
Chase Cooper (20:30.51)
the belief.
Raymond Prior (20:38.262)
We could see there's some layers to this layer of confidence with all the self-belief, which we talked about before is a bit of a fool's gold type of a situation. It's great when we have it and it's in place and we feel it very, very authentically, incredibly, but it's not required and that's not what the best in the world are relying on. Again, people kind of push back on me when they're like, well, somebody really believed in me one time and it was really helpful. There's no doubt that self-belief and others believing in us,
at the times that it's helpful to us is helpful. There's no doubt about that. But it is not a very reliable source of confidence because it is relying on a sense of, I believe this is going to happen for you or for me in the future, which our brain knows is not really certain.
Chase Cooper (21:24.002)
It's funny you say it that way too, cause I'll ask my players, I'm like, Hey, if you've got a one shot lead coming down the stretch of an AJJ tournament, you've never won before. Do you believe you can win? And it's almost always yes, because I'm playing well. I'm like, okay, but what if, what if you have, what if you had a five shot lead three holes ago and you just went double double now, do you still believe you can win? And they always hesitate like, I don't know.
Raymond Prior (21:34.229)
Yep.
Raymond Prior (21:39.566)
Yup. Ugh, right? So again, what we might acknowledge is that belief that in the larger sense of do I believe things are going well for me in the future or a certain way for me in future or for somebody else is highly contingent upon a bunch of things that are not very stable, right? Now, we might, I might say, Chase, I really believe in you, bud, and that's not gonna change. But if I'm talking about self-belief, like,
It's really difficult to have that without actual evidence in the form of outcomes and experiences to tell me that the, again, that is how our brain is designed to work. What happened in my past and how well can I predict the future? Which is why we see the very, very best performers in the world who are the most consistent are not relying on self-belief. They have figured out at some point, the future is wildly uncertain. So it's actually about what I'm thinking about and focusing on right now that matters for that. So do I believe I can handle tough stuff in the future?
Yeah, do I know what that's gonna be or do I believe that just good outcomes are just coming to me because I just believe in myself? They're not relying on that. It is way too shaky a ground for somebody who is really, really invested in high performance to be sitting on, right? Okay. Okay. So with that being said, let's talk about how our thoughts show up to us. oftentimes, Chase, we typically learn to think about our thoughts as good or bad.
Chase Cooper (22:52.032)
It's so good. So good.
Raymond Prior (23:05.408)
positive or negative, right or wrong, or something we should or shouldn't be thinking. let's again, update, hold on a sec, before we even get there, let's update our definition of confidence. So my field, a bunch of other fields took an anecdotal experience and just ran with it without kind of exploring it enough. So here's an updated definition based on a whole bunch of research about people whose confidence is very, very stable. Confidence is defined as permission to operate freely, right?
So where I get that permission from determines how stable that permission becomes. Okay, so if we're just talking about confidence, it's technically not a feeling. It's not a mindset necessarily. It's perhaps forged in a mindset and it's not a predictability about the future based on my past or outcomes or whatever necessarily. It is permission to operate freely.
And where I get that permission from determines how stable it is. So confidence again, permission to operate or perform freely. Okay.
Chase Cooper (24:08.59)
And so that is the science, scientific definition.
Raymond Prior (24:12.146)
If you take all the science about people who are very stably confident and you really look behind it, what happens is they go, when I'm performing a certain way and I'm confident, I have in their words and in if you start to look through all the research, the commonalities, the overlaps, it's some level of, was gonna do this freely for whatever reason. So it's some level of permission to go for it.
or to operate in a way that is consistent with a pursuit-based present approach to something. So that being said, our thoughts, technically speaking, our brain does not think positive or negative, good or bad, right or wrong, should and shouldn't. These are labels that we put on them. Our brain thinks in two types of shapes. And again, we're drawing from a variety of research, both psychological and neurological.
And you can think about the shape as a top and a bottom or a start and an end. So think about.
The same way you might think about a golf shot, there's a start line and then there's a curve. So you've got a push draw for a right-handed golfer is going to start right and it's going to turn left to varying degrees. A pull fade is going to start to the left and it's going to move to the right. So again, we have just kind of our start of a thought and we have a kind of a finish of a thought. And even though these might not be like totally obvious to us, there's some level of this operating either deliberately or subconsciously or more spontaneous for us.
So a thought starts with basically a what if must happen or what needs to happen here or what do I want to happen here. So it's basically like the event or the experience is the start. The second part or the finish is how am I explaining the consequences of that event if it does or doesn't happen in the way that I want or need it to happen. So you might think about it as what is happening or going to happen or has happened.
Raymond Prior (26:11.71)
And then what am I telling myself or how am I explaining if that does, doesn't happen or if it happens in a certain way. Okay. So let's just start with a thought. For example, I need to start my round off with a birdie or else I'm not going to play well today. Okay. So the start is the event or the experience.
And then the explanation behind that is, or else I'm not going to play well today. Now we could very easily label this as a negative thought. And I tell you, just don't think that way, dude. Which again, we've already established, we don't turn thoughts off. By the way, the more we try to turn them off, the more we turn them up. Amplification and suppression is the, technical term. What we might notice about this thought instead is the language behind it. I need to make a birdie on my first shot is a necessity. It's an absolute. It needs to be this.
it cannot be that. Which translates to our brain. So essentially if we're going behind these words of the event, what our brain is recognizing is, and it's now calculating, is what's my margin for error. Essentially how much room do I have to operate in? For the language behind this, need to, have to, can't and don't. Can't and don't are not negative words. They're basically means it must go this way and it must not go that way. So it's just another version of an absolute.
And then also the word should and shouldn't, which again are defining what are the experiences that I am and I am not allowed to have permission to experience. So what we might notice when I say I have to hit the first fairway here or I have to make a birdie on the first hole is that my margin for error has now become in a self-imposed way smaller than it really is. So this is the experience we have behind this in our lived experience,
is constriction, which is the beginnings of anxiety or anger. Mostly anxiety before an event, anger after. So if I tell you, you shouldn't have three-putted, everybody is going to feel some level of frustration to anger, to rage, depending on what your habit structure is and what the explanation you give behind that is. So if I just take the thought, you must hit the first fairway in order to have a good round of golf, I have now taken the actual margin for error, which is much wider than that, and I have now shrunk it in a self-imposed way,
Raymond Prior (28:31.554)
making it more constricting so I have less room to operate with it. And then I've also added consequences that technically don't exist or else I can't play well today.
So if you just think about the first beginning, that's the event. The bottom part is the explanation. So the words we're looking for in our inner dialogue, when we think about our thoughts are how are you thinking about this event or experience? And if we think about it in absolutes and in judgments, the margin for error for our brain to recognize we have room to operate within gets smaller or disappears altogether. For example, if I told you go to the first tee, you need to be comfortable about this first tee shot.
soon as you are uncomfortable, you are now outside your margin for error. And Chase, have listened to me, you have read the books. When we are outside of our perceived margin for error, what do we experience internally?
fear, usually some form of fear or anxiety. And then if it's a past event, it's now becomes anger. But what we might notice about this, this is done in a self-imposed way. Because I oftentimes ask players, like, hold on, where is it written that you have to make a birdie on the first hole in order to play well? it's not. It's not actually in the rules of golf. So when you might hear this term like an irrational or a limiting belief, a limiting belief by definition means I am creating constrictions and restrictions and rules that don't actually
Chase Cooper (29:29.484)
Yeah, anxiety.
Raymond Prior (29:56.582)
exist that are limiting me in a way that the actual rules or the reality of life is not actually limiting me. So that's the beginning of a thought which our brain recognizes.
Then the second part is we are adding consequences that don't exist. And we typically do this in three ways. So for those playing the home game on the psychology textbook, this is your explanatory style. The explanatory style is essentially how do I explain the events and experiences of my life, past, present, and future to myself, or what have I adopted from other people and how they explain the events and experiences of their life or mine. And we make the consequences more consequential
in a threatening way now, also with a small margin for error when we explain things in three ways or a combination of these three, which is we make them more long-term, more widespread, and more personal than they really are. So, I have to hit the first fairway or else I'm not going to play well today has now taken my first shot and made it my entire round. So it is now much longer.
Also, what I've done is attach my first drive to every single part of my game. So it is now more widespread. It's not just my first drive. It's not even just driver. It's now every single part of my game that I have just lumped into this one shot.
And then if I also kind of explain, and by the way, missing the first fairway is something that quote unquote good golfers shouldn't do. Now it's also a personal experience. And so if I told you, Chase, you have no margin for error, and if you miss it, which you must not, you're gonna have a long-term, a really widespread and a personal problem. You won't be surprised to know that this is a shape thought as I call it, meaning it's very narrow at the top, very wide at the bottom.
Chase Cooper (31:25.528)
Yeah, so big.
Raymond Prior (31:44.458)
the more A-shaped it becomes or the sharper this A-shape becomes, this is the formula for anxiety. And it's the formula for frustration and anger from past events. Now again, anxiety and frustration are not bad emotions, they're not negative emotions. What we might notice is in a lot of our lives, they're very disruptive.
because they make us prioritize the future or they make us prioritize the past and they automatically shift us into an avoidance based approach to anything. Right? So here are the console this now we're digging into the research a little bit. If you're looking at, what are the consequences? So what happens when we think about things in an a shape?
First is we experience constriction. That is us feeling like we are kind of boxed in, like we don't have a lot of room to operate within both psychologically, emotionally, and at times physically. I ask players all the time, when you're feeling anxious, how do you know? I feel like I'm starting to get, like again, just kind of my head lowers, my shoulders tuck in. For anyone here who's played golf and been anxious about it, you know, you get close. So constriction is us getting closer to our center line, both narrower, shallower, and shorter.
It's a protective posture, but we also feel that viscerally, emotionally as well and psychologically. That is our brain recognizing there's not a lot of room, if any, to work here. So again, here's the pushback on perfectionism. There's no margin for error.
then the bottom, the explanation, if I tell you explain everything as long-term, widespread and personal, we call this by definition a pessimistic explanatory style, you are going to see the past or the future or your present as a threat. Because of course, whatever you're experiencing then, now or potentially in the future is long-term, widespread and personal, your brain's gonna recognize that is a threat, there's no way around it. Our brain is designed to pick up those types of circumstances as threatening to us.
Raymond Prior (33:39.026)
So if I tell you, you need to play well today or shoot a certain score or you're not good enough, your brain is recognizing that identity crisis as a real threat because that's a long-term widespread problem also. So we get constriction and we get threat in our immediate experience, which shifts us to anxiety, which then basically by definition, we are an avoidance-based approach to what we're doing. The priority is the past or the future, not the present.
What we see is we now start multitasking with how do I avoid what I want to happen or try to force certain outcomes to happen or not to happen, which by definition is I'm now grasping for control where there isn't any, because we don't control outcomes, we don't control the past and we don't control the future. We don't even control other people either. What we see is now we're actually multitasking with avoidance for the most part.
We become more rigid, not more flexible, which we just established that if you want to be more consistent, you need adaptability, not rigidity, the top levels, even I would say at the lower levels. And what happens is we become less resilient.
Because at some point your brain's going to start to go. The priority is not to be resilient with this pursuit based thing. It's to be resilient with the avoidance based thing. And you're going to be really resilient with that, which means chase. becomes easier and easier to bail out, whether that's to hedge my bets, to play safe and steer or quit altogether, which by the way, if anyone who's listening, you say, man, I have a kid on my team or I have whatever, and they just give up really easily. It's almost assured that they have a very a shaped framework.
for how they're approaching something, which at some point you're gonna reach the conclusion, it's not worth me still trying at this because it's not gonna go the way I want and if it doesn't, so why would I use all my energy right now to try to stick with this thing instead of using that energy to protect myself from the consequences I've told myself are coming? That's basically why it makes us very little resilience.
Raymond Prior (35:37.258)
We also might notice that, if you look at the research around anxiety, that when we are experiencing anxiety, our brain is doing two things, again, in an effort to try to help us avoid what we have told that we are not accepting of, it does two things. The first is it grossly underestimates the margin for error. Right? Players will tell me all the time, I have got to play perfect today if I'm going to win. Time out. That's not the margin for error.
That is the one your brain's telling you it's trying to figure out because you've told it, if I'm gonna, I better not lose this today. Time out. Or we perhaps might perceive that everyone is observing us and judging us in the ways that we don't want to when research tells us most people don't give a shit about what we're thinking and what we're doing. They are the main character in their own lives and they're more worried about what we're thinking about them. So.
Job number one of our brain to try to protect us from the things we tell it is unacceptable is, what if I told you there's no margin for error here? So I'm going to grossly over grossly underestimate how much room. maybe you just won't even try. Then the second that it's going to do is it is going to grossly overestimate the magnitude of the consequences. Magnitude being length, how widespread and how personal it is to us.
So if we don't take a step back and think about our thoughts, these are the default thoughts or perhaps spontaneous thoughts that we are having based on being in a stressful experience, from our past experiences being interpreted through an A-shaped framework, or if we have adopted them from other people, which anyone here who's like, man, I kind of run an anxiety quite a bit. I'm gonna guess you had one or both parents or other important adults in your life when you were children.
also operating on anxiety. Because the way we think about things is almost exclusively, not only exclusively, but almost exclusively adopted from other people when we're young. We're psychological blank slates when we are born. So what we might notice here too, Chase, if we're getting to it, and then we'll pop a timeout before we, and then I'll stop talking for a bit, but this is really, really important for anyone listening. Again, confidence is permission to perform freely.
Raymond Prior (37:43.443)
What we might notice is that A-shaped thinking makes that permission intensely dependent upon other things. Particularly, the research shows us these five areas. Number one, outcomes. So if I go.
If I get certain outcomes or I must get certain outcomes in order to give myself permission to perform freely, you are dependent upon outcomes. Chase, do you know any golfers who are dependent on outcomes for confidence? All of them, exactly. Okay. Here's what A-shaped thinking also pushes our permission to perform freely to other people's opinions and or approval and judgments. Number three, past and future events.
Chase Cooper (38:13.044)
every one of my students.
Raymond Prior (38:29.683)
The past is real, the future is gonna be real, but it's not necessarily a predictor of the future. I always remind people your present and your past are correlated with your future. Only what you do and how you do it now is causal for how your future plays out. So if I'm dependent upon past events that are done or
on how I feel about future events or think about future events, meaning do I think they are gonna happen and how certain I am about them and whether or not I can accept those. I'm gonna be very dependent on things that have already happened in my life that may or may not be conducive to me operating freely now. And I have to try to predict the future constantly, which if you do that long enough, eventually you're gonna meet anxiety because your brain is designed to go, wow, this is really uncertain. Well, how do we fill in this uncertainty? Let's worry about it.
Number four are our perceptions and feelings. And I will push back on anybody who says perception is reality because no it isn't. Perception is perception, reality is reality. Sometimes they are the same, most of the time they're different.
If you ask people all the time, what were you perceiving or what was your experience with something and then look at what the truth was, they don't line up one to one. Sometimes they're not even close. Like players tell me, my gosh, everyone was judging me. Really? Because I was the only person there. So hang on a second.
Right? Or I played like absolute garbage. I don't think so. You did make four birdies during that round. Yeah, you had nine bogeys, but you also made four birdies. So it wasn't total, but your perception was that. Or for you, Chase, how many times do people perceive that they are moving or have the glove in a club in a certain place? And the reality is, no, you don't. the value of launch monitors, by the way, this is just an aside, is that they help close the gap between perception and reality.
Chase Cooper (40:12.856)
all the time.
Raymond Prior (40:21.158)
in certain ways. They can be used, they're a bit of a fire. They can be used to burn down your house, but they do help close that gap. Okay. And then the last one is that our confidence becomes very, very contingent upon context and circumstances. Meaning, this round is not for score, so I can play freely. This round is for score. No, I can't. People are watching. I can, I can perform, can't perform freely here. People aren't watching. Sure. Or
Chase Cooper (40:26.072)
not guessing.
Raymond Prior (40:50.804)
this is a course or a hole that really fits my eye. I can play freely here. This one doesn't, so I can't. Or oftentimes players will tell me basically some level of the weather does this, the greens are that, the courses in such and such condition. And yes, that might make the task more difficult or less or say, for example, let's take 17 at sawgrass. Like that's a really stressful shot. But if a stressful shot means I don't do it freely, what that means is my confidence.
permission to operate freely is contingent upon how challenging something is. And we might say that is going to make my permission and therefore my execution and my performance really inconsistent because as the context changes, so does my level of freedom. Right? So again, just to repeat those, when we think in a shapes or our psychology is an a shape framework, our permission to perform freely becomes contingent upon outcomes, other people's opinions.
past and future events, perceptions and feelings, which we do not control, and context and situations that we're in. We go all the way back to, well, you just need to be target oriented and think about your target. If I'm thinking in an A shape and my permission to freely pursue that target that I'm supposed to be holding in my head is contingent upon things that are not available to me right now, then I'm not gonna be able to hold that target. That is not gonna be the priority.
Right? So needless to say what we can say, for example, all kinds of thought, I need to be comfortable to play well. No, you don't.
And if you're requiring comfort, as soon as you are not comfortable, your framework will prioritize trying to be comfortable, which will probably make you less comfortable, which means now you're trying to avoid discomfort, which means the priority is not actually executing toward your target. It's to get more comfortable. And we might notice that's oftentimes where people speed up because this moment's really uncomfortable. So your brain goes, well, let's get you to the next one as fast as possible. Cause maybe that one will be more comfortable. All that being said, it comes at a disruption.
Raymond Prior (42:54.27)
to our ability to deal with the task at hand in the context and the reality that it is actually presented in. That is a ton of Raymond talking, so let's pick that apart before we...
Chase Cooper (43:06.264)
The first thing I was thinking is I need to have my players do a book report on the last 20 minutes of that discussion because there's just, the first thing I wrote down was like, I have to get off to good starts, hard to come back from bad starts, have to finish well, or I'll be a choker. Or, you know, as we get closer to the score or, you know, like I always thought you have to get off to a good start to play well, cause it's hard to come back from, or.
Raymond Prior (43:14.643)
Yeah.
Chase Cooper (43:34.134)
As we get closer to the score, have to finish well, or I'm not going to shoot this or this or this. And then we, you know, now we get into yips and we get into miss missing short putts because I have to make this putt to make a par. like, it just becomes so rigid and so constrictive and like everything, everything that I was just thinking of me and all these conversations I keep having with all my players. Like it's all wrapped around this particular, a lot of it's wrapped around this particular concept because they understand freedom. They understand being on time, but like,
some of them put so many constraints. And I like the car analogy you've always said, if we're driving home and an inch off of each side of the road is a cliff, how well are you going to drive? You're not going to drive freely at all. Or an inch off of each tire is a cliff and like, you're going to drive so restricted. And that's the problem with my players, at least they're playing golf that way. And I'm sure a lot of our listeners at home are feeling the same thing. Like I, you just smacked me in the mouth a few times about just how I tried to play this stupid game.
Raymond Prior (44:28.528)
If I was going to boil down what you just said, when the margin for error gets narrow for us, we are under stress and competitive stress. Oftentimes what we, how we think creates an even smaller margin for error in a self-imposed way, which is another way of saying chase. creates needs quote unquote needs that aren't actually needs. So it creates needs that aren't actually required or not actually available to us. Like I need people to think I'm a good golfer. No, you don't. You would like that.
but it's not required to play good golf. Or that would be like someone saying, Chase, for me to play good golf, I need a flat stance, a flat lie, my favorite club in my hands, a favorable wind. You would be like, you're not gonna be able to play very well. You're probably gonna be very good at that. But what happens as soon as you remove one of those quote unquote needs, now you don't have permission to operate freely or be able to execute your skills. So the thing about A-shaped thinking, it's not bad.
Chase Cooper (45:04.78)
Yeah. Perfect weather.
Raymond Prior (45:22.804)
It's not negative, it's not positive. It creates requirements and consequences that do not exist that become the priority for our brain, which means the prioritization of the task at hand is not the task at hand. And we start prioritizing and trying to avoid things that are not relevant.
to the task at hand. They might be things that are important in our lives, but they are not relevant to the task. And as we've said many times on this podcast, the relevant task with any golf shot is the ball is here. I'm trying to get it as close to my target as I can. However, I might need to do that. That's the task. That's the task. So just because I think of something doesn't make it relevant to that.
Chase Cooper (46:00.142)
They sure feel important, but they're not.
Raymond Prior (46:06.44)
Just because I feel something doesn't make it relevant to that. Just because the future consequences are attached to it, particularly the ones that I have imagined are attached to it, also doesn't make them relevant. So this is kind of hard for people to swallow because like, well, really, it doesn't score matter. Yes, it's not relevant to what you're doing right now. And so if I'm prioritizing that over what I'm doing right now, it disrupts what I'm doing right now.
And so what we see from, again, the people with the most stable confidence and the most consistent and resilient performances over time, they don't add anything to the task at hand that isn't actually required. They're reductionists, not additives.
Chase Cooper (46:50.478)
Yeah, so good. And again, as you've said, our brains and exaggerator. I keep joking with all my high school kids. Don't don't add drama to it. Don't add more. Don't add more to this. What's the task? What's the goal? What are we trying to do? We're trying to shoot the lowest score. Trying to get the best shots we can keep stacking good shots. Don't make it worse. Don't make it more than that. So we're we're on a little bit of a time crunch. This has been a fantastic, fantastic episode and I don't want to shut it off. But how do we do? We want I would ask you, do we have time to get to V?
Can we get to V quickly and cover kind of like, okay, we know what A is now, now what's the goal?
Raymond Prior (47:25.64)
Okay, so the opposite or we might say a thought that creates more stable confidence, the way to think about things or perhaps even our core beliefs about them is to instead of something being a requirement, it's a preference that is again, if it's not there, it's not there. And the consequences.
of what happens are more truth oriented, meaning I don't make them any longer than they really are, any more widespread than they really are, or any more personal than they really are. So for example, in the first T, I'd love to hit the first fairway. Now,
It might not happen and I don't need to, I would like to, but it's not required. Or I come to a ball, it's in a divot. I would prefer that this be not in a divot, but it is. So what happens when things are preferences for us, when they're not available to us, it becomes far less disruptive. Think about it like I need to eat at this time versus I prefer to eat at this time creates two different levels of disruption and one is self-imposed. The other is not.
Okay. So a V-shaped thought is opposite of an A-shaped thought in terms of the margin for error is very, very wide. It's reality, meaning this ball is going to be somewhere when I get up there and I will deal with it when I get there. And part of it is unknown. So the thing about A-shaped thoughts, me, is that they don't allow for uncertainty versus a V-shaped thought does. Like, where's this going to end up? I don't know. I know where I want it to go. I'm going to try to get it there. That's my target.
but I don't need to figure it out before I get there. So I can actually hold a target in my head, because that's what I'm preferring to move toward, but it's not required that it goes there or doesn't go somewhere else. Or I would prefer to be comfortable, but I don't have to be. So now if I'm uncomfortable, I'm just uncomfortable. It's not preferred.
Raymond Prior (49:18.92)
but it's allowed. And if it's allowed, then it's not prioritized over the thing that I'm actually doing. So here we see people with a V-shaped framework or think about things as preferences without making the consequences more than they really are. Essentially what happens, they're far more resilient because their efforts and focus and attention is directed at the task at hand and how to best get it done based on what they know and what they can do.
not dependent on something that may or may not be available to them. And then at the bottom of V-shaped thought is an optimistic explanatory style, which doesn't pretend that everything's okay and that there are no consequences to anything, but it just doesn't make them any more long-term widespread or personal than they really are. So it's like a general rule of thumb. It's like, I see things as they are without making them worse. So I missed the first fairway and I'm in a pretty tricky spot. That's it. Period. End of sentence. It's not going to determine my full round.
It doesn't even mean that I can't make a birdie or par on this hole. It just means I'm kind of out of position on the first hole and I got to figure out what to do with this that's in my best interest. Right? So it's not this like glazed positive view of the future, which again, positive and negative is not a language that our brain speaks. It speaks.
Chase Cooper (50:22.232)
Yep, now what? Yep.
Raymond Prior (50:32.232)
constriction or space, which we might notice a V-shaped dot creates way more space for us to operate psychologically, emotionally, and physically. And then at the bottom, it's an optimistic explanatory style, meaning the threat involved is only the consequences that are actually involved. So they're not any more than they actually are.
So what that means is we can meet real margins for error with leaving them as wide open as we possibly can without self-imposing anything smaller. And we can meet real consequences in our lives without making them worse than they really are. And then what happens is now I stop becoming dependent upon those five things that we mentioned before.
Which Chase, which means is my confidence becomes more stable because now the permission for me to operate freely comes from me, not from something else in my external or internal environment. So stable confidence by definition is self-given permission to perform freely without, and then fill in whatever blank dependent on this guarantees of that comfort control certainty.
Chase Cooper (51:17.582)
free.
Chase Cooper (51:22.872)
that I can't control.
Raymond Prior (51:41.202)
people's opinions, so on and so forth. So that permission comes from ourselves as an internal approach to freedom, not a conditional approach to freedom, right? So I would love to tell you, but just go play freely. But if behind that is an A-shaped framework, that freedom is not going to be there because you have attached your freedom to something else that may or may not be available to you. Versus if we start to think about things in ways that are A-shaped, I'm sorry, V-shaped,
then what happens is that permission starts to become more self-generated and self-generated confidence is crazy stable compared to putting it in other things. That doesn't mean you're not going to be uncomfortable. You're not going to be uncertain that you're not going to face setbacks and failure, that you're not going to make mistakes, that there aren't actual consequences.
It just means that you're not making them again. You're not ever overestimate. You're not ever underestimating the margin for error you have to work in. And you're not ever overestimating the consequences. And the funny thing about us as humans real quick before we finish is we're really, really resilient when we're dealing with reality without making it worse than it really is. We're very adaptable.
We are not dependent on things that we don't need to be dependent on. And we can focus our energy and efforts on doing something freely in less than ideal conditions, which makes us more consistent and makes us more resilient, more adaptable, all the things that you would really want, which basically means I can be pursuing freely the task that's in front of me without needing something else to tell me to do that. Right.
Chase Cooper (53:14.375)
The two words I keep coming back to are freedom and flexibility. We're more flexible and we're bringing freedom to it. We lost your mic.
Raymond Prior (53:32.334)
There we go. Yeah. So to your point, adapt adapt, adaptability and resilience are far more reliable to us under pressure and stress than repeatability. Meaning I have a golf swing that is just flawless. So if you've heard the phrase before, like, well, golf swings don't win tournaments. People do like this true golf swing is a skill set within that performance, but the human being is running all of that. Right. So the reason humans win
Chase Cooper (53:32.556)
Yeah, you're back. So, yeah, so the two words, freedom and flexibility. Yeah.
Raymond Prior (54:00.43)
tournaments and golf swings don't because technically if you have a 100 % repeatable golf swing as soon as I change the context in it, it can't perform in the same way anymore. So if I need to hit a draw or a fade, that's a technically a different golf swing. If I need to hit it off an uphill or a downhill light out of the rough, I need to turn something around some trees because I'm in a spot, a bunker shot. mean, I most coaches tell me, know, a bunker shot is a totally different skill set than a different thing or the driver is a totally different skill set. we do want
Chase Cooper (54:09.742)
Yeah, good point.
Chase Cooper (54:19.629)
Good point.
Raymond Prior (54:28.03)
relatively consistent and repeatable skills, but if they were rigidly repeatable, they would be very inefficient for dealing with adaptive required circumstances.
Chase Cooper (54:31.694)
adaptable.
Chase Cooper (54:37.582)
No, and it's a good point. mean, 99 % of the swings that are made in my Bay are off a flat lie with one club, you know, and so trying to create that repeatable golf swing, that's something that we don't coach. We coach adaptability, like trying to make, I've never made that argument before. I think it's really interesting. The other thing that I mentioned, I think on a couple of podcasts ago is that there's a video I've been sharing a lot on my socials about Rory talking about
He was having first-tee jitters and he said, you know, he finally had to, had to make this argument. Like what's the worst thing that happens? I hit it in the trees. I hit it out of bounds. Like he goes, gave me a sense of freedom. Like I could just go swing and then what am I going to do? I'm going to adapt to whatever comes my way. And I've hit it bad before off the first tee. And like, I share that video to all my players. Like I think that it's so important. There's just no rigidity there.
Raymond Prior (55:05.838)
It's worse.
Raymond Prior (55:20.782)
So what he's really talking about there is getting a higher level of acceptance for the worst case scenario, which means he's not making the margin for error or the consequences worse than they are. And he's considering them as truths, not perceptions and explanations, which then he gets the choice to go, all right, well then how do you wanna hit this tee shot? Guarding against that worst case scenario or trying to pursue the best case scenario, right?
Chase Cooper (55:43.969)
That's right.
Raymond Prior (55:44.363)
And then of course, Chase, there's a monster body research we can talk about in the future about what that does for us neurologically and neurochemically, but it's not gonna be a surprise to you in any way.
Chase Cooper (55:54.602)
No. Well, and my first thought is like, we're gonna have a ton of questions on, a versus V shape. And we may have to do a 2.0 on this because this was fantastic. And there's a lot of things that I'm, I'm to do some, I'm going to do some recaps with a bunch of my students about some of the, some of the stuff you covered, because it's super powerful for sure. This, this was fantastic.
Raymond Prior (56:12.257)
Yeah, well, maybe we'll just plan on kind of finishing this conversation next time we talk. Be good.
Chase Cooper (56:17.581)
Yeah, we can do a 2.0. Well, again, sorry, sorry, guys, that this we had to cut this off a little shorter. We were a little bit on a time crunch, but wanted to get this was a topic I wanted I've been wanting to get to for a while. And I'm glad we did because this one this one's one of my one of my favorites is that you you were fantastic. This stuff was awesome. And it's gonna help. It's gonna help. I you know, I got to be nice to everyone's while but there's a lot of a lot of stuff in here that like I
Raymond Prior (56:32.747)
jeez.
Chase Cooper (56:41.474)
didn't understand as well as I thought I did and need to help my players understand how, because a lot of times, again, it's a self, how's my self talk? Is it good or bad? But there's a lot more to it and what layers we're bringing to this for sure and how the brain interprets it. So.
Raymond Prior (56:49.1)
Yeah.
That's right. Yeah, we'll kind of pick up with self-talk, try to define that. And it's something that is easy for people to cue on because we can hear our own thoughts. But typically we go, you need to think or you need to talk to yourself this way. And that's actually not the most effective. I'd be like me telling you, you need to swing this way. It's like, well, maybe I do and maybe I don't in this situation. So we'll kind of try to clean that up next time.
Chase Cooper (57:16.046)
Cool. Well, we'll do a 2.0. If you guys have any questions about any of this, let us know and we'll add some of the questions to it when we dive in deeper. Doc, thank you at gbtspodcast, btsmindset.com. Until next time.
Raymond Prior (57:24.524)
You got it.
Raymond Prior (57:29.346)
Adios!