Thoughts That Create Pressure Part 2: The Hidden Layers

In this follow-up episode of Golf Beneath the Surface, Chase and Raymond continue the conversation on thoughts, pressure, and performance.

After introducing A-shaped and V-shaped thinking in the previous episode, they go deeper into why simply trying to “not think” is impossible, why judging thoughts often makes them louder, and how pressure builds when golfers treat thoughts as facts, predictions, or commands.

They also explore confidence, confirmation bias, and the deeper layers behind pressure, from one bad shot to fear of letting others down, needing approval, or tying performance to identity.

This episode is about learning to see thoughts more clearly, widen your margin for error, and give yourself permission to perform freely without needing perfect feelings, perfect thoughts, or perfect outcomes first.

Transcript

Raymond Prior (00:01.32)
Welcome to the Golf Beneath Surface podcast. My name is Raymond Pryor, co-host with me, my co-host, the one and only Chase Cooper. Chase, kind of maybe wrapped up pretty quick in the last episode on a topic. I know I've gotten a lot of feedback. After our last episode, we were talking about how we think in ways that create not just pressure for us, but

most frequently kind of the things that we would say kind of get in our own way, which is frustration and anxiety, which in and of themselves aren't necessarily bad, but when they are frequent enough, hang around long enough and become intense enough, becomes very difficult to perform well and very difficult to learn over time and certainly doesn't make the things we're doing as enjoyable. So maybe we'll do a quick recap here for a little bit, stretch a few things out that we might've condensed at the end.

And then finish this conversation where we're talking about how this applies to our, think kind of we're talking self-talk or inner dialogue. We can kind of pick apart what that means. And then ultimately for people about like, all right, well, what do do?

Chase Cooper (01:10.956)
Yeah. I wish there was, there was times where you, you know, and I even said on the pod, went on a, on a, on a great run for 15, 20 minutes. felt like that was, you know, I wanted to almost pause multiple times and say, okay, let's dive into that. Let's dive into that. And unfortunately we were both on a little bit of a time crunch. So we kind of, we kind of powered through what I think would be kind of a good idea. was like, I wrote down a few notes from the pod and just kind of run back through and see if there's anything that you want to touch a little deeper on.

And just see if see if this kind of covered everything and then we can kind of go into into next steps from there All right. So I wrote down the brain is designed to think constantly So trying to not think engulf is a losing battle from the start, you know any any thoughts on that quickly?

Raymond Prior (01:44.99)
do that.

Raymond Prior (01:54.438)
Yeah. Last week we talked about how our brain is kind of produces two different types of thoughts. The one is spontaneous and these are just thoughts that we have. This is our brain being the supercomputer that it is trying to help us navigate the world and our performances based on our histories, our projections, our emotions and a variety of different things. And it's, going to do that. We can't stop it from doing that. So I told you, just don't think like, imagine, you know, you

hit a golf shot, like the first couple of thoughts that pop into your head, like I'm supposed to tell you, should stop those. Or if I show you, here's a hole that you've had a history with, both good or bad based on your history, just don't have thoughts about those. Like your brain is going to spit you some spontaneous thoughts.

We also have deliberate thoughts, which is us thinking about something on purpose, maybe rolling some ideas around it around in our head, or even talking out loud for us is often deliberate thoughts. if you even think as a general rule of thumb, if you want to say spontaneous and deliberate thoughts, a not exact dividing line between those two, but a rough dividing line are.

the thoughts that we often have in our head versus the ones we actually speak and what the ratios are for how many thoughts we have in a day versus how many words we actually speak. Well, that's just one layer of the differentiator between perhaps a spontaneous thought. Sometimes we speak our spontaneous thoughts, but mostly we don't. oftentimes we speak our deliberate thoughts, but we don't always speak them. But that's just kind of a rough guiding line for the types of thoughts that we have. So,

We're never trying to turn our thoughts off. Like the idea of just play a shot and don't think is technically speaking impossible. And if you could just turn your thoughts off, like you, you would be brain dead, which is certainly not a very viable place to perform.

Chase Cooper (03:44.302)
And so like, yeah, I wrote down there are two types of thoughts spontaneous, fast, automatic, uncontrollable, deliberate, slow effort, effortful and controllable. Do you, you, one of the things that you've kind of touched on a lot on this pod through the years is like, be careful about, you know, adding judgment and good and bad to your thoughts. Are there, is there ever a time where you do with these types of with, with maybe with the deliberate thoughts or is it still never, we're never judging them.

Raymond Prior (04:08.985)
It's not never, but we just need to know what the cause and effect of judging any of our thoughts are, which is we're going to start adding a layer of emotion to them. And typically they're the agitating emotions, right? So if I label thoughts good and bad, good ones are probably going to feel a certain way, but bad ones are not. But then what's the line between a good thought and a bad thought? And then if, again, if our brain is designed to think,

And I tell you, these aren't thoughts you should or shouldn't be having, which is another layer of judgment. What we're going to see is now you're going to need to judge things just for existing. And what the research shows us over and over again is that judging our thoughts makes us feel worse for judging them as positive or negative, good or bad, right and wrong, but also for something that we should or shouldn't be having. When we do this, we typically feel worse.

And then Chase, where it comes to like a focus issue is then now my internal experience, the thoughts I'm having and the feelings are creating become the priority for me. They take a lot of my attention and my emotional bandwidth, which then would come at the cost to my performance. So a less cost effective way for us to interact with our own thoughts and feelings is to learn to observe them, but without adding any value to them, without judging them for good or bad, or wrong, should or should be having. And.

to start to see them as just thoughts about something. And then what happens is they can exist without necessarily pulling our focus or our emotions and more specifically pulling our efforts toward the day. by the way, judging your thoughts is also incredibly stressful for us. That is meaning there is a significant duration and intensity of demand to judge everything that you think. And then if you do that for long enough, eventually it's gonna cause a lot of anxiety and a lot of frustration.

Chase Cooper (05:58.606)
So I mentioned off air, we've got it's state championship week this week for a lot of my girls and next week for a lot of my high school boys. Give us a real world example of how judging your thoughts could be very detrimental.

Raymond Prior (06:12.36)
Imagine you're playing a team event and your thought is, I don't want to ruin this for my teammates, or I hope I don't play terrible and screw this up for my teammates. So judging a thought would be like, no, that's a bad thought. Don't have it. Instead of that's just a thought about something I really don't want to happen. Then also learning to observe. That's a projection. So as we talked about before, it's not a fact. It's not a precursor to the future. It's only a thought about the future.

And it's also not a command that I have to follow, meaning because I have that thought, I have to go out the next day based on that thought, trying to just not screw it up for me or for other people. Right? So if I tell anybody, hey, you're about to play something really important to you with meaningful outcomes, both for you and other people, just don't have spontaneous thoughts or even deliberate thoughts about how that might go in a way that you don't want to. Or particularly if you have a history where maybe that has happened before.

It's an impossible task I have just given you that is probably going to make you feel worse. And then you're probably going to be thinking about, how do I turn these off? And now you're ruminating. And we might say that that's going to be a pretty rough night before.

Chase Cooper (07:20.812)
Yeah, no, for sure. And, and then we get into just accepting it. If, if that does happen, can we live with it? Can we live with the results? If we, if we have a pot to, you know, win the golf tournament or win the tournament as a, for our team or to get in a playoff and we miss, you know, can we, can we pre-accept all those and can we, can we live with

Raymond Prior (07:40.501)
We might get to what that looks like, but even before we get there, can we notice that is an A-shaped thought. I must not screw this up for me or for others because that would be the most disastrous thing in the world. What that is doing again is one, it is grossly underestimating the margin for error that you have to operate within or the likelihood of that even happening in the first place. And two, grossly overestimating the consequences again, which it's not that there are none.

but they are very rarely what we imagine. So there's a significant amount of research to support what many philosophers, several hundreds, if not thousands of years ago, started to observe in that we suffer far more in imagination than we do in reality. And that is in part because of how our brain is designed and the shapes of thoughts that we treat as facts, as precursors, and as commands that we must follow.

Chase Cooper (08:36.558)
That's good. Yeah, the brain's an exaggerator. love that. High level performance relies more on fast procedural thinking, not slow conscious control. Trying to consciously control mechanics during the swing is ineffective because it's too slow for the speed of the movement. The goal is not to eliminate thinking, but to match thinking to the task. Simple, focused, external, impossible. Any thoughts on those?

Raymond Prior (09:00.66)
So again, if we're just kind of recapping the fastest, strongest parts of our brain run our procedural memory, and that is basically the skillset. So you're kind of working toward the center and kind of backwards in the brain. And when we are not consciously trying to think through a golf swing, this is the part of our brain that sees and reacts, which is where we typically perform at our best. Not always, but typically.

However, for us to have access to that means that we have to think in ways that don't attach our performance to things that may not be available to us, which would cause us to try to create conscious control. Right? So us consciously trying to think through something with the slower, weaker part of our brain that doesn't have enough time and doesn't actually have enough control to be able to do something is coming from us trying to gain control over an experience.

All right, either to control an outcome, to control emotion, to control an outcome, to control feelings. It is a natural response. It is also just so happens to be a very ineffective response. It makes us feel like we are doing something to be in control. The downside is, that again and again and again, when tested, particularly with athletic endeavors, we notice that it is not at all effective.

No one has ever played their best golf consciously trying to think through and controlling every single outcome. Or if they have, is so exceedingly rare that it is not a viable performance strategy. right. So if you look at high performance, when we put them on things where we can measure their brain activity, when they are doing things really well and in what we would describe as flow state.

Chase Cooper (10:33.71)
step gone.

Raymond Prior (10:44.552)
the activity is coming from procedural knowledge where the prefrontal cortex, which is slower and the more conscious thinking is just orienting toward targets. Now again, that's kind of more ideal state. And again, it is skill-based dependent. The worse you are at something, the more you're gonna need to consciously think through some stuff because the procedural memory has not been developed yet. In which case then you would think through stuff, the expert like...

Pro golfers at that skill level or really high level amateurs, the more you're relying on conscious control, the less control you have over what you're doing.

Chase Cooper (11:21.068)
Yeah, there's times where, we've talked about this quite a bit, but there's times where swing thoughts are just fine, but making them too specific or too positional oftentimes makes it really tough. Getting deeper on the backswing, turning our hips more, rotating more, moving up and down, that stuff's much simpler, more external stuff. Trying to get your right elbow in a specific spot on the way down is really difficult.

Raymond Prior (11:30.868)
Really tough. Yeah.

Raymond Prior (11:40.981)
Yeah. There's a series of research studies that show too, is that the smaller the muscle group that we try to do that with, the less precise it becomes. So if I'm trying to create conscious control, like particularly with the golf swing, that would be like my wrists and hands through conscious declarative memory, meaning consciously thinking through something, it becomes even less precise than even if I, so again, so that might mean for a golfer in a practical way.

The more my swing thoughts are orient around the larger muscle groups for me, probably the more efficient they would be, but the closer they get to my hands and basically the grip of the golf club, the less efficient they're gonna be. Those muscle groups are too small to be so fine tuned for movements.

Chase Cooper (12:24.98)
So what would you say to, I was just on, just on another podcast with your, friends over at how low can you go and, talked a lot about contact and I've talked a lot about contact and calibrating contact and toe strikes and heel strikes. And I've had some, I'm to call them old school thinkers that have said, you can't think about contact. And, and some of their reasoning was because it has too much to do with the hands and it's too difficult to think about the fine tune. How would you, how would you describe that as far as like.

Raymond Prior (12:31.678)
Mm-hmm.

Chase Cooper (12:51.242)
moving contact around whether it's is low point because yes, it's a body movement, but it's also a hands and a wrist and an arms movement. How does that differentiate?

Raymond Prior (12:58.993)
I would probably, if I was trying to teach somebody that, or even if I was trying to practice it myself, it would probably try to make it more of an external target thing that my muscles and procedural memory could orient to. So if you told me just like hit this thing off the toe, right? So instead of me telling you, you know, turn the face in a certain way with my hands necessarily, right? Or

Chase Cooper (13:20.451)
Yeah.

Raymond Prior (13:23.391)
hit this thing off the heel in the same way that if you were throwing a baseball to me, would say, throw it really high. Like you would eventually figure out that your release point would be much sooner versus if I told you, throw this thing into the ground, you would also realize this later without necessarily needing to figure out wrist angles of where you release that, right? So again, there is something to be said about the skill level because if I've never thrown a baseball before in my life,

Chase Cooper (13:42.254)
So the bad way...

Raymond Prior (13:49.237)
You might need to tell me, okay, now I think you think about throwing this thing straight up in the air, but with add some rotation to it or something. But depending on your skill level, but the better we get at something, the less efficient that becomes again, I'm not saying that there's no value to it, but the circumstances with which they are applied for the person, their specific aims for their lesson or for what they're trying to do with the golf club and the golf ball matter in that equation and what we're trying to pick, right?

Chase Cooper (14:17.41)
Yeah, so there's a difference between putting a 3D sensor or a wrist sensor on the player and saying they need 14 degrees of radial deviation at impact versus

Raymond Prior (14:25.182)
Sure. Now again, if you take a tour player who is one tuned into that and can feel the difference between that, that's one thing. You take your average ammeter. First of all, I would also argue cause and effect. Like for the average ammeter, the reason their wrist angles or impact position is flippy or whatever is because of a larger body movement or a weight shift issue or a setup or a grip issue, far more than that. So we're kind of getting a little bit tangential with that. All that being said.

Chase Cooper (14:46.126)
or awareness.

Raymond Prior (14:52.55)
If I'm asking the slowest and weakest parts of my brain to operate the finest tuned smallest muscle groups at a high skill level, we can see that's pretty disruptive for us. They just can't keep up with that.

Chase Cooper (15:05.42)
And, and, and I also think that's why, you know, the golf industry as a whole, the instructional side of the golf industry as a whole has always kind of been pivot driven and been all that stuff because it is, it is hard to really fine tune what the fingers and the hands and the wrists and all that stuff are doing. Having said that I'm, I'm a big fan of still adding some, some hands to the motion at times, just because we are very good with our hands and we are very good with, and that's the only thing that controls the club.

Raymond Prior (15:14.857)
Yeah.

Raymond Prior (15:32.022)
Well, one of the things we know for sure, mean, if you get this, look at the nervous system. If you look at the amount of nerve endings at different parts of our bodies. So for anyone playing the home neuroscience game, you're looking up an image called homunculus. And it's a depiction of the human body as it relates to how many nerve endings and how sensitive they are. And basically as human beings, we're all face, hands, feet, and genitals. So.

Chase Cooper (15:44.341)
you

Raymond Prior (15:58.46)
if you're talking about what does the golf club feel like, oftentimes that is gonna come from hands. But then again, is it the muscles that I'm using to create that or am I trying to feel a certain thing that is generated more from a body motion? So again, there's a lot of nuance to this, but as it relates to our conversation, A-shaped thinking tends to try to get us to consciously think through something.

that isn't necessarily best consciously thought through. And then of course that can trickle down in some pretty deleterious ways, depending on what my skill level is and where I'm asking myself to try to control something like, you know, with my hands at the club face at the moment of impact, like that's a really, really small margin for error there, particularly when we've already made it smaller based on how we're thinking about it.

Chase Cooper (16:46.678)
Yeah, for sure. So to put a bow on what you would you would recommend for most coaches to teach from what the science says, be very, very careful about having specific focuses with the smaller muscles. Is that fair?

Raymond Prior (17:01.363)
Yeah, I would say move toward those last, right? Because then again, even if you just think about the kinetic chain of a golf swing or any real motion, even if it's like a jump shot in basketball, the beginnings and the most powerful motions in that that determine what the arms and hands are doing are starting from basically between the bottom of our sternum, right at our diaphragm and the tops of our knees. So basically like.

ribs to kneecaps is like the core for athletic motion, particularly motions where we are throwing or catching something. And so I would probably want to coach from there first and then move my way kind of toward limbs or to weight shift or something. So there would probably be a couple of levers that I would pull before that, before I start trying to coach somebody how to use their hands when the kinetic chain isn't really very efficient to begin with. Right. I could say this.

Chase Cooper (17:57.198)
Good, and we kind of.

Raymond Prior (17:58.55)
The same thing for myself. Like when my golf swing gets off, it's very rarely whatever's going on with my arms and hands. It's that my body's not moving in a way and my arms and hands have to compensate for that. In which case then I can be, oh, well my arms and hands did this. Well it's like, well it's kind of like, why did they do

Chase Cooper (18:14.092)
Yep. And we kind of with working with beginners, we start with club across your shoulders, turn, turn, pivot, finish, and then we get the grip and then we start, okay, now laying the airplane, now twist the airplane and the twist of the airplane is usually five or six lessons in. all right, cool. So we'll go back to the, get back to the recap on this confidence is, and we've talked about this a ton, but confidence has kind of been redefined as permission to perform freely, not belief or certainty about results.

Most golf golfers have unstable confidence because their confidence depends on results, feelings, past performance, or often other people's opinions.

Raymond Prior (18:47.389)
Yeah. So if we're thinking about confidence, again, confidence, think any human being who's lived at all understands that I feel certain ways when I execute more freely. All right. So it's not that confidence doesn't have any base in feeling in it at all. But what we're seeing from the highest performers and the most consistent performers in the world is that their confidence is rooted the least.

in what things feel like and it's rooted the least in context and it relies the least on outcomes. Okay, so what it means is for me to go do something freely and authentically, where is that permission coming from? Is it coming from me just because that's how I want to do it because I know that's in my best interest and it also feels a certain way to me? Or am I waiting for something else to give me that permission which at times in our lives, they do.

Right? Like we are oftentimes in situations where we recognize the stakes are very low and I can get that permission from the situation. Case in point, players tell me frequently when I'm one behind the cut line, I play so freely. It's incredible. Right? That's our situation. I'll accept it. So it's a context where I feel like I have nothing to lose and therefore give myself permission to take the risk to go try to play great knowing that I might not. Or there's times when we get a series of outcomes.

that our brain then calculates, well, the future must look like this and we really like how that calculates, that is also part of this equation. The problem for us is all of these things are unstable other than me giving that permission to myself. So again, the analogy we used last time is imagine I go, I'm a really consistent golfer, provided I have my favorite club, flat stance, flat lie, favorable wind and a favorable pin.

What you would say is you probably are a great golfer if you can check every single one of those boxes, which may happen for you about once a round. Otherwise you would go, well, what do you do when you have a side hill lie or you're not your favorite club or an unfavorable wind or you're not in the fairway or you're not hitting off a tee. The same thing goes for us psychologically. Well, what do we do to give ourselves permission when the things that give us permission aren't necessarily there? But the reason we gravitate toward those

Raymond Prior (21:11.066)
unstable things is because when they are available to us, we feel them very much. Right? So the downside to this then becomes, well, if I'm trying to perform at a higher level, that means these things are going to be available to me less and less, because my subjective experience with them is going to change most of the time, and it's going to evolve, and I'm going build a tolerance to them. we might see if we're kind of talking about our conversation here is that A-shaped thoughts.

make our permission to perform freely more contingent upon context and all of the different layers we talked about before, outcomes, my own thoughts and feelings, other people's opinions, my past and future, and then whatever the current reality is offering me and how I feel about

Chase Cooper (21:58.029)
Yeah, I'm super confident if I'm driving it well. And if that the last couple of weeks, or last couple of days, I have been driving it well, then it can work out great and everything's fine. But we're not going to keep, you and you've always said to you can't trick the brain. And a lot of times like we can tell ourselves how good of a putter we are, but if we haven't made a bunch of putts and we usually use that as kind of our backup to build our confidence up, it can be failing quickly.

Raymond Prior (22:19.422)
That's right. Yeah. So here you're highlighting again, I am not saying that self belief is a bad thing. What we're saying is it's not nearly as stable as we tend to give it because believing that even if it's a layer of, believe I can handle anything, not even I believe that every outcome is going to go my way or that I'm good enough or whatever, it requires evidence for our brain to go, yes, I definitely believe that. Now, whether that...

Chase Cooper (22:47.263)
And recent recent would you say recent evidence? Yeah

Raymond Prior (22:49.476)
Semi recent enough right again. So think about something that we believe very strongly more kids We've used Santa Claus on this at a bunch of times when that evidence perceived or real is in place That belief is very strong but the world has a funny way of giving us the truth and if we're Other than kind of living in the dark. So once you become self-aware enough at some point, you're gonna start seeing evidence to the contrary

which is why nobody who's an adult really believes in Santa Claus, right? Because at some point you're gonna see some evidence and because you're getting more intelligent and more self-aware, there's some point you can't deny it in the same way that if I just believe I'm a great golfer, but I've been going through it for a couple of months, that self-belief is not necessarily that stable despite the fact that I might pump a whole bunch of energy into it. So again, as we've talked about before, the research shows us that the best and most consistent performers in the world

are relying on self-belief the least. It's far too shaky a ground for them to try to gain permission to perform freely from because they're playing in places where they're gonna get crappy outcomes pretty regularly. Right, like I think again, if it's outside of golf, we go to like pitching in the major leagues. Statistics show that basically even the Cy Young winners every year, one out of five games, they're just gonna get shelled.

In which case then if I go, believe I'm great. Well, 20 % of the time the world is telling you, no, you're not. In which case then I have mixed reviews at best. So again, I'm not saying that self belief is a bad thing. It is really powerful for us as humans. As we get better at something, it becomes less stable because it becomes less predictive for us. Another thing to keep in mind about self belief is if you're working with a psychology professional who's pushing that,

Research shows us that the number one reason psychology professionals push self-belief on other people is because they believe it was something they lacked. So again, think about that in another context. Imagine you go to a dietician and they tell you, you need more protein. And you go, why do you think that? Because I needed more protein. That may or may not be the best fit for you, right? So it is important for us to, again, kind of ask some questions about like, okay, well, why are we?

Chase Cooper (25:04.888)
Mm. Mm.

Raymond Prior (25:12.5)
trying to develop this or that and so on and so forth. So again, there is something about us as human beings where we do respond to other people believing in us and the world giving us evidence that we have reason to believe in ourselves. There's nothing wrong with that and it is powerful, also unstable.

Chase Cooper (25:16.174)
There's some heavy stuff there.

Chase Cooper (25:33.698)
Yeah. And risky for my players too, at times it's risky because if I keep telling man you or if it's an A shape thought to you, man, you've got all the talent in the world. You you've got a chance to be great. Like, we got to be careful.

Raymond Prior (25:43.125)
That's right. I believe I am great at golf. Again, not a negative thought, but it is a fixed mindset. I am good at something, in which case then every outcome you get in performance you have is either confirming or denying how good you are, in which case then when I get them, I really feel good and belief increases. When I don't, I can't. And we've talked about fixed and growth mindset a lot on this.

Program before you know the core belief of a growth mindset is everything is helping me to learn and grow and get better Versus the fixed mindset is I just believe I'm really good at something. So again that self-belief can be a very Double-sided sword and what we see from like really good High quality psychology research is that it's really not something that the best in the world are relying on too often when it's there They're probably lean on it pretty hard. But when it's not it's not

Chase Cooper (26:39.718)
when it's great. And again, I go back to my tell my players like, yeah, I'm there great mentally when everything's working well, but do they only get that two or three or four times a year where everything's dialed in and our goal is to be more stable around those events.

Raymond Prior (26:52.788)
That's right. Look, and again, not to be judgmental toward anyone, but if you're only in a great place psychologically when a series of other things are in place, that is telling you exactly that so much of your permission to perform freely is tied to things that are rarely available to you. Right.

Chase Cooper (27:03.15)
It's so good.

Chase Cooper (27:09.822)
the result. So good.

So good, so good, so good. Thoughts are not negative or positive. They're either constricting A shape or expanding V shape in terms of margin for error. A shape thinking creates must have to can't rules, shrinks margin for error, increases anxiety and avoidance. V shape thinking creates preferences, preferences, not requirements, keeps margin for error wide, allows freedom, adaptability and resilience.

Raymond Prior (27:22.334)
Mm-hmm.

Raymond Prior (27:37.331)
Yeah. So A-shaped thoughts again, our perceived margin for error is decreasing in a self-imposed way. And the way we speak that or hear that in our head is some version of have to, need to, must, can't, don't, or should and shouldn't. And then the consequences are us explaining any event and experience in our life as more long-term, more widespread and more personal than they really are. And again, that doesn't mean that our

Margins for error are wide open or that there aren't consequences, including consequences we don't want attached to the experiences of our life. There are, but in this case, we are making them smaller and more threatening in a way that your brain is going to want to deploy anxiety or frustration for, because if that was the actual case, it would really require that probably. Versus V-shaped thinking, we are leaving the margin for error as wide as we can.

It's not pretending that you can just hit the ball anywhere while you're playing golf and still score, or that you can do anything you want in the world. What it means is the actual margins for error are the actual margins for error. And the consequences attached to the things that we prefer not to happen are only as long-term, only as widespread, and only as personal or not personal as they really are. So missing a fairway is I just missed a fairway. And that's it.

It's not determining what my round will be. It might determine what I need to do next on this shot, depending on what this lie is, but it's not nearly as long-term as we typically make it. It's not about, I'm just hitting it poorly. It's like, no, I just hit this one where it was, That, some conclusion of that nature, or even aimed at our internal experience. I'm feeling anxiety, therefore I must be in trouble is also an A-shaped thought that now...

Chase Cooper (29:18.934)
or I'm not a terrible driver of the ball because I hit a bad tee shot.

Raymond Prior (29:31.507)
My margin for error is missed because I'm feeling anxiety that I shouldn't be feeling. And if I'm feeling that, then I must be screwed is a conclusion about the future being very long-term, very widespread. And also that's a pretty personal problem we have. So we can apply a shaped thinking to just about anything. Whereas V-shaped thinking again, it sees things and they are, so it'd be like, prefer not to be feeling anxious, but I am. And just because I am.

doesn't mean anything other than I'm just feeling really anxious right now, right? Instead of, I shouldn't be feeling this way, or if I am, then I must be in trouble, or I'm just an anxious person. Like, you're not just an anxious person. Your brain is capable of anxiety, depending on how you think about things, but that doesn't make you an anxious person, right? So this would also be kind of my pushback on, and not just mine personally, but also...

the research on like personality profiles is they typically put people into categories. You're this type of person. And because of that, it's this kind of future for you, which is just an A-shaped framework to put anybody into. Again, it's just not very predictive. that's, we've talked about that before. We don't need to go down that, but that's what we're talking about.

Chase Cooper (30:43.726)
No, for sure. Okay. So before we get into the, of the, some of the other thoughts that we didn't quite get to last, last week. So you talked about, you know, anxiety at the, at the end there. And like you're just because you have an anxious thought doesn't mean you're necessarily an anxious person. You're capable of having anxiety. Turn this into a real world example, whether it's with my players or, know, we've got college postseason coming up. We've got

Another major coming up pretty soon. Like I'm having anxiety. I'm having, I'm fearful of the future when it comes to this, these next couple of events. Obviously there's, there's some, there's some deeper levels that you like to get to with your players and, and, and deeper, you know, conversations that happened before just this one, but like talk us through quickly, like how you deal with a player feeling more anxious about a certain event than they maybe have in the past.

Raymond Prior (31:34.93)
I would be curious first, tell me about what you're thinking about this event, right? And tell me what might be contributing to that. And needless to say, there might, sure.

Chase Cooper (31:42.062)
Okay. And I'll answer some of these. Let's say I'm just uncomfortable. I just don't feel quite right. I really feel like I need to, I need to play well. A lot of these A-shaped thoughts, like I must, some of that stuff.

Raymond Prior (31:50.72)
Sure. Great. And I would then might even be a little bit more curious. What is it that's caused you to come to the conclusion that you made? I'm noticing that that conclusion is treating the feeling you have as a precursor to your future. And I'm also noticing that tomorrow doesn't show up until tomorrow. So tell me a little bit more about what's causing you to make that conclusion. And it's usually, well, in the past, when I felt a certain way, I play the next day. like, well, you felt a certain way, but how did you treat those thoughts?

treated them as if I had them, then I'm in trouble. So there's an A-shaped conclusion in between these. So we might just, okay, that's pretty A-shaped going forward. If you went to tomorrow through the same A-shaped framework, what do you expect would happen? Probably play the same way, same cycle goes again. Okay, cool. What's another way we can think about this that is credible, meaning truthful. And when you say it, it might not.

Chase Cooper (32:36.76)
same result.

Raymond Prior (32:48.371)
make you feel differently, but it actually might give you the opportunity to focus and act differently. And that is, well, I just feel kind of crappy right now. I'm not even really sure how I'll feel when I wake up in the morning. if, and Warren, last question was last time you felt pretty crappy and played pretty decent golf. And here, here, here, and here. Okay. How did you go about that? Well, I was just letting myself feel crappy and I just kind of didn't care. so basically it wasn't something that you could or couldn't.

Chase Cooper (33:04.664)
question.

Raymond Prior (33:15.049)
feel at the time or that you should or shouldn't be feeling, you just were. And then you actually just focused on what you wanted to do and how you wanted to do it. Cool. So take me through how you did that or what types of things you did too. So now we're kind of, instead of just going with the fact that an A-shape thought exists, I'm inviting them to think differently about what it is they're experiencing. And then also, Chase, explore the evidence to the contrary.

Right? So we don't just replace thoughts like, I, or replace feelings. I'm feeling anxious. I'll just feel relaxed. Anybody know that? Doesn't work. Or I'm feeling any, I'm thinking in a shape. I'll just switch it to a V. Not really how it works. We actually have to explore that first thought and kind of show ourselves. I don't really think this is actually how it goes and look for evidence to the contrary in a way where our brain, the way it works.

Chase Cooper (33:52.43)
Good luck.

Raymond Prior (34:12.041)
will assume a thought is true until we show it otherwise. So think about our childhood beliefs, Easter bunny, Santa Claus, my dad's the strongest guy in the world, et cetera. We assume that's true until we go, huh, that's an interesting thought I had about that. I wonder if that's true and then start exploring the evidence to actually support or as we might see, kind of refute what that is. That's right.

Chase Cooper (34:38.306)
Yep. Golf instruction world's full that still today. Yep.

Raymond Prior (34:42.133)
Now the challenge for us as humans is we oftentimes treat our strongest, our most prevalent, our most shared and our most felt thoughts and beliefs as if they are true. And the real problem for us as humans is oftentimes we fall into the trap of treating a thought as if it's true, particularly A-shaped thoughts that we have held for a long time, that many people hold or that we feel is very, very true.

even though they're not. Right? So that's where you're starting to get into some real psychological work with people about, of course you don't have permission to go play freely from yourself because the beliefs you have, particularly these A-shaped beliefs at different layers, and I'll talk about those layers here in a second, are pretty strong. And the reason you're treating them as strong is because your history with them, the fact that you share them with other people, and they feel a certain way too.

Right? So if you think even about some golfer, like I feel like I have to try to be perfect or control outcomes. Well, it's a long held, a shaped belief. It is often shared by many people and you're going to feel that in the form of frustration, anxiety, or I hit a shot trying to really control the club face and it actually goes where I want it to. I go, yep. See, did it.

And so it gets reinforced with confirmation bias over time again and again and again. And confirmation bias by definition is I am excluding other evidence to the contrary of what I've been experiencing that might explain this in a different way. That's what confirmation bias is. And it's a dangerous place for us to be in because we typically get farther and farther from the truth.

Chase Cooper (36:20.396)
Mm.

Chase Cooper (36:29.984)
it's it's fascinating to me how how often that happens with my my students. I'll I'll just have them hit into the net. And then I'll I'll have them assess the shot and then I'll show them I'll show them the result through a track man and then they'll come up with a different a different assessment or outside they'll hit it and be like, I hit it left. So I must have done this. I'm like, Well, why do you think that? Well, because that's what that's what's happened in the past. I'm like, Yeah, but you're not that person anymore. You don't have that golf swing anymore. Like

just because the ball went this way, they almost go backwards and think, I must have done that. I'm like, well, what do we know? And I always joke. I'm like, those aren't facts. Those are just, those are guesses. The fact is the face was shot and we got to figure out why the face was shot. That's the only reason it went left.

Raymond Prior (37:08.309)
Yeah, that's right. So confirmation bias is another survival mechanism for us. helps us to, there's just too much information in our world for us to organize in any one second or even one minute, despite the fact that our brain is organizing and processing billions of bits of information per second. It needs filters to know what's important, what's predictive and what's not. And so this bias, this confirmation bias,

based on our past experiences, not just the past experiences, but also the shape of the beliefs that we experienced them in, it basically goes, well, this experience plus this belief, we're gonna use this as the predictive formula going forward. So any evidence that I experience that confirms this will get overvalued and encoded and any evidence to the contrary will just kick out, not that it's bad, it's assuming it's not relevant.

And again, in our modern world, this becomes a problem for us because now we get farther and farther from truth. And truth is the most stable ground for us to be able to operate from when things get difficult for us, which if we're talking about playing golf, it's going to get difficult at times. And so is life for us. Right. And so what happens

Chase Cooper (38:23.146)
And confirmation bias feels, often feels better too, right? Like there's a feeling to it, right?

Raymond Prior (38:27.231)
confirmation bias makes us oftentimes feel self-righteous or at least safe. So if you think about it, again, in our modern world where if your confirmation bias pushes you very strongly in let's say a political direction, when you see evidence of that, it's gonna make you feel self-righteous. The downside is when I see stuff to the opposite, I become very threatened by it. Hence, the challenge with A-shaped thoughts and the confirmation bias they create is a ton of threat for us. And it also, though,

they get reinforced through fear, through anxiety, through anger, and by the way, from feelings that we typically like, but again, that doesn't necessarily mean that any of them are oriented around truth. Right, so it can be helpful for us at times, but oftentimes, I wouldn't say that I see many people, and again, this is Raymond observing the world, so I have to tune into my own confirmation bias on this, but.

I don't see too many people operating from very heavy biases that are very flexible and adaptable in the world. They typically they're quite rigid. And the reason they're rigid is because only things that fit the bias is stuff that they can operate from. Everything outside of it becomes either a threat or a disruption. Right. Okay.

Chase Cooper (39:31.339)
original.

Chase Cooper (39:43.406)
All right, part two, where we're going.

Raymond Prior (39:45.29)
Part two, let's just kind of talk about like the layers of A-shaped thoughts. They're not necessarily of all the same value. So our brain has these types of thoughts, but you might think of them as kind of the, there's the hub of the wheel, there's kind of the arms of the wheel, and then there's kind of the wheel spinning around it. So three layers.

Chase Cooper (40:04.974)
And is it both sides, A and B, both sides, there's layers to both? Okay.

Raymond Prior (40:07.349)
Yeah, for sure. Right. And what we're talking about here is kind of like we would call it as a micro, mezzo or macro. The micro would be like, this is the experience I'm kind of having right now. So don't hit this left or else you're screwed about this golf shot. Right. So, but then oftentimes behind that thought is another A-shaped thought that might be the form of you better not screw up today because other people are relying on you. And if you let them down,

That is an unacceptable experience for whatever explanation I might be giving myself to that. Right. Then if you go even lower, we're really kind of like, what is actually at the root of this? This is where our insecurities and our trauma lives. the trauma. Yeah.

Chase Cooper (40:52.59)
So real quick on the on the behind that thought is that a mezzo so is it micro mezzo are you going in order or this?

Raymond Prior (40:57.319)
Micromezzo and then macro. That's right. So macro is the deepest right? So the macro means it's applied There's a trickle effect. So micro is this very specific event that is related to this larger experience that is larger These are my insecurities and traumas that I am guarding against right? So our insecurities come in essentially six layers. It's approval acceptance from other people

significance, meaning I need to feel significant or be seen as significant. Intelligence, I need to be seen as smart. Pity, which is I need everyone to see how hard my life is. Validation, just that I am experiencing what I think I'm experiencing for the reasons I think I'm experiencing it and that is okay. And power, meaning I have more, I have disproportionate influence over other people.

And with our insecurities, it's not so much that I necessarily, although sometimes it's not a hard and fast rule, but in general, most human beings insecurities are not actually about having these things. They're about being seen as having these, seen as significant, seen as powerful, seen as approved of and accepted. So we can see here in a world of social media, why people experience so much anxiety. It's just insecurity bait constantly, right?

There then also the deepest layer you might go like macro macro is our trauma. Trauma is the ultimate A shaped experience for us, which is that thing from your past that was incredibly painful and consequential must not play out in your future. Here comes the full blown defense mechanisms for us. Right. So we kind of talked before, I always push back on the neuroscience approach.

to all you got to do is hold a target in your head because that assumes that the micro, the meso, the macro and the trauma layers are not interfering with that, which is highly unlikely for any human being unless you have done the work to be able to clear that space or you're in a context where those things are not triggered, which we might say the golf course, especially in tournament golf is usually not one of those places. So

Raymond Prior (43:18.889)
Here we see the importance of really good psychological work and understanding that our psychology is the first domino. Psychology being, is this an A-shaped or a V-shaped approach to this experience? Is the first domino and everything else is oftentimes dependent upon that, including my neurology, meaning can I even focus on a target and hold that frequency in my brain? Plus the neurochemical combination. mean, what's so predictive from domino one is just everything and how everything goes.

Chase Cooper (43:49.709)
Okay. So micro, I can't hit it left right now. Mezzo, I can't let other people down. Or if I keep it at left, I'm going to miss a cut. would you say like? Okay.

Raymond Prior (43:58.07)
It could be that. It could be, I need to play well today to prove I'm a good golfer. Right? And then the next macro is, I need to be a good golfer because I need other people to approve of me or accept me or to feel significant or to feel powerful or whatever.

Chase Cooper (44:03.33)
Yeah, to not embarrass myself to whatever.

Chase Cooper (44:13.292)
Would you say I need, I need to be a good golfer for, I need to play well to go make it so college coaches, is that still mezzo? Yeah.

Raymond Prior (44:24.329)
That's a real thing, right? Like playing it from coaches, but then it's like, well, I have to do it today. Well, why today? Right? So.

Chase Cooper (44:31.968)
Or I have to get a college scholarship or I have to keep my card or I have to all those. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I get them. I get them a lot. do too.

Raymond Prior (44:35.433)
Sure, all those things. Now some of those are real, right? Some of them are real. So there's many of the competitive experiences we have are indeed A-shaped. For example, if you wanna make a cut, usually something mezzo, but sometimes they're reality, right? So for example, wanna, again, here's the thought, I want to play in college.

Chase Cooper (44:47.842)
But what level, what level would you put those at those make it.

Chase Cooper (44:55.96)
Okay.

Raymond Prior (45:01.353)
But to do that, I need college coaches to think I'm a pretty good player or else I can't. That's a real challenge. But then that event and experience that is A-shaped in and of itself, how do I then meet that? With more A-shape, then I must play perfectly or I can't ever hit this type of shot in front of these coaches or no coach will ever think I'm good enough. there are...

Chase Cooper (45:05.368)
Okay.

Chase Cooper (45:18.37)
Yeah, more construction.

Raymond Prior (45:26.621)
Situations in our life. In fact most competitive experiences in our life have some variation of an a shape There is a definitive margin for error that includes and excludes certain things in people and there are actual consequences with a certain amount of time a certain breath to our life Breath, excuse me, and there's some type of personal investment in them, right? But then how do I? Meet that experience with more of an a shape or a sharper a shape or do I meet that with v-shaped approach meaning?

This is exactly what I want. These are the actual consequences. And the really cool thing about us as humans is if we can actually strip this down to, this is the experience, what's actually at stake without me adding any consequences that don't exist other than the actual consequences. And what is the actual margin for error that I have to operate within? That offers us, Chase, what you were talking about before, which is, is that a situation that I'm willing to accept? It's real though.

Not the imagined one. And the real one, we are often very resilient with. Meaning, yeah, I can step into those. I know that there's a margin. you know, players tell me before Q school all the time, the cutoff is the top five, you get a PGA tour card, everyone else doesn't. That's a pretty narrow margin for error. And the consequences for that are big time for me next year. There's a significant amount of time attached to that. There is a ripple effect for that in my life and my livelihood.

and I have invested a ton in trying to play pro golf. But if I meet that with it and you better be perfect to do that and you better not screw this up, you better not be judged by other people because if you do, this whole thing was a waste, you should have never been doing this in the first place. All of that is gonna take that actual very stressful experience and turn that into now an anxious experience. And depending on how far down you go in that chase, whether it's the day of you better not screw this up or.

you better not screw up this opportunity because you're supposed to be a pro golfer and that's how good you are. And then of course, our insecurities are always attached somewhere in there that the more we attach those to it, the thing about our insecurities is that it's the widest net for any experience in our life to get caught in. So it's playing golf, it's being rejected by somebody, it's the job interview, it's someone looked at me in a certain way, the clothes I'm wearing,

Raymond Prior (47:52.143)
All of that falls under our insecurities because again, they are so broad as a protective mechanism for us wanting to be seen or perceived in a certain way. And so everything we do can technically fall under that.

Chase Cooper (48:08.782)
So my high school kids, I have to get a college golf scholarship.

I always ask, well, why? You know, what, what makes you say that? Well, is it because from a financial standpoint, is it because in a lot of times deep down it's for parents' approval? Like it really, it really seems like it always, and I'm like, do you love it? Are you, will your life be okay? And some of them will laugh. Some of my girls, especially, will laugh and be like, I'd probably have more fun if I didn't play college golf. It's like, okay, really? You know? And so we'll always dive into that.

Raymond Prior (48:41.738)
Yeah. Right. So we're really talking about what is it that we actually need versus what is it that we just really, really want. And now Chase, you're also asking a very good psychological question. Why is it that I really want this? And do I even really want this? Right. Versus people have told me that I should want this or have to have this, right? In the same way. Well, you have to believe in Santa Claus. Have to?

Chase Cooper (48:55.276)
Yeah. Yeah, right.

Chase Cooper (49:03.106)
Yeah.

Chase Cooper (49:07.234)
Really?

Raymond Prior (49:08.032)
Who told you this? Are you sure that's like, so again, this is us challenging our thoughts by exploring them first, which then opens up space for there to be evidence for us to look at something in a way where now it allows us to think about something differently in a credible way, because we're now paying attention to the wider, more comprehensive set of evidence rather than the very biasly confirmed set of evidence that again, when my parents said I have to have a college scholarship, I treat that as a fact.

then that confirmation bias rolls for a couple of years, that's gonna seem very, very true to me.

Chase Cooper (49:46.936)
Alright, so same level, different layers for V shape.

Raymond Prior (49:51.115)
Yeah. mean, V-shaped is, I would love to hit this shot as close as I can. Let's go see what happens. Tournament round or more of a mezzo level. This was, this is a really important week. This is a major championship. I would love to play well. It would really suck if I did it, but that's a risk that's worth me trying to take. And then macro level is I would prefer that people see me in a certain way or that I even feel about myself a certain way all the time.

not required. The thing about our insecurities is the way that we move past them is to actually experience the opposite of what it is that we think we need to fulfill them. So if that's, need people to accept me, it's a willingness to have other people not accept you, which means judging you in a way that you don't want. And there's certainly some psychological work to deal with, which is like, why is it that I'm valuing other people's opinions so much to begin with? Or,

Why is it that I need to feel more significant than somebody, especially via something else? And how is that actually impacting how I feel about myself? Cause the thing about us human beings, a little bit of a sidetrack, but the more we chase our insecurities, typically the worst we feel about ourselves. However, the more we kind of allow ourselves to experience our insecurities, the better we feel about ourselves. But we have to sit through that discomfort for a little bit, like the initial.

someone's judging me in a way I don't want, feels kind of crappy to us, or I wanted people to approve of me and they're not. And then letting go of the need for that over time, that starts to feel better, but it's kind of like a blister becoming a callous. It takes a little bit of time and persistence with that to just let it hurt for a little bit and then it toughens up.

But typically what we do with our insecurities and our traumas is we just guard against them and it's kind of like a blister and then it kind of heals over and then it blisters again and then it's over and over or a wound that kind of opens and closes and doesn't ever really heal because we never really give it the time to do so or do the work to do it necessarily. if you have trauma that is unresolved or insecurities that you are continuing to feed, you will get meso and micro level A-shaped thoughts pretty frequently. Right.

Raymond Prior (52:08.626)
Again, the importance of really good psychological work and the reason why mental skills like a pre-shot routine or a breathing routine or something can only do so much for us when you have something behind the scenes. Or if my threat level for the potential future is too high, me telling you to just be present is like trying to open a door by pushing on the hinges.

Chase Cooper (52:33.846)
Yeah, good luck. I love the big V shaped thoughts. So I would love to hit this as close as I can. What's my goal here? I'd love to hit the shot. What's my goal for this tournament? I would love to play well this week. I'm gonna you know, it wouldn't be great. I'm not gonna resign myself to playing terribly. But if it it if it doesn't go well, it's okay. But let's go fire at it and bring a lot of freedom to it. Let's see what happens and then macro like I would love for people to see me as a great golfer. But if they don't, it's not not going to define me or affect my life.

Raymond Prior (52:38.93)
Always. Yeah.

Raymond Prior (52:58.422)
The major benefit, well, major, one of the major benefits of V-shaped thinking when it's credible to us is that the worst case scenario for us to accept is the actual reality or the truth, which sometimes doesn't feel very good. Like I would love to win this major, but if I'm in contention and I don't end up winning, I'm going to be pretty heartbroken about that for a little bit.

Chase Cooper (53:09.006)
Thank

Chase Cooper (53:14.678)
No, I'm not good enough.

Raymond Prior (53:23.754)
That's the worst case scenario that is real. And then everyone will judge me. I should have never been in there in the first place. I'm never going to win a major championship again. How embarrassing was it for me? I'm never going to... All that. That is a way worse worst case scenario and 90 % of it is imaginary. Right? So all that being said, how we're thinking about things creates the margins for us to be able to operate within and have permission to operate within.

Chase Cooper (53:30.306)
No. I'm a choker.

just can't get it done.

Raymond Prior (53:52.457)
And the consequences that we add onto that are either going to be aligned with reality or they're going to be more imagined, particularly in some more threatening ways, which make it harder to accept. I tell you the future's imaginary or real is going to include a bunch of these things, like even just the A-shaped thought, if this doesn't go well this time, it'll never go well. It's just, here we go again, all over again. That is a very long-term conclusion about a short-term event, right?

And that feels a certain way. And that worst case scenario is way worse than actually this would just have been one more failed. And I still don't know how the next one's going to go. Again, the real world can kind of suck and hurt sometimes. The imagined world is very protective for us in a way that keeps us in the same cycles. And then what we might say is kind of entrenches the stuff that continues to make it harder for us to deal with stress.

Chase Cooper (54:30.924)
Yeah, one and a breath.

Chase Cooper (54:45.74)
Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. This, this stuff's really good. Like, and I keep going back to like the brain's gonna, you know, you always say, keep it at face value, keep it relevant. And like the brain just kind of tends to just want to exaggerate everything. And so the, the fake, the like, as you said, the imaginary world, it feels safer, but it, but it actually makes all the problems way worse.

Raymond Prior (54:58.474)
Yeah. Yep.

Raymond Prior (55:07.794)
It typically exacerbates them. It's gonna make us feel safer sometimes, but it's usually not. If I was gonna boil this down and kind of, our A-shaped or V-shaped thinking is applied to two different, one external and one internal response for us. So the main thing is like, it is applied to stress. So the actual challenges that we have in our life externally.

If I think about that A-shaped or V-shaped, I'm gonna get a different stress response. One would be a productive stress response. One's probably gonna be anxiety or frustration oriented. And then we also think in A-shapes or V-shapes about our stress response. So for those playing the home game in their psychology textbooks, this is I either have a growth mindset or a fixed mindset, A or V. And then how do I actually respond when my internal experience tells me I'm going through stress? Do I go, uh-oh?

This is an experience I shouldn't be having and can't be having. And because I am, I'm in trouble, A-shaped thinking, or I'm really nervous. I might even be feeling a little bit anxious, but this is actually not necessarily what I feel to prefer, but this could be really helpful for me to handle the stress and help me learn in the longterm. Now we've got two different real life experiences through two different prisms. And we would see how people can respond to both stress and their stress response in one.

a very helpful way and in other ways that can oftentimes be a lot of brakes applied instead of the gas.

Chase Cooper (56:37.198)
It's good stuff. Little bit deep, but good stuff. There's some really good information there.

Raymond Prior (56:44.598)
Okay, final thoughts? Anything else you want to add to this? I don't know. That's all I have in my notes from today.

Chase Cooper (56:47.874)
Did we cover? Did we cover it all? Did we cover it all on your end?

Chase Cooper (56:55.074)
Let me see. Yeah, I mean, I just keep going back to like, need to start off my round with a birdie or I'm not going to play well today or I've, I have to do this and I have to do this and I have to do that. Like giving our, giving our players the freedom to explore and the freedom to, you may fail. I, I wrestle with that whole thing. Like was I, am I good enough? And it's okay to, to chase it for as long as you can. And sometimes the answer is you may just not be good enough, but at least

Raymond Prior (57:06.909)
very

Chase Cooper (57:24.374)
If you play freely enough to give it a chance and you give yourself a chance to try and a chance to play to your potential, that's a much better outcome than you feeling like you never did it.

Raymond Prior (57:35.221)
Yeah, what we can acknowledge about A-shaped thinking and approaches to things is it makes us feel like one, we're in some control. Maybe we are, maybe we aren't. Two, it makes us feel like we're giving ourselves a better chance at something. Maybe we are and maybe we aren't. And it also makes us feel like, I did everything I possibly could to try to make that what I wanted it to be. And then again, maybe it did and maybe it didn't.

Chase Cooper (57:46.104)
Yeah.

Raymond Prior (58:04.618)
So it's not necessarily what they are intending to do for us. It's what is the actual cause and effect that we're looking for. And the actual cause and effect of A-shaped thinking is, again, mostly avoidance-based mechanisms. And the byproduct and natural consequences of V-shaped thinking aren't that we're necessarily comfortable in control or certain, but we typically deploy more pursuit-based approaches both in the short term and the long term.

And that typically feels better for us once we sit with it long enough to let go of all the avoidance-based stuff.

Chase Cooper (58:42.318)
And a lot of my players and I did this to talk about man, know, having really bad say it's a warm up session or I just remember a lot of times too in college in high school when I was really sick, I tended to play really, really well. It was like, well, I have nothing to lose today. I shouldn't play well. And then you go out there and you play so freely.

Raymond Prior (58:57.066)
That's right. So again, if we're looking at that from behind your psychology, your margin for error you gave yourself now just became wide open, right? And the consequences you weren't adding anything to it. Well, because you would always have, well, I felt terrible. So if I played terrible, there's a reason for that. So you wouldn't make a long-term, a widespread or any personal conclusion from that, which is not uncommon. Like athletes in a variety of sports, why do I always play great when I feel terrible?

Chase Cooper (59:04.91)
Super wide, yep.

Chase Cooper (59:14.272)
on that built in excuse me.

Raymond Prior (59:26.314)
because you don't think about your experience in the same way, that's why. Also, you don't have enough energy to think about them in an A shape because they require so much time and energy and effort and you don't have enough bandwidth for that. So there's both of those going on, but either way, your psychological domino at the beginning of the domino effect was in a different shape. And then everything else after that fell according to that shape.

Chase Cooper (59:34.498)
Yeah, good.

Chase Cooper (59:54.959)
It's really good. get, everybody go get sick, have zero expectations and play your best golf. Let's go. We just created a new product. Make yourself sick.

Raymond Prior (59:59.415)
Just go do that, right? That's right. Which, by the way, Chase, many people, ironically, many people chase exactly what you're talking about, but they're doing it from external means. That is drugs, alcohol. It's amazing to me the amount of law students and medical students I work with who will go out and go crazy the night before a huge, like why?

Chase Cooper (01:00:05.646)
Do that. Do that.

Chase Cooper (01:00:11.938)
Yeah. Yeah.

Raymond Prior (01:00:26.088)
It builds in an excuse because what they're looking for is one if this doesn't go well, it's not my fault but also it does shape your psychology differently because the Circumstances do not allow you to think about it Otherwise because I can't expect perfection of myself if I wrecked my chance at perfection the day before right again We're all chasing the same thing here, but the means by which you're going about it are just not sustainable or if they

Chase Cooper (01:00:44.248)
That's right. That's right.

Raymond Prior (01:00:54.908)
are something you're willing to do over time. You can't perform well with be a happy, healthy human being. Of course, you set yourself up for all number of liabilities and negligence and all that stuff.

Chase Cooper (01:01:03.854)
self-permission to pursue freely without a guarantee.

Raymond Prior (01:01:08.234)
Hence, stable confidence, self-given permission to perform freely without anything else telling me that I need to do that, which I'm not pretending is easy. It is pretty tough to do, especially in our modern world, but that's the spot.

Chase Cooper (01:01:25.048)
why we're here. That's why we're here. Thanks for everything you do for this podcast and trying to educate us all. I appreciate it. I keep building me up. I keep being nice. I keep being nice. I'm just trying to make sure everybody can, I take good notes so everybody can keep up like I'm trying to keep up.

Raymond Prior (01:01:31.926)
jeez. Now you're pushing at me. How am I supposed to get over my insecurities if you just keep feeding them in this way?

Raymond Prior (01:01:43.582)
Uh-huh, that's right. Okay, sure. Tell us where they can find us, Jason.

Chase Cooper (01:01:49.915)
at gbtspodcast, Instagram at chase group or golf, Instagram at bts mindset.com. we'll probably have a Q and a coming up soon. Have a couple of guests in the pipe that we'll, we'll get to when we get to it's getting into busy season. So we'll do our best. We're, we'll do our best. We'll try to maybe, maybe pound out a couple of episodes in a, in a couple of days and get, get some, get some extra ones in the pipe so we can keep you guys, keep you guys, guys going. So doc, good to see you.

Raymond Prior (01:02:02.902)
Hmm.

Raymond Prior (01:02:15.095)
It'd be awesome. Okay. Good to see you too. Be well everyone. We will talk soon. Thanks for joining us.

Chase Cooper (01:02:17.347)
Thanks as always. We'll see you next time.