[00:00:05] Speaker A: Welcome to the Pressures of Privilege, formerly known as Relationship Restoration Radio. I've decided to bring my podcast and blog under the same name to better reflect the journeys we explore here today. I'm talking with Dr. Rich, who teaches psychiatry at Brown University and used to be senior vice president for behavioral health at Brown University Health.
Now he helps people with the mental side of golf. He coaches players all over the country and just wrote an important book called Better Golf, Better Life.
When folks start working with Dr. Rich to lower their golf scores, they find out that the mental skills they learn also help them in real life.
They become more present and more themselves.
If you want to learn more about Dr. Rich's work, check out his website at ww.drrichgolf.com welcome to the podcast.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: Nice to be here.
[00:00:57] Speaker A: Well, I've been listening to your book and it's been.
[00:01:00] Speaker B: Oh, good.
[00:01:01] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it's. There's so much overlap with karate, it's unbelievable.
So how do they become better people if they improve their golf?
[00:01:10] Speaker B: Well, you know, this is one of my favorite topics, so I'm glad to talk with you.
I could give you lots of examples. Maybe I'll.
I'll go to the most recent and then we can back up to some of the earlier stages.
So people often don't call me up and say, Dr. Rich, I'd like to see you, because I want to be a better person.
Usually people call me up and say, I need to shave a few strokes off my handicap. You know, I want to break 80. I'm getting close, but I'm frustrated. They have some goal in golf that they're looking for, so that's where we start.
So one guy calls me up. He happened to be a CEO of a big company operating out of Boston, and he called me because he had trouble making four foot putts. Three and four foot putts, these little short putts.
He was quite serious about his game, but he said, when I stand over that putt that just before I take the club back, my mind goes off the rails.
He loses his focus.
So I, you know, this mental golf coaching is.
It takes a while to get to know people and know how they learn and what's going to appeal to them and how concrete they are or how abstract their thinking is. This guy was fairly concrete about things and not very interested in kind of the spiritual garment of meditation and getting close to that. So I took a concrete approach with him and said, this is what I want you to do.
Stand over that pot and look down at that beautiful white sphere. Of a golf ball in front of you at your feet.
And I want you to stare intently at that white sphere.
In fact, I want you to pick out a dimple on the ball, maybe, and focus on that ball so intently that after you take your putting stroke and you keep staring at that spot, you should see a black circle as a retinal afterimage, because that white ball has sort of burned that space into your retina.
And after it goes away against the green grass, you'll see a black circle afterimage, and that will be evidence for you that you remain focused.
Now, there's also some neuroscience behind this approach called still eye, because when people are focused and putting well, their eyes aren't moving around. And in fact, they've done studies where they've shown that higher handicap people who don't play golf as well when they're putting, their eyes are moving around.
And very good players, their eyes are still.
And it's almost a linear relationship.
So I was also helping him achieve kind of a still I still brain approach to this.
[00:04:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:16] Speaker B: So he.
So I told him to work on this for a while. So he worked on this for a while. And a few weeks later, you know, we're meeting again. He says, I got to tell you, this has been so good.
You know, not that it's magic, not that I'm making every one of those putts, but I'm making a lot more of them.
And what's more important for me is I kind of. I kind of look forward now to the opportunity to, like, do what I think I need to do to be present with these putts. And I feel like I'm going to make more of them.
So I said, well, I'm really happy for you. That's great.
But now let's think about how great it would be if you move this into your life.
So I said, I know you're a CEO. You've told me about your business. I know people are coming into your office all the time. They're looking for advice, they're asking questions, they're giving you reports, they're giving you information.
I know what you're doing.
You're on your phone, you're looking up things on your phone. You're shuffling papers around your desk. You're. You're hardly paying attention to them. And then they walk out of your office and they're feeling frustrated or not listened to.
Think about bringing this same presence to those brief encounters in your office. When someone comes in your office, look them in the eye for 15 seconds Listen to them with the same intent presence that you had in your mind over that putt.
You'll see what happens. You'll see what starts to happen and how things start to transform around you.
So he said that. Very interesting. He said, you're absolutely right about what I'm doing. When they come in my office, I'm all over the place.
So next time we meet a few another three weeks later, he says, it's like a new business. All of a sudden I feel like my employees, my senior staff are like loyal to me.
They are like trying to do more for the organization. And I think it's because they feel like I'm interested in them and that I was present for them when they had a question. So there's an amazing example of better golf, better life and bringing it into the workplace.
[00:06:42] Speaker A: That's a beautiful example because I was, I was thinking when, when you first mentioned him and his problem with that putt. I had a concrete example of myself last year. I was in a, you know, I do, I practice karate and I was in a competition, totally friendly competition at my age. It was my first competition ever and I had to perform a kata that.
I know it really well. I can do it in my sleep.
And about five or six moves into the kata, I looked up at one of the judges faces. He was looking at me with this stern look. He's a Swiss guy, I know he's the sensei of my sensei in Switzerland.
And he has this sort of very, very serious look on his face. And I'm thinking, oh, he probably thinks I'm shit. And the minute I thought that, my kata went to hell. You mentioned this in your book. The doubt that comes in, that creeps in. And, and I think you mentioned that it's something about a lack of commitment or it leads to a lack of commitment and the lack of commitment leads to maybe missing the shot. Did I get that right?
[00:07:44] Speaker B: Yeah, well, there's a lot of that. But when I heard you just now, the simplest part of it is sort of how you label yourself.
So I see golfers all the time who tell me, gee, I could be a great golfer, except I'm such a terrible putter.
And I say, well, you always will be as long as you keep saying that about yourself.
Or, you know, I sadly see players I'll play with either as a, as their teacher or their guide or their playing partner. And like every shot they hit is that stunk.
I'm so lousy.
It's like they create this, this negative cloud this negative aura around themselves. And it's so sad, because changing that, you know, kind of inner monologue they have would begin to change other things in them.
And, you know, I view golf as sort of a learning laboratory because in a way, there's a little less at stake than there is in your life, and you can try it out.
So I'd say, gee, next time you hit a terrible shot, why don't you, like, pause for a minute and kind of resist that impulse to say something bad about yourself?
Try. And then what can bring. And then in my mind, I'm saying, then I'll talk to them about bringing that into their life, you know, at some point.
But the.
The mindset that people bring to their game is, you know, a critical part of playing better golf.
[00:09:18] Speaker A: It's amazing. I've actually gotten pretty good at not having those thoughts. During karate, there was a time when we were doing a drill, and I was not really paying attention. I was thinking about something else, and I got paired up with a white belt. And here I am in black belt. The white belt could do the drill better than me. So by the time we rotated and I was facing my teacher, he got really mad at me, and he emailed me and he apologized, which I told him after the fact when I got home. Yes, I was upset, but I think it was my ego.
You know, I was all in ego thinking about, I'm shit, the white belt's doing better than me.
And it was all about me, me, me, me, me.
And it was the last time that's ever happened. But I emailed my sensei and I said, thank you, sensei. It was just my ego. It's been good because it's focused me. I haven't done it. It's very rare that I ever slip again like that.
[00:10:14] Speaker B: I'd like to get an entrepreneur to work with me on a line of golf shirts that the logo would be Tamashigo, which sounds Japanese, sounds kind of exotic, but it's really sort of a joke, meaning too much ego.
Tamashigo.
[00:10:31] Speaker A: And so it'd be sort of. I love that.
[00:10:34] Speaker B: It would be sort of an inner secret for the people who buy this line of clothing. Tamashigo. And people would see it and say, gee, you must have a very exclusive brand, Japanese brand of golf clothing there. Where do I buy that Thomas Shigo brand?
[00:10:50] Speaker A: I'll buy it. Dr. Dr. Rich. I love it.
[00:10:54] Speaker B: Too much ego. So I'm kind of looking for a partner to launch that. I think that'd be great.
The designer designed it to, to look like that kind of beautiful Japanese calligraphy script that would, would go there, not just block letters.
So yeah, see, it's too much ego. But the, all those that what you described in that moment is what happens to people on the golf course as they're about to hit shots. They, their mind is, you know, what are people going to think of me?
What am I going to think of myself?
How I did this better in the past, Can I do it again now? You know, know they're in the past, they're in the future, they're in their ego.
And getting people to be, you know, in the moment, to be there. Of course, I use fairly concrete with them. I emphasize a lot of what I call the pre shot routine, which is a, you know, a structured preparation that people go through to optimize their mindset and their performance.
Because the golf swing is, you know, a highly orchestrated, complex movement and all we can do is interfere with it, with all of these other thoughts.
So by getting engaged in the pre shot routine, people build in certain triggers and patterns that'll that keep them on track with things.
And also there's sort of another neuroscience principle is your brain can't do really two things at once.
So if you're engaged in your pre shot routine, there's no room for a lot of the doubt, anxiety, fears, ego. There's just no room for it because your brain is totally occupied and engaged with something.
So I just brought that up with somebody who is a pretty good golfer and he said, oh, Dr. Rich, we don't have to talk about that. I got a pre shot routine. Let's go on, what else you got?
So, you know, I worked with him for a while and then about a month later he says to me, you know that pre shot routine you talked about?
I've had one. I'm not engaged with it anymore though. I'm just going through the motions. That's what I realized.
So let's. So I said, yeah, I, you know, now that you bring it up again, I actually like to call it pre shot creation rather than pre shot routine because there's sort of an active creative element about bringing yourself to that moment.
And yeah, so we did a new kind of inventory review with him about the elements of it. It's all highly, you know, there's something I'm writing about now. Let's say there's potentially 53 elements of the pre shot routine.
Well, you can't use all those. You've got to sort of utilize ones that are kind of Meaningful and helpful to you. So it's a real creative process to get there.
But the mindset is a big part of it. You know, the mindset that begins things. I know you also share with me. Piano interest.
[00:14:13] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:14:14] Speaker B: And I was thinking at this point about a moment with my piano teacher was Lyudmila Lifson, may she rest in peace, was a Russian woman who had won the gold medal in the Moscow Chamber Competition with her sister, who was also a great violinist. So she was a very advanced musician. And I was fortunate that a fluke of politics brought her to Rhode Island.
And I studied with her for 10 years.
And I remember one day playing, and I forget the piece, but I.
It's something we were working on, and I played it and then waited for her to say something, and she finally said, and I won't try to do the Russian accent, Richard. You know, that kind of thing. I won't do that.
You played that like a marching band, a patriotic marching band. She said, that has nothing to do with this piece of music.
She just closed your eyes. I want you to think about a meadow early in the morning, a stillness.
There may be some birds off in the distance. You might see a little bit of mist floating up off the meadow as the sun rises on it.
Could you get that feeling?
She didn't use it, you know, could create that mindset when you have that.
Now play that again.
You know, in that moment was sort of a moment that I've brought into golf. What is the mindset that we bring to the first tee?
And what's the mindset that we bring to our day?
And it's sort of an. An endless process. I mean, I've been meditating for 50 years, and it still is a process. And so I'll confess that, you know, recently I found.
And I got this from my golf, and I brought it into my life more of a sense of gratitude. So I would get on the first tee, and rather than focusing on, you know, what's the course record in this place?
Or am I going to. How am I going to look to these other players? They think I'm supposed to be an expert. What's going to. Instead of all that nonsense, I'll stand on the first tee and sort of cultivate a sense of gratitude for being here, for the greenness, the nature, the beauty of the golf course, the companionship, the opportunity to have these movements. Golf. I call it yoga for Republicans. You know, golf. The golf movements that are so beautiful.
And I feel like that has. And a lot of pga, you know, professional players talk about the importance of cultivating gratitude, the importance that that has on their game. So I brought that back into my life and started to focus my morning meditations on gratitude.
And a lot, a lot of interesting things came up of things that I was grateful for that I had just sort of glanced by and overlooked. And it had a wonderful effect on my day and is having a wonderful effect on my day. It changes that mindset, creates a whole different way of experiencing the day.
So I sort of got that, that came back into my life through golf.
[00:17:54] Speaker A: That's fantastic. How long do you meditate for?
[00:17:58] Speaker B: Usually about 20 minutes in the morning, 20 to 30 minutes, but about that amount of time. And I'm a real, no surprise, kind of always doing things, you know, always planning things, always having a big agenda. And a while ago I figured out that this was a good investment.
[00:18:21] Speaker A: I remember you telling me about 13 years ago when I first met. Was it 13 years ago when I first met you? Could be 14. Yeah. I remember asking you about morning routines and I remember what you said. I don't know. Do you remember what you said?
[00:18:35] Speaker B: No.
[00:18:36] Speaker A: You said, whatever you do, Diana, make sure it's gentle.
[00:18:39] Speaker B: Oh, okay.
[00:18:40] Speaker A: And, and that has been golden for me because I don't know if it was after or before I broke my arm. I went for a jog the minute I woke up and I was. I had just been at a wedding in the south of France and I was worried about a family member and I just mindlessly threw on my headphones and went for a run and ran with my on shoes on a wood wooden platform area and my shoes caught an edge and I flew through the air and broke my humerus.
And so my, my lesson there was that was not gentle. And I never start. Do anything before coffee.
[00:19:23] Speaker B: Anyway, I've got a little bit here morning ritual.
[00:19:28] Speaker A: So I love that. Never start the morning like it needs to be gentle. So now my morning routine is I get up, get coffee, I meditate, but I also, I do the morning pages, you know, the Julia Cameron, the three pages.
[00:19:42] Speaker B: I don't know that.
[00:19:43] Speaker A: No.
Well, when you mentioned that your, your PSR is actually a psc.
Yeah. That it's your personal, your pre shot creativity creation. Yeah.
That's all about Julie Cameron's all about creation and how we all have the inner creator. Everybody's got an inner creator and that we just need to tap into the creator.
So my morning pages, I just write free, you know, free consciousness, whatever is coming up. So all of the complaints and the self pity, I just get it out of the way so that I can get on with life.
And yeah, that's my morning routine now. And then, and then I take the dog for a walk and then. And then I get into my day or into less gentle activities. What do you think about that?
[00:20:34] Speaker B: Settling oneself in one way or another is. Is important before starting a lot of things.
And I think athletes and people are individual. So I get, when I work with people, I tend to understand what their nature is, you know, because the same formulas don't work for.
For everybody. I was just thinking part of when I'm on driving on the way to the golf course, I find what really helps me is to put on some of these slow jazz ballads by Johnny Hartman.
I know if you know his music, have a listen to Johnny Hartman. It creates such a sense of a quiet, deep rhythm and relaxation that it carries over into my golf swing. Because there's such a tendency when you start to hit the ball, swing the club fast, get some distance. All these things that are that counterintuitively work in the wrong direction, they're all distance killers.
The thing that you want to swing hard and fast to hit it far. It's really a matter of being folks centered and having a rhythm, rhythm that is in tune with your own rhythms.
[00:21:55] Speaker A: This rhythm. And you mentioned balance and you mentioned posture. Yeah, which also in karate is really important. And we have rhythm as well.
[00:22:05] Speaker B: Yes, I'm sure likely all these sports. You know, one of the greatest golf psychologists, Tim Gallway, his first book was the Inner Game of Tennis and then he did the Inner Game of Golf after that.
So I'm sure that's similar.
[00:22:18] Speaker A: I had one question though. You mentioned the top of the swing in golf as a pause. And I'm just wondering, is it really a pause or does it just look like a pause?
[00:22:28] Speaker B: No, I think there's really a moment of stillness.
[00:22:31] Speaker A: Okay, there stillness. But you can have stillness in movement. So like Bruce Lee talked about water, be like water.
[00:22:38] Speaker B: So you know, now there's certain golfers, you can see where it's quite exaggerated. Thinking of Hideki Matsuyama as one example. But I think there has to be a transition from going back to going through.
So just in terms of physics, there has to be a moment of stillness in that transition from going back to going forward.
And everything comes out of the stillness big. There's a mystery for you, right.
In golf, as in the Zen mystery as well.
And I find people get very anxious up in that moment of stillness. Now I have a theory about this, that it's not my own personal theory, but I've elaborated a little. It's called the hit impulse flashback. And I wrote a little essay once in my blogs called the Hundred Thousand Year Old Golfer.
So go back 100,000 years to the hominids carrying around a club in their hands. And what would they do with that club? They hit things, right? They'd hit things on the ground because they had to eat, or they'd hit some, you know, hit another hominid because they're trying to take over the tribe or have a battle or something. So this hit impulse, when you have a club in your hand, is very deeply programmed into our genes. So when you take the golf club back 100,000 years later and you're in this moment of stillness and there's a golf ball down there on the ground, you've got the hit impulse.
And all you want to do is as quickly as possible hit that golf ball. And that leads to all kinds of swing problems and all kinds of difficulties with the golf game, the swing path. And it's very hard. You know, good golfers have mastered it, but it's very hard for people who aren't to realize that it begins with patience.
It's never rushed. It's dropping into a golf swing.
They say a famous saying in golf is the ball gets in the way of a good swing.
The ball is not the target creating a swing. The right swing is what's going on.
So first of all, it's this.
The first step is self awareness. If people cannot develop the awareness of having that impulse, they're not going to be able to change it.
So I work a lot with people on awareness, on cultivating self awareness. I'll give you an example. And then they bring it into their lives.
So I had one guy who, you know, a famous error in golf is not finishing your swing. You know, kind of having a chopped off swing and not allowing the club head to release all the way to a complete finish.
So I'm kind of working with this golfer and we're going around the golf course and say, well, how do you think that swing went? He said, well, I didn't finish my swing again. Once again, Dr. Rich, I didn't finish my swing. So he get up on the next tee and he says to me, because I encourage all these people to speak their inner monologue out loud to me while they're part of the lesson.
So he's standing over the golf ball and he's saying, I'm going to Finish this swing now, Dan. Finish this swing.
Finish your swing.
Then he takes a swing, doesn't finish it.
I say, you just told yourself to finish your swing, yet you didn't do it. Let's see what happens on the next hole. Same thing.
So I said, well, so you've made the first discovery, which is if words worked, we'd all be scratch golfers.
If all we had to do is tell ourselves what to do and then our bodies would do it, we'd all be scratch golfers. So this, obviously it's not working for you, is it? To tell yourself to finish your swing.
He said, I guess you're right. So what's the alternative?
I'd say, well, this is what I'd like you to do. Get yourself into your finishing position and hold that position.
Now tell me something you're aware of. What do you notice?
Oh, I don't know. I'm kind of standing here in my finishing position.
So this guy had very little self awareness, very little sign of somatosensory awareness. I said, well, hold that. I'll take a break for a minute because it's hard to hold that position for too long. Now get back into it.
Now I'd like you to put your awareness on some part of your body and start to tell me, what do you sense?
He said, okay, I can feel some pressure on the left side, the left edge of my left foot.
I say, okay, good, that's a start.
Now what else?
I can feel some tension in sort of my right scapula. The, there's a little in my shoulder as it's released. I said, okay, let's stop there. That's a couple of things.
So I'd say those are the keys.
Now that you're developing some sense of some awareness, some self awareness of your own body.
You can begin to own completing your swing because you're aware of where you need to be. And as you stand up to the ball, instead of saying, finish your swing, Dan, do some rehearsal movements where you preview these sensations and find them again. It works because one feel is worth a hundred thoughts.
[00:28:30] Speaker A: I love that. Oh, you sound like my sensei.
He's like, oh, we've got all these amazing doctors in our dojo down in New York. And he says, all these people, they're such good thinkers, but they're all in their heads and they're thinking, thinking, thinking. I would just want them to stop thinking.
[00:28:48] Speaker B: So part of the. Yeah, so one feel is worth a hundred thoughts. So but to the pre shot routine, in what I Call the rehearsal phase. People are standing behind the ball, their club is in their hand, but they're not taking full practice swings. They're tuning into a feel.
[00:29:06] Speaker A: He's always saying that, I want you to feel your.
Your left muscle in the back, and I want you to feel this and this.
And that's why I train with him. But it's so similar, it's unbelievable. Dr. Rich.
[00:29:23] Speaker B: I think across all these disciplines, there are a lot of similarities. I'll jump to my free association. Another one, one of my favorite books is Zen and the Art of Archery.
[00:29:35] Speaker A: Yes. Which you gave me, of course.
[00:29:38] Speaker B: I've read it now 15 times. There's hardly any page that isn't marked up. So many times.
[00:29:43] Speaker A: Okay, I'm behind you there.
[00:29:45] Speaker B: This business about when the arrow is released.
So I was going to say when you release the arrow, but that's part of the problem of the beginner, and it seemed very mysterious to me.
So here's a. A roundabout lesson in. In this. So one of my students who I was working on putting. Putting again. Putting is the final frontier in golf, it seems like.
So we're working on putting and her focus, and she says to me, out of the blue, she says, you don't know this about me, Dr. Rich, but I'm a very successful competitive marksman, and I compete in high level shooting competitions.
And she says, everything you've been telling me, part of me has been listening because it applies exactly to pistol shooting.
Your posture, your balance, your focus, your stance, your grip, your vision, your mindset, your presence, just all of these things. She said, you should be a shooting coach. So incidentally, I am doing that now, and I've taken it up myself.
So she said, let's barter some services.
You work with me on my putting, and I'm going to introduce you to the world of target shooting.
[00:31:11] Speaker A: Oh, you want to start karate, too?
[00:31:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
So I get into this target shooting and get into things naturally, I get, you know, I buy the gun, a pistol that's like way better than I deserve to own. You know, it's the one that they're using in Olympic competitions. And I have all the equipment, because why not?
And I'm looking through the site, and this is what they call these red dot sights.
So a little tiny red dot gets superimposed on the target.
But what I found is it was going like this. It was like dancing all over the place. I said, well, of course it is. I'm an old man. It's kind of like I'm what I'M I don't have any neurologic disease that's diagnosable, but I got tremor, right? How am I ever going to be able to get better at this?
And of course, that was like saying, I'm a terrible putter. You always will be as long as you say it. So I say, yeah, I'm terrible. I can never get better at this.
I'll never hold that red dot steady.
And then I was doing something that I don't encourage other people to do.
I was kind of trolling YouTubes about how to. What you do to steady the red dot.
And these were messages from the world champion shooters.
And one of them has had a profound effect on me. He was a world champion marksman. And he says, I have a confession to make for all of you aspiring shooters out there. When I look through my sights, my red dot is dancing just like yours, maybe a little less, but it's moving around.
And the worst thing you can do as a beginner is to start to snipe at the trigger. And when you, you know, it's dancing around, and when you see it over the target, you pull the trigger.
He said, you're never going to get better that way because you're introducing lots of flinching movements when you do that.
So he says, this is what I do. I'll share it with you.
He says, I patiently watch this red dot dancing across the target, and when it is in the right place, the shot happens.
I never consciously take a shot.
I'm thinking immediately to Zen in the art of archery. That's exactly what the Zen teacher was talking about, I think.
And I brought that into my target shooting and had sort of an epiphany.
I went up, like two levels overnight in terms of things. And what's more important, the reason I've stayed with it is it's very meditative, you know, because your entire universe becomes this little red dot, just like in a putt or in golf, or like.
[00:34:27] Speaker A: The dot on a ball, right?
[00:34:29] Speaker B: Or the dot on the ball. So I'm kind of waiting and turning this over to what a higher consciousness to take the shot.
And in some miraculous way, it's like, more accurate.
So it's funny. One of the things when I play golf back to the mindset is I went through a phase. I still do it to some extent, where, of course, my golf partners have no idea what I'm doing. And the first tee, I'll go off to the side somewhere and look out on some beautiful view with my back usually to the Other players, they have no idea what I'm doing. And I'm silently saying to myself, I open myself to the divine transcendent wisdom of the universe, Om namo Guru Devnamo.
And that creates a certain mindset of.
That's like letting the shot go, letting a higher wisdom work through you, you know, make it very concrete. Ben Hogan, one of the greatest golfers of all time, says, once you've got the club at the top, there's absolutely nothing you can do, nothing you can think about. There's no thoughts you can have that are going to help you take a better shot.
You know, you sort of are turning it over to the divine wisdom of the universe at that point.
[00:36:01] Speaker A: I love that. You know, there's a lot of overlap with 12 step recovery. You know, I interviewed on this podcast a guy named Elwood, and I asked him, I said, what do you credit your recovery with? He's like, it wasn't me.
So who was it? I don't know.
It's. It's. And a lot of people in 12 step talk about sort of giving up your will to a higher power and just. Just trusting in the universe or trusting in that higher power that.
[00:36:30] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, golfers in good humor always talk about the golf gods, but engaging them is not that easy. They're very fickle.
[00:36:42] Speaker A: Yeah. And in karate, I'm trying to think.
Sensei often says he's all about moving from the core. I have, in my basement, I have a makiwara. Do you know what that is? It's a piece of wood that's screwed to the concrete floor, and I have a little leather padding on it, and I punch it 10 times on each hand every day and to sharpen my weapons and.
And if I'm thinking about my hands and I'm thinking too much, my. My fist will roll off the leather and actually I risk hurting myself. But if I'm thinking I'm punching with my glue and I just let my arm do whatever, I'm directing it from the core, from the glute.
I nail it every single time. But it's not me doing it. I don't know what's doing it. I'm just not trying to control my arm the whole time. It just sort of happened. My butt knows where my punch is going.
So if I just have trust the process, it just happens.
And isn't that what. And I find that fascinating in life, this sort of. I tend to over control my life. Dr. Rich.
Control every. I used to control other people in my life. I'M trying not to do that, but it's also controlling myself all the time, and it's exhausting.
[00:38:03] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, there's a golf coach who I admire a lot. His name is Fred Shoemaker. He's probably not actively coaching now, but one of the things he said in one of his books that has influenced me a lot. He says, you know, the common golf culture would say, if you want to improve, there's something wrong with my swing and I have to fix it.
If you start thinking like that, you go through a lifetime of always thinking there's something wrong with you, then you have to fix it.
And that's going to be a lifetime of fixes and a lifetime of feeling there's something wrong with you.
He says, I have an alternative approach, which is there's something going on with my golf swing and I need to become aware of it. So that's influenced me a lot, these two different approaches, because there's people who I see on this endless path of fixing and looking for tips, looking for golf tips and trying something new, and then a week later, another tip and another new thing. And in the meantime, there's a deep sense of something being wrong and taking this alternative perspective. There's something going on in my golf swing, and I have to become aware of it.
So that has guided a lot of my teaching people developing more awareness of something in their swing, and then they will figure out, so I never really, as a teacher, tell people what to do. I'm not going to give them another tip, which implies to them there's something wrong with you, and I'm the teacher. And here's the thing that's going to fix your problem.
I'm there to help them gain more awareness and as they do, and also how to learn to own their own swing, their own authentic swing, which is theirs.
[00:40:18] Speaker A: That's lovely.
[00:40:19] Speaker B: And which is different.
[00:40:22] Speaker A: There's a lot of curiosity in that.
[00:40:24] Speaker B: Curious being. Yeah. Adopting a curiosity. I see a lot of my golfers scratch their heads when I suggest that they say, well, people hit a bad shot and they want to get away from it as quick as they can, that first of all, they don't want anybody else to see that it happened.
And then they don't even want to see what had happened. They want to distance themselves from it because it's not consistent with their self image of who they believe they'd like to be.
So they run away from bad shots. I say, well, these bad shots are the best things that can happen.
As you're growing your Golf game here.
So next time we take a bad shot, let's not have you run away from it. Have some curiosity about it.
What happened, what happened there, and what were you aware of that happened? And then maybe somebody will start to say, I think bad. A problem with my tempo.
Now they're learning about it, and now that leads to. Okay, so what can I help you? Learn to own your tempo and to be aware of it. Well, how do I get a better tempo?
Well, you know, as a musician, we know, believe it or not, almost all my students have downloaded a metronome app onto the their iPhones.
And we start with putting. And did you know that, like, 92% of PGA players putt at a tempo of 74 beats per minute?
[00:42:08] Speaker A: Oh, cool.
[00:42:09] Speaker B: There's something interesting about that.
Some are faster, some are slower.
But I have found this myself. So I have a temp. I have a metronome go app.
When I'm practicing, it's going off in my pocket.
But you can't do that. A lot of people, it bothers when you're playing with them. Certainly can't do it in a match.
So I went on to Spotify, and I punched in 74 beats per minute, and a bunch of songs came up.
And then I searched the list for the one I liked, which is Frank Sinatra, one of his versions from the early 50s. Fly me to the moon.
Fly me to the moon at this tempo. So imagine me, I'm approaching the green, and I'm singing to myself, fly me to the moon at 74 beats per minute. So not only is it getting me in a great mood and excluding all this negativity and all these other problems. Yeah, I'm looking at the green and the contours and how the putt's gonna roll and everything else, but I've got this tempo that I bring up to the ball and put in tempo with that.
So that's another.
[00:43:27] Speaker A: That's lovely. I love how you're bringing the music in, doctor.
[00:43:31] Speaker B: Yeah, well, music.
Jack Nicklaus confessed when he was in his late 50s. He said, I haven't revealed this in any prior interviews, but Georgie girl won me a million dollars. That was a lot of money in those days.
[00:43:48] Speaker A: I know.
[00:43:48] Speaker B: So apparently having this song in his head during every competition was of great value to him. In what? Staying on tempo, staying in a certain mindset. So a lot of golfers will, you know, could benefit by bringing something, some music into their game, into their heads.
[00:44:10] Speaker A: Yeah. What would you say to somebody who might have a little ADHD and just cannot meditate. They just have tried.
They feel, as you may have met you, you mentioned earlier, they feel there's something wrong with them because they can't meditate. They've got the monkey brain and they just cannot and don't want to sit down and meditate.
[00:44:30] Speaker B: Yeah, I have a lot of those students, you know, now I end up having teaching meditation.
I was very shy about bringing it into my golf teaching because I thought people would say, you know, if I wanted to go to church, I'd do that. Let's talk about golf.
But after a while, I began to introduce it by saying, you know, I'd be doing you a disservice if I didn't bring something up that I think is going to be very important to improving your golf game.
And it has to do with your focus.
And you can learn this through meditations. And then I talk about with them, you know, what do we mean by meditation? So you just brought up, if people have this idea that they're going to control their thoughts, bring them to a standstill, bring them to a single thought that they hold for 20 minutes, well, good luck with that.
I don't doubt that some people have achieved that, and to some extent I can have at times achieved something like that. But with these people, I think it's more important that they get the perspective of mindfully letting thoughts pass through them, that they're not going to stop the thoughts, but they're not going to interact with them.
They're going to let these thoughts pass through them. And so I give them sometimes a metaphor of you'll become like a pane of glass and thoughts will arise and they'll go through you the way light goes through a pane of glass. And you're that pane of glass that's letting things pass through you. And as you identify with the glass, the pane of glass, you'll be.
You won't get distracted, derailed and identified with all these thoughts.
So your ADHD is not a problem. You just maybe have a little more distractibility, more thoughts arising. But guess what? We all do.
And I've got lots of great golfers who have pretty severe adhd.
[00:46:40] Speaker A: Yeah, trauma, too. People who have severe trauma, sometimes they don't react well to having to sit in silence.
[00:46:48] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I just acknowledge it must be true.
So then, yeah, we don't have the time to go into then. What would one conclude of what to do next?
I think that's a whole specialized area.
[00:47:04] Speaker A: Oh, my God. We'll have to do a sequel. Dr. Rich. Yeah, to get into the. Your whole sort of psychiatry and psychology, which you are. You are an expert in.
[00:47:13] Speaker B: We've gone a lot of different places.
Like I said, most, most people call me because they want to shoot a few strokes lower, and I don't dissuade them from that goal because that feels good to be able to do, to do that. But as they do, they learn that good scores happen as a result of more awareness of your swing and of yourself and the things you learn along the way.
And sure, some people need a swing coach, some people, you know, everybody should get better equipment and, you know, custom fit to them and you do what you can in those areas is. But after a while, it's, it's learning, it's bringing.
It's 90% mental, and that's why it's such, you know, a great game.
[00:48:04] Speaker A: Is there anything else that I've. That I've missed that you wanted to bring up today?
[00:48:12] Speaker B: No, I've covered a lot. I mean, it's like not everything by far, but we just let the.
Whatever happened, happened.
[00:48:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:48:25] Speaker B: Right.
[00:48:25] Speaker A: So how do you work if people want to hire you to go golfing with you, how do they do?
[00:48:30] Speaker B: Anybody listen to this? Who wants to. I mean, this kind of group, if they would just, you know, email
[email protected] Dr. Rich Golf Gmail. That's an easy one. D, R, R I, C H, G, o, L F Dr. Richgolf Gmail.com and say, Hey, I heard you speaking and maybe we could have a conversation about whether it makes sense.
[00:48:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:48:54] Speaker B: For us to work together in some way.
[00:48:56] Speaker A: So you go on the green with them.
[00:49:00] Speaker B: Yeah. Now I have lots of people all over the country, so I do a lot of zoom coaching with people.
It's a different thing to go work in person.
So every year I make a West coast swing where I'm out in Palm Springs for six weeks and I have a lot of students out there. And so after a lot of zoom work, we get to go out on the green and on the golf course. And around here I prefer to do that. But even around here, I usually start with a couple of talking sessions because understanding them and their background and what their golf history has been like.
[00:49:38] Speaker A: And with, by the way, around here is Rhode island, right?
[00:49:43] Speaker B: Yeah, around here is Rhode island, but it encompasses, you know, the circle around anywhere. It can sort of get to Boston area and Newport.
[00:49:53] Speaker A: We have a huge listenership in Switzerland, by the way, because I interviewed an Olympian coach in Switzerland. So we're like top 200 in Switzerland for health and wellness.
So who knows, Dr. Rich, you might be called to go to Switzerland.
[00:50:05] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, I'm not. Probably not saying it right, but Krons Sur, Montana.
[00:50:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:50:12] Speaker B: Is an incredible golf course.
45 years ago, I was there, but not since. But I'd go back in a moment.
Yeah. I spent a summer in Verbier.
[00:50:27] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:50:27] Speaker B: And before it was built up.
[00:50:30] Speaker A: Yeah. Gstad Zanenland, up in Chinri, they have a golf course.
I'm not a golfer. I can't tell you if it's great, but it's. People love it, so I'd love to.
[00:50:40] Speaker B: Certainly love to connect with anyone in Switzerland, too. And, yeah, so we. We'd start off, we'd have a little conversation, and then if they say it's like, you know, yeah, there's a fit, we sort of get along and this is what we do. Then we would begin something that's. It's very bespoke.
[00:50:56] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:50:56] Speaker B: You know, it's not every week. Sometimes. Sometimes it's a little more intense, sometimes it's less. But it's all.
It's highly personalized.
[00:51:06] Speaker A: Ah, that's lovely. Do you work with musicians as well, Just out of curiosity?
[00:51:10] Speaker B: It turns out that a lot of people I see have many talents. It's not unusual to find golfers who are musicians.
That's maybe for another day is how what I've learned in golf has helped me get through some difficult musical passages in my playing.
[00:51:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:51:31] Speaker B: But mainly some basic things about breathing, about how to. But first of all, being aware of where. Of. Of heading into a problem and then managing the mindset in a different way and then breathing through it. So that's another for another day.
[00:51:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, I could talk to you for hours.
It's so much fun.
Thank you, Dr. Rich.
[00:51:53] Speaker B: Thank you. It's. What a joy. I'm. I'm very.
I have a lot of admiration for what you've done with your own writing. You've been very courageous and authentic about what you've written. It's very unusual.
So I think that's. I really admire you for that and trying to bring this relationship focus through the podcast. Of course, I like to believe it all starts with the relationship you have with yourself.
[00:52:22] Speaker A: Yes.
Well, that's kind of the crux of it, too.
[00:52:26] Speaker B: And that. Yeah, there's a lot we can do in the golf course. You've got just you for. You have to be able to live with yourself for those four hours.
[00:52:34] Speaker A: Well, yeah. Who was that guy? He was a French philosopher who said that men like the all problems of mankind stem from man's inability to sit with himself in a room alone.
I'm forgetting the name of this French guy who said that, but I, I, I often think that that is the problem. Like people just don't want to sit with their thoughts.
[00:52:58] Speaker B: Yes, I, it's hard for, for different reasons.
[00:53:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:53:06] Speaker B: So thank you for inviting me.
I certainly hope to connect with some of the people that you've connected with and we'll see.
[00:53:13] Speaker A: Well, thank you, Dr. Rich, for your time. And I look forward to getting together and maybe playing a little Bach or Schubert duets or something.
[00:53:23] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:53:24] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:53:25] Speaker B: Diana, thank you. All right.
[00:53:26] Speaker A: You're welcome. All right, bye bye.
[00:53:27] Speaker B: And wait, last thing. May the golf God smile on you. That's my, it's become my sign off line.
[00:53:33] Speaker A: I love that.
I love that. Thank you. And I hope they do on you too.
Okay, bye bye.
Before we wrap up, I'd like to thank Oliver Kiker for the jingle and Gwendolyn Christian for the backup support.
Also, a quick reminder, these interviews are not a substitute for professional medical, legal, or psychological advice.
Always consult with a qualified professional for any major decisions in your life.
And thanks for joining me in exploring the connections that make us human and learning insights and strategies to help us build, heal and nurture relationships, including, and especially the the one with yourself. It's been an honor to share this time with you and to bring you conversations with some of the brightest minds who deserve more recognition. Remember, life's too short to take too seriously. So don't forget to hit that subscribe button, get outside, and let's continue this journey of life together.
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