Steve Jobs sadly passed recently and for many, a modern day genius had been lost. In a world where ‘success’ often parades under it’s real name of mediocrity, Steve Jobs served as a reminder that ‘personal best’ isn’t confined to the chosen few but is in fact available to all of us, all of the time. Steve wanted to be ‘his best’….you’d be hard pushed to choose anything more worthy

One of Steve’s speeches has been sitting in my list of favourites from the time it was recorded (2005 –Stanford address) such was the effect it had on me. If you’ve not spent 15 minutes in the company of Steve Jobs, I’d strongly encourage you to seek it out. If you want to go find it now no worries…I’ll wait for you. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc

So why did Steve’s message, his personal story which I was never part of, connect with me?

Well, a confession is in order. At first it didn’t!….It was a ‘nice’ speech but then Youtube is full of those; Like I said, mediocrity masquerading as success makes up a big percentage of Youtube’s daily content.

It was many years before I actually ‘got it’….

When was that? When it finally fitted into my own internal app…that’s when! Possibly the only app I use that Steve Jobs didn’t create for me.

It’s an app we all have…..an app we often lose sight off , distratced by all the external tools at our disposal but one which can skyrocket your golf game and leave you in a space which will have the same effect on you as the Steve Jobs address speech had on me

It’s 100% portable….natural…..sustainable….free….comes with its own in- built source of motivation…requires no anti-virus software….is authentic and totally bespoke to you.

The only golfing app you actually need to build your game on, from the INSIDE-OUT…is WISDOM

Consider your best games…those performances where it ‘just happened’…. what ap was behind that?

WISDOM

Or the times you made a decision and everything turned out well, despite the apparent lack of intellectual evidence?

WISDOM

Maybe even the phone call you made, the person you met , the choices you followed which , on looking back….where pivotal in shaping your game. Choosing the club membership package, the equipment you chose, the coach you hired, the people you surrounded yourself with…..?

WISDOM

Steve Jobs states in his speech ‘You can’t join the dots going forward, you can only join them when you look back’.

Have you found yourself creating success in your own golf game and not knowing why it’s happened? Maybe this sounds like you

‘I played really well, I knew I was going to play well even before I hit the shots I did, it was my day but I can’t quite put my finger on how or why that happened’….have you had experiences just like that?

If you can’t quite put your finger on it, maybe that’s because there’s something else at play….creating success and guiding you outside the frame we call ‘intellect’.

What if, just like Steve Jobs and the choices he made…..the internal guidance system already knows what you want and all you actually need to do is get out of your own way….turn down the ‘noise’ created by all those external apps (Stats, Goal Setting. Reflection Notes, Positive Affirmations etc) and tune into the internal app that someone like Steve Jobs would have surely invented if it weren’t for the fact it was already on the market…..and pretty damn perfect too!

The challenge for players is that the ‘conditions’ necessary for producing their personal best is counter-intuitive and presents a strange irony.

The performances which where EFFORTLESS….SIMPLE…..PRECISE…..INTUITIVE…..AUTHENTIC ,are for me, when a player is being guided by the internal app of wisdom. The player literally has turned down….(and sometimes off altogether) the external apps that they’ve been led to believe make the difference.

And what do most players do immediately AFTER a wonderful performance?

They go into analysis mode, get encouraged to write down reams of ‘reflection notes’, get back in touch with their ‘smart goals’, in the intellectual quest to reproduce it over and over again.

And that for me is the counter-intuitive nature of performance

As soon as you attempt to control what is in effect something which takes place OUTSIDE the intellectual reasoning….it becomes just as elusive as before.

Again, I know there is a huge body of evidence, opinion, science, data,….whatever label you wish to give it, that will point to the facts that excellence in any pursuit is more likely it you follow the steps which have been laid by others who’ve ‘gained success’ before

I don’t get that! If I followed the EXACT steps that Steve Jobs followed would I get his results….?

No! Because I’m not Steve Jobs. I’m me.. and every bit entitled to pursue my personal best as he was.

I’m also pretty sure, listening to his speech that whilst he may have used an array of external apps to help him with the content of his vision…..the real driver was the internal app of wisdom…..the one app that Steve Jobs didn’t ever need to invent.

I’d encourage you to listen to his speech….not as an exercise to take notes…..not as an exercise to be a clone of one of the giants of our generation….but to listen with nothing on your mind……to allow the words he speaks to wash over you…. the source of inspiration you feel is NOT coming from Steve Jobs….his wisdom is meeting you on your terms….INSIDE you.

If you sense the feelings you get are somewhat familiar….you’re spot on. They are the same feelings you experience when your personal best is close by.

By all means collect the array of external apps that are out there….they are a brilliant legacy left behind by Steve Jobs and his merry band of innovators and for that we are forever grateful for Steve’s vision.

Your legacy is still being written…you want to be your personal best…..dial into the best app on the market.

In changing times….it’s something that never goes out of date, requires no warranty and I’ve yet see anyone take it back and ask for a refund.

Enjoy the unique nature of being YOU… INNER WISDOM….An app Steve Jobs would have been thrilled to market.

Thank you Steve Jobs….a timely reminder that all we really need is closer than we first realised.

Stay Hungry…Stay Foolish.

Your best is yet to come.

Andy info@progolfmindcoach.co.uk Share your stories of inner guidance.

Visit my home at any time (open invite right there!) and it highly likely you’ll find my daughter Evie spending time attending to a jigsaw puzzle at various stages of its life…..be that just out the box and attending to those ‘straight edges and corners’ first…deciding which block of ‘similar colours’ to start next ….or getting pre-occupied with one particularly elusive piece hiding amongst other ‘similar’ pieces.

She’ll pick up one, convinced ‘it’s the one’…..only to find that despite being close…doesn’t quite fit. I’m sure if she could get away with it, she’d file off a section and declare completion sooner than was actually true…and heaven forbid if I point out that elusive piece is sitting under the table (having been knocked off many days previously and hand it to her)…Evie would have me go to jail instantly, such is my interpretation of her facial expression!

So why is it that even though I point her in the direction of the missing piece….she’s still not best pleased it’s a step closer to completing the puzzle?

‘Because Dad, I wanted to do it by myself….I don’t want you finding pieces for me….may as well pack it up and start another one….Thanks a lot….NOT’

This has been the pattern of Evie +puzzles for as long as I can remember ,so rarely now do I point out the piece on the floor….or hand it to her(jail beckons remember)….but I have adopted the habit of secretly sliding it back onto the table when she’s not aware…positioning it amongst other pieces so not to draw attention to my exploits….after all, I’m totally aware that Evie wants to do it all by herself with no ‘obvious’ help from me.

But in the world of being a parent…or coach…there’s always a way to help in ‘other ways’….isn’t there?

Evie reports that collecting the OUTSIDE pieces first…. (straight edges and corners first) is an obvious starting point and easier to get her going. Very quickly she’s constructed the frame…now it’s down to the real business of puzzles…finding the INSIDE pieces….knowing that some are more elusive and may take some time….guess that’s the challenge of completing any puzzle!

Right now Evie’s choice of puzzle is one displaying ‘The Simpsons Family’ with each piece made up of mini-pictures. From a distance it looks impossible, on closer inspection I can see she follows a strategy which involves the use of a magnifying glass for maximum scrutiny. It’s a puzzle she’s completed many times and I’d hazard a guess, to date, it’s her favourite puzzle.

‘Evie, haven’t you done that one before….isn’t it easier 2^nd or 9^th time around?’

‘I just enjoy doing it Dad….don’t want my puzzles to be too easy after all!….and NO…I don’t need your help!!’ (and you can put down the magnifying glass too..)

‘And don’t even think about putting pieces in when I’m at school….I’ve counted them!’

The similarity with being Evie’s Dad and her fixation with puzzles….and my role as coach with player’s golf games hasn’t gone unnoticed.

Of course you may well be several steps ahead as to where this article is going ….how it relates to your role as coach….how it relates to how you play…but humour me a little while longer as I wander along.

It’s still my belief (AND A STRONG ONE AT THAT) that one of the main reasons why a player’s game stalls is simply down to working on the pieces which are easier to see (straight edges and corners) and failing to notice the piece that has slipped under the table.

It’s not that the piece is missing (or you have to go to a secret puzzle maker who will give you his magic piece) it’s just that you aren’t looking in that particular place for it. ‘Gurus’ apparently have an Aladdin’s Cave of every piece known to man and for a small bag of gold pieces will share it with you!

Well….I don’t have such pieces, but what I do have is something akin to one of those big comedy hands pointing in the direction of the underside of your table.

You have ALL THE PIECES with which to complete your golfing puzzle….you just need to look in a different place

So, we’re nearing the end of YET ANOTHER playing season here in the UK… I’m guessing that’s true of other areas of the world too…and I’m also guessing that for a lot of players it’s been ANOTHER YEAR with a game that started out great (straight edges and corners showing up fast) only for the game to grind to a snail’s pace when that stubborn, elusive piece didn’t come into view.

If that’s you….maybe it’s time to recognise that the easy , straight edges…don’t require as much attention….and that the pieces that habitually slide out of view perhaps require more of your awareness.

Tough to complete any puzzle if you only focus on the outside!

By straight edges, I mean the obvious ‘external’ guide you follow and use as a barometer of success (score, handicap, ball flight, swing positions) which are fine at forming a frame for your game….but that’s all they are….A FRAME.

Without the INSIDE pieces filled in, there will always be gaps.

And you can have the best frame in the world….until you recover that elusive piece(s) from off the floor, completion isn’t any closer.

Don’t let anyone convince you that you have pieces MISSING or LACKING…for me they have just been overlooked as you’ve become a little too fixated on the straight edges.

I accept I share my world of elusive, inside pieces ( armed with Evie’s magnifying glass and curiosity) with a world of outside straight edges and corners….and that’s fine.

Not everyone is aware of the piece that’s slid under the table, many are only interested in the obvious, visible components of golf game progression..I accept that.

But if you’re still reading this, I’m pretty sure you too have at least a passing interest in where I’m sitting.

Golf game progression appears to remain elusive for many players. If that’s you, I’m merely pointing to the idea that you may have inadvertently been caught in a trap whereby your personal puzzle is too heavily weighted towards the OUTSIDE….maybe it’s time to glance under the table and realise the very piece you are after has always been there?

I’ll leave you with one last thought-

Mainstream coaching will try to convince you you’re not long enough…..straight enough…fit enough…..flexible enough……educated enough…..coached enough…..strong enough… maybe all you need is to become AWARE ENOUGH.

The piece you seek has always been there. If you’re unsure how to find the way to where it sits, I have a magnifying glass, comedy hand and enough awareness which you can share whenever you want. www.progolfmindcoach.co.uk

I’ve just noticed a couple more pieces which fill find their way back to the table…It’s okay, Evie is at school and pretty sure her CCTV isn’t running between 10 and 11am….

Guess I understand that when returning personal pieces….I’m always aware of what’s important to Evie and when it’s a safe time to engage in puzzle piece collection.

If you’re convinced golf progression is all about the frame, it’s not me you need. If you feel a few pieces have slipped under the radar and require a little help with the inside pieces of your puzzle…I promise not to put them in for you….It’s your puzzle, and besides, I don’t want to go to jail!

Stay well…

Andy Morrison

info@progolfmindcoach.co.uk