All of my athletes, I shared with them the morning practice that for me, it's a non negotiable. It's seven am here in Vietnam. I love my morning practice. It gets me into a beautiful frequency where I can show up as the best version of myself. And it's a non the goostable. So I was up at four, I get my movement in, I go
through the mental process that is just remind us. For me, I do a little self study and I'm here and I feel pretty sharp with you because of the energy that I'm in. For that reason, I prefer to make it a way of being for my athletes or anyone that I'm working with, I would say, you know, to have that balance rather than the extremes is always going to be what elicits maximum performance. Hi. This is Lucas MacEwan from Abbotsford, BC, Canada, and I play at led View Golf
Course. This is Golf Smarter number nine hundred and thirty two. Consistency is in reach. Your potential is limitless. The mountain has no top with Gary Waters. This is golf Smarter sharing stories, tips and insights from great golf minds to help you lower your score and raise your golf IQ. Here's your host, Fred Green. Welcome to the Golf Smarter podcast. Gary. Hi, Fred, great to talk to you. Yeah, it's great to be
with you. Thanks for having me on. Well, you reached out to me, and I'm always intrigued why would people reach out to me about being on the podcast, especially mental game coaches or mental coaches. I don't even know if you're a mental game coach, but that is your expertise is helping people set yourself free from inter suffering, which is great line. And then in your line is also by mastering your relationship with yourself. And I can
see how that works for golf. I really can. How frequently do you get to work with golfers very frequent. I feel really blessed because I've got a history in the game. As you know, my dad was a golf pro for thirty years, so I know the sport. Well, it's a sport that I was actually looking to go pro in myself when I was younger, and it was ironically the mental game that was probably the difference between you know, really succeeding in the sport rather than going in a different direction.
But in my world, I'm so grateful for every little turn that happens, because it's got me to where I am. So so yeah, I reached out because I listened by chance. But as I just said, never any accidents in my world. I listened by chance to an episode You're Done, and it resonated, and I thought, I'd love to speak into that conversation, share a little bit, you know, from my perspectives, see if it resonates, and you know, we can hopefully add a lot of value
here to some people that are tuning in. I'm curious to know if your father was a teaching pro for thirty plus years, how what were the conversations that you had with him and did they ever go into the mental aspect of golf. I'd say only towards the end as I got a little bit older. My dad never put any pressure on me to play golf, so it wasn't actually my first sport. I started taking it seriously around i'd say twelve, which is quite late, you know, to have a DA to be
a pro golfer. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so you know, for me, I was living out in Germany at the time where my dad was teaching golf, and it was a very young sport there. But for me, it was more ice hockey and football because they're bigger sports there than golf. It was quite a young sport. But I'm just assuming by your accent that when you say football, you're talking not about American football but what we call soccer, right, okay, yeah, yeah, okay again, I
we'll call it football for you. Yeah, I'll get into trouble from my fellow Brits if I started calling it soccer, I think, but yeah, yeah, you don't do that, lose your credibility immediately, No, I know, don't just still switched off, turned off. But yeah, as it relates to the mental side, it was actually much later in my life where I developed insights into the mental side of golf and sport in general.
You know, I coach people in all different sports because fundamentally, yes, they're they're a golfer, but they're a human and there's there's very similar traits that we run as human beings as it relates to performance, but just as it relates to fulfillment and what kind of gets in the way, you know. So yeah, for me, those conversations didn't really happen with me and my dad as it relates to the mental side. It was very much focused on for me, mechanics, right, which are important, you know,
that's why all of these amazing people Jo bros. They've got you know, coaches for every part of their game. But for me, what I really noticed quite quickly in the realm of performance is that when it comes to that level, they've honed their swings so much that they're very close apart from a few outliers, right, But what makes the difference is the mindset. And I actually saw it in a in a totally different sport, which is where
I was snowboarding with two twins. So we've got like the same what we could call me too, you know, the body, very similar upbrings, similar parents. But we went to go down a black run and one went down and the other didn't. The same, very similar abilities, and it just showed me so clearly that the power of mindset and how it can really stopp us when it comes to performance. And the twin chose not to do the harder run. Is that what you're saying, Yeah, because fundamentally what
was driving him was fear. And this is one of the things that you know, I love to show my athletes, especially my golfers is how the power of the subconscious and how we have these blind spots where we're actually running fear in the background, but we've become so used to it that it's become normalized. But this is the difference between natural and normal. What's become normal is this kind of constant state of fight or flight. And I'd say most
people living are living their lives that way right unbeknownst to themselves. But so whether someone teas it up on the first and it's you know, a just a Texas scramble or something like that, or whether they're seeing it up on the first tier of the British Open, you know, it's their perception of the importance of the event that then creates fear that will then create tension, which leads to timing going out and the ball not going where they want it.
You know, a very quick summary of the impact of fear. But to not know where that comes from is that blind spot, which is where I get to show people what's really going on in the background. It's so much fun and it's so liberating, hence the Live Limitless brand and stepping into peace and freedom fascinating. So you're saying fear drives us, and I'm sure
that it's magnified by amateur golfers one hundredfold over professional golfers. But professional golfers, professional performers, they are also succumbed to fear driving them, I would say. So, you know, on the deepest level, the mind is designed to predict and protect. So the mind that it's you know, core, is rooted in survival. But what we don't realize is how those survival instincts that are just so in build they permeate now into the modern world.
So now you know, I feel like you and I might be blessed to not walk down the street and bump into a tiger. I mean, if you do, that's like quite an interesting day. But you know, for ours it's threats to our persona, to our ego, you know, to our how people view us. And we now translate those survival instincts into those fears where if our persona's going to be diminished, we still go into fight,
flight or freeze. That creates tension, that creates resistance. And whereever we have resistance, whether you're swinging a golf club, a tennis racket, you know, whether you're in baseball, any kind of tension, it puts you in a state of brace. Right, So before we can even move into taking action of swinging the golf club, there's that split second where we move out of brace into some form flow. But if you're in stress again,
there's so much tension, you're not fully flowing. And those minute kind of milliseconds can determine missing a short part. It can whether you hit it out of bounds, whether you put it into the water, hasard into the bunker, whatever that is. So, yeah, it's fascinating. It's that it's that small difference that makes a huge difference. Yeah, And it's not
just a reaction, it's internal. Yeah, and often just completely subconscious as in like that they're aware maybe of like a little bit of an elevated heart rate, you know, but they've shifted into their sympathetic branch of their nervous
system. Right. So, parasympathetic is where we're just fully at peace, we're fully at ease, where we're you know, just going around with the guys or the girls and we're just having this amazing, beautiful practice round where everything's just flowing flawlessly and you're you're taking on shots that you know, you wish you could do in the tournament, but when it comes to game time, you know, that's where you see people just fall to pieces under the
pressure and it's unnecessary, it's real for that person, and fundamentally, it's the perception of danger, and perception is just so much of my work is to showing people what lens they're looking through that generates an experience that now they experience on their inner world as fear. So hopefully that made sense. I
said a lot. No, no, it's a lot to absorb, and let's do that right now as we take a break and we'll be back in about a minute and a half or two and we'll continue this conversation with Gary Waters. A moment ago you said unnecessary. I want to dig into that because if it's unnecessary, why are we dragging it into our lives? So I love your your your word here of dragging right, because without history, we don't have a problem in the present. So what's actually happening is our
past, whether it's perceived failure. And again I use that word very particularly, and that you know I'm incredibly focused on language, and we can go into that maybe in a little bit but language for me is what limits us the conversations of our mind. But the dragging is we drag our history into the present, as in past hers, informing future fear that shows up in our present moment and leads to non inspiring outcomes. I've never said those words
in that order, but hopefully that resonates congratulations just moving through me. But yeah, it's it's really recognizing that the inability to let go of our history is then what we use as a reference point as to why we can't do something, and therefore how we show up in the present moment is just completely compromised. So the reason why I said it's unnecessary is that our natural state
is peace, it's ease, it's a sense of joy, freedom. We could put the words power and love in there, you know, introducing love on a golf podcast. But that's our natural state. But most people are living in this kind of normalized stress response, or they're in the anxieties or
in the depressions and the apathies. And it's just for me, it's not necessary, but it's necessary until it's no longer necessary, as in it brings about almost like a desperation moment where we start to look within rather than externally, and that's where everything starts to shift. Interesting, you said the inability
to let go of history. I think that should maybe that should have been the name of the sport versus golf, because it would just warn people ahead of time, you're sure you want to do this, because whatever you do, it's gonna haunt you. It's gonna be there all the day. Yeah. Yeah, we build these past references that then create a real foundation for
our belief of inadequacy that we have. You know, I feel humans we could buck it into believing that they're inadequate, that they don't have enough, and some form of insecurity as in fear, which is where we started. But yeah, all of those past hers they build up and we carry them around, but they just feed into this fundamental belief that who we are is
not enough. And that's where it gets really slippery because those then that perception of self, then generate the forts, the feelings that then generate the behaviors that then get the results. So for a lot of kind of mental coaches, they'll look at the behavior because it's the precursor to the result that followed it. But for me, that's just a little bit, you know,
or quite a lot of bit you know too early. We want to get to the root cause, and that for me is that perception that's completely a blind spot. So there's no judgment, no shame, no guilt or anything.
It's just unknown. We don't know. And this is like these beautiful awareness ships that I love to share with my athletes, is to show them that in ways that they don't know, their mind is limiting them because they have a perception of themselves that does not allow their world, does not allow for them to actually climb the mountain that has no top, which is their potential. The mountain that has no top. Okay, no a name for the sport we're saying that. You know, oh, I want to you
hear a lot. I'm going to help you reach your potential. I'm like, please, don't you know my potential is limitless because that's how I how I view us is that you know, we we're human beings, but I prefer being human, which is just totally different. That's where we go within. This is where we discover our true nature. You know, it probably goes a bit more into the esoterics here on the Golf Podcast, but yeah, that's okay. You know, it's my favorite kind of conversation. It's
just when we start to actually turn our attention from out there. And it's so natural to put our focus out there because based on the brain looking for survival threats. But the moment we can actually just take a minute and this could be put under the level of like under the auspices of my mindfulness or something like that. You know, I generally stay away from certain words that have this you know, fluffiness nature to them, where you know, I get a lot of I'm a guy's guys. I get a lot of guys
just like mindfulness, Like, how's that going to help me? Oh, that's okay. I'm from California. That's how we live. So amazing. I need to need to California, right. But it's it's once we turn our attention within and we start to discover our true nature, that who we are is completely boundless free. Then when we really get in touch with that through invalidating who were not, then what starts to happen is you live from that space and you play from that space. It's where you are just completely
committed to what you want to achieve in the world. But you're no longer attached to that, as in, you can be with all circumstances. And that's my definition of success. You know, most people have focused on accumulation, on the trappings of like the status, the car, the house, the girl or guy on your side, whatever you're into. But for me, the true definition of success is the ability to be with life regardless of what shows up to maintain my piece because from that state, Fred, anything's
possible, especially when it comes to then high performance sports. Right, but what about us? What about the amateurs? How do we stop sabotaging ourselves with this? What tools do we have available to us? Or should we be aware of? So again I love yeah, I love your language there, you know what should we be aware of? Right? Because my role here as like a coach to whoever I'm sat in front of. I often get that question, Hey, what's the number one thing that I can do?
What's like the tool? Right? And for me, I'm not so much of a tool guy, which can often be disappointing. Sorry, but I'm actually more more in the world of awareness, right, because tools is more in that behavior that I was speaking about earlier. It's like, oh, what should I adjust you know what, and there are some great things can do. But if you're just using tools, then what you're doing is just sustaining like your current version of yourself, but just surviving on through it.
And so that can be in life, but in your golf game, you're just kind of like adapting. You're you're adjusting your behavior adaptations to it's on top of that, which is driving the car, if that makes sense. So what we want to get to is that deeper level of code, the subconscious mind. And it's no different for the for the for the everyday golfer than it is for the pros because as I started this podcast, like, it's a human being underneath the surface and based on what triggers us within
is our perception of reality. So for the amateur golfer, they are then they might be playing like their gold medal, like their main tournament of the year. They're not feeling less pressure, they're not feeling less tension. They've activated their stress response in the same way as you know a Tiger Woods or a Rory mcelwright. Like it's a human system that's activated based on the perception
of fear. So it's the same if we want to call it tools, but more the same awareness shifts that you know, in this moment something is a perceived threat, but is that really true? And that's what I love to investigate with anyone that I'm working with, is that, you know, is it truly a life threat? You know, do we need to call you an ambulance right now? Or how is that truly? What's driving that? Is it some form of like I'm trying to avoid not being enough?
You know what am I trying? What's my intention behind it? And that's where we get to the real juicy part, which is once you realize it's not actually a truth, it's just a belief, then you can let it go. That's where you shift from resistance to life, which doesn't feel like resistance in the moment, but it is to accept ms and that's where peace arises. That's where flow happens. And that's what we could call, you know, being in the zone or that flow state that so many people are
searching for outside of themselves, but actually it's an internal process. Mm hmm. Wow, take another time out, we'll be back right after this. Gary, what was your aha moment as a golfer that made you realize that you had a lot to give and learn and help. Yeah, it's a beautiful question, especially growing up around you know, a golf pro. Yeah, beautiful question. And and for me, Fred, if I'm completely honest
with you, it didn't happen as a golfer, you know. It's I got to a point where I just decided who I was as in as a golfer, was inadequate. I was not enough. So I'd actually got into the world of physical fitness. I used to be a trainer, so I've kind of got the body covered right. But it's it was actually through moving into a different career where I hit absolutely rock bottom and I wanted to I got to a point of wanting to leave the world. It was that desperate
because who I was for myself was inadequate. I didn't know that at the time. But the byproduct of inadequacy is perfectionism, or it could come across as people pleasing or some form of control. But I was doing all that I could, Fred, in order to you know, look amazing, in order to have all of the money, have all of the success, have the girl on my side, all of this. Then then I would be an And that's an exhausting proposition. So for me, the bigger harm moment
was actually desperation. It was passing out on my office floor, not knowing what to do, so confused because I was actually starting to achieve some of these things that I thought would make me happy. Yeah I had a number one business, it was good in my field. Yeah I had a good car, great girl on my side, So all of these things. But that's where I started to realize, wait a minute, it's not out there that's the generator of my fulfillment. It's somewhere else, and at that point
I didn't know where. So I got into personal growth, which I had no idea even existed, right, and it led me on quite an interesting path with different mentors that have been both life saving and hugely inspirational in my career. A lot of what I'm sharing now, to be honest, isn't like my genius. I don't take credit for it. It's stuff that I've
learned from them. But it was that awhen a shift for me, that recontextualization of life, the shift in perspective that changed everything for me and for me that then started a journey that twelve years later, I feel so blessed to share literally life saving insights for people you know that are suffering. But it's so fascinating how these actually translate into sport as well. So yeah, I find there's a quote by Jim Rohwn and he said, we generally only
change for inspiration or desperation. And I definitely have like both hands if I have more and hold them up on desperation. But that is often so much the catalyst for any kind of awakening, any kind of shift, whether it's
personal or whether it's in like golf. And they're going through what they believe as a slump, which isn't they just have a memory, but it's like from there they've hit a real low point because they have families to support, they have sponsors that are giving them a lot of cash, and from that standpoint, it can get really you know heavy. So yeah, that was
my moment. And you know, I wish I knew what I know about the mental gain now when I was a kid, but I also don't because without all of my struggles, all of those literally life changing moments, I wouldn't be the man I am now. And I love the man that I am now. And if you knew me, like ten, twelve, fifteen years ago, that wouldn't have been possible to kind of move out of me because I hated myself. I dislike myself so much, right, And this
is where you know, that got started early in childhood. But this is where so much this dragging of history comes about. That's why I love what you've said at certain points in this beautiful interview is that, yeah, we have no idea where this gets started. But to be able to realize that and become aware of, like where our limitations actually began, where we developed a perception of ourselves, well, then we can start to change that.
And that is just that is just freedom from any kind of mental constraint. So long answer there, but hopefully it's okay, that's okay. I really truly appreciate you your honesty and sharing with us your struggle. It's so powerful. Is it golf? Sure, sure, it's golf, but it again, I thank you for sharing that. You're welcome, and you know,
I think my story it isn't it's not. It's not that unusual. And that's why a lot of people resonate with me, is that so many people have got this, you know, going on under the surface, but they feel like they can't share because there's you know, elements of vulnerability, and especially in not in just men, but I find it most common men is like, you know, don't show weakness, right, It's just for me though. Vulnerability is like a superpower because the only person that's truly vulnerable is
the person that's hiding, because they can then be found out. So the moment where we can share ourselves is the moment where we actually get true connection with others, whether it's you know, playing around a golf which is beautiful for like mental health, you know, to be able to share with people that can really hold a space for you, or whether it's like a coach.
And that's why I'm blessed to work with just incredible people is because in that realm of let's say, celebrity to a certain degree, there's so few people that they can actually trust to be able to hold a space and speak into where someone really gets their reality, where they can truly listen from a place of non judgment. And I said before the word love, but that's truly where I come from because without those experiences, fred I just couldn't have
sat deposit someone and go do you know what, mate? I know how you feel because I do because I've been to the lows of the lows, and I know that you can come out of it. Yeah, so you
know that's what where golf can take you though. Right. It's just how many amazing tour pros have we seen actually achieve what they've been set like setting out for their whole life and then fall into a slump into the depression because they've kind of reached the top of their success mountain, not knowing that there is no top, but you know from their perspective they have and it's like
where now you know what now? Right? Or like they have this identity linked with being a pro golfer and then suddenly they're retiring and then it's like, well who am I? And that causes just a ton of confusion and her and upset. So it's yeah, it's powerful to unpack. Yeah, like there's one Tiger, there's one Arnie, there's one Jack. Very few of professional golfers get to achieve and recognize continued success. So so many golfers
professional golfers never get to the top. Or maybe I remember speaking to a pro golfer once who had a twenty plus year career on the tour, and he said me, I only won four times. It's like, wow, you won four times on the PGA Tour. But it was unsatisfying in a
sense. Listening to him talk, I got the sense that it was unsatisfying after putting a life of work into it, and it wasn't fulfilled, beautifully said, right, Which it speaks so wonderfully into what we're talking about earlier, which is it's our perception of reality that generates our inner experience, you know, in the same way threat does. It's just like, you know, for somebody else, winning four times on the PGA in PGA pro events
is just like it's amazing, Like I'm so fulfilled. It's the best thing that you know, I had a successful career, right, But for someone else who maybe has like this, Oh but I never reached my potential. Well now they're in a world of suffering. But the event's the event. Yeah, it's our perception, our context as it relates to the content of life that determines our experience. But what we don't realize is that context,
that perception of life was built when we were children. You know, it might look like, you know, maybe he won a couple of tournaments in junior golf and his dad just said, you know, oh, haw'd your roundgo son, And he was like, ah, shot like a sixty nine, and you know he was like, okay, well how many shots did you leave out there? Right, a beautiful intention from a parent. We're
not putting down parents, they're just doing the best they can. And you could hear probably in the father's words, how you know he just wants the best for his something. He just wants him to become the greatest expression of himself as it relates to golf. But here this little kid quickly learns that what I'm doing is not enough, and that then starts a pattern of a
lifetime. So he can never actually reach that goal because it's never enough, because he'll keep perpetuating that until he realizes there was never anything wrong with him. Where he's at is where he's at, and what is achieved is beautiful, and that then gives rise to that feeling of just joy and fulfillment. But that's why we can never and I can just say never, never,
never. We can't find fulfillment externally. It's just not possible one because the moment we get it is like the moment we start to be able to lose it, which then sets up a different fear. So it's all internal programming and we get to the side when we want to feel fulfilled, well said, thank you, I had to let a pause happen there. Let's take one more break and then we'll be back and figure out how this applies to
us as recreational golfers. After this, we all most of us, maybe all of us, watch a lot of pro sports, and whether it's a major or a championship, we see that is the pinnacle of success. Like we did it. But when you take another step back, it's almost to say, Okay, that's over. You got to do it again. It's not over. It's just another tournament, another game, you know, and
next game you can lose that game. It's winning the last game. It's winning, you know, if it's an championship series or winning a major you got, it's just it's not over. It's not reaching that pinnacle. It's accomplishing something, but you're not done. Still a long way to go. Yeah, you know, for me, that kind of speaks into that kind
of mountaintop with no top, right. Yeah, it's really speaking into we set ourselves up for not feeling fulfilled when we have a view that where my happiness lies is in my future one because we can't be in it, right. So it's always you know, ahead of its in theory, but it's it's saying that my happiness isn't right here, and I prefer the word joy, right. So that really speaks into our definition of success, which is like, for sure, we it's beautiful to have a commitment to winning tournament
after tournament after tournament. But you know, I think it was Jack Nicholas that said, I'm not going to use the quote because I'll butcher it and paraphrase it, but he basically was saying that one of the reasons he was so amazing at what he does, and that wouldn't have been his words, was because he made space for all outcomes is he could be okay with not winning because from that space he's actually free to play because otherwise you're needing a
result in order to create a feeling within. And that's why I said before, my definition of success is, you know, being able to be with all circumstances, including tournament wins or not winning, and just to be able to maintain your peace, and I kind of add a little bit into there and move from the energy of love regardless of circumstance, which is a tool ask for the human beings when we want to make people wrong. But in the realm of performance and sports, it really is that ability to as you
were saying to kind of to let go of the last tournament. It's great if we won, because you know, the perception is we're building confidence, But what if you just knew that confidence was there. What if you just knew that your talent was there. So for me, it's not about adding to us, it's actually a removal process. And it's sort of these like codes in the subconscious that give rise to feeling that we need to win rather
than or we must win, because those will create pressure in language. If I need, I must, I have to Suddenly you know we're chasing, rather than I choose to. I get to because I love to go and play, but because I can be with all outcomes, I'm actually free to go play from a level of flow. And the irony is fred when people let go of all of this pressure, all of this tension, they just show up like they do in practice, and they just go smooth it down
the fairway. They hit it to within a couple of inches and they just if that's that flow state, they're not trying, they're not forcing. And that's the difference between force and power. Yeah, I'm not interested in force. For my athletes, it's it's power. But they can be okay with the outcome regardless, and that is a powerful human being. How about those
folks that are motivated by the pressure. It's like I have to broody this hole to win this and and you know, deliver at that point or the rest of us that's like yeah, yeah, if I if I don't part of this hole, I'm not going to shoot my best round and inevitably that's
what's going to happen. Yeah, self fulfilling prophecy. Right, we were worried about a bad future that hasn't even happened yet, right, that's you know, that's what we bring the negatives into it, like, oh, this might happen, or this might happen, as opposed to just remembering the word is play. Yeah, yeah, it's a game, it is, and we take it so seriously and I get it, you know. So
a couple of elements to what you said, which was so amazing. But it's speaking one into the future based conversation that we have, which is, you know, when you get to the root cause of that's that's anxiety, right, and that's on a continuum of like panic, terror, anxiety, maybe worry, fear, mild, concerned. So it's like on a continuum. But it's just like that's all future based conversations. But we create a
circumstance. Our brain creates the circumstance. Oh, I better make that birdie, you know, otherwise you know, basically what we're saying, it's not going to go well for us, perceive fret. But this brain creates the scenario in our in our mind doesn't exist that that's mind tries to fix it, tries to overcome it, tries to avoid. So in essence, what we're actually scared of is our own imagination. So when I really got that, I like almost fell off my chair because I was like, oh,
I'm making it. I'm making it up in essence, but that's where like our past is influencing our future. So like it's one of the masteries that I help people understand is their relationship to time. You started off the podcast by saying when you master your mind, or you master your relationship to life, whatever that is. This is a relationship to time. You know, past hurt. What I said before is informing our future. But if I
deleted your memory, Fred, where's your problems? You're just they're just not there. So that gives a good indication as to how we're using our history to worry about the future. Right. And then the second part your question was I get it all of the time, and it's actually it's such a powerful question, which is you know what I've used like force and like force and pressure to get where I'm at. Where if I let that go, then you know, am I just what's going to happen to my performance?
Because they've relied on that. You know, I get it in all different kinds of sports. It's like, oh, I'm going to put myself under that pressure and then I'll perform like it's force, there's no power there. So I open up people's minds to actually be just an invitation to be able to consider that actually that force based mentality of pressurizing yourself has actually been your
block to a potential that is limitless. So it's actually a limitation, not something that's helped you because if you were in the arena of peace and freedom and flow, what could you have achieved? We don't know, but I actually assert you would have achieved way more than this pressure based container that we are we put ourselves in that we don't because it comes from our conditioning that's external. So hopefully yet a lot better in one question, so I'm curious.
I you know, for many people in the northern Hemisphere, especially in the northeast United States, and I'm sure in the UK as well, the winter is a time where you just have to put your golf clubs away for
a number of months. And for people who live in the Southern States and near the equator that get to play golf, or even in Australia places like that where you get to play twelve months a year, I'm wondering what the mental state if it offers an advantage when you take a number of months away from the sport, or is it the the regular or regularly playing weekly, monthly, however you play, how often you play, is that enforce it
or does that break it down even further? Does that question make any sense? Yeah, yeah, totally, I get what you're asking Okay, okay, thank you, because I wasn't sure what I was. I knew where I wanted to go, but I'm not sure if I made it there. So now you did, or at least I got it from my how I
was hearing it. So yeah, So for me, it's it's completely an individual process, you know, but there's that cop out, right For me, it really I would I would just instead of focusing on what somebody's doing, I would be looking at the energy that they're moving from. Right, So we could say consistent repetition is great for integrating something in somebody's swing. Yeah, maybe like perfecting the golf swing. There's no doubt in my mind
that obviously the practice is necessary, right. We don't want to just go, oh, it's all mindset and there's no physical element. No, in my world, it's physical, psychological, emotional, energetic. Right, So from that standpoint, it's like there's a practice that's required of the physical. But then the reason why I said it's kind of individual, it's because it's
based on their deeper inner world, as in their perception of life. So for some people, they're going to really benefit from a little bit of time out. Yeah, to be able to reset to pause. And what I prefer though, is instead of having these kind of extremes of long breaks and then intense practice, is to make it more a way of being where it's integrated. All of my athletes I shared with them the morning practice that for me, it's a non negotiable, like it's you know, at seven am
here in Vietnam that I'm having this podcast call. But because of that though, I love my morning practice. It gets me into this beautiful frequency where I can show up as the best version of myself. And it's a non negotiable. So I was up at four you know, I get my movement in, I go through the mental process that it's just reminders for me, I do a little self study and I'm here and I feel pretty sharp with
you right because of the energy that I'm in. So for that reason, I prefer to make it a way of being for my athletes or anyone that I'm working with, because I work with like the whole gamut of you know, people's experiences in different lives. But yeah, I would say, you know, to have that balance rather than the extremes is always going to be for me. What illicits just maximum performance beautiful. That's wonderful. How do people find you, get in touch with you? Follow you on the internet.
Yeah, so I've been a little bit of a ninja these last kind of seven eight years of coaching, you know. So for me, doing these podcasts so fun. But to reach me, the most direct route is by my website, which is Gary Waters dot co dot uk. I am on Instagram. I just use that to put out free content because that's how I learned. When I got started, I didn't have the money to invest in the mentors I do now, which is just like I feel so lucky.
So I put out information on my Instagram. I think you're on there, I follow you, I love your videos, and that's I am Gary Waters and that will take you to my page and people can check it out if it's if it resonates, And that's the letters I am Gary Waters, Yeah, Gary Waters as opposed to who I am? Yeah I am Gary Waters, Gary watas I am I am okay yeah, because Gary Waters was taken, I can't get it right. Track that guy down. I knowed in my way. Gary. It's been great talking to you. I really
appreciate your time and having this conversation we've learned a lot. Thank you and yours. Fred. I just want to give you a reflection, like the work that you do is amazing. You know, so many people are benefiting from what you're sharing, the experts that you're connecting with, and I just want to thank you for your time because for me, that's the most precious
resource that we have. My thanks to our newest Golf Smarter Ambassador, Lucas McEwan from Abbots for BC Canada. Lucas seems to be another listener who has a high quality microphone had wanted to record and send the file as opposed to just recording his episode opening by calling our toll free listener line. Nice job, Lucas, and with that he's received a free link to Tony Manzoni's video
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