Watch Your Superpowers Soar in a Mindless State with Performance Coach Jon Schram

imperfect air on imperfect surfaces. If we don't have an acceptance attitude, it's going to be a little harder than it should be. And I will say that maybe some of your listeners, it takes time. If you have the attitude of acceptance, tomorrow, there's still going to be frustration, there's still going to be headwinds, there's still going to be difficulties. But in time, it's more or less a rationalization that this is the better path. In golf contexts,

mental toughness really is a rationalization. But this is the best path. I'm gonna choose not to respond to this in a highly emotional state because I know that a highly emotional state is going to impact the next maybe even impacts one after that.

I recently had someone reach out to me that wanted to talk about the mental game, but they didn't want to talk about golf, and I said, sorry, I don't want to interview you if you don't want to talk about golf. You just want to talk about corporate heads being you know, smarter no, I don't care. So let's start with your golf journey, which brought you to where we are going to discuss more.

them here and there. It's I think it's popping up back into the game, but just a little pitch and putt, you know, maybe eighteen fifty to sixty yard holes. And that's that's where I fell in love with the game. I could not get away from it in a way that I think. You know, it's six or seven. My parents were, Okay, well, if that's how you want to spend your time, go for it. Let's do it. You know, a similar store is many getting dropped off at six seven am, not getting picked up till six seven pm.

At a small golf course called Raccoon Ron or So Indiana over in northeast Indiana, and very fortunate they're the guy that owned the place, actually played the tour. He played ten years in Asia, a couple of years in Europe, and then one maybe two years here on the tour in the US. Very tight with Payne Stewart. His name is Danny Hepler. It's actually I think actually a pallber in the funeral there. But he really cut his teeth in Asia with pain and so many stories. But has

it related to me? Is it related to so many the juniors there? We were able to get, you know, all these lessons, all of these stories, all of these you know, he knew it, he already played it, he'd done it. So we had this great role model to look up to for you know, ten twelve years where I started competitive golf at seven and a you know, in accordance with many other juniors, just I want the tour. I want to play at that high level. I want to play at the highest level I can handle. Pursued

it rather fervently. Was challenged by a high school coach to just say, hey, how bad do you want it? Let's push it, and all the way up until about eighteen years old. I mean took it six seven, eight hour days at the golf course. Really that was fun. It was just fun. It never was anything but fun. Late in my AGGA career, late in my junior career, things started turning. It really started to get to a point where I was pursuing the idea of Okay, if this is going to happen, this is going to happen,

this is going to happen. Nerve, anxiety, fear, etc. Maybe even a little depression kind of hit. I was able to sign with a mid major at ball State. I stayed there for three months, transferred out. Nerve anxiety was too much to sleep, too much to bear, too much to eat, too much to do anything. Really turned into a dark period at least in my life. But it was one of those things that taught me a lesson of Okay, I'm putting all this effort into something I

love so much. How can I hate it? And you know it is in that moment there I realized, Okay, psychology is something that I need to invest my time in. I didn't realize it'd be a career at that point, but I was able to sit down with doctor Bob Winders for a few sessions, and I think.

I just enjoyed being there. My perspective is completely in a different light, but golf has always been kind of the greatest joy and the greatest pained in that sense. And I realized during my experiences at All State, during my experiences in college golf, that I think a lot of athletes go through that. In golf and many other sports, you put in thousands of hours of you know, your childhood, really in hopes of okay, am I good enough? Right?

So in twenty twenty March twenty twenty, actually right when COVID hit I decided to start a PhD. I started studying flow state. That is kind of my expertise currently, but it's been a joy to help athletes in similar life, many of them in a different place than I was, is still enjoying it to a sense. But you know, this game has probably so much joy and so much passion that there's no way I can leave it.

a different mentality, there's an easier mentality. There's a little bit of a view on the sport of you on the game that is a little different than maybe I had in the moment.

But it was still worth it. It was still worth to get out there and just try my best, and in that moment the results are still there. But I think at some point you just start breaking down, why was it worth it? Then? Escape? I love the competition, and I love what I built. And I think when you talk to the very best performers, at least in

our game, I think they're tremendous. There are pieces of joy, pieces of gratitude that get from the game in the sense of, at least for me, maybe when I'm really tight, when I'm really working on it, fifty six yard pitch, like, I can hit it fifty six, if it's one eighteen, I can hit it one eighteen. I can hit that little draw, I hit that little cut. That was the piece for me where I'm like, Okay, I have really good control this golf ball. I really really enjoy that.

But I think when the lights turn on, there's a very different experience there. And that's the at least on the psych side. Now for what I do, there's tremendous amounts of joy that I take from being able to get a performer, whether it's any of my golf guys or any of my poker guys, just in a you know, it might be one sentence that gives them kind of

the right perspective to be there. You know, I really enjoyed the grind of it, but at the same time I get just as much joy watching individuals that I'm helping.

I think when it came to a head when I did transfer, there was a little bit more at home that was just okay, you're just you're really struggling, and they understood that I've been very fortunate I have two very supportive parents and understanding that you know, there is a third rail here that you can touch that might be a little much.

So he had a lot of time really playing with the best of that time. So I'll think of things said, I've really had a lot of support from these coaches. I will say in high school, my coach Ben Barki at Warsaw very much understood the emotion, very much understood where I was trying to go, very much understood kind of the whole situation. I'll say this, I think you can see high level coaching come out in a in an improper way, or at least being pushed. I never

felt that. I think I got I was very fortunate to sign Football State and somebody there that was very supportive. I ended up transferring to back to Grace College basically Home had a lot of support there as well. But to answer your question, it really was an internal thing because you know, while it is the greatest pay and it is the greatest joy, and I was just like, let's let's keep let's keep pushing, right.

competitiveness of you know, even the mid am level. You have you have some guys that you know, they work nine to five, holy account, like if you really hadn't do a handicapped plus sevens. I'm just fascinated with performance, and I think where all of this has led, at least professionally in my career. I'm just fascinated with performance. I'm fascinated with individuals that have the ability to put into work to get good enough to actually test themselves,

whether it's state or even national levels. Yeah, it's at the end of the day, it's what have you built and what can you try to show off today? And I think full circle, that's that's that's what kept me, kept me coming back.

well that that's special, right. But at the end of the day he did say he's like, okay, you're a gamer. Like he knows a lot of guys that suffer in the hotel room. But when they're at least warming up on the range or they at least have something to control on that first t they do calm down. And I have felt that, at least in my studies, I found that of falling into flow, falling into the zone,

that is a place of ultimate control. So I will say I think even beyond that three percent three percent victory, of the three percent win, the three percent success, I think having that control over something that built, at least when it counts, is really rewarding.

able to channel that. But at least for me, and I think at least in Rotell's terms, He's like, yeah, there's there's a lot of guys out there, and I think, without naming too many names, some very large, like big time guys. He was like, hey, I have examples. I'm not entirely sure if I could share exactly the names, but he basically in twenty thirteen twenty fourteen listed five of maybe the top thirty in the world. He's like,

these individuals off the course. They're not sleeping, they're not eating that, they're just not they're in the same category as you. WHOA, Yeah, I.

to make it. You know, I've always been on a really solid you know, I've always been on a really solid team, and I've been lucky enough to get to that state final, really know, through my through not through my doing, but through a couple of really great players that I got to play with. But about four holes left, I was told that, you know, gave myself four really good three really good looks, no birdies, even through those three and my coach comes up. He's like, okay, John,

you know eighteen here is a straightaway five sixty. He's not telling me this, but he's like, all he said was eagle or we lose, and I'm like, cool. Often that's a.

ever gotten. I have had a few really good rounds, but at least the people that I've interviewed have had most of the clients that I have that are D one, two of them have fifty eights, well, fifty eight and fifty nine, and I just like, okay, give me three hours on that. I want to hear everything about it. But basically I got over the ball and everything just disappeared. I got over it, and I do not remember. You know, all I remember is essentially looking up and seeing the

tight little drawl that went out there. And then I got over a ball at you know, two nine. I knew it was a little juiced up, so I hit six HRN don't remember it. And then all of a sudden, I haven't.

think everybody was just waiting. But yeah, I had a twenty footer that really there's no way that I can explain it outside of this precognition of just no matter what stroke I put on, this probably going to go in. And you know, I don't remember hitting the putt. I just remember seeing the ball skater towards the hole and just it went in. Right. That's just kind of how flow happens sometimes. And you know, one of the nine. So Michael set me high and say, it's kind of

a difficult last name to say. He's poined the term flow basically in the seventies and eighties, and he does talk about in one of the prime characteristics of what flow is, it's it's more or less a transformation of time. You lost the self consciousness and if you're really down there, the pieces of the action that you know how to complete, whether it's in the context of golf, sending a golf all somewhere, context of basketball, Steph Curry, you know what

he can do. Really, there's no need for much rationalization because you've already done it, you know how to do it, and it's just full trust in the moment in your ability to do it. So I reference that because frankly I don't remember it, and that that's really the only time I've blacked out. Most individuals that I do interview, at least for this study, have reported times where okay, there's kind of a misunderstanding of timing ball slows down, ball speeds up. If you're a batter at the plate,

ball slows down. Tennis returning a serve that's one hundred and twenty miles an hour, ball slows down a little bit. There's something about the state that really can slow and quick in time depending on the what you're doing.

having fun? Are you scared? All of that? Within the viduals that might have other professional obligations, and we're still talking golf, I'll ask, hey, if you were an executive, one point, take me through a deal talk, Take me through negotiation, Take me through a time where you're in front of a lot of people. Take me through you know, complex decision making that you've been able to just right. Flow exists in all of our professional endeavor really, if you do it a lot, It exists in your life.

If you have gone on any road trip that's north of one hundred and twenty miles, if I asked you what happened on mile eighty two, most likely you couldn't tell me really where that is or what's going on, or you know, the dog that was barking in the corner of the road, or the deer that may have hopped out at you. You might remember if the deer hopped out, But for the most part, you're in this flow that is just there. You have trust in your

ability to operate the vehicle there. Golf is really no different, except it's quite a bit more precise, and I think that's where we get tripped up on. So really my first question, more or less is okay, tell me about this this this nine holes that you just kind of went down there? You know that it was different. What

was the quality of that? Uh? You know, the next step beyond that, I'm going to ask, Okay, well, tell me about last week, tell me about last month, the last few times you've been out the average or even the bad And you know, in that conversation, in that interview, I'm kind of able to you know, dictate, Okay, this was there, you know, being in the bad performance of the average performance, this was hair in the great performance.

What what are some of the difference? What are what are some of the qualities that might be in both buckets, but what's the difference between the two? And then really from you know, from there, you know, second and third base of what we do is more or less building a process to try to feed those buckets that really have figured it out.

It's a very unique tied to personality. Maybe not the personality that you might think of extroverted, introverted, friendly, not friendly, but personality is more or less a descriptor of just my difference to you, right. Yeah, at the end of the day, it's describing it better throughout my code consulting. Moving forward with that, Yeah, my goal is to try to help as many types of golfer, very types of performer as I can. But the study itself is just describing.

just happening. I wasn't thinking about it. It was just there and it just felt right, And I didn't try to analyze it at the time, because I guess if you try to, hey, I'm in the float. You know, if you try to do that, you're going to just fall right out of it. I better not screw up this next shot.

might not remember making that decision. I call that flow as well. I think that that is that is your zone, because you know you have repetition in it.

the next question. I'm looking for opportunities to create the next question. And sometimes obviously and sometimes I miss what the person's point is, like, oh well, why did I How did I possibly miss that?

you questioning? What about that moment did you have trust in? Why did you think that that release point, with that tempo, with that feed is going to be perfect? How did you assume that? How did you trust that? Now? That is a much more simple, much more much less complex movement than any golf movement, even a two foot putt, right, It's it's always going to be tricky for us in

some context. My best illustration for that is more or less, if you're so focused on the target and you understand that you have a relative ability to send a ball in that direction, why are we exerting so much more of a mental effort. Why are we exerting more mental energy to this move when I've done it a few thousand times, You've done it a few thousand times. Every single person that is trying to get help with their golf swing or their golf game, they've done it enough

to ask the question. So I have a belief that you know, we've we've invested a lot of time, We've invested a lot of energy into building whether it's this you know, more or less a brain pathway or at least a pattern that we're able to send something or able to swing in a relatively precise manner, to send something to a very distinct in small target. You know, that level of precision usually is not going to be friendly to over analysis. And this is another special thing

about flow. I believe it was late two thousands, early twenty tens that they started talking about the physiological nature of what flow actually is. What happens the prefrontal shuts down, we still have the same energy budget. We still have

this budget that our brain is operating with. Right even though the prefrontal, which is complex decision making, shuts down, we have this excess energy that essentially is able to go through that back two thirds and you know, without getting into the nitty gritty, because frankly, I don't have the physiological knowledge to actually quote all the but that extra power really turns on a bit of a superman

in us. Because at the end of the day, if you ever have any time on SAM or track Man or any of the shot, the more or less the launch monitors, any of that data, you'll know that this is a very precise game. And if you are accustomed to this, to your draw it means that most likely that face is just a little open, maybe half degree to and a half degrees, it means that your path is either relatively flat or maybe coming in zero point five end out. That's a very precise pattern that we're

able to hit time in and time out. So as I interview individuals with flow, when I if I interview the topic of your best round, ever, there isn't a lot of thought. But how can that be? There's really there's still a presence of a very precise movement.

That's great. You know, I'm coaching to try to take these people to very lee levels or trying to take them into the version of themselves. I still think that the swing thought is a bit of a bandit. I think that if we're able to operate just as we are in the very best moments of our golf game, there tends to be mindlessness now with its unique It could be one swing thought, it could be one feel. But for the most part, I really want individuals to take a look at Okay, if I'm on the range

getting ready for a round, I'm getting warmed up. But also the intention of your warm up towards the end really should be there's a target out there at one hundred and fifty yards, I'm just going to get over the ball with my express interest, my only thought being the target. Because we really are only able to think about one thing at one time, and the intention, or at least the presence of that last thought right before you pull the trigger usually is kind of the dictator

of what's happening. The subconscious really can't understand negatives or nose. So if I'm sitting over and you know a cape style part three, you know, you see a lot of those with Pete Tye where there's just this water line that's going kind of meandering to the right or meandering to the left for some reason. If we do hit in the water, relatively good players will hit it in

the water right on that edge right. If they're struggle with the thought of do not go here, the subconscious can really only understand the essence of here, what is do not go out in the water? Oh? Water right? I think it also come out in interviews that I've had with really really talented individuals that are able to

play professionally. For the most part, their intention, the clarity of their thought, is the dictator for pretty much everything outside of humidity, heat, wind change, getting the wrong number. In that sense, they don't tend to miss they're really they're professionals. Right. The only real, large, large mistake that you'll see is maybe a wrestling with thought at the end, right before we're pulling the trigger. Keep going, we keep going.

sense if I'm getting over the ball. What's the result when my intention, my focus is just that target, whether it's a two yard cut, five yard cut, you a nasty shot to the right, nasty shut to the left, let yourself just give your subconscious the wheel of okay, take control of this. At the end of the day, I do believe that when we no matter what level we play at, if we're confident in our ability to send it to hopefully a good destination, we're able to

play relatively unfettered golf, whatever level it is. So I always like to visualize heavily behind the ball. I like to see the shot tracker, just as we see on CBS or or on golf channel. I want to see that, and if I'm on the greens, I want to see that ball roll on that track right before I end it. Jack Nicholas always said that his warm ups were basically to understand who did I bring today? Did I bring the two yard cut? Did bring the three yard cut?

Did I bring the one yard drawl? Basically you'd say, okay, I brought the two yard cut today, I'm going to go dance with the two yard cut, and he would stay committed to that shot. But I can almost guarantee you the essence of Nicholas's thought was, where am I going with this? I'm a professional. I can send it to the direction or the distance that is required. The

focus must be there. So for your viewers that have played basketball or any target warriented game, if I'm at a dartboard, I'm focusing on that triple twenty, I'm probably If you're really good at darts, you're probably focusing on a portion of that triple twenty. If you're really really good at basketball, you're probably focusing on that half inch front piece of the rim. You're not focused on anything internal? Why on earth will be focus internal and golf? Yeah?

the golf course, you have to be locked in. It's going to be four and a half hours of that. Do that a few times in a row. A lot of scarring, a lot of emotion, a lot of intensity can build up. But I think at the end of the day, flow is relatively agnostic to emotion. When we're operating at our very best, it's a bit of an

emotionless process until that final put drops the car. Analogy even really talking to clients about their professional endeavors, when they're succeeding, when they're doing well, when they're getting things done, it's just business usual. It's really not something that is an abnormal rollercoaster of events. That's not how you run a business. That's not how you lead people. You have to lead people through consistency, relentless consistency. I think at the end of the day, with golf, it is the

ultimate challenge on staying more or less agnostic emotionally. As it's so precise. We will have you know, misses and yeah, please don't quote me, but it was a legend, legend of the game. I think it was Hogan or Hagan that said, basically, he budgeted four bad swings into a round. Every single round. He budgeted the fact that I am

completely an acceptance of four essentially gimmes. It's not that he's re hitting or anything, but he essentially said, hey, if I make a bad swing or just chop it up, cops are doing business right. And you know, any of those guys that made a name for themselves back in the day relentlessly incredible ball strikers, they just don't really nice. Uh. And you know, for that kind of player to say, you know what, at four times, I'm going to give

myself grace. Every single round, I'm gonna give myself grace four times. So I think it's it's kind of looking in the mirror at whatever stage you're at. If you're a competitive, you know, tour pro, if you're a recognercial player, if you're a mid am, if you're a college player, probably more than four times you're going to let yourself down, right.

to be a little harder than it should be. And I will say that maybe some of your listeners, it takes time. Over time. You know, if you have the attitude of acceptance, tomorrow, there's still going to be frustration, There's still going to be headwinds there, it's still going to be difficulties, But in time, it's more or less a rationalization that you know, this is the better path.

I always like to say that in certain context, released in golf context, that mental toughness really is a rationalization that this is the best path. I'm not going I'm gonna choose not to respond to this in a highly emotional state, because I know that a highly emotional state is going to impact next, maybe even impacts one after that. So I think at the end of the day, flow is all about relentless consistency and relentless acceptance.

with clients, is it currently? But yeah, I hope to get some more information about the findings because I do believe that in its individual nature it is. Really it's still at this point academia is still kind of stretched their head. It's okay, we know that this is here, but we can't really describe what it is and why is it or how do I experience it or how does somebody else experience it. So hoping to bring a

little bit more clarity to that. But as it relates to golf, I just hope to help individual shoot some lower scores here soon.