Flag Hunters Golf Podcast
Hello and welcome to Flaghunters ! It is a privilege to bring to you this powerful insight into playing better Golf. In all my years of being in the game of Golf from competing at a high amateur level, to caddying, teaching, and being a overall Golf geek, I have an insatiable, curiosity driven desire to get down to the bottom of what it takes to truly get better playing the game of Golf that we all unconditionally love. This has been one of the greatest journeys of my life and I am deeply grateful for all that Golf has given me. Thank you for joining me in this incredible journey. This is my ever evolving love letter to Golf. Jesse Perryman P.S. Please Rate, Review and Subscribe !
Flag Hunters Golf Podcast
The Thrilling Intersection of Trading, Golf and Individual Triumphs. A great conversation with John Burns of the ReThink Group and Master Instructor Justin Tang
Feel free to text me at (831)275-8804
As we dive deep into the unusual but fascinating crossover of trading and golf, we are fortunate enough to be joined by John Burns. As a senior consultant at the Rethink Group and one of the top 20 amateur golfers in Illinois, John’s expertise and personal experience bring a unique perspective to our discussion. We'll traverse through the astounding mental parallels between the two fields, and you're guaranteed to walk away with some exciting insights.
Ever wondered about the unexpected and intriguing concept of impulse versus intuition, and how it could affect your performance? Well, here's your chance. With John, we delve into how we can harness emotional awareness and information processing, the vital aspects that the best traders and golfers use. We also touch upon how understanding our past experiences can guide our present behaviors. But remember, each process is as unique as its owner, and it’s important to individualize yours.
Towards the end of our chat, we broach the infrequently discussed topic of 'flow state' and how achieving this elusive state can lead to peak performance. We delve into the methods of entering this state and creating a perfect equilibrium between internal and external emotions. Lastly, we look at the success of Jim Furyk and how his determination and gratitude can teach us a thing or two about our unique approaches. So, get ready to delve into our discussion and explore the captivating interconnections between trading, golf, and personal success.
Hello, this is Jesse Perryman of the Flagunters Gough podcast, welking Mingyu to another edition with my partner in crime, justin Tang, master instructor extraordinaire, the holder of many disciplines in the game of golf, primarily identifies himself as a holistic teacher and is one of the best folks. I'll make sure to leave his links in the show notes and here at the end of this intro. And our guest this week is a man by the name of John Burns. John Burns is a senior consultant for the rethink group. He's an interesting guy. He's a consultant and performance advisor and his life's passion is to optimize human performance. He is notably also one of the top 20 amateur golfers, has been one of the top 20 amateur golfers in the state of Illinois, having a plus handicap for the majority of his life. So the guy can play and what he's done is he's blended the two with golf and in his past life as being a trader and creating this rethink group, which is fantastic. And he really gets into what it's like to have the mental skills and take the emotional feedback and apply it moving forward in game, in your game and in your life, and it's. He discusses trades, he discusses managing regret and the power of stats and probabilities and it's actually kind of an exciting exploration into a professional trader and a very good golfer in how we can apply this wisdom to our own game. So I was really impressed with Mr Burns and absolutely just enjoyed this conversation and I have listened to it several times and have tried to figure out where I can put this great wisdom into my own game. But I would highly recommend going and checking this out.
Speaker 1:The rethink group it's rethinkcom. You can find John pretty easily. He's got his own socials as well. He is on Twitter I'm not going to say X. He's on Twitter at JPPJR800 and at LinkedIn at John Burns. And then you can also find Justin easiest on Instagram at Elite Golf Swing, and you can find me at Flag Hunter's Golf Pod. All one word.
Speaker 1:But I would encourage you to go on to the rethink groups website and poke around and get to know John a little bit more than just what the words that you want to hear from the podcast, because I think he's one of those guys that you got to study a little bit and to really get the point. And the point is to at least my take on it is to try to remove emotion and look at things as they are. You can take stats, look at them as they are as a pathways to show you what needs the most attention in your game and in life, maybe. So sit back, relax, enjoy this.
Speaker 1:I want to give a special thanks to John for coming on and giving his time to Justin and I and cheers everybody. I hope everybody has a great week. Take this wisdom and check John out, rethinkcom and on his socials as well. Cheers everyone. Hello and welcome to another edition of the Flag Hunter's Golf podcast. I am with my brother from another mother, my co-host sometimes when I can pull him away from the lesson team and the responsibilities of being a dad and the husband, justin Tang, from Singapore, teaches at the Tanamera Golf Club and our guest is Justin Takeaway.
Speaker 2:John Burns, senior Consultant, performance Advisor and Top 20 and formerly Top 20 Illinois Amateur Golfer, in addition to being a consistently profitable options law-traded Pretty impressive Chicago Mercantile Exchange. So tell us a little bit more about yourself, john, how you came to your position today.
Speaker 3:Sure, absolutely so. Let's see, I started trading on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange after college. I was on the floor as a runner between my freshman, sophomore year of college. I was running an order into the soybean pit at the Chicago Board of Trade and somebody was you know, my first day showing me what to do. I was in the soybean option pit when the bell rang and pandemonium ensued. I got goosebumps and I said this is what I want to do.
Speaker 3:So I did everything I could, worked, started trading, and as I was trading, my market hours were great. I traded from 9 to 115. I traded feeder cattle options. So I was one of the world's biggest feeder cattle options trader, which doesn't mean a whole lot, but that's okay, it's true. So then, as I started to trade more, I started getting back into golf. I worked with a guy by the name of John Elliott Jr. He's came from golf digest schools, worked with Bob Toskey, jim Flick, davis's dad, all these amazing people. He was a great teacher. So I actually started getting into mental skills to help my golf game.
Speaker 3:And then, as the floor trading started to change, becoming less on the floor and more off the floor, I was looking, continuing to grow and I found Dineshul and I was a client of hers off and on for five or six years. During towards the end of that she said you know, you'd be a really good coach if you wanted to do this. And so I said well, on the floor, the more I traded, the better I did off the floor that's not really the case. So I started coaching and as part of that I've been taking classes in modern cycle analysis for the last five, six years and working towards my masters in modern cycle analysis, because the kind of the foundation of what we do at the rethink group is the latest neuroscience on decision making, which basically says we're always trying to make a prediction based on our past experience and feelings from our body and we pair that with modern cycle analysis so we can ask group the best questions to help our clients understand what they're trying to do. So that's kind of a brief synopsis.
Speaker 2:That's quite different. That's quite a different view of how the brain works. They are talking about the triune brain that was described by the neuroscientist Paul McGlean. Very different Before we go into the brain. Could you talk a little bit about the difference in psychology when you're trading on the floor in the pit, but you could see people and electronic trading. I think that would be quite an interesting discussion for all listeners.
Speaker 3:Yes. So on the floor I was able to scream and yell and vent all of my feelings. When I had them Off the floor, that's not quite the case. Sitting in an office, screaming is usually frowned upon. On the trading floor I would walk by a pit and somebody would scream. I wouldn't even blink, I would just look over. Oh yeah, that guy's a little bit nuts. And so on the floor also, there was this flow of people. So I was trading the people around me. I could feel what the people around me were going to do. The guy over my right shoulder I knew when he got a little twitchy. So then I would have to decide do I want to jump before he does? Do I want to wait Off the floor? That feedback is there, but it's bigger and more nuanced, so it's much harder to feel the flow, at least for me in the transition. So on the floor the people are direct. I can feel what they're going to do. Off the floor it was less and I thought the game was different. So I thought it was more focused on numbers and chart patterns, which it is, but it also has this secondary layer of this feeling analytics.
Speaker 3:I gave a talk this week and I think of it as in golf as well. We had this feedback of the technical aspect of things you know how we play part fives, part fours, part threes, how many greens we hit, how many you know fairways we hit, berries we make around. But we also had this feedback loop of emotion analytics, and so that's what we really help our clients with. Of all right, I play part threes poorly. Why? Why Is it? Because you know, I talked to a senior tour player one time and he said no matter how small of a target I pick, fairway bunkers are always hard for me to play. So for me that says there's an emotion aspect to it and so I would ask questions about that. So again, I kind of got sidetracked a little bit on the floor. More direct feeling, more direct flow in and out of emotion. Off the floor it's kind of frowned upon.
Speaker 2:So what you're saying is on the floor. You were in touch in tune with your emotions. You were not rejecting it, so to speak, and we all know that when we try to reject emotions, our brain says, hey, john, didn't get it. Let's amplify the signal you rejected even more because you're like ah, I shouldn't be feeling like that in front of my colleagues in the office. I really want to jump on the table and yell at everyone I can't, oh, that's not nice. And then that feeling is further amplified. You feel like you feel even worse. It's basically a downward spiral. That's what you're saying.
Speaker 3:Very well put. Yes, that's that's how I think of it, absolutely so. Feelings are giving us information all the time, and if we ignore that information, it screams louder.
Speaker 2:And the general? The general perspective is this we cannot rely on our emotions. But the shell model says, hey, without emotions we cannot have behaviors, because we respond to our behaviors correspond to our emotions and if you you don't receive that information, that the emotions I meant to give you, your behavior might not benefit you, right.
Speaker 3:There's research being done right now around anticipatory affect, which effectively says we can't make a decision without an emotion, so I think it's pretty important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you were talking a lot about the similarities between trading and golf. Let's go in that direction. So, as a hedge fund trader, a day trader, investor, everyone kind of thinks that the better my analysis, the better the information I get. The more complete view I have of a company, of an asset that I'm going to invest in, the better my results will be. We all know that there's not true that the best traders quote, unquote, the guys who have the biggest P and L at the end of every year. These guys typically don't know as much as the analysts, yet they are in absolute control of their emotions. Their technique might not be the best in terms of using golf parlance, but they shoot the lowest scores, they bring back the biggest P and L. So why is that so Huge question? That I know, but let's take a look at what this person is.
Speaker 3:It's a huge question. So I would say that at the highest levels, the research, the information processing is similar. So the actual let's call it statistics of how the best of the best do their business is very similar. Professional traders at that level are really good at parsing information. But the difference maker is this idea of using emotions as information. George Soros, a famous fund manager there's a story about when he had a big position on and he started to get a stomach ache. He would get out of the position. There's lots of stories like that your arm aches.
Speaker 3:And again, it's from looking what happens over time. Over time, patterns emerge and these patterns, if we recognize them, give us information. And I used to think that really what I was trying to help myself and my clients with is not to have these emotions. But that's not really what I'm trying to do. What I'm trying to do is help them understand the emotion, the information enough, so the intensity goes down to a level that they're able to not automatically act. The problem oftentimes is there's a trigger and it triggers an emotion from the past that kind of colors the present moment and it creates an automatic reaction. What I try to do, what we try to do is create awareness around that moment, kind of what Jesse was saying about sitting in the uncomfortable moment that Cam Smith is talking about. This is my interpretation of that Sitting in that uncomfortable moment and using that information without taking action. That's where really the growth happens.
Speaker 2:So I, normally, when I work with better players, I tell them hey, don't reject the emotion, let's take the emotion as though it was a ball of dough. Let's pop it in and ask ourselves hey, why do I feel this, why do I feel that? So would that be considered as using information? Sorry, using emotion as information.
Speaker 3:Yes, absolutely. But the important part is using that in the context of a moment and a pattern. So what we try to do is we try to record it, keep track of it, so that creates awareness, so we start to see more things. That then leads to patterns that we can start to pay attention to, which leads to the opportunity to change action, decisions and process. So gut instinct is real then, absolutely, absolutely. And so I think there are.
Speaker 3:To me, there are a couple different types of gut instinct. There is gut instinct that we have, that just generally happens, but there is also gut instinct that happens, that's earned over time through the process. So if I look at a chart of a chart that I know and pay attention to, I'll have a gut instinct. But also, if you show me a chart right now, my mind, brain automatically makes a prediction Is that gut instinct? No, that's impulse.
Speaker 3:So this idea of impulse and intuition, I think is important to discriminate. Impulse is this they feel very similar at times. The impulse comes and nags you, screams at you do it, do it, do it, do it, do it. Hit your shot, hit your shot, hit your shot. Like you know, whatever hit driver, hit driver, hit driver and the intuition part is very quiet. It whispers and then it goes away if you don't listen to it. So it's that feeling. You walk up on a tee and seven iron comes into your mind and you get up. This is what I've done in the past. I get up there and I say no, no, no, it's really a six iron. And what do I do? I bust six iron straight over the ring or I flare it. You know, because my mind and body aren't synced. The intuitive mind is saying no, this is a seven, but my intellect is saying it's a six, so I tow it into the front bunker right.
Speaker 2:So what you're saying is that there is a competition between intuition and intellect. So how do we know when to rely on the intuition and our intellect, and are there any exercises to develop our intuition?
Speaker 3:So practice, like everything else, it's earned, so it's practice and paying attention to it. One way to do it is predict traffic right Like this guy is going to cut me off girl, or whoever and pay attention I was right about that. Really focus on. You know, for me I would look at a chart and before I really let my brain grab ahold of it, I would pay attention to any thoughts and feelings that came up again through practice. And that's that idea of walking up on a par three T and you kind of get your yardage, you figure everything out and the number just kind of comes to you. It feels initially intuition feels like I felt that as being lazy or, you know, not diligent enough, but over time I started to realize it was right most often, so I might as well trust it. It's about trusting it, and the other thing about our process is very individualized. One of the things that I love most about what I do is that it's absolute honor and privilege to get to know the people, because they're they teach me about themselves, so I ask questions to learn about them, so I could learn their specific challenges.
Speaker 3:I have a guy who plays baseball. He's taught me a lot about his specific challenges and really what kind of a theme is we're trying to get him to be the player he is. So in baseball they talk about you know he's kind of a pull hitter they talk about you know at this level you really need to hit all over the ballpark. But he really hits it well, pulling. So I've been asking questions and trying to help get get the point across of maybe we should focus on pulling. If he doesn't want to do it, that's fine, but it seems he's doing it and it's working. So again, my job is to help figure out what the client is resisting and wants to do at the same time and ask questions to figure out if they want to do it. I don't know. That's the beauty of it. I asked them to tell me. It's amazing.
Speaker 2:So let's go back to a little bit about the fundamentals. So trade. The best traders are not necessarily the best financial modelers. Same for the best golfers. Yet when a golfer goes through a slump, his psychologist is not the first person he calls. Typically, the first person he calls would be his golf coach. Hey, not hitting the ball. Well, take a look at my swing. Why do you think that's so?
Speaker 3:Well, in uncertainty, our brain wants control, and the thing that feels like we can get the most control from is go to our teacher and fix our fault, whatever that is. I'm too shallow and the thing about it is understanding the tendencies with our golf swing as well. We can adjust on the fly, but when we get in that slump moment we want to grab on to anything and it's almost this idea of throwing the anchor to the drowning man. Our brain grabs onto the thing that is probably the least helpful. Again, in a situation where obviously, players struggle with their swing and sometimes that's valid, but oftentimes it's a combination of both where the play starts to drift down and then they really focus on their swing, which causes that tendency to kick itself up, and it's almost this idea of giving themself a reason for the struggle. Oh, it's because my swing was this. So I think it's both. Again, I think it's the double feedback loop of the technical and the emotion analytics that's really the key to all of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I really agree that. That really resonates with me. Some of my players, when they go to really tight and long courses they start to try to control the ball. But when the fairies want to open the stories they tell themselves quite different from what they did the previous day, even from whole to whole. The birdie hole wants to three and then on whole fall like oh this is a tight hole, I've got to do extra, and I guess invariably the body slows down, they hook the shot and then they go here. We go again today and then that kind of changed the tone of the day.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think of it. In trading is this idea of kind of a confidence cycle. So you know, that idea of where we're kind of being aggressively conservative is kind of the golf lingo. Like you're hitting aggressive spots, shots to the right spot, you're making aggressive swings and then you're starting to do well, so then maybe you become a little bit more aggressive. Or you know, you walk up to a shot and really don't read the lie because you're playing well, it doesn't matter. And then you plug it in a bunker and next thing you know you make a double and then you either press or say well, today's not my day, and either way it's. It kind of veers off, rather than saying Okay, yes, this sucks. Whatever feelings came up, I'm really pissed.
Speaker 3:That's where trading and golf are very similar. You know, in a trading day and a golf round, you could look back on both and say I really wish I would have done generally, and at the end of each, most times, the feeling is not great right, like it's rare that you walk off the golf course and say, oh man, that was perfect, that was just such a great round of golf, I did everything well. Same with trading. So it's almost this idea where traders always talk about if you celebrate your win, yeah great. Like risk managers will say, yeah, great, that's what you're supposed to do.
Speaker 3:And that was my mantra of if I played well, of course I was supposed to play well, but if I played poorly, then well, everything's wrong. I really just need to work harder. And so, again, it's creating this, this environment where, no matter what I do, it's not good enough, where we need to have we talk about being able to accept ourselves and accept what we do, while also pushing and trying to get better. To Jesse's point earlier always learning, always growing we can always get better. That's kind of the way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so talking about always learning, let's talk a little bit about meta awareness and the ego. How does that fit in with the Shell model?
Speaker 2:The awareness of of well, I don't. I'm not the sum total of knowledge, past, present and future. Today, and always being open to the idea that, hey, you know what caused my drawdown today, what caused my bad round may not be what I thought it was. Do you guys subscribe to that sort of thing? And I'd like you to also segue into the ego and how it affects our trading, how it affects our round of golf. Do we press, do we double down or do we say, hey, this is not my day, we're going to cut loss and move on to the next day?
Speaker 3:So the first part is kind of what came to my mind is the idea of of these statistics matter, and looking at statistics is fantastic, but what I really like about statistics is the anomalies within the statistics. And so I had this baseball guy. He hit nine home runs. We were having a discussion about it. Nine home runs, okay, great, you know. And he said, well, you know, it doesn't matter, I sometimes I hit five early, sometimes they're all through the year, sometimes I'll hit four in the last three weeks. And I said, why is it necessary to only hit nine home runs?
Speaker 3:I read a blog post about this and he said he says like, well, I don't know, and that's the awareness part. So once he was aware of that, he had 20 home runs that year. Now did I do anything to? I mean, all it was is changing his awareness around? I had another player who had an anomaly within the game and so we looked into that. We didn't quite get to the bottom of it, but oftentimes there's a emotional or feeling context aspect to that you know, you always bogey the ninth hole, why?
Speaker 3:Another example is I had a guy, a guy who sheepishly told me one one time that you know, I know this can't be true, but so that I was like, oh, this is going to be fantastic. He said my, my birthday's in June and I always underperform in June. And I said, oh, okay, well, tell me about it. Tell me about it, okay, does it happen every year? Yeah, well, it sounds like a thing to me. I wonder why. And we talked about he felt that he deserved the market, he deserved a present from the market, all this stuff, and so we were able to kind of work through that where the next June he was able to make a little bit of money Again, understanding that. Now, ego, okay, I think ego is great, desire is great. I think without a strong ego, it would be impossible to tee it up on the first hole. Right, we have to believe in ourselves. I'm talking at a high level here and an elite level. We have to believe in ourselves to be able to perform at that level.
Speaker 3:At times it can be shaken, and the example that comes into my mind is, I guess, using a cliched one, is Greg Norman, the Masters right, something happened. Was it physical? It didn't seem like it. Now, did he hit great shots? Not really. But was it because he was physically unable to my contention is probably not. There was this desire that overtook the moment. It seems to me and again I'm speculating but oftentimes when our desire outpaces us or we want something so strongly, it creates strong feelings. And unless we can vent those feelings, if we try to ignore them and be positive, like everybody tells us to do these days, and in trading as well, like you said earlier, justin, our mind knows it the emotion comes back and it just comes back in different ways and it's like water, it finds that level to really get us. And so unless we can vent that by speaking, writing, having a routine to vent it before and after the rounds or before and after the trading day, I think is the best approach to do that.
Speaker 2:Talking about trading day and the round. So let's talk about an extreme case. There are guys who are like oh, fundamental analysis shows this, this is the thing to do. I should size up on the golf course, like this part five place to my tendencies. There's an eagle who I should go for it, yet they get frozen. You don't pull the trigger. Or even if they do, it's not in full size. They do it in a size that's not meaningful In golf parlance. They go like oh you know, they make a half-hearted swing at it and instead of giving themselves a chance for an eagle, they just part the hole. So how do we help traders and golfers get past that level where they go like okay, let's pull the trigger in the way, I know how to do it. You talked a little bit about the pre-shot routine. Are there anything else that we can do to help optimize our performance?
Speaker 3:Again, for me it would come down to record it, talk about it, try to understand it. If it's that example of the par five that really fits our eye in our game, what about it caused that indecision or conflict For me? I really love those moments of conflict because it tells me a lot, and asking questions of you know it really fit in. I was speaking to this player and he described his round to me and you know he was describing missing, kind of short left, short left, short left. And I'd spoken to him a few other times and I said, well, it sounds to me like when you get tired toward the end of rounds, there's a tendency to miss a short left. And he said, no, no, there's not. And I said, well, can you describe the last few holes to me? Again, short left, short left, short left.
Speaker 3:Sometimes we want to hear the information, sometimes we don't. And I just said, well, it sounds like maybe a short left. But again, maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're saying and so I always try to put it back on me because there's, in analysis, there's this idea of resistance and sometimes we're just not able to hear the thing that we say we want to hear and it's almost the idea of, you know kids, telling your kid to do something Like does it work Sometimes, but you know, oftentimes it creates a response, and so the same is with us, and so I just try to ask as many questions as I can around that moment, because I believe each one had each person as a fingertip of their optimal performance that we're trying to find.
Speaker 2:Okay, can we talk a little bit about the Shao model of the brain and emotions, the best and worst things in life, and how different it is from the traditional perspective and why knowing the difference is so important to us?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So the main difference is that that Lisa Feldman Barrett has done a lot of research around the brain and the triune brain is just isn't the way the brain is, is, operates, and so you know, knowing how the brain operates, that we're always predicting based on our past and the feelings in our body, and our brain's job is to keep us alive first and safe second. So then what we're trying to do is to understand the predictions that we're making. Usually it has something to do with fear, usually has something to do with safety and kind of taking a lens from the past and putting that over the present moment. Our past, our history has something to do with this.
Speaker 3:You know example from another example from baseball John Lester couldn't throw the ball to first base. The guy's a pitcher, right Like that should be easy to do, but it was. He wasn't able to. So, speculating or I guess Steve Sacks a better example, I wrote a blog about this he had the yips throwing throwing yips in baseball. Why there was an event that precipitated it. In his rookie year he threw a ball to home. He threw it away. The guy at third, I think, was Andre Dawson, ended up. He wasn't going. Steve threw it away. He scored. Somehow. That created a moment where there was a, you know, a short circuit. For lack of a better word, he was unable to throw to first base, but he was able to cure that.
Speaker 3:How. He had an equal and opposite emotional reaction experience. His dad was on his deathbed. He walked Steve through. You can, you know, drive your car. You can do this, you can, you should be able to throw a baseball, and Steve thinks that you know. It seems that the experience, the way we look at things, was the important part. And so, looking at our past, how is that help? How is that making us make predictions is kind of how we see things, and that the mind is brain is always trying to operate to keep us safe. But there's a. There's a. We do things for a reason that we think is under that we understand. And so what? What I mean by that is we do things that make us feel safe or comfortable, even if they seem like they don't make sense.
Speaker 2:So what you're saying is, our past heavily dictates our present behavior. So if we can't change our past, the only thing we can do to it is to reframe it.
Speaker 3:Well, we can also recognize and appreciate it, accept it, and so that kind of that moment, one version of sitting in the unpleasant feelings, is that this happens in trading a lot, and in professional athletics as well of that moment where we feel like we have to do something, we have to do it, we just absolutely have to take this trade, but we know we shouldn't, and so being able to sit here and say, all right, this is just a feeling that's probably based on something from my past and probably I need to wait and again, that's practice. So reframing, yes, that that's helpful, but really recognizing, accepting the feeling is more helpful in the way we look at things.
Speaker 2:So can we change what we feel? Then? I think Denise, if I recall, she mentioned something about changing our behavior by thinking of the future state that we want to be in.
Speaker 3:That's a prediction right. So we can, we can cast ourselves into the future and say if I make this decision, how will I feel If I make the opposite decision, how will I feel in trading, if I stay in this trade and it goes down, how will I feel? If I get out of this trade and it goes up, how will I feel? And then that will help us at times become more clear about what we, what we need to do in the present. So yeah, it's kind of projecting out.
Speaker 2:Understanding the past is both so you're talking a little bit about managing regret. Sure, if I go over, if I took a three word, 270 yards over water, it goes in a water. I lose the tournament. How would I feel this? If I make it, how would I feel? And then I guess you kind of probability with and see which direction makes you feel better.
Speaker 3:Yes, or if I lay up and win, how will I feel? Oh, that's another option. Well, yeah, but again yeah, I think it's. It's important. Going forward is for me one option, and you know, phil Mickelson is a great example. He'd rather go forward and lose than lay up and win. Okay, that's fine, I mean, it's worked for him, that's called going for glory.
Speaker 3:One, the masters, and he didn't hit one green and or one par five and two, I think, but he laid up a lot is the point, and he relied on his wedges and it worked Going for glory.
Speaker 2:Hey John, let's talk a little bit about this thing. It's called a Hail Mary trade Like. Why do people engage in that sort of behavior? Is it because they're seeking a sensation?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, that's part of it right. And sometimes, you know, sometimes we get as traders, we get stuck and I've been there where I have a trade on and it's wrong, and I know it's wrong, and there's almost this feeling of I would rather lose all my money than get out of this trade. Now, thankfully that usually gives way and I get out At least it has in the past and that idea is trading for excitement. Professional traders don't trade for excitement, they trade their process. You know it's like always perpetually going for it, even though you know tour players can go for it because their dispersion is small. Just like professional traders, the dispersion is small, the blowout is less likely. They used to talk about, when I was on the trading floor, the O-hair spread, and so that would be. You would buy a bunch of SMPs, you'd go to the airport, you'd call in see where the price was and either get on a plane and leave or come back and collect the money so that I guess in Singapore we call it the Changi spread, changi airport.
Speaker 3:There you go. Yes, that's the same version.
Speaker 2:It's so similar to professional golf, isn't it? They go like hey, you know what, I don't think I made the cut anyway, let's just go for broke. And sometimes they do collect. And then they try to create a formula around this, thinking hey, in future, when I'm in this state or in this position, I'm going to collect and you know what, you're going to have their bottoms handed to them.
Speaker 3:Over time. Yeah, over time it usually doesn't work. The Hail Mary usually doesn't work. Over time it may work at once. Nassim Taleb has a wonderful book called Fooled by Randomness and it speaks to this idea of at times, that outlier comes up right at the perfect moment. But it's rare, but it's super rare, and you're probably better off having it not happen than happen, because if it happens once, you're going to lose all your money because you're going to rely on it. Like you said, justin, you're going to rely on being super aggressive down the stretch to make the cut and you're going to make, I imagine, less cuts over time.
Speaker 2:So you talk about Mr Black Swan. Nassim, how important is thinking in probabilities for professional athletes?
Speaker 3:That's a great question. Again, I think understanding the statistics of what we're trying to do is important, but specifically so we could play to our strengths, and I think it's important to play to our strengths. Conversely, it also gives us the opportunity to work on things where we need to improve, and so I think, generally, statistics, probabilities, are important. I think, for me, probabilities bring up the idea of risk. So, from that context, I think it's always important to think of probabilities. My mind as an options trader, my mind is always thinking about probabilities and saying that, yeah, if this happens, how likely is this to happen? And then I usually base my response on that. So I think it's important Cool.
Speaker 2:Let's talk a little bit about momentum and unintended consequences. So oftentimes we've got a golfer that I guess they're burly three holes in a row turns around and then they go like I've got momentum going for me now and it's only because on whole one he hold a bomb, a 90 foot, but very, very low, almost zero probability, and that kind of catalyzed a change in his mindset. Is momentum real or something that we tell ourselves?
Speaker 3:Good question. Bob Rotella has a great illustration of this in his book. He talks about the hot hand, and I'll use Michael Jordan, for example. If Michael Jordan is having a terrible game, he says, coach, I want the ball undo. If Michael Jordan is having a great game, he says, coach, I want the ball because I'm playing great. Both can't be true, but it's a mindset. And so the hot hand is to talk in statistics terms.
Speaker 3:Generally there's a mean reversion after you make five birdies right, and maybe that's par. And there's kind of a band around where we feel comfortable and so we talk about that all the time. I had an example of that last week where I played terribly on the front nine and I knew I was going to play better on the back and I couldn't play any worse. So there's this idea of being comfortable and kind of that's our mean and we're around the mean. And so what I try to do with my athletes is talk about and traders as well that idea of optimal performance that we're always trying to improve. We're trying to raise the lower bound as we raise the upper bound, which raises that mean, and so we try to figure out ways to do that. For me, optimal performance is where it's at. Peak performance is great, like to your example.
Speaker 3:I talked to one of my clients today about this. Over a three-hull stretch, I can beat a tour player Over 18-hulls. I had zero chance, zero chance. And so again it's about shifting that perspective of what are we really focused on? Are we focused on the three-hulls? It feels great to make three birdies in a row, but why don't we use that and say, yeah, I'm playing great today, today is going to be my day and then continue to choose the right spots. But as you start to, as you kind of hit the next shot, it kind of doesn't go down your line. All right, I'm going to back it off a little bit Rather than doubling down. And then you kind of flail it in the right rough pins tucked back left, and you try to butter a little cut in there out of the rough and it buries in the bunker where it skips over the back in your short side. So again, it's about understanding where you are and what you're trying to do.
Speaker 2:Let's talk a little bit about the flow state. I know you guys have a program called the Introduction to the Creator Spring. Does that teach? I guess your training students how to enter a flow state or something more involved in?
Speaker 3:that it doesn't talk about getting into flow state, but I think it's interesting. I love talking about flow states. I think it's important to do and understand and really what that is. Chex Semptmeaghi talked about this of. The ideal range is kind of 30% more than what you're going to do. So if something isn't challenging enough, you can't get into flow. If it's too hard, you can't get into flow. So it's just over your ability level and then you're in flow and things start to fade away.
Speaker 3:It's the idea of David Duvall when he shot 59 in the desert, california, wherever that was, he talked about having no idea what he was shooting. He knew he was playing well, but he didn't know he was going to shoot 59. And that idea of just being so in the moment is just such an amazing thing. And for me, coming off the trading floor, golf or I would box for a while boxing I would just be so present in those moments that I forgot about the trading there. I would think back and say, wait, what happened in trading day today? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so again, it's the ability to get outside of everything and really get into ourselves.
Speaker 3:I remember the first time I realized this I was playing with this golf pro at the club I belonged to. He was a really good player. We were playing the river course in Wisconsin and he said to me I'm thinking about things not having to do with golf. I thought to myself I do that every round and then after that I was like wait, when I'm on the golf course, I need to be on the golf course, and so being able to create that boundary again helps create the opportunity to have that flow state, and I don't think it means ignoring everything, but it means when it's time to play, it's time to play Like walking between holes.
Speaker 3:I don't think it means ignoring everybody. To be in a flow state, it's just being your personality. I'm more withdrawn, so I would tend to walk, but somebody who's gregarious, slapping a few hands on the way, that's their personality and I think sometimes in golf that's what can take in trading as well. We try to get out of who we are. On the golf course, I always thought I had to have no emotion, which I'm somewhat with the kind of introverted, but I'm an emotional person and so I love feeling good after I make a birdie and feeling bad after hit a bad shot, like I can have those feelings and they flow through me, but I think oftentimes what can take people out of flow when they're performing well is they're not embracing their personality.
Speaker 2:So, in a nutshell, we have to stay focused on the present and enjoy whatever we are doing Be yourself. Yeah, jesse, you have questions for our men.
Speaker 1:I do, I do and this is a fantastic conversation. Thanks again, john, for coming on. Talking about flow state. I'm a big fan of the zone and you hear great athletes say you know, you hear you preface Michael Jordan, you know he had a playoff game where he went psycho, which wasn't uncommon, but he said the bucket. It looked like it, just a big old bucket to him. You hear people say that they what was the difference between yesterday and today? Somebody shoots 62 to win on Sunday and they may have barely made the cut on Friday and they had a good day Saturday and they say well, there was no technical difference. I just I just got out of my own way. That's another manifestation that I hear. My question to you, john, is Is there something that we can train off the golf course to help facilitate getting into flow on the golf course, especially when we want to play well, ie competition to tournament?
Speaker 3:Yeah, really good question. So sometimes that idea of somebody shooting 62 in the last round oftentimes can be this idea and oftentimes it's a guy who's 10th whatever shoots 62 and wins by one right Two hours before the leaders come in. And oftentimes for me that comes down to this idea of expectation Right, there was no expectation that he was going to win, not a lot of pressure. So you know, some days you have it and you can press it and to your point you get in that flow state. How do we train that? I think by giving having a routine where we are able to say and this is kind of what I talked about on Monday in this presentation of having a routine where we come and we check in with ourselves how do I feel today Physically, do I have energy? Am I focused? How does my swing feel?
Speaker 3:Probably the least important of all of them, right, because we've all been on the practice range where we necked it and hit it all over the place and went out and had a great round of golf. Again, we didn't have very high expectations, so we were able to play well. This idea of writing down or speaking it out I worked with an athlete for a while Before he pitched we spoke for 15 minutes before he went out to play and we just kind of he was able to kind of just get centered and focused and vent some things, not negative things, but just get emotions out. So one way is what? How is yesterday's round? Do we have residual effects from yesterday's round? Did I lip out short putts on the last three holes? That would make me upset. Is that still there? On the way to the golf course it was traffic terrible that it took me an hour longer than I thought it would.
Speaker 3:There are other things that can kind of get in our way, that need to be vented. Emotions have been from energy and if we don't kind of get them out, I like to think of this as external, internal balance. If we don't externalize what we're feeling, then we become in balance and it comes out in a way of stepping up on the first tee and hitting a smother hook where our misses to the right, like I very rarely hit a you know a smother hook. So when I do it says okay, something's way off, and you know that sends my brain into panic mode. But if I'm able to vent that and say you know, traffic was awful, like Rory showed up on the tee box at Medina in the Ryder Cup or near right, because he's overslept or whatever, taking two minutes to just vent those feelings, I can't believe.
Speaker 3:You know my cat, he didn't get me up or whoever he was upset about, including himself. That can kind of create the balance. Now I think he played well that day. But that's just an example of giving ourselves an opportunity to get into that flow state, I think is by trying to be as present as possible and, because of that, venting the emotions that we have that aren't relevant to today's round. That makes sense Totally.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that made a lot of sense. I think that's something that should be kind of a prerequisite teaching for young kids, especially going into athletics. You know how to, how to facilitate getting into into flow, getting into the zone, how to how to facilitate, how to how to learn about ourselves internally and externally. How how can we get out of our own way? I mean, I think that I've been around a lot of golfers in my life and I've been around golf pretty much my whole life, and one of the things that is noticeable in some of the conversations that I'm recalling now as I'm listening to this conversation, that there are a lot of people that they may not win getting out of their own way, but they're satisfied. There is a deep level of satisfaction and in that may contribute to to some confidence going into the next week or the next time they play, the next time they have a competition.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I just, I'm sorry, just I just thought of another technique that there's been some research that shows that traders who can feel their heartbeat so just sit quietly, and if you can feel your heartbeat, there's research that shows that that those traders make more money. And again, creating a practice before, around or whenever in your pre tournament routine of sitting and yelling if you can feel your heartbeat, okay, there it is, and that creates this interosceptive awareness that we can use to really help that flow state and also help to regulate, like you know, this idea of we all have our pace, or I think of this as a range of arousal, like, if I get to amp up, my performance goes down. If I try to control it and be too stoic, my performance goes down. So I have a range of optimal arousal and part of the way I realize that is my heartbeat, or, you know, my breath, and so as my heart starts to pound, okay, yeah, yeah, all right, I really need to start.
Speaker 3:I'm starting to get a little amped up here and for me that's hard because I love adrenaline as a trader, like I love adrenaline, and so coming down the stretch, sitting there and just trying to absolutely hammer driver, that's right up my alley, no matter what happens. So I know that I that that's my tendency, so I'm amped up on playing. Well, alright, I just need to try to back it off a little bit. I know I'm going to be amped up. So you know that five extra yards I have to account for that. You know the ball can go maybe five extra yards when I'm really amped up. So account for that, you know. And so those are some techniques to kind of think about.
Speaker 2:So you're saying you can control your state just by being aware of your heart rate.
Speaker 3:Being able to feel your heartbeat. Yes, it's interoceptive. Awareness creates a greater opportunity to be aware of what we're feeling and what, therefore, we're predicting. And and I use this with my little guys baseball team or 13 year old baseball guys and starting out, just putting your hand on your chest to feel it Okay, great, that's, that's a start, and then eventually just being able to kind of sit and breathe and feel it, that's kind of the next level. Again, practice All this stuff is practice.
Speaker 2:Well, I guess, from from a golf instructors point of view, I teach proprioception. Hey, what's your body doing? Can you feel this? Can you feel that? Yes, what you just talked about, that's next level stuff, man. That's what the Buddhist monks are so good at. They're able to calm and change their brainwaves, just like that. Yep Thanks, practice Amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know you got to think real quick, justin. You got to think about some of the greats of our game that I wonder if they stumbled on to it. The Hogan was noted for being an incredibly deep concentrator. Yes, jack Nichols. Same way Yep Tiger. The same way Yep Onika, the same way Lee.
Speaker 2:Trevino, the opposite, Lee Trevino the same.
Speaker 1:Well, but the flip side, Lee Trevino, as he was or is still, is that he knew himself better than anybody. Yes, he knew what he was capable of. He had very he accepted it and he accepted it. There we go.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that was his strength. Yeah, acceptance is big. Acceptance is big.
Speaker 1:Yeah, acceptance is big, it's huge, yeah, it's huge.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not talked about enough.
Speaker 3:Agree, you know you.
Speaker 2:Acceptance meta awareness yeah. It's not talked about enough. People think it's something physical that they can see, but at the very highest levels it's what goes on in the brain, and I normally use these three words to explain it to people. Intentions create forces on the golf club expressed in the motion of your golf swing. If you think the golf club is a spatula to lift the ball up towards the green, you're always going to back up this way, yeah, yeah. So I really think guys like yourself, john, not enough of them.
Speaker 1:John, how can the folks that are listening find you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so my Twitter is JPBJR800.
Speaker 2:No, that's JPBJR800.
Speaker 3:That's right. Okay, I'm not super active, but I'm trying to be more active. Anybody that would also like to get ahold of me is. My email address is JPBattherethinkgroupnet and I'm happy to answer any questions your listeners may have. I do this for a living. I coach high performance people for a living C-suite executives, professional athletes, traders and it is just an absolute pleasure to do what I do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's got to be deeply fulfilling. It's amazing, deeply. Yeah Well, john, I can't thank you enough for coming on. Justin is always my brother. I love doing these podcasts with you.
Speaker 1:Like I was saying before we hit record, justin is the ultimate student of the game and he has a black belt in about I don't know 10 different ways to swing a golf club. And what fascinates me in closing, justin and I'm sure John, you can identify this that the more you know about the technical aspect of it, which is important, you have to have knowledge and you have to. I mean, I could be the second coming of Buddha, but if I've never picked up a golf club, I'm not going to know how to hit it. I mean, that's just the bottom line. So you have to have some level of myelination, you have to have some processes stored in your central nervous system to be able to hit the ball.
Speaker 1:But we all know those people that hit the ball beautifully, that are capable of so much more that they're outputting, and I think it's important that people like John Burns exist, and there's teachers such as Justin Tang, and there's others as well that are we're going to teach you how to, we're going to build the car but, more importantly, might, might edge on the more importance. We're going to teach you how to drive it. We're going to teach you how to drive it in different conditions in rain, different tracks, wind, different slopes, different people in different countries, and all of this. That's all a big part of it, and you know you can. You can certainly look good on the driving range. I see a lot of great swings on Instagram. I really do. It's like wow, really cool. But when it comes to putting the pencil on the paper and teeing it up when, when the bell rings, it's a whole different ball game. This is what we're talking about, precisely.
Speaker 2:Look look at the Jim Furick swing. I often describe that as a money making swing. It's not. It may not be correct compared to your idea of what a technically correct string looks like, but hey, it's printing money, it's, and we got the same thing with trading right. So, justin, or whoever uses all these weird charts to trade, it works.
Speaker 1:We got a great inside joke here on the podcast between Justin and I that Mr Furick, jim's dad, should win PGA teacher of the year.
Speaker 2:Every year.
Speaker 3:Every year.
Speaker 1:Every year, mr. Furick if you're listening, you are perpetual winner every year for recognizing where it counts and then getting out of the way.
Speaker 3:Yes, and then him accepting it and trusting it and doing it yeah it's hard.
Speaker 1:It is hard. Gratitude and determination. Yeah, I mean, I can't. I can't imagine how many times Jim, growing up, got just a bunch of grief for his golf swing. Can you imagine? Can you imagine? And now he's just I don't know worth a couple, probably two, three hundred million, and he's playing golf and he's happy and doesn't miss too many shots and he makes a lot of money and he seems to be smiling all the time and it's just a great study. It's a great study.
Speaker 1:And we're big fans of Jim Furick Big fans as well. Yeah, well, guys, I can't thank you enough for coming on. I really enjoyed this conversation and we would love to have you on again.
Speaker 3:I'd come back anytime. So thank you guys. I appreciate it. It was a lot of fun.
Speaker 2:Thank you, john, thank you, jesse, yeah.
Speaker 3:Thank you.