Discovering Greatness and Mastering Performance with Dr. David Cook

Episode 4 of For The One features a conversation with Dr. David Cook, diving into the principles of performance, purpose, and lasting impact. With over 40 years of experience in sports psychology and leadership development, Dr. Cook shares the mindset shifts and habits required to pursue excellence in every area of life.

Chuck and Ashley sit down with Dr. Cook to explore what it means to discover your greatness, master your performance, and lead with a selfless mindset. From lessons learned on the golf course to insights that apply far beyond it, this episode unpacks how true fulfillment comes from focusing not just on achievement, but on who you are becoming along the way.

Dr. Cook’s perspective is a powerful reminder that greatness isn’t reserved for a select few, it’s something that can be developed, refined, and used to make a meaningful difference in the lives of others.

Resources & References Mentioned in This Episode:
📚 Greatness by Dr. David L. Cook (Amazon)
📚 Seven Days in Utopia: Golf's Sacred Journey by Dr. David L. Cook (Amazon)

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hello, 10 community, and welcome back to For the One, where we have the opportunity here to speak with people within our 10 community about all things leadership and their experience along the leadership journey. Today we are joined virtually for the first time by Peak Performance Coach, author, filmmaker, and most importantly, our friend, Dr. David Cook. Dr. Cook, welcome to For the One.

SPEAKER_02 0:34

It's a blessing to be here, and I so appreciate what you guys are doing. Um in my life, I've never found um anything quite like golf that that teaches these things, you know, leadership and integrity and honor and all those things. That really, whether someone ends up being a professional golfer or a college golfer or whatever, really it's so important for life. And I'm excited to be here and contribute with that.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Well, for those of you that have not met Dr. Cook, perhaps Chuck, you could take a minute to introduce him to our community.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

Well, man, how where where do I start with this one? Dr. Cook, I I think I've shared this with you in the past, but uh just a a public thank you for the blessing you've been in my life, uh, both on and off the golf course. You've been somebody that I could call in in great times and in times of of struggle. And I uh I still remember the first interaction we had together, and you helped me navigate uh what at the time was a very impactful thing for for me and our community. So just wanted to publicly say thank you. I I had the privilege of getting to know Dr. Cook uh in 2018 through a golf group. Golf has a fun way of bringing people together, and that's a a cool uh a cool story too, because Dr. Cook has lived in different areas all over the country. Ashley and I are are in Pittsburgh here, and through a traveling golf group, we all got to know Dr. Cook. And the be the ability to for us to have this podcast virtually has been a blessing as well. So our first virtual podcast, Dr. Cook, thank you for being here. Um, Dr. Cook and I, we spent some time together, uh, 2018-2019, helped me through some tough things and got to know a little bit about what he does. He is the most humble performance coach I have ever met, and he has worked with some of the most elite athletes and business people around the country. So super grateful for you to be here. Why don't you why don't you share a little bit with the community about who you are, where you came from, what you do, and maybe why you do it.

SPEAKER_02 2:49

I grew up in Texas um uh on a little blue-collar golf course. They built down the street from me when I was 12 years old, and it literally changed my life. It gave me a purpose, it gave me something to look forward to every day. Um, and I, you know, uh I just went out and hit balls all the time and ended up playing a lot of golf, especially with my uh uh uh professional that actually showed up two years after I got there and was my mentor, I would say. It's who the movie was made after. It's what gave me inspiration to really go into sports psychology, which I ended up doing. And that really is the understanding of how the mind affects us as we perform. I went into it to be a better coach. I thought I might be a basketball or football coach or whatever. I played golf in college, but um I realized that really it's a field that that's about coaching people more than it is coaching sport. And uh we just get to really apply it to, you know, golf today. And and every day I wake up, I I'm I'm with a different athlete or leader or person that just wants to be better in their life. And they understand the mental, the mental challenges, and I get I get to be able to help in in that area. So um it's been a beautiful, beautiful life. I've been all over the place doing this. I was a professor for 12 years at the University of Kansas, then we moved to Texas where I was a full-time consultant. Started with the San Antonio Spurs when we got here, and that turned into great things. Been working with PGA Tour players for 40 years and um and lots and lots of businesses and companies just sharing this information. Um it's really been a blessing.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

I love that so much. Thank you for taking the opportunity to introduce yourself to our community. You just said a lot that we'd like to unpack in a short amount of time, but perhaps let's start all the way at the beginning. You talk in the book Greatness about different types of people and how some of us are champions. I'm gonna say some of us, like I'm included in that. Tell us a little bit about your experience with the habit and the mindset of those that you would consider to be champions.

SPEAKER_02 5:07

Well, you know, uh I I used to speak on the topic of the mindset of a champion. Um and what we've discovered in life, you know, just by knowing people and working with people, is that um actually holding a trophy really has never fulfilled an individual. Um there these are, you know, these wins and these uh great accomplishments, they're not the thing that literally fulfills our heart. They're just markers along the way. Um, they bring temporary joy and happiness, and you know, but in terms of fulfillment, there has to be something bigger than that. And so that's kind of how I started the book off. And really, I define greatness by spelling it with a small G. It's not capital G, capital O, capital A, capital T, that kind of greatness. It's really about greatness we define as selfless exceptionalism. So you can't be a champion without being exceptional. And but I have found a lot of very exceptional people that have done really great things that are so unfulfilled in their life and um joyless because they did it for themselves. And what we've discovered, and you know, Victor Franco wrote this in the great book Man Search for Living many years ago, that the most important thing that creates fulfillment in our life is being selfless or being someone that gives. So selfless exceptionalism being be the best you can be, which I try to help people, you know, with their mind to help them understand that for the purpose, a passionate purpose of making the lives of people around them better. Um, that's the missing ingredient. And it also takes the fear of reaching a goal or, you know, becoming a literal champion or whatever away because we get our eyes off of us and we get our eyes on other people, and we look at how can I use this life that I've been giving, given, the talents that I've been getting, the mind that I've been getting to really do something exceptional to make the world better. You know, you start with other people and then your team, then your, you know, your family, your community, and then, you know, some, your, your state, your nation, your world. And that's that's what being selfless is all about. That's the that's the word. That's what the book is all about, greatness.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

That's so good. I uh the book greatness itself, and and I'm sure we want to unpack a little bit more of that, but maybe the the coolest concept I've I'm a book nerd, uh, is you can see if you panned around here. Um, a couple good ones right behind me. The the book Greatness, I've never seen it before, but just talk a little bit about the fact that it's a$100 book and maybe a little bit about the sealed chapter.

SPEAKER_02 8:07

Well, yeah, there's there's a lot of unusual things about it. You know, the the cover has very small print with a small g greatness just to create curiosity of people trying to figure out what you know what does that mean. It really means that um the you know, the whole selfless part is about being a servant first and not trying to bring attention to yourself, but doing things great to help those around us. Um the concept of$100 has a lot of meaning, really. Um, I know a lot of authors that are really, really good, that have a lot of great things to say that can't make a living anymore. Um, the price of books have been the same forever and ever. And, you know, people just grab a book, kind of throw it by the bed, and they read it sometime or whatever. And this is, you know, 40 years of of information that I've spent my life investing into other people and watching from literally the bench or right behind the bench or in locker rooms or in boardrooms or inside the ropes on the PGA tour, listening, hearing, coaching, getting a sense for what it takes to be uh to you know to reach excellence in these environments. And um I just feel like books are undervalued. The way I look at a book is that we invest, we're investing in something that can change our life. And how do you put a price on that? You know, we go out to dinner and it's a hundred bucks before you can shake your head. You know, we go to a sporting event and you throw out 200 bucks just like that, and you forget the the score of the game or the color of the cotton candy you ate the next week. But a book that um can change your life and and and has information in it that's I believe as important and deep as the information that I've written has some sort of investment value. That's why you put a hundred dollars on it. And um, that hasn't stopped anybody really from purchasing this book. And I'm I'm I get a few comments about it, but mostly people understand the world has changed. And um the only thing, one of the few things that hadn't changed is going to Barnes and Nobles and throwing down a$20 bill and getting a paperback book. But that's been my boy for 50 years. Everything else has changed. So we we just felt like it was an investment. And I don't have a bunch of books in me. I just, you know, I I have one life and I have the information, and I I just felt like it was important for people to make an investment. And it's been really interesting. Those that do, and they hand it to someone else, you know, after they read it, or they get an extra one for someone else and they give it to them, and someone goes, Oh my goodness, someone gave me a gift that it's worth a hundred bucks. I'm gonna read it. And it it's part of that investment, it's part of the encouragement that gets people to actually take it serious. The sealed part is there's 20 chapters in there about great performance enhancement principles that literally have changed so many people's lives that I've been involved with, including my own. My goodness, that's that's who I started with. Does this stuff really resonate? Does it work with me? Um, I grew up playing every sport, golf and college and you know, all of that stuff. And when I when I got a hold of this information, it was like transformational. But there's another part to me, and it is the faith element, the spiritual part. And I didn't want to overwhelm anybody with that. So I just put the last four pages, I just sealed it, and I put an intro there. I said, if you want to know my story and you want to add one more chapter to what you've already read that I really believe can enhance your life, take a look. And they have to make the investment again of breaking the seal and seeing what's in there. And it's really a chapter about becoming fearless. I believe that the number one issue that we work with is the fear of failure. And there's a lot of onion skins, and we peel back and we get to the center and the core. Most things that that um hold us back come down to some point of fear. Fear of not making it, fear of making it not being fulfilled, fear of letting other people down, or fear of expectations, or all kinds of fears. Fear of being invalidated because I made a mistake or I didn't make the score or didn't reach what I wanted to. Um there's just a lot of fear. And that chapter is really about it's about eliminating fear. That's what it's about. It's really about. I can go, I can go deeper in that, but I'm not, you know, not sure if y'all want me to.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

Don't give it away. Don't give it away.

SPEAKER_02 12:55

Right. There you go.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

It's worth every every opportunity of opening that seal on your own to find out how to eliminate fear. That's so good. Um, you know, you mentioned that this book is a accumulation of 40 years worth of experience with people who are really getting to the next level. And we talk a lot here on For the One about really the journey of going from one place in leadership to the next. And when you're looking at walking that journey with someone, specifically as an athlete on the experience that you've had, you have this tremendous opportunity to see somebody in moments of extreme pressure. And you mentioned specifically that fear moment sometimes where there's a lot of pressure on them to achieve something, whether that's pressure they put on themselves or it's pressure with a time clock or, you know, peers and other teammates. And I'm curious with you, um, there's a mention in the book where you say something about how a moment of pressure reveals trust, trust in your education, trust in your training. Could you explain a little bit about what it's like to observe someone in that moment of pressure and what you mean by that exposing trust?

SPEAKER_02 14:17

Whether it's a business person or in uh anybody in any aspect of life, um, I use a lot of sports illustrations, but they can, you know, that can be a metaphor for them to uh uh think deeply and apply it directly to their life. But I'll I'll use an example like this. Um let's say an athlete comes to me and I'll ask them the first question what's a trophy you want to hold? What what's uh what's an experience you want to hold? What's a goal you want to achieve? And I'll say, what's the highest one that you can actually dream of right now? And just for me, would you speak about that? Speak about it. Tell me what it looks like when you're holding that trophy. What is that trophy? What did it take to get there? What did you what do you feel like at the moment that you accomplish something great? And uh they'll they'll share and and uh it'll be a beautiful moment really for them to talk about the relief and the joy and you know how they worked so hard and diligently and spent so much time and effort and broke through so many barriers to get there. And then I'll say, okay, now let's back back up. I want to give you one more picture to think about. And that, and this is how I start the conversation to get to where I want to go. I'll ask them, what does it look like about 20 minutes before the trophy celebration? And I want people to begin to think about that. What does it look like about the 20 minutes, and that's metaphoric, it could be a day, it could be a week, it could be anything, but 20 minutes before the trophy celebration, that's the point where you're in the heat of battle and you've got to perform your best when it means the most. And what does that look like? And oh man, the picture. Um you know, the Masters was just played uh last week, and I wrote a blog about it going, you know, it's a three and a half day jockeying for position to get the people that are ready to try to walk through that on the last nine holes and specifically A-Men corner to start with. And then you lose a lot of them right there because of just the the you know, the red lining already with the pressure and you know, the the potential to actually wear a green jacket or be a part of that group that's unbelievable. And then I talk about the 20 minutes literally before the trophy celebration happened, when you stand on that 18th T and you try to thread the needle. I call it the eye of the needle. I know Chuck's probably played there. I've played it before. It's like, whoa, this is just like TV. This looks like you got to hit a ball down a hallway, you know, for 200 yards, then miss the bunkers, don't get in the pine trees, and then you still have uh a really big shot over a tall bunker just to get to the green. But those 20 minutes, I mean, so what we saw last week is Rory, who won last year, and you saw the relief and the pressure release when he hit the green and just wept. And it was 11 years of can I do it? Will I ever do it? And everybody's saying, Will he do it? Everything written about him, he's a failure unless he does it. And he did it. So he comes back this year relieved. He's playing more free than he's ever played, and he gets on the eight that last T-box, and he's one of like three people that can win this golf tournament, and he hits it 50 yards right into the trees. It's the worst drive of the week for him, literally, and could have cost him the tournament. And it's it's helping people understand can you literally walk into those situations and perform your best by controlling some things in your mind that you know by anticipating those moments and understanding what the principles are that you need to do to be able to get there? And then you found this ball, and now he has to hook it 70 yards and somehow get it up there and get it up and down, and he finds a way to do it. But it was just such a good example of what the 20 minutes before the trophy celebrations in life look like, and the only way that any of us ever hold a trophy or reach some of those exceptional, you know, exceptionalism dreams, we have to go through that. And when we go right back to what I said in the beginning, if the outcome isn't about me, then I have less pressure when I walk in there because I'm living the experience, loving the experience, knowing what I've got inside of me, win or lose. My life is meaningful because I am in a position to influence other people, and I will no matter what. Um the final moment of that whole thing is what you ask about is can you trust yourself? And we talk about in the book about the three words see it, what do you want to have happen? Feel internally, feel that feel that motion in a business setting, it would be strategy, feel that, know that strategy, and then the what last word is trust, let it go. We all come into these situations with quote a resume that says all the great things we've done. And what we're trying to do is get that resume to happen 20 minutes before the trophy celebration. And your question really is look what I've done, look, look at how I've prepared, look at the information that supports me being here at this moment. Why would I at this moment question myself or lack of belief because I just did it on the last hole and I just did it on the hole before that. Why can't I now do that? And it's because the meaning of the outcome is so great in so many people's minds that it gets between them and their ability to just simply trust how they've been prepared and the gifts and talents that they have. And it is humanly possible to walk in there and do that and make it happen. We've got some really cool role models out there right now, like Scotty Scheffler, that's that's just doing it all the time. Almost did it again yesterday. And actually, uh Matt Fitzpatrick won a tournament yesterday with an unbelievable amount of grit there at the end, being able to step up there and make it happen. So um sports is really nice, and I love golf, and I love that y'all involved in golf because it is such a microcosm of life. Every week you get to see it just full right there in front of you. It's uh it's really special.

SPEAKER_01 21:21

That's so good. So good. You you you mentioned we're involved in golf, and we're super excited because our our second annual 10 junior is on the horizon. And we have 72 student athletes, elite players that are also involved in their community and in a big capacity. That was part of the application process. And also involved, we of course have their families who are wonderful and they join us at Laurel Valley for the event, and the partners of the 10 business leaders from the community. And uh, you know, these these student athletes. Athletes and their parents are navigating the college process right now. They're navigating the resume building process, which you mentioned a little bit. If you could speak for for a few minutes directly to those young people and their parents, and I I also want to get into a little bit, I you don't just work with with golfers and athletes, you also work with business people and parents. One of my favorite things that you've written is uh directed towards parents. But if you had a few minutes to speak directly to them, this is a pressure-packed situation in their life. Um what what would you do to encourage the young people in the world that are looking for their next step, their next opportunity?

SPEAKER_02 22:42

I can I always start at the tip of the, you know, the spear and kind of go back. So we don't have hours to do this, so I'll just do the same with them. And that is what what I'd like to say. What's the greatest predictor of success in the face of adversity and interference and change? And I think let's just kind of put a little formula on what I've been saying and and apply it to them. And it's the formula is this our performance equals our potential minus interference. It's a really simple formula. You know, the score we're after, the goal we're after, the vision we're after is equal to our potential, and that comes from dedication and work and practice and and and you know, attitude and all that stuff. And then there's this little variable called interference, which sometimes is external. It's the things out there that are speaking to us most of the time, lies, like your whole worth in life is based on your score, which is causes of great fear in people. Um, interference can be internally, like I'll remember last time I was in this situation I failed, or internally, like if I fail, I'm letting my parents down, or if I fail, I'm letting my teen down, and and and we get all this noise going externally and internally. And then we live in a world right now. It's as I tell the young people, it's the loudest world in the history, and and and it's the most lie filled world in the history. And navigating that is so important, and it's difficult, and it's such a it's such a uh uh a journey for this next generation that's coming. I have to be intentional about winning the game in the midst of that and making meaning out of everything and finding truth and staying on the narrow path and doing it for the right reasons. So the re you know, so we start there like if I want to perform well, I've got to really have my potential built up, and then I've gotta make that interference variable zero, as close to zero as possible, so my performance and potential can can equal each other. So how do you do that? The greatest predictor of success in the face of adversity and interference is it comes down to three words. First one is focus, the second one is passion, desire, motivation. I like the word passion. And the third one is mental toughness. And so I I can turn them into three questions, and these would be the three questions I would ask them. Where do you want to go? That's the first place. There's a lot of noise out there, and sometimes people can't even determine where they want to go, or if they want to go, or how they would go anywhere. In other words, what's your dream? And it's important for parents and mentors like you all are setting up with players to look into and even pray into the lives of these young people that we work with to find out what is their passion and their calling and what's unique and special about them. That's so covered up so much, and we have to dig and unopen it and give them permission to be who they were meant to be. One of my best friends, maybe my best friend in the world, came to me one day and says, My son doesn't like to do anything with me. He loves me, but he doesn't like to do anything with me. I said, Well, what do you do? He goes, Well, uh I asked him if he wants to, you know, play catch, you know, go ride a bike, go to a football game, go see the Spurs play, whatever. And I go, what does he like? He goes, Oh, um, Willie likes music. I go, have you ever thought about taking him to a concert, getting him a guitar, you know, doing something like that? And he thought about it and went, I actually hadn't thought about that. I said, well, if he likes music, he can get into really bad music or really good music. One of one of the two. And um, why don't you take him to like uh a Mercy Me concert or a Third Day concert or Lauren Daigle concert, or you know, a faith concert that's just fun and amazing and deep. And he did, and it transformed his kids' life, and he got him a guitar. And that young man grew up and he's a worship leader in church because he loves writing music, he loves singing music, he loves producing music. His dad didn't have a clue about that because he grew up in sport and only sport and in business. And so it was a revelation to him. And it's got to be for us too, to help young people find it. Where is it you want to go? Not where someone else wants you to go. Where is it you want to go? So much of the time they're afraid of their dreams don't meet their parents' dreams or their teacher's dreams or somebody else's dream. You know, another example is I watched this young man, young kid at this academy, and he's six foot nine at a you know a private academy. Of course, the basketball coach is gonna be chasing him down the hallway every day of his high school career. But he loves music. You know, he likes other things in life. Why do we think if someone's six nine, they're gonna be the savior of the school in basketball? Um, and they've helped him have a good balance with it. That that was really important, instead of just, you know, saying you're tall, you gotta play basketball, that sort of thing. It's what's in our heart? What did God make us for? Find that. Focus. Where do you want to go? Number two is passion. How bad do you want to get there? That you know, that's the second question. But if you find that thing you love, then it's like, I'll do anything to get there. That's why we gotta help them understand. And the last thing is mental toughness, and that is the question: do you have the mental skills needed to navigate the interference and adversity and the change along the journey? That's why I get to wake up every morning helping. So let's go. I want to go there. I really want to do that. And then you've got to be ready for all these 20 minutes before the trophy celebration moments. Last little quick story here, because it kind of fits. My daughter was a world-class ice dancer I with her partner, and they were a month away from going to the Olympic trials for the country he was from, and they would have gotten to the Olympics. And she got injured twice within a week, hitting the back of her head on the ice and having horrible concussion. So the neurologist said you can't skate anymore. Her career was ended right there. And picking up those pieces and redirecting and praying a lot and just loving on her as she looked at where's she now gonna spend her dream. And I took her to an air show. And uh, we were watching acrobatic flight and jets flying over really fast and cool things, and she looked at me and she says, Daddy, I could dance in the air, couldn't I? And she just all of a sudden fell in love with flying, and she began to study it, and she said, I want to learn to fly, and I want to learn to fly in the hardest place in America. I want to go to Vale, Colorado, to their airport. And they're one of the instructors there I want to learn from. He was a former top gun commander. So we went to Vail. We picked up and moved the family of Vale and launched her career, and now she's flying. Last week she flew a Citation X, which is the fastest business jet in the world. We're looking, you know, small, we call it small business jet in the world. She's she's still in the right seat, not uh pilot in command yet. And they're flying 675 miles an hour to Fairbanks, Alaska, over glaciers and the mountains, and which she's an adventurer too. So we had to help her change her, you know, using the same skills and development that she had. She could spin 30 times and never fall. And today she wants to get up in a game bird acrobatic plane and do the same thing in the air. And so the 20 minutes before the trophy celebration for her was the end of that trophy. That door closed. You have to find the other door and open it and start over. Where do you want to go? How bad do you want to get there? And are you prepared for the incredible interference along the way? And she's done that in three, in three years. She's gone from never been in a little plane to flying the fastest small jet, corporate jet in America. So it's really cool to watch that. That's the answer to your question.

SPEAKER_00 32:21

Wow. Wow. So impactful. I think what I love the most outside of just the practical focus, passion, and mental toughness, right? Were the three things that you mentioned is that you gave every one of us at every age and every stage of life permission to start that cycle over again anytime we want to. And I think maybe even the uh the story that you mentioned in the book about your mentor. And at the beginning of this conversation, you mentioned him as well, talking about the Picasso moments where you have to paint a masterpiece and how there's so much significance to the picture that we choose because that's what creates our outcome. Maybe you could talk a little bit about the Picasso moment when we have to revisit this cycle of focusing again.

SPEAKER_02 33:17

And it is, you know, life is it's it's a it's a it's a really journey through a maze of open and closed doors. And and there's always one open. There might be one that closes. It's not the end. And if you walk it out with the Lord, it's so beautiful. And it's always an adventure. So I was 14 playing with our golf professional that came in, our young golf professional named Johnny. And he was about to shoot this day, 11 under par. We were still out playing. So he was 10 under, going into 17 and hits a shot up close the hole and turns and puts his club in his bag and says, Picasso. And he'd said that all day long. And I thought, man, what am I missing? What's he got going on there? I said, Johnny, what do you mean Picasso? And he said, Well, come here. And he put his arm around me and we look out over the hole at the par three. He said, What do you see? And I said, There's a lake to the right, and there's a big hill with weeds and dirt to the left. There's a false front, there's a bunker that doesn't have any sand in it, because that's the only bunker we have, and we never have sand in it. And the pin placements in the back, and go past it, it's gonna roll off the hill and down in the lake. And he looks at me dumbfounded and goes, No, no, no, no. Tell me, tell me, what do you see? I see, I see the lake, I see weeds, I see dirt, I see. He goes, You all you see is trouble. He says, You got a blank canvas, son. What do you want to have happen? Tell me what you'd like to have happen. Because it changes you. It changes your mind, it changes you physiologically, it changes your abilities. What would you like to see? He said, son, I'll just walk up every time. And every time you walk up, you've got a blank canvas, and I just choose to paint a masterpiece. And then if I've chosen, it doesn't matter if the ball goes close to the hole, if I've chosen to paint a masterpiece by seeing the shot, feeling the shot, trusting the shot, then I have an accountability process that I just say, Picasso. And that's when I, in my head, I signed the painting. Picasso. Said you're not a robot. Everything's not going to be perfect. The question is, did you put yourself in position for a great shot to happen? Think about that in life. Do we put ourselves in position for a great shot to happen? So that's that's just, you know, that was a moment of moments for me. That's really was the seed to this whole thing. There wasn't a field called performance or sports psychology back then, but that's what he was doing. He was just opening the door. I was 48 years old, Ashley and Chuck, when I even had the idea of writing a book. You know, so I've been doing this for a long, long time. And again, you can be surprised, so surprised by these, I call them buried seeds, dreams that have been inside for a long time. I always loved words and lyrics and poetry and things, but there was never a place or a belief inside of me. No English teacher, nobody ever gave me any encouragement in that area. I loved to speak and I loved to teach and I did all that. But to write was something I'd dreamed that other people would do, but I thought someday at least I want to be a storyteller, but I didn't have any stories when I was a kid. So I began to understand that I had something to say, and there's different ways of saying it. And that's when the book, Seven Days in Utopia, came out. And I didn't want to write a one, two, three, how-to book to start with. And so I wanted it to be a book that anybody in the world could relate to, and I wanted it to be a story. And it was so amazing how it just poured out, and it surprised me, and it still surprised me to this day. And in the beginning, no one wanted it, then it became a bestseller, and then the next surprise came, and that was some guy called me and said, I want that book to be my first movie. He never made a movie, he was qualified to, but never made it. And so we took off on that. I mean, I'm a sports psychologist. Who couldn't make a movie? I mean, you talk about, you know, uh uh a focus and where you want to go. And so um we embarked on that, and all of a sudden, some people wanted to invest in that. And the next thing you know, it exploded because a guy named Robert Duvall wanted to play the part of Johnny, the gentleman I just told you all about, that changed my life, and Robert Duvall's Academy Award-winning actor, and wanted that part. So now the movie has got an Academy Award winner in it, and then another one joined us right after him, and we're making a movie. And I'm the executive producer, the screenwriter, um, chairman of the board of a film company, and I'm a sports psychologist. So I say all of that to say we can't undersell ourselves. And there's more in us than any of us ever can imagine. And it takes a lot of courage and digging to find things in there that you go, that would be cool, but there's no way ever for me, first to write a book, and secondly, for that book to be good enough that anybody would want to read it. And then thirdly, that some guy named Robert Duvall wants to play the part in it. It happened. And I marvel at it. And that, you know, that really the reason Chuck and I even got to meet. It was uh an arounded event where that book and movie were being shown and talked about. So it's so fun to be able to not only talk about this stuff, but to watch it in my life happen, surprisingly, but so awe-inspiring in my heart, you know, to see stuff like that happen. So uh anyway, I just wanted to bring that up. And then greatness came after that, which is really taking all the principles out of Seven Days in Utopia and just aligning them so you can sort of have a guideline. Uh, and it's only a hundred pages, so it it's easy to to to see it. And I put stories in there as well. I just think stories are what makes life, you know, it makes it makes it interesting, it inspires and encourages all of us. And the last thing there is all of those young people that we get to mentor through the tent, they all have a story. And it's growing by day. And that story is important to tell. It's their testimony, it's the thing that comes out of them to inspire other people. And all of them are going to be inspiration, already are, but y'all are pulling it out of them to inspire that generation to do things they can never imagine.

SPEAKER_01 40:44

It's amazing. I think anybody that's gotten the chance to know you, uh whether it's for a short period of time, like on a podcast like this, or have read your books, or watched your movie, um, or been in one of your seminars, uh, none of us are surprised that you've had the success that you've had because of the person that you are and the care that you have for people. And uh frankly, the the message that I receive from you on the feet of the feet in the ashes. Uh, I think a lot of what we're doing here at the 10 um is directly or indirectly a result of that that life-giving approach to the actions that we take and the steps that we take. Um and I also love all of your work. Yes, we're we're a golf organization, a golf-centered organization, right? That is the common bond that keeps a lot of us together. However, your work goes well beyond. You mentioned that there's life lessons in each one of your teachings uh and the the idea that your identity doesn't match a golf score. Can you talk a little? I when you were describing the Picasso picture, I'm thinking about Utopia, which I I do want to come see in person someday, and maybe we'll bring a group down. But talk just a little bit. Don't give anything away for those who haven't seen the movie or read the book, but talk a little bit more about Utopia, Seven Days in Utopia, Golf Sacred Journey, and also if you wouldn't mind sharing a little bit about the feet in the ashes.

SPEAKER_02 42:24

So our family on my wife's side has a had a ranch in Texas in a little community called Utopia, Texas. It's in the hill country. Um uh a lot, I guess, a lot like Pittsburgh, there's a lot of hills and things. And these are big hills. I'd call them mountains, but if you go to Colorado, you they're not mountains. But yeah, it's the most beautiful part of Texas. It's and it's hidden in a valley right there in the middle of all these little mountains in Texas by a beautiful crystal clear river. And we had a ranch and we've been going there for years, and there was there's not a golf course within 60, 70 miles of that place. So it was just a place to go really do ranch stuff, which I love. I really love. And one day I was walking through the cafe there, it's only 200 people in this town, and there was this handwritten half-piece of notebook paper thumbtacked to a sort of a little board by the cash restaurant where people would thumbtack their business cards and things, and it basically handwritten said um utopia driving rings, one mile south, next to the cemetery. Come find your game. It intrigued me so much because there was no place to play golf there. And I thought, well, I can hit some balls while I'm here. So I went out there and I knew where that old cemetery was because we had had ancient relatives, you know, buried there. And it's a beautiful, amazing little cemetery with a rock wall around it. Huge oak tree. It feels like a place of life, not death, really. And then about 10, 15 yards outside of the fence, there were three pieces of acerturf and a bunch of caliche and weeds with a metal post with a slit weld in it in it with a note card under that said$3 for a small bucket,$5 for a large bucket, put your money in the slide. And the balls were horrible. They looked like kids' chalk that had no dimples on it, you know, just like really discolored, disfigured. No way anybody's going to hit one of those balls very well. And then as you looked out, there was a barbed wire fence about 50 yards out. And on the other side was a literally a plowed cow pasture with dirt clods and three signs. One said 150, one said 200, one said 250. And as if any of those balls would ever make it out there. I felt sorry for the people in town that were going to hit these and figure golf is just too hard for me. It really, it's going to be the ball's fault for the most part. And I just laughed at this and I put some money in that slot and I grabbed these balls and I put them on that acid turf and um I began to hit balls in the middle of nowhere. At the worst driving range with the worst golf balls I've ever seen in my life. And the first few didn't really work. And I can literally say this, it wasn't me, it was the ball. And then I hit one that actually was perfect. It was like I found the sweet spot. And the ball actually was a golf ball. And it went out to where I aimed and made a big cloud of dust where it landed. And I realized I'm just sitting there looking and thinking and going, wow. The the real love of games and business and life and things is finding a sweet spot. It doesn't matter where we are. And I realized in that moment how beautiful that that that moment was. And I wasn't at Pebble Beach or Oak, you know, Oakmont or even Pine Valley, I was in Utopia at the worst driving range in the world. And I heard in my spirit, as I'd been thinking about writing this book, this is the spot. Write the book. And that's when the flood started to hit me. It was like the perfect setting to write a story. Because it was in a place that was insignificant to most people in the world or even unheard of. But such greatness was going to rise out of that place because it was a sweet spot. One day the guy ended up making a little nine-hole course soon after that, right around the cemetery there. And um he stopped by one day. And in Texas, we we say a when we play a bad golf course, we call it a goat ranch. And he drives up and Rose is winding down and says, Hey Sonny, how are you doing? I said, I'm doing fine. I said, You're Wayne, aren't you? Yeah, I said, This is your golf course. Yeah. I said, What gave you the idea to build this golf course in the middle of nowhere? And he literally said this. He said, Sonny, I'm just an old goat rancher. And when my goat ranch went belly up, I had to do something with my property. So not only was this a goat ranch, it was a sailed goat ranch that he built the golf course on. And the community began to come out and they would thrive. And that little golf course that wasn't even watered, and there's no grass hardly on the greens right now. This year, 24 kids in a school that has 200 kids from kindergarten through high school. I was thinking of the school. 24, you know, whatever that is, 10% of the kids, and we're just talking about the high school kid. 24 came out for golf. And every Thursday night there's this nine and dine, and the Justice of the Peace or the Little Community cooks dinner, and we all go out there and team up and play a scramble for nine holes, and it's become the center of the that community. And it's the worst golf course and the best golfing experience I've ever had and continue to have in my life. Greatness can come out of small things that seem to be insignificant. And that's what happened in my life, truly. I'm a, you know, literally a C student in English my whole life. And ended up being a writer and a filmmaker and all that stuff and and a speaker. I wasn't good at speech either. But God just has a way of taking the insignificant and doing something. And utopia has become a symbol of that. It's a symbol that's quiet. It's a place you can hear God. It's a place that you feel you can breathe. It's not noisy. And greatness came out of there. Um Chuck, to your point, I believe that all of us someday get to heaven. The Lord will give us a big old hug, and there's a verse in there that says that the wood, hay, and stubble needs to be burned up so we can see the precious metals, and that I believe is the reward in heaven. And you think when you get to heaven and you see heaven, there's nothing better. So a reward usually is something that makes you feel something better. And I've I've begun to understand this that he'll say, he'll hold us and go, hey, I want to show you your life because there's something really important and special. And you go, Oh, I don't want to see my life. He goes, Oh, it's just in a flash, we're just gonna burn up all the insignificance, all the fluff. Just burn, just burn it up. And I'm just gonna stand next to you and hold you. And it's just, it was just a waste. We're just getting rid of it. And you know, you don't see all the parts of it. It's just like I call it the bonfire of insignificant of my life. It's just gonna flash, all the wasted time and you know, fear moments and all this stuff, it's gone. And then he's gonna take his big breath and he's gonna blow the ashes away. And he's gonna say, Look, what do you see? And he's gonna see the feet of people walking around. And he's gonna say, Those people are here because you allowed me to move in and through you in life with the gifts and talents that I've been that I gave you, and you dug for them and you found them, and you allowed me to work through to bring a piece of heaven to earth and influence other people and bring light to their world, they are here or will be here because of your life. That's your reward, and then you know, yeah, heaven's amazing, but to know that God used me and that there's people actually there be because of that, somehow, that's a reward. That's a step up in heaven, and that's what we all get to look forward to. That's why it took a long time for me to get to that definition, but it's selfless exceptionalism. The disciples were arguing at one point, who's the greatest? And our Lord said, the greatest is a servant, and shut that argument down real quick. That's what greatness, that's where greatness comes from, and that's part of the the value of the ten and all that we do here is pouring into people and helping them find those dreams and goals, especially as given by God, because those are the best. They live and leap to fulfillment, and then we get to be an inspiration for the world because we become salt and light. So hope that answers your question, Chuck.

SPEAKER_01 52:36

I I feel like we could say amen and close right now, but we're not going to. That was so good. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 52:44

So good. Uh, before we close, I I do have a fun question for you as well. Um, we could spend probably 10 minutes, by the way, thanking you for the last two minutes that you just provided. So super grateful for each valuable perception and perspective that you have as you thoughtfully answer these questions. And I just want to ask a fun question. And thinking through all of these amazing stories that I've heard over the last few years that I've read in both of your books, you talk about how, as you're studying performance, you wanted in your research to provide an answer to the question: can we give more than a hundred percent? And I love the story that you use to describe that. Could you share with us if I were to just simply ask you the question, Dr. Cook, could I give more than 100%? How would you answer that question?

SPEAKER_02 53:42

I would say I had an experience where I did a uh uh a research project for my doctorate. And um I needed to find somebody that lived to give 100% to see if that could happen. And so I found a Marine that had run 21 marathons. So if anybody could give 100%, it'd be him. And he wanted to get on the treadmill, and then it was part of my study to see what kind of condition he was in compared to everybody else in the world, because he wanted to be in better condition than anybody in the world. So we put him on a treadmill test, and I said, you know, for you, we need to do five tests. So I was I was thinking in the back of my mind, I'm he's he is my research study. He didn't know it, but he was. And so I said, I need to do it five times, not once. So come in and we're gonna test you on the treadmill. And we put him on the treadmill, and there's he didn't have a watch, there's no timing device, and just told him to walk till he couldn't stand up. And every few minutes we would increase the elevation. And you know, most people went about 16 minutes, and man, he went to 20, and then he went to 22, and then at 26, he looked like he was just about to, you know, die standing up while he was trying to stay on the treadmill. And he got all the way to 27 when he just hit his knees and almost passed out. And I went, I've never seen anybody get within 15 minutes of that. And so he asked me how he did. He asked me if he won. And I said, You didn't win this, but let's look at the index. And he'd gone 27 minutes, but I went to the 28-minute mark in the index, and I said, Look at this. That's what you did. You went 28 minutes. And um, I said, That's the top one-tenth of percent of everybody in the history that's ever done this. And then I asked him, Can you come back next week and take one more step? Remember, he went 27, but I was asking him to go 2801. And then I gave him the number 28 and said, put it on your mirror, write it all all around you and come back, work out, come back. And next week I'm gonna put a clock in front of you. I was gonna ask you if you can beat 28. And he came back the next week. We put the clock in front of him. And the first week I just said, give me 100%. This time I said, beat the clock. And he went 2810. He went 70 seconds more in absolute, complete agony. His heart was doing the same thing each, uh, each uh, you know, during that time. And um, and I said, Okay, you gave me 10, you know, 10 more steps next week. Let's see if you can beat it. And he goes, That's gonna be hard. But he came back, no clock. And right before I turned the treadmill, he goes, Where's the clock? I go, no, no, just give me 100%. And so he did, and he went 2630, thought he'd set the world record. I told him he me that he'd gone 2820. And by the way, I found only one place in life that you can lie without sinning, and that's psychological research. So anyway, I was doing my duty there. And um, and uh I said, okay, I'm gonna give you the clock next week. You gotta be 2820, and he went 2820.1, basically. And then I told him the truth, and uh well, he was too tired to catch me and get get me. And he was amazed though, and so was I, that just trying to give 100%, there's it's subjective. You you there's it's not like uh measurable. But when we put a measure in front of us, say, I want to do this, and you can measure it and then see it, make it tangible. Man, those are the secrets to this first thing of focus and goals that we want to teach young people is identify it and then this measure is put some measurable metrics around it so you can get there. Are you progressing towards it? So that's a good question. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 57:34

So so what you're saying is that we can all expect a little bit more of ourselves, and we're not wrong as parents when we expect a little bit more of our kids, right?

SPEAKER_02 57:45

That's true. That's true. Doing it in the right way for sure.

SPEAKER_00 57:50

I love that. Yes, no, you talk about the reservoir of potential that sometimes we don't even realize that we have within ourselves. And I just think that was so valuable to the three points that you mentioned on focusing and passioning and mental toughness, because we do have a limit in our body. We can't give more than 100%, but that reservoir of potential that we have in our minds.

SPEAKER_02 58:17

Yes. Thank you for clarifying that. That's great. And Ashley, you're the most encouraging person. You're the most encouraging person around, I'm telling you. Um, it's always a blessing just to see your face and hear you. And um, I know why Chuck's always saying that now. It's really encouraging to have you on here, and I'm sure people love watching that. Let me let me make this one final thing here, where it really kind of all started, and it was like I was walking around that ranch and I saw an old seed bin and a plow that had plowed this field for years and years, but it had sitting there, sat there in this weed bed for 70 years after its last plowing mission in this field that I ran. And I was curious about it. I went over and lifted up the lid and I looked in there, and there was seed. About one-third of that seed bin was full of seed that had been meant to be planted 70 years before that, to never produce fruit. That was the genesis of writing Seven Days in Utopia, because I looked in there and I knew that for most of us, there was some sort of a dream, a seed, a calling or whatever that got lost in the noise of the world or the interference of the world. And I just looked in there and realized it was a parable speaking to me, that our job is to help people find those seeds and uncover them so that they can produce fruit. And the seed doesn't just go wasted. It it kind of made me sad looking at an inanimate object with seed that would never produce fruit. And so that's the business that we're in is helping people find that seed that's been hidden in there or stuffed in there, you know, from all kinds of things in our life, and help pull it out and plant it, water it, mentor it, and and let it grow. An old cowboy told me one time, he's I said, How many seed heads come off of one oat seed? And he said, Oh, let's just say ten. And so you put one out and it produces ten seeds the first year. Then those ten produce ten seeds the next year. In ten years you'd have ten billion seeds. Isn't that amazing? And we think sometimes that we're insignificant, but one seed planted just begins to we'll never know how far reaching the things that we do can be. We just need to find out who are we, whose are we, find our calling, and then surround ourselves with people that can help us get it out for the purpose of making the lives of people around us better. Amen. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:27

So good. So good. Chuck, any closing thoughts before we let Dr. Cook go today? I know we said we could thank him for five minutes here.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:36

Well, now we have uh publicly on the air, we could ask him, put him on the spot. Can we come back at some point for round two? Because I feel like we have hours more to unpack with you. Um I uh you don't have to answer that now, but we will follow up with you, Dr. Cook. I again, you know, the the fact that you would spend an hour with our community, uh a national champion, an MBA champion, uh helping people win Olympic medals, PGA tour events, it's it's amazing what you've done. And I think I I I speak for uh all of those that have had the opportunity to spend time with you that you didn't, you didn't just I certainly didn't win a championship, but those that have, I think they would all say that you've made them a better person and you've given them better perspective on what's important in life.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:29

Oh, I just said thank you. I appreciate you all, and I appreciate what you're doing. It's I actually an honor to be able to do this or any anything like this. So that's I can't wait to get up there someday and see the tournament or be there and just support what you all are doing.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:47

Well, we certainly hope that you will, and we can't wait for that. We just want to thank you today for sharing your wisdom and living out exactly what you're encouraging everyone else to do, where you're taking all of your knowledge, all of your skill, all of your passion, and turning that into making people like us better and people within the 10 Memorial community better. We're so grateful for you. We hope we continue the conversation from here. And perhaps you're in the 10 Memorial community today, and you've just redefined for yourself what it means to be exceptional. If you're on a leadership and a greatness journey, we hope you're encouraged and you feel some pressure relieved off of you today, that it's less about what you're achieving and accomplishing personally, and it's more about how we're using our influence to change, enhance, and better the lives of those around us. That's the definition of greatness that we learned from Dr. Cook today. And we hope you feel encouraged to do the same. So please come back and join us next time on For the One.