You're Doing the Rice Experiment on Yourself Every Round — Here's What That Means

What do you say to yourself when you miss a short putt you know you should have made? When you snap hook a driver out of bounds on a hole you always drive well? When you are trying to protect a lead and you make a double bogey?

If you are honest, the answer is not pretty. And here is what most golfers have never been told. Those words are not just affecting your confidence. They are affecting your coordination, your muscle sequencing, and your physical ability to hit the very next shot.

That is not a motivational statement. That is documented science. And today Bo and Shannon prove it.

Here is what you will hear in this episode:

— The Harvard University research that shows positive language improves performance by ten percent, but negative self-talk is forty to seventy times more powerful in the other direction

— Dr. Emoto's rice experiment from the National Library of Medicine — three jars of cooked rice, different words spoken to each for one month, and results that make the case for Power Talk completely undeniable

— All twelve types of negative self-talk that show up specifically in golf — from self-doubt and all-or-nothing thinking to the comparison trap and the one most golfers never think about: complaining

— The new neuroscience on complaining that did not make it into the book in time and how just thirty seconds of frustration floods your body with cortisol, literally makes you dumber in real time, and rewires your brain to default to negativity faster with every repetition

— Why the player Bo describes as the worst mental headcase he has seen in 37 years of golf is now playing some of his best — and which of the twelve types broke him

— Shannon's David and Goliath teaching and what it has to do with the inner critic on the golf course

The T-chart exercise and the complete Power Talk library are coming in Part 2 next week. This week your homework is simple — pay attention to what you are saying to yourself on the course. Document it. And come ready to build.

🎧 Listen & Subscribe Apple Podcasts — Listen Here Spotify — Listen Here

🧠 Free Mental Game Assessment Find out exactly what's holding your game back — takes 5 minutes and it's completely free. → https://inthezonesecrets.com/assessment

📖 Get the Book In the Zone Secrets: How to Get in the Zone at the Flip of a Switch — just cover shipping and it's yours. → https://inthezonesecrets.com/

👥 Join the Caveman Golf Winner's Circle Our free community for golfers who are serious about playing their best. Come join the tribe. → https://inthezonesecrets.com/winners-circle-checkout

📞 Free Coaching Call If you're ready to close the gap between the golfer you are and the golfer you know you can be — let's talk. → https://inthezonesecrets.com/freecall

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I want to ask you three questions. And I want you to be very honest with yourself as you answer them. First, what do you say to yourself when you miss a short putt? Like you know you should have made. And two, what do you say to yourself when you snap like a driver out of bounds on a hole that you always seem to hit it out on? Or three, what do you say to yourself when you're trying to protect a lead and you make a double bogey? Most golfers, when they actually stop and think about it, the answer isn't pretty. The inner critic, honestly, is pretty loud in those moments. And the fact is, if golfers are truly honest, if you are truly honest with yourself, and you were to stand back and ask yourself, if I say it this out loud to a playing partner, it probably would actually start a fight. See here's the thing that most golfers have never been told. These words, they're not just affecting your confidence, they're affecting your coordination, they're affecting your sequencing, they're affecting your physical ability to execute the very next shot. Guys and girls, that's not a motivational statement. That's documented science. And today in part one of our power talk series, we're actually going to prove it. What if your best golf wasn't away? What if your best golf wasn't yours away? What if you were just one round away? Welcome to the One Round Away podcast where our mission is simple to help a hundred thousand golfers shoot their new lifetime low rounds, not just once by accident, but to become the kind of golfer who knows how to perform when it matters most. Hey, I'm Bo Watson.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Hey, I'm Shannon Shusky, a golfer who plays with freedom, a golfer who stops sabotaging themselves and starts trusting what is already in their head. We call that caveman golf. C target, sea ball, hit ball. Today is a part two episode. Part one is the science of the why the words you speak to yourself physically change what's going on in your body and what happens on the course, and why understanding these changes, everything about how you prepare your mind for competition. And in part two, which will be next week, is the application of the how. We're going to give you the complete power talk library, show you exactly where it sits in every system that we teach, building your personal power talk practice step by step. This is the episode that has been promised since episode four. Let me start with something that is going to reframe the way you think about your internal dialogue in your brain forever. The words we thought, not just the intentional ones, not just the ones that you mean to say, but any words and thoughts. Number one, they can raise or lower your body temperature. They can secrete hormones, whether they be like cortisol or even testosterone, those things, which, you know, it's either going to limit you or it's going to, you know, increase your performance. Words can relax or tighten your muscles and nerve endings. They can dilate or restrict arteries. They can raise or lower pulse rate. They can even elevate and reduce brain waves. This is the form of the research that we reference in our book, In the Zone Secrets, how to get in the zone at the foot of the switch. And I want you to really hear what it is saying. Not big dramatic declaration, not affirmations you recite within 10, any words, any thoughts spoken at random. They are physically changing what your body does.

SPEAKER_00 3:32

Yeah, you're right, Shannon. And this is a piece that most golfers have never been told because we spend so much time, especially in the golf world, talking about the physical side. We talk about the swing mechanics, we talk about equipment, we talk about course management and the language. The piece gets treated like it's so soft, like it's just attitude. It's not attitude, guys. It's physiology. Let me give you the Harvard University research that we actually included in our book. When you speak positively, there's a 10% greater likelihood of those words actually having a powerful effect on your performance and in your body. Like 10% better when you are positive. That sounds meaningful, and it is, but here's where it gets really important. When you speak negatively, all right, really pay attention to this. When you speak negatively to yourself, about yourself, after a bad shot, maybe a difficult hold. It is four to seven times stronger in its impact than just positive words. Let that sink in. Four to seven times, which means negative self-talk is 40 to 70 times more influential than positive statements.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

40 to 70 times worse. Let me put that in the golf terms. You stand over a shot and you say to yourself, Do not hit it in the water. That is a negative instruction. The image your brain processes is the ball going over into the water. And your nervous system responds to that image, not to the word do not. And what happens is you're actually creating another target in your brain. Now, here's the part that makes this even more important. You had a positive thought 30 seconds ago, I'm going to hit this great shot. But then the negative instruction that you just delivered, do not hit it in the water, is 40 to 70 times more powerful than that positive thought. So guess what your body's going to do? It's going to tend to lead that way. You created that extra target. Now that target that you said, don't hit it there, is becoming like a magnet. And it is not even a contest when it comes to positive and negative there. Negative is going to win because it's 40 to 70 times worse. The negative wins every time you've been deliberate, the system in place to change it. The system is power talk. And everything else that we've been teaching you since episode one runs better when this foundation is in its place.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

In that case study, Shannon actually mentioned something where he said John's language changed. Now here's what's fascinating. His scores didn't change like immediately. It was his language that he first really made intentional efforts on. The crazy thing is the way that John described his difficult shots, they changed. The way he talked to himself after a bad shot changed. Then his scores followed. That language shift was not him trying to sound more positive. It was actually a real neurological change in the inputs his nervous system was receiving. As a result, his body responded by performing differently. Once you understand the science behind why that happens, which is what we're talking about today, everything that John experienced makes complete sense. And everything that is possible for you will make complete sense too. So Shannon, take it away.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

So I want to share an experiment that is going to stay with you for life. One, I've actually done this experiment myself, and because it makes the science that we're just talked about completely undeniable. Dr. Massura Omoto published a study in the National Library of Medicine. And what he did was he placed boiled rice into three separate glass jars after he drained them, had the rice in these jars, and he labeled the first jar positive, the second jar was negative, and a third jar was basically where you ignored it. And so what happened was with the first jar was labeled the positive, he used loving words toward this jar. Like, for example, you're amazing. I love you. You're the best. Now the second jar that was labeled negative, he used hateful phrases like, I hate you, you're worthless, you're disgusting. And as many of you have even said, you suck, right? You know, you're terrible. Those words he used with the negative one. Now, the third jar remained unmarked and ignored entirely with no words, no attention. Dr. Rimoto and his team spoke those corresponding words on each label directly to each jar in every single day for a month, every single day. So, for example, in the first jar, one spoken to the love with gratitude. What happened was at the end of the one month, and I did this, and this this actually blew my mind. You can actually look some of these case studies up, even on YouTube, because other wanted to try to prove and see if this works. It seems like it's like way out there, but it's amazing what words can do to your body in real time at the end of the month. What happened with the first one that was spoken with love and gratitude? The rice fermented beautifully. In other words, it emitted a pleasant aroma and it looked healthy and it looked alive. You know, it basically kept its color for the most part vibrant looking. Now, however, the second jar, the one that was spoken with the hate and contempt, like you're terrible. I hate you, no one likes you. The rice turned foul. It actually blackened and had mold all in it. But then when I actually did it and opened it and in in Dr. Moto's experiment, it smelled putrid. It was nasty. Now, this is the same rice. It was in the same room as the other, it was the same temperature, different words. Now the third jar, which was ignored, turned slightly yellow with traces of mold throughout it. Even the absence of words, or you could say neglect, had a measurable effect that was actually on the rice.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

Well, here's the takeaway, guys. When you really look at this is what Dr. Emoto concluded, and this is why it's so important for your golf game. The human body is approximately 60% water. If words are spoken to a jar of rice, can change its molecular structure. What are words that you speak to yourself every day doing to your body? To your nervous system? What about your capacity to hit a golf shot under pressure? Let that sink in.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

I want to think about your last round that you played, where you talked harshly to yourself, or even fought it, and then words came out. Where you said, I am terrible at this game, or I always do this, or I cannot make this putt to save my life. You know, we've all said stuff like that. You're doing the rice experiment on yourself, 40 to 70 times more powerful than any positive thought that you had in the same realm. And now I want you to think about what becomes possible when you flip it. When every word you speak to yourself on the course, in your mental rep sessions as well, in the car on the way to the round, everything. It doesn't matter, negative or positive, it's still a mental rep. That's the thing. It's still a mental rep. You are depositing that into your brain account instead of a withdrawal, you're making that negative deposit or positive deposit. So think about that. That is the part one of what we're building toward. And part two is next week we're gonna show you how to build that library that makes it real.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

Thousand percent. And so what we want to talk about now is there's 12 types of negative self-talk. And the thing is, before you can replace something, you actually have to first be able to recognize it. In our book, we talk about all the different kinds of type of negative self-talk that actually shows up. Like what we want to do is we're gonna take the time and walk you through some of these so that you can honestly ask yourself, which one or two, maybe more, are you? Because the thing is, every golfer has a dominant pattern. There's like habit loops that we always catch ourselves in. The first step is awareness, and that's what we need to address, and that's exactly what we're gonna cover now. So, Shannon, what do you want to you want to go ahead and cover the first one?

SPEAKER_01 12:36

Absolutely. I want you to take notes on this. Which one are you? Because we're gonna ask you at the end of these 12. The very first one is self-doubt. And when we say self-doubt, you're questioning your abilities, you're feeling inadequate versus other golfers. And what that does, it actually creates hesitation and lack of trust in your own ability. So, for example, the thought, I'm not good enough, comes in. The skill wasn't the issue here, it's actually the belief of you actually thinking that you're not good enough. It's saying self-doubt that shows up before the realm that has started. It is that preloaded, okay, because it is preloaded, negative self-talk that you're putting in yourself. Bo, what's the next one?

SPEAKER_00 13:22

Yeah, the second one is all or nothing thinking. It's actually pretty fascinating because I I see this a lot. And in fact, this is one of the more common ones that just came up, Shannon, even on our survey out to our entire community this past week. The sad thing is it's either you had a perfect round or you're a total failure. And it's if you miss a fairway and your brain says you're a terrible golfer, there's no nuance. Like it's one shot that defines everything. It's this one is so destructive. And I was like this as a junior golfer. The sad part about this is that the game is a game of misses, like it's a game of mistakes. And I'm telling you, one of the absolute I would say I'm just gonna say it and call the spade, Shannon. This is probably the worst mental head case golfer that I've ever seen in my 37 years of being in this game. Yeah, and this is a this is a guy that had been to four different sports psychologists, three other mental game coaches, and the sad part is none of them were helping, and he was on the verge of quitting the game before he came and worked with us. And this thing right here, the all or nothing thinking, this was his nemesis. If he missed one shot, that round was over. And the beautiful thing that really unlocked it for him before we move into the next thing, is when we got him to understand that golf's an uncertain game, that right there was one of the biggest keys to him getting past this. The best players in the world, guys, they have a high percentage of Fairways and Green's regulation, but they still miss. That's the thing that you have to understand is that it's it can't be all or nothing thinking. You just have to have a healthy perspective that, hey, this is a game of mistakes. The best players in the world still hit bad shots, but it's your response that matters. What's the third one, Shan?

SPEAKER_01 15:06

The third one is overgeneralization. Let's say you you hit it in the bucker and this is how it's always gonna go, or you're teeing off and you shank it on your very first hole, and you're like, man, this is how it always goes, right? The signal word there is the word always. You're over-generalizing, and it takes one of them and turns it to a permanent pattern throughout the game. One bad shot. This always happens. That's what you're thinking with one bad shot. It turns that moment into a pattern, it builds a false identity of failure. Another one is a one-miss driver. I can't hit a driver today because you do your first shot of the driver, for example, and then you immediately start thinking that a player hit a bad bunker shot early. And so what happens is in those cases, you you start avoiding aggressive plays the rest of the round when there are times where you have a conviction that you can actually hit a shot and go after a certain pin, which is we don't always necessarily say that you should do, but however, you avoid it altogether throughout the rest of the game because of that. Once your brain accepts that is a pattern, your nervous system starts executing it like it's a program. Bo, what's the next one?

SPEAKER_00 16:33

Yeah, the next one is what we call the negative filter, or some people will say it's a mental filter. You play around, and let's say you had six birdies, played really well, but you had two doubles. The only thing that you think about is the two doubles that ruined a otherwise an amazing round. It's like you you always think of the one drop of ink and a full glass of water. You only see the ink, it's the same round, two completely different experiences depending on which filter is running, and that's the downside of the negative filter. What's the fifth one, Chan?

SPEAKER_01 17:03

So, and the fifth one and the fourth one, they're actually married together, honestly. And a lot of these are married together. They have a unique companionship, so to speak. This is different from the mental filter a little bit because you acknowledge the good things, but then you totally dismiss them. And Bo, this reminds me, we actually had a client that came in, if you remember, not too long ago. For example, you get a birdie on a hole, and immediately you think, oh, that's just luck. We actually had a client that said that he hits a great shot. He goes, Well, there's there's one out of a million, right? You know, it we actually had to reframe his mind thinking of, you know, a good shot that this is normal. Like, for example, you hit your your best drive of the year and you tell yourself, oh, that's just a fluke. So what you're doing is you're blocking yourself from building confidence from your own success. And what it does is it steals your confidence and not just your confidence, but your momentum of playing a good round. And Bo, what's the next one?

SPEAKER_00 18:06

Yeah, the next one in the Shannon is called catastrophizing. This is where you stand on the T of a difficult hole, and your first thought is that this is gonna ruin my round. And it's before you even swung. So you've committed to the worst possible outcome. And so as a result, your nervous system then begins preparing for that outcome, and are we surprised, it delivers.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

And but I want to add to that too, to catastrophizing. So, what happens is you are expecting a worst-case scenario. An example, if you miss this, my realm is going to be ruined. That's what Bo is talking about. So, what it is is you're creating pressure before the shot even happens, you know? And moving on to the seventh one is should statements. We all have these. Like, for example, I should have made that putt. I ought to be better than this at this stage of my game. We start saying those type of statements all the time. Every should statement has a form of self-punishment. Because what happens is it whips you into a guilt spiral that makes the next shot harder, not easier. So you trade the whip for a supportive coach. So what do I mean by that? You reframe it from I should to I can improve. You turn I should statements into I'm getting better statements, for example. So, Bo, what's the next one?

SPEAKER_00 19:34

Yeah, the next one is perfectionism. It's actually interesting because this also ties very closely to the player that we referenced just a few moments ago that I talked about as one of the worst ones we've ever seen. Now he's playing some of the best golf. The reality was perfectionism is a trap. You know, it looks like high standards from the outside, but it's actually destructive what's going on inside. The reason is for that is because a perfectionist golfer will scold himself for any shot that falls below an impossible standard. Because perfection is never achievable. How do we know that? Because Scotty and Tiger, every round they go play, they don't shoot 54 on the scorecard. So there's our answer. The perfectionist that's in us is constant, uh, like basically being a self-critic throughout the entire round. There's never a good enough shot. There is never a good enough round, and as a result, it just creates this snowball effect, creates this impossible standard that you'll never be able to reach. You're totally moving away from a growth mindset and realizing that it's a journey that you're always learning. That's why we always tell our clients you're not failing. There's no such thing as failure. It's either you're winning or you're learning. And that's the mindset that you must take and overcome in the perfectionism.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

The ninth one, here's the thing. We've all fallen into this trap as well. And that is what we call mind reading. You become a professional mind reader, but you're totally missing the mark. What do I mean? You are assuming that you know what your play partners are thinking about what type of game that you're playing. You're assuming that others are judging you in certain circumstances. Let's say you top a shot, right? And your brain tells you that they are laughing inside because you you topped the shot. You three-put, and you are convinced that they are judging you because you three-putted and that they're thinking that you're a terrible putter. And so you are playing two rounds simultaneously. One is yours, your actual golf, and the other one is your imaginary golf friend, which is in every other person because you're trying to literally uh you're trying to read their minds. That's why you're playing those two rounds the one that your actual golf shots are, and your imaginary one that's happening in the minds of people around you. And what does that lead? Self-conscious. You're being self-conscious. You're distracted because of it. You totally lost of the presence of the game, being in the present moment, or like what we say, being in your own shoes. You totally lost that. You've heard Bo and I even say this over and over again. When? And how do you win the gang? What's important now? When is an acronym? What's important now? You've lost that presence. You're you've lost that what's important now. And the imaginary one is costing you strokes.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

And what's the what's the next one, Bo? Yeah, the next one is what we call negative labeling. That's where you attach identity to your mistakes. Say you miss a putt, but you say something like, I'm a terrible putter. Or say you messed up down a stretch on the last hole, and you're like, Oh, I always choke under pressure. And what that does is it locks in those limiting beliefs. It becomes self-fulfilling. The thing is that when you label yourselves, I'm a choker or anything like that, what it does is it basically causes your body to experience those. And then you're following the identity that you set forth by what you spoke. Then as a result, the language then changed your results.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

Number 11 is personalization. You personalize everything. You're blaming yourself for uncontrollable factors, even then. What do I mean? Like weather, like the timing, external conditions. And what it does is it creates frustrations and excuses. It drains your focus from what you can't control. Let me let me give you an example. You're probably like, well, what are you referring to, Shannon, as far as like blaming yourself for uncontrollable factors? Here it is, an example. A bad bounce. It's totally uncontrollable. But then you start thinking, why does this always happen to me? You see what I mean? It's like that's why you're personalizing everything that takes place. Another is two players hit the same ball from the same lot. One adapted, one complained. But what happens is only one of those recovered. Guess which one recovered? The one that adapted, the one that complained is the one who is personalizing it. Why does this always happen to me? Bo, what's the next one?

SPEAKER_00 24:13

The next one is the comparison trap. And that's simply just measuring yourself against others. Sometimes that can be when you're on the warm-up before a tournament and you're looking down the range. And instead of focusing on your process, you're watching people hit shots, this is all happening before you even step foot on the golf course. My goodness, first of all, like that's the dumbest thing that you could possibly do. And I'm just gonna preach here for a second, because how many of you also struggle with I can't take my range game to the course? So why in the world, if this is like 70% of the golf population, that is their struggle, why in the world are you spending so much time and energy worrying and paying attention about what these particular players are doing down a range of their ball striking when 70% of them aren't even going to get it to transfer to the course in the first place? All right, so I just gotta get that off my chest. But here's some other examples. Somebody hits it further than you. What do you do? You end up swinging harder. Uh, maybe a player abandoned his strategy chasing others, and what it does is it just ultimately results in you losing and losing a score. So yeah, that's the downside of the comparison trap.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

I'm gonna open up your eyes to a totally different area of negative thinking. And that is the power of complaining. I'm gonna talk about the power of complaining. Neuroscience has uncovered something every golfer needs to know about. Every complaint, every negative reaction to a bad shot literally rewires your brain like trauma does. Just 60 seconds of complaining or even 30 seconds of complaining and frustration, like for example, the slam club, the muttered curse, the eye roll, the missed punt. What happens is it floods your body with cortisol, the stress hormone. Well, what does that do? It hijacks your focus, it shrinks your memory hub in your brain and strengthens sphere circuit that robs your rhythm and confidence. And because it releases that cortisol, it actually makes you dumber in the moment. We've all said it, for example, I just needed to vent. That's why I did that. I just needed to vent. But what happened is with brain scans, brain scans tells a darker story on this. The more you complain, every time you react in anger, the faster your brain defaults to that negativity. In other words, like what the Bible says, you reap what you sow. For example, you complain really hard on a shot. Guess what? More than likely you start hitting a similar shot. You're going to complain again. Not just complain, but it's going to be worse. So what happens is your amygdala, your which is your brain's alarm system, it lights up like a siren. It's screaming, danger, even when nothing is wrong. And once that switch flips, your amygdala floods your body with that cortisol, that stress hormone, and it takes over. One minute of frustration or even 30 seconds of negativity equals hormonal chaos. Your muscles tighten, your swing stiffens, your focus fractures, you're left out of the zone. You've totally left the zone. And what we've been talking about with all these episodes, you've you've left it, you've walked away from it. You don't even realize it. But here's the catch the repetition rewires your brain. Neurons that fire together, they wire together. We we've talked about that before. The more often you complain and react to negativity to a bad shock, the faster your brain learns that pattern and it becomes your new default. In other words, negativity literally makes you dumber in real time. It doesn't just drain your energy, it destroys your clarity in real time. Worse, complaining is contagious. They'll remember this. We've actually had numerous clients say, you know, Bo, Shannon, it is so frustrating when I'm playing with a player that's always complaining. Why? Because you start beginning carrying their attention. What happens is you spend three minutes with a playing partner who is consistently complaining about every shot. What happens is your brain starts to mirror their stress. And it becomes that habit loop. That habit loop is like this. This is the habit loop when complaining starts. Hit a bad shot, complaining and negative reaction. What happens? There's a cortisol spike that goes on and affects your memory. Also, fear circuits start to fire. Confidence drops and brings on more complaints for the next one, which is worse. But here's the hope: the game changer. The brain can wire in the opposite direction as well. Words create worlds. Mindful language and actions lower cortisol, restoring calm and focus, and consistent power talks, which are going to give you that power talk. Library next week talks about rebuilding, reconstructing those neural pathways and those neural circuits. This is the kind that keeps you steady, confident, laser focused when it matters most. Reframing builds these resilient circuits because your brain listens to every word you speak. Complaints create chaos, but your power talk creates confidence, composure, and can help your performance. And then that's when you become a one-shot warrior. Bo, any thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_00 29:28

Yeah, I really hope you guys go back and re-listen to the last few minutes of what Shannon just shared right there, because this is something that we actually, with the new research, we didn't get it in time to publish it in our book. But the fact that just negative thoughts or even speaking it affects your muscle sequencing. Oh my goodness. That is a game changer in a good way and a bad way. And I really hope you take it seriously. One of the exercises that we are going to walk you through, which is the T chart, this is something that we're actually going to reserve for part two. Because what we want to do now is we want to actually talk about the spiritual aspect of this as well. And then this is something that we're going to wrap up part one with on the spiritual aspect here because Shannon just mentioned it a few minutes ago. Death and life are in the power of the tongue. Like, there's a lot of truth to that. And so Shannon, expand on that.

SPEAKER_01 30:27

So in Proverbs 18, 21, death and life are in the power of the tongue. Those who love it will indulge it and eat its fruit and bear its consequences of their words. Death and life are in the power of the tongue. This was written 3,000 years ago, okay? Before the Harvard study, about the 10%, the 40 to 70 times worse and all that, before Dr. Emoto's rice experiment, before neuroscience could explain why negative self-talk is 40 to 70 times more powerful than positive statements. The Bible says there's life and death in the power of the tongue. It also says, as you think, so you are. The Bible also says that we could be transformed by the renewing of our mind. And that's literally what the scientists are saying and now discovering. We've talked about it before. Neuroplasticity, how it can totally change. It can rewire those circuits in your brain. And yet it says exactly the same thing. The words you speak carry power over your physical reality, death and life, withdrawal or deposit. So the choice belongs to you. God chose words in the beginning, not thoughts. Think about that. In the beginning, what did God say? He said, Let there be light. He didn't he didn't think it, he said it. So what is words can create worlds? He could have thought the world into existence, but he spoke it into existence. He created you in his image and what he says through the power of his words. So God created the world with words. What worlds are you creating with your words on the golf course? If you're always thinking about how tired and depressed you are and how crappy or how terrible your life is, congrats. You're literally creating your own world of tiredness, depression, crappiness, and terribleness. Listen, the devil does not have to put a curse on you if you do it for him. Right? If you can get you to do it for him, the devil has nothing to worry about. You're doing it yourself. The devil's gonna give you the thoughts to say, for example, you said, you know, you suck or I suck, I'm a failure, I'm a loser, nothing good ever happens to me. I'll never get good out of this. And if you speak those thoughts, you're basically just cursing yourself. And that and what happened was all the devil did was load the weapon, and guess who fired it and pulled the trigger. You did. And not just once, but you're pulling it over and over and over again. Stop calling yourself these names. You're they are not yours. Start speaking victory. There's much more power in your words. Think about David when he went up to Goliath. Everyone else saw the lion and they were terrified because they were so focused on the size of the giant. But David, he wasn't scared at all. Not because of what he he saw a different giant, but because he had a different focus. He wasn't focused on the size of the giant, he was focused on the size of his God. Right? God is so much bigger. Everyone else was talking about Goliath like this was a big old giant. We got nothing against him. But David, when he went up against Goliath, he didn't talk about how dangerous Goliath was. Nope. He talked about how great his God was. Stop telling God how big your problems are and start telling your problems how big your God is. I'm gonna say that again. Stop telling God how big your problems are and start telling your problems how big your God is. Be careful how you speak to yourself because you're listening. All right. God spoke the world into existence. What worlds are you creating in your golf game?

SPEAKER_00 34:33

So much to unpack there. Love that, Shannon. And I just want to say this to everybody that's listening right now. And you may not be coming to this podcast from a faith background, and that's okay because this principle, all the principles we share today, they're universal because whether the authority on your words come from Scripture or from the National Library of Medicine from Harvard University, the conclusion is identical. Your words physically shape your body's capacity to perform. And you get to choose what those words are. That is not a burden. That is the most empowering thing that we have said on the show. Most golfers, they have been accidentally speaking death over the game for years, forty to seventy times more powerful than anything positive that they have said. And they wonder why nothing's changed despite working so hard on the physical side of the game. Now you know. And now you can choose differently. And that's one of the biggest things and why we think this episode is going to be so powerful is because now we're shining a spotlight on the issue itself. We're bringing awareness to the table. So next week, here's your homework. We want you to pay attention to the round, pay attention to what you're saying, pay attention to all those things, document it, write it down, because next week we're going to show you how to build a T chart and then give you the library that's going to really bring all this together.

SPEAKER_01 35:54

Yeah, next week, part two, we're delivering the complete power talk library from our book, every category of statement, every situation on the course. And then we're going to show you exactly where Peril Talk fits inside every system that we've talked about already and built and how it connects to your pre-shot routine, how it activates the affirm step in the ball reset that we talked about, and how to use it in your daily mental rep practice. Part two is where everything clicks, so don't miss it.

SPEAKER_00 36:26

And so, guys, we really hope you've enjoyed this podcast so far. If you guys can just do us a favor, we've seen a lot of testimonials and emails from you guys. Do us a favor so we can reach more people just like you. Because again, our mission is to help 100,000 golfers shoot their lifetime low rounds. So if you can do us a favor, honestly, just leave us an honest review on the podcast. So if you listen to us on Apple Podcasts, go to the show website, click leave a review. If you're on Spotify, leave a review there. That would be appreciative. And then also, if you guys would like our book, if you're in the US, you can just go to in the zone secrets.com. Yeah, you'll get a free signed copy from us. All you can do is just cover shipping. And those of you that are international, you can get a book on Amazon. So all that's going to be posted in the show notes. The one thing that we just want you to remember go out there, be a caveman golfer, see Target, C Ball, Hip Ball. That's where you're going to play your best golf. And remember, you're just one round away.