Competition Anxiety Part 1: How to Turn Nervousness Into Your Secret Weapon

Ethan prepared more than almost anyone in his charity golf event. Extra lessons. Hours on the range. And it made everything worse. Because his problem was never his swing. It was competition anxiety. And nobody had ever given him a system for it. 

Today Bo and Shannon fix that. 

Here's what you'll hear: 

— How anxiety is actually born in your prefrontal cortex, and why golf is the most anxiety-generating sport in the world because it's the most uncertain 

— FEAR: False Evidence Appearing Real, and the two paths it creates: Forget Everything and Run, or Face Everything and Rise 

— The three-stage mind mapping technique from Dr. Judson Brewer's research, with seven golf-specific trigger examples including score protection mode and the comparison trap 

— The five PNT pressure scenarios to rehearse in mental rep practice, including the Atlanta Braves Triple-A pitcher who got called up with two days' notice and said it felt like he'd already pitched in that stadium 100 times 

— Why nervousness and excitement share the exact same biological symptoms, and the Disney World turbulence story that makes the reframe undeniable 

— The 13-handicap client who shot her low round of the year playing against a 5-time club champion, simply by saying three words out loud 

— Ted Scott's "I can't wait to be nervous" and what 2012 Olympic athletes really meant when they told reporters they weren't nervous 

This is Part 1 of 2. Part 2 goes somewhere Bo and Shannon have never shared publicly before — including the story of a caddie who walked off three tournaments mid-round from panic attacks, and what God's Word says about anxiety.   

🎯 Special Call-Out Section — School of Lifetime Low Rounds 

🚨 IT'S HERE — 5 YEARS IN THE MAKING 🚨 

If you've been waiting for Bo and Shannon to bring everything from this podcast — the trigger, the CPR, the signal lights, the B.A.L.L. Reset, the thermostat, the Power Talk library, and now competition anxiety — into one complete, structured training experience, the wait is over. 

School of Lifetime Low Rounds is launching soon, and it's the most comprehensive thing Bo and Shannon have ever built. Five years of coaching, testing, and refining the exact system you've heard transform John Norvell, the University of Washington Women's Golf Team, Jack, and dozens of others — now organized into a complete training path you can follow at your own pace. 

Get priority access before anyone else. Bo and Shannon are releasing a free 3-part video series that walks you through the core of what's inside School of Lifetime Low Rounds — and being on the priority notification list means you'll be first to know the exact launch date, founding member pricing, and bonus access before the doors open to the public. 

👉 Watch the free video series now:
Video 1: inthezonesecrets.com/free-video-series1a
Video 2: inthezonesecrets.com/free-video-series-2
Video 3: inthezonesecrets.com/free-video-series-3 

 Remember, you are just one round away. 

🎧 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 you to meet Ethan. Because Ethan's story is probably your story too. Ethan got invited to play in his company's charity golf event alongside two senior executives from two other major firms. It was a big opportunity. Exactly the kind of round where you would want to perform from the moment he got the invitation, his mind went to work. What if his swing betrayed him in front of his boss? What if his nerves got the best of him and he fumbled through the round? What if he topped the first drive in front of everyone? How embarrassing that would be. For days the what ifs took over. So what did he do? He booked a few lessons with his local pro. He analyzed a few YouTube uh videos. He spent every available waking moment at the driving range for a month. His nights were consumed by dreams of shinking his irons. His wife gently reminded him that golf was supposed to be a hobby, not an all-consuming source of anxiety. The day of the event arrived. His palms were sweating as he buttoned his golf shirt. He gulped down his breakfast, his appetite a casualty of his nerves. He arrived at the course to meet Martin and Sarah, the two executives who radiated confidence with ease. And Ethan felt completely out of his depth. His first few drives were shaky. Each misputt sent a fresh wave of embarrassment crashing over him. And here's the thing about Ethan's story. He prepared more than almost any golfer in that event. He spent more time on the range than he had in years. He did everything the traditional model says you should do when you want to perform well. And it made everything worse. Because the problem was never his swing, the problem was competition anxiety. And nobody had ever given him a system for it. And today we're going to fix that. 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 100,000 golfers just like you shoot their new life tumble around. 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 2:12

I'm Shannon Shusky, Caveman Golf, C Target, C ball, Hit Ball. Today we're going after one thing that makes simple, instinctive, and free feel almost impossible for golfers that are under pressure, like competition anxiety, nervousness, the yips of the mind, whatever you call it, today it gets a system. Part one is the science, the mind mapping tool, and the reframe. Part two, next week, goes into a dimension of this that we believe is the most powerful tool we have ever shared on this show. But first, let's build the foundation.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Absolutely. And so this story actually comes from a full chapter in our book, Amazon Secrets. And it's one of the most practical chapters we've ever wrote. And if you have not yet gotten a copy, and if you're in the U.S., you just simply go to endazone secrets.com and we'll send you a signed copy. And if you're international, just like get the copy on Amazon. Now, before we go into this, we want to take a moment just really quick and give an update. You may have noticed we did not have an episode last week, and it's because Shannon and I have been behind the scenes working on something we're really excited about. We're talking five years in the making. If you would like to get onto what we call the priority notification list for our special School of Lifetime Low Rounds that's going to be set to launch soon. And if you would like to know what School of Lifetime Low Rounds is all about and why this has been five years in the making, do not hesitate. Go click the link that's in the bio right below this podcast, and then that'll take you right to the page where you'll understand everything that's going to be inside School of Lifetime Low Rounds. And it's all designed to help you shoot your next new lifetime low round and not just once, but do it over and over again. This has literally been five years in the making, and we cannot wait for you to get your hands on it. So right now, go click that link, and then we'll see you inside School of Lifetime Rounds. Now let's get back to this episode.

SPEAKER_01 4:13

How anxiety is born. Before we can defeat competition anxiety, we need to understand exactly where it comes from because most golfers think it's just nerves, just a feeling, something you either have or you do not have going in. It is not that. Anxiety has a very specific origin in your brain. And once you understand that origin, you can interrupt it. Dr. Judson Brewer, in his book, Unwinding Anxiety, explains it clearly. Anxiety, in simple terms, is born from panic and fear. Fear itself can actually be healthy. I want to say that again. Fear itself can be healthy in certain situations. For example, if you step into a busy street and you see a car coming at you, the fear response is what makes you jump back into the sidewalk. That is fear working correctly and working for you. But here is how fear turns into anxiety and flips the switch. Your prefrontal cortex, the region just behind your eyes and your forehead, is responsible for creativity and planning and predicting the future. When you face situations that is uncertain, your prefrontal cortex runs simulations. It plays imaginary movies of what might happen based on previous experiences that are you're most similar and familiar with. And here is the critical word uncertain. Anxiety happens when you do not have certainty over a future outcome. The stronger your need to control your outcomes, the more likely anxiety is going to appear in every area of your life, not just golf.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

Yeah, and when you look at golf, Shannon, it's one of the most anxiety-generating sports in the world because it is the most uncertain game in the world, in my opinion. My goodness, we got a front row seat to what that looks like this past weekend with U.S. Open at Shinnecock. When you think about your prefrontal cortex and what it does when you're standing on the first T at a tournament, it has been running simulations since you woke up that morning. What if I topped the drive? What if I shanked the first iron? What if my putting breaks down? What if I embarrass myself? Ethan's brain ran those movies for weeks before the charity event. And every YouTube tutorial gave his brain more material for more simulations. And the more he prepared the traditional way, range balls, lessons, conscious swing thoughts, the more raw material that he provided for his anxiety to build from. And here's the principle from our book that changes everything. The quicker you can recognize that golf is an uncertain game, the faster you can move to a place of playing with freedom. If golf was a game you could control, you would write 54 on the scorecard every round you went out and played. So for those of you that are pushing back, like, hey, I think I can control. No, you can't, because if that was true, Tiger and Scotty would write 54 on their scorecards every single round that they go out and play. What that proves is that the game is uncertain. And the faster that you accept that, it is not defeat, it is the beginning of freedom. Now, in the book, we describe competition anxiety using an acronym, fear, false evidence appearing real. Ethan let an imaginary movie play repeatedly in his mind that was not real. Martin and Sarah were not judging him. They were just people with their own insecurities and vulnerabilities who wanted to play golf and do some good through charity. By the end of the round, Ethan realized this, but it was almost too late. The false evidence had already done its damage for the majority of the round. And here's the part of Ethan's story that the book and his own secrets highlights as the real cautionary tale. For many golfers who struggle with competition anxiety, there is no turning point. The golf course turns into a battleground of defeat, doubt, worry, frustration, and eventually they quit the game. There is a verse in Hosea, it's Hosea 4.6. It says, My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. You will not be destroyed by lack of knowledge about competition anxiety. Not after today's episode.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

Absolutely. I love that verse. And I want to name the specific false evidence that golf generates because it is different from other sports. In golf, you have too much time in between shots. In basketball, a basketball player driving to the basket has a fraction of a second. A golfer walking to the next shot has three minutes, four minutes, depending on how long the walk is. Those three minutes can be deposits or withdrawals from your brain account. And here's the thing: whether it's negative or positive, they're both deposits that you're putting in your brain account. If your brain is running false evidence, what if I miss this next putt? What if the back nine falls apart? What if my playing partners are judging me? Those three minutes are withdrawals and deposits that you're placing in your brain that's going to cause even more withdrawals because they're going to be a habit loop that's going to keep going, are withdrawals from the account that you need for the next shot. False evidence appearing real. And then what happens is another acronym for fear is forget everything and run. And that's what you're doing, is because you've done this and you've played these things going over, you're believing those false evidence, you're entertaining those thoughts, and then because of that, you forget everything and run. But today we're going to show you how to another acronym, face everything and rise. You like that one, right? That's the one that we all want to be walking into, face everything and rise. But here, the first step of defeating false evidence and competition anxiety is becoming aware of false evidence that your brain is generating on the course. Not to fight it, not to argue with it, just to name it, see it for what it is, false evidence appearing real. And then say, isn't that interesting? That thought is not true. And let's pass on that. So we're going to talk a little bit about mind mapping and your anxiety habits and what that looks like. This is the first tool that we teach managing competition anxiety that is called mind mapping. It comes from Dr. Brewer's research. Mind mapping works in three different stages. Stage one is awareness. That is why we said name it. If you give a name on what is speaking, then you're actually becoming more aware and becomes like that mental alarm clock that's going off in your brain. And then you shine a spotlight on what actually results from that anxiety habit loop. You look at that habit loop clearly, trigger, behavior, reward. That is a habit loop. That's what it is. There's a trigger that happens, there's a behavior and a reward. The reason anxiety habits persist is because the brain perceives a reward from that behavior, even when the behavior is harmful or is not going to suit you in your situation on the golf course. Anxiety itself can feel productive because it gives your brain the sense that you're doing something about the threat, but you're really not.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

Yeah, that's so good, Shannon. Because like I think what would be really good for a lot of those of you that are listening into this right now is like, what are some golf specific examples that we can give you? So here's a few of them. Let's say your trigger is you miss a short putt. Your old behavior is you react with frustration and negative self-talk. Then the old reward in this case is a temporary release of pent-up frustration. But you kind of ask yourself, what do you actually get out of doing this? Like, how's it serving you? And the honest answer is nothing other than feeding the fear of missing the next short putt. All right, what about another trigger? You shank a wet shot. Your old behavior is you become visibly frustrated and you mutter negative comments. The old reward value in this case is a temporary release of anger, but what do you get from it? Not much other than reinforcing frustration and making the next wet shot harder. All right, and what about another trigger? You realize you're on pace to break 80, and it's the first time that you are about to break 80 and shoot in the 70s. And then you feel the urge to protect your score. The old behavior. You start playing conservatively. You try to control your swings, the old reward value. It gives you a sense of control, but the honest answer is it gives you a sense of security while actually causing blow up holes down the stretch. Here's another trigger. You're paired with a highly skilled player. Your old behavior, you feel anxious about the comparison and you start swinging harder to try to keep up because they're hitting the ball far. Your old reward value is the sense of matching their distance, but what do you actually get? Usually poor drives and then even more drop in confidence for the rest of the round. Here's another trigger. You play an unfamiliar course with maybe some challenging undulation. Your old behavior is you feel overwhelmed and you start expressing self-doubt. Your old reward value in this case is again like a momentary release of tension. What do you get? It doesn't contribute positively at all to your ability to adapt and make the right adjustment. Here's another trigger. You record a double bogey. Your old behavior. Feel frustrated and mentally replay the mistakes in your head. The old reward value. It feels like a brief outlet for frustration, but what do you get? It deepens the negative pattern and it makes the recovery harder for the very next hold and the next shot. How about another trigger? This will be the last one I want to give you. You set high expectations before a round. Your old behavior, you feel pressured and tense, worrying about meeting those expectations. The old reward is a brief acknowledgement of how much the round means to you. But what do you get? Typically increased stress and then even more restricted ability for you to actually play freely.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

Yeah, and Bo, I want to add to some of those triggers and what goes on with those triggers is you are reinforcing negative behavior out of those circumstances, especially if you're revealing frustration and you're expressing those frustrations. Then what happens is it's reinforcing in your brain negative behavior. Though at first it feels like a release mechanism that's going on and you feel great doing it, right? We all feel great about having that word or slamming the club in that brief moment. But here's the thing you're reinforcing that negative behavior, and then what happens is it moves to the next hole, it moves to the next shot. And then when you get in a very similar situation, it becomes worse, and you're adding and multiplying those emotions as to it. But here I want to move on. Stage number two is dissatisfaction with the behavior. You got to get dissatisfied with that and not accept it. This is where you pay attention to the cause and effect. You ask yourself, how is this behavior serving me in the long run? And you feel the answer. And this is what the answer is. Not just think it, but you feel the answer. Feel the dissatisfaction with that old habit that is actually producing. Stage number three is replacing the old reward with a bigger offer. And the most powerful replacement Dr. Brewer identifies is what he calls interest curiosity. What is interest curiosity? It's not substituting one habit for another, a specific mental state of childlike fascination. That's what you're doing. So the practical tool is three words. Whenever you catch yourself mid-anxiety trigger, what's going on? The miss butt reaction, the score protection mode. You get on protection mode to protect your score, the comparison with a better player. Take a pause. Take a deep breath and say, that is interesting. Those three words shift you from the driven reactive quality of the anxiety habit into a state of curious observation. You're going into task mode. That's what you're doing. The observation breaks the habit loop before it can complete. You're not fighting the thought. You're not arguing with it. You are observing it with curiosity and then refocusing on the next shot. So the second before, this is the pressure scenarios that train your brain before the moment arrives. The second tool is a psychoneuromuscular training exercise specifically designed to for pressured situations, and the principle behind it is simple. Anxiety spikes in pressured moments because your prefrontal cortex does not have enough previous experience to predict the outcome accurately. So it runs to worst case scenario simulations. The psychoneuromuscular training pressure exercise gives you better data for the moment ever arrives. You rehearse the pressure situation in full sensory detail. So when the moment comes, your nervous system has already been there and familiar with the territory that does not trigger anxiety the way unfamiliar territory does. In the book that we have, we share the story of a triple A baseball pitcher who received a call-up to the Atlanta Braves with only two or three days of notification. So Zach Sorensen, who's in my mastermind group of coaches, he is the mental performance coach of the Atlanta Braves. And this AAA guy, he got caught up and he called Zach Sorensen because he was freaking out. And Zach Sorensen walked him through a full sensory visualization of the stadium, the mound, the batters that he would face, their statistics, and so that he would know how to pitch to those batters and the crowd noise, the smells. He pitched an amazing game. He started getting those mental reps of visualization, familiarizing himself with the Atlanta Braves and the batters that he was facing with the crowd going crazy, the smells and everything. And then when Zach called him after, this is what he said. He said, It felt like I'd already been there a hundred times. And lowered that anxiety, wasn't even there, wasn't even present because he hardly felt any difference from when he was playing the triple A ball. And that is the exercise that gets you familiar with whatever place that you're going. And here are five pressure scenarios every golfer should rehearse in their mental rep practice, Bo.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

Yeah. And the first scenario, let's say if you wanted to work on this, and let's say you had a crucial putt to win a tournament, right? So what you would do right then and there is you would basically close your eyes, you're on the 18th green, the putt that decides everything, feel the weight of the putter in your hands, the texture of the grip, you visualize the line, you got the slope, the speed, and then what you're gonna do is what we've already taught you in this podcast, especially in episode three and four, and you activate your trigger with a deep breath, you feel the rhythm of the stroke, and then you activated CPR, and then you actually hit the putt, and then you see the ball rolling on the intended line, and then you watch it drop. What about scenario two? Here's another one. You're teeing off on the first hole with a large audience. Maybe you got first T jitters. Feel the club in your hands as you address the ball, sense the ground beneath your feet, the pressure that's through your shoes. Then make sure you activate your physical trigger with a deep breath, and then focus on taking a swing after you've done your CPR, and then watch the ball with your mental imagery of the shot itself go flying down through the fairway and with a controlled, powerful trajectory. Now here's scenario three. Let's say you have a approach shot over water hazard, and you're looking at the flag across the water. Close your eyes and then actually see yourself hitting the shot. Feel the grip of the club, activate your trigger, do your CPR. Now see yourself actually hitting the shot, and then seeing your shot fly beautifully through the air, and then landing a few feet from the pin.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

Scenario number four, recovering from a bunker shop to save par. You're in a deep bunker, you feel the sand beneath your feet, the weight of the sand wedge that you're holding in your hand. Activate your trigger, visualize the motion of the swing, the club digging into the sand and the ball flying out, and landing softly on the green as to save par. Here's another scenario of mental imagery that you can do. Sudden death playoff hole. Close your eyes, feel the wind against your skin. And here is the reframe that we will expand on in the next segment. Sense the excitement rather than the dread. You're seeing opportunity. You're choosing not to view the threat, but to choose the opportunity. That is what you're choosing. Sense the excitement rather than the dread. This is what you are trained for. This is what the deposits were for. Activate your trigger. Visualize a controlled confident swing and the ball landing in the middle of the fairway, each shot executed with precise victory. Run these five scenarios in your mental rep practice this week. Write down the Scenarios, so then you can go over them and take notes and then get the mental imagery of those different types of pressured situations. So then what happens is not once, but repeatedly throughout this week, because every rep is a deposit in your brain account. And when the moment arrives on the course, your nervous system has already been there dozens of times. And it's familiar, and it's not unfamiliar. The anxiety loses its grip because the situation is no longer unfamiliar.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

Yeah, now I want to give you the single most powerful in the moment tool for composition anxiety. And this is more along the lines of like when you're nervous. Say you're standing on the first D at a tournament, you're facing a must-make putt, or it's a shot that you got to heal over the water, your body actually produces very specific symptoms. It could be elevated heart rate, rapid breathing, sweating, butterflies in the stomach, shaky hands, heightened anticipation. And here's the part that most people never hear, and that these exact same symptoms a lot of times overlap what you experience when you're excited. The biological signature of nervousness and excitement are almost identical. Your body does not produce fundamentally different chemicals for fear and excitement. The difference is almost entirely in the interpretation that your brain applies to the sensation. When you interpret these symptoms as nervousness, your brain fires the anxiety response. When you interpret these exact same symptoms as excitement, your brain fires the performance response, and you get to choose the interpretation.

SPEAKER_01 23:40

Yeah, that's right. With what Bo was talking about, you get to choose it. I'm gonna give you, I'm gonna give you two stories, and these things are amazing. One is, well, if you've had a really good Christmas, what was it like that night? What did you feel like? The same thing that Bo talked about, the clammy hands, the elevated heart rate, you can't sleep, visions of the future, all that stuff. You're saying that on Christmas Eve night before you waking up as a child. It's the exact same thing. That is why we're talking about this helps you to relate to understand that it is the same stimulation that what's going on in your body as nervous anxiety. But can you reframe that? Yes. Let me tell you this story that we shared in our book that makes it completely tangible. A family visited Disney World with their young child while they were in Disney World. So if you've ever been to Disney World, you'll know that their rides are a lot different than your normal theme parks and stuff like that. You could be going through, and then all of a sudden things will jump out, the ride will stop, and a certain scene will come out, somebody will come out and say something. He was like six years old, and he was a little bit of fear there, there's anxiety going on, but then the mom and dad goes, Hey, we're at Disney World, this is fun. And then he gets to the second ride, and the same thing goes on, and they're just putting deposits in the six-year-old's brain of what's happening. Hey, this is Disney World. This is fun. And then by the third ride, the six-year-old was actually having a little bit more fun. And then by the fourth ride, he was laughing and having fun because the young child loved doing this, so they went back and rode the rides of when they first came in, and now he's laughing and enjoying it and having fun, loving Disney World. And throughout the day, the parents were repeatedly telling the child that every ride was fun and exciting. They deposited that interpretation all day long. So check this out. So when they were leaving on their flight home, the plane started hit severe turbulence. And on the overhead compartments, they started shaking. Passengers all around them were panicking. Fear spread out through the cabin. And then when the parents looked at the child, guess what? That's right. He was smiling cheerfully and said out to his parents, hey, mom, dad, this is just like Disney World. He was excited and the parents were terrified. You don't know what's going on. But see, he reframed it. So here's the thing: if a six-year-old young child can reframe the brain from that nervous or anxiety moment into exciting, so can you. Was the turbulence real? Yes, it was. The symptoms of body was real? Yes, it was. But his brain had been loaded with a different interpretation all day long from the parents. And then he started believing in it and acting on it. Remember, act it till you become it. Don't fake it till you make it. Say those power talk statements retrain your brain. Your brain puts labels on it, and he just had the wrong label that was on it. The wrong label was nervous and anxiety. But then he changed the label of it and put it. This is exciting. That is a label. And in the moment of pressure, that interpretation fired automatically when he was on the plane, and the child did the reframe instinctively because of what had been deposited all day, the day before. And you're going to do it intentionally as well.

SPEAKER_00 27:08

Yeah, and I want to share a really cool story with one of our clients we worked with. And what happened is she actually received an invitation to play with the reigning club champion, top female golfer at their club, who had actually won it five times. And so this particular player is too handicapped. Our client was a 13, and she was extremely nervous before the round. In fact, she actually messaged us the night before and she's freaking out. And so what we did is we walked her through the same things that we just taught you as far as the overlap and overlapping symptoms of nervousness and excitement. And we helped her see that pretty clear. And so what we did is we had her do mental imagery where she would actually visualize playing around. And then every time that she felt nervous, she would verbally in her mental reps say, This is exciting. Not only did she do that in her mental reps away from the course, but also when she played the next day, anytime that she felt that hint of nervousness, she would actually verbally say to herself, This is exciting. And here's the cool part that round that she played, she ended up shooting her low round of the year. She shot 74. The club champion shot 73. She almost beat her. So again, anytime like nervousness or fear shows up, just say out loud, this is exciting.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

I want to share something too that's amazing. My background being speed skating and stuff, I've worked with numerous speed skaters as well. And I want to share something because this might be you, and then I want to shift that. I want to talk about this young lady. She made the world team, okay, and then made the Pan American team, and she has been in those countries under those pressure, speed skating. And then all of a sudden, her brain starts entertaining these different thoughts, and then it started developing this anxiety. What happened with her was it got so bad she would actually start almost having panic attacks thinking about her race. And then it got so bad she would watch a video of herself and almost feel like a panic attack coming on. This is how severe that it can be that this anxiety flipped the switch, reframing the brain from nervous to anxiety. I'm excited. I can't wait to do this. This is an opportunity for me to perform when it matters most. And I love it. Adversity is my advantage. You start shifting, saying your power talk statements. And but I want to connect something that Ted Scott said in episode 10. That is one of the most important things. Caddy coming out and saying publicly. When Bo asked Ted about nerves, he said that great players he has worked with told him, I cannot wait to be nervous. But there was a shift there. They weren't lurking at it being nervous, okay? Because it means that there is something to play for because the awareness is heightened. Scotty Scheffler walks to the first T at the Masters and does not experience the dread. He experiences the exact same elevated state every golfer experiences. He just calls it something different. The 2012 London Olympics, the journalist repeatedly asked athletes before their events, Were you nervous? Are you nervous? And almost every elite athlete responded the same way. No, I'm excited. The one that was nervous was probably the journalist that was actually talking to them. They were the one probably nervous because they're talking to this great athlete. But however, every one of them said, No, I am excited. I was excited. They even say that before the race. Are you nervous? No, I'm excited. After the race, were you nervous? No, I'm excited. Pressure is a privilege. They looked forward to that opportunity. The athletes had been preloading the excitement interpretation through years of training. And in the biggest pressured moments of their careers, the interpretation fired automatically. You can preload the same interpretation. The tool was simple. Say it out loud. The moment of nervousness arrives, this is exciting. Three words out loud every single time. This is exciting.

SPEAKER_00 31:28

I love it. All right. Got some homework. So before part two next week, here's three things. First, we want you to identify your competition anxiety trigger. Which of those in the beginning of this episode, the mind mapping examples landed for you? Was it a score protection mode? Was it the comparison with better players? First T jitters. Name it specifically, write it down, and then figure out what are your behaviors, what's not serving you. And then, more importantly, one thing that we would love for you to do in those moments when you catch it in the round, remember to do a ball reset. Second, run at least one of the five pressure scenarios in your mental rep practice this week. Pick the one that represents your biggest pressure point and rehearse it in full sensory detail with your trigger and CPR activation. Make it familiar before it arrives. Third, every time you feel nervousness coming on, say this is exciting. Now on your head, say it out loud, just like that kid on that turbulent flight. Mean it. Alright, so next week, part two, we're gonna go somewhere that is the most powerful dimension of this topic that we've ever shared publicly. And we're gonna tell you the story of a caddy who walked off three consecutive uh tournament rounds, mid-round, because of panic attacks so severe he could not even function. And then what happened when actually Shannon prayed over him in a parking lot? We're also gonna share what God's Word says about anxiety, not just as a closing thought, but as a full episode dedicated to the most powerful weapons available for this fight. So for those of you that share the faith, this is gonna be something that's gonna hit on a level that you've never before seen in a game of golf. And for those of you who do not, the tools from today are complete and fully effective. And we believe that what we will share next week will still resonate regardless of where you stand spiritually. So next week, don't miss it. This is going to be an episode that is going to be life changing. That being said, remember you're just one round away.