This page is NOT VISIBLE for a reason.  This is a lifetime of work centered mostly around 5 years of professional golf with 2 trips to the PGA Tour Q-School.  Those years were reinforced by a very competitive upbringing and Hall of Fame coaches who knew EXACTLY what they were doing. 

If you have been given this link, get ready.  I will only share it with those I believe will work at it, embrace it, prepare, show patience, fight through the uncertainty, and never take themselves too seriously.  Because within those traits lies true mental strength, which is an ability to handle ANY OUTCOME – good or bad – quickly, effectively and with NO LOSS in competitive edge.  In other words, how to win. 

CONFIDENCE

  • Work on both your physical skills and your mind. Competition is about both confidence and competence. 
  • If your self-image is poor, work on it as you would your physical fitness, seeking steady, gradual improvement. 
  • A process goal is an intention to do certain things, often repeatedly, that will lead to the realization of your dreams
  • The Mindset phrase is Building Competitive Habits
  • Confidence is knowing that if you compete to the best of your ability, you will win or have a chance to win.
  • Confidence is being more comfortable as the competition gets tighter.
  • Confidence is feeling like a winner even if you’re not the winner.
  • If you don’t grow in confidence every year, your thinking and most likely your practice habits need adjustment.
  • Thinking confidently should be no different than thinking honestly about how competitive you really are.
  • Someone with confidence thinks about what they want to happen.  Someone who lacks confidence thinks about what they don’t want to happen.
  • Given two competitors of equal skill, the more confident will win nearly all the time.
  • Confidence doesn’t come from a full trophy cabinet.  Confidence comes from within.
  • Thorough preparation breeds confidence.
  • Never be outworked. 
  • In competition, you must trust your skills.  There is no justification for failing to trust.  8/12/26
  • Practice as you work and play.  Work and play as you practice.
  • If you don’t have time to do the work correctly, when will you have time to do it over?
  • If you are nervous or anxious, NEVER SHOW IT. It will help your opponent.
  • Success comes to those who do the right things repeatedly and with patience.
  • Most players play their best when their intensity level is MILD to MODERATE. (ie Relaxed)
  • Don’t try harder.  Try your best. Find your most effective level of intensity and stick with it all the time.
  • Use anything you find that helps you stay calm, smooth and in rhythm when playing or working.
  • Routines apply to EVERYTHING: Diet, sleep, study, practice, work, communication.  EVERYTHING!
  • A good routine gets you in a position mentally and physically to work or play.
  • Your physical routine creates BALANCE, AWARENESS and ANTICIPATION. 
  • Your mental routine includes visualization, breathing and learning to CLEAR your head to compete.
  • Practice the physical elements of your routine until you can trust them in competition.
  • Use the SAME routine in practice that you use in competition.
  • If a routine becomes stale or ineffective, CHANGE IT.
  • If you have done the best you can you have succeeded REGARDLESS of the outcome. 

Handling Failure and Mistakes

  • If you love compete, accept the fact that HANDLING FAILURE correctly defines greatness.  8/5/26
  • You control your destiny.
  • Understand what you CAN vs CANNOT control. Dismiss issues OUTSIDE your control as quickly as you can.
  • Success is a combination of the right process PLUS perseverance. 
  • Enjoying what turns out WELL while NOT responding to poor outcomes is infinitely preferable to having no response to good outcomes and getting upset with your poor results. 
  • Holding onto the memory of poor results is a form of punishment.  It tends to make your tight and careful when you need to be free and confident.  It can compound an error, turning a single poor result into a group of them that can ruin the entire game. 
  • Stay in the present.  The only thing that matters is the next play, swing, shot, service, down, meeting.
  • During competition there is no evaluating.  There is no judging. There is no anticipating the result. There is only trust and acceptance.
  • A player or team can INITIMIDATE the opponent based on how they handle mistakes and failure.
  • At its’ root, trusting yourself has everything to do with your SKILL and CONDITION. 
  • The player/employee/team who is angry is not in the present.  They are in the past.
  • Anger is always a choice and is never caused by someone or something else.
  • Displays of anger indicate that something has become more important than the play-work-issues at hand.
  • Anger introduces tension into the body.
  • Most experienced competitors view displays of anger as a sign of immaturity or loss of control.  
  • Your anger – frustration FEEDS your competition.
  • Don’t let ANYBODY see your frustration. Just continue play/work/compete and get ready for the next sequence.
  • It’s an obvious sign of weakness to exhibit frustration, loss of control. That is not a mentally tough player or team. 
  • There is no such thing as perfect, so there are no limits.  Because there are no limits, there is no such thing as perfect.
  • Perfectionism is like the spice in a stew. A dash is fine, but too much ruins it.
  • Great athletes are defined in part by how they handle mistakes.  If you think you must play perfectly, you either don’t like the sport or you think your competitors are gods.
  • Reducing the number of your mistakes is important, but eliminating them is impossible.
  • Learn to take breaks and accept partial successes.
  • Banish the word “failure” from your vocabulary. You must realize that fear is in large part caused by an excessive concern about the opinion of others.
  • It harms your performance if you are berating or belittling yourself.
  • Good players-employees are never fearful.
  • You must trust your skills. (Tayshaun Prince – Jim Furyk)
  • Do NOT care too much about a mistake.  (Curry and Ruth examples)
  • The NATURE of competition is that everyone must cope with setbacks and failures.
  • Dwelling on failures compounds the initial mistake.
  • When you maintain a good attitude, setbacks don’t bother you too much.
  • Have compassion for yourself when you fail. Be your own BEST FRIEND. 

Attitude and Commitment

  • Have a positive inner voice. Treat yourself with respect.
  • If you love your sport, you’ll understand that mistakes are common. Play with NO FEAR and when a mistake is made just keep playing.
  • Love your talent more than you love anyone else’s
  • Do not worry about what others think. It doesn’t really matter what THEY think.
  • Having NO MEMORY is a big advantage in athletics. No matter what happens, MOVE FORWARD. 
  • If it was easy, everybody could do it.  Embrace how difficult the task is and work harder than everybody else.
  • Asking for help – admitting you may not understand something – is a STRENGTH and a sign of intelligence. 
  • The pleasure of competition comes from chasing dreams more than catching them.
  • At any given moment, your self-image is like a running total of all the thoughts you have about yourself.  Treat yourself with respect.
  • Anything that detracts from the narrow focus on the current issue diminishes your chances of success.
  • It’s natural to stay in the present if you have complete peace of mind.
  • Accept whatever happens and move on. The human organism performs best when the conscious mind is turned off.  (assuming skill and condition)
  • Throw away fear and live fearlessly.
  • Never let what you can’t do affect what you can do.  Coach Wooden
  • Commitment is the part of every person who strives to be great.
  • There are 2 types of commitment:
  1. 1.To the work itself    2. To a program for improvement
  • Commit yourself to a program of improvement and HONOR your commitment.
  • You can not dictate when success happens.
  • Smart people take pride in their patience.
  • Expect good things to happen.  Just don’t expect them right now.
  • Refuse to get upset when things go poorly.  Just go work harder.
  • Take pride in the way you bounce back from setbacks.
  • Never whine, never complain and do not make excuses. 
  • Visualization is a path to confidence.  SEE IT, clearly and frequently
  • We all visualize better when we are relaxed. 
  • Visualization works best if it’s vivid, detailed and real.
  • A superficial, casual effort will not help you.
  • Take time to visualize success on a regular basis.
  • Relax BEFORE you visualize.  BREATHE.
  • Visualize yourself coping with difficult situations.
  • Succeeding happens in all sorts of odd ways.
  • A player-employee can always win the battle with himself.
  • Make the commitment to win the battle with yourself.  Good outcomes will happen.
  • Competition is a roller coaster of emotions.  Be ready for UPS and DOWNS. 
  • Nothing works unless you do. 
  • Playing as if the outcome does NOT matter is almost ALWAYS preferable to caring too much about the outcome. 
  • Good is the enemy of great. 
  • Control what you can control and don’t worry about issues outside of that control. The Circle of Influence