Act as if.

If you can't make it, fake it.

No matter what you do, if you begin or you are trying to master something, act as if. If you were trying to be a great golfer,watch great golfers carefully and do what they do. Do they train more than you do? Do it. Do they play differently? Ask them how they do it and act as if you were them. Do they wear different clothes? Act as if, wear the same clothes. It's a psychological effect called liking that will help you make friends with more golfers (you can find more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cialdini ), people like people that look similar to them. If you look like a golfer, practice the same way the same time, wear the same clothes, talk with the same people, you will become a great golfer.

Don't wait until you have a great job with some sound title. You can act as if you were the CEO of a big company and you can practice humbleness, organisation and preparation. Don't wait for anything you can do or start right now. Do you think you are a great speaker? Act as if, ask where you can to get a speech. Prepare speeches in advance, blog about speaking, write arcicles, go and speak as much as you can. Speak for free in the beginning, then you can collect reference and when you have credibility, you can start speaking for charge. Don't wait. Opportunities go to the prepared.

Act as if.

Seven lessons from golf: (7) Creative visualization to beat the competition.

It's impossible to develop a perfect golf swing, if you can't imagine it.

It's a simple idea closely related to setting goals. It's a common sense to many, but it's so impressive when you really do it. First imagine what you want to accomplish, visualize all the steps, everything around you, what must have been accomplished. Visualize what you feel, what you see and hear. When you have this image in mind, it's very easy to set smaller goals, break the work or golf swing into small parts which will be accomplished and improved one after another. 

Typical amateur golfer arrives at a driving range and shoots around 150 golf balls, quickly one after another not thinking about it very much. You can two simple advice to find out if you have visualized or not.

1. What is your goal?
2. How does a perfect golf swing look feels and sounds like?

It's impossible to accomplish something if you don't know what result is that you want to bring to life. It's very easy to practice if you know where you are heading and how you want to feel, think and who you want to become.

Why to be an innovator.

I believe that in term of how people think, you can devide them into two groups - dogmatists and innovators.

Dogmatist love answers. They are the people who will tell you that there is no money in -enter your goal here-. The love answers because it's keeps them safe, it fertilizes their vision of the world full of impossibles. They love telling you why something can't be done, because it makes life so much easier. Some of them are living in so called learned helplessness, the kind of world you think you have no choice to change, therefore you must only conform. It's actually a waste of time trying to change their mind, because the harder you will push the more they will resist. The only thing you can do is to share you vision with them and resist the temptation to give up when they tell you that your goal is stupid.

Innovators on the other hand love questions. They are the people brave enough to ask you how are you going to make your goal happen. They might mention some obstacles you haven't said and ask you how you want to make it. They are not afraid you could challenge their assumptions and ideas, actually they invite you to do so, because they like change and innovaton. They have an open mind and they know many things impossible were made possible. Innovators love to confront.

We are hard wired to defend ourselves, however if someone has told you his big goal, his idea, why not to reply with :" I'm interested, would you tell me more?". Isn't it much more powerful than an answer?

Better Presentations : Speak in the intersection of your strength, passion and audience's interest

After many presentations I have done I realised that most presentations would improve if you keep in mind a simple idea: to speak in the intersection of your strength, passion and audience's interest. If you talk about something you are not really good at, you lack credibility. If you talk about passion only, you won't satisfy listeners' need for logic. But when you talk about something you are great at, it's usually something you are passionate about and it might be adjusted to the needs of your audience easily.

Seven lessons from golf: (6) Grab the opportunity when it comes.

Today in the afternoon the weather suddenly turned sunny and because I was prepared that this might happen, I decided quickly to grab this opportunity and go to the golf course. It turned out to be a wonderful day at the putting green and driving range, even though it was cloudy in the morning. There are two lessons which I have learned today.

Be prepared

The scout motto which hasn't change since 1907 is "Be prepared.". It may sound very simple and very easy to do. The more I try to be prepared often, the more I realize how difficult it is and moreover, how preparedness makes the difference between a pro and an amateur. Even though I got into the habit of going through my agenda of the next day and making my todo list, it happens almost every day that I find myself being not prepared.

Think about various situation that might happen and be prepared. In golf it might include:

Having your equipment ready for the next game

Having a sharpen pencil

Having a marker

Having a small snack and something to drink

Having all you golf clothes ready

Cleaning your shoes regularly

It's interesting to watch people in a business meeting.

Amateurs:

Come late.

They don't have clean shoes.

They are not shaved.

They haven't prepared their questions and goals for the meeting.

They haven't read the agenda.

They haven't prepared what they are going to say.

Pros:

Come on time, after breakfast and good sleep.

They have very clean shoes and clothes.

They are shaved.

They have prepared questions, goals and read the agenda.

They have rehearsed the meeting a couple of times in their head.

The simple advice: be prepared for usual situations that happen regularly, it's really not that difficult if you make it a habit.

Grab the opportunity when it comes.

Opportunities very often come and go in a very short time. If you don't grab them, they will go to knock someone else's door. An opportunity is usually not shiny, but you can feel a good opportunity in your guts. However:

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.-Thomas A. Edison

It's very easy to think that there are people, who are successful because of a great opportunity. But most of great people are great, because they took the first small opportunity, learned  a ton of things and moved to a bigger opportunity towards their goals.

Grab the opportunity when it comes, no matter how small. A bigger one might come soon after taking a small one, it's just hidden in the gaze so that you don't see it. But you can always feel it. Take the small, they will grow over time. 

Seven lessons from golf: (5) Surround yourself with great people.

You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.  - Jim Rohn

Some people are supportive, helpful and positive. Some are negative, always questioning your ability and skills. It's much more helpful if you surround yourself with the positive people and listen to the other group. You can't improve a lot if you surround yourself with negative people. It's however easy to fall into the trap of having this kind of friends. I believe it's because people underestimate the power of influence others have on us, and overestimate the power of individual decision.

Yes, you can choose freely. But your behavior and  attitude is very often influenced by all the people around you. Therefore if you want to be a faster runner, be in a group of really fast runners. If you want to become a great golfer, surround yourself with a group of great golfers.

When you surround yourself with the right people, you put yourself on the track to bigger accomplishments. The right people might have one or all of these characteristics:

They are successful at what they do.

They bring new ideas, challenge assumptions.

The push you and support you to become better.

They listen to you.

Their ability to listen is one the most important, because if they are not tentative listeners they don't know what's important to you, what are your goals and what you want to achieve. Great people will challenge your ideas in a friendly way, the will offer they time, energy and time for you and the best way to keep them is to do the same.

There are four ways how you learn from great people:

You learn from what they do well.

You learn from things they do and you see how to do better.

You learn from their mistakes.

You learn from their feedback.

The very easy question to start an interesting conversation might be:

How did you become …?

Which books inspired you the most to become …?

How did you practice to become …?

From which mistakes have you learned?

You have a lot to gain. I believe that we don't ask questions only because of fear. So feel fear and ask anyway. Growing is usually a collective thing, and such as a seed grows the best in great soil, we grow better with great people.

Seven lessons from golf: (4) You are not alone who feels this way.

However common-sense idea this may sound, it's very often neglected. The way you feel is most of the time normal. It may include feeling and thoughts such as:

• I feel so tired, I really need a nap. (even though you should work)

• Today it's raining, I really don’t want to go to the golf course, I would rather wait for another day. (even though you can play when it rains)

• It's so cold outside, I would like to wait for better weather and then I might go. (you know it's just an excuse)

• I feel exhausted with head over heels in work, I would rather take a nap than to go to the golf course. (even though you know that taking a nap will last much longer)
• I will embarrass myself. (even though you know it's an irrational fear of something no one really  cares about.)

Try to:

Talk about your feelings with someone you can trust.

You would be surprised that many people feel the same way as you do. Therefore it's a good idea to talk about your feelings, share them with someone you an trust and try to discuss how to make it better. What has worked for him or her might work for you too. It's sometimes the very simple thing that will make a difference between misery and happiness.

Shared happiness is doubled, shared misery is halved.

It's really hard to open your heart. Say what you want to say, tell others that you have weak points, that there is something that you don’t know how to do. It’s hard to be human these days.  Why is that? It's because the more advanced society we live in, the more pressure is put on us with the feeling that we should be perfect. Because so many services, goods and products are getting better, almost perfect, it puts even more pressure which holds us back to be proactive and creative.

To be creative, you need to be playful, you need to be sincere to yourself and others. You have to leave the image of perfection behind you. I can tell you how I feel every time before I play golf: strange, uncomfortable, feeling that golf wasn’t in the cards for me.

And I can tell you how I feel every time after I play golf: cheerful, excited and happy.

It's every time the same. I would sincerely like to tell you that I feel great every time I go to the golf course and back, but it's not true. I feel awful going there, and feel great coming home.

I believe that many people feels that way. That's why so many prefer to stay at home, stay In bed, sleep instead of doing something creative. Now I'm sitting on the bus back home and trust me, it would be much easier to watch a movie, sleep, listen to music or spend the hour and a half watching outside the window.

I don't write because I have to. I don't write because I feel great and enjoy every sentence born under my fingers, but I do it because I choose to. I remind myself the long-term goal I have decided for myself.  And I remind myself that most of people feel the same when they start doing something creative.

To put it clearly, if you are tired and fi you would like to rather have to have a nap than to do something, the odds are that you are pretty normal. It's a great excuse our brain sends us. But we can choose not to listen.

Seven lessons from golf: (3) Challenge the challenging first.

Even God has to practice his putting. -Golf Saying

Challenge the challenging first, which is usually the most grueling, boring practice neglected by the majority.

Putting is the most challenging,  grueling, boring practice in golf. The putt is used for putting the ball in the hole or closer to the hole from the green or the fringe of the green. Most beginner golfers don't practice it because it lacks any flashy action moves, it demands laser focus and it's hard to impress someone with a putt. Putting looks silly and easy to do.  What an opportunity not to do what matters the most. 

Every time I go to the golf course, I check the putting practice green. Most of the time, it's empty. It's so much easier to start with the easy task. However the best way is to start with the most challenging first and then you know that everything else will be hands down. The task has to be the most challenging and with the biggest impact in your game (or venture, or job).

Putting makes the biggest difference in golf score. Intermediate golfers become very good at long shots, but they will mainly differentiate at how good are they at putting. Nevertheless, most people neglect that.  Because it's so much easier.

 The world pays for actions, not for knowing, thinking or dreaming. If it's hard, if there's a market for it, if you can believe  it and do it, it might be the most reasonable thing to do.

*image by vivekchugh on Nov 25, 2007, www.sxc.hu

Seven lessons from golf: (2) Do not be the best in the room.

You learn the fastest when you surround yourself with people that are much better than you at what you do.

That's the easiest way to improve quickly, because if you know what you want, people will feel it and they will help you so much you would be suprised. I have learned this when I decided to go to the golf course with my friend, whose handicap is around 30 and mine is 54, easilly put: he plays way better than me. I knew that I will slow down the game a lot, I knew that he could play a lot more playing with someone better and still he decided to go with me. It's maybe because he wants to help, or I might tell him something he didn't know. He helped me numerous times to find the ball, he gave me tips how to improve and encouraged me to continue. But before this rosy image everyone has to go through the self-limiting belief that it's stupid to embarrass yourself in front of others. 

Mistakes are only opportunities to learn.

Easily said than done, therefore I encourage not only myself, but you too to stretch yourself regulary. Every time I play golf with someone better I feel stupid, but I know I am growing. I don't know how to overcome this, but I think it's not important. It's much better to feel strange, but do it anyway. Just put yourself into the habit of not being the best in the room, ask others for help and you will grow.

Seven lessons from golf: (1) Focus on the essential.

Golf is not about hitting the golf ball. It's about performing the golf swing which will naturally lead to hitting the ball.

This is the only attitude that will lead to greatest improvements, however it's underestimated by most beginner golfers. Typical questions in begineers’ minds are:

1. Which clubs should I buy? 
2. How much is the lifelong club membership?
3. Which pair of shoes will match my trousers?

You can play with a second-hand club for few bucks, wearing track suit pants and still win the game. How? By practising, doing what's essential.

When I have been on the golf course for the first time, my golf trainer brought three things with him: a golf club, a tee and a golf ball.

I had more than seven clubs, a golf bag, seven balls,  apencil, a bottle of water, a notebok, and ten more things, none of which made me any better. He understands what's essential in golf, it's the golf swing. It's about the skills you have, not the tool you use. 

You don't need to be dressed to kill in label clothes, having all golf clubs golden-plated and your golf bag tailor-made to be a great golfer. I have realised that I can practice with one golf club, when I master that one, move to another, make it more complex. But the core for me is to train the swing. As my friend told me last time we were playing together: "What stands between you and a better golfer is hitting 2 000  more golf balls. Noone can do it for you.". That's the essential.

Focusing on the essential might all dumb down to a single questions:

What makes the biggest difference in your carreer, job, gig, venture?

Let's focus on that.