Lie to yourself

I recently had the privilege of traveling to Pennsylvania to play in Bag Chatter day at Honeybrook Golf Club. It was an awesome day of golf with fellow golf nuts on a quiet little track out in Amish country.

Bryan and Adam were awesome hosts and if you haven’t checked out their Bag Chatter podcast, I highly recommend it. You’ll laugh and cry as they banter back and forth as competitive buddies trying to play better golf.

We spent the night before chatting about all things golf in preparation for the 36 holes we were about to play on Saturday. We covered my beef with the USGA, talked putters including why I dumped the Scotty, and just general golf discussion when one of the players said something that caught my attention:

“I’m the best ‘almost’ putter you’ll ever see. I almost make everything.”

It resonated with me, because I’ve been there. This game will beat you up if you let it. In the moment, I said something in passing like “I bet you’re a great putter” and we moved on to bigger topics as the sun finished setting before retiring for the night in prep for a long day of golf.

I was paired with the gentlemen the next day and looked forward to spending the day with some good people. After about 9 holes in the first round and a couple putts that had burned edges or ended just short, the the comment came out again:

“See. The best ‘almost’ putter you’ll ever see.”

And now, I just couldn’t help myself.

“You’re a great putter! Maybe the best I’ve ever seen.”

He gave me a strange look.

“Such a great stroke. Everything at the hole. It’s incredible. I wish I had your stroke.”

He’s still baffled. So I elaborated.

“Sometimes you just have to lie to yourself. I’ve been where you are. Years ago playing a lot of tournament golf I was really struggling with the flatstick. There was nothing fundamentally wrong with anything, but the ball wasn’t going in. I was missing short ones, confidence at an all time low. I did a little research and came to the realization that sometimes, you just have to lie to yourself.”

Now this is a true story. I was putting abysmally. It was costing me tournaments and likely years of my life as I came to dread being on the putting green. Expected disappointment.

So I started lying to myself. Every single night. I’d lay in bed as I was going to sleep and I’d just repeat on a loop to myself “you are the best putter on the Am Tour. You are the best putter on the Am Tour. You are the best putter on the Am Tour…” as I drifted off to sleep.

I started walking up to putts with the same loop going on… “You are the best putter in Texas.”… And something strange started happening. I started hitting better putts. They started going in. My 5 footers became 2 footers. My lip outs, started lipping in.

I believe golf is way more mental than we give it credit for, but this is bigger than golf. It’s about manifesting what you want. Work ethic, a healthy self image, and self belief are hard. People tend to think that the results come before the belief, but thats not generally how it works. You have to lie to yourself. Fake it till you make it.

In a lot of ways, thats what I’m doing in building this business. I don’t know what I’m doing. It’s scary. Building a business from nothing when you had a secure way out. Thats tough. I wouldn’t be able to ride the roller coaster of emotions without lying to myself. You have good days and bad days and no matter what, “I got this. You were built for this. Keep grinding.”

If I keep saying it… one day, it won’t be a lie. The same with my new buddy’s putting.

So that day, I helped get the lie started. Every stroke he made “that was a great putt. Phenomenal. You are a great putter.”

He makes a 5 footer. “Wow, best putter I’ve ever seen. Really good.”

Others in the group started catching on. They chipped in. The positive affirmations were raining down with every putt he hit and almost like magic, the putts got better.

He putted significantly better on the back 9 and it continued into the second 36. Lags to 6 feet became lags to 2 feet. Putts started hitting the hole and falling. Something magical happens when you start to believe. Confidence often doesn’t come before the result. You’ve got to fake the confidence to get the result. Your brain struggles to know the difference between simulations and reality, so fill your brain with enough positive affirmation that it has no choice but to accept it.

I don’t know for sure, but from the outside it looked like he started enjoying putting that second round. It started to be fun. He didn’t make every putt, but he no longer had that black cloud over his head.

It was a phenomenal weekend making some new friends and hopefully inspiring some self belief. Sometimes its okay to lie to yourself.

I’m the best golf developer in the world. This is the best golf platform in the world. I’m going to change the game of golf.

Maybe one day, that’ll be true too.