Podcast Transcript
Josh Nichols – Jeff Troesch, I’ve heard you say there’s no such thing as a balanced life. What do you mean? I thought a balanced life was good.
Jeff Troesch Well, what I really say is no such thing as a balanced life for an elite athlete looking to chase mastery. At the end of the day, it’s the absolute best of the best. Make an investment in their craft and in their process towards mastery and it necessitates some levels of imbalance. Certainly some can go over the edge and be so imbalanced that it is super unhealthy. But the notion that one can do all things and be that level — in my experience of 40 years I have never encountered somebody who could do that. So not to say that it’s physically impossible or never has been done, but not in my experience.
And even for — we’re talking about mastery in terms of best in the world — even if we’re talking about say a division one college player as an example, you know, we talk a lot about the three-legged stool. You got academics, athletics, and social, and basically you’re probably gonna have one of those legs that’s gonna be cut off a little bit. So like pick one of those because you’re not gonna be able to do all three, so you get to pick two of three, but not three of three.
Josh Nichols So you talk a lot about golf in the book, which is cool. Obviously we’re here on a golf podcast. The current standard of golf right now is Scottie Scheffler. He’s such an interesting case study because he talks a lot about golf not being fulfilling, golf not being — you know, it doesn’t fill that kind of hole. It doesn’t make him whole to do well at golf. And it seems like the fact that he has golf in such a good place and arguably in a small place or a proportionate place relative to the rest of his life — it seems like that helps him play better. And I could extrapolate that to say it seems like he has a good balance which maybe helps him play better. How would you push back on that based on what you’re saying?
Jeff Troesch Yeah, no, I think that’s fair. I always find it fascinating — if I’m talking on a tennis podcast, everybody wants to talk about Serena and Roger Federer and Nadal or Djokovic. And on a golf podcast, it’s either Tiger or Scotty, right?
I think for me, oftentimes we look at the absolute best and don’t really see them for the outlier that they are. So how Scotty got to be Scotty — well, I would say that about every great golfer. How they got to be great is going to be unique to them and their path to the mountaintop was their own unique ascent. I would say certainly Scotty — I don’t know Scotty personally, I’ve met him, but I have not worked with him — but my sense from what I appreciate about him is that he has found a way to be, I would say, more balanced than your average person who has that level of success. I can’t say, because I don’t know the reality of this, I can’t say that that was true about his path to get where he is now. But it feels as though that has become prioritized for him at this point in his growth and development as a man and as a golfer.
So I would absolutely say working towards that balance is a healthy endeavor for any golfer, for any athlete. I would say recognizing that there are going to be necessary sacrifices. I would presume that Scotty would tell you that there are times in his life where things are out of balance necessarily because he’s traveling away from his family or he’s putting extensive time into his preparation or something along those lines. So there probably are certainly moments — like there are for every elite athlete — where it is a very unbalanced week or month or something along those lines.
He does have phenomenal perspective and has sort of learned how to reel it back in and dial in some of those elements that help him feel more fulfilled and more whole as a person. That’s what works well for him. And then there’s going to be another golfer — golfer X — who might get somewhere close to what Scotty has achieved. And again, the pathway might be very different. He may be all in on that and not be in a relationship and not have a lot of reps in a family life or whatever. So definitely whatever Scotty’s doing works for him. There’s no question about that. Nobody could argue that.
Josh Nichols Clearly. Yes, okay, yeah, no, that’s such a good way to put it. You know, where you are currently is not indicative of how you got to where you are currently, necessarily, right?
Jeff Troesch Correct. Yeah. It’s been interesting, you know, being along for the ride from way back in the day when I was involved in helping start the IMG Academy golf side and being around those junior golfers and then getting out onto the tours as they matriculate to college and then into professional golf. And you know, still with my client base, I see a fair number of junior golfers. Mostly I’m in college golf. I’ve got a number of pros too, but primarily I’m in D1 college golf. I’ve got 10 programs. I act as mental coach.
And just, you know, what they did as juniors to get to a place where they’re in college, what they do in college to be successful and go into the professional ranks — things change. The young women and young men make adjustments that are necessary, predicated on whatever’s happening in their life and what the demands are of the venue in which they’re participating or developing. So a big piece of it is having consciousness around what works for them and also having the flexibility and adaptability to adhere to whatever the next thing is that can help them be better.
Josh Nichols Yeah, and the typical listener of this podcast is, you know, between 30 and 50 and between scratch golfer and 20 handicap, right? That’s broad strokes — that’s a typical listener. The typical listener is not the top 50 in the world, inherently unbalanced, maybe, sort of life. So should — is there a model of balance or imbalance that we maybe should all be taking notes from? Like, okay, there’s a super balanced life, and they seem happy, but you know, they’re not really excelling in any one thing. Do you see something there?
Jeff Troesch Yeah, the last piece of the question is most relevant. It’s like they’re maybe not excelling in any one thing. And as long as — obviously if you’re talking about people for whom golf is not their vocation, it’s not how they’re earning a living, they’ve got other things going on, they’re playing at the country club two or three days a week and hoping to win the club championship, or they’re just trying to break 90 for the first time, whatever — I think a lot of it has to do with realistic expectations set relative to the amount of time and energy one puts into the game.
Having worked in so many sports over 40 years of doing this, I get asked all the time sometimes sort of the same questions from people when they find out what I do for a living. One of them is like, what’s the most difficult sport or what’s the most mental sport? One of the things I talk about with golf is that golf, for me, is if not at the top of the list, near the top of the list of sports where it takes a heck of a long time to get really good. It takes a lot of work to sustain a level. It’s not one of those things where you can just sort of roll out of bed every couple weeks and go play well. It really demands a lot. And for those who are willing to put that time and energy in and that works well in their lives and they can create what we’re calling a balanced life, then maybe they’re a five handicapper or two or 10 or whatever it is.
What can be interesting is that I think people — because they’re watching the best of the best at their best, just watching the guys come down the stretch on Sunday — it looks pretty easy. And then I go out to the country club and I make a 30 footer just like Scotty can. And I hit a couple greens in a row or I hole out from a fairway every once in a while. So we get that little dopamine dump that, wow, I can do sort of what they do out there. But the reality is that the game’s really freaking hard. And as long as people keep context around what their real level is and what is a reasonable expectation for them to have, then I feel like people can have balance, enjoy it, and also perform at the level that is requisite with the time they put in.
Josh Nichols Right, yeah, the transcendent skill there is self-awareness and expectations being in their proper place.
Jeff Troesch Yes, correct. Yeah, exactly that. I mean, for me, what I’m working to foster — whether it’s a touring pro or a 12 year old who’s just coming into the game or a person at the country club at a 10 handicap or whatever — I’m trying to foster curiosity. I’m trying to foster exploration and discovery through exploration as opposed to expectation of how this should turn out or I’m putting in X, Y, aren’t I getting Y out of the game? And it’s because the game’s freaking hard and there’s no straight line to the mountaintop. So the more I help the athletes with whom I work rotate out of expectation and into curiosity and into discovery, I think it helps ground them.
And starting to get comfortable with like, I don’t know how it’s going to go today. You know, there are several college events going on as we record this and I’ve been talking with several of the players this week in preparation. I don’t say the same thing to everyone, but one of the sort of common denominator messages is, you know, go in with a mindset and be comfortable with — I don’t know how it’s going to go. I know I’ve prepared well. I know I’m a good player. I know I’m going to make adaptations. But going in with an expectation — because I’ve been playing well or I’ve been striping it, or the opposite, like I’ve been hitting it all over and I expect to play poorly — it’s sort of like the one thing the best players in the world understand. And you listen to Scotty and some of these other guys — the media sometimes will stick a microphone in their face and try to get them to say things like, you’re gonna win this week, and they nearly always rotate into like, I don’t know. And being okay with I don’t know is a really good thing because frankly they don’t know.
I know I’m good. I know I played well. I know I played well last week. And so they sort of deflect but into a place of curiosity and being at peace with that and sort of accepting rather than expecting. And being in that space seems to — it doesn’t matter the level of a golfer — that seems to create an internal environment where it’s hopeful and curious and anticipation of something good happening, but not expecting it to happen.
Josh Nichols Right, yeah. You know, there can be a confusion between I don’t know how it’s gonna go and the fear of maybe jinxing, right? And saying, you know, I don’t wanna presume that I’m gonna play good. Yes, I’m playing well right now, but I don’t wanna jinx it. Where would you fall on the — kind of — my coach always said negatives are never good, positive is sometimes good, but neutral is always good. Do you kind of follow that same structure?
Jeff Troesch 100%. Yeah, exactly. For me, I say the same exact thing slightly differently, so it’s going to be redundant, but yeah, I’m definitely anti-negative thought. And I think for some people, positive thinking is something that really works well for them. But my experience has been that the majority of people dismiss it as sort of hogwash and magical thinking and don’t necessarily see it as additive or helpful. They feel like it’s false and they’re trying to fake themselves into something — that’s sort of the feedback that I get.
So yeah, neutral thinking is exactly what I teach. And that’s where I’m saying curiosity and I don’t know how it’s going to go. That’s not a negative. Frankly, it’s just a fact. Neutral thinking for me is factual thinking. Like, what’s a fact? And I’m constantly driving golfers to think in facts and not opinions as much as possible. Because the reality of wherever you are as a golfer is what it is and your ability is a static entity. You bring that to the first tee box and that gives you whatever opportunities you’ve earned based on your skills.
And again, how it’s going to turn out — I certainly don’t want people conjuring up nightmares in their head, but nor do I want them standing on the tee box seeing them. I’ve never been around a golfer who’s broken their best or broken a course record or won a golf tournament — I’ve never met one who had a number in their head that they actually shot that day. The people that shoot 62 on the days they shoot 62, or the person who breaks 80 for the first time, they don’t stand on the first tee box and go, today’s the day I’m going to do it. This just never happens. So it really is a function of like, hey, I don’t know, I’m going to go work my butt off over the next 18 holes, see how it turns out. And that seems to be the internal environment for most that is the one that’s most productive.
Josh Nichols Right. Yeah, I was gonna say — could the see-what-happens or I-don’t-know-how-it’s-going-to-go, let’s-go-find-out — could that foster passivity? I’ve talked with players before where — and full disclosure, this could be on me and how I communicated the concept — but the idea of acceptance and it’s going to go how it’s going to go, it is what it is, let the round come to you, allow yourself to hit good shots — that can come out as passivity as opposed to, I guess, on the other end of the spectrum would be kind of competitiveness, being driven, trying to make the round of golf happen and trying to make a good score happen. Does there become an element of passivity and kind of letting things happen to you?
Jeff Troesch Yeah, for me letting things happen to me almost feels like a victim and I don’t want that. Certainly a lot of it has to do really with how that person’s wired, what their behavioral tendencies are. I mean, I do a lot of profiling and get a sense of how people are most effective in the ways that they approach their craft.
For some — and this is why one of the concepts in my book is that there’s no one right way to do anything — as I’ve already said a couple times, there are multiple paths to the mountaintop here, right? So there are some for whom being locked in on kicking the crap out of everybody in the tournament — it’s me versus them — which is not something I would ever initially sell, but for some, that is exactly how their best golfer shows up. I would say that’s a very small minority, but those people exist. I know them and could name them, but won’t.
And then there’s the other side of the spectrum — the exact opposite — where as soon as it becomes me versus someone else, it creates so much stress and anxiety or insecurity or sense of inferiority or overinflated sense of I’m that much better than them. And that has its own negative connotations in terms of staying disciplined in your pre-shot and those sorts of things. So they start chasing a scorecard or chasing beating that person, which in match play plays a little bit — in stroke play, not so good for most people.
And then pretty much everyone’s in between those two extremes, right? There is a level of competitiveness that certainly is an element we want — that’s sort of the fuel that we want them to bring to the golf course. Again, the challenge is like, how do you want to spend that fuel? Where are you going to expend it? Is it in really locking in on some process oriented goal where you’re really holding yourself accountable to it? Is it something that’s going on with you in between golf shots so that you’re fostering a certain type of internal environment between shots or from green to tee after every hole?
This is exactly the kind of stuff that we’re digging in on to help — not necessarily create a script for everyone, because again, every situation is slightly nuanced — but to have the golfer have a strong sense of him or herself, what brings their most competitive person out, essentially what works best for them. How do they — in the end, we both drive process orientation, we both drive process over outcome, and at the end of the day, we’re in the outcome business, we’re in the results business. If my golfers were amazing in process and played like shit, I wouldn’t have had a 40 year career.
So in the end, the golfers ultimately play well relative to the way that they did. But it’s a matter of putting attention in an intentional space so that it becomes something that’s not passive, not overly aggressive depending on the person, but somewhere that’s their own personal sweet spot that helps them lock in and get their job done.
Josh Nichols Right, yeah. How do you kind of see your role in a player’s life? Do you see it as there’s this broad spectrum of personality types, and then there’s like your kind of definition of an ideal, and very few are within your own personal definition. But when you’re introduced to a new player and they talk about what they consider a struggle, do you feel like you’re always pulling someone towards the middle, whether they’re on this end of the spectrum or that end? Is that kind of how you see it?
Jeff Troesch Actually, no. That’s a really fascinating question. I haven’t thought of it in that context before that I can remember. But the short answer is no. What I’m really trying to foster is self-exploration so that that person figures him or herself out to the degree that is transparent, that is vulnerable, that is real. I think a lot of times all of us — until we sort of peel the layers off the onion — we sort of think we’re a particular way or we see ourselves in a particular way. We tell ourselves stories about ourselves, some of which are factual, some of which are just not true. We’d like them to be true, whether it makes us feel better about ourselves or makes us feel worse about ourselves or whatever.
But it really is a self-exploration process. I feel like if I can foster an environment alongside the golfer where they’re really getting to understand who they are and they understand the behaviors that align with that, and then they’re conscious about applying those behaviors in a more consistent fashion, then we’re cooking. Because again, we got some who are out there that are just like they will cut your heart out and eat it — and that’s just the way that they roll and that really works well for them on the golf course. And then there are others, the exact opposite.
I don’t even know — I don’t prefer the word ideal because I think ideal is for each individual. I don’t see there to be an ideal behavioral style. I had an opportunity several years ago — maybe five, six years ago — I was the guy for the US Solheim Cup team. And we did a profile for the top 25 US women, and in the selection process, I worked alongside the captain and assistant captain. And I can tell you, again without naming names, can tell you of the 25 women that we did the assessment on, they were all over the map in terms of the spectrum that we’re talking about. They literally filled up every slot. So the 25 of them had 25 — I mean there were some that overlapped a little bit — but they filled all the boxes.
So you would say, oh, we want everybody to be like whoever, and the reality is that they’re very different from one another and it really works for them. So it’s really not about like, the ideal is Korda, let’s go be her. It’s more like, let me go be me and be really clear about what that means and how do I elicit that.
Josh Nichols Yeah, okay. That adds a whole new element to your role as a coach. So your role is not, here’s my philosophy on what a good mental game is, so let’s try to move you towards that. It’s I am facilitating you finding — I’m not holding your hand, but you and me are looking and searching for your own best way, as opposed to me telling you. It’s more of a collaborative process.
Jeff Troesch Yes. It’s a collaborative process. I mean, initially, obviously, when people come to me, depending on the level of sophistication — psychological sophistication or their maturity level or whatever — there is sometimes some real hand-holding, early, educational, foundational, top-down, let me teach you these things. And then once we get common language and sort of a common space, then it becomes a collaborative process of working back and forth with me helping guide them towards what works best for them.
And the book that I wrote — that was the exact intent of it. That’s why I wrote it the way that I did, which is one, two, three pages and that’s it of each of these 150 concepts. It wasn’t like, okay, here’s how you do this, and here’s 47 pages on how to get in the zone or whatever. The intent of the book was to generate thought, and for people to get in there with a highlighter and make notes in the margins. This might be true for me. I wanted to generate self-reflection and movement towards the varying ways that one can approach the game of golf, can approach life, and basically help them explore for themselves rather than there’s a right way to do it and it needs to be this way.
My philosophy and my book is the exact opposite of that. It’s the antithesis of there’s a right way. There is an effective way — one of the concepts — there’s only an effective way, not a right way. Your job is to figure out what’s effective for you rather than trying to get it right like somebody else on the range. Because that’s exactly what blows people up all day long. That person’s going left-hand low, let me do that. You see juniors coming into college and tinkering, and you see pros get out there at the first few PGA or LPGA events — their eyes are open and they’re looking down the range, and all of a sudden this person’s practicing like that. Maybe I should use that. And doubting their own way to get where they got there — I see that all the time.
Instead, the ones who are really secure in their own process — with an open mindedness that there are things that they can learn, but not such an open filter that everything comes in and not a closed filter so nothing does — but being discreet about what we let in and what we don’t. And that’s what the book was intended to do, which is basically ring the bell on these different concepts. If you feel well about yourself already in that and you know it works for you, then go to the next one. But theoretically, it’ll drive some level of self-exploration and some possible adaptations or adjustments to make.
Josh Nichols Right, yeah, because this gets into the kind of unconscious incompetence — that whole process. But what’s cool about this is like, okay, here’s 150 elements of high performance psychology, and each one of them is distinct and valuable, and being better at or being proficient or sufficient at each one of them is going to make you better. So as you read this, it’s almost like — does this trigger something in you that it’s a weak point for you, or is it a total ignorance that this was even a thing that you should be focused on? Is that kind of how you think about the book?
Jeff Troesch Yeah. Yes. Yeah, that’s exactly it. It was — when I wrote it, I assumed — I had no idea if we’d even sell one. I’ve never done it before and frankly never did want to do it. And I tell you I don’t want to do it again, but I’m happy with the one I got. And I’m sort of a risk-averse person, so I figured, well, I could spread my risk. My thought would be that if somebody read the book, at least something in there — one of the 150 — would actually land with everybody. At least one of them would land if people would grind their way through the whole thing.
But the reality is that what you just said is on point. It is a book for self-examination. For those who haven’t read it yet, I don’t want to scare people away like, I don’t want to work that hard at it. It’s a little bit spoon-fed, but there’s work to do if one really wants to dig in on the concepts and take that concept to their next level. The intent is a gentle nudge to just explore and think about it. Then it’s like, okay, I really do that really well.
One way that I’ve had several people come back and say they actually use it — they’re grading themselves on each of the concepts as they’re going through it. They start out with a one to 10 grade and they’ve gone through the entire book grading themselves on the 1 through 150 concepts. And then they’re going back — the ones that they graded themselves lowest on are the ones that they’re prioritizing, doing additional work afterwards. I’ve never thought about that, but it’s an interesting way to approach it.
So yeah, that’s how the book’s written and that’s why it’s written the way that it is. Again, I understand that every concept’s not gonna land with everyone and certainly not everyone’s gonna be great at those. I have no presumption that anybody’s gonna be 10 out of 10 on these 150. As I said, I think in the introduction or preface — I’m terrible. I mean, I do this every day, seven days a week for 40 years, and I’m really bad at some of these things that I’m putting out there. I’m really good at some and really bad at others. But I put them in the book because they’re important and I think they have value. And I’ve learned — even though it’s difficult for me to apply some of these things — I’ve learned from the best, and again, in multiple sports, not just in golf.
That was the impetus in writing the book, really. Just so that I could capture the 40 years of knowledge and experience that I have and put it out there so that — whether mental coaches or golfers or instructors or just parents for their kids — if they just want to have a reference on some of these things and that could be helpful to them, then it felt like it was a worthwhile endeavor.
Josh Nichols Yeah, no kidding. I’m curious — how long did it take you to write? I’m curious about the process of writing this book.
Jeff Troesch Yeah, that’s a fair question. As I said, I never intended to write a book. But what I did — what I have done over the years — is I’ve occasionally written a column in a magazine or on somebody’s blog, they’ll ask me to write something and I would write it. And so I had captured some of these notions. Without thinking about doing anything with it really beyond that, they were in my documents file. And also because of what I do every day — teaching this stuff — I’ve got my stuff on the whiteboard or on little slides or whatever. So I’ve had a few of those.
And then really four years ago I want to say, I had a couple people reach out again about like, you want to write a book. No, I don’t. And then the publisher that I ended up going with — they’re really awesome. I really appreciated the process that they put in front of me to make this happen. And I would say the really hard lifting on it took a couple of years. But I mean, I was working more than full time doing it. So it wasn’t like I just sat down and wrote for two years.
But I really grinded it out a couple of summers ago — our daughter had our grandson and we went and hung out and helped out for six weeks while she and her husband were working, and my wife and I were grandparents doing our thing. And I basically sequestered myself for six weeks and knocked out four or five hours a day, and that was the real grind part. We ended up getting — gosh, at some point I think we had almost 260 something concepts or something like that. And I’m like, gosh, I don’t know how many we’re going to do. And it was like this overwhelming tome of, oh my god, we can’t have a book that’s bigger than War and Peace, nobody’s going to look at it. So we slash, slash, slashed, and it came to this 150. And it’s still like 350 pages of stuff. So that was the process. It took a while — a few years in the making.
Josh Nichols That’s awesome. Yeah, I like the fact that it’s titled One Day Better, and it’s almost a year’s worth of pages. The idea of reading either one of these chapters a day — because that’s very simple, it takes you four minutes to read one chapter to end, maybe you chew on it for that day — so 150 days later, you have really looked internally and done that self exploration, and that would be a very productive 150 days.
Jeff Troesch Yeah, I appreciate that. I’m smiling because, again, we have no idea when you write a book how it’s going to land, right? And I think — can’t say for sure it frustrates my publisher — but for me, I was a little surprised. It’s like it’s taking people forever to read the book, because we’re like, okay, where are the reviews? And so I’m reaching back to people that I know bought the book and they’re like, dude, I bought it four months ago and I’m doing like one concept a week and I’m chewing on that one thing.
I was like, I’m doing a podcast with someone else and the woman was like, I’ve read this book and I think one a week is great. And we’re like, okay, well that means three years before you get to the end of it. So like, how are we going to know if you think it’s any good or not? So people are doing it like a daily devotional thing — like you’re talking about, first thing in the morning, sort of an inspirational thing. Some people are talking about doing it once a week. Other people are saying this is a great bathroom book read — you know, sit down on the toilet and it’s awesome. So I was like, okay, however you want to do it, right.
But it is definitely a book that is to be savored in my opinion. It doesn’t make sense to read through it really quickly because all the concepts are separate from one another. There’s no flow of like A to Z. I did that intentionally so that people would stay present with it. I’ve got a professional pickleball guy that I work with and he’s like, I want to read your book, I’ve got a 17-hour flight to Indonesia and I want to read your book. And I’m like, yeah, you only want to read it for about five minutes and then set it down for a couple of days. That’s not the kind of book this is.
So anyway, it’s been really fascinating how people have used it as a tool, which is exactly what I wanted it to be. It’s not an entertaining book. I don’t tell stories. I use some examples. I don’t name names of the people I work with. I don’t tell stories of this person did that, which for some people might be disappointing because they want the dirt or what’s going on in people’s lives or whatever. But really my intent was for it to be functional and a tool to help drive self-awareness and help drive movement towards mastery — as a parent, as a human, as a golfer, as a whatever context one brings to the table. That was the intent of the book.
Josh Nichols Yes, okay, that comes through. Do you — have you noticed something with your players and your athletes and clients when they add in mental coaching and now they’re adding in effort and time and money? Do you see an increase in pressure that they’re kind of adding to themselves?
Jeff Troesch Yeah, no, I haven’t seen that. I mean, the intent of it is the opposite, right? That they get skills and build habits that help relieve whatever we mean by pressure. Certainly, at whatever level of athlete or person we’re talking about, I would say I’m an expensive commodity. Certainly money is a factor for all of us. There certainly is, I would assume, some sense of wanting to get a return on the investment sooner than later, which I think is fair. Sometimes people come in for two or three, four sessions. Other people I’ve had for years and continue to work with them. Some people might feel like they got all they wanted at the price point.
But in terms of pressure of now I have more tools so I should play better — what does make me cringe is when my golfers — people who I work with — say something like, you know, occasionally we get somebody who feels like they’ve disappointed me if they don’t play well. And I think a lot of instructors, a lot of college coaches, sort of get that from their athletes because the athlete doesn’t want to let you down or whatever. So honestly, whenever that happens — it doesn’t happen that often — but when a golfer does say that, I sort of feel like I failed something there. Because it indicates some sort of dependence, which is the last thing I’m trying to create. The last thing I want is to have one more person in their sphere for whom they’re doing this instead of themselves, because almost every golfer’s got someone else or many people that they’re trying to satisfy or get approval from or something along those lines. And I don’t want to be that guy. I want to be the exact opposite of that.
Occasionally I’ll get that. So that might, I guess, be inadvertent pressure that they feel that I’m not even aware is being fostered. So that’s the biggest indicator to me, though, is if somebody says something like, gosh, we’ve been working so hard alongside one another and I can’t believe that I played so poorly. I’m sorry about that. And I’m like, sorry for me? What are you talking about?
So one of my — I actually coach with these little phrases that I throw out there and try to be funny but keep things light. And one of them is that I never accept credit because I will never take blame. So whenever an athlete throws any sort of attribution towards — even like thanking me for how well they played — I really try to squash that because I don’t want them attaching whatever they’re doing to me. I want them to attach it to the work that they’ve done. Yeah, I appreciate that I put it in front of them, but at the end of the day, they’re the ones hitting the golf shots, not I. So yeah, I guess that’s the response to the pressure from the mental training piece.
Josh Nichols Yes, yeah. How — you know, if someone doesn’t care about this, they can go on fast forward. But if someone, if you’ve helped them understand logically from a knowledge perspective — this is how I should be thinking, or this is how I think best, and I logically know other people’s opinions don’t matter, that logically makes sense to me, and I understand in myself why I am so caught up in other people’s opinions, and I know that’s not true — but as soon as the lights go on, so to speak, as soon as I tee it up, all of that comes flooding back in, all those emotions come flooding back in. So how do you help a player navigate that — I know this objectively and in a logical knowledge situation where you’re on a Zoom call with them, like I got it coach, thank you, I understand that — but as soon as I tee it up it all goes out the window?
Jeff Troesch Yeah, that’s a fair question and it’s not just — obviously you could fill in the blank with a hundred things, not just other people’s opinions. It could be worrying about hitting in the water or some sort of competitive anxiety thing pops in or whatever. With the players that I work with, we do a fairly extensive amount of work on helping them be aware of those things coming in when they come in and not trying to force them out.
It’s — I mean, those things come in. That’s what our brain does. It’s doing its job, right? It’s like your heart’s pumping blood and your lungs are pumping air. Your brain’s doing its job when that stuff jumps in. The challenge is then to redirect. And again, the nuance is like what works best for Josh might be different than what works best for Jeff. But the nuance then becomes, okay, well, what is your metaphorical fire extinguisher when that fire starts to burn? And everybody’s is different. So examples from me would be things like being sensory experienced — having people get into senses rather than thought. So now they feel their feet on the ground, or they’re taking a breath and feel the air flow through their nostrils. Or it could be some sort of self-talk where they’re distancing and like, okay yeah, of course I care about this right now, but six months from now this will mean nothing. Or they speak to themselves in second or third person language — like, come on Jeff, you know you’re better than that. Or it’s like rotating into real target orientation, getting very engaged with their target.
So I can ramble literally for hours probably with the menu of — I use metaphors and analogies a lot. When I’m talking about this, I talk to players about, I’m going to give you like a Cheesecake Factory or Claim Jumper menu of like a hundred things that you can eat. The question is you get to pick one that you want to work for you in those moments when this occurs. Pick one from the menu and apply that thing consistently. Don’t go through the menu and think about eight of them. Pick one and let’s get consistent reps with that. And then let’s get data on whether or not — okay, you got 54 holes this week in this tournament, let’s get 54 holes worth of data about does that specific application work well enough for you that we can now roll with that and have it become habituated, or do we flex off of it, do we completely abandon it and try something else?
I mean, the 54 holes is just the example — it can be a day or it can be a month, whatever. But we want to get clean data on does this strategy work. And the number one thing is to not overly panic when that stuff floods back in, because that’s normal. It’s like every golfer on earth — that happens to some degree, some to a lesser degree than others, but it’s a human condition.
Josh Nichols Yeah. Right. Yeah, every golfer on earth is a human, right? With a brain that works the same way as other humans’ brains.
Jeff Troesch Yeah. Yes. Yeah. And that’s what the brain does. So yeah, that’s the way it works.
Josh Nichols So yeah, you see your job as kind of — okay, here’s the issue that you commonly encounter, so let’s talk about some tools that you could potentially use and let’s hone in on here’s the one that resonates the most with you, so let’s go try it. Is that kind of a good summary?
Jeff Troesch Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that’s essentially it, right? And for some, they want a lot more education. They like to know the why of things. They want brain physiology and whatever. Others of them like, hey, I don’t need to know how the engine works, just tell me how to drive the car. I don’t need to know how a watch works, just tell me what time it is. So they want tangible — go apply these things — and the underlying pieces they prefer not to go there. Other people, that’s what they’re all about. So I’m prepared to give as much backfill as is beneficial to them to be more knowledgeable and have some more sense of that.
Other people just want application oriented, more tangible, because a lot of times in our world there’s a lot of sort of intangible — you know, change your thoughts — okay, well, what the hell does that mean? And so to be really intentional with like, shift your attention to this, and have these specific things be real tangible, have it be something that they can grab onto, something that they can take to the range, to the golf course, wherever, and have real application with it. And again, it’s trial and error.
At the beginning of this, like if I’m fostering curiosity and they’re in the exploration process, then okay, let’s go explore this element and let’s discover whether or not that is of value to you or not. And that becomes this ongoing process with all the things about confidence, about anxiety, about focus, about whatever. We go down these intricate paths to try to help them have tools in the toolbox to address those specific challenges, which every golfer has to some degree.
Josh Nichols Yes. Yeah, and of course by nature, everyone that comes to you will certainly have things that they’re struggling with — that’s otherwise why they wouldn’t be coming to you. But yes, every golfer does. No one is perfect. Do you — on the kind of intangible nature of the mental game, you know, it’s hard to measure — and this could be said for therapy, counseling, that whole world of things — do you have a go-to method or a way that you help players make this more measurable? Is that even something that you try to do, or is it kind of all self-reported feel sort of thing?
Jeff Troesch Yeah, well it’s all self-report. Measurable in terms of — things like, as I said, I’ve got several who are out playing literally as we’re recording this right now. So I’m just thinking about for some of them — well, one, we’re doing percentages of shots hit with full commitment. For another it is mental scorecards about a number of whatever the thing is, right? Whether it’s fully engaged with my target or feeling my particular swing feel, et cetera. So having mental scorecards can make the intangible a bit more tangible. What the post-shot self-talk is — those sorts of things. We’re trying to get people to higher levels of self-awareness in those domains where they’re lagging a bit.
Yeah, those are the kinds of things. I do get a lot of feedback and I’m grateful for it. I get a lot of feedback that relative to some of the other stuff they’ve encountered mentally, a lot of people who rotate into my practice appreciate that I really try to be as concrete and tangible as possible — here’s how you actually apply this concept.
And one of the reasons why I was hesitant to write the book, frankly, is because the book is conceptual. There are like, go do this sorts of things, but it really takes action beyond the concept in order for it to manifest. I want to help people be guided towards what to do with this, not just, I’m smarter about this, but I don’t know what the hell to do with it. That’s not very helpful. So to really know actionably what to do pre-round, during the round, post-round — how might this actually be put into action so that at the end of the day it becomes a habit and a skill that manifests. Again, eventually so it’s either greater enjoyment of the game or better scoring or preferably both. That’s the goal.
Josh Nichols Yes. Yes. Yeah, whatever that person’s — what do I want out of this? Why am I doing this in the first place? Do I want to just enjoy the game more? I’m in my head about other people’s opinions and I’m just miserable while I’m out there. Well, let’s work towards that. Or no, I want to score better. I want to get my handicap down, right? It’s an individual measure.
Jeff Troesch Yes, yes. And for most people they’d like both, and for many people those are very highly correlative, right? Like the better I play, the more fun I’m having, the more fun I’m having — you know, that whole thing. So yeah, it’s a little both-and.
And then the other piece — in just ten seconds of what you said earlier — I would say the majority of people that come into my practice, paraphrasing what you said, they’re in there trying to fix something. But what’s been great — and that’s fine — what’s been great is that I would say over the last 10, 15 years, just because of the reps that I’ve had and people know me in the industry or whatever, people come to me word of mouth. I’m getting a lot more who just show up because they want to be better. It’s not about being sick and getting — you don’t have to be sick to get better. So I’m getting a lot more wellness visits of how can I build additional skills and what I do is pretty good, what can you add to my weaponry here, as opposed to like, I’m 9-1-1, I’m hemorrhaging, can you help me stop bleeding.
That’s generally why people seek out swing instruction, particularly unless there’s somebody who is looking to be on the tour or whatever — then they have more of a daily or weekly cadence. But for most people, it’s like, oh, I don’t need that, I don’t need that, till they feel, oh my God, I need that. So same thing with the mental part. A lot of times people wait till it’s the horses out of the barn before they actually start doing the work. And then it’s really challenging because they’ve built habits for so many years that it’s really more challenging to unravel that.
So yeah, I’m looking — for the sake of the industry of golf continuing to manifest itself — I hope more and more people are willing to be in sort of a build-it rather than a fix-it mentality. How do I build skills with my swing? How do I build skills in the weight room and flexibility and mobility? How do I build skills around the mental part rather than waiting for things to be broken to actually engage in some sort of process?
And that doesn’t mean they need to see people like you and I or have to go to an instructor. But for me it’s like a meaningful, purposeful, intentional process to develop themselves. I think a lot of times people just show up and hope things go well and they’re pissed off when they don’t. And so they’re like, well, you know, you’ve got 20% preparation and expecting 100% results — like that’s crazy. Like, what are you doing? This is really freaking hard, and you’ve put no time into preparing yourself but you expect to roll out of bed after two weeks and all of a sudden play great golf — like what are we doing?
Josh Nichols Yeah, you must not know golf if that’s how you feel it’s gonna go. Do you ever get the sense that by introducing these concepts, all of a sudden you are bringing awareness to — I didn’t realize I was struggling with that. Was blissfully ignorant, now I’m not. My ignorance is gone and therefore my bliss is gone. And you know, I was out there kind of bouncing along, but I wanted to try to improve, and whoa, I didn’t realize I was bad at that. So now the volume has been turned up while I’m on the golf course and I’m trying to be more self-aware, so I’m thinking about my own thinking — I’m ruminating and perseverance thinking and all of that. So the volume gets turned up and there’s a get-worse-before-you-get-better. I know I’m painting a horrible picture, but do you encounter that ever or do you worry that could happen?
Jeff Troesch I don’t worry it can happen at all, but it does occasionally. A couple of things that you said there are key — worse before you get better. So the get-better part is still in play, right? And I wasn’t aware that I wasn’t good at that. So that tells me that they weren’t good at something.
And so for me, it’s like the ignorance about something that is a deficit in your game — in the short term, yeah, we’re shining a light on it, and yeah, in the short term, that might mean you’re putting more energy at it than you would, certainly than you have in the past. Because if it was like zero, now all of a sudden we’re shining a light on it. So in the short term, it might be a little bit analogous to me to swing instruction, right? Like all of a sudden I’m heightened in my awareness about my right hip load or my takeaway with my wrist or whatever, where before I wasn’t aware of it at all.
And so yeah, it becomes in the short term something where we’re over-analyzing and overthinking the how-to stuff. And so frankly for me, okay, do you want to stuff it back in the box and pretend like you don’t know anything about it? That means you’re going to continue to play like you are. If you’re good with that, I don’t care. It’s not my golf. It’s yours. You want to keep hitting it all over the world? That’s your business. What do I care, right? But if you actually want to make improvement, then what it requires is to have the — be modest enough, and to have the humility — and be willing to be vulnerable with yourself enough to acknowledge that there’s an opportunity for growth here.
I’m not saying you should do it. You’re coming to the table saying you want to get better at this thing. Well, but I don’t want to look at these things. Okay, well then, you know, what are you gonna do? Just pay me the money and hope it gets better? There’s actually work involved. I will say it’s just like people will get into like, I had a swing lesson and now I’m all jacked up. And it’s like, okay, well, how much did you actually work on integrating that so it becomes automatic?
Versus how much was the mentality — oftentimes the situations that you’re speaking to, my sense of it is that often people are looking for a microwave solution. They’re looking for the hack or the tip. People are like, hey — and I’m like, I don’t drop stuff in the tip jar. I don’t do that. I’m not a tip guy, right? So it’s like, do you want a process of growing in this area, or do you want just tips? You can go online, there’s a million you can do, whatever. People will give you a one-off, try this thing. So it’s a process thing. It’s not a one-off thing. And yes, it is very uncomfortable in the early days for some.
Just like a swing change — it’s uncomfortable initially, but we’re talking about short-term pain or short-term discomfort, which then manifests the potential for long-term growth. And in that space between making that change and when things actually land as an automatic habit, that’s a very uncomfortable space. That’s also where growth occurs, but it’s uncomfortable and it’s uncertain and I felt better before initially. And then ultimately it’s like, okay, I’m glad I went through that because now I’m actually way better.
Yeah, there are some pain points along the way, just like with swing instruction, just like being in the gym. Oh my god, I’m so sore. Yes, of course you are. Because you’re not atrophied anymore. You’re strengthening an area of your mind or of your swing or of your body, and there’s gonna be some short-term pain points. Ultimately, it becomes a part of adding metaphorical muscle or real muscle.
Josh Nichols Yes, yeah, yeah. You have to break things down in order to build things back up. That’s just a transcendent principle. And if you never want to grow, and you just want to stay comfortable all the time, then yeah, you won’t grow.
Jeff Troesch Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of the phrases that I use almost every day with some athlete is — what I do for a living is not try to help you be more comfortable. I’m not here for that. For me, most golfers seek comfort or they seek confidence. I want them to seek competence. Go get better.
And you want to be better. Sometimes that means your confidence is low. Sometimes it certainly means you’re out of your comfort zone. But you know, I want to get on the range before and feel really comfortable, and I want to get my confidence on the range before I go out and play. Like you’re seeking confidence in a warm up before you go out and play. How about seeking competence? So like, okay, everything’s a little right today. Now I know what to bring out there. I’m hitting things a little low left. Okay. Now that’s information that helps me be competent on the golf course.
But if you’re out there just seeking — I feel good now and that’s what I’m seeking, this reassurance that I feel — and of course we like that, right? And yeah, it would be wonderful in the best scenario. And it happens where you are comfortable, you are confident, and you are competent all at the same time. Lovely. But oftentimes people forfeit competence because they’re chasing comfort. And that for me is a short-term feel good, but it’s a long-term mistake in terms of building mastery, habits, and skills, because it requires discomfort and requires that sort of work.
Josh Nichols Yeah. Yeah. You’d rather build someone to be more adaptable, emotionally flexible, resilient — to be able to handle difficulty rather than how can we get you to avoid difficulty altogether. That’s crazy.
Jeff Troesch Yes. Yeah. All the time players are like, you know, I haven’t really been feeling it in practice. I think I’m going to pull out of this event because I’m not playing very well now. And so I appreciate that there are some events that are consequential and there are ramifications to not playing well. I respect whatever factors might influence that. But if it’s just, I don’t feel like I’m playing very well, so I’m not going to put it out there in a competition — we’re not giving ourselves a chance to really manage those times when we are uncomfortable, when we are maybe out of our comfort zone, not very confident. You know, let’s go play anyway and see what we can get out of whatever you have. That’s generally where I’m trying to help guide the golfers I work with.
Josh Nichols Yes. Yes. Yeah. On the unconscious incompetence — that’s back to that kind of blissful ignorance — and then the conscious incompetence and then unconscious competence and then conscious competence. You added a fifth one, which is unconsciously consciously competent, which is cool because I’ve heard this concept for years and years, but I’ve always kind of felt it was wrong that it should end at conscious competence. And I understand your argument of unconscious competence being inconsistent — you’re going to be good, but you’re not going to know why and it’s not going to be a repeatable process. But is the end goal not to ultimately have my skill be A-game and awesome and I don’t have to think about it? Is that the end goal?
Jeff Troesch Yeah, well, I mean, I think that would be Nirvana and the ultimate place for — I could guarantee you Scotty’s not there. I guarantee you Tiger wasn’t there. I mean, certainly in elements of their game, that is absolutely true for them, right? And for any great player, there are moments where I’m not conscious of what’s going on. I’m on autopilot and I’m just killing it. And yes, would that be — it’s the flow state. But no one manifests the flow state for 72 holes over four days.
So again, I like to — and we’re speaking the same language, you and I — I want to help the golfers live in reality rather than a fantasy of some perfection space that doesn’t exist. I think chasing that, and dipping toe in that and as often as possible keeping it in there as long as possible, that certainly is the goal. We’re working towards a level of automaticity where things just flow and we’re not really thinking about it. The analogy for me is like driving down a freeway where all of a sudden you’re 20 miles later and I don’t even remember having passed this place back there. That’s unconsciously, consciously — because I’m driving. It’s weird because you get time disoriented, you get space disoriented — that’s the deep, engaged flow state. And that happens for some on the golf course. Some people never experience that because frankly, their competencies don’t really match that. And so they’re not able to be in that space because it requires a lot of conscious thought, which is fine. That’s just where they are.
But I would say the ultimate place that a person could aspire to be is having moments of touching that sort of fifth stage. But largely, realistically, where I’m really trying to rotate people into is conscious competency — where they have clarity about how do I play quality golf, how do I train myself best, how do I prepare myself best, really clear about that, and then applying that in a consistent fashion to give me the greatest odds to go play well. As opposed to the unconscious competency which is like, yeah I played well today. Like what’d you do? I don’t know, I was just feeling it. Like, oh shit, well I hope you’re feeling it tomorrow. Because if you don’t know how to actually manifest that for yourself, then we’re just sort of hoping good luck happens or hoping our biorhythm or horoscope is right or whatever, as opposed to real clarity about like, these are the things that I do to give myself a great chance to play well.
Josh Nichols Mmm. Yeah, yeah, the best have things systematized, which can feel rigid and not very flowy, but if your system is good, then you enter into the door of flow. You’re just that much closer to being able to enter into it.
Jeff Troesch Yes. Yeah, that’s well put. And yeah, the systematic approach — working with people who — a couple of collegiate golfers popped to mind who over the last year have really put a lot of work in. And you know, people who don’t do this, don’t golf or don’t golf in this way — it’s hard for them to understand. Like, what do you talk about? How do you talk about pre-shot routine with somebody for a year? What the hell are you talking about, right? It’s like, that’s a 10 minute conversation, but it’s not, right? I mean, there’s so many subtleties to it.
Rotating to my point — a couple of players in particular recently have talked about how they’ve done so much work on their pre-shot routine and have it so systematized that they almost forget that they’re doing it. And they’re starting to wonder like, okay, is it no longer serving the purpose — which was to be something that directs my attention here — because it becomes such an automatic process that previously it was beneficial because it was not an automatic process. So I know I’m tugging my cap — which is filling my mind rather than don’t hit it left or let’s not three putt here. So for some, going into the unconscious, into that space, actually starts to defeat the purpose of what we were trying to do in the first place.
So certain elements of it we want to stop at conscious competency, and other elements of it we want to flow into being unconscious. So it depends on what’s the purpose of it in the first place and how does that particular thing manifest for that golfer. So yeah, those are some of the nuances based on who’s in front of me and what they’re doing.
Josh Nichols Right. Yes, yeah, automaticity is not always the end goal. That’s so interesting. Are you a golfer?
Jeff Troesch I’m not, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no. Well, yeah, thanks. I’ve been immersed in it, right? I was out on the tours forever. I caddied for 18 Q schools in a row. I’ve been out there and it’s been literally around number one in the world on both men’s and women’s side, multiple people, and been around some of the most accomplished instructors. So I’ve been really, really fortunate. 22 years now with UCLA Women’s Golf is one of the contracts that I have. So I’ve been out there deeply immersed in it.
But I presume if I hit a golf ball at this point in my career I would ruin all credibility, so I don’t give anyone the chance to even see how poor that would be. I was a reasonable golfer a long, long time ago. But when my wife and I got pregnant with our daughter, I decided that we were gonna do whatever our daughter did, and she was a tennis kid. So we were on the tennis court instead of golf. So I literally have not hit a golf ball for 32 years. I can tell you the exact day the last time I hit a golf ball. Yeah. Tens and hundreds of thousands. Yeah. Over 40 years of watching it happen.
Josh Nichols Wow, that’s cool. Okay, what’s on the horizon for you?
Jeff Troesch Well, 40 years of doing this — it’s a little bit of a probably a ride into the sunset here over the next few years.
I keep promising that I’ll cut back. My wife retired a couple years ago and we have a couple grandchildren, one and one on the way, so soon to have two. So the intent is going to be probably dialing back. As I said, I’ve got 10 D1 programs and a bunch of other sports that I deal with. I’ve got a lot of work and I’m so grateful for it, but I’m going to pull back a bit. I will stay, I’ll keep my fingers in it.
As I’ve grown older, one of the things that has been interesting to me — and I’ve enjoyed it, and probably will do more of it — I get requests and I just don’t have the time for it, which is to be a coach’s coach. I’ve got several D1 coaches that I consult with, and I don’t work with their teams, but I work with them. And so the coaching-the-coach model is interesting to me, to sort of help coaches manifest philosophically what is best for them, presuming that they might weave in some of my principles and the things that I know work. So that’s interesting to me because I feel like I can have broader scope that way rather than — you know, with the rifle now it’s more a shotgun approach of hitting a couple and it expands — and I think that’ll fit better for what I’m hoping our lifestyle will be over the next 10 years or whatever.
So for now that’s where it is. I’m grateful to have the groups that I work with and the individual players that I work with. I just have the most amazing job. I am somebody who — again, something I think I say in the book — when people say, you know, I’ve never had a bad day at work, you always think that’s all crap. But I have literally never had a bad day at work. I love my job every single day. Some days are hard and some days are not quite as hard, but I feel at the end of every day that I’ve helped someone in some way, and that’s been a blessing. And I want to continue to do some parts of that going forward, but I just don’t want to add too many layers. I’m actually going to be subtracting rather than adding over the next few years.
Josh Nichols Sure. Well, the book is a major version of the shotgun approach, so that’s super cool. So we’ve got One Day Better — it’s out, I’ll have a link to the Amazon page. Besides that, would you send someone to a website or anything else?
Jeff Troesch Nope. Just get the book. Yeah, because I’ve got a waiting list. I don’t have room to take on anybody at this point. Yeah, I would hope that the book would be helpful and that it would at least get people jump started. And if they are inclined to do additional work, go see Josh Nichols and get it done there. I think having somebody guide a person down this path definitely speeds the curve, as do most things — if you’ve got a quality instructor alongside you, walking alongside it, I can tell you that for sure. That it has sped curves for the golfers with whom I’ve worked, and I’m sure the same for you. So I would hope people would be inclined to do some of the work.
Josh Nichols Man, Jeff Trosh, thank you so much. This has been an honor to get to talk to you.
Jeff Troesch Cool, yeah, I’ve enjoyed it. Thanks, Josh.
