Laura King specializes in personalized coaching programs that combine hypnosis, NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), and proven cognitive techniques to help clients to:
Enhance mental resilience, focus, and confidence
Overcome performance anxiety, fears, and self-doubt
Improve habits, health, and overall well-being
Strengthen motivation and consistency for long-term success , and
Cultivate a positive mindset that drives personal and professional growth.
Laura brings over 25 years of experience to the #OntheMark podcast and shares her 6 Keys to Awesome Golf.
Moving Your Physical State from Tense to Relaxed
Changing Inner Monologue from Negative to Empowering
Moving Focus from Scattered to Optimal
Changing Emotions from Apprehensive to Assured
Improving Mentally from Terrified to Intrepid, and
Changing Expectations from Awful to Awesome.
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STREAMING: On the Mark is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts and wherever else you listen to podcasts.
ABOUT ON THE MARK: Mark’s knowledge, insight and experience have made him a sought-after mind on the PGA and European tours. Through his career, he has taught and/or consulted to various Major Champions, PGA Tour winners and global Tour professionals such as: Larry Mize, Loren Roberts, Louis Oosthuizen, Patton Kizzire, Trevor Immelman, Charl Schwartzel, Scott Brown, Andrew Georgiou and Rourke can der Spuy. His golf teaching experience and anecdotal storytelling broadcasting style makes him a popular host for golf outings.
SOCIAL MEDIA
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WEBSITE: Read top-notch golf content from Mark at https://markimmelman.com
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[Music] I feel like life is just a series of, you know, coincidental and serendip serendipitous events. And when I recently did an event up in North Carolina at a club, I met Laura King and I was doing a book signing and Laura very graciously came to me and said, “Nice to meet you. I want you to read my book, which you signed to me, Laura. I’m making my way through it. I’m thrilled to have you on the show. Thank you and thank you for joining us. How are you?” I’m great. I’m so happy to be here. It was really neat meeting you. And I told my friend I was going to bring you a book and she said, “Really?” I go, “Yep.” Well, well, for the folks who are wondering, if you’re watching on YouTube, there it is. It’s called Awesome Golf Now, and I’m sort of making my way through this, but you have got me, Laura. Um, I’m doing a lot of considering every sentence I read, I’m like, okay. And then I think on that for a little bit, and as you can imagine, I’ve been down rabbit holes of biblical proportion. So I want to kick off the conversation with that because you made a statement about the theater of the mind and that resonated with me because I was complimented one time where I was making a radio call and the person said you painted a picture in the theater of my mind and I was like wow but then you talk about this here and I’m like gosh it actually is. So so talk to us about what the theater of the mind is in your estimations please. Technically the theory of mind is an NLP technique neural linguistic programming. It’s a modality that we use and I use it with my hypnosis but it is the purpose of our brain. We see in pictures we see things in our mind and that’s how we function. So right now when we’re talking we’re talking on 12% of the brain. That’s your analytical rational reasoning thinking mind. In your 12% is your short-term memory. 2 plus 2 is four. your quick thinking and your willpower. Yeah. So, your willpower is only in 12%. 88% of your brain is your hard drive. That’s your long-term memory, habit patterns, and emotions. So, when we have a thought and we visualize it, see it, imagine it, pretend it in our mind, it actually goes into the brain. And think of the brain like a tree trunk. There’s a ring of every year of your life. So, I like to visualize it like a pinball machine. Go ding. where is that ball gonna hit in my past and give me my image to what I’m thinking with that thought. So the theater of the mind becomes more than just what your thought is in a moment. It is attached to your physical body because the three natural laws of the mind are you are what you think, a thought creates a physical reaction and your imagination stronger than knowledge. That is the theater of the mind. Okay. Uh, with that, I’m going to read you a few statements here because now you got me going. Um, and I love this, right? Because we’re all told to visualize, and we’re talking to golfers now, and and I’m sure you’ve seen someone’s like, “Hey, just visualize this and do that.” And I’ve always believed, and you’ve proved it in the book here, that if you can really visualize something clearly, it’s as good as practicing physically. Yes. And so, yeah, I’m going to read you these statements. You are making a movie of yourself. you’re the director and you’ll you’re also the star. We’ve all done this a million times and since the advent of music videos, most of us put music to our movies as well. So, here’s the thing. I’m like I’m seeing this going, how many golfers are making a movie of themselves and they might be the director and they’re the star, but it’s a drama and you know, all this person is playing is things going wrong. Yeah, you’re getting all excited. I’m going to let you talk further, please. That’s what the problem is. To be honest with you, we’re always looking at what can go wrong. The would a could of a shoulds, what ifs. Once you have a skill and your unconscious competence, which is your skill, and your unconscious confidence know how to do something, it’s the ability to trust it. Okay? In golf, in all sports, we always look at what we did wrong, and our brain reproduces that. But you know, if you drive a car and you go park it, do you get out and measure the space before you go in or do you just pull in? I just pull in. You trust your unconscious competence and your unconscious confidence. So, especially with golf, I love to really work with my golfers and say, you know, what is your main focus? Fairway, green, ball in the hole. What I have discovered over 27 years of my practice is how when I get them to do that, their game increases like nobody’s business. Because what are they normally doing? Thinking about their last 10 lessons. Who taught them this? Who taught them that? I need to do this. I need that. Oh, there’s the water. Oh, there’s the sand. Oh, there are the trees. Where does the ball go? Oh, there’s water. I need my water ball. Yeah. So, they painted the picture. What? The balls in the water. Exactly. So breaking it down. Yeah. It’s fascinating because in golf it’s one of those horrid sports where there’s so much time in between activity. And and what you say everyone’s going, “Yeah, you know, she’s right.” And then I want to do something about this. But then you get out there and look, the mind is powerful tool. None of us really harness it as you point out. And so your mind gets to wondering and then someone’s learned just enough like me and then I’m saying to myself, well, I shouldn’t be thinking about that. Then I’m worrying more about the thought, the fact that I thought something negative and I’m trying to repackage the thing and I’m just a ball of confusion. Help me, please. That’s why it’s important. And I used to not care for the word mantra, but having a set thing that you do that you say to yourself that is triggering you like a red light is a trigger and anchor the brain to stop. Choose ones that are simple like fairway, green, bomb in the holes. At each point of the course when you need that particular one, choose the right one for the moment and then being able to focus on that and kind of teach yourself. And the one thing too is to avoid watching the other golfers. Okay. Cuz like the theater of the mind, you can mirror match the person in front of you. Mhm. And then you’ll go up and do the exact same thing the person in front of you did and not even realize you did that. So the training the brain is to be learn the control of your self-t talk. Okay. Yeah. We’re going to get into all that because one of the six keys to awesome and golf list is positive selft talk. Um I I I do want to do this a little further before I introduce you. Um you say here the theater of the mind is not just images. It’s 3D information. It’s scratch and sniff and you can easy easily even taste it. And I’m like gosh this sounds great but it’s it’s clearly not as easy as what it’s says on the pages of the book here. But to be fully immersed, that’s when someone’s in that zone, you know, that everyone talks about where stuff is happening slowly. We’re not worried about stuff, you know, we’re seeing shots, we’re feeling shots, we disregarding whatever went wrong, and we just see the best possible scenario. And and two things I’m trying to get to here are number one, it’s it’s hard to get there. And when we’re there, often times we’re concerned about it, then we worry ourselves out of the problem. And number two is a lot of people will look at this as some crazy elixir because Laura King said and then they go out and they try and do it and then it doesn’t work and then they just bag the idea and they’re like, “Oh, whatever. I’m just going to go on doing what I’ve been doing.” Remember something, you’re talking in 12% of the brain now. We’re having a great conversation and it’s wonderful, wonderful, phenomenal information. It’s all science, too. A lot of your top golfers use hypnotherapists and life coaches and professional people like me. I know a lot of them and I’ve helped a lot of them. So, I kind of know a little bit of what I’m going to say next to you. All right. It is important to realize I’m also teaching you in the book and I’m also supplying you with subconscious mind work, meaning the hypnosis. Okay, gotcha. You and I are talking on the conscious mind of the theater of the mind. Mhm. Well, we have learned scientifically that you hypnotize yourself all the time. When you worry and make a mountain out of a molehill, you’re in an altered state of consciousness doing that. So, that’s a form of hypnosis. Yes. For real. It’s all self-hypnosis. You’re hypnotizing yourself. We’ve learned scientifically that we need another voice. All right. To make the change to make mole hills out of mountains. Okay. Like when I’m working on something, I just did a 9-day NLP training in Orlando with the guy Robert Banler and and my girlfriend was with me and she says, “Laura, what is something you want to work on?” I said, “Well, I’m kind of fine. I’m turning 70 this year and I’m doing great. I’m the best help I’ve ever been and I practice what I teach.” And she says, “Well, I need something or I need another partner to work with during the next nine days.” I went, “Hm, you know what? I’m 69 years old and I have never gone to a gym and worked out. I want to do that for my se one of my 70 things before I’m 70. All right. So, she hypnotized me during the class and I’ve been to the gym twice a week every week since because I want to. It’s already picked in my habit pattern because I got hypnotized to do it. I don’t even think about it. Okay. So what I’m teaching you here is that with what I the book says and what we’re introducing here the NLP techniques and the hypnosis techniques is that it’s bypassing the critical factor between the conscious mind and subconscious mind and putting the stuff in the subconscious mind. So it’s an autoresponder like parking your car. Understood? Okay. So if we want to change our self-t talk, if we want to concentrate more, if we want to whatever the it is, we’re going to use the tools to let the subconscious mind be reprogrammed the way we want it. So really and truly, I’m a computer programmer to human brains. Now, people go, “Oh my god, hypnosis, you’re going to make me say something I don’t want or make me do something.” That’s called No, it’s a lie. There is not a hypnotist on the face of the earth that can hypnotize somebody for something they do not want. Okay. If I could, I’d be really busy because everybody come to me, make me lose weight, make me stop smoking, make me do what I don’t want to do. Yeah. You have to want to to be your personal best in life. It’s knowing what you want. That’s the theater of the mind. It’s knowing that you have some limiting beliefs and some programming in your subconscious mind that’s keeping you from what you want. Okay? If you want something, you have to know what it is you want to get it. Okay? And then you’ve got to check off all the boxes to do it. Meaning your physical. I worked with so many athletes, professional weekend warriors, whatever the they are, cheerleaders, whatever. And I came to find come to find out they weren’t getting enough protein to do their jobs. Fascinating. Okay. Right. Mhm. So, I learned I had went to an study with a doctor at University of Nevada that does a lot of high-end athletes that protein is one of the most important things and I learned this about 24 years ago. So, I added teaching everybody about protein before they think they’re going to do their best performance. That’s that’s crazy. Okay, cool. This and I say that because I’m a believer in that definitely. Um but then you talk about someone golfers for argument sakes that have a big day ahead maybe 36 holes and they’re like I got a carbo alert and so they not doing themselves many favors there. Huh? No car makes you go brain fog. That’s what I discovered with my equestrians. I would be I did like a little when I learned this I go I got to prove it to myself. So I’d ask them and they would have a problem or hiccup going in the ring or my golfer would or my lacrosse player or whoever I was. Yeah. had a cup of coffee and a bagel before I went out. Carb. I go, “Oh, did you have brain fog?” “Oh, yeah. How did you know?” Then you know how I really learned this. Oh, I was sitting with a young man, a kid, helping him with test taking. And I had had a sandwich for lunch. I fell asleep hypnotizing him. The kid had to wake me. Well, you’re good at what you do, apparently. I was so embarrassed. Oh my gosh. That’s when I said, I’ve got to know more. I’ve got to learn more. And because of that, at that same time, I was working at Palm Beach Oncology, working with cancer patients, and I found out that people going through chemo or being fed carbs, they needed protein for the treatment to work better. So, it goes across the board. You want to be healthy, do whatever you have to do, you brain needs fuel. Mhm. I need 82 grams of protein to sit in this chair all day. 82. I would hazard a guess, Laura, that everyone within earshot of your voice and all watching this on YouTube or wherever they’re seeing it, they’re nowhere even close to that number. And that’s a percentage of your body weight. It’s it’s that’s not across the board for everybody. Well, there’s a great I use this one calculator that you can go in premierproin.com calculator. You go in there, you answer the questions. It’s a guesstimate, but it’s a source that I found through MD Anderson and other hospitals that use it. I I feel like it’s a good source. I don’t mind sharing it. Um, and figure get a guesstimate, you know, and and look at how you do it. I do it protein shakes. I do it. I’ve become the expert on how to get it. And the brain, our brains need a lot of things. Like I promote mushroom coffee and I get all my athletes to drink mushroom coffee and they swear by it. I want the brain to work at 100% so I know everything that we’re working on and all their lessons and all their practices and all that they’re doing is working for them. Yeah. Because otherwise it doesn’t work. Well, love it. Look, I’m all in. So, short of getting the book, which folks should get, and we’ll introduce that at the end of the conversation, um or well, short of seeing you, they can get the book because the book will guide them through how to and I’m going to use probably loosely the wrong term, self-hypnotized because I’m still fascinated that you say to me, well, I understand it some, I guess, if I think about it, because your brain looks for patterns. Okay. Yeah. But you know, we can keep on reinforcing the loop inside of our head that under pressure I choke or something to that sort of effect. Whatever your loop, you can insert it here wherever it is. So, let’s start with this because you’ve got six keys to awesome golf. And I’m going to touch on three and folks need to get the book to get the other three. I’ll tell you what the titles are, but Laura’s going to help us dive in, folks. Um, number one, the title is cool, calm, and collected. Your physical state basically going from tense to relaxed. Let’s talk about that. It’s one of six elements to awesome golf. So, talk about cool, calm, and collected, please. When we learn something, however we learn it, the brain memorizes every part of you. We call it muscle memory. we call it. There’s lots of facets to what the brain does. Mhm. And if we’re tense when we’re doing it, it’s memorizing to be tense when we do it. Okay. So then you not just the information, it’s the entire experience. Yes. Okay. Right. And then you memorize that because the muscle memory memorizes it and then you practice it and then they tell you to, oh, you need to loosen up more. Well, then you’re tense and you’re trying to loosen up. Okay. Mhm. What I have learned and this comes true in any sport. I g practice being tense. Now practice what does it feel like to relax. Okay. And sometimes people go, “Oh, I was already tense and I didn’t realize it.” And what some of that is is is whether they’re in in sync with their physical body. Maybe they’ve learned, like I did when I was younger, suck my stomach in, I look thinner. So when I’d go out to do something, I’d be sucking my stomach in. Have you ever sucked your stomach in and try to breathe? I do it all the time, doll. I’m trying to hide my dad belly all the time. It doesn’t work. It just interferes with breathing, which makes you more tense because correct. Then you’re not getting oxygen to the brain and then you’re not going to perform at your peak level. I call it the alarm system because the alarm system start going off in your body and Yeah. Exactly. So if we can learn what tension is, then the calm, cool, and collected isn’t to be someone say, “Well, can you make are you going to make me too rubbery to do my swing?” I go, “No, no, no, no, no. This is helping the brain be fluid. Yeah. Okay. You want fluidity. You want consistency. You want you want to if you’re going to learn a shot, you want to know that shot. You know, you want you swing. You want to know how to hold your club. you and you want to narrow it down to putting together all of the lessons you’ve learned and who’s going to make you better at this and who’s going to make you better at that. Which one are you using at this nanocond of time when you have 30 voices because you’ve taken 30 lessons over the last year. Gotcha. Is to narrow it down and say and simplify it to do the routine and then keep it simple. Then knowing what the difference is between tension and calm, cool, and collected. Gosh, I this resonates with me so much because, you know, I’m 55 and I’ve been playing and teaching golf since I was 13. So I I’m shaped like a turtle, you know, because I’ve been bent over a golf ball for so long. And so as a result, I have like neck tightness and the whole sort of thing and shoulders and so I go for periodic massage. Y and I’ll lay on the massage table there and I find and it’s always in one side of my body and you talk about self-awareness like in my left butt cheek. Now this is a lot of information. So this is so funny because I was going to use that as one of my metaphors. Go ahead. Okay. So in my left butt cheek I always find that I’m tense there and then I have to consciously let that go. That’s where I learned about this tension. This is like 25 years ago. I was in Saluda, North Carolina, and this new person is giving massage. And she says, “Relax your butt.” And I go, “I’m face down on a massage table. I’m really relaxed, sweetheart.” And I’m a hypnotist. I’m really relaxed. And she says, “Please relax your butt cheeks.” And I’m like, “Oh, I don’t know.” She goes, “Okay, tense them.” And I t I go, “Oh, they’re tense.” Didn’t even know it. But I guess when I started getting massages, I felt like if my butt cheeks were tense, the sheet wouldn’t come over and she wasn’t gonna see my dairy ear. Cute. Okay. Right. No, I wasn’t. I didn’t I didn’t care if the lady saw my bum at all. It’s just like this was natural because I guess it’s you know, if you’re having one of these deep tissue sports massages, they get after you a bit. And so there’s this protective mechanism. Correct. And and this occurred to me. I’m like, how many golfers are playing with their hand break up cuz they got this protective mechanism through tension that they’re unaware of? And I’ve always said that tension is the biggest wrecker of a golf swing I’ve ever encountered. That’s why I really really go through the process of making them feel their tension. So then the brain relates to it when it has it again. If it’s learned behavior, it can be relearned. Because learned behavior is learned behavior. All right? So if it’s learned, I can relearn it and I can reprogram my brain to do it another way. Hey, I need to say this. I need to ask this or say this. Correct me or incorrect or or or help me. This recorrecting or this rewiring or reprogramming is not like a once off thing. This is a this is a habit that gets reformed. Correct. Correct. So this is not an overnight thing folks. This is a this is a continuous endeavor like working on your golf swing. Correct. But there’s some simple ways of doing it. One I make a lot of MP3s. The book the way I wrote the book I give you the eye form of the relaxation at the end of each one. You can do it yourself if you want to. A lot of people need other voices to make change quicker. Like I could tell myself to exercise every day and I’m not going to exercise it. I need another voice to do mine. So I did that now I work now I go to the gym so it is the thought process but I educate you what it does why it works and how but the other part is and it’s not one that is continual unless you’re changing something it takes 21 times to change a habit. So of course all my MP3s I say I guarantee this up to 21 times when they see me as a client I take after three or four sessions I guarantee everything we do is in there. All right. It’s not, you know, do I see performance people a lot every week for other things? Yes. But if it’s a change one change at a time, I can do that fear of flying or whatever the fears are. But if it’s a performance, they’re increasing their skill and going up to be their personal best to keep winning tournaments. It is a continual thing. Understood? I I along those lines there too because in cool, calm, and collected, it’s not just the physical relaxation, it’s the relaxation of the mind, too. Yes, sir. Which this sounds like an impossibility to me to be very honest with you. Um, so please direct my attention there. Here’s why. Okay, we’re used to so much stimuli and especially in today’s world with these things. Yeah, that’s a telephone for the audio listeners. Yeah. Yeah, that’s right. It’s a I held up a telephone. Um an a phone, a cell phone. It’s not a It’s not even a phone anymore. It’s still Does anybody have a a phone? I actually used to rather because I still had a landline just in case I got disconnected because I’m 100% virtual. So, I sold my office and gardens and I only do virtual. So, I kept a landline forever. Anyway, um when the brain is in that state of making change and you’re multitasking and we’re used to being that, we can train the brain to be focused. Yeah. To be in your lane, doing your personal best and putting that in the mindset and doing it when you do it like when you drive a car. Yeah. You know, so same thing with sports, same things with relationships, same things for everything. Then it’s the desensitation to desensitize your brain to stress so you’re not stressed. That eats up a lot of energy. Then you learn how to stay focused. It’s actually called batching is what the name of it is. I wrote an article for trainers magazine and I called it which hat are you wearing? Mhm. And when you It’s actually called batching like I said, but you kind of train your brain when I have this hat on this is what I’m doing. Gotcha. All right. When I put this hat on, this is what I’m doing. For performance, for golfers, it is the ability to be hypnotized, to be which hat am I wearing? That’s all I focus on and all else just fades away in the distance. And that focus becomes stronger and that is also incorporating into the self-t talk. Oh yeah. Well, that was the of of the six elements to awesome golf. Positive self-t talk was the other. And I love your by line to it. You wrote, “Replace the inner critic.” Now, now I saw the coolest thing. I’m a big sports fan as you know, and it was this video short form of various clips of athletes before their discipline. And you could see them with their eyes closed speaking to themselves. And then you can hear things like, “I’ve got this. I can do this. I’ve done this.” And and it’s and it’s all this lifting up. And I don’t want to use the term hocus pocus cuz that’s lazy, but people are like, “Oh man, that’s BS.” But it’s real, isn’t it? The self, it’s real because what’s happening to when they’re doing that, they’ve got a whole program in their subconscious mind they’re bringing to the forefront to be present in it. Okay. Mhm. To be present in it. And that mindset of technically your brain is your your hypnotist yourself telling yourself whatever you’re thinking. Interesting. You become what you think. A thought creates a physical reaction and your imagination stronger than knowledge. That those are the natural laws of the mind across the across the board. So with your self-t talk, you’re hypnotizing yourself with your critic, your own voice. Yeah. True. Huh. And so to start off to be realizing of that that inner voice is in some you know there is another part of the brain here that we’re tapping into. As a child, a lot of us were taught not to be selfish and not to be, you know, don’t be selfish, don’t think of yourself, don’t blah blah blah. So, that becomes a limiting belief. If I’m believing I’m good, then am I being arrogant, socially unacceptable, is that not going to look good on me? Then I won’t allow myself to be it. I’ve hypnotized so many athletes that they make it to second place, third place, and they never get to first place because they have a fear of first place because nine out of 10en times they don’t like what that looks like. It’s funny you say that because um a lot of folks have said to me or or they make the observation, they’re like, “Man, a lot of these stars that I meet, they’re so selfish.” And I’m like, “Well, you’re catching them kind of in their office a little bit.” Yes. when they’re not in the office. I’ve had the luxury of meeting some of these elite golfers. They’re not that way in climb. But, but you’re absolutely right. Yes. And that’s what I, you know, some of these people would say this about people that were my clients. I go, “Well, they’re not like that at all, but I can’t say I see them because I keep everything private and I’m hop.” But if the brain has a perception that it the unconscious mind doesn’t like what it looks like, your self-preservation won’t let you become one. Fascinating. So that’s becomes a limiting belief. The limiting belief is that I never win. Well, if you’re afraid of winning and it doesn’t look good on you because you’re a good person and you’re you don’t want to be rude, social, unacceptable, then guess what? You won’t win. This is farreaching to me, Laura, and I’m thinking about this, too. I’m thinking of just physical well-being and health. Um, where people might be taking medication, but they’re like, “This is not going to work.” Same thing. Yeah. It’s I guess it’s this there’s an element of faith and there’s an element of allin to this and and not going to where our mind thinks we’re going to get the result. It’s just diving into a certain belief and making that the new mantra. And what makes somebody believe something if they experienced it? I can say this to you. I’m only on this earth because 48 years ago, my mother found a hypnotist in the early ‘7s cuz I had tried to commit suicide three times. My third attempt, my mother says, “Boy, the drugs and everything aren’t working. I need to find something else for my daughter.” Mhm. My mother found this lady, Dorothy Gates. The woman saved my life. I’m here because of hypnosis. And through the years, I’ve used it for a lot of life experience, health issues. There’s a whole gamut of things. And 27 years ago, my mentor passed away. And I was gifted all her material. Never thought I’d be hypnotist. I have other businesses. I’ve run major businesses. I’ve done other things. And um I got gifted the material. My husband says, “You become a hypnotist?” I said, “I don’t think so. I can’t even speak in front of my Girl Scout trip. I’m probably the only Girl Scout leader that you’ve ever met that had to hire a co-leader. And he says, “Well, if hypnosis really works, you can get hypnotized to do it.” And I believe in I have my my faith. Yeah. And I think God gave me this opportunity to help people. So, I ended up off at school a month later and I haven’t stopped since and I’ve been practicing 27 years. So, what a cool story. It’s a cool story. And and you know, not that the story needed any gravitas, but that’s just pushed it over the top now for for everyone listening or watching this. Truth. Yeah, truth is. And learn about the brain. It’s all science. It is incredible. I’ve been studying the brain now. That’s all I do. I took another nine-day training course this summer. This summer, somebody said, “You tell us taking classes at 69 years old.” I go, I’ll be taking classes till they put me 10 feet under because if there’s something else I can learn about our brain, I’m going to learn it. You know what’s fascinating, Laura? I’m think I’ve got so many thoughts swelling in my head as you’re talking now. And I’m a firm believer. Now, we’re talking about health, but I’m going to get to the golf for the golfers. Um, and I believe that the body, well, the body heals itself. If you don’t believe it, cut yourself and watch your body heal the cut. All right. So, but that everything stems from the brain. Yeah. But we are building our own roadblocks to self-healing. And now if you’re taking it to a golf thing too, you could hit golf balls until the cows came home on the practice tea. Yeah. If they’re these self-limiting beliefs, by extension self-t talk, the inner critic that we’ve dealt with, am I going too far to say that that is essentially a waste of time? the practicing with with no practicing is good as long as you know that you’re practicing it the way you want to achieve it and you’re tweaking something that can get better. Okay? Not only I would say too but I would say too look just the blind act I don’t want to say blind that’s the wrong word just the act of hitting golf balls with no mental engagement with no sub well the subconscious to a certain extent but getting to that a place where you’re all in with this practice and you’re self-aware as opposed to being so interested in where the result of the golf ball is going cuz you are manipul you you are manipulating you’re moving this golf club to move the ball, right? If you’re physically aware, you’re going to be able to move the club better, which moves the golf ball. But everyone gets wrapped up in how the ball’s gone, and they’re completely disengaged with what they’ve actually been doing, and then they go away and the lesson hasn’t stuck. Then they come back to me for the same lesson again. Correct? So, think about that a moment. If you can anchor in and learn words like every time you hold a golf club, you’re going to do your personal best. Are you going to do the right thing at the right time? So you’re always building upon always, you know, every time. And and oh, one of the main things, Mark, I almost I got to say this. The brain doesn’t hear don’t or not. Yes. If I say don’t do something, assume I’m going to do it. Don’t think about the black horse. Okay. I won’t. Okay. Right. So, think about when people do their their golf, they’re thinking, I’m I’m not going to do this or I’m I’m not going to put my ball in the water. Then it goes in the water. I’m not When you really build on that inner voice inside of your mind with awareness of how to control it and say it the way you want it, the better you’re going to do each time, you’re going to increase it. Like my sport is sporting clays. I shoot a 12 gauge and I shoot these little orange things that fly in the air. So, I took a lesson up at the Builtmore the other day just cuz I wanted to go shoot and I had nobody to shoot with and the guy kept telling me what not to do. I put my gun down and I said, “Can I give you my book? Tell me what to do. Please tell me what to do.” Yeah. He goes, “Wow, you’re weird. I don’t care if you think I’m weird. Just tell me what to do. If I want to increase my crossers, if I want to get them more often, what should I do?” And he looked at me and he started telling me what do I got every one of them. It’s cool. The brain hears what you want to do and it’ll produce it. That’s the focal point with a a lesson. And then the focal point with a lesson is anchored to something. Every time I hold my gun, I breathe. Every time you hold the golf club, you breathe and you do your personal best. Your brain will do what you tell it to do. had a lady come to me and she says, “I don’t like the way you use always in your MP3s.” Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I’ve had that said to me as well. Okay. So, she gives me this whole lecture. I helped her turn down her tenitus in her ear. I helped her improve her sport. And so, she comes and we’re talking and she says, “Could you just can I pay you to remake these MP3s without always and every time those words you use?” I said, “Sure, no problem.” He’s got a lot of spending money apparently. I said, “I’ll never tell you always breathe when you sit in the saddle. I promise.” She goes, “Oh, never mind.” You can use always because we want these words. I always want to breathe when I’m doing cuz nine out of 10 times in a sport people hold their breath. Yeah. And can you hold your breath and be fluid? No. Well, your body gets tense if there’s short Well, yeah. I was speaking at Governor’s Club. This was a long time ago to a bunch of golfers. And I was teaching this. This one guy wanted to kind of argue with me. I go, “Stand up here. Here’s a club.” And I said, “Hold your breath and swing.” And he goes, “Oh my god, you’re not kidding.” Mhm. But that’s what we do subconsciously. Yeah. And and and Oh, shucks. I’ve got to say this before I forget because you’re talking about the environment and the anchoring the anchoring words. I love that term. I was practicing yesterday and I need you to either tell me why this is happening or build on this. Um I’ve played golf since Moby Dick was a minnow and my habits um are ingrained and I’m working to get rid of them. Okay. But my habit essentially is that my golf club for a right-hander goes too far to the right for too long and I’m always trying to straighten off my swing path. And so when I was chipping yesterday when I’m hitting pitch shots green side, sometimes when I make that mistake, I hit the ground before the ball and it just turns out disastrous. So something inside of me as I was addressing the ball, I’d look at the ball and then look to the left of the ball afterwards. So inward and leftward. And I swung and something made me turn my eyes to that spot, not the ball. And I landed the club in the right place every single time as opposed to before the golf ball. So it’s essentially and I’m like thinking to myself, man, I’m following my eyes without moving my head. I was just shifting my eyes, right? And it’s amazing as I shifted my eyes forward and left, the club landed in the right place all the time. But as my eyes stayed on the back side of the ball, I’d land prematurely. It’s called a dress rehearsal. Okay. Right. It’s a mental dress rehearsal. All right. You dress rehearse the correct swing. The brain’s going to do what you just dress rehearsed. Well, yeah, cuz I didn’t even make a practice swing. I This is so important. In my shooting, I always dress rehearse before I say pull. Okay. So, in your swing, your correct swing, dress, rehearse it before you swing. But then, Laura, while I was hitting the shot, I’d move my eyes to the same place. I’d actually turn my eyes away from the golf ball and I hit every single greenside chip shot like perfectly to a place where I was almost exhilarated by the results. You know why? Tell me. 88% of your brain knew the correct shot you were wanting to do because you thought it. Preach, sister. Fear of the mind again. There you go. crazy the mind again. Now, that’s not to say that that’s going to work for everybody, but you find that certain thing and and I guess it’s a preparedness to look outside of the ordinary. Is is that what it is here? And it’s training it memorizing what is the correct swing. What is the what’s my personal best? What the personal best is a a thing I teach a lot about because and I really what the brain is doing when you do anything anything at that nanocond of time you’re doing your personal best. I was teaching this to a bunch of trainers one time and they’re like getting upset with me and I’m like why do you think those people are really doing their personal best when they’re making mistakes? I go absolutely a mistake is a learned behavior within itself and if you keep focusing on it keeps being the mistake. So I like to erase mistakes and call them hiccups and hiccups go away. Yeah. So, if I’m making the same mistake over and over again and I’m focusing on it, then it can’t be a mistake and it’s not a problem. It’s a hiccup and I’m going to let it go. I’m going to erase it out of my mind and I’m going to go back to doing what I do. What is the correct way? What is the correct swing? What is what is the the easy way to do that? And that’s another part. How many times do you say something’s hard? Yeah. I had a young man I was helping. He was a college playing golf in college. I was teaching him all this. I said, “Be very careful what you hear and what you see before you get on that golf course.” Next week he said, “Mrs. King,” he says, “I had to ride in the van with the whole team from West Palm Beach to Jacksonville.” He says, “We got about Stewart, and I had already learned that the team we were playing against, we never could beat. and I already learned the course we’re going to go play on is the hardest course in the state of Florida. And all of us just need to accept we weren’t going to play good golf. And I said, “Okay, what’d you do?” He suddenly my chair back and I put my headphone on. I listened to you all the way to Jacksonville. I just kept hitting play. He says, “I got the best score out of the whole team.” That’s awesome. Why? Cuz he didn’t buy into all the things that were wrong with what he was going to go do. How hard it was. how they could never win. All those things are that inner voice that created a limiting belief of his golf, but he didn’t buy into it cuz I just taught him something new to do what I taught him. Brilliant. I’m going to just let that breathe for a second then and then I’ll get to the last one. Again, six keys to awesome golf. The first one is calm, cool, collected. Then there was positive self-t talk and we’ve obviously spoken with about elements within. Then there was um gaining concentration. Then there’s release of performance anxiety. That’s a big one. Um then there was mastering fear. And then key six achieving peak performance. Now I wanted to talk about releasing performance anxiety. But I figured I’d go to the next one and I’m picking three out of these folks. And you can obviously get the book and look into all of them and learn the mastery of self hypnosis. And then this is not like kumbaya stuff. This is just controlling your thoughts. Okay. Mastering fear, your mental state from terrified to intrepid. And I love the word intrepid because I picture this explorer that’s going into the middle of the jungle that has he has no he or she has no idea what’s in there. But you’re just going in there like Indiana Jones. And and so many competitive golfers or golfers at large could benefit from that sort of a mindset. It’s about learning how to be in that lane of not really absorbing what’s around you. It’s about a focus point because we all have what we call negative hallucinations where we don’t notice things unless we focus on them or unless we have a program in there that something’s wrong with them. How come one person can get on the interstate and get on not bother? How come some person can’t even get on the ramp? The brain will create the fear of the unknown. Now, we’ve tapped into a couple little things that are limiting beliefs, which actually are a fearbased thought. The fear of looking like somebody that is arrogant, rude, and socially unacceptable, or the fear of of not winning or the fear of what is going to happen. Fear is a big word. Okay? Fear is created by an experience. Usually, usually the brain has to have a some sort of event that created that fear of the unknown cuz you didn’t know what it was. When you move out of fear and you start feeling comfortable number one in yourself and trusting where you are and having that belief system of your skill of what you’re doing, fear subsides kind of on its own. Okay. In golf, the only fears that really come up in a physical one is bodily injury at certain times, but there’s no real fear of you getting hurt, unless there’s a rainstorm or something like that, unlike other sports like, my brain just went to bull riding. That there might be some real fear there, I would say. So, or my extreme motorcycle rider going 180 miles an hour around the corn, dragging his knee. Anyway, um so the brain is not making up a fear with golf, but it could be fear that is embedded in them because they could have had an injury sometime on the golf course like you mentioned your neck or your shoulders or you know different things. But the other fear becomes a story in the brain of what it feels like to really want to win. Really really you you want it more. You can taste it. You want it so badly, there’s only one winner. And then you’ve got to do so much to get to that point. Then when you see what that outcome is you want and you have what we talked about before, the limiting beliefs that you, you know, I just don’t want to be arrogant, social, I don’t want to look like the winner. Now that story creates a fear. Is that real or imagined? That’s imaginative. Thank you. So imagine fear can be just as detrimental as a real fear. So this this walks hand in love with performance anxiety as well then. Right. They kind of all kind of go in together. This is funny. years and years ago was asked to um do a a thing at Trump um golf course with a ladies LPGA tour and I was going to be on a panel of a lot of golfers and I was just getting into this genre of my career and um I’ve had a lot of performance anxiety in my lifetime but I got hypnotized out of it and I started speaking and I started being on shows and whatever and I go in ballet park and I go and I go walking I go I should have some fear or have some sort of performance going on inside of me because I at that point I really didn’t know a lot about golf but I knew I was a good hypnotist. All right. Thought I was at the time. And um I said, “Well, where’s my fear? I should have something cuz this is way out of my wheelhouse.” Mhm. And I go in the bathroom and I sit in there and I’m sitting there going, I don’t have any. And I remember going in and sitting on the panel and having the best time of my life. My brain was wondering, I I should have had some because don’t you don’t you have when you’re out of your element? Yeah. Not when you got rid of it and you don’t get it back. Oh, what a liberating space to be. I I guarantee everyone who’s listening to this going, I want to be there. And it works. I went into interview with Rachel Ray. My PR person was taking me in for the interview. I’m fine. I’m a happy camper. I’m in New York, excited about going in blah blah blah. And she gives me, she’s in the fashion world, and she says, “I got this new lipstick.” She says, “Do you want to try it?” And I putting it on. Sure, sure. I’m putting on. She goes, “It makes your lips get a little pumply. I don’t want that.” And she goes, “It’s too late now. You have it on.” So, we don’t talk for a little while. We go on the elevator. We go up. We’re sitting there. The girls are interviewing me and I can’t talk. The plump stuff stuck to my teeth and I couldn’t talk. I’m like, “Wow, I don’t have performance anxiety. I feel very comfortable be here, but I can’t talk. I had to run in the bathroom and wipe my lips off and everything.” Sometimes we have to overcome elements and things we don’t expect. Yeah. Mhm. And the more you can find that balance in your personal best self in life, you can manage whatever occurs. Learn that about your golf game. learn that about life cuz stress, worry, and anxiety affects so many things. And it could be about the oddest things. I picked up my bottle of water one day and I said, you know, it’s like a simple bottle of water and my client starts having a panic attack on the other side and I’m like, whoa. I go, what does that bottle of water represent to you? Oh, my trainer used to hit me with a bottle of water if I made a mistake. Gosh. Okay. And I went, “When you go to the ring, how many people offer you water to drink with a bottle? Does your anxiety get worse and worse before you go in the ring?” She said, “Yeah.” Talk about a limiting thought. I hypnotized the beeers out of her that bottles of water are easy, fun, happy. Got rid of that anxiety, stress, and fear attached to that bottle of water. She never had it again. So, you don’t know what the triggers are unless you start figuring them out. Okay. Yes. So, then I must ask because I’m so thankful for your time. Here’s the book. If if people go through the book, and I can see this happening now because I know folks that’ll be like, I’m getting the book and then they get the book and then it sits on the bookstand and they don’t they glance at it and then they never get through it and then they justify their behavior. I might be talking about myself and then they justify their behavior with I’m so busy and then you look at a little bit you’re like that’s cool but you don’t really dive in and you don’t complete what it represents and then you don’t listen to the MP3s. But you can do that then and still get to this place where you can neurolinguistically program yourself to be in a better space and to have all these improvements and to play awesome golf without seeing Laura King, but they could see you too. So, please tell for the folks where they can do both. It was easy. Um, laur king.net. laurainkking.com. I’m all over the place. Actually, you can actually go to YouTube and listen to some of my stuff for free. Um, I don’t just promote myself. Anybody that had you like their voice, get used to somebody’s voice. And I can say to you this, if you get an MP3 and listen to it at least 10 times, you’re going to see change in your behaviors. You’re going to see change in your golf game. So, it I really do put the easy button on everything. And people say, “Well, I didn’t listen to the MP3s.” I go, “Well, I just sent you one.” And I go, “Was your finger broken?” And they go, “What do you mean?” It is zero effort to hit play when you go to bed at night. You fall asleep listening to the MP3. You get a better night’s sleep and you wake up and you’re putting it in your subconscious mind. They call it sleep learning. So, that’s easy. That’s easy. If anybody can’t do that and improve their sport after they’ve gone out and taken a billion lessons and they practice, practice, practice, this is pretty easy, I’ll say. So, it’s way easier than practicing. So, the MP3s are available on the website. Yes. Lovely. Yes. And are you the book goes on Amazon.com? Uhhuh. And are you on social media? Because that’s what everybody does. Handles same thing. Laura King. Yep. Is that your handle? Because when I was searching for you online, I found another Laura King from the University of Missouri. Yeah. She writes books on psychology. And it’s funny because some of the stuff she writes about, I go, “Yeah, I know. I know. I know. It’s pretty cool.” Yeah. It’s Laura King, hypnotist, hypnosis, um, NLP, Power to Win. There’s a lot out there. Awesome. Golf now is out there. Um, it’s out there. You’re a superstar. Thank you so much. It’s, you know, you got me thinking, so I know you got the fans thinking. Um, and again, you said you’ve made the easy button for folks. So, just go and press the button and make a difference, right? Yeah. Think about easy button. Every time you step up to play golf, let it be easy because it can it’ll get easier and easier every time. And if you want to, you can Google what the science is behind that theory. I didn’t make it up. [Music] [Music]
