2011-09 – September 2011 Coaching Hour – Conquering Fear on the Course

Changing Score and Judgment Thoughts and Dealing with Those Who Haven’t

 Gil: Jeff Wolfe’s in the airport tonight, and he’s going to leave on a plane. He’s going to have to board here in another 20 or 30 minutes. So we’re going to turn it over to him. And, Jeff, you have sent me several emails talking about some reflections of what you had thought about after the coaching hour about how fear affects you on the course. Do you want to summarize that or go into some of those  things?

 Jeff: Sure. I think one of the things that I wrote after the last coaching hour that kind of struck me when we were all saying goodbye was how much my perception of what other people think about my score is, and that’s derived from what I think when I look at a scoreboard. You know, you walk up to the scoreboard and you look at a score and you say: Jeez, how did it get so hot today? I wonder what was wrong or: Jeez, that guy did really well.

And for the most part I would allow myself to be driven by that, you know, I don’t want to post a bad score because what’s that going to look like to everybody else.

But when you think about it, I mean, how many times do you remember when somebody shot poorly and how many times, you know, when somebody shot well. You know, your real friends, your real buddies might come to you and say: Well, you did well today and I thought it was better than your average and congratulations; but not too many people are going to come up to you and say anything about a bad score unless, you know, maybe they want to rib you about it, which is another issue.

So for me it was I allow myself to get stressed out by what I think, like the NSCA records all of this stuff and people can look it up and there’s a record of it, and I don’t want to have a bad record. So for me that’s an issue, right? That was one of the issues I was reflecting on.

I was going to go on to a different one, but you want to talk about —

 Gil: Go ahead. No. Go ahead and go to a different one.

 Jeff: Okay.

Gil: And then we’ll talk about it. Yeah.

 Jeff: So the other one is sort of related. One thing I find is, my mental management and what happens to me while I’m shooting is different based on who the buddies are that are around me when I’m shooting.

 Gil: This is a big deal. This is a big deal right here.

 Jeff: Yeah.

 Gil: This is a big deal.

 Jeff: And it’s not necessarily that anybody intimidates me or makes me feel good or makes me feel bad; but, you know, there are certain guys I know who are jokesters and don’t really take the game seriously, and I allow myself to fall into that; or there are guys who have always shot better than I have until recently. And so I watched them and I try to do it like them. Each squad is a different makeup of individuals. And so, for whatever reason I have my best days when I’m shooting with people I don’t know, which is interesting.

 Gil: Well, I don’t think it’s as much unusual as you might think it is. All of the scenarios that you’ve described are simply passageways that you’re going to have to go through to become the hardened competitor that you’re looking to become. What you’re experiencing is a very normal human reaction to performing in front of people.

I think I was talking to Shane about something similar to this when I said performance fear like you’re talking about is a programmed reac- tion to a perceived set of circumstances. I didn’t realize how prophetic and how profound that statement was when it came out. I was just in my zone one night talking to Shane, and he was talking about some of the things he was experiencing. I’ve even forgotten about what he was talking about. I just remember what I said.

And like it or not, fear is a programmed response, and typically in a performance situation it’s a response to a perceived set of circumstances. It’s not reality. And that’s one of the ways that fear gets into your performance. And eventually, as I said before, you’re going to have to go through all of these little things to become the hardened competitor that you’re looking to become.

I was talking to Tom Murphy earlier today about some of the tournament experiences he’s been having. He’s been shooting very soundly. He’s been in the top ten in almost every tournament and then sometimes in the top two or three, shooting in the mid-to-high 80s and low-to-mid 90s. I think the last tournament he was in Craig Hill beat him by only three birds.

But he’s talking to me about all of the different sets of emotional circumstances that he’s having to go through. It’s his first year as a real competitor in master class. He punched in last year before Nationals,  and he shot some really great scores this year, but he’s found himself like Ron Bacari and like Shane and like you and like several other people have said to me that they’re shooting well, but they’re not necessarily scoring well, and that’s something that you just have to accept. It’s part of what it is you’re going to have to go through to figure out what it is that makes you become the competitor that you can be.

I wish there was a magic formula that would keep you from having   to go through all of the emotional roller-coaster rides to get past the fear, but it’s all part of a learning  process.

Tom today, he was still having a little trouble with some first station jitters, and I’ve been counseling him on being very patient with himself in letting him know that if that’s his only problem then all we’ve got to do is fix one thing; but that’s not the kind of thing that’s going to get fixed overnight, and it’s the kind of thing that everybody who has ever been a top competitor has to face; and the struggles that you face when you’re facing them are, in essence, the things that make you a stronger competitor.

Tom said to me: I felt myself getting jittery and I felt what it did to me. I thought to myself, now, I can either fear those butterflies and I know what that’s going to get me; or I can look at those butterflies as a signal or a cue for me to get excited and to be on my game because it’s about time to start the shoot and I need to be alert, aware, and very focused about the process of what I’m about to do.

And he said when he did that at the last shoot it was like a com- pletely different person shooting. Now, again, it was the same circum- stance, but he reacted to it in a completely different   way.

I’ll never forget Dean Olson. I used to have it up here on the wall, and I don’t know what happened to it. Dean Olson had to go through the same thing, that he was worried about the way people were thinking about the way he would shoot and what he would shoot, and I got to tell you. People remember your good performances a whole lot longer that they remember your poor performances, and poor performances are just a part of getting better; and if you worry about how bad you’re going to shoot, you’re going to shoot  bad.

But Dean said to me – and I’m going to paraphrase here – not only should you not judge yourself by your score, but others shouldn’t judge you by your score, either.

And I got to tell you when we competed years ago, when we would get to the end of the shoot, I would always give my competitors credit for breaking everything I missed and everything I hit, and it wasn’t until after I had won several shoots by six or eight birds that I realized that they’re going to miss, too, and they’re struggling, too.

Don’t think that you’re the only person that’s facing that thought    or facing that fear. What you want to be is one of the people who can look at that fear as what it is, a programmed reaction to a perceived   set of circumstances and change the reaction. If it’s a reaction, you can change the reaction. You can choose whatever reaction you want to to that set of circumstances.

When Vicki and I began as professional teachers I had performance anxiety; and when we would go to places, I would want to know who they were and who our students were, what kind of level they were. And finally I told the story on the coaching hour a couple of times. We were going to the airport and I got a little upset because Vicki didn’t know much about the students, and she finally pulled the car off the freeway and said: Look, damn it. You’re the best instructor on the planet. Why are you even worried about what kind of problems these students are going to have? Because it doesn’t matter what it is.

We’re going to solve the problem anyway. So just get off my back. Well, once again, my wife put me in my place, and I began to worry much less about how well we were going to perform and began to concentrate on process, look at it and see what it is and go about solving the problem. And I have to tell you. It changed the way we look at things. Now when we’re going to an engagement, like we’re leaving tomorrow for South Carolina, I don’t care what level of shooters we have. What I’m looking forward to is having fun teaching them, and it’s changed the whole paradigm for us.

You can do the same thing with competing. You can look at com- peting as a test and be afraid of missing; or you can look at competing as being an opportunity to go and learn something and be looking forward to having some fun and seeing what you’re going to  learn.

But, as I said, it is a reaction. It’s much like Shane was talking about when we started the coaching hour. Shane, didn’t you feel some of the same things that Jeff was talking about feeling when you first started after the advanced school and you first started going for score?

Shane: Yeah. We talked about going for score; and I really wanted   to punch into master before I came to the advanced school, and I was trying so hard that there’s no way that was ever going to happen and came back and punched in on a day that I was just messing around.

And, just like he was talking about, we talked about this a couple of months ago. We do this to ourselves because everybody stands around and talks about, oh, you know, just like you said, this guy, he really had a bad day or this guy really had a good day, and we condition ourselves that way from the first score we ever played. There’s winners and then there’s everybody else.

And so that all builds up to the conditioned response for me you were talking about. The more I dwell on that the worse I’ll do, and it’s all the same. I mean, it’s the same doubts and everything. We talked about how doubt comes in and he brings all of his buddies with him and none of them are good for the party.

 Gil: That’s well put. I have to tell you, and it seems as though the more you want it and the harder you try the more elusive it becomes.

 Bob S: Gil?

 Gil: Yes?

 Bob S: The other issue, and it comes out of the books we’ll discuss later on, a very cogent comment, is that the reason it’s so hard to stay in the new you is because everybody else is in the old you. They’re all judging. They’re all worried about the same thing, which is what happened a moment ago. It’s going to create the future instead of just dealing with the realty of the moment which is what you just talked about a moment ago.

 Gil: Yes. And another way to put that is never be defined by your last shot.

 Bob S: Uh-huh.

 Gil: Always been defined by your next shot.

 Bob S: Be defined by the one you’re taking?

 Gil: Yeah. Always be defined by the one I’m going to take next. If you think that was good, hold my beer and watch this. Always be defined by your next shot. If you have that mantra, then you’re always looking for the next challenge.

I never will forget. I think it was 92. I shot a skeet tournament and won the whole thing on a bet with a friend. I missed two targets out of 500, and I was in a shoot-off for high overall. I was tied with a real skeet shooter, and I was a sporting clays shooter, and I was chosen to shoot first; and as I went through the shoot-off stations, it was doubles from three, four, and five. I shot my double from three, and I took my position between Station 3 and Station 4 back on the sidewalk. I never even knew if he shot.

Once I got off of that station, I was thinking about the double from four first. I was visualizing what I was going to do; and when the referee went to the next station, I went over there and I took my place on the station and I set up and I called for my birds, and I just smoked those birds, and I walked off that station and walked over between four and five and waited on him to shoot.

The referee came down and got on the station and, heck, once he got in his position, I walked down to that station. I shot from five. Smoked them both. Went back towards Station 4, just was back in the background. Went to Station 4 on the comeback side, and I’m telling you I don’t even know if the guy is shooting. I’m so focused on what it is I’m about to do. And I shoot mine and he shoots, and the referee kind of walked over towards Station 3. I went over to Station 3 and I got ready to shoot. The referee came over and said: Mr. Ash, you’ve won the shoot-off. I didn’t even know he was shooting. I was so focused on what it was I was about to do. On the process of being engaged, I was having more fun being anxious to be defined by my next shot, and I was smoking them. I mean, I was autopilot. I was in the zone.

The crowd laughed. I heard them laugh, but I didn’t know what they were laughing at until the referee came over and tapped me on the shoulder and said: Mr. Ash, you’ve won.

I said: I have? Yes, sir. Mr. So-and-So missed one on the last pair. I said: Well, don’t worry. I’m sorry. I was kind of enjoying shooting these free targets. So I was determined. I was so in the moment that it didn’t matter what the other guy did. I was there. I was doing my deal, and  I would back off of that and I would relax; and after the two shots I started thinking about what I was going to do, and it was all about process, and that’s what you have to stay with. If you start thinking about result in our game, if you start thinking about result, chances are expectations are going to come in.

What was it, Shane? You said doubt and fear and all of them other people come to the party and they’re not good?

 Shane: That’s it. They bring all their buddies and they ruin it.

 Gil: Yeah. And they ruin the experience. Jeff, did you have anything else you want to talk about?

 Jeff: Well, not really. I just would say that one of the things for me that’s been a revelation recently is I heard people talk about all of this, and I try to think about what it means to me and what kind of mental state I’m in when this happens. But I never really could recognize it, and I’ve had a few incidents in the last month where I could recognize when I’m doing everything right and it’s working.

I can’t always get there, but I know what it feels like now which is different than what it was before. I would try harder. I would try to do different things, and it really wouldn’t work because I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to be doing mentally; and now, you know, I can recognize it when I’m doing it, and now it’s a matter of getting better at doing that. Does that makes sense?

 Gil: It makes all the sense in the world, and I think that you’ll find that everybody wants to take the shortest trip. Everybody wants to get there with the least number of shots. Everybody wants to get there with the least number of failures; but it’s the number of shots and it’s the quality of the shots and it’s how many times you’ve failed and learned from the failure that determines how quickly you get there and how long you stay there and how good you become when you get there, and I think that’s more of the paradox than anything because typically when people try to learn things they try to learn them without making mistakes, and it’s the mistakes that allows your brain to understand    how to adjust the firing of the neurocircuits, and it’s something that you just have to go through.

I go back to what I was talking to Murph about today, and he said: You know, I’m shooting as solid as I have ever dreamed I could shoot. I’m shooting really strong. He said: I’m just a little out of the winners, but that’s okay. He said: I feel better than I’ve ever felt before about my game.

We’re going to get together and work on rabbits a little bit. Earlier this year I was talking to him in the President’s lounge at one of the airports we were in, and he was saying: I’m having intermittent target problems. And, you know, he’s got one eye, his right eye because he’s right handed; and he was trying to shoot left handed without a left eye, and I switched him, switched shoulders on him.

That’s just a joke, Shane.

But I kept talking to him, all right, which direction are the birds coming from, what it’s doing, yadda, yadda, yadda, and then the same thing tonight when I was talking to him. And he said: You know, every rabbit that I’ve had trouble with comes from the left. That’s the side of his blind eye. And we talked about earlier this year how he was going to have to experiment with some hold points and some focal points that would help him make up for not having that left 35 to 40 percent of his visual circle operating with him; and, as we talked today on the phone, he began to realize that every rabbit that he had trouble with was coming from the left.

So I’m excited that we’ve isolated something that we can go out and work on that I think that I can help him with just by shooting some left-to-right rabbits and working with his hold point. He has a tendency out of fear on a rabbit, because he sees it with one eye and not two, to move the gun too fast. That’s the optical illusion that the rabbit creates. And if you want to see what he has to see, next time you’re out shooting rabbits close one eye, close your left eye and look at that rabbit and see how much faster that sucker looks like it’s moving, and that’s what Tom has got to overcome.

And he can do it. I have no doubt that he can do it because he’ll run 50 or 60 rabbits shots in a row and then he’ll miss four or five; and it just one of those things, up jump the devil and there it is. But I’m convinced that the problem is the illusion that he sees one-eyed creates a little panic and a little fear which brings the muzzle up above the line of the rabbit and brings it back to the focal point, and I’m looking forward to going and working with him on that. I just think it’s one of those things that we’re going to have to help him conquer, but his attitude is perfect. I mean, he’s there.

It Never Happens When you Try Too Hard

 Gil: Greg Espenhover, are you here tonight?

Greg: This is Greg.

 Gil: Hey, good. You finally got the punches you need to make into master class?

 Greg: Yep. It took a long hard journey, but, you know, you care too damn much and it does no good for you. When you just go out and shoot, you shoot pretty good.

 Gil: Yeah. That’s a lesson that we all have to learn about, doing different types of performances in our lives. I know the last time I had to get up and give a speech Vicki and I were sitting at the table and they were introducing me, and I looked at her and I said: Well, it’s time for me to go have a little fun now, and she just laughed.

And I went up to that podium, and I had an absolute ball delivering that speech. I mean, it’s just how you look at it. I’m so excited to go to South Carolina tomorrow because we’ve never been to this facility, and the people there are excited to have us and I’m excited to see what we’re going to learn there as opposed to worrying about whether or not we’re going to be able to get somebody fixed.

What do you think was the thing that helped you get over the hump? Was it actually just not worrying about results and going to have fun?

 Greg: I think so, Gil. I’ve been trying so hard to win; and this weekend, I didn’t prepare anything. I just threw junk in the car Saturday morning and took off, going to a club I like to go to and shot with somebody new and just kind of shot. And then I went over to Austin and hooked up with Gary, and we just sort of shot.

Sunday was kind of interesting because we shot the Main event and everything was quick, and not the targets and not my move, but just my eyes were just too quick. And the targets were real deceptive. They were close and fluffy; and if you didn’t look at them and slow down, you were not going to be in the right place.

And as the day progressed, I mean, I got into a rhythm; and by the time I got around to the five stand, you know, it felt great to shoot the five stand. I haven’t had that feeling in a while; and I think I was two or three birds off of winning the whole thing in five stand. So I was real pleased with the performance, win or not, and I walked out of there relaxed; and I didn’t care if I won or not and, lo and behold, you come home and you look at the scores and you got what you needed.

 Gil: I’ll be darned. Well, it’s a tough paradox when you’re trying to learn that stuff. I know two years ago you were frustrated about trying to do it, and it’s one of those things that you just got to let it happen, and that’s a cliche statement. I realize that. But trying too hard is not going to help. I think everybody on the line has at least tried that once.

And, Jeff, I’d go back to you and say that the one thing that I talked to Tom Murphy about today that I’ll share with you again is   to be patient wherever you are and whatever you’re learning. Always look for the lesson to be learned, and there is lesson in everything that you do. And if you continue to learn, you’ll continue to get better; but evaluating prior to the last shot, sometimes evaluating score at all is not the best thing to do.

What you need to concentrate on is what you learned today, and the next time you go to the shoot, when you walk up to somebody that you haven’t seen in a while, put your hand out and shake their hand and say: You know, I haven’t seen you in a while. How are you doing? And if they start telling you how bad they shot, tell them wait, wait, wait. I don’t care about that. I want to know how you’re doing. How are you? I haven’t seen you in a while. You never know. You might  be surprised how many times people will tell you how bad they’re shooting when all you want to know is just how they’ve been doing.

An Exercise in Fascination and the Art of the Possible

 Gil: All right. Bob?

 Bob S: Uh-huh.

 Gil: I’m going to throw it to you now.

 Bob S: Okay.

 Gil: Go ahead.

 Bob S: Recently a few weeks ago I had the opportunity a second time this year, because I didn’t make it to the advanced school, to be at one of the clinics up in Colorado, and it was a two day for me, and it was a two day earlier in the year in April. Both of them had good payoffs for me.

But this second day in Denver was exceptional, and it was exceptional because everybody in the group, though not perfect — and I’d include myself in that. We just had a great deal of fun trying different things. There was a tremendous amount of sense of the freedom to go beyond the usual, do something different, perfect something a little bit more but always with the sense of freedom. And it’s rare that I have been with a group of people that I had a better feeling with at the end, and I thought maybe it was me; but then I talked to Bev Benzing who’s been down to the advanced school. She had exactly the same impression.

In talking to Gil, he said it was one of the easiest days of coaching he had in a long time. Is that a correct assumption or comment?

 Gil: Very much so. Very, very much so. Everybody was a very willing participant. And I think the underlying thing was that people weren’t there to keep score. They were there to try new things, like you said. They weren’t afraid to miss. They weren’t trying to make a statement. They were there as students, and I think the catalyst was Bill Metcalf (phonetic), the little short guy.

 Bob S: Uh-huh.

 Gil: His enthusiasm about watching the bird come to him, he couldn’t get enough of it. He was like a six-year-old kid in his first movie. I mean, everything was a carnival ride to him, and I think his enthusiasm was contagious to everyone else. What do you think?

 Bob S: I think that’s true. That was day one, and Bill, I think, must be in his mid 70s, don’t you think, Gil?

 Gil: He’s pretty damn old. He’s older than me.

 Bob S: Well, he seemed older than me, but maybe that’s another issue. But it really was like watching a kid in a candy shop for Bill. He just couldn’t believe that reaching himself out in a different way got such unbelievably good results, and he really did jump into it in a beautiful way. I mean, it set up making my next day a good day, too. It reflected a lot on the conversation that you and I had had before, and you’ve directed me to Fred Shoemaker’s book on Extraordinary Golf, and the whole thing came together as I was driving away the next day. I went: You know, this was just an exercise in fascination, and that fascination really did make for a tremendous uptake in awareness, and that allowed me to just enjoy the shooting. I think I did better in many ways, but especially just to enjoy it at just a tremendous level, even though it was a lesson where we have somebody like Gil behind you.

 Gil: I think that was a compliment.

 Bob S: It was.

Gil: Well, I have to tell you. I keep going back to the Fred Shoemaker book, and from what you told me he’s got a new book called Extraordinary Putting; is that correct?

 Bob S: That is correct.

 Gil: I am going to get that book as soon as I can get away from the gun range long enough to go to the store and get it or get somebody to get it for me, but his first book changed Vicki’s and my approach to teaching dramatically. The way he puts things and the way he talks about turning things loose certainly helped us communicate on a level that we could not communicate prior to reading that book, and I have to tell you that I’ve read that book – I’ve bet I’ve read it 20 times. It’s one of my favorite off-season books.

 Bob S: You and I in conversations we have frequently discussed books, and I think we’ve read almost all the same ones, and I have never read one that had the clarity of this to reach you over and over again at a very good level to work with.

 Gil: If you haven’t read this book, it’s called Extraordinary Golf by Fred Shoemaker, The Art of the Possible, and I can’t wait to read his other book. There is a time lapse photograph in this first book and the camera is set up looking at someone hitting a ball, and it’s set up directly across from the ball so that the ball is between the camera and the golfer, and all you see is the top of the golfer’s head; and he puts the golfer through what he calls the club-throwing exercise. That’s where he gives the golfer a club with no ball in the picture, and he just tells the golfer to rear back and throw the club. And then he gives the same golfer a club with a ball in the picture, and now the object of the swing is now the ball, and the physiology of the golfer changes dramatically; and, to me, that’s a testimony of fear.

When they were throwing the club, there was no fear about hitting the ball, but when the ball entered the picture, that’s when fear entered the picture, and everything they did was directed toward the ball. The idea of a golf swing is just a circle, and the ball just happens to share one point on the circle, therefore, the swing is the same every time. And I never had associated that the difference in the stroke was fear until just the other day when I knew you were going to talk about this. I began to think about that. I went through the book and looked at it.

And I have to tell you. I know that we’ve talked about this several times on the coaching hour recently, but this fear thing is big, and there are different exercises that you can use, that Jeff could use when he’s in a situation. We may talk about those a little bit next month. There’s different ways that you can look at the situation or the results that you’re getting much like Greg did when he was trying to punch into master. I’ve got to tell you. He was damn near driven insane trying to win, but the problem was he had so many other things going on in his life he couldn’t dedicate enough time to try to win.

What he needed to do is dedicate more time to just going out and having fun, and I think that was the reason he was able to score his punches and get into master class. Now, although he’s punched into master class, I think one of the big things, which he emailed me earlier today, is that he needs to look at it for what it is. It’s just another level.

And rather than doing what Craig did, which is trying to act like   a master class shooter for six months and fall on his duff, I think Greg just needs to go in and just act like Greg and look for something to learn each and every time he goes into a shooting situation. Sometimes that’s hard to do, Greg, but I will tell you that in our teaching and even in our shooting, I’ve been shooting a little bit more recently. I’ve been working on a new, thinner, lower profile stock for Krieghoff, and I think I’ve stumbled onto something that’s just absolutely out of this world. But even in my shooting, rather than worrying about hitting them all, I’m focused more on process, which is something we touched on last month when we were talking about score thoughts with Bob Palmer.

 Gil: Bob Shannon, did you have anything else?

 Bob S: Yeah. Just to give you an idea because you haven’t seen Extraordinary Putting , but also, about Extraordinary Golf, you can go to Page 33 in the book if you find it in the library and read the letter from your future self. It is a tremendous experience, and I wanted to –

 Gil: Tell them a little more about that.

 Bob S: When you read this book, frankly, I’m 65 this year and I read this book.

 Gil: Damn, you are old.

 Bob S: I thought this guy has got to be 70 until I saw Extraordinary

Putting. There’s a picture on the back cover. He’s about 50 which shocked the heck out of me. That’s how good his observations are. But the letter from the future self is at the end of a time in your life when you can actually enjoy your sport what would you have told your younger self about how you should approach your scores. The letter is two-and-a-half pages. If you don’t get it from that, don’t buy the book, but that letter is dynamite to the point of anybody I’ve shown it to says I’ve got to get this book.

But I want to quote it, but I’m going to change two words, and you’ll figure out the words very quickly from Extraordinary Putting, and it’s this: most shooters typically approach a shot trying to remem- ber what they should do based on what they’ve done in the past, and then they go into a mode of anticipating or hoping about the future, thus they’re never actually in the present moment, and this is true for most of us. When we’re truly in the present, shooting becomes physical. We experience the environment through our senses instead of think- ing about it. It’s the difference between falling in love and reading a romance novel.

 Brian B: Very good.

 Bob S: And I think that’s a good expression of what he hits you with over and over again.

 Gil: My. And the letter is to yourself, right?

 Bob S: Right.

 Gil: From the future?

 Bob S: Yes.

 Gil: From having mastered the game you want to master?

 Bob S: Or not having mastered it but gotten as far as you could.

 Gil: Gotten as far you could, what would you tell yourself.

 Bob S: Exactly. If you are now telling yourself at 25 — the biggest problem is most of us at 25 wouldn’t listen to that anyway, but that’s another issue.

Gil: Interesting.

 Bob S: But it is a tremendous observation, and it’s rare that you read somebody who is honest about his own foibles and how he actually understood where he has gotten with his coaching and with his game, and he’s pretty good at it without making it a boring story. He really tries to turn you on to the concept that I think most of us on the coaching hour from my conversations with those that I’ve met and those that I’ve hear is that we stayed here because we’re fascinated with what we’re doing.

 Gil: It is a fascination.

 Bob S: And that is the key to the whole thing. It’s staying fascinated, passion. Exactly.

 Gil: Yeah. It’s a real passion. I have to tell you when we first began to do this in 2001 I went to somebody that I bounced some ideas off of, and I said: This is what we’re going to do. And he said: It’ll never work. And I said: I don’t care. And I didn’t care. I could see how it would be a hard concept to sell, but I have to tell you there have been quite a few of you that have been on for quite some time. I know Brian Brewton has been on since the very first one, and he has seen it evolve, and it has been a motivator for us to always come up with a new way to say something and a new way to approach something every month that we coach. And you-guys are constantly pushing us. Some of you more than others, Shane, but you-guys are constantly pushing us.

And you’d think, Bob, that when we talk about books that people ought to read that they’d go and get them, but sometimes they do it and sometimes they don’t.

 Bob S: Oh, I think you said something about Fred Shoemaker’s book two or three times before I finally went out and got it, and I sure wished I had gotten it the first time you said it.

 Gil: I’ll tell you again. It changed my approach to coaching, and one of Vicki’s customers gave it to her. And we were on a plane back from Sun Valley, and it was one of them small planes; and I read about the top paragraph, one of the pages, and Vicki was getting ready to turn the page. I said: Just a minute. Let me get to the bottom of that page. And she said: This is my book. I said: Baby. And she said: Baby? Get away from me. This is my book. You know?

But being the loving wife and friend that she is, she got me a copy of that book within two days when we got back. And I now have a dozen of them in there on the filing cabinet, and for people that won’t buy them, I’ll give them a copy. It’s just an amazing book. It puts things in a perspective that very few people that I’ve ever read have put them. They’re logical and they make sense, and there’s some subtle humor in there that really makes the book read easy.

Anything else, Bob?

 Bob S: I just mirror what you just said, and that is that I had given a few of them away, as well; and I have challenged the people when they’ve come back and said that was really a great book. I said: You know, the toughest thing is you want to go back and read it right away. Almost every one of them has already restarted it.

 Gil: Oh, yeah. Shane, didn’t you take the Talent Code book and give it to people where you  work?

 Shane: I had it with me one day, and we were waiting on patients to show up. And I had it out reading it and one of the doctors just kind of came by and glanced at it, and I told him I thought he would find it very interesting, and he just kind of turned his nose up. And I said: Here, I’ll tell what. Just open it to any page and read half the page and then you have to give it back. And I gave it to him and he just opened it and read half a page, and then he actually flipped it around and took his phone out and took a picture of it so he can get it at the store whenever he got off of work.

And I’ve done that four or five times, and every one of them     has been the same reaction. They look at me like I’ve got something growing out of my forehead, and then as soon as they get halfway through a page, they’re hooked.

 Gil: It’s just amazing the journey that we’re on, and we’re proud to go on it with you.

Accepting the Gun in the Picture

 Gil: I’ve got about 10 minutes left. I want to share something that we’ve talked about before, but I had the privilege of coaching two fellows in St. Louis last Sunday, one we’ll call old John, who Vicki had coached the day before and done an excellent job with, and the other one we’re going to call new John. He’s fairly anal like most   doctors.

Don’t take offense. But he’s a perfectionist and we’ve had him before, and I just keep getting flabbergasted, gobsmacked, if you will, about how fear plays such a huge role in success and in inhibiting our success. I worked with both of these guys on one thing, just one thing. Well, that’s not true. That’s not true. The big thing was accepting the muzzle in the photograph, in the picture, accepting the muzzle in the shot. Not looking at it, just accepting the fact that it’s going to be there.

New John wasn’t able to come to us but one day this time because of his schedule, and he had taken the beads off of his gun. He had a custom stock made by Wenig and had about a half-quarter wood in it and a big rolled-over cheek piece, and he was jittery. He was walking around, kind of had like a nervous twitch, and he was trying hard and I said: What do you want to work on? He said: Try not to look at the gun. And I said: Well, why do you look at the gun? He said: Well, you know, I want to get the lead right, but I don’t want to look at the gun. And I just stopped and he looked at me and I said: Now, let me make sure that I understand what you just said. You’re trying to make sure the lead is right and at the same time trying to not see the  gun?

And I didn’t say another word. I was proud of myself because that’s hard for me to do.

 Bob S: That’s a Shoemaker lesson, by the way.

 Gil: And I waited and new John finally said: You know, that really doesn’t make much sense, does it? And I said: No, sir, but if you will put yourself in my hands, I’ve only got two of you, and we can shoot about 300 rounds each today. If you’ll put yourself in my hands and just accept a couple of things, I believe I can get you past where you are right now and give you something to work on that will really improve your shooting.

Now, I take this from a dissertation that I heard Stevie Ray give down at the advanced school one time when we were talking about target presentations. We had set up a series of targets that had varying crossing points and varying speeds in the crossing points, and the lesson was to show all of the students how when there is confusion, if you can accept the fact that there is confusion, accept it and tell yourself what you’re going to do after the confusion, you can make the confusion go away.

I think I did that with Greg and Gary and Tom Murphy and Rick Clay when we did a lesson this last year over at American Shooting Center. I told them how to accept the confusion and tell yourself what you’re going to do after it. And I took a page out of Steve’s book, and I said: Let’s just all understand that if the bird is coming from the left – you’re both right handed – the bird is going to be on the left side of the gun, but the gun is going to be there.

And if it’s coming from the right, the bird is going to be on the right side of the gun. You got to look across the gun at it, and it’s going to be there. We don’t have to look at it, but it’s going to be there. And they were both looking at me kind of like the RCA dog, and I began to explain peripheral acceptance to them and how peripheral acceptance means. In the beginning it means lead, how far can you let the gun go in front of that bird without wanting to know where it is, and eventually peripheral acceptance begins to be how far you can play in front of the bird and let the bird come to the lead and watch the bird come to you. And if you can ever play far enough in front so that you can see the bird coming to you, you won’t look as much at the gun, but you’ll automatically begin to see the line of the bird as it approaches the gun because you’re accepting that the gun is going to be there. Okay? It’s already there. It’s okay to know it’s there. And as the bird comes to the gun, you’re going to see that the line gets real straight; and when the line gets real straight, goodness, pull the trigger. You’ll hit that bird. It doesn’t matter how far it is.

And Vicki had done a masterful job with old John, and I had a new John. I wasn’t sure he was going to buy in. It was tough. It was really tough, but I have to tell you the transformation that occurred in those two shooters that day was nothing short of phenomenal.

Once I got them on a target that they could actually see the bird coming to them and they could see the line, new John who had taken all the beads off his gun, that was trying to see the lead without looking and focusing on the gun – new John began to see the line;  and because he accepted the fact that the gun was going to be in the picture, he quit looking at the lead. He could see that line, and I’ve got to tell you. Both new John and old John began to move and mount their guns in flawless precision. It was as if they had no fear because they had accepted the fact that it’s going to be there.

They both go in and they’d start hitting targets, and they wouldn’t just chip them. They would pound the targets 10 times in a row, 12 times in a row, 14 times in a row; and they both look at me like: Is this really happening? Yeah. It’s really happening.

But the big thing to me was when they finally accepted the fact that the gun is going to be there – it’s okay for it to be there. We’re not going to look and see how far the distance is between the bird and the gun. We don’t care about that, just accept that the 500-pound gorilla is in the room, just accept that the gun is out there, just be able to accept it and not worry about it and see the bird coming to them. These two guys, they’re not polished, accomplished shooters. They’re not. They would be the first to tell you that. But the result of accepting the fact that the gun is in the picture diminished the fear of lead. And as they went through the day, they turned into shooters that were very precise, moved very little and got giddy with excitement.

The reason I wanted to share that with you is because those people are inside all of you. The takeaway for me was that the three-bullet drill is really important. Getting used to what that picture looks like when the gun comes into the picture, when the bird comes to the gun, accepting the gun is going to be there, it’s okay, it keeps you from being startled and it keeps you from looking at the gun. It’s okay to know it’s there, but we’re not going to look at it and draw a reference point. Fear makes you look at the muzzle and the gap. It does. It does. I don’t care who you are. It’s still happens to me. It still happens to me. It’s going to happen to you, but if you can accept it – it’s kind of like Greg finally punching through to master class.

Greg, I have to tell you. The more you can accept the fact that the gun is going to be there and that you can see the picture of the bird coming to the gun, when you see that happening, you pull the trigger and you blow that bird up 15 times. Something that they both said was it makes it so much easier to visualize what it is you’re about to do. You can actually see that picture happen and see the bird blow up just by simply accepting the fact that the gun is out there. There are a lot of people that try not to look at it, but fear makes you look at the muzzles and the gap. Fear. Accepting the fact that the gun is going to be in the picture.

I wanted to share that with you. I was bowled over with how quickly these two old men began to move and mount their guns with such precision, slow motion. They were flabbergasted. They’ve never shot that well before in their lives, and it’s a testimony to what we’re teaching. Accept the gun in the picture. It’s going to be there. We’re not looking at the gap. What we’re doing is watching that bird come right to it, making our eyes go to the front of that bird; and if the gun is out there, it’s okay for it to be there. It’s supposed to be there. It’s got to be to be able to hit it. We don’t want to direct too much attention to it, but it’s got to be there. It’s got to be there.