Mastering the Mental Game with Dr. Joe Parent: From Zen Golf to Mindful Eating

Unknown: 1:09

Sure. Dr. Parents, how are you?

Turo Virta: 1:14

I'm very good. How are you? Thank you for your time and coming to myself.

Unknown: 1:19

Oh, I look forward to it. I was just listening to your podcast about people struggling and I think we're we're very much on the same page.

Turo Virta: 1:30

Yeah, no, I would love to I don't know if you have received any topics What, what I wanted to cover but

Unknown: 1:39

yes, I saw I saw the list. I'd like to kind of mix it both with the sports and the dieting because I think people are tuning into your podcast very much for fitness, including a pretty ugly dieting and nutrition and listening to the podcast. I was a wrestler in in high school and so I know about that weightless about the guy start your friend young friend starving himself. Yeah. So I was familiar with that. And, and the clean plate. I actually have a chapter. There's there's my diet book and there that's in it's in German as well. Oh, wow.

Turo Virta: 2:29

I didn't know that. Yeah, I

Unknown: 2:31

did it with a coach named Lars Furman.

Turo Virta: 2:36

Oh, that's great. Yes, I do live in Italy, but it's a German speaking part. And I do speak German. So yeah, I recognize

Unknown: 2:44

the address looked like it was in to the tiro area near Yeah. Yep. Yeah. So anyway, I just thought you'd like to know that it's available in German as well.

Turo Virta: 2:56

Awesome. Awesome. Let's get How about time like? We let the conversation flow and I'm sure we have a lot of things to talk. I got introduction, I start recording soon, how long time you are available for recording that I

Unknown: 3:15

have the whole I have the whole hour and we can take we want to you can cut an edit what I was going to tell you as I listened to your about your childhood and the clean plate, always needing to finish cleaning the plate. And I actually have a chapter in the diet book called the clean plate club. That that if you have that habit you know that from childhood you know it's it was people in other places in the world they're starving so eat your finish your your meal Yeah,

Turo Virta: 3:48

yeah, no that's that's that's so interesting. Like it's, of course I'm curious to know but I can't wait to start talking with you and see because I'm like from my background. That's why I thought that because I haven't covered like, like a performance and I'm I'm icop Excited to be professional. And I still I work now probably with the Italian National Ice hockey team in and it was it's something like I have clients who are who are athletes. I haven't I know that I haven't blogged about it a lot in my podcast and I saw that about this opportunity but but this is I like the idea to combine it with the weight loss and diet because obviously they are going hand in hand. And so let's get started with recording.

Unknown: 4:35

So I also wanted to tell you just the other day I had a lesson with a student that I talked to every now and again he was he had he was on his way from a golf tournament to hockey training camp. He's both a golfer and a hockey player.

Turo Virta: 4:51

Oh, yeah, there are a lot of hockey players. They actually they love to play golf like we

Unknown: 4:58

you know, they know how to shift their weight onto their forward foot. Oh yeah. And and get through to their to the opposite side. Right in their follow through. It's very much like a golf swing. Yeah,

Turo Virta: 5:12

but I never believed myself golf. I never started it but I know that when I was just shooting something it was it was always like I was they don't be right away that you are shooting the ball like a hockey player and that it's not the same, but you don't need to use all your force and power.

Unknown: 5:32

Yeah, but you know, nowadays, it's actually gonna be more more like that. Anyway. Yeah, well, we can talk some more.

Turo Virta: 5:41

I love this set. And let's get started. Get started with the recording and then we can talk everything. Okay, awesome. recording in progress. So welcome to fit meter fitness podcast and today I have an amazing guest, Dr. Joe parent. He's the best selling author of 10 called Mastering the mental game, the best diet book ever seen of losing weight and a walk in the woods, meditations on mindfulness with the pier named boo. He's a performance psychology and applied mindful woman Miss expert who has coached athletes, actors, artists and execute the lives as well as consulting with businesses and organizations and counseling individuals and families for more than 30 years. Dr. Chou also hosts regular tune systems offering free teachings and guided instructions in the practices of mindfulness and compassion, meditations to help people all over the world make it through these challenging times. So that's apparent. Welcome to sell.

Unknown: 6:51

Thank you Turo. Happy to be here.

Turo Virta: 6:54

I'm excited to talk, talk with you about everything and I'm sure we have a lot of things to cover. But your three books at St. Golf, St. Denis and sin of losing weight are on very different themes. What is the common thread with all these books?

Unknown: 7:14

The common thread for all all the books are they are based on mindfulness and awareness and the principle of everybody having a certain level of competence and needing to develop unconditional confidence in that in themselves. And then I have a habit changing system that I introduce based on mindfulness, called the ninja system n i n j A. And you know, a ninja is a secret warrior. And this is a subconscious training program to change habits. And the letters stand for necessary intention, non judgmental awareness. So first, you have to have a necessary intention. You have to have a goal that you have what you want to accomplish, have the habit you want to change either to cultivate a habit that you want to do more of, or to refrain diminish. Reduce a habit that you want less of. For example, if you find that you eat until you get really really full, and you don't like that feeling afterwards, but you have the habit of just not knowing when to stop. This system can train you and new train to stop sooner and then you eat less and you feel better. So but you have to have the intention. So necessary intention, and then not beating yourself up. When when you fall short. And that's really important in in sports and dieting in life, to not beat yourself up. So it's non judgmental awareness. You simply notice and by simply noticing and mixing that with your intention subconsciously you move toward your goals.

Turo Virta: 9:19

Yeah, of course, this is this is something like what is what is in performance and but also invaders they are even they are kind of totally different things, but there are so many similarities. So if you if you think it like this is like what you mentioned about like, overeating or that kind of stuff. If he took that little bit on on that, that weightless side, like how you are how you are going. What do you tell someone or how you describe your journey, when you want to get rid of that habit? What kind of steps you should start taking or?

Unknown: 9:59

Well, again, there it's the first is to decide that you want to make a commitment and I was listening to one of your podcasts how everybody in January makes their commitments. We call it a New Year's resolution that I will resolve to do this. And those usually last about two or three weeks. And by the end of January, you fall back into your old habits. So you have to continually reinforce your success and learn from your mistakes and have in writing somewhere, what your intentions are, what your goals are now, I like to separate goals and objectives. So my goal might be to lose 20 pounds but if I have that goal of losing 20 pounds, and after a week I get on the scale and I've only lost a half a pound I might get discouraged. So instead I like people to have small objectives, little little goals on the way to the big goal. Now there's a saying question, it's a riddle. Can a mouse eat an elephant? Yes, a mouse can eat an elephant how one bite at a time. So you have to take very, very small, small steps. So when people want to have a weight loss program, I say okay, you want to lose 20 pounds eventually. Let's start with two pounds. And so if you've gone from 100 100 kilos, down to 98 or pounds or kilos, you know down to 98. Okay, that's your new base. If you find yourself going above it, you have to tighten a little bit. If you find yourself going below it, you can relax and loosen a little bit but we always want our program. I have a chapter in Zen golf and it's also in my diet. Book. Not too tight, not too loose. If we get too tight, we start to raise our expectations too much we beat ourselves up and get frustrated. If we're too loose, we don't make any progress. We have to have a little bit of discipline. So find that middle way find that middle ground.

Turo Virta: 12:21

That's that's where it's at. It's on a paper it's easy to say but then in real life. It's hard like when you get what social media are getting those expectations that what is what is normal expectation or what you should expect. So it's really finding like that really realistic expectations.

Unknown: 12:42

Yes realistic because the the difference between your expectations and your results are is your frustration I actually have that equation E minus r equals F, the difference between your expectation now you have two ways to reduce your frustration, improve your results. So it's good to work on that and lower your expectations and ideally you want your expectations to be just a little bit above the level of your results. So you keep moving forward. But if it's too far from the your results, you'll get frustrated and give up. So what we want to we want to keep you rewarded. So if your goal is to lose one kilo that you can do that and get that reward if it's to 20 You might be a year before you get your award and you'll run out of you'll run out of enthusiasm before then

Turo Virta: 13:41

how is how this is this is like also same kind of principles that in sports and as you work with athletes, and how do these principles of tin like you wrote wrote that book that intersect with the high pressure world of competitive sports or basically any sport

Unknown: 14:05

Well, the way that I work with that is to, as you said, the realistic expectations, to start with your preparation and say how do I prepare? And again, the key principle is to get out of your own way. And get the most out of your abilities. Now in sports and this applies to dating as well. What the but let's let's focus on sports and Zen golf. So I worked with both worked with 1000s of golfers but the top ones were Vijay Singh, originally from Fiji of Indian Indian descent, and Cristie Kerr on the LPGA Tour The women's tour and helped both of them get to number one in the world. When I first started with Vijay he said I've been out here a long time. I've played these courses many times I know where the bad places are. And all I'm thinking about is how to avoid them. And for Christy it was I know I can hit perfect shots. Why don't I hit perfect shots all the time. So there's two really good examples of working with the top level of athletes. And the first is shifting your focus. Taking the the negative possibilities into account but not making them your main thing they cause interference interference comes from worry about the outcomes. And Christie came up with a great acronym. An acronym is word the one little word that you make out of the first letters of each of the other words. So the words worry about results. The first three letters are w a r. War, so she's got to worry about results. I'm at war with myself. And that's the key. We find ourselves. We get in our own way. And if if we get out of our own way, our abilities may be perfectly perfectly good enough to accomplish our goals. Yeah, now that doesn't mean that you still don't need technical training and increasing your skills. But you first you need to say how good are my skills I the only way you can measure that is you remove the interference and the interference in performance comes from worry about results. And and the way that it shows up is you either try to do more than you're capable of and help it go there. Like I know Turo, you're a hockey player. And you think, Okay, I've got to, I've got to hit this slapshot extra hard. Wait a minute. Well, then you you lose your balance, and you actually hit it worse. The other one is, oh, I've got to try to not miss so. So one is trying to help and do more. The other is trying to avoid the mistakes and then you become tentative and and you start trying to prevent it from going where you don't want it to go. So in golf, you're either trying to help it go, like go farther or turn in the direction you want more, or you're trying to avoid the trouble. And so you hit it very far in the opposite direction, which still doesn't help you and then the last is, well, I have to be extra careful and guided. And being extra careful in golf in sports really doesn't help you because you hold back and you don't perform to the best of your abilities. You don't want to be wild and care less. But you don't want to be careful. You want to be care free, free of care, free of worry. So if you clear out the worry about the results, you shift your focus from outcome to process focus on doing your process and let the results take care of themselves.

Turo Virta: 18:24

That sounds good and it's like a it's an individual sport, but it's it's also in a team sport like like from my background. I I played ice hockey, it's it's now long time ago and I'm still refereeing but it's don't even it's the same sport. But it's totally that like, like you said that more you fall was like there is why those athletes why you have some hot streaks. Everything is going on your way because it's it's that what you are feeding your mind what thoughts you are feeding Are you believing you are focusing on the performance maybe you don't even think about it too much you are doing your job and doing whatever you can instead of if you are if there is a kind of cold streak that nothing is working and then it you are very good even more and more and then it makes things even worse. Correct? Correct. So how it is then was there some if we don't live a bit about pressure like Gosh, many athletes, you know you they're struggling with the pressure is basically when there's some people moments in a game or maths and how often those datings guide them in these situations.

Unknown: 19:42

Again, it's to focus on the process. You know, Tiger Woods was famous for rolling in these amazing putts on the last hole to get into a playoff or to win a tournament and someone asked him, How do you do it? And he said, I read the putt the best I can which means predict the path that it's going to take. I get a feel for the speed and other uphill downhill with how fast the green is the best I can and I put the best stroke on it that I can and then I see what happens. And just the so I teach the see what happens approach rather than I need it to come out this way. If you need it to come out that way. You're putting the pressure on yourself. But if you just do your job and see what happens, you know if it's if it's football, and I'm talking about international football, which Americans call soccer, but you know it's football. Your job is to do your job on the field. Pass it when you have the chance shoot it when when the opportunity is right, but not second guess yourself. Not try too hard and not hold back. And that happens by focusing on your skills and your process. And again, letting the outcome take care of itself. You know, I'll tell you a little story. I was working with Vijay Singh. We were at Pebble Beach very famous golf course Big Deal tournament in and I been working with him for a few months and he was standing next to his amateur partner talking with him and I I took the club the driver out of the amateurs bag, not my own club, you know, just this guy's club. And Vijay said, Hey, Doc, I've never seen you hit a shot. Let's see what you can do. And he teed up a ball for me and now this is not my club, not my driver. I did not have any warm up. And as I stood over the ball, I said, if I try to make a good swing, I am doomed. All I can do is my process. Trust my feel. Go through my sequence, get my rhythm and then see what happens and I hit not a great shot but a pretty good shot. And he said not bad though. That's pretty good. And I knew that it was purely mental and his caddie came up to me afterwards and he said, You know I was impressed with you before but now I'm really impressed because you hadn't warmed up or done anything and your swing isn't all that great. The only way you hit that shot was with your mind. So I'm very

Turo Virta: 22:40

impressed with though but this is this is like what is what is now people are starting to talk like when I was it's 2030 years ago you have been long or in a business but 2030 years at least they didn't use any mindful Coetzee's or, or thinking like it was like either you had it or you didn't have it. And now it's kind of like at every professional have some kind of mental coach and helping to go through these struggles and arrows. It's it's really like those differences on top. It's so small and everyday if you think your physical abilities there are how many players or athletes are with the more or less same physical abilities. But exactly the difference is comes with the dose, mental things and sifts what you make, and this is kind of something what is that he's not only athletes is This is that same mentality. It applies basically everything in life also if you think like a weight loss, business or anything like that, what you are feeding to your mind. It's often that outcome what you will get also, yes, that's

Unknown: 24:02

why I do business consulting with executives and I do keynote speeches for companies and work with performance in every field. Because it's how you bring the skills you have the talent you have to bear and get the most out of it. As you said, the mental abilities are the difference when I started. There were literally you could count on one hand the number of mental game coaches. And now as you said it's proliferated. And and I'm very gratified because my book came out a long time ago Zen golf, and people are still reading it and I coach a lot of students who weren't born when it was written, but now they actually talk about that as Oh, he was really in a Zen kind of state of mind for that performance. And so it comes back to the work that I've done for the last 25 years and in in coaching this. You know you asked about pressure situations and the real pressure doesn't come from whether we're going to perform as well as we hope you can sometimes we perform as well and you get a bad bounce or you get a bad break or the other person just happens to have their their record setting day. There's nothing you can do about that. But if you fall short, it's really a question of your own character. And when we think of expectations of others, you know, they don't expect someone to perform their best every single time. They're looking at their character. How do they handle it when they don't? That's the really the most important thing and and it comes back to what I was saying before. Not beating yourself up giving yourself a break and saying okay, I made a mistake. What can I learn from it? So in addition to the preparation before performance, and before, is when you're starting your diet, when when you're going to give a talk or conduct a business meeting, lead a business management retreat, whatever it is, it's a kind of performance and you want to prepare for it the best you can and and to prepare the best you can you have to also be accepting of all the range of results so that you have realistic expectations. Then you perform and then the most important thing is what can I learn from that? How do I reinforce my successes and learn from my mistakes? And if you beat yourself up, you can't learn from it. You can't think straight if you're bent out of shape. So you have to clear that frustration feel it. That's our motivation. We're angry at ourselves a little bit, but don't hang on to that. Just say okay, what could I have done better? And what will I do next time to prepare better? And that way, you have a cycle of continuous improvement?

Turo Virta: 27:14

Yeah, it's kind of what is what is like do do kind of debriefing like it's it's it's in a in a beta but if you if you are in sports is the same like usually usually don't take the time to analyze what have happened, like what kind of data you have got, what have good results you have got. And then like learn from it, either keep going make assessments and keep moving. But or if for some reason something didn't work but because now nowadays people I especially if you go for weight loss or it's in athletes, it's a little bit different, but therefore weight loss like there are so many diets out there, and if something is not working, then it's either my own fault or diet fault or when it's not working and it's often like that. You probably even are seeing results but you just don't realize that you are actually making progress and and that is the worst thing that you end up quitting while you make actually progress but you don't measure it in the right way or or understand that what kind of realistic realistic exit expectations you should have.

Unknown: 28:27

Yes, that's right. And that's why I liked what you said. You have to take a deep breath and calm down. And then I call it be the objective detective and emotionally reflect on the situation and say, what were the things that led me into doing it? In a way that wasn't as good as I know I can do and therefore what do I need to prepare for better next time? What were the situations that I put myself in that made it difficult for me to stay on my diet? What were the situation? What was the way that I prepared for my event that that I didn't perform as well as I know that I can when I'm not in pressure situations, what do I need to do to strengthen my my mental capacity to handle the pressure and not let it make me worried about results again? So, you know, I You talked in one of your podcasts about people's approach to diet of being a hopper, you know, and the funny thing is, it's just like you said, just before they start to get the results, they quit and change to something else. Yeah. And it happens oh, it's in so that's why I talked about acceptance and patience to give yourself a chance what happens as you're developing new skills this is important for people to understand. There's a plateau that happens and and subconsciously each element of the skills that you're developing, start to come to the similar level, but until they all get to a similar level and gel and come together. You will always be a little better in one and not so good that day and the other and then vice versa in other situations. And and so your perform overall performance is going to be level and a plateau and you'll feel frustrated that you're putting in the work but you're not making progress. Patience, give it a chance to gel and suddenly there'll be a breakthrough when it all comes together and you will move to a new base level. And then you'll feel like Oh I am so glad I waited I was about to switch to another program. Yeah. And other people just switch just before it all comes together. And then they have to start over so it and then they get discouraged and say and as you said, Oh, I'm not good enough to do this or there isn't a diet that really works for me. But that's not true. In fact, I in my in my diet book, I don't have a diet. Yeah, no, I have no menus. I have no recipes. All I have or set of you know suggestions for how you can change your habits. We I'll tell you one of my favorites. Okay. And that is put your utensils down. After you take. Let's say you cut a piece of meat with your knife and fork you put it in your mouth. Put the knife and fork down. If you have a spoon and you're eating something with your spoon, eat the spoonful and put the spoon down. Then sit back, chew it, taste it and you'll slow down so you won't be eating as fast. You'll feel full sooner because you're eating more slowly so you won't eat as much and it'll taste better. You'll enjoy more. So the need for the flavor that we all have get satisfied sooner. Just doing that people lose weight just putting their utensils down after each bite, feel better and lose weight.

Turo Virta: 32:12

That is it's it's it's one of the biggest and best skills I gave you if you want to learn how to maintain lost weight or or having healthy weight is to learn to eat mindfully and this is something what now like if you look where the world is going how habits have changed and how people are it's everything is you are eating in a hurry and it's Go Go Go taking something and eating while walking. Or going and because you don't have time to eat, and this is all done leading to another issues and problems. And this is what what really made me like I I'm I'm it's a wonderful example. This is what we were in vacation and and in hotel. All the breakfast having a breakfast and and I was looking there was like a lot of parents with the small kids and how they were they were small kids and how they were parents eating like it was it happened every single day. Same pattern. Parents put for a kid phone in front of them watching some playing some video game or watching some movie. And at the time parents were feeding their kid that and I was like I don't I I'm not here to justify what is what is. If it's like you know if it's probably better than not eating at all. But if this is like a pattern and habit what they are repeating for the rest of their lives, how that child can learn to eat mindfully at some point if if they throw up like this way that they have been watching and being distracted and tasting nothing.

Unknown: 34:06

I'll tell you what else is happening. For their whole lives. They will not be able to watch TV without eating something while they do it. Because Because those two things psychologically have been paired together. So watching and they won't be able to eat without watching TV, and they won't be able to watch TV without eating. And that's actually worse.

Turo Virta: 34:28

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. That'd be space. Interesting. Like do you have like you don't like like I mentioned in my earlier podcasts that I struggled with weight I still struggle like those habits which are coming from childhood and, and finishing everything on the plate. Not wasting food and that has been a big thing for me and I still I have been improving it. I have been practicing it, but it's still it feels like that it's so hard to break that habit even you know very well what you should be doing

Unknown: 35:05

Yeah, well, you know, the, it's, it's actually good not to waste. And we know that that's part of the problem that we know that it's it's a good thing not to waste. But if we're already full, you know, then then it's pushing. It's kind of saying well, I don't want to waste. I don't need to eat this. And it's probably not good for me, but I don't want to I don't want to waste it. And we have to be able to say okay, how can I work with this? Uh, one thing I do. Very often in restaurants, they give you big portions. And so what I do is I say can I have a takeaway container at the start of the meal, not at the end. And I and I take at least a third of what they've served, maybe half sometimes I put it in the takeaway container before I start and then no problem and I get two benefits one I eat less right there. I get to finish what's on my plate. And especially if I liked what I had I get a snack. You know, tomorrow, have more of the same Delicious, delicious food. My wife and I knew that we'd each take our half and put it aside and then the next day I would have what she ordered and she would have what I ordered. So we get both. So there are little things you can do like that. To change your habits that aren't traumatic that don't really interrupt what you're doing, but they make it and then you start getting used to eating smaller portions. Instead of putting you're putting your meal on a big dinner plate. You don't have your main dish on a salad plate. It'll you can fill the whole plate up. It'll look nice and full. But you're gonna be you're gonna have taken a smaller portion to start with. And then if you finish it you won't be stuffing yourself. Yeah, yeah, these are all suggestions that I have in my book. Yeah. And, and in Zen golf, as you said, it's really I wrote it to be a life book as well as a golf book. And the same thing for Zen tennis. So there's there are plenty of things in there that people even if they don't play the sports, those sports can use in other sports and in any performance that they do. Yeah,

Turo Virta: 37:43

those are those are by the way those books. They are mastered. So, go through go to we will talk later where you can get them. But you aren't now when you are when we talk a little bit about that app performance. And I want to talk a little bit about when you have that embrace having challenges. So it could be this is also again something like what could be related with better performance or athletes athletes but also in in a weightless. So how can athletes use those principles to turn challenges or setbacks into opportunities? For growth and learning?

Unknown: 38:27

Well, that's very much what we talked about and that is to to stop. Calm down and reflect and say what can I learn so that I can do something different? If we made the most important thing, again, is not to beat yourself up. If because if you beat yourself up, it actually reinforces the behaviors that lead you to make the mistakes because we get extra attention paid to them. You know, we respond to attention. And if we're beating ourselves up, it's negative attention, but we're paying attention. So it's really important to just say, Okay, I understand I make a mistake. Nobody's perfect. And that's really important to cut down on this idea of perfectionism. And to say, Everybody makes mistakes. It's okay, give myself a break. And I'm going to start fresh tomorrow and continue on my program but nine not get discouraged in sports. If you're having a slump, very often, you're trying too hard. And you're not you're not going back to your fundamentals. So that moves us into the difference between performance and training and, and, and the difference between a training session and the actual competition is to understand the difference between skills practice, and performance practice. Skills Practice you're learning part part of what your overall goal is, you're learning a particular move a particular kind of shot that you take whether it's hockey or golf, or tennis, a particular stance and setup and posture that gives you the best chance to produce the shot that you want. All of these little parts and those you don't have to have the whole thing. You just work on that part to develop that skill. But when it comes to performance practice, you want to simulate the game time performance the best you can simulate that and create as close to that pressure situation as you can even if you're just visualizing it if you're just imagining it because imagining the pressure is as close as you can get to feeling the pressure. So when you're playing golf if you're on the driving range or the practice range, and you want to do performance practice, tee the ball up and say say your name, announce your name as if you're being announced and picture that there's lots and lots of people around watching you. And that imagination will get as close to the performance and pick an area out there that's imagine a fairway and that you only have one shot not a bat not a bucket of balls. So you can practice in your training sessions in a way that simulates the game. That's why they have scrimmages. Half the team gets on one side half the team on the other and one half of the team is supposed to imitate the way that your opponent is going to play. They call that the scout team that that they actually try to imitate the opponent so you are ready for what you're going to experience in the competition.

Turo Virta: 42:00

Yeah, is this is like gross. I remember seeing like from Tiger Woods like how he was practicing those presser situations that was it. His dad was playing drums and doing making some noise while he was practicing those shots and and that is it's obviously it's it might not be always possible if you don't have somebody to play drums or having a if you're playing in front of a lot of people but even imagining of those situations is helping right. So but it's because there is there is that concept of like when you are in a show like I didn't there's like you are on on a hot streak or in your soul when when nothing else matters that how you can get that like if you if you I remember that I when I was playing hockey, it was very few times that I was getting into there like it was maybe in my case it was maybe one one time in a year or something that you really were so focused that you don't if somebody doesn't know what it means, it means that you are so focused on that game that you don't like usually like I don't remember anything on that game or it didn't matter how many people were watching there. I was just focusing really on that one every shift after shift. And and this is this is like obviously that was the probably the best games when you are in that zone. So

Unknown: 43:36

my co author of Zen tennis, a gentleman named Bill Scanlon, who sadly passed away died of a brain tumor just a couple of years ago and much too young. He played a perfect set in tennis. He won six games and did not lose a point. Not a game a point. He will every single game at love note gave up no point and he did not know he had done it when he finished his the referee the referee, the umpire said, Mr. Scanlon Do you know you you want every point he said, I know 606 I won all the games. He said, No, not every game every point he said I did because he was so focused his only job was returning every bowl that came to him. It wasn't about the score. It was about his process. And so the same thing happens. I was coaching a young lady who we've used the ninja system to train her out of worrying about what the score is going to turn out to be and she finished around and she won her match and thought that she had four birdies in the round and she had heads she made seven and didn't didn't realize it and that's the zone that we talked about, which means we are so into the process. We have no thoughts about the outcome. And and we are completely out of our own way. It is available all the time to all of us. It's just very rare that we can we let ourselves access it but using the techniques that I teach of mindfulness and awareness, and low and managing your expectations in a realistic way and having a positive vision for what you want to accomplish. It invites that experience more and more and more so it happens more more often. And you know, and I work with people all over the world to do this. And nowadays, it's so wonderful. We have these video conferencing tools. So it's almost like being in the same room with them. I even have players who take their phone or their tablet out on the golf course with them. And I get to do a playing lesson with them from 1000 2000 5000 miles away.

Turo Virta: 46:07

Oh yeah. Yeah, it's really it's really makes it so many different ways possible to do that kind of stuff, which obviously earlier was not even basketball. So then, then how it is how it is then like of course this is like kind of athlete stuff and if you if you are not some dope athlete that how you could incorporate that chin into your daily life like to have kind of, if you like, individuals, how are you going to incorporate those teachings EXIF kind of more like a sense of balance and purpose.

Unknown: 46:48

Well I work with sports coaching, I do business coaching and life coaching. So when when we get on a zoom or FaceTime or WhatsApp or whatever the platform it you know, I don't have a canned program. When I started working with Vijay. He said, So tell me what your program is. And I said, You are my program. Yeah, here's what we're going to do. We're going to try a lot of different things. And the ones that don't work, I don't have any investment in whether they work or not. I only have investment in if they work for you. So we'll use the ones that work for you. And we'll just drop the ones that don't. And so it's it's a we're going to, we're going to develop the recipe until we make that perfect dish that we want and not use a set recipe from a cookbook. Yeah. So if I work with somebody in their life coaching very often it you know, you know it's either something to do with our relationships, something to do with our own bodies, like getting fit, losing weight, getting more fit, being able to compete, even if you're not a professional athlete, maybe you want to do a distance run and train yourself for that. So anything in our lives, and then in business it's always a kind of performance. Yeah. So it's not that different than sports. And, and golf. Each moment, everything is always new, you know, in in tennis, yeah, there might be a little breeze but if it's an indoor court and it's the same kind of surface, it's exactly the same dimensions. Every golf course is different. Even if you play the same golf course. They might put the hole on the green in a different place, and it changes everything. So So Every moment is new and that's what our lives are like every moment. of our life is new. So it's not saying okay, I need a list of all the things that I can do to handle myself. I have a story in Zen golf of a student who goes to his Zen master and says, you know, I know this is gonna take a long time. And it's a lot of information. But I want you to give me instruction on how I can best handle myself in every possible situation that could come up in my life. And the master said, Oh, I can tell you that right now. In just one sentence. conduct yourself in your life in everything you do as if your five year old child were watching you. Wow. Then you will be at your best you will always do your best. Wow,

Turo Virta: 49:44

that's so good. That's so good. At what when you when you didn't you talked about those individual needs like that you need to customize and obviously because it really depends on everyone but there is no one solution. What works for everyone like it's not like in diet there is not one solution is what is right on for everyone. So how do you tailor those teachings to swing like a bird individual needs?

Unknown: 50:18

Oh, that's exactly why I did not put any recipes or any menus in my diet book because it's they're not going to work for everybody. But the habit changing technique works for everybody. Yeah. And so we the first thing we do, and I think you might find this interesting and a lot of my clients are surprised when I say this, instead of saying so what's your problem? What do you want to work on? I start by saying, Tell me something that you do really well. It whether it's in your sport or in your business or in your life, tell me something you do really well. And so we start with that. Then I say okay, I'm gonna take your ability to do that which I clearly you have confidence in and and move that into the other areas that you want to improve. So I never talked about strengths and weaknesses. I talked about strengths and areas where there's room for improvement. Isn't that a much more positive way of you see, and so and so we always start with their strengths. So I start with somebody telling them telling me something they're proud of the of how they how they live or perform whatever it is that they're doing. And and that immediately starts positive self talk about themselves. They're not beating themselves up about oh, this is what what goes wrong and this is what goes wrong. I don't want to hear of all about that to start. I want to hear what you do. Well, then tell me what would you how do you think you could apply that to situations where you want to improve? And now it all stays in a positive direction. And people can see stories about that on my website and and come to I send out a free newsletter every week with samples of people's success stories as well as quotes and, and tips for performance in golf in dieting, and you know my my most recent book is based on using Winnie the Pooh the famous character from kids stories for families to develop mindfulness awareness, changing habits and appreciating nature in their world. And I wrote it with my sister, Disney Company published it and I'm really, really happy about it and it's something that people can get and read with their children. And it applies to children of all ages even seemingly grown up children.

Turo Virta: 53:08

See, we are seemingly seemingly but only seemingly grown up children. Those are I love that positive attitude because it is something what i i personally I try to do as much as possible because if you if you when you ask people like you ask them where they are struggling, they are very fast telling telling you that there's gonna be a B list where they are bad or where they are not good enough. But then when you start to ask strengths, it's like it's often it's getting harder but it's it's actually how it's impacting you like you said that that is that is making such a huge difference thinking into and consistently thinking more positively and not only those negative things which went wrong because that is it's so much easier for most most people to tell him right away. Maybe

Unknown: 54:07

Maybe we can find a way to help your listeners. And we can work together with them. Yeah,

Turo Virta: 54:13

that would be I would love that. I would love that. So thank you are that time went flight so fast? I think we could keep talking for hours but we I have to respect your time. And thank you for coming here for listeners who are keen to integrate in these principles and find more about you where people can find you buy your books, work with you. Feel free to

Unknown: 54:47

learn. I'd like you to post this on the on the website.

Turo Virta: 54:51

I will put it on.

Unknown: 54:54

Simply Dr. Joe parent.com Dr. JP pa

Turo Virta: 55:00

I'm so so

Unknown: 55:02

and I have an Instagram page and but the main thing is on my website and and working personally with people is very easy to set up. And the other thing is it's it's about every two weeks and the schedule is on the website under practicing mindful awareness. I want to invite people to come and join in my free mindfulness and compassion meditations that I do. They're usually Thursday mornings I think the next one is September 7, but people will be listening to this for a long time. The best thing is to go to the website and under free resources. Look at practicing mindful awareness. And that will give you the Zoom link and it will give you the dates and times that I'm that I'm doing those programs. And I think that that's the best I do. I have a Facebook page for Zen golf and for my own name and I also have my own name for Instagram account. But you can find all that from the website. Dr. Joe parent.com.

Turo Virta: 56:17

Thank you. Thank you Dr. Parents. I learned definitely a lot and I hope listeners too and if you enjoyed this episode, and I would love to hear we both love to hear from you. So let us know that class in Instagram or in social media and let me know let us know what was the biggest takeaway what you learned most in this episode, so thank you for listening and talk to you soon. recording stopped. Thank you. That's great.

Unknown: 56:54

That went I knew you had a lot of questions. I went Is he gonna go through all of them? No,

Turo Virta: 57:00

no, but it's they are kind of related related like that you know it's you already answered the questions like what what I wanted to go through and and

Unknown: 57:15

the time does go fast, doesn't it? Yeah,

Turo Virta: 57:17

it goes everything like when you are when you do what you love to do, like it's it's, it's it flies, and you know, the pianist? It's 11 o'clock in evening here in Italy. And that usually I move along at this time in a bed and now I'm like, That way I'm gonna go

Unknown: 57:38

I'm sorry about that. That's no problem.

Turo Virta: 57:40

I I was needed. I gotta I gotta do this, like I must. This is like to have a possibility to talk with you. Thank you that's, that's something that you know, it's rather to it's very to sacrifice our fleet.

Unknown: 57:58

You know? It just occurred to me. You may want to cut this edit and cut it into two pieces. Because it's an hour long and I don't know if people are listening now nowadays for a whole hour

Turo Virta: 58:14

Yeah, that I could be doing. I have most of my podcasts actually they are full hour.

Unknown: 58:20

Oh good. Well then,

Turo Virta: 58:22

I post my I am I'm I publish one episode per week. And most of them are like I have some shorter ones like which are 30 minutes but the most of my episodes are 45

Unknown: 58:35

minutes and I'm good with that. You know and and it's great if people are driving someplace for an hour they get to listen the whole time. Oh, yeah, no, that's

Turo Virta: 58:44

that's I don't know. It's it's a long long episode, but maybe I could i

Unknown: 58:51

i Don't take my suggestion. I just that's a

Turo Virta: 58:56

great success. I haven't even thought about it like but it's instead of posting having like, two episodes. I can have two episodes per week. Posting shorter episodes. But this is all trying and doing different things.

Unknown: 59:11

Well, I enjoyed meeting you Turo. Yeah,

Turo Virta: 59:14

that was Thank you. So that was my pleasure.

Unknown: 59:18

I mean, what is

Turo Virta: 59:19

what is your what is your Instagram?

Unknown: 59:24

I think it's just my name.

Turo Virta: 59:26

Since the second I was looking, I was looking at your back because I couldn't find from your website, your Instagram.

Unknown: 59:35

Oh, it should be on there. Let me see. It was not a Facebook. I will get it on there. Yeah, it should be on the little diagram on the homepage. There it is. And it is. Yes, a little picture. It's a little picture. Go to the website. And look along the top the little pink picture

Turo Virta: 1:00:00

okay, now I found it. Yeah, yeah.

Unknown: 1:00:04

So LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook.

Turo Virta: 1:00:06

It's on top of the day. I was I was I was looking at was it there in

Unknown: 1:00:13

the menu near the menu.

Turo Virta: 1:00:14

Yeah, no, no, I got it. No, I got it. No good.

Unknown: 1:00:17

I think I'm gonna have to take the Twitter off. They don't have a Twitter anymore. It doesn't exist anymore. Yes, it's x now what uh, that's weird. But anyway, thank you so much. And it's the hour I should go.

Turo Virta: 1:00:33

Yeah. It's thank you and I will let you know when I think it's going to be published later next week, or in two weeks this episode, but I just followed you in Instagram, and we'll let you know all your team know. And sounds good. Thank you. Thank you and have a great day. Okay.