Rick back again for another Flow Golf podcast episode. Today is going to be slightly different from our norm. We usually cover various topics that we’re passionate about that are relevant to the mental game.
In today’s episode, I want to talk about the story of FlowCode Golf Academy. We’ve had a lot of listeners now probably following us since the start of the year, engaging with all of our content, but really without understanding the start of flow code golf academy.
Why is the FlowCode Golf Academy, where did it begin? So I really want you to kind of share a bit more about that for all of our listeners today and to go back and forth on some questions that I may have. So could you just start at the beginning break? Where did it all begin? By flowcode Golf Academy?
Sure. Yeah. No. And this is something that I’ve wanted to share for a while because it’s something that I’ve worked on for a long, long time. And it started back as I’ve told the story a little bit when I became a coach 28 years ago, and I remember the PGA and a, you know, swing coach putting coaches in those types of things.
Yet I am always, always very interested in the mental side of the game, not only for my own game but for my players. And as I went back to school and got a master’s degree in applied sports psychology and then a doctorate in Applied Sports Psychology, I just that curiosity just kept going and going and going.
And I wanted to know more about what helped players play better under pressure and what are the best of the best in all sports, by the way, to be at your best when it’s when you’re at your worst.
So those types of things have always been in my head. And because I’ve been fortunate to coach a lot of really good players and a lot of beginners and a lot of all types of golfers, I’ve seen at their core that the mental game can help them on and off the golf course. You see this nervous energy, you see there’s the doubt or the fear.
And then one day you see this confidence and focus. And I was very intrigued with the mental emotional state and how it affected performance. So this is maybe now 15 years ago. I did try. I hate that word, but I did try to get it to create an online platform. Now, this is you know, it was a little clunky and I worked with a partner who had a similar vision and we were about, I’d say, 50% into the creation of it and it was going to be online.
We’re gonna have assessments, all kinds of cool stuff, but unfortunately it fizzled away and it did not work for many, many reasons. And yet that didn’t stop me from wanting to learn and wanting to share information. As I started coaching more and more, I found out that it would be great for me to leverage this content to be able to share it with more than just a one on one, or maybe every now and then a golf school.
And again, I was still passionate about how we get this information out. And so fast forward a few more years and I really did start going down that rabbit hole of flow states and zones. I’m a member of an association for Applied Sports Psychology, and I get journals every month, every quarter. And I started seeing a trend where flow states were being researched more and more.
It was actually something that was quantifiable. Well, it was something that’s trainable. Now, back 15, 20 years ago, when I was going through my master’s degree, it was about the zone and about, well, maybe you get into it, hopefully you get into it. But now as we get back into those last 5 to 7 years, we now know it’s trainable.
We now know we can measure it. We know the brainwaves. We know all kinds of cool stuff. And that really excited me to again know that this is something that will benefit golfers. It’ll benefit people in all walks of life.
And so then I started doing more training. I started going more to getting certified in some of these tools and resources with some high end companies that talk about flow and peak performance and such a large so, so, so much.
And then I started applying it one on one with my coaching and I was seeing a big, big difference. I was seeing how I made a slight adjustment and when somebody’s routine or pre pre round routine or their mindsets and we started seeing a difference in performance and that really excited me that these strategies I was learning were actually making a difference.
And so now we again, fast forward again for about now. Three years ago I saw this company online, the flow code, and I was very intrigued because I saw a lot of science, I saw a lot of research, and I and I did a certification through them and through their life coaching part of it. And I was just blown away at the information.
I was the mixture of research and how you apply it. I thought it was second to none and I reached out to one of the main originators and creator, Sergei, as you and I both both love him and we hit it off. How do we create a golf part? And we started that over two and a half years ago and it’s been a labor of love and bringing you on Hallam has been the game changer to get things going.
And I think what we’ve all done from a company standpoint is we believe that this information will help people on the golf course, but we’re very passionate that it’s going to help people off of the golf course. So, you know, not to get into all the other things that we’re into with corporate and schools and all kinds of other cool stuff that we want to take this to.
But right now, we’re very focused on helping golfers understand that the mental game is trainable and using a platform that helps people give their own. Like, again, flow code is about creating your own code and giving people options of how they can train it, how they can implement it. And, you know, now we’re, you know, in 2022, here in the summer and we’ve launched it and we’ve had our podcasts, we have our certification for coaches that it’s gone really, really well.
And now we get to help other coaches implement this with their players and it gets back to one of our main goals is how do we leverage this great information to have as many people as possible be able to apply it to their game, apply it to their life, and, and these online platforms now it’s very, very exciting.
So we’ll get into more stuff. But that’s kind of where it’s come from and where it is now.
Nice, fantastic. And there’s a couple of things that really stand out to me in that story that you just told, one of them being the failure situation. Right. At the end of the day, it’s very rare that things go right the first time. So it’s not about actually getting it perfect the first time, but it’s about understanding and making sure that you’re learning from every single situation that comes your way.
I think that’s exactly what you’ve been able to do. I know you mentioned one time in not working with an online platform, but I believe there was also a second time it did. It was a platform. And now obviously moving into the third time, you’ve managed to learn a lot of lessons during that process. You’ve utilized that experience to ensure that you have a fair chance of success this time.
Now, I mean, of course, we believe that FlowCode will be a success. But again, it’s just this process of learning, all of us understanding that we have a common mission, common values and that we’re all rowing in the right direction.
I think that’s one of the second key lessons I would love all listeners to take away from that experience is this team as well, and ensuring that everyone has common values and principles to drive you towards a common mission.
Definitely. And I think if we go to flow research I believe I’ve really embodied a lot of those strategies. And one of them’s motivation and one of them is, is being aligned with intrinsic reasons of why you’re doing things. And yes, unfortunately, the second attempt on an online platform, it didn’t work out. I had a pretty good team, but we’re just in it.
Did this thing click right? And yet my passion for the subject matter kept moving me forward. You and I talk a lot with our one on ones and even in flow code about, you know, enjoying the challenge, loving, being passionate, having purpose about your golf game.
You’ll go through the challenges. Yeah, but if you’re not really motivated, if it really doesn’t resonate with you, then you know, a little obstacle here and there is going to throw you off.
But I think my passion has even increased more, especially with having a team around me. And I think that’s important to understand is that there is no way that I could do this as a solopreneur, having a team with you and Sergei and the whole team at Flow Code, we’ve been able to work together with our own strengths and understand we are on a common we have common goals.
And a lot of that is to change how people perceive their golf game performance in life and that pushes us every day.
Absolutely. I love that. And just to kind of paint the picture of my background as well, I think it was probably why I might be coming up with three years, right? Three years ago, maybe two and a half years, something like that. You obviously came on as a guest with a previous company of mine, and that’s kind of where our relationship started.
Then we carried on the conversation and I moved away from that previous venture again for various reasons. It didn’t work out, but then we got reconvened and again it was this kind of this common passion, enthusiasm and desire towards the same mission that kind of brought us together.
And it’s been a fantastic experience, an incredible experience working with everyone and I really do believe in our future and I believe in our mission and that we can achieve it.
And I think what really sets and what I loved about her golf academy and loved about flowcode golf academy as a whole is, as we mentioned, that habituation and integration of the techniques because I’ve I’ve listened to countless podcast books, taken the information on board.
I know that knowledge is just one half of the puzzle. The other half is in the implementation of the action.
It’s actually putting that knowledge into action that creates success, creates improvement, creates progress. And I think that’s what our golf academy we focused so much on is how can we actually provide great knowledge, great information, but then how can we ensure that the process for people to then implement it is as smooth as possible?
And I know again, that’s something that you’ve learned from experience.
You’ve been through so many certification processes and something you’ve experienced from both good and bad ones, and you’ve taken the lessons and said actually one of the key things that you love in the best ones is that integration and habituation of the information you would say. So I think that’s what I love the most.
Yeah, definitely. And again, I still come from that swing coach idea that, you know, as golfers and we ask golfers all the time is, you know, what do they want to improve in their game? And we definitely hear, hey, I want to hit the ball straight or I want to hit the ball further, and that’s great. And you ask them how you’re going to hit it straighter.
And they said, Well, take a golf lesson. And I found out that my clubface is open and I’m going to do this drill. We go, great, you understand cause and effect, and you can now change it through block practice and then random practice, all these things. You can actually train a new skill. Yet when you and I talk about the mental side with people, I think one, they still need to be educated, that it is a skill set.
I get a lot of people who say, Well, it’s just positive thinking or it’s about, you know, not thinking this or that. It’s like, wait a second, there’s an actual structure behind this, right? And when you understand what your patterns are behaviorally and how you think and how you act when you understand those patterns, just like the slice going into the woods, you know, you can do something about it.
And so you hit it right on the head is that we want people to be more self aware of how their mental game affects their performance and that once they identify it. There are many, many, many ways to make shifts. And I think that’s what I’m so proud of, of our platform. It’s not one size fits all as we talk about a framework all the time.
It’s like if we want to improve focus, for instance, that is a big skill. It is. And flow follows focus. Yet not everybody’s going to focus the same way and not everybody is going to use the same type of visualization or breathing or and great, good. Let’s understand what makes you work in a positive way and then also what would interfere with those performances.
So I’m with you because we need people to go down their own journey and try this and try that. And then once they find it, though, then, as you just mentioned, it has to become a habit. It has to be something that goes into our default mode. So when we are under pressure, that’s just who we are.
And I think that’s part of the work. And this does take work. Everybody wants to work on their golf swing. But this takes work to change. Habits change, thinking patterns change, behaviors ultimately, yes, lead to lower scores. But we believe in fulfillment. We believe going towards a challenging goal and looking back and going, wow, I put the work in on this.
I’m very proud of myself. That’s what we’re all about.
Absolutely. It’s the gym for your mind, right? We all understand and appreciate that we want our biceps to grow. We’ve got to go to the gym and we’ve got to do those bicep curls. We’ve got to put the work in. And actually it’s no different to us, of course, developing our focus as well.
We have to put direction, we have to train it and that’s exactly what we focused on is, yes, making sure we relay the importance of being focused on why it’s important to train your focus, but not just stopping that, because that’s kind of like dropping the carrot in front of someone, but then just taking away from them every single time they go to take a bite.
We actually want to give them all of the resources to help train that focus as well. And that’s what FlowCode Golf Academy is all about.
Exactly. So the last thing I want to mention with everybody is that, you know, we are very passionate about helping you, the listener, and we would love feedback from you or maybe what are some subject matters that you certainly would want to hear more about or on the platform itself? What would you like more tools to help you with?
Because this is an ongoing process. Hallam and I and Sergei, we’re always researching new ways to help, yet nothing helps us more than hearing from listeners and our own members of how we can serve you better. So we really appreciate everyone listening and downloading these episodes and we want them to be of high value and we want to continue that.
So please share with us how we can serve you better in the future.
Absolutely. And any further questions about the story of FlowCode Golf Academy? Again, please feel free to ask them. And I know Rick will be more than happy to answer. So thanks again for listening to a different episode, but I think an important one because we want to share all the reasons why we want to kind of share our story with everyone so all the listeners can feel a part of our community.
So thank you all for listening and we’ll see you in the next episode.
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