Paul Monahan has spent years working with amateur and professional golfers and athletes to perfect the inner game or what we call the mental side of performance. As the mental game coach for one of the largest golf instruction communities in the country, Paul’s focus is on helping his clients overcome the inside-game challenges that show up during practice and play. Paul recently published his first book entitled The Most Important Game: Play Better. Struggle Less. Enjoy More.
Regardless of whether you play golf or not, you’ll find this episode most insightful as Paul shares his reflections on how we can see the game of golf—and perhaps the game of life—in fresh ways. In addition to working with golfers and athletes, he is an executive coach who works with senior leaders, teams and organizations to improve their performance in the workplace.
Paul’s Book, The Most Important Game: https://www.amazon.com/Most-Important-Game-Better-Struggle/dp/1998315002
Website: https://www.paulmonahan.com/
Youtube: https://youtube.com/@PaulMonahanCoach?si=aov2boB5QOg8Mx0e
From our discussion, I noted several takeaways that resonated with me and my guess is they’ll resonate with you whether you’re a golfer or not.
- Building skills is essential, but working the inner game is critical for success. Not managing the inner game will hinder performance both in golf and in leadership.
- Perspective shifting, Paul discussed how as golfers when we hit a bad shot, many have the tendency to internalize those bad shots as a personal critique. Your inner voice may sound like, “I’m, not good at these shots; I can’t seem to get this right; I’m getting worse rather than better; I hate this game…”
- The key is to interpret these bad shots as merely feedback rather than a personal failure, and to accept the shots as the reality of the situation and accept that reality for what it is.
- Paul also talked about managing expectations because when there is a gap between reality and expectations, frustration can take over and negatively impact your performance. The goal should be to accept reality and then figure out how to make changes. This not only applies to golfers but is also applicable to us as leaders.
- Paul’s last point was to separate identity from performance metrics. This is hard to do, but so essential for success.
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