Jared Tendler's Blog, page 3

Recap from the U.S. Open Qualifier

 

It pains me to say it, but I did not qualify for the next stage of US Open qualifying. There were 120 guys competing for 7 spots. I shot 77 (+5), missed a playoff by 7 shots, and finished in the middle of the pack. I wasn’t close and that’s certainly part of the pain. It’s also painful to know I have to wait a year before I have another chance. 

I don’t mind the hurt. It’s evidence of how much I care and I’d much rather feel this way than the opposite. Frankly, if it was the opposite I’d be more worried that feeling ok was evidence that rekindling this dream of playing in the US Open was empty. So it hurts and that’s reassuring to know how much I want this. 

So I’m going to make the most of the next 359 days before I get my next chance. Preparation has already started.

 

The Good News

In the qualifier last year I was out of my league. Outclassed by a demanding golf course that I didn’t have the game to navigate. 

I love that this tournament is so demanding. It’s honest and reveals the state of your game in unambiguous terms. I select sites that generally have tougher fields because I don’t want any false feedback. A few lucky bounces aren’t going to make a difference if you don’t already have the game to properly compete. And getting through a weak field or easier course is poor preparation for the even greater challenge that lay ahead. 

I appreciate the honesty and take it to heart.

Over the last year I took that feedback and made significant upgrades in my full swing technique working with Dom, and in strength and mobility with Abi. I was not outclassed this year. The golf course was 7400 yards long, which is around average for the PGA Tour. I had the length and shot-making to contend. I was hitting my driver long and straight. Two of the par-fives measured 600 yards and I was just off the green in two. On the 540 par-five ninth hole, I hit driver, 5 iron to eight feet.

I have access to some stat tracking software that allows me to measure my performance vs. PGA Tour average. Tee to green I gained ~2.5 shots over PGA Tour average. (If you’re a trader or a poker player, think of the “strokes gained” statistic as a way of measuring your edge.) This kind of ball striking and distance is something I could only have dreamed of last year, and on its own is good enough for me to be in position to qualify. 

Feels great to know that I have a long game that can compete on championship level courses. I hit a bunch of great iron shots giving me six makeable birdie putts on the front nine alone. I was largely in command of my full swing shots, other than a few that were awkward because I lacked familiarity with the course, and I didn’t trust the adjustment I needed to make to the adrenaline I sensed in my body early in the round. These led to a few poor decisions and equally poor swings.

If I had a short-game that was equally up to the task, I could have recovered from these shots. But that’s the crux of what led to my demise.

 

The Bad News

The biggest problem in this round was my putting. I lost 4.5 shots due to putting alone, which is a ton. Missed a couple short ones and six birdie putts from 8-15’. Coupled with subpar chipping, I didn’t have much of a chance to get through to the next stage.

I can say clearly that it wasn’t because of the pressure. If anything, I was lacking some competitive fire, which I’ll get to in a moment. I think the problem with my putting was sloppy technique. I’ve really been emphasizing an intuitive and feel based approach, which has made my speed control really good. And during this round that was true, ironically. But the sloppiness of my technique led to inconsistent contact and generally not hitting it on line.

To be fair, the season for me is still young and I’ve mainly been focusing on ball striking, getting comfortable with my new irons, and integrating the physical improvements in strength to ensure my swing is solid/consistent. I didn’t prioritize my putting technique enough and up-until this event didn’t get the feedback that I needed to. I putted well in the event that I won, and in non-competitive rounds I’ve generally putted well enough.

But if I’m being honest, I’ve not had a putting lesson in over 12 years and I’m probably being naive not at least looking into some of the new technology. Given what happened with my irons, it’s at least worth looking into in the future. 

With the Philly Mid-Am Championship in just 10 days (the event my qualifying win got me into), I’ll first focus on cleaning up my technique/fundamentals, while finding the right balance to still free up my intuitive feel. One without the other leaves me vulnerable to outcomes like this.

To my point about lacking some competitive fire. I’ve mentioned previously that with my former issues with pressure largely resolved, last year I instead struggled, at times, with my energy being too flat. During this event, I didn’t find an ideal mixture of intensity and was a bit too process-oriented.

The morning of the qualifier, I wrote in my journal that I slept really well, something that doesn’t usually happen because anticipation tends to keep me up at night or wakes me up early. Instead, I felt calm and confident, and had this feeling of “I’m not expected to qualify and this is a cool, fun experience and I’m grateful to have the opportunity to do this.”

While that is true, for me, it works as an overall/macro perspective not as a mentality for competing. I didn’t have the “I want this” feeling that fuels better focus/intensity. Gratitude only gets you so far when you’re competing against 120 other people who all want the same thing.

The lack of competitive fire was also evident in grading my process/decision-making for every shot. My goal was to make a clear, decisive, and committed decision for every shot, and while this did help me to improve this during the round – which is a goal for the season – I lost a little bit of the connection between my decisions and qualifying. 

There’s a balance that I’m trying to nail down here, and I’m getting closer. Unfortunately, in this qualifier I was too process-oriented. I need more competitive fire to keep my focus sharp. 

I don’t feel like I should have known better or have any regrets. This was a true lesson learned and I’ll keep working to nail down an ideal mixture. 

I think the bigger result needs to be prioritized more. I need a stronger connection before the round that I’m there to compete and qualify, or in the Mid-am Championship, I’m there to win. That’s the starting point and sets the tone for the round/event, and my process/decision-making is critical to how I do that.

 

Next Steps

This event is at the top of the mountain, and because it’s so demanding, it reveals where my game is today. I’ve forged some strengths, and found some clearer weak points that I need to improve. The remainder of this season is prep for this event next year, and I’ve already started. 

The second biggest event of the year is the US Mid-Am. The national championship equivalent to the local Philly version I have in 10 days. The qualifier is in August, so I have time to prepare. Every event from then until now is a chance to build towards it.

I can also say that, no surprise, writing/editing this blog has helped me to feel better. The pain has lessened a bit, and I’m sure I will continue to as I put what I’ve learned into practice.

 

As I take one last attempt to realize my golf dreams, I decided to start blogging to practice what I preach, bring some accountability, and provide a window into my mental game work, goals, and process. If you’d like my latest post delivered right to your inbox,  click here  to added to the list.

The post Recap from the U.S. Open Qualifier appeared first on Jared Tendler.

From “F*** it!” to Funded

The urge to say “F*** it” and gamble can be very, very tempting in some situations. And this isn’t something that just happens in poker, or trading, I see it in virtually every performance environment.

The urge comes on strong as a way to quickly escape previous losses, mistakes, or bad breaks by taking on extreme risk. You go “all-in”, max size a position, or try to hit an improbable shot through the trees. You go for broke thinking, “F*** it! Let’s go!”

As a trader, maybe you are trying to pass a combine to get a funded account, or you are in a prolonged drawdown with losses continuing to mount. 

As a poker player, you might call an “all in” on the river hoping to get lucky so you can finally get a big score to immediately get out of the downswing you are in. 

As a golfer, you could be having a frustrating round where you keep missing short putts and getting some back breaks, and then after a poor tee shot you try to get to the green by hitting a shot through a narrow opening in the trees.

In all these situations, and many others, when things are already bad it seems like it can’t get worse. You’re not going to feel more pain than you already do, and so it feels a little bit like you have a free roll where there’s only upside to your gamble. If you pull it off, or more accurately get lucky, your heroics build some momentum in your favor and/or help recover your losses. And if you don’t pull it off? Well, it’s already bad enough so…”F*** it.”

The problem is that this is short-sighted. Even if you pulled it off, you’re going to be in this spot again, and then what? You’re going to say “F*** it” and try to recreate another miracle. Which I get is cool as hell, some of my most memorable golf shots are the perfect shots that I hit to get out of trouble. It’s euphoric and that intense feeling can seduce you into trying to produce it again at an inopportune time.

Plus, what in my experience is even more of a problem, pulling off the miracle reinforces the idea that you can escape like this again. You get a boost in confidence, which is actually overconfidence. The truth? You got lucky. The odds were stacked against you, and that goes against the recipe for long-term success where you press your advantage/edge. 

Overconfidence spills over. You’re less vigilant about the work needed to keep yourself out of such spots to begin with. So you don’t learn anything new. You’re not trying to prevent this scenario from reoccurring, which means you will be in the same position again in the future — falling prey to the “F*** Its” once again. That’s why it’s such a common and repetitive problem.

The reality is that losses, mistakes, and bad breaks will happen. Again and again. This is simply what it means to compete – whether as a trader, poker player or golfer. You will regularly be in situations that test your ability to follow your strategy.

I know how hard it is to walk away with a loss, to fold in a big spot, or chip out. Rather than focusing on the “chance” of recovery, think about tomorrow. What’s the value of the capital and confidence you preserve for tomorrow? When you’re strong enough to be able to take a loss and show up stronger the next day, you’ve got something to build on. The F*** Its may be fun and make for a good story when they pay off, but that’s not why you’re here, right?

 

The “F*** Its” Seek Confidence

While these high risk decisions may come out of frustration, anger, or loss of hope, the real cause is usually a weakness in confidence. The weakness can be from a technical standpoint, a mental standpoint, or both. 

Some of you want to believe you have mythical abilities that allow you to quickly make huge sums of money, or pull off miracle shots because of how it makes you feel about yourself or what you think it says about your skill as a trader, poker player, or golfer. 

Some of you can’t handle losing or being in a bad spot. You want to escape it immediately. T What you’re implying, however, is that you aren’t strong enough to handle losing, or the inevitable ups and downs. 

If you are not strong enough to handle losing, trying to gamble only makes that worse. Even when you are successful, deep down you know you got lucky. So the confidence you gain is really like grabbing a handful of sand – impossible to hang onto. 

On the other hand, making a choice that’s hard but is the correct decision, like folding when you should fold, strengthens confidence in the right way, even at a time when you are struggling. Making the correct decision is a positive outcome simply because you were in full control of vs. seeking a positive result that you don’t have full control of. We all know how much is beyond our control, especially in the short term. One positive small step leads to another, and as you stack them up over time you begin to change your reaction to these situations rather than being stuck in an endless cycle.

For those of you familiar with my work, you may remember my advice to suck less. In these moments, that perspective can remove the weight of trying to be at your best and gets you focused on taking the next step to be a little bit better. It allows you to take a longer-term view so when you’re struggling you can see it’s less about today and more about building for a better tomorrow – this is how you move your inchworm forward.

Recently a member of The Mental Game of Trading LIVE shared a great story of how this advice can build confidence and skill in the right way:

Hi fellow traders,

I’d like to share my progress with you all and hope that it motivates you to continue improving and not giving up. I’ve been trading in the negative for about a year now and I started a funded trading combing at TopStep last August and had to reset multiple times.

 

Jared’s advice has gotten me through my last TopStep combine. I took it to heart about passing the combine correctly by sticking to my strategy, not gambling or hoping for a big winning trade that would make me pass my combine and also give me a giant confidence boost. I passed it last week and I did it by going from -$1200 to +$3000.

 

I wanted to reset the account to start at $0 but I told myself I need to handle this appropriately and work through my problems. Again, thank you Jared, your advice and your system has helped a lot and I’m looking forward to solving my other problems with your help. ~Andrew Telleria

Seeing this kind of story is super gratifying. Many traders, poker players, and golfers just want to win but don’t always think about what comes next. When you build skill and confidence in the right way, you build something sustainable and don’t have to worry about your luck eventually running out.

The post From “F*** it!” to Funded appeared first on Jared Tendler.

I Won!

 

I won! I actually won! In my first tournament of the year, the GAP Mid-Amateur Qualifier, I shot an even par 69 in incredibly windy conditions to win my first stroke play tournament since college.

One big area of improvement for me this season is my focus and intensity. Last year there were too many times where I was flat and unfocused, which was weird given how much effort I put into the game. But I realized in the offseason that this flatness was a result of having solved the bigger issues I had in the past with excessive anxiety and pressure. Missing that energy was freeing, but it left me looking for another source of energy to drive peak performance in tournament conditions.

This is a common transition that I work on with my clients who have made a lot of progress with their emotions, and I needed to apply those lessons to myself. I’m happy to report that the work I’ve done so far and described in this blog, especially around establishing goals and detailing specific improvements to make, made a notable difference. At no point during the round did I lack focus. Plus, one of my big goals this year is to get into the zone in competition and at one point I for sure I did that.

 

What I Did Well 

On the 16th hole (my 7th hole) I had a 22’ putt for birdie. During the round the wind was consistently blowing 20-25 mph, gusting to 35 mph. It was so strong that it was affected how the ball was rolling on the green. 

With this putt on the 16th hole, I got to watch two players putt before me on the similar line. Watching intently, very sponge-like, I could see the exact moment where the wind rushed up the hill and significantly slowed up the ball. That fed a sense of the adjustment I needed to make on my putt in order to make it. I was locked in as I got over the ball and drained it with perfect speed.

I didn’t stay this locked in throughout the round, however, I did make a number of putts where I correctly accounted for the wind. So my performance level remained high.

Another thing I did really well was not having any technical thoughts over the ball. Frankly, I didn’t even need them behind the ball. I was locked into my decision-making process and although that wasn’t as accurate or well thought out as I’m ultimately aiming for, it was a notable improvement compared to last year. In general, there were only a handful of shots where my decision-making was bad – once in a recovery situation I didn’t make a clear decision about the type of shot I wanted to hit, and a couple of times I hit wedge shots unsure about how to adjust for the wind. 

I also made a number of great par saves, both when I had to get up and down, and when putting from long distance. On a tricky par 3 I had an 85’ foot birdie putt that I left 5 feet short, but drilled it in the center of the cup. 

I knew going into the round that on a day like this, with the wind blowing 25 to 30 miles an hour, that I would have to make a number of short range putts for par and my process was really solid. On the 18th hole (my ninth), I ran a 15 foot birdie putt past the hole by 6 feet. It was downhill downwind and you just couldn’t hit it soft enough. Whenever you run a ball by the hole, if you’re paying close attention, you can see the break. But it’s easy to allow your frustration or dismay from speeding the first putt by the hole to cost you that valuable information. At no point was I down or fearful of missing that putt and knocked it in the center of the hole.

Overall, this was a nice bit of confirmation for the hard work that I put in during the off-season, both on my mental game and on my physical conditioning. The new clubs also made a notable difference in tough conditions, and that also gives me a lot of confidence in them.  

 

Takeaways for the Future

With my biggest tournament of the year up next, the US Open Local Qualifier, I have some specific things that need to improve beforehand. Top of the list is my decision-making process. The most glaring weak point is my lack of attention to detail on where I want the ball to land and how I anticipate it rolling out. 

The par 3 11th hole (my second hole of the day), was playing 185 yards directly downwind. I had an idea of the distance I wanted to hit it, accounting for the wind, but I wasn’t clear about how the ball would react once it hit the green. I hit the shot very close to where I intended, but on the line that I chose, the ball rolled off the green. Not a big mistake, but my lie was incredibly difficult and I failed to get up and down. 

I can’t get away with small mistakes like that in the US Open Qualifier. The course set-up is unforgiving and demands greater precision. I need to raise my level, and be diligent about what I envision for the entire shot, from start to finish, especially where the ball is going to end and how it will react on the green based on my intended shot shape, trajectory and spin. 

The next point of improvement is a bit trickier. During the Philly Mid-am qualifier I knew going in that shooting even par would get me through to the championship. Twenty-two players would make it, and as far as the championship is concerned there is no difference between first and 22nd. On my 16th hole, I was 2 under, and my mind started thinking ahead about posting 2 under. Score occupied more space in my head – especially while waiting to hit a 5 foot par putt…which I missed.

To be fair, I hit the putt exactly as I wanted, I just read it wrong, which feels like more of an indictment on the subtle loss of focus while reading the putt vs. hitting it poorly or tentatively. 

I shook it off quickly because the 17th (the actual 8th hole) was a difficult hole that was playing incredibly hard. 450 yard uphill par four with wind blowing hard right to left, out of bounce left, trees right and a creek at 290 yards off the tee. I refocused and hit one of the best shots of the day, piping it down the right side of the fairway. But as I walked off the green having made another 6’ par putt, the reminder that I was one under came back into mind. I hit a solid tee shot, but again before my approach shot and the 60’ birdie putt, thoughts of score limited my ability to execute and after lipping out the par putt, I finished my round even par.

I’m not super hard on myself on this because in this kind of a qualifier I do believe it’s OK to have a target score in mind. But for my process, I see more clearly the impact that thinking about score in this way can have. I think the proper balance is an awareness of score, and an understanding of the scenarios where you might need to alter your decision-making down the stretch. 

I am in the third to last group in the US Open Qualifier, which gives me the advantage of knowing what I’ll need to shoot to finish in the top 7 out of 120 players. As I get to the back nine, if I’m far off the pace I’ll find spots to be more aggressive, and, if I’m within reach, being aware of that will give me an opportunity to double-down on my process.

As I was reflecting on this tournament I had the realization that you can’t carry your score forward. 

If I were to have shot two under it’s not like that score has any impact on the future. It’s over. The impact on that event is done, so what gets carried forward has everything to do with the execution of my process, and skill that I acquire and strengthen, from that round. This may sound super obvious, but for me it was a nice way of reinforcing why focusing on score isn’t relevant, outside of the unique situations where it can influence a decision.

If I find myself in contention at the US Open Local Qualifier, doubling-down on my process and execution I know gives me the best opportunity to thrive under pressure, plus at a minimum, I’ll also take another step towards mastering this key element of my game. Whether I qualify or not, that’s what I’m going to carry forward.

 

This Recap is a Template

One last piece I’ll share is that I’m committed to doing recaps like this for myself after every round. They won’t always make it to the blog, but know that every time I play golf I am diligently trying to apply previous lessons and learnings, and track new discoveries. For followers of my work, whenever I encounter a new problem, or a facet of an existing problem that needs another look, I will use the Mental Hand History as my way of problem solving. If you need a copy, you can get one here.  

The key improvement for me in this process is that previously mistakes came with a degree of self-criticism. Now I view these assessments as aspirational. That doesn’t mean I’m always happy with the result, but I’m at peace with wherever I land because I am confident, for the first time in a long time, that I’m putting in the right energy and effort, so any mistakes or problems I encounter are great opportunities to learn.

As I take one last attempt to realize my golf dreams, I decided to start blogging to practice what I preach, bring some accountability, and provide a window into my mental game work, goals, and process. If you’d like my latest post delivered right to your inbox,  click here  to added to the list.

The post I Won! appeared first on Jared Tendler.

Finding My Long-Lost Brother

I wrote this blog a few days before my first tournament of the year, and spoiler alert… something great happened that I talk about at the end of this blog.

For 45 years I’ve only had a sister (who is great by the way, in case she reads this), and I had an experience last month that was such a remarkable surprise I told my wife I felt like I just found out that I had a brother. While she may have rolled her eyes because I was actually talking about getting new, custom-fit irons, she was legitimately happy for me.

I know I am being dramatic, but going through this club fitting was an incredibly eye-opening experience, and the difference these new clubs are making is an unexpected surprise. 

After getting a new driver and 3 wood last year, I wanted to get a new set of irons this year. I got my previous set in 2012 and I just felt like it was time. The old irons had also been fitted to me and used Trackman, so while I know the tech had increased a lot in the last decade, I wasn’t expecting to get much more than an updated set that performed similar to my current one, with maybe a slight increase in distance or consistency. As it turns out, I had some glaring deficits in my equipment that has proven to be another important piece of the puzzle.

 

Out of Left Field

My club fitter, Jim Yenser from Club Champion, sent me an email prior to the fitting asking about any miss patterns that we could get under control. Most notably is a big draw with my long-irons and missing left with my short-irons. Honestly I didn’t think too much about it as I’ve always viewed my miss pattern though the lens of my swing, not my equipment. Obviously, I would have thought about that differently if my previous set hadn’t been fit to me or if my swing had undergone a major overhaul. But that’s not the case. The set was fitted and, as I said before, my work with my swing instructor Dom has been much more about refinement around my natural body movement vs. huge changes.

To say I was wrong is an understatement. I was blown away by how much different the shafts we tested affected my ball flight and, in particular, how much they accentuated or mediated my predominant miss. During testing, my swing wouldn’t feel that much different, but some would be hit right on line and others would draw 20 yards left. That’s the shot I always worry about and makes me feel like I can’t fully release the club and have to hold it off, opening the clubface at impact to hit it on line. This happened with my 3, 4, and 5 iron, but even with my wedges, at times I’d miss it left. My worry was not some irrational fear. It was a realistic problem that I did not have command of and, I realize now, could not have been fixed solely by working on my swing.

As we narrowed the shafts and clubheads (Titleist T100 & Mizuno Pro 243) down to two contenders, and compared that to my current irons, the difference in the feel was mind blowing. I could feel how unstable the bottom of the shaft felt through impact with my old iron. I don’t remember all of the technical details why that was the case, but the new shaft that fit best now reduced my left miss by half. A massive difference and that was just the half of it. 

To be honest, I’ve always felt like something was wrong with my 3 iron and 9 iron but could never really verbalize it. I thought it sounded crazy. But Jim also explained the manufacturing inconsistencies that exist in producing both the club heads and the shafts, and both of these clubs were off compared to the rest of the set. (As a note, I am not paid for saying any of this. I am just a guy who fell for a sales pitch and was delighted with the results. All opinions here are my own.)

I’ve talked before about compensating for lost mobility and lack of strength, and how I started working with Dom, and Abby, my trainer, because I knew my swing wasn’t ideal and that I was out of shape and inflexible. But I hadn’t realized that I was also compensating for my clubs because they weren’t right for my swing.

 

I’m Not the Problem!

Leveraging the expertise of experts and investing in the right tools has been a game-changer for me. Right at the start of the season, not only are my shots factually straighter and better, but there has been a distinct emotional weight lifted by getting these new irons. All this time I thought my swing was the problem. Obviously it’s not perfect, but it’s been incredibly freeing mentally and in my swing.

I’m only a few weeks into using the new clubs, but the quality of the feedback is much greater, allowing me to make adjustments that are much more progressive. When I miss a shot now, it’s far easier to understand what is off with my swing and there are fewer variables to assess to get better. Before, I was compensating – essentially putting a band-aid on a weakness without addressing the core problem. This is exactly what I am trying to avoid with my swing and mental game and have now checked another box (that I admittedly hadn’t thought of) with my equipment. Now I don’t have to compensate for inadequate equipment.

One piece of info Jim shared that I thought was interesting was that the higher your handicap, the more important it is to have clubs that are fit to your swing. The argument is that lower handicap golfers have more skills that they can use to compensate. Again, I am not endorsing or getting paid to say this. I am shocked and excited by my experience and the clubs I’m playing with now and I’d love for you to have that feeling too. 

I definitely spent more money than I was expecting. But with all the time and effort I’m putting into trying to fulfill my dream, getting this peace of mind was totally worth it.

 

I Won My First Tournament

I wrote this blog last week before playing my first tournament of the year, and low and behold, I won it! It was the qualifier for the Philly Mid-am. I shot an even par 69, in very difficult conditions, to win by 1 shot. If you watched the Masters on Thursday and Friday, the high winds moved north and gave us 20 mph sustained winds with 35 mph gusts. I’ll post more about the event soon, but suffice to say, the new clubs made a big difference. You have to hit the ball solidly when playing in high wind. My old big draw miss with my old clubs would have been magnified and I’d be hitting it all over the place. The opposite happened. I had really good control with a lot of my iron play and gave myself a lot of birdie chances, plus I on my third hole of the day I hit to a foot for eagle from 185 yards out on a short par 5! 

This is my first win in a stroke play tournament since college! Feels great and I’m excited about preparing for the US Open Local Qualifier on May 7th. 

The post Finding My Long-Lost Brother appeared first on Jared Tendler.

Build Endurance for Your A-game

It’s easy to perform badly for a long time. Anyone can do that. Your A-game, however, is taxing. You’re utilizing recently learned skills and that requires more effort. 

Even though performing at an A-game level feels, at times, natural and easy, I can assure you that experience doesn’t reflect the fact that your A-game uses a lot of mental energy and requires endurance to sustain.

While improving your mental endurance can be helpful in a variety of ways, with the World Series of Poker (WSOP) coming up, I want the poker players out there to pay special attention to this blog. Poker tournaments are intense and you need a reservoir of energy to be able to access the knowledge and skills you’ve worked on more recently, including progress in your mental game. This is especially true in the late stages of a tournament where the big money is on the line. The last thing you want is to falter down the stretch because you’re tired.

Of course, mental endurance is key in other fields. For many traders, endurance is a concept that isn’t discussed much but is still significant. This is especially true for newer traders who have yet to condition themselves to the intensity of the live market, which is very different from a typical 9-5 job. More experienced traders tend to underestimate the impact of burnout and don’t realize that strengthening endurance is key to minimizing or avoiding burnout altogether. 

Mental endurance is also relevant for golfers, including me, who are trying to improve their games. But the WSOP only comes once a year and I’m going to focus my examples and advice here on tournament poker.

 

A-game is Earned

One of the reasons mental endurance is key is because, for all of us, the only thing guaranteed every day is the C-game.

C-game relies mainly on your unconscious. Decisions come automatically and there is no deep thinking involved. Thinking is your mind working and if it’s working, it’s burning energy. If you have to think a lot and think deeply to perform well, it’s an indication of the lack of mastery or automation of knowledge and skills. I’m not saying that’s bad, I’m simply outlining the facts.

Your A-game, on the other hand, requires effort, preparation, and the right conditions. A-game is earned, not expected. Understanding the demands of what is actually required to be able to sustain your A-game for longer periods of time can help you unlock that performance more often. 

To be at your best more often, you want to expand the amount of time where you are operating in that optimal state. You need endurance. You want to be capable of making high-level decisions when you need to or, at a minimum, solid ones that are part of your B-game and don’t fall into C-game.

 

Thinking Burns Energy

Decisions that require thinking burn more energy than standard decisions made automatically. Training knowledge to a deep level, on the other hand, not only builds capacity but preserves energy.

Habits and routines are energy-efficient. With a limit to how much you can think about at any one point in time, the more of your skills that are automated, or mastered to the level of Unconscious Competence, the better able you are to make quick, and accurate, decisions while burning less mental energy. 

When your knowledge is part of your Unconscious Competence, performance becomes more instinctual. To be clear, I’m not saying to automate your decisions, I’m saying that by automating more of the knowledge that feeds into your decisions you preserve mental energy.

With that in mind, when preparing for the WSOP it’s important to know when to stop learning new things. There is often a tendency to want to do everything and check all the boxes, but you have to work/study with an eye towards the big moments. If you cram too much information in your head right before the series starts, you risk not having access to that knowledge readily available because of pressure, and you’ll burn more energy trying to get to it. 

Cramming puts you in a compromised position from both an execution and endurance standpoint. While it can be hard to selectively choose to not try to improve areas of your game that you “theoretically” could, your ability to access that info is not guaranteed. So figure out when you’re going to stop actively learning new things, and hold yourself to it.

Of course, after that point and during the series, you can make small adjustments, because they can be easily integrated into your game. But you will play far better going in with a knowledge base that you know is solid and reliable vs. cramming for the WSOP like it’s a test in school. And let’s get real, you never took a test in school where the exam lasted 12 hours a day, and sometimes for several days in a row! So why would you approach the biggest tournament series of the year that way?

 

Training Your Capacity 

Now is the perfect opportunity to build mental endurance for the WSOP and the process is similar to the process of increasing physical endurance. As an example, if you want to run a marathon, you are not going to just show up to the race without having built a capacity to run long distances. And you likely aren’t going to start your first training run at 20 miles and build from there. 

While the analogy isn’t perfect, we can use the general framework of steadily ramping up your endurance to give us ideas on how to do it in poker. Here are a few ideas that have helped clients:

Make a realistic assessment of where you are today. For example, look at your average volume in a series like the WSOP or in years past, the prevalence and severity of mental game problems, and what your ideal WSOP schedule looks like.Between now and a week or two before your WSOP starts, create a training plan where you look to steadily increase your volume or duration of play, either online or live. The idea is to understand where your limit is and then push it a little more.To help you build endurance while playing well, use injecting logic statements and strategic reminders to help ensure you retain emotional stability and quality decision making as you push. Increase steadily over time. While it’s hard to be exact about how much to increase your play, I think a reasonable goal is 10% at a time. Be wary of pushing too hard and burning out instead of increasing capacity.We still have some time before WSOP and it’s a good opportunity to treat smaller poker events in the lead-up as a good tune-up for what’s been working tactically and an opportunity to build some mental endurance.

At the end of the day, if you want to perform at a high level, you have to fight for it. If it was easy, everyone would do it and there would be no reward. 

I hope you final table a big event and that when you get there you have more energy than normal, and you can see how your opponents are tired and more vulnerable to tilt and mistakes from fatigue. This, of course, doesn’t mean you’re going to take down the title, but in a game like poker, you’ll take every advantage you can find.

 

If you want more content like this to help you prepare for the WSOP, including improving focus, reducing tilt, and getting in the zone more often, check out The Mental Game of Poker 2 and my video series The Mental Game Tune Up for Tournament Poker.

The post Build Endurance for Your A-game appeared first on Jared Tendler.

2024 Golf Goals & Season Plan

Having clearly defined goals is really important for me. With all that I’m trying to juggle in my life, if I want a chance to reach the heights in golf that I aspire to, I need clarity on what I’m trying to improve on this season. I don’t have the luxury of wasting time – every time I show up to practice or play, I need to know that what I’m doing is part of the plan.

Truthfully, in years past I did a mediocre job at defining my golf goals and was essentially checking a box. I wasn’t creating a document that would truly guide the 5-6 months of my competitive golf life. Failing to do this properly led to the pain and frustration of underperformance, marginal progress and repetitive mistakes.

Of course, I know better because I work with my clients on this all…the…time. I know how important it is to set goals and create a plan to achieve them. But as we’ve all experienced, knowing doesn’t always translate into action. And as I said, I started blogging in part to help force me to put in the extra time/energy to bring my preparation and mental game work to another level.

Frankly though, I really enjoyed the time I spent over the past 6 weeks reflecting on my game, reviewing random notes from previous years, and even looking over the half-assed previous goals. It’s motivating in the right way—not giving me an inspirational high, but fueling a deeper drive. My focus is on the right things, which means I’m also less likely to get sucked into the limitless number of other stuff out there I could be doing or working on. I also can see more clearly how I’ll measure success this season beyond just my tournament results.

If you’re also serious about improving this year, this is a process I encourage you to undertake.

 

My Goals & Plan Worksheet

Below is a screenshot of my goals worksheet (This is a tool I regularly use with my clients, you can download a template here) and I’ll share some thoughts on it below.

You can see at the top that I’ve segmented the tournament result goals from qualitative results that I want to achieve. These are distinct outcomes, in both my mental game and daily routine, that can be measured. Separating them out and tracking them in this way should help to direct my energy towards achieving them. A big one is getting into the zone in competition, something that hasn’t happened in a long time. I want it and I know how to get it.

I spent a lot of time on the next section, “Why These Goals Matter,” because I know how much it drives my focus and process and ability to get into the zone. I looked through previous golf journals and other times I’ve written about this topic to make sure I wasn’t being short-sighted or having a recency bias. There are a lot of things I’ve said in the past that still strongly resonate—if something comes up again and again, that tells me it is an important part of what drives me.

 

Process Goals

I’ve come a long way from the 18-year-old kid who choked trying to qualify for the U.S. Open in 1997. The pressure I feel now when I compete is at a much more normal level of intensity and is often helpful. That’s not to say that I always handle it perfectly, but it’s no longer my top concern. Quite the opposite. In the absence of the excessive fear/pressure I felt years ago, there are now times, even on the first tee, when my focus is too low. My energy is too flat. I need to generate the intensity on my own to fill the vacuum left from the pressure/fear I resolved. That’s why going through this process of setting my goals is so important – this is what generates that energy.

Emphasizing my process for every shot I hit is where that focus gets deployed. But I need to train it like a muscle. I’ve trained my body and it has gotten a lot stronger, but right now this area of my mind is weak and that leads to my decision-making process not being robust enough. I don’t give myself the opportunity to tap into my “feel” or “sense” of the shot, which is one of my biggest strengths and one of the things I love most about the game. I can be athletic and creative when I have the right focus, presence and clarity of mind. Not having that level of focus I now consider a punishment, like I’ve taken away my favorite toy.

I’m also learning how to strategically think around the golf course far better than I ever have before. Sounds weird to say, but I never really used my intelligence to play the game. I relied on my athletic instincts to make decisions, which could easily get overly aggressive and cost me. Keeping strokes gained statistics are helpful for learning to make smart decisions and evaluate the quality of my decisions after the round.

I’ve seen a lot of stat-tracking apps and templates that have been in golf psychology books, but I haven’t been happy with their application to my game. So the one thing I haven’t nailed down yet is how I’ll specifically be tracking progress of my shots while playing and be able to make sense of them after. I’ll be working on a custom solution.

While my confidence is quite strong overall, historically I have also expected a lot of myself and that can damage my perception of what I’m capable of. It happened again just a few weeks ago when I was down in FL visiting my parents after playing my second round of golf this year. I shot even par from the tips in windy conditions but wasn’t super happy after the round. I left a lot of shots out there at the end of the round—made double on 16 because of two terrible chips shots and made par from just off the green in two on the par 5 18th, with a pretty easy chip.

Given that I haven’t practiced or played in nearly 5 months, it was actually a fantastic round! My short game let me down, but I had barely practiced it. My ball striking, putting and routine/ process were all solid. From ll the strength/mobility work during the off season my swing felt strong and stable. The round was confirmation that my game was already in a good spot and I should have walked away feeling positive. Nope. I was stuck on the three poor chips and the fact that I didn’t shoot under par and feeling bad.

This reaction weakens my confidence—I’m not being accurate with myself about my performance or progression. I know that when I’m in competition, I need that deep level of certainty about what I can do and that means being as accurate as I can be about my capabilities.

Of course, this isn’t black or white, I just know there are times where, subconsciously, my mind looks for validation externally in ways that I would never actually want. For example, when playing with someone new I might subtly want a compliment from them on my swing or my game. I’m looking for the validation that I’m not giving myself. That needs to come from me, not from someone random who knows almost nothing about me or my game.

 

Problems I’ll Likely Face

The last couple of years I’ve cleaned up my golf swing and really don’t want to be tweaking anything this year—I want this year focused on the things I’ve mentioned. But sometimes it can be easy to start thinking more consciously about certain positions. A possible scenario this year is that as the season starts to progress, I can imagine hitting some great shots and feeling like I’m finding something new with my swing from the added strength/mobility that I’ve gained and wanting more of it.

I know myself; I’ll want to replicate it. I’ll want to understand what I’m doing better and will start thinking more about it in a forceful way. I’ve been down this road many times and I need to allow that to happen naturally, without consciously paying attention to it. IT WILL BE A DISTRACTION. My swing is good enough right now to achieve several of the goals I want, maybe even all of them. My process is not consistent/strong enough and that’s where my focus needs to be, very likely for the whole season. If I nail that this year, then next year maybe it’ll make sense to do more work with my coach Dom on my swing.

 

Last thing I’ll mention is what’s not reflected here is regular practice that I’ll be putting into my game both on and off the course. I’m going to allow myself to be responsive to where my game is at certain points, knowing that my short game and putting are areas that tend to need the most practice. But from a process standpoint, I care more about being structured with what I’m working on and not getting lost with my time. I know I’m going to work on what’s important because of this plan.

First tournament of the season is the qualifier for the Philly Mid-am on April 13th and then on May 6th is the U.S. Open Local Qualifying. Let’s go!

As I take one last attempt to realize my golf dreams, I decided to start blogging to practice what I preach, bring some accountability, and provide a window into my mental game work, goals, and process. If you’d like my latest post delivered right to your inbox, click here to added to the list.

The post 2024 Golf Goals & Season Plan appeared first on Jared Tendler.

FOMO NOMO

Note: When it comes to performance FOMO is a significant problem in trading, and much less so in golf, poker, and eSports, so the below post is written primarily for traders. That said, FOMO may show up in other parts of your life and the advice at the bottom is universal. 

 

I hate the term FOMO. It’s so overused that traders just think it is inevitable. It’s an umbrella term that is so broad it loses meaning. Plus, because it’s so commonly discussed, it can almost seem semi-cool to fall victim to it, like loss porn on Reddit. 

But what I really hate the most is that chalking up a bad decision to FOMO stops you from actively improving your decision-making process, with costly consequences. 

Making good decisions is the cornerstone of performing well and the opposite of FOMO. To make sound decisions you must understand that hindsight is easy, and foresight is incredibly hard. You won’t always know the right time to buy or sell. Even the best traders in the world can’t do that. But while it is obviously unrealistic to think that you can capitalize on every opportunity, FOMO is still a powerful force.

What many of you don’t realize is how often emotions are actually driving the impulsive decisions you label FOMO. Getting clearer on what FOMO is really about can help you identify the hidden emotions affecting you. In this way, FOMO provides an interesting opportunity to deepen your mental game.

 

What FOMO Is Really About

When we start to analyze what FOMO is really about, some of you, of course, are genuinely worried that you will miss out on a big move. But the real issue is what missing out means to you. 

The only pure version of FOMO I’ve found is driven by the assumption that there will not be another opportunity. And while that is obviously false when you’re in the right state of mind, the presence of FOMO is evidence that a part of you must believe there will not be another opportunity.

Beyond that, what is labeled FOMO really isn’t about the fear of missing out, there are other elements to it.

Think about it for yourself. What would it mean if you missed out on a big move or the only quality set up on the day?

Perhaps missing out could feel like losing and you hate losing. FOMO might show up because you lack confidence and your immediate jump into the market when it starts ripping is an attempt to avoid feeling stupid or embarrassed that you missed out. 

Or maybe missing out would be proof that you’re not perfect when you struggle with perfectionism. Perhaps you’re not happy in your life/job and you’re looking for that one big trade as your ticket to freedom. Maybe seeing others make money while you aren’t sparks a fear of failure, leading you to think that you’re not good enough. Or because you consider missing out to be a mistake and fear mistakes, you could be trying to avoid the intense self-criticism that comes after you miss a big move. 

FOMO can also be driven by an angry need to make back losses. Or maybe the only reason you are in this game is to make a ton of money and FOMO is really just greed compelling you to gamble.

By the way, sometimes FOMO isn’t an emotional problem, it’s a technical one. For example, if you feel like you’re always chasing the market it could be because you’re lacking the requisite skill as an investor/trader to recognize quality opportunities. There’s always going to be someone making money, or minimizing losses, and if you’re serious about being in that camp, rather than someone who simply rides the wave of the market, you need to take seriously the need to develop your strategy and skill set. 

In The Mental Game of Trading I shared the story of my client Carlos, who had a legitimate sense of missing out because he couldn’t get a good understanding of where the market was within his range to time his entries properly. By utilizing the Mental Hand History, talking and thinking through what was happening, he realized that FOMO was a legitimate fear highlighting a gap in his execution.

Be sure to rule out something on the technical/strategic side, and then you’ll know whether you need to focus on the mental and emotional side to truly solve your problem with FOMO.

 

Preventing FOMO

Just as there is more than one underlying cause for FOMO, there is more than one way to prevent it. That starts with making sure you see it coming. 

What signals might indicate you’re experiencing FOMO? Maybe you can’t stay focused on the sectors, symbols, or markets you usually watch. You feel like big moves are happening elsewhere. Adrenaline pumps through your body, you’re hyper-focused, and driven to avoid missing another big opportunity. You missed the last one, and the urge to get it right this time is overpowering. You know you shouldn’t chase, but you worry that price isn’t going to come back down and that you have to get in now. Or maybe you overreact to breaking news. You have a panicky feeling and make a rash decision without completing your analysis. You get stopped out, and as it immediately retraces, you convince yourself that it’s fine to get in again because it “feels right.”

Either way, it’s critical that you become aware of the escalation. Start mapping your FOMO, paying close attention both to what triggers the emotion and to what signals an increase in it. That will help you get to the bottom of what’s driving it.

Hidden emotions or impulses like this cause you to alter your thoughts, shortcut your process, or take on too much risk. To counter them, you need to pay attention, ask questions, and do some tracking. I have a free tool that can help, that I call a Data Collection Worksheet.

If you’re not sure why FOMO is affecting you, start by collecting data around each decision you make so you can look for patterns and identify what is driving your decisions (if you know when FOMO shows up, you can collect the data just on those decision points). Here’s an example of what I mean:

Use the data you found to better understand what FOMO is really about for you. Bear in mind it could be related to any of the underlying flaws outlined in The Mental Game of Trading, including the ones I mentioned above. It’s also important to collect data after you really do miss out on an opportunity. How do you feel at that point? Is it different than when you just think you might miss out?

FOMO is a big reason why traders make poor decisions. Using this data collection tool consistently will help you uncover the faulty patterns in your decision making and allow you to be more aware when you’re about to make a poor decision so you can change course. 

If collecting the data doesn’t lead to new insights, however, try these other tactics I explained in The Mental Game of Trading:

This one might sound strange at first, but force yourself to stay on the sidelines to intensify your emotions. The reason to do this is that when your emotions are more intense the cause of them can be easier to identify. How might this look in practice? Define a narrower set of criteria for what trades you’ll take; for example, by only taking A+ trades for a day, few days, or a week. Or you might deliberately remove some discretionary-type trades that can lead to FOMO. Keep a notepad or journal open next to you and, in real time, capture the emotions and thoughts that arise. They will be the clues to help you complete a more precise map, laying the groundwork for you to determine the roots of your FOMO and come up with a correction. If you find yourself hesitating about the financial impact of this exercise, remember this is research. You’re investing in a long-term upgrade to your execution that, if successful, will likely recoup those short-term missed opportunities many times over. 

FOMO may be a common problem, but it doesn’t have to derail you. Do the work to dig out what is driving the fear and then use my system to correct the underlying emotional problems. Before you know it, you’ll be FOMO NOMO!

The post FOMO NOMO appeared first on Jared Tendler.

One Last Chance to Realize My Golf Dreams

As I take one last attempt to realize my golf dreams, I decided to start blogging to practice what I preach, bring some accountability, and provide a window into my mental game work, goals, and process. If you’d like my latest post delivered right to your inbox, click here  to added to the list.

 

As much as I’ve tried to shake my competitive golfing dreams, they won’t die. Ever since I was a kid I’ve dreamt of winning the U.S. Open. And while I know that’s likely not in the cards, I still want to play in one. Though still improbable, that’s a far more reasonable dream.

I always tell my clients they are free to dream as big as they can imagine, so long as they’re willing to make the hard choices required to give them a chance. I believe it is better to aim high and truly find out what you can do.

For a while this dream sat idle in the back of my mind while I focused on more practical concerns, like building my coaching business, writing books, and being a good husband and father. 

But a couple of years ago, as more space started to open up in my life, my golfing dreams came out of hiding. At 43 and beginning to stare into my own mortality, I realized this was my last opportunity to see what I can do as a golfer. I’m out of second chances. I can’t take another mulligan so to speak. Thus the name of this blog – “No More Mulligans.” 

Being inside the ropes with clients at a few PGA Tour events, including the Players, helped to further fan the fire. Having a front row seat to watch the best players in the world reminded me how much I love the game, being on the course, working on my game, and competing.

I’ve actually always considered myself to be my first client, since it was my mental hang-ups in big time tournament golf, like trying to qualify for the U.S. Open, that drove me into this field. And since I started coaching in 2005, I’ve been driven to help my clients, and all of you – readers of my books and blog – to improve and achieve your dreams. Now it’s my turn to give my game the same attention and dedication.

Btw, this is not a retirement from a coaching announcement. Nothing changes there. I’ve just been carving out more time within my existing life to make this happen.

 

Doing the Work

 

I started this resurrection of sorts by finding an instructor to work on my swing. At the time, my handicap was still a +1, even though I had been averaging only 12-15 rounds/year for the past decade. During grad school I knew that I wouldn’t have time to play or practice a lot, so I made it a priority to figure out how to still play great golf, and did! I kept my game up, and even qualified for the 2013 U.S. Mid-am (national tournament for the best amateurs over 25 years old), the first USGA event I qualified for, shooting a two-under par 70 in what was just my 12th round of golf that year.

While my scoring was still decent, I know there were a lot of compensations in my swing that would limit my upside. I was fortunate enough to live around the corner from Dom Dijulia, a top 100 instructor and someone I immediately connected with philosophically. His goal was not to immediately change my swing. Instead, he focused on how my body was naturally built and what I was capable of doing. I learned some incredible insights that began stripping away some of those compensations, and he helped me develop a rich understanding of how I swing the club best.

Dom was also connected with a personal trainer who is unlike any trainer that I’ve worked with before. Abi Engle is trained in Exercise Science with an emphasis on posture and rehabilitation, and has a remarkable understanding of how to progressively remove structural limitations, while building strength in the right way. All of my work with trainers in the past had led to injuries. Working with Abi was different. We didn’t just jump right in, she spent the entire first session doing a diagnostic assessment and finding all of my weaknesses. The list was long. Even though I was exercising regularly, my thoracic spine was compressed, limiting rotation, and my glutes were weak, limiting power. 

That dose of hard truth didn’t sit well, but it was exactly what I needed. For the last two and a half years I’ve worked out 6-7 days/week for an average of 90 mins/day. I’ve put in the time, even when traveling and tired, and I’ve never felt as functionally strong. My body has been upgraded significantly and I feel like we’re just getting started.

I haven’t avoided injuries or setbacks, but they were always progressive. For example, at the start of last season I got tendonitis in my left foot because my glute strength increased so much that I was now driving through the ball hard enough to strain my left foot. Increased power put my body into a position it wasn’t used to! Dom gave me a simple fix and my foot steadily recovered.

 

Practicing What I Preach

 

So now, here I am at 45 with one last go to realize my dreams and see how good of a player I can become. To that end, I decided to write this blog to practice what I preach, bring some accountability, and provide a window into my mental game work, and my process for improving.

Golf has been near and dear to my heart for the last 35+ years, ever since my grandfather first had me swing a club that was nearly as tall as I was. I’ve learned a lot of lessons from the game, about myself, people, competition, and life. The game is a great educator. For me now, this drive is more than just playing in the U.S. Open. Throughout my adult life, golf has helped me to grow personally and as a coach –  playing in the heat of competition does that. It can break you down, expose hidden weaknesses, and test you in ways uncommon in everyday life. I am certain that growth will continue as I push myself beyond my current limits.

But I also want to win. I want to tee it up in the U.S. Open and I’m going to figure out how to get it done. No more mulligans.

The post One Last Chance to Realize My Golf Dreams appeared first on Jared Tendler.

Clarity is Key

 

Misunderstandings. Confusion. Feeling overwhelmed. Nobody who is trying to reach or sustain peak performance wants any part of those. Quite the opposite, you want your mind to be clear. 

A clear mind produces sharp thinking and execution. You know what you’re trying to do and there’s nothing internally that is blocking you from doing it. Zero friction. Your thoughts easily translate into action, and access high-level intuitive reactions comes effortlessly. That clarity of mind makes accessing intuition more achievable, allowing you to make adjustments, capitalize on opportunities, see edges, and outmaneuver your opponent in ways that you typically can’t.

I wanted to focus on clarity this month because at this point in the year many of you will fall into two categories. 

The first category is the people who excitedly made New Year’s resolutions but didn’t understand the true nature of progress and why resolutions don’t work. For those folks progress may have already stalled. When you are trying to transform your performance, it doesn’t take much for the gravitational force of C-game – your old habits and mistakes – to pull you back down. If that’s you, click on those links, review my previous blogs and then recommit in a way that will work. 

The second group are folks who are successfully riding the wave of inspiration from the new year to achieve high levels of productivity. If that’s you, that means you are remaining diligent with routines and are adhering to the rules and play style you set out. It’s terrific news and I applaud you. But I want you to be aware that high productivity can be derailed by a very common, but not well understood, phenomenon. 

Clutter in your mind slowly accumulates in these periods of high performance and productivity, and, left alone, this accumulated data can cause you to slide backwards and make you more vulnerable to your C-game. I call this accumulated data “Bloated Brain.” 

The good news is that combatting bloated brain is straightforward and achievable – but first you need to understand it.

 

What is “Bloated Brain”?

Sometimes it’s easier to see a problem when it’s bigger. Think back to the trading days, poker sessions, or rounds of golf when you were so intensely focused for so long that you stopped being able to properly analyze trades, hands or shots. 

Or how about the times when you were researching, watching training videos, or practicing for large chunks of time and reached a point where your brain just shut off — you couldn’t focus any longer and new information didn’t make any sense. 

At those times, your mind is so full of data that you don’t have the room to hold any more. You’re like a wet sponge unable to absorb any more water. You have a hard time concentrating, miss key information, and feel mentally exhausted—like your head is in a fog. 

The common assumption is that you’re tired, and that’s certainly a part of the story. But the hidden part is that your brain is full of data or what I call, “bloated brain.”

The problem gets worse when this data carries over day to day. Accumulated data is very much like accumulated emotion, and in a subtle way it can limit your ability to think clearly and process information the following day. When you’re driven to optimize your performance and learning, a cluttered mind is a hidden danger. 

 

Consuming Random Content

A major contributor to bloated brain is consuming random content. Many of you are forced do that by the nature of your jobs. For instance, traders must sift through streams of data from multiple sources in order to interpret and capitalize on opportunities. And as you interface with these data streams, it’s easy to allow irrelevant information to flow in and influence your decisions.

You may think such distractions don’t affect you. But here’s a quick way to demonstrate what happens when the mind attempts to do two things simultaneously: While reading the next several lines, focus on the sensation of your legs against your chair or the feeling of your feet on the ground. Force yourself to feel the sensation of your legs or feet, while paying close attention to what you’re reading. See if you can notice the shift that your mind makes between reading and sensing your legs or feet. 

Do you notice how each time your attention switches, you lose information from the other point of focus? Your eyes may continue to scan the page, but you no longer pick up every word, and you may even have to reread them. And every time you focus only on reading, you lose awareness of the sensation in your legs and feet. 

Imagine this happening while trading or at the table or on the course. Every time you focus on Twitter, a text message, or an unrelated discussion, you absorb data that can either immediately, or later on, cause you to miss data that is critical to your performance.

 

Maintaining Clarity: Cool-Down Routines

The good news is that these problems are fairly easy to address by adding simple habits into your daily routine. The brain has a natural process for digesting information and converting it into valuable knowledge, just as the body’s digestive system extracts nutrients from food. You can make that process more efficient. 

While trading, playing poker, or practicing golf, take breaks before your brain shuts off. Just a few minutes, where you stop consuming new data, can give your brain an opportunity to digest more of what you’ve absorbed. Plus, if you take some notes, go for a short walk, or meditate, you delay the drop-off in your performance until the end of the trading day, poker or practice session. (On the golf course, find small moments where you can do this between shots.)

Then, afterwards help your brain digest the data by writing, or talking and then taking notes, whichever you prefer. You don’t even have to review what you write to experience a benefit. The mental clarity you achieve from getting the data out of your head is valuable on its own.

Although, I do recommend that you review a few of the key takeaways from your writing as part of your warm up. This creates a cycle – before, during, and after – where you regularly focus on improving specific parts of your tactical and mental game. That kind of repetition is key to accelerating improvement. 

Clients who follow this advice tell me that by regularly squeezing out the data that accumulates in their mind, they feel mentally refreshed at times when they previously assumed they were tired. Plus, when used consistently, it keeps their mind clear, which produces high performance and rapid improvement.

Unfortunately, clarity is not always that easy to come by in a world where so many are vying for your attention. To have a fighting chance requires a little maintenance.

The post Clarity is Key appeared first on Jared Tendler.

The Inchworm Concept

The start of a new year is often a time when you feel energized about your goals and optimistic about your ambitions. You envision the year ahead, imagining the progress you’ll make and the success you’ll have.

My job isn’t to decide what you or my clients aspire to this year. My job is to help you get there. So out of the gate, I want to remind you about The Inchworm Concept, because it can help you understand how to make progress this year without the usual big ups and downs. For those of you whose goals are really more like New Year’s Resolutions that are easily derailed once the inspiration fire has burned out, this is especially relevant.

If you’re going to have success this year it’ll be because you’ve successfully leveraged, or improved, your strengths, while also protecting yourself from, and improving upon, your weaknesses. The Inchworm Concept helps you to be honest and practical about your current skills, including both your strong and weak points. 

For many of you the latter is most important. It is our weaknesses that have the power to trip us up and hold us back. They undermine our efforts and keep us trapped in a cycle of underperformance that can wear on our confidence, kill our motivation, and fray our nerves. 

You’re not going to allow that to happen this year. 

No, this year is different. 

This year you’re going to do the dirty work. You’re going to dig into your weak points and unlock your potential. This isn’t rocket science, it just takes the willingness to look at aspects of yourself and your performance that can be hard and uncomfortable. Fortunately, The Inchworm Concept makes that work easier to do. 

 

Inchworm & The Bell Curve

 

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the The Inchworm Concept, it’s literally based on the inchworm, a caterpillar that moves in a distinct way. If you’ve never seen the way an inchworm moves, the graphic below shows how it stretches its body straight, anchors the front, bends from the middle, and then moves the backend forward in order to allow the next step forward.

 

An inchworm looks like a bell curve that moves.

Your bell curve is the variation in your performance from best to worst, and everything in between. All the knowledge and skills that you’re currently learning exist within that range. Every day you show up to trade, play golf or poker, etc., you’re bound by your range. There’s a limit to how bad you can be, and there’s a cap on how good you can be as well. 

For example, as a trader with 10 years of experience, it’s no longer possible, under any circumstance, for you to think about a trade as rudimentarily as you did when you were six months in. From a performance standpoint, there’s a proverbial stop-loss limiting how bad a decision you can make. And on the flip side, when you were a trader with six months’ experience, you couldn’t wake up one day and suddenly think about a trade as well as a trader with 10 years’ experience. Sure, you could execute the same trade, but the decision-making process to get there would be significantly different. The capacity to shrink nine and a half years of experience into one day doesn’t exist. This same dynamic holds up in poker and golf too.

 

Moving Your Bell Curve Forward

 

The bell curve is a static snapshot of your current range. Improvement, on the other hand, is the forward movement of a bell curve over time — something an actual inchworm illustrates perfectly in the way it moves. 

Consistent improvement happens by taking one step forward from the front of your bell curve, where your A-game becomes even better, followed by another step forward from the back, where your C-game becomes less terrible. 

Over time, that improvement from both sides of your range moves your entire bell curve forward: Progress in motion.

What trips you up is your C game. That’s why New Year’s resolutions fail, you’re not accounting for your back-end weaknesses.

Inspiration can ignite your A-game, allowing you to reach new heights or sustain new habits for a short time. But you can’t escape your C-game that easily. It’s like gravity and eventually you’ll fall back down to earth. 

In practical terms, you may be inspired to work harder, have better focus, avoid your common trading, poker or golf mistakes, but when momentum starts to fade, your C-game habits, such as procrastination, distractibility, and tilt, pop back up and derail you.

To truly move your C game forward, you have to get at the root of what’s causing your issues, and/or have a plan in place to apply corrections when inspiration fades and progress is tougher to sustain.

Improvements that come easily haven’t been tested yet. You need to be able to demonstrate progress under the toughest circumstances you’ll face in order to prove that your C-game has in fact moved forward. Until then, keep working. By all means, leverage your inspiration, just remain level-headed enough to know when it’s creating an illusion of progress. 

The Inchworm Concept helps to keep you more accountable, ensuring that you produce C-game progress, not just improvements to your A-game. Because if you focus only on frontend improvement, as many mistakenly do, your range gets wider, and that causes a host of problems to develop:

Wild swings in executionInconsistent performancePlateauingBurnoutEmotional ups and downs

Contrary to what many believe, your backend doesn’t automatically move forward because the frontend did. To counter this, you must consistently focus on backend improvement, especially when you reach a new peak in your ability. 

 

Putting Inchworm into Practice

 

When looking more closely at your performance, for better or worse, it’s important to be honest about the reality of the range that exists – not what you wish the reality was, but what it actually is. 

Think for a moment about the quality of your performance at your absolute best vs. at your absolute worst. In other words, how good does it really get when you’re doing great, and how bad does it really get when you’re doing poorly?

To put this into practical use, you can complete an A-to-C Game Analysis (both for Trading and Poker), which outlines the different levels of your performance, so you can grade your performance and track your progress more clearly. 

Everyone wants to be at their best more often and improve faster. Inchworm is an easy way to remember that improvement happens from two sides: improving weakness and improving your best. 

As you kick off this new year, use The Inchworm Concept to keep you focused on improvement everyday, so you can look back at the end of the year and be proud of what you accomplished. 

P.S. – I’d also love to hear more about the impact this concept has had on your progress.  If you are willing to answer a couple of quick questions in this survey, I’d appreciate it!

 

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