Thane Ringler | The Power Faith and Awareness in Achieving Mastery

Thane Ringler: Love and fear are diametrically opposed to each other. You can't love someone truly when you're operating out of fear, right? Cause then it just becomes how can I get control? And that's why I love someone so I can have control or power over, or what can they do for me? Or how can I get mine?

And all those things are, it's a fear based narrative versus love says. I'm going to prefer the other and this isn't a competition against me against you or how can I win and you lose or you lose and I it's together. It's unifying. And so I think if we operate out of a place of love and ultimately I believe.

And what the Bible says, God is love. And a lot of times, especially if people, I have a good mentor of mine, Jamie Winship. He's people don't operate from a faith perspective. That's great. I just say, instead of saying what would God do? And this is where I say, what would love do in this situation?

Cause it's the same thing in that sense.


Srini Rao: I'm Srini Rao, and this is the Unmistakable Creative Podcast, where you get a window into the stories and insights of the most innovative and creative minds who started movements, built thriving businesses, written bestselling books, and created insanely interesting art. For more, check out our 500 episode archive at unmistakablecreative.

com.


Thane Ringler: I am Charlotte Katsuragi and in partnership with the House of Chanel, I present to you the Les Rencontres podcast. As part of the Rendez vous Littéraire at Rue Cambon, this podcast spotlights the birth of a female writer. You can listen to the various episodes and their authors on your preferred streaming platforms.

Soon, you'll know Centura Health by a new name, Common Spirit Health. But you already know who we are. Passionate people who are here to treat, welcome, and support you. Centura is becoming common spirit and you'll continue to find incredible care and caregivers at these and other formerly Centura Health Hospitals and Clinics.

St. Francis Interquest, Penrose, and St. Mary Corwin Hospitals. Learn more at Centura. org.


Srini Rao: Thane, welcome to the unmistakable creative. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us


Thane Ringler: jThanks so much for having me. I'm excited to share some words in this time together. Yeah, absolutely. It is my


Srini Rao: pleasure to have you here. So I found out about your story because you wrote it and told me a bit about it.

And I was immediately intrigued by the fact that you had played professional golf as somebody who has always hated golf and only played once and was miserable, but we'll get to that. But before we get into that part of it I want to start by asking you what religious or spiritual beliefs were you brought up with and how have those shaped and impacted your life?


Thane Ringler: Yeah. Yeah. So I grew up in a Christian home in Kansas in the Midwest. My dad helped start the church I actually grew up in. He was one of the elders and still is to this day. And so faith and religion and spirituality has played a large role in my life from day one, really. Being a baby in the church and then, and still being a practicing Christian today.

Faith has shaped really how I see the world. My perspective on what daily interactions entail. And and it's been a journey, a huge personal journey as well. I, while I was a young believer and Christian I didn't always live that way I. I definitely experienced a lack of integrity in my life where I lived one way, but said I was another way and so for about seven years of my life from high school into college, that was that was true of me.

And I think that was one of the most important lessons that I've learned in my entire life is that when that period of time when. My my hypocritical nature of lack of integrity and what I said, I believed in what I actually did when that was exposed in college to my family and friends and people that knew me and there's this seat was brought up, then it really was a shaking and life defining moment for me in the sense that Now I need to decide who am I actually going to be and who do I want to live as, and not just say that I live as, and I'm really grateful for that time because it's just, it's really allowed me to live in much more alignment and attached to what I really believe to be true and what I really value in this world.

And as, as we both know, and as anyone listening knows, it. We all care way more about what people do than what they say, because words are cheap. This conversation is super cheap right now. And if my life isn't backing up these words, and these words have no meaning. And so I really learned that firsthand in a deep way, and I'm super grateful for that.

So the last ever since that time in college has been a real fulfilling journey to have much more integrity. in the way I live. And obviously we all have a obstacles to living with integrity every day and we all fall short of time. We're all human in that. But I can say that, man, knowing and following the way of Jesus has been the most life giving thing that I've experienced for sure.


Srini Rao: I think the reason I started with that question was one because I saw it on your about page and I was very intrigued by it because What I wonder, there's several questions that come from this for me as somebody who obviously is not Christian. I was raised Hindu, but I think throughout my life I have been skeptical of faith.

I'm like, I can't if I can't explain or understand something with logic, ration or science, I'm like, I don't I'm not buying it. And I wonder why you think it is that People rebel against faith and why they find faith at different times in their lives. And also what misperceptions do you think somebody like me has of somebody like you, who's very very devout?

Because that, the reason that question, when I saw that on the page, I was like, Oh, I wonder was it this like rigid, strict, religious, almost cult like Christian upbringing, or did you have just a normal experimenting with drugs, partying like any normal teenager does experience?


Thane Ringler: Yeah, totally.

Great questions. The first the first thing to say is just that I think to your point we all are products of our upbringing and experience and culture and that's different for every single person. And I think empathy just says I haven't experienced that and I want to learn from that.

So I love these questions and how you're starting out there. For my background, it was, yeah. It was a pretty strict upbringing and sense that there was a lot of it's very fundamental based it's very biblical base, so based on the Bible and theology was always important part of that.

And so I think from a just human development standpoint, I think that's a really good thing in the sense that in any skill or in any. Development of any environment, whether it be a career or a perspective or the way we view the world. I think that having a time when we're really learning the base fundamentals and ingraining them in our being is really helpful.

So for example, in golf and I actually wrote about this in one of my books about this path to mastery or individual excellence in any field. It's like this idea that. Simplicity on the far side of complexity is what mastery entails ultimately. So from that, you get this idea that the path to it is simplicity, complexity, simplicity, and I think that's the process that we all go through in any realm, whether it be a career pursuit, athletic pursuit, or even a faith pursuit in the sense that.

Especially in faith, right? I was learning the fundamentals of what the Bible taught and what I believed God taught us through the Bible or the way of Jesus and and so there's a lot of hard learning and that of just putting in the reps of okay, this is what it means. I need to do this.

And then it's not natural for me to do this, but I still need to do this. And I think similarly in golf I'm learning the fundamentals of This is how the swing looks and this is what this club does and this is how it feels. And now you have to do it 10, 000 times so your body can do it automatically,

so I think that fundamental learning the building blocks is a really important phase and that's a lot of what I grew up in. I think the hard part is when people don't move Through that stage, I think the hard part comes when you stay in this cycle, this kind of circular loop that just repeats itself.

And I think that's where entrenchment and blindness kind of can come in. And so I was really grateful that in my journey, I really believe God brought me through. through that into learning more of the complexity and the vastness and the mystery. And then now the far side simplicity of individual excellence or mastery in my faith pursuit is living in that tension.

Of saying. Hey, I've learned a lot about what the Bible says and what I believe God says in the Bible and what Jesus practiced. I've been, I've learned a ton of knowledge about that, but really knowledge doesn't necessarily lead to a benefit. A lot of times knowledge can be more crippling and it can be more blinding in time.

So then what about the faith and the spirituality side of it and the experiential side of it that you can't necessarily learn in a textbook? That comes from a relationship. And so that's been the more mysterious side. And then understanding there's things that I'll never be able to explain.

And while we all want to we all love science and I love science. I love knowledge. I love learning. But even like the human body I think it's been, I had a, this is a long winded answer, but I had a injury in golf when I was playing professionally that repeated about five times the last year and a half.

of my career. And so for about a year and a half of my professional career, I was spending a lot of time trying to figure out and problem solve my own body. And through that, I saw a lot of different practitioners and people that were in that space. And I quickly began to realize there's a big difference between prescriptive practitioners and intuitive practitioners, the ones that.

I'm really trying to listen to what the body's telling them versus the ones that say, Hey, here's the problem. I'm going to fix it because the body is so complex that and I think the point of all this to say is that the more that I learned about the body, the more I realized that our faith in doctors a lot of times or in people that are experts in the field is a bit outsized, meaning We, we believe if we aren't experienced in the field and myself included, a lot of times we believe they have the whole body figured out, but in reality, the science is based on scientific evidence, which is based on theories and studies, and all of those are.

A picture of the reality, and we still are learning so much about the body, like we have so much to learn about the human body still, and it's many of it, many components of it is still a mystery, even though we've learned so much, so I think the whole point of that to say is that embracing the mystery is where I'm at in my faith journey and I've had to gone through the fundamental early stage of it to get there.


Srini Rao: It's funny because anytime I think about faith, like there's not the best example to quote nowadays, but I remember in one of Bill Cosby's standup comedies, he said he's like old people become religious because they want to make sure they get into heaven. And I've seen my parents become more devout as they've gotten older.

And. Like our agreement is I go to the temple on New Year's beyond that. They let me do my own thing. And I guess where I'm going with that is as somebody who is a Christian and who is devout as you are, when you see the sort of almost hypocrisy of somebody like an evangelical who basically calls somebody like the president who has slept with porn stars, cheated on every wife, a man of faith.

Does that make you cringe? But more importantly. You and you're not going to sit here in this conversation and say, Oh, Srini, you need to convert to my religion because you have an understanding that we each have our own beliefs. We each have our own viewpoints and you're accepting of your you're accepting of mine and I'm accepting of yours.

But then there's that extreme side where. And it's it's not just in Christianity. In every religion you have this like extremism where, you know, even in Hindus, like their stories of Hindus killing Muslims because they were eating meat on some holiday in India and that's horrible.

So you I guess I I just want to tee that up to you. What, when you see that as somebody who is of faith, like what does that make you feel like? How do you, I feel like it's faith misinterpreted to the extreme.


Thane Ringler: Yeah. It, you make some great points cause really there's bad actors in every single field and group.

In all sectors. So there's bad cops, right? As we've been seeing, there's bad examples of what a cop should be. There's bad actors in the politics. And it's hard to say there's, it's probably more bad actors than good actors in politics, but that's another thing. There's bad actors in the medical field.

There's doctors that literally are just pill pushers making money off of getting people hooked on opiates. There's bad actors in every field. So that's true in religion as well. And I think, for me, when I see, when I hear and see examples of that, especially within Christianity I try to embrace empathy of saying, I wonder how they got there and trying to understand I could be there too at some points and I have been there at some points, meaning when we are on our journey and learning again, if we get stuck in the fundamentals and in certain components of what we're comfortable with or what we know or what we've been taught and brought up in, you start taking that to more and more extremes because you're not moving, you're not continuing onward on your journey.

You're just staying in the same place. And so a lot of times, These people that, that can make some outrageous claims at times, like what you brought up with Trump being a man of faith, right? And I don't know, I can't speak for Trump, but what we all see from him and this is from the media it's hard to imagine conflict with faith.

It's hard to imagine that being true. Yeah, and I want to just be cautious that look, I don't want to judge anyone from what I see online, right? I think we already have enough division on what we're consuming and they're all 9th, 10th hand information. And what matters to me is firsthand information of Hey, we're in this conversation, you mean this we're screen.

So it's not quite as firsthand as I would like, but this is what I care about. This is real information that I'm learning from by human to human interaction, not by consuming virtual interactions. That's a caveat. And all that to say is I think that when it comes to people that would make that claim, I can understand how you justify that.

I can understand how you get there because I've been in a similar place before in my life, right? Where I've said this verse says this, which means I need to do this. But if we don't understand the context around that verse, and what the intent was of the original author, and what the heart of God or Jesus is, and the stories that he shares, and how that plays out in real life, and what we don't know then it's not a complete picture.

And I think... We camp out on the extremes because it's more comfortable and it's because what we know and we have to embrace what we don't know in order to be more balanced and lead with love and lead with empathy and try to understand versus make judgments and statements of things that we really don't fully know.


Srini Rao: Yeah, I appreciate that perspective so much. And I, like the key word in that to me was context. And it's funny you mentioned an author and we're talking about an author in the case of God or in whatever your spiritual belief is, but that's true for any author, whether it's a self help person or even me on this podcast.

Like I always have to think about context. I think that the example, one of my really good mentors gave me, he said, look, he's you write about all these productivity strategies and all these things that you do. He said, when was the last time you actually set foot in a corporate office and had a job?

He said, the people that you serve lead very different lives, and you have to take that context into account when you do this. He's the productivity strategies that work for you or Tim Ferriss are going to be a disaster for a mother of two.


Thane Ringler: Yeah, that's so good. And we are all products of our personal experience.

There's a quote Morgan Housel said, and I'm going to paraphrase it, but he basically says that you are largely your perspective is shaped. Over 80 percent of your perspective is shaped by your personal experience. Yet that personal experience makes up about 0. 0000001 percent of what's happening in the world.

So it's just we got to just have everything with a grain of salt And to be honest, like the biggest testimony that I can give of my faith in God is the personal experience I've had with it. It's not quoting some Bible verse of you and telling you that this is what the book says and you better believe it, or you're going to burn in hell in this fear based messaging, what I can tell you is look, my life's been changed by it and it's been for the better.

Like it's way better than it would have been otherwise. And I want that for everyone. That's why I share that so it's not and I think that's the difference between fear and love and if we want to talk about operating systems and how we operate in the narratives is, love and fear diametrically opposed to each other.

You can't Love someone truly when you're operating out of fear, right? Cause then it just becomes how can I get control? And that's why I love someone so I can have control or power over, or what can they do for me or how can I get mine? And all of those things are, it's a fear based narrative versus love says.

I'm going to prefer the other and this isn't a competition against me against you or how can I win and you lose or you lose and I it's together. It's unifying. And so I think if we operate out of a place of love and ultimately I believe. And what the Bible says, God is love. And so it a lot of times, especially if people, I have a good mentor of mine, Jamie Winship, he's people don't operate from a faith perspective.

That's great. I just say, instead of saying what would God do in this situation, I say, what would love do in this situation? Because it's the same thing in that sense. Let's do this. Let's shift gears. I think that to me, I think there's such an interesting bridge here to build between faith and mastery.


Srini Rao: Like I remember looking at the video on your website. Tell me how golf starts in your life. And I think what I want to do is talk about the role that faith plays in the process of mastering something to the level that you have.


Thane Ringler: Yeah golf started my life at a young age. My dad got me into it and we lived right across from one of the best golf courses in the country, Prairie Dunes Country Club.

So that was an obviously advantage advantageous situation. And I just enjoyed being out there with my dad and hanging out with him. Starting at three or four and had some natural talent to where I was gravitating towards it cause I was pretty good at it. And I really loved being with my dad and playing sports.

I played a lot of sports, but as I grew up, golf became more of the focus. And I think partly it was due to childish ignorance in the sense that I was so competitive and I hated losing so much that. I gravitate towards golf because I thought I could control all the variables. I didn't have to depend on anyone else to win so as a kid, that's great.

But then you get older and you're like, Oh yeah, that means I have to take ownership for all the negative results too. And the failures. And there's way more of those than the successes and weather too, right? And whether, and all the, yeah, crappy plan. I think it's similar to people who do board sports, as as a snowboarder.


Srini Rao: I was a kid who just was terrible at team sports and part of why I loved surfing and snowboarding, I was like, look, like if I'm performing horribly in the water or on the mountain, it doesn't affect anybody else's performance that day. Whereas in a team, if you're like the shitty player, you bring everybody else


Thane Ringler: down.

Yeah, totally. Yeah, 100%. And I think that definitely influenced me as well, like you said. And as I kept playing I think as you mentioned, like faith plays a role in all of that in the sense that. You have to have the faith and belief that it's going to lead to something, right?

That there's going to be, there's going to be something that awaits you that's desirable or that there's a journey towards. And my dad was always a bigger believer in me than I was. A lot of times he would always say one day, if you keep practicing, maybe you'll be able to play on the two or one day

and as a kid, I was like. Dad, great. Yeah, but that's like way far away. I don't want to think about it cause I didn't want to get myself built up to have a huge letdown if I didn't make it. So it was funny how my dad I think had more faith in me than I did myself. And part of that was just the fear of failure.

I didn't want to be let down. I didn't want to have my identity associated with a failure if I didn't accomplish that. And so that fear really kept me from. Faith in in my own abilities and my own pursuit but slowly but surely as I got into college and kept progressing and seeing it stack up that this could be a good potential, that this is an option I started to embrace that a little bit more.


Srini Rao: I want to go back to something you said about basically setting yourself up for disappointment because the reality is this is a professional athlete probably better than anybody you're like a needle in a haystack. The probability that you'll accomplish what you have is low.

Everybody and how many people basically get drafted to the NFL out of like the thousands of students who play college football? I don't even know if it's thousands, but it's not a lot. And I've seen documentaries where people basically. Their whole life is built around this one identity or goal and then they don't achieve it.

And from what I understand, particularly in places like football, because I just had a former NFL player, he's it's incredibly disorienting because these people are escaping really difficult environments. This is, this was their path to a better life and suddenly it's no longer in front of them.

So one, I just want to hear your thoughts on that as somebody who has achieved at that level. And then I want to actually start dissecting the process for how this happens.


Thane Ringler: Yeah. Just to also add in some detail there, I got the play of about four years professionally, but I didn't make it to the PGA tour.

So I didn't achieve my goal of playing at the top level. I was on developmental tours and overseas in the one Asia tour for a season. And then I had an injury that derailed a lot of my progress there and not accomplishing it, I faced that same challenge of, man, I am a failure, right? If I didn't, if I didn't reach my goal, then I am a failure.

And I think that challenge is, like you said, very disorienting and extremely scary for anyone to go through, especially athletes that make it to a high level. And they come from a really hard place. I obviously came from what I like to say. Third base is where I was born. And I just like to give that caveat that it's been a different experience for me.

And that I got blessed with more opportunity than most. But I think this speaks to a really important point. And I love sharing perspective on it because the danger of this It happens to all of us, whether you're an athlete or not, especially within as a creative or within our field, we attach our identity to what we do instead of who we are.

And that is the biggest difference in the world. Because if what I do defines me, and that is my identity, then success or failure is the most important thing in the world. If it doesn't, if it's detached from it, if who I am is different than my job title, or the work that I do, or the sport that I play, or what my image is on the exterior then those things don't have as much hold over me, and I don't have to be fearful of The failure that will inevitably be a part of the journey.

And I think that, that, and faith is a big part of helping in that. I think having a purpose that is greater than yourself is huge in allowing us to understand that our identity as human beings is a collective, a relational identity. The world doesn't revolve around you. It doesn't revolve around me or any human being.

And so when we are one of a collective as humans, Then we can start seeing our role as a part of that collective versus our own our own identity being detached and on our own based on what we do. And I think that's a really freeing place to be. Did you know that


Srini Rao: as we age, cellular


Thane Ringler: function declines, which may impact changes


Srini Rao: in energy and strength?

Your


Thane Ringler: regular multivitamins and minerals might not be enough to combat these age related declines, and that's where


Srini Rao: Solgar Cellular Nutrition comes in. It's a holistic collection of cellular nutrients formulated to help fight cellular decline and promote cell health. Visit CellularNutrition. Solgar. com to learn more.

Solgar Cellular Nutrition. We go cell deep. These statements


Thane Ringler: have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended


Srini Rao: to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Hey everyone, I want to take a


Thane Ringler: moment to talk about


Srini Rao: something that has been a game changer for me recently.

It's called MindLift, a neuroscience based, personalized brain training app. I've been using MindLift for a while


Thane Ringler: now, and it's like getting a peek under the hood of your brain.


Srini Rao: I've done several neurofeedback sessions so far and it's been a really eye opening experience and it's actually


Thane Ringler: really fun.

It's almost like playing a video game, but the game is your brain and the


Srini Rao: goal is to improve your focus and relaxation. Each session is a 30 minute training that's customized for you based on a neurofeedback specialist's evaluation. And I was able to knock out eight out of 13 tasks on my to do list in about two hours.

And that's the kind of focus and productivity I'm talking about when you use something like MindLeap.


Thane Ringler: But why should you trust MindLeap? It's trusted by clinicians worldwide and it's used by top athletes. You might have seen it featured in the popular Netflix show,


Srini Rao: Quarterback. The entire program is customized for you by your own expert neurocoach.

How does it


Thane Ringler: work? MindLift uses brain sensing technology and games and videos that correspond to your brain activity so that you can achieve better focus and calm. Using a smart headband, MindLift measures your brain activity and gets you on a personalized routine to sharpen your mental fitness.

And here's the best part, you can do it while watching your favorite Netflix


Srini Rao: show on your phone. It's like leveling up your brain while


Thane Ringler: you chill out. I can't imagine anything better than that. To start your brain health journey, you register online to receive your kit, run a brain health check, meet with a neuro coach to set


Srini Rao: up the program, start


Thane Ringler: using your personalized training by playing games or watching videos that respond to your brain activity, and meet your neuro coach on a monthly basis.

MindLift's data driven approach ensures tangible results. Recurring brain checks generate vivid brain maps revealing targeted areas for your unique training. And a dedicated neurocoach designs your exclusive program, which evolves based on evidence of progress, guaranteeing continual brain improvement.

Last year they published a peer reviewed study in over 580 subjects showing efficacy in improving attention and reducing stress. It's also trusted


Srini Rao: by over 22, 000 members and thousands of clinicians worldwide. I highly recommend giving MindLift a try, and here's the best part. You can start your personalized program at mindlift.

com slash creative and get 40 off your first subscription. Again, that's mindlift, M Y N D L I F T dot com slash creative for 40 off your first subscription. Yeah. Talk to me about that period of recovering a sense of identity where you know, this like sort of chapter of your life comes to an end and the rest of it is unwritten.

You, what were the challenges that you are going through personally? And how did you pull out of them? How did you? Recover your sense of energy. How'd you find what the next chapter is going to be?


Thane Ringler: Yeah, that's, it's a really hard season. I think any, anybody who goes and we all go through that at times you, we understand that you're feeling stripped of many things.

You feeling very vulnerable, you're feeling almost naked and exposed and the hardest thing is like. Imagining what other people think, I think that's the biggest thing, right? We start saying, I wonder if everyone's going to think I'm a failure. I wonder how they're going to view me if these were like wasted years.

He didn't accomplish what he wanted to. And and those narratives that we start spinning within ourselves are the most destructive part of it, to be honest. And that often keeps us stuck in those places for longer than we should be. For me, it was I had the benefit of one taking, I dedicated a couple of months, honestly, to making the decision.

So I had planned on three to four years and reevaluating with my team and investors. And so at that point, it was already a preplanned reevaluation time. And I took a few months just to, pray, meditate, think through, reflect, talk to mentors and teammates and other people that I valued in my life to really decide what is it?

Is it golf or is it something else? And the question that really helped me and that I sat with was who have I been created, equipped and called to be? And I think it's a really powerful question for anyone in this. Time of in this type of situation or time in life to sit with, because it entails threefold.

And it's created is what are those natural talents or gifts that you were born with that's different maybe than your friends or other people you're around? What and then create equipped is what have your life experiences given you up to this point that are unique to you that provide value and perspective that other people's don't have.

And called is really that passion or fire or motivation that just will not die within you of what you want to bring into the world. And that can look like a million different things, but that question really helped me understand that I could be more effective outside the world of golf than within it based on the ways that I thought I had been designed and created.

And in my experiences up to that point, I was a really avid learner. I was really into communicating at this point, having a podcast going for a couple of years at that point. And just really excited about a much broader range of things and just the sport of golf. And so that kind of directed my steps and you don't have to the other encouragement I'd give and I needed was, you don't have to have it all figured out.

You just need to know the next step. Meaning a lot of times we know what one step ahead of us is. But we think we need to know the 10th step before we take that first step. And that's just not true. We don't, we'll never know the 10th step. We find the 10th step out by taking the first nine steps to get there.

Yeah. It's funny because I'm writing a new piece titled the skeptics guide to a good life. Which is literally what my friend Joseph describes unmistakable creative as he's it's not just he's you don't settle for inspirational rah bullshit. Even if find something inspiring, you'll drill somebody until you get to the root of it.


Srini Rao: But the reason I brought that up is I had a section of it that I said life plans are like fortune cookies. Like you're not going to know what's inside of them until you crack them open. And even if you have the most detailed plan in the world, the future is still unwritten.


Thane Ringler: That's really good. Yeah. I couldn't agree more.


Srini Rao: Let's go back to this whole process of mastery, because I think that to me, it's funny, like I said, my one experience of golf was like, I hated golf and I hated everything about it. Especially because the experience was I had to go play with a boss.

I hated it. Apparently what was a really difficult course for somebody who'd never played someplace called Wente vineyards. And I get there, he didn't tell me that I needed a polo shirt. So I was like, great. Now I have to buy a 50 shirt that I'm never going to wear again, spend my entire day with this asshole.

Cool. And then I was thinking to myself once we're on the like sixth hole, I should have gone to the spa with the women instead, but that being said, I think that what does intrigue me is the actual process of it. Because I feel to your point, like there's gotta be so many transferable skills that come from the process of mastering something like golf, I realize even now from writing books, I've learned a skill set that can be utilized for anything else in my life.

And so when this starts, I get an early age you clearly have a natural aptitude for it, but natural aptitude and mastery are there's a long road between those two things. And not everybody who has natural aptitude necessarily achieves mastery with what they're doing. Particularly one at that age, did you understand that mastery was going to be part of this?

Because I look now at kids who are Able to do things like watch YouTube or if you're in your seventh grade basketball team, you can take Steph Curry's masterclass like I was never taught that I could actually get better at any of the sports that I played. So I just assumed fixed mindset that's it.

I'm stuck at this level. I wonder, one, somebody at that age, did you understand what mastery really meant? And then of course, what did that look like in


Thane Ringler: practice? Yeah, really good question. First off, I'm sorry about that experience. That is horrible. Anybody would say that's horrible.

You definitely have been scarred for life in the... But I get it. That's horrible. So for me as a kid, you don't know what mastery entails. I may be a little different in today's time, right? With technology and the amount of information and connectivity that even at such a young age, these kids are growing up with.

But no, as a kid, you all you know, is At least that I remember. I know I knew was, look, I'm pretty good at this. I really enjoy it because there's always a chance to get better and to compete. And I love being with my friends and I ultimately love. Winning and I'm super competitive. And so I'm going to do whatever I can to try and win.

And as you grow up as a kid, you're really growing into a new body every six months to a year. And as you're constantly in that process, it's a fluid learning process where you're getting, you're readjusting to your body as it grows and to the game as you start hitting the ball further and further in the game changes as you grow up.

And so a lot of the time. You move from like this tee box to that tee box and there's junior golf programs where you start at the short tees and then once you play well enough on that you graduate to the next tees and you graduate to the next tee. So there's little goals like that. I remember it was the coolest thing to try to graduate to.

The nine hole club, you start on like the three hole club. And then if you play well, you get to the five hole and then the seven hole, and then you get to the nine hole and then you can get to the nine hole white teas. And that was the coolest thing. And so my goal was just to get the nine old white teas.

And it's such a beautiful, innocent learning process. I think that. I think that just goes at a really healthy pace. I think today the danger is a lot of times families can get their kids started at such a young age and kind of pick for them what they're going to do and then pour tons of time and resources into it to make them the star that they always wished they would be.

And that just ruins, it ruins a child's experience. I've seen people on the golf course kids practicing and parents are standing beside the green, watching them practice. And I'm just like, and the kid you can tell is visibly miserable. And I feel horrible. I, it's just not what the kids are made to experience within sports in my opinion.

Yeah. Yeah, you may have seen it that you probably know of this girl is like a little Asian girl and. It was, there's a documentary on Netflix called trophy parents or something like that. And this girl was a golfer and it was amazing how much her dad would just ride her. And I don't remember her name but she it was like a little prodigy.


Srini Rao: And I was just thinking and she herself would get so frustrated at her own lack of performance. And we had Dan Coyle here who wrote talent is overrated. And I was asking about this some of us probably like you read a book, like talent is overrated and you're like, damn it.

I wish my parents had made me practice for 10, 000 hours. So I would be like world class at whatever it is I I do. And I realized he said, yeah, he's that's just not really a good


Thane Ringler: model. In a lot of ways. No. Yeah. I love his work. And it's so true that if it's not coming from the kid, it's themselves and it's not going to produce what's best for the kid

cause it, especially at that age, it needs to be that comes from a joy and a passion that they have and that's, what's going to build them up for the next stage of when there is a little bit more on. on the line. There's more at stake. But if you start making that much at stake at that young of age, they're just not ready for it's the wrong part of the process.


Srini Rao: Yeah. So the next part of the process, like I remember one other word I very distinctly remembered from the trailer that I saw of your golf game was precision. So let's talk about like how the skill actually goes from being this thing that you have this natural aptitude for. To the kind of skill where you're able to play at the level that you did what does that actually look like day to day?

Because I can tell you this is a, even as a musician who made all state band, it, like the process of learning to play, it's when a kid learns to play a musical instrument. Mostly the first day they pick up the instrument, they sound like they're sacrificing animals and you're like, this kid is going to be a musician.

How?


Thane Ringler: Yeah, no, it's a long process. And especially with golf the learning curve is pretty steep because there's 14 clubs in a bag and and each round takes Four to four to five hours. And and there's so many different types of shots to learn and nuances in the game and types of grass and how it affects it.

And then you said that complexity is almost endless, right? To go back to that simplicity, complexity, simplicity model. So the early on simplicity phase of fundamentals is really, again, learning what each club does what your swing feels like and what the different types of shots. are fundamental to the game are.

And then as you start getting in the complexity phase, and I'd say in high school, you start on that journey, you start understanding the different elements surround external elements like the environment, the wind, the weather, the the grass, the conditions and how. It'll slightly influence.

And a lot of times that is more ingrained in college and beyond. And then in high school, you also learn how to hit certain types of shots. So if you want to draw the ball, you move it from right to left in the air. You can do that on purpose, right? You can make the ball move a certain way. And so you can bend it.

I'm in the air and you learn how to do that. And usually you have one way you're better at and the other way you don't really do much, it's a draw or a fade, a hook or a slice or the bigger versions of it. And there's so many, so much complexity you're learning. So really the best piece of advice, not.

That phase is just go with bite sized pieces. Don't try to learn it all at once. You got to go one bite at a time. And so my high school coach did a great job. Shout out the Charlie Pierce because a lot of times high school coaches are more like parents or supervisors watching the kids.

But he did a great job of going an extra step, not 10 extra steps to make it boot camp, but enough to add value to where every tournament we played in, he would print off a sheet. And on the sheet would be each hole with a couple sentences breaking down the hole and we give just a little snippet of strategy and as a high schooler, that was novel.

I never really thought about strategy. I just hit the ball and try to get in the hole. But then you start saying, oh, there's some strategy. There's a way to play this hole that's best and you can hit this club here versus this club and that will be better for the result. And that kind of started the deeper dive into what is course strategy look like and how do I Approach a golf course in each hole that can set myself up for success.

And then college is obviously another layer deeper times probably 10 because then it's okay, now I need to learn how to hit different types of shots. I need to learn to have these types of shots that I can pull off when needed. Maybe I need to be hitting this under a tree, or maybe I need to.

Bend this away that I don't normally bend it like a slice. I normally hit a draw, so it's hard for me to hit a slice. So how do I, if I'm I need to hang around a tree or up an obstacle to get it to my destination, how do I bend it that way if I have to and then really, once you start learning a wide range of the skills, the main focus then turns to and rests on the mind, the mental side, because really, Golf, once you develop enough aptitude for and skill in, you then have to work on your mind because your mind controls how your body performs those skills.

And so you can have all the practice in the world, but if your mind can't execute when the pressure's on the most, then it won't matter. It won't matter how robot like you can be on the range. If when it comes down to that final hole and you have to pull up shop and you can't do it, that's because your mind is weak.

And so that the biggest deep dive that you have to take once you've gotten past the complexities of the swing and the skill set is the mental discipline needed to perform at the highest level with the highest amount of pressure. And that is one of the most uniquely. challenging endeavors I've ever faced and probably will ever face because it's it applies in all of life.

Just in sport like golf, you get immediate feedback in the moment of this equals this. And so you really see it firsthand a lot more. To me it's funny because I can take this as you're saying this in my mind, I'm thinking about the process of learning how to build a podcast and the it's funny people, I was like, what advice do you have for.


Srini Rao: Early podcasters. I always say, edit your own interviews. And what the that's like the worst business advice ever. I'm like, it's terrible business advice. It's fantastic. Artistic advice. Yes. Because anybody who runs a business shouldn't be doing that I think I edited the first 400 episodes of our show myself.

And I think what that gave me was this sort of. I had to go back and do every listen to every single thing I did more than once. And it used to start picking up things you wouldn't have otherwise. Whereas now I handed off to an audio editor and sometimes I think in a lot of ways like I still go back and I listened to everything to look for what I think I could have done better.

And you just start to pick up subtle nuances. So let's say we were to take this framework that you gave and we're to apply it to some creative endeavor, maybe like writing, whatever it is, like how would we. Do that on a sort of generalized level because we talked about it specifically in the context of golf, but I know that you help people do it in other areas


Thane Ringler: as well.

Totally. Yeah. And I think it's a beautiful framework because it's so simple that it can be applied so broadly and we understand how that works. So let's take writing for example, right? So in writing the way we start out with writing. Is by doing it you just learn Hey, okay. I learned the fundamentals of English or whatever language.

And I've learned some grammar in school. And I've learned how to write. Now I need to put in some reps to figure out like, what does this even look like now as an adult? What does this mean if I'm trying to write for something and not just for a grade or a school project? What does it mean if I'm doing it for fun?

Or what does it mean if I'm doing it for journaling? But what does it mean if I'm trying to actually. Write a book or a blog post. And we learn then by doing it and by putting in the reps, you start getting those fundamentals of, okay, there needs to be some type of introduction. There needs to be some type of main point to it or thrust to it and then supporting arguments for it.

And then there. Illustrations help us bring this to life and then you need to wrap it up so that they can remember it in a way that they can take it with them so you learn like these simple things that are true across the board. And then you start diving into the complexity.

And I love to break it down this way because when you get into complexity you're learning a million things, right? You're learning so many different things and everyone has their own opinions. And so you're learning these, you're trying to get The universal principles in a lot of ways, right?

The things that apply to almost everyone in every space in the writing world, and that writing mentors or coaches or people that are really good at it, authors are really good writers, would give as advice. And you're like, okay, I want to soak all that up and learn it all. But there comes a point in time when you have to move from universal principles.

to individual principles.


Srini Rao: That's where I was going to go next. You beat me to the chase. So


Thane Ringler: well, we're on the same page, right? We're tracking because this is what we both experienced. And so when you, and anybody who's gone on an endeavor, whether it's sports, creativity, performance, you name it, they experience this, right?

So that move, that gap between universal individual. All depends on self awareness.


Srini Rao: That's literally the subtitle of my skeptics guide to a good life is 15 keys to higher self


Thane Ringler: awareness. Beautiful. I'm excited to read that. I think that'll be great. And self awareness is doesn't happen by chance.

And we're usually forced into it and it always requires discipline, which is effort and intention. And I think I'm really passionate about self awareness and discipline. Those are really the two things that I'm pushing the most, especially in my work and when I say in, in self awareness, just to, it's a buzzword right now.

So I think a lot of people here and okay, cool. Yeah, I'll try to get better at that. But what does that really mean? And I just want to give a really simple process for it. Again, I think understanding a process helps us say, okay, I can actually do that. I can move forward in that. And this is something that is not novel to me or new to me, but it's this idea that it's past, present and future, right?

It's retroactively, it's actively in the moment. It's proactively for what's to come. And the way I like to describe it is discovering. Yourself, understanding yourself and then optimizing yourself. And in that process, Is so simple, but intuitive and helpful in the sense that, okay, where am I in the process and where do I need to go in that?

And again, we're going to repeat that process over and over again as we dive deeper and deeper into layers of self awareness. But understanding the process really helps us. And then the other thing I like to give is three primary tools for helping with it. And the, and these are not crazy anyways, either, but.

The first one is journaling and reflecting by just sitting with a pen and paper and thinking back on what happened helps us understand the situation in ourselves better. And we when we do that repeatedly, we really start to see a lot of symmetry and ways that we often operate. The second primary tool is feedback.

By having someone else give you feedback, like a coach or a friend or a mentor or a family member, they start infusing more objectivity into how you see yourself. We're always inherently subjective, right? Yeah. And the third primary tool is meditation. Meditation helps us be present enough to have an awareness of how we're feeling, where these thoughts are coming from, what's influencing them, so that we can then better optimize for the future.

And without creating space, we're always going to be bombarded and weighed down by the noise. of the world. And so with that process, that three step process and the three tools that are primary, there's other secondary tools for sure. And by no means is that comprehensive, but that gives people a way to start on that journey of self awareness.


Srini Rao: So I, I am so thrilled that you brought up that in fact, now I'm going to have to steal that from you, the transition from universal to individual. Cause I was like trying to figure out how do I wrap this up? And now you gave it to me, but The thing that this literally I think became the ethos of everything that I did was that what I saw particularly in the world of personal development or online marketing was that people tended to get stuck at universal and not account for the fact that they are the variable that throws off every single formula for success that you and I could go out and do the exact same things I could do your golf training regimen to the letter.

All right. And you could spend the next year with me. You'll kick my ass on the course, no matter what. And that's the thing. Like I could tell you everything I've learned about surfing, have you read my books. You paddle out with me in the water. I'm probably going to be better because I've had 10 years of experience on you.

But one of the things that I noticed over and over was, and this was like literally what led to the whole concept of unmistakable was that I would watch. Somebody say, okay like this person is a life coach. So you know what? I'm gonna hire them to tell me what to do with my life. And the next thing it's Oh, you know what?

I figured out I'm going to be a life coach. That's it's the most absurd example of this happening at play. But I think what happens is you basically people confuse, modeling and mimicking. And and you see this a lot in online courses of any kind, right? Where some person will offer the course and be like, I did this, and this.

And that's how I got to where I'm at. And that's why I'm successful. And then everything that comes out of that course is literally just pale imitations of the predecessor. I, and I think we do that in a lot of areas. So I wonder. Why do you think that people get stuck on the universal but don't make, manage to make the transition to the individual?


Thane Ringler: This is beautiful because it ties into what we started with, right? Which was faith. And it's the same reason. It's the same reason we get stuck in the same cycle that we're in our faith journey. Just as much as in our professional or in our recreational athletic journey is that it's more comfortable It's more comfortable.

It's hey, here's a formula and I can repeat it great. I can just coast. I'm good. I've figured it out I don't have to worry. I don't the work is hard anymore. I don't keep learning I don't have to keep changing and improving things. I can just set it and forget it, right? and so that is And I think at the end of the day, as humans, we are inherently inherently lazy, or we're going to always default to the path of least resistance.

So if we don't make a choice, our default is going to be going downstream. And the only way we go upstream... is by effort and intention. We have to say, I'm going to choose to go upstream. Now I have to put in the effort to do because it's not going to happen if I don't make an effort and that discipline to go upstream, to keep progressing, to move through where we're at, to move from mimicking to modeling, right?

It, we have to put effort and intention into that. And I think at the end of the day, Some of it's awareness, but a lot of it's just discipline. We don't have the discipline to keep moving forward through what we're learning to what's beyond that. And again, the first step is always going to be mimicking, right?

That's a good first step, but that's not the final step. We have to keep stepping. If we're going to provide... what the value we can bring and the unique giftings that we have that's different from anyone else. And so I think understanding that is a process and that first step isn't bad, but it's not the last step and the discipline to keep moving forward because the fruit that's to come is worth it and life.

I like to say that Life is not a hot shower it's not some cozy comfort, hot shower to make you feel better about yourself. That's not life. We know that, right? Any human knows that life is not that way. Life is much more like a cold shower than it is a hot shower. And there may be some times where you get a little hot water in there but most of the time it's going to be a cold shower.

And that's honestly the number one tool I recommend. If you want to develop discipline, practically daily, applicably start taking cold showers. Yeah, it's something you do every single day, most likely, hopefully. And there's nothing but positive effects of taking cold showers, but it's something that we all don't want to do.

So there's no better way to develop discipline than just taking cold showers.


Srini Rao: Yeah. And I can tell you, I'm going to go shower right after this. I'm not taking a cold shower. I love it. But the funny thing is as you were saying that I just did this like sort of four part framework emerged in my mind, which was like mimicry modeling, awareness, and mastery.


Thane Ringler: Yeah, that's really good. I think that's I think that's really good because what in that process of from mimicking to modeling is you're starting to synthesize some of that mimicking into a broader framework. And then by awareness, you start understanding your what, how that model or framework or synthesis starts applying most directly to you.

And that mastery the cool thing about mastery is that we never arrive at it. We keep reaching for it and for greater and greater versions of it. And so the cool thing about that is there's always, I think the quote, and this speaks to hope, I think there's a lot of hope in the fact that we can't arrive at mastery because this quote I love says, Forward progress is not a finished process.

And the fact that it's not finished yet, the fact that we have room to grow, that we're not done yet, that we're still moving forward. That's such a hopeful thing. And so this cycle, this pattern that you just mentioned that I thought it was really beautiful. We keep going through that our whole lives.


Srini Rao: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It's just, it's funny because I realized like each one of those phases basically creates another level of awareness that you didn't have access to before.


Thane Ringler: Totally. Yeah. And I think the last thing to say on awareness that I think it's important as well as that there is a dark side or a far side to awareness.

And Timothy Wilson wrote a book stranger to strangers to ourselves. And he does a great job of breaking us down through a lot of science and the studies that he's done in research. And ultimately if we go too deep into self awareness, we start ending up in hyper awareness. And this is the dark side that.

That is actually more defeating than it is empowering. And it really leads to inaction instead of action. And so his whole point in the book at the end is saying, look, it's weird to end a book on self awareness or understanding yourself by the point of saying that you need to. Start acting and stop thinking as much.

But the point is it's only as helpful to pursue self awareness as it helps you act like the person that you want to be, that you're ultimately living with integrity in that. And that's almost the extent to which it's helpful. Because a lot of times, when you become hyper aware, and I've been there at times as well you are paralyzed and you can't make any action because you're so aware of even the subconscious's role and...

Over overcoming 95 percent of what you do consciously. So it's really it can be a scary, dark place. Yeah. Wow. I think that makes a really beautiful place to wrap things up. So I have one final question for you, which is how we finish all of our interviews at the unmistakable creative. What do you think it is that makes somebody or something unmistakable?

What I think it is, it makes someone or somebody unmistakable. Is that they are living a life of full integrity and that they're taking ownership and never settling. And I think that every single human has the ability to do that. And then if we all chose to do that the world would be such. a better place.

And we get a chance to do that daily, taking ownership of our thoughts, actions, behaviors saying if it's to be, it's up to me and never settling for less than we're capable of. I think that's the greatest gift that we can experience and also bring and give into the world. Amazing. I can't thank you enough for taking the time to join us and share your story and wisdom and insights with our listeners.


Srini Rao: This has been really cool. Where can people find out more about you your work and everything that you're up to? Thanks for having me on. I've just, I've really enjoyed this. I just did give you a shout out I've done. quite a few podcasts and podcast interviews. And as it's there's a big difference between people like practitioners who are intuitive versus prescriptive and those prescriptive podcasts, where they just give you the same questions just aren't as enjoyable to do or to listen to.


Thane Ringler: So I just applaud you for your craft and dedication. The amount of episodes you've done and time you spent it shows, and it's fun to be a part of. So thank you. People can find me at thanemarcus. com. That's my headquarters for all that I do blogs and courses and books and all that can be found on there.

So we'd love to have people connect and reach out if interested.


Srini Rao: And for everybody listening, we will wrap the show with that