Mindset for Success on the Course and in Your Career with Dr. Mo Pickens

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JOAN WOODWARD: Hi there, everyone. Good afternoon and thank you so much for joining us. I'm Joan Woodward, President of the Travelers Institute, and I'm really thrilled that you're with us today.

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Text: About Travelers Institute (registered trademark) Webinars. -- The Wednesdays with Woodward (registered trademark) educational webinar series is presented by the Travelers Institute, the public policy division of Travelers. This program is offered for informational and educational purposes only. You should consult with your financial, legal, insurance or other advisors about any practices suggested by this program. Please note that this session is being recorded and may be used as Travelers deems appropriate.

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Before we get started, as always, I'd like to share our disclaimer about today's program. I'd also like to thank our terrific webinar partners, the Master's in FinTech Program at UConn, the MetroHartford Alliance, the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America, and the National African American Insurance Association. Welcome.

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Wednesdays with Woodward (registered trademark) Webinar Series. Mindset for Success on the Course and in Your Career with Dr. Mo Pickens. Logos: Travelers Institute (registered trademark), Travelers, Master's in Financial Technology (FinTech) Program at the University of Connecticut School of Business, MetroHartford Alliance, Big I (Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America), National African American Insurance Association (N.A.A.I.A.). Speakers. Joan Woodward, Executive Vice President, Public Policy, President, Travelers Institute, Travelers. Dr. Mo Pickens, Golf Coach and Sports Psychologist, Sea Island Golf Performance Center.

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Today's session is about mindset and routine and how that can contribute to success in two areas that I'm really passionate about, business and golf. Yes, golf, folks. Even if you're not a golfer, you're going to benefit from this webinar.

This is the time of year when most of us who golf are getting started. We're practicing. We're getting the swing of things, a couple of early rounds to shake off the cobwebs. But for the golf fan, it's also the time of year when we just saw a terrific PGA Championship last weekend. Fascinating. And then in just over three weeks, Travelers will host our very own PGA Signature Event, the Travelers Championship, with 10 of the top 10 players in the world convening outside of Hartford, Connecticut, for the Travelers Championship. And they've already committed to us, folks, so it's really going to be an amazing year.

While we marvel at the physical abilities of the pros, what's equally impressive, to me, anyway, is the mental side of the game and how the pros constantly are working on their mindset to achieve success. That's something that even non-golfers can benefit from in their personal and professional lives.

And with that, I'm so excited to introduce today's guest. Joining me today is Dr. Mo Pickens, a world-renowned sports psychologist and golf coach with over 25 years of experience working with golfers at all levels-- maybe you'll even take me on someday, Mo, for a lesson-- but junior golfers all the way up to these pros who have reached the pinnacle of the sport's success.

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Clients have 33 PGA Tournament Victories, 4 Major Championships including 2 British Opens, 1 U.S. Open, and 1 Masters. Zach Johnson, Stewart Cink, Lucas Glover, Keegan Bradley, Jonathan Byrd, Nick Watney, Will Gordon, Kyle Stanley, Davis Love the Third. Justin Leonard, John Rollins, Vaughn Taylor, Michael Thompson, Chris Stroud, Bob Wolcott, Charles Warren, Brian Bateman, Davis Thompson.

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His clients have won a combined 33 PGA TOUR victories, including four major championships, as well as the 2023 Travelers Championship winner and 2025 Ryder Cup Captain, Keegan Bradley.

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In a photo, 2023 Travelers Championship Winner Keegan Bradley poses with a trophy.

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Lucky for us, he's here today to teach us how we can develop a mindset that will contribute to more birdies on the course and also, success in our careers.

And what we'll hear a little bit about, what goes on in the minds of our favorite golfers. So that'll be fun too. Mo, welcome to the program. Thanks so much for stopping by today.

MO PICKENS: Yeah, glad to be with you, Joan. Thanks for having me.

JOAN WOODWARD: Alrighty, so let's get started. We have a lot of people watching right now who are probably thinking to themselves, that's a really cool job. Can you start us off by explaining what a sports psychologist does? And how did you get the start in this field?

MO PICKENS: Yeah, so, well, I'll start with how I got into it. How I got into it was-- I just feel very blessed. I was a junior in high school. I'm living in rural South Carolina, and I'm watching a program one night. It's kind of a documentary. I think it was probably about this time of the year, because I remember the NBA playoffs were going on.

And in the program, there's a gentleman, and he's hanging out basically with the NBA Utah Jazz. And it looks to me like they're just shooting some baskets and having fun and a lot of joking and laughing. And then they go to the next scene, and this guy's getting on a private plane. And they're flying from Salt Lake City down to the Forum in LA, and they're going to play the Lakers.

And then the game is going on, and this guy's behind the bench, literally eating popcorn and drinking a Coke. And I'm like, that's a job? That doesn't sound real to me.

And my dad worked in the car business, and I had done enough washing cars that I knew I wasn't going to do that for the rest of my life. So that's really how I kind of thought, OK, this is something I want to do. I knew before I was going to go to college that I'd need to go to grad school. And so it was just kind of a very enlightening time in my life of some of the things that I hadn't seen. And so I wanted to go pursue that. And so that's how I got into it.

And then what I do, in a nutshell, basically what I do is just help athletes, and primarily golfers, think better to perform better. At its core basic, that's all sports psychology is. It's really not clinical psychology at all. It's not counseling.

You can go into some of those, obviously. But the area that I'm in is performance enhancement. And performance enhancement is all about you have the physical tools, as you were describing earlier. But everyone gets nervous. Everyone gets anxious at different times. Everybody has negative thoughts every day. And so it's really, how do you start to manage your mind so that you can manage your performance?

JOAN WOODWARD: OK, sounds great. Sign me up for that job. I think it's past my time, though. All right, let's talk about your process and how your clients have used your method or other teachings to succeed. So what is your process, your basic process? And thinking about it for us in our business, too, and can we utilize that in our business setting?

MO PICKENS: Right.

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Text: The 4 R's. The 4 R's process to manage your thinking: How to truly play one shot at a time. 1. Refocus. 2. Routine. 3. React. 4. Relax. Equals Results. To the left, arrows in a clockwise circle are labeled 1. Refocus (decision), 2. Routine (preparation). 3. React (execution). 4. Relax (relaxation).

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So everyone, no matter what their job is, whether you play golf or whether you don't play golf at all, everyone produces some sort of result. And that could be a successful surgery, if you're a surgeon, or it could be selling a house, if you're a real estate agent. Or in golf, it's producing the lowest score that you can.

And in golf, there's this saying of playing one shot at a time. And that saying has been around for years and years. And when you ask people what that means, they would give you another cliché, like stay in the moment, or don't think ahead, or stay where your feet are. And all of those are good concepts.

But unless you know how to truly go about that, it can get frustrating at times for people to tell you, well, don't think anything. Just walk up to the ball and stay calm and hit it. And that's almost impossible to do if you don't have a process that you're going to take yourself through.

So about 25 years ago, as I was getting started with my niche, I'm like, there's got to be a way to teach this. So I basically developed a process that uses what I call the four R's. And it starts at refocus.

So the first thing you would have to do to play any golf shot is make a decision. And that would be, in golf, making a decision for that shot. But if you're in charge of a sales force, it's like, OK, what are the decisions we need to make to basically, send the sales force out? And you wouldn't do that at the same time. You wouldn't be making that up as you're going. You would have that already done November, December, so that once they go out in January, the plan is just to execute.

And so it's kind of the same thing in golf. You would make your decision. That'd be the first thing. Your routine in golf is your pre-shot routine, which a lot of listeners have probably heard about. And your pre-shot routine is really your preparation, how you walk into the ball, how you get set, what's going through your mind. It's at this time where a lot of us can have what I call conflicting thoughts. And different things are trying to jump in your mind, and we can get into that a little bit.

But you're trying to really understand, how do I want to manage my thoughts in this eight to 10 seconds before I hit a shot? Because you're not going to go blank. That doesn't really exist, we know, from neuroscience. And I'm not a neuroscientist, but we know you don't ever really go blank. It's just a matter of figuring out how you want to occupy your mind.

Third would be react. That's where you're actually-- the swinging of the club. That's your execution. And we're trying to keep this as athletic as possible. And then fourth is relax. And that's really your time in between shots where you're relaxing.

And so for every single shot, that's what you would do. You'd make a decision. Then you'd go through your routine, get prepared to hit. Then you'd swing the club, and then you'd relax. And if the diagram that was up, if it had been drawn spatially, most of your time on the golf course is in the relax. It doesn't take very long to play a golf shot. It only takes about a minute.

So somewhere around 75% to 80% of your day on the golf course should be spent relaxing, which is contrary to what a lot of people believe. They think they need to be locked in for four hours or 4 1/2 hours. And I don't see that at the professional level. That's not what those players are doing.

JOAN WOODWARD: Yeah, I think this is the most interesting part of the four hours, which is relax. And as you say, you're supposed to be in that mode most of the time when you're playing golf. I don't feel like I'm relaxed. I feel like either I'm thinking about the shot I just messed up or the shot I'm going to mess up, going forward. But also, that's another story.

The relax part, though, we like to think about that in terms of wellness and employee wellness and finding time and space really to recharge yourself so you can proceed with that next couple of steps effectively. Is that a good way to think about it for us in the workplace?

MO PICKENS: Absolutely. And the way I explain it to my golfers is, you're going to need a lot of mental energy around the ball in steps one and two, in the refocusing and in your routine. And if you use that up in between shots, when you should be relaxing and renewing your energy-- and that would include physical things, too. That's when you're going to eat, drink some water, those types of things. But if you aren't effective at managing that, then it really hurts you when you need to be focused. So if you think about just being in the office, and there's a meeting coming up at 11:00 or 12:00 in the morning, and we know it might be somewhat of a contentious meeting-- maybe there's something going on.

What you want to do is-- obviously, you'd be getting prepared. But you would want to find some time before that to just maybe go take a walk for 10 minutes or just listen to some music you like, or anything that you can do to help yourself just relax, get away from it a little bit, so that when you go into that meeting, you probably have your keys. You have your things that you want to focus on. But if you're thinking about that all morning, you’re actually-- it seems like the right thing to do, but it's actually not the best thing to do to be prepared in the moment, because you've used up so much of your mental energy.

JOAN WOODWARD: OK, wonderful. I want to talk about self-talk and positivity. So, many of you know, or certainly our employees know, that our CEO Alan Schnitzer is a huge advocate of the power of optimism. And he often refers, actually, to the work of his former professor at Penn, UPenn, Martin Seligman. And he wrote many books about the importance of positivity. So how does self-talk, either positive or negative, impact performance in sports or at work, or just kind of overall? So what should we be saying to ourselves?

MO PICKENS: Well, the first thing is just to recognize, you're never going to get away from your self-talk. Again, neuroscientists, what they believe now is we have about 70,000 to 80,000 thoughts per day. And we know that you can think six times faster than you can talk. So by the time you say one one-thousand, two one-thousand, you could think 12 things. So really learning how to manage that and get that in a productive manner is useful. And that starts from the moment you wake up.

So one of the things that I encourage all my athletes to do is make sure that they structure their morning, and they choose how they want everything from the first 15 seconds to the first 20 minutes of the day to go. And so I'll just say for myself, when I wake up, first thing I try to do, I try to say a quick prayer before I get out of bed for my kids and my family. And then I move on. I don't keep the phone by the bed.

And I get into something that I choose to do. Some people, it might be like a run in the morning. Some people, it might be listening to their favorite podcast. But you want to choose to do something that sets the tone for your day versus immediately getting up and checking your emails or looking at your phone. That's probably not going to be the best thing.

And so in terms of the actual self-talk and what you're doing, we're all going to say negative things. And so I think a couple of the main points I would want to point out, you're going to say some negative things, but it's really important how you say them and how you talk to yourself.

So when I'm with a player, and he says something like, I always miss these short putts-- and that's a negative thing. But the way that's phrased is really bad in the sense of "I always miss." So now it's about him, I always miss these short putts. And it's phrased as a permanent thing, "I always," versus, let's say, you 3-putted the 10th hole, to come off and say, that 3-putt was terrible, or even to finish the round and say, my putting was not very good today.

You want it to be about the skill, and you want it to be phrased in a temporary manner. You don't want things to be permanent and about yourself. So anything you say negative, you want it to be-- and especially if you have kids, you have grandkids, you want it to be about the skills that they're performing, and you want it to be phrased in a temporary way.

Because if you were taking a true logic class, to say, my putting was poor today, you can still get to, through logical steps, how you're going to be a great putter. If you start with, "I always putt bad,” logically, you can't make the steps needed to get to, "I should expect to putt well this weekend." So that's the first thing, is just making it temporary and making it about the skill.

And then the second one is, anytime we say something out loud, positive or negative, it really has a three-times effect. And this isn't exactly how it works, but let's just make it simple. When you say something out loud, first, you think it, and then you say it, and then you actually hear yourself say it. If you just have the thought, it only has a one-time effect.

But what we do is we tend to go through life, and we tend to say negative things out loud, and we keep positive things internal. And you really want to flip that and reverse it. So if you're playing golf, you might not be boasting to your buddies how great your drive was. But as you're in the cart or as you're walking from the green to the next tee, you want to be saying, hey, that was a really good 2-putt, nice work, and even if you're whispering it to yourself, just where you're saying it out loud.

And then the negative thoughts about a 3-putter, you want to keep those as a thought as much as possible and not say them out loud. So it's really about saying the positive things out loud, keeping the negative things internal. And then the things that you do say out loud, make them about the skill and make them temporary.

And that doesn't apply just to golf. Obviously, it applies across life. And especially as you're mentoring others or raising others, I think that's very important.

JOAN WOODWARD: I never thought about that, where I'm saying things, and I'm thinking it. I'm saying it, and I'm hearing myself say that. So those negative thoughts, I'll try to not speak them. And also, as you just said, I think you're saying you could trick yourself into believing you're more positive than you actually feel on that day, maybe, but to make it about the day and not your golf game, in general, in permanency.

MO PICKENS: Yeah.

JOAN WOODWARD: So I love that. Great. So how do we take all of this thoughtful process around the course and apply it to other areas of our lives? Do you have a similar process, advice for business folks out there? Or is it different?

MO PICKENS: Well, it's a little different. I do think there's a process in every job. And you would have to think through. It's a little bit, I would say, bigger picture, in the sense of that's a very specific process to golf. What sits almost over top of that in golf, which would apply to everything-- I basically teach that as you're producing this result in whatever job you do, there's really three main areas that go to that.

First is-- let's just use golf-- on course. So that would be what you're thinking in the moment on the golf course. So this might be in the office. It might be in the operating room. Whatever your job is, there's an arena where you have to perform. And that's where the four R's fit. They fit into that arena.

Then you would have, second to that, you would have your practice and preparation. And so for other areas, that would really be like your ongoing education. Do you have a mentor? Are you doing classes? Are you going to seminars? What are you doing to continue improving the skills that are going to be needed to then perform in that on-course arena?

And one of the things, one of the distinctions that I make, which might be helpful for some, is preparation and practice are two different things. So, preparation is really acquiring knowledge. So that would be going to the seminar or going to sit down with a mentor for lunch.

And then practice is the application of that knowledge. Just having the knowledge does not make you better at any job. It might make you more knowledgeable, but it doesn't make you better. And so you have to go then apply that.

Let's just take one example. If you're in sales, and you might get some great ideas at a conference. But if you don't then go role-play that into your actual job, it's likely not going to show up. Because when we get under pressure-- and we all get under pressure-- meetings, sales calls, playing golf-- you're going to revert to your habits. And so if you haven't practiced something and made it a habit, it's unlikely that it's going to show up in the moment when you need it.

I tell all of my players-- in fact, I had a student this morning. We were having this exact conversation. And I'm like, look, your pre-shot routine is really important. Now it doesn't help you the same amount, but it's going to help you on the most when those shots are really like-- get your attention.

So think of 17 at TPC and the island green, and you're hitting over the water, or the 15th hole at Travelers, where we've got this short par 4, and we got water on the-- all those players, they know it's kind of a risk/reward hole. And so what I want them to be doing in that moment is to realize like, OK, hey, my routine is really going to help me in those.

But I've got to have it all the time, so that when it's-- I can't just make it up on the spot. It's kind of like your bunker game. You can't make up a good bunker game on the spot. You have to have it all the time, so that when you hit it in the bunker, it's there.

So first, you would have your own course arena. Second, you would have practice and prep or ongoing education. And then third would be your foundation. And your foundation is more of you as a person outside the arena and how that affects what you're doing in the arena. And that could be simple things, such as sleep and exercise and diet, down to, what is your self-talk before you go into the meeting? Or how are you going to spend the morning before you have to do some performance?

And so that's really where we would get into their foundation. Because you're not a dad, and then you go become a golfer. You're the same person everywhere. You have different roles. But you're going to take some of that being a dad onto the course or being a mom onto the course, and you're not going to be able to turn that on and off. It's more of getting that to help you in that arena. That's the way we think about it.

JOAN WOODWARD: Awesome. I love all that. So I was on your website, and I noticed that part of your process includes persona. So your website says-- tell me what this means-- bulldogs, surfers and chess players. So what does that mean? And how did you come up with those?

MO PICKENS: It kind of ties in great to what we were just talking about, is everybody has their own personality and who they are. And you don't want to change that because of what you think you're supposed to be on the golf course. So if we just use some examples-- so a bulldog would be somebody who you can see their emotions.

So a Justin Thomas or a Jon Rahm, they're very fiery. And you're going to see that. And for them to go out and try to totally just squelch that, it's probably not going to work.

And then a surfer would be someone who's just very chill all the time. And that would be like Dustin Johnson or Jason Dufner back in the day, or Louis Oosthuizen. You really can't tell how these people are playing at all. They're just always the same. They look like they never get up and down. Those are surfers.

And then a chess player, a chess player is someone who strategically can pick apart a golf course. So first off, you have to have the physical ability to do that. But really, this comes into play when we're talking about majors. Because when I'm helping the guys, that's when they're the most nervous. That's when they kind of rely on their habits the most and when they can get out of kilter.

And so a chess player is just someone who believes, hey, if I-- if we play one hole, you might be able to beat me. But if we play 72 holes, you just can't pick apart a guy. So that would be like Nick Faldo back in the day.

The closest player I have to that right now would be Keegan. And Keegan is very good in terms of his ball striking. So Keegan knows that on any given hole, if it was just one hole, you could beat him. On a par 3--

JOAN WOODWARD: Oh, no.

MO PICKENS: --you could both-- yeah, you could. You could both--

JOAN WOODWARD: Maybe.

MO PICKENS: --hit the green. And there's definitely a par 3 where you could hit the green, he could hit the green, you could make the putt, and he'd miss the putt. So you’d beat him for one hole. But for 72 holes, he would just be like, well, there's no way she can pick apart a golf course like I can.

And so it's almost like embracing those personas of who you are and not trying to turn into somebody else just because we're at a major and it's, quote unquote, more important and all these things. That's where you see players make mistakes like that when they get under pressure. Or somebody is this way in the office, and they go into a meeting, and they try to be something they're not. That generally doesn't work well.

JOAN WOODWARD: No, I love that. I think you're right. I mean, people almost label you. Like you labeled some of the players, they label you on your forehead when you're walking through that door to that meeting. And so you don't want to be a completely different person or show up in a different way. We like to say, bring your whole self to work, and be yourself at work. And that's really important. Great.

So let's talk about now we're getting ready for these premier tournaments, the majors. What are these guys thinking when they're walking up on the 18th fairway with a one-shot lead? Or maybe they're one shot down. How do they deal with that emotion?

I know you're going to say, they block out the crowd, or they have energy from the crowd. But how, in their mind-- they're walking up, and millions of eyes are on them. What are they thinking?

MO PICKENS: Well, hopefully, especially if it's players that I've-- hopefully, they're in the process that we described earlier. So they would know where they are in that. And if they're relaxing in between shots, they're going to be trying to talk with their caddie.

They might be looking into the crowd to gain some support. But it's really trying to go back to whatever you've been doing. But that has a huge assumption in it, in that you know what you've been doing.

So a lot of amateur golfers, they're playing pretty good. But they haven't really taken the time to know, when I play really well, this is what goes on; or this is how I warm up; or this is how much I interact with other people. So they're trying to make it as normal-- don't kid yourself. They're very nervous for sure.

And they know that they're going to be nervous hitting the upcoming shots. But they have worked on this so much that they have belief that if I'll keep doing my process, I'm not a robot. So there is the possibility. But chances are it's going to work out because I'm not going to veer from what got me there.

And really embracing that as something you've been looking forward to-- I remember telling Keegan. So this was a few years ago, and the U.S. Open was up in Brookline, outside of Boston. He's from up there. And this is a tournament he had been looking to for probably ever since it was announced, probably four to five years before that.

And I knew he was going to be nervous. I knew he was going to be amped up, going out there. And so I just made sure. And I had this thought well before then on the way to the tee Thur-- excuse me-- Thursday morning, I waited until we got literally where we left the putting green. We're walking to the first tee.

And I said, hey, you've been waiting for this tournament a long time, haven't you? He's like, yeah. He said, I've been thinking about this. And I'm like, OK, well, if you've been looking forward to this for the last five years, it's truly illogical to not enjoy it once we've arrived here. So you can't be looking forward to something and then be like, oh, I don't like this.

Because if you were sitting home, you would hate it. So let's go enjoy it, and let's realize that you've been looking forward to this for a long, long time, and now we're at that moment. And we're going to go have fun with it. I don't know if you're going to play great or you're going to play average. But we've got to take the mindset of this is fun, and I want to go do this.

JOAN WOODWARD: And how did he do in that tournament? I obviously don't know, so I'm asking.

MO PICKENS: He actually played very well. He had a chance kind of late. That's the one Matthew Fitzpatrick won. I can't remember. I want to say he finished maybe 6th or 12th or something. It was around the top 10, maybe a little--

JOAN WOODWARD: Great.

MO PICKENS: --a little better. But yeah, he played well.

JOAN WOODWARD: That's great. Great. So how does this apply in a business setting? So they're on the cusp maybe of a major deal happening or a major successful outcome. And probably my default would be, just don't screw it up, Joan. You're almost there. And so what should we be thinking then? I know you're going to tell me, don't say, just don't screw it up, Joan, you're almost there. But what should we be thinking when we're getting ready to have this great outcome?

MO PICKENS: Well, I think, obviously, you would have done your prep. And I think for most people, they feel the most confident when they're the most prepared, when they have a very good idea of, what are the obstacles that might have come up at the last moment? Are there any objections that somebody might have? And they know where they're going to go.

One of the things that I would be telling my players is to really have two or three keys that they're going to go back to. So, especially in a meeting, if it's a meeting that, for the most part, you're running, you would say, hey, these are the things we're going to get back to. I'm not going to let myself go down this rabbit hole and get off track.

There wouldn't be a lot, but two or three, four key points that I want to make-- this is why the deal is great, or this is how we're better than that, whatever is the points you want to make. And you keep going back to those. And a lot of that comes through your preparation.

And then in terms of like it's-- right when you get into it, you want to have the mindset of, I'm inviting this challenge. And this is a silly analogy, but one that many of my players like. So the fire, if you call it, the fire happens at the ball, meaning there's a fire going on, and you've got to walk in. So if you think about what a firefighter does, a firefighter runs into a burning building when people inside are running out. And he wants to see if he can do something great, whether that saves somebody or protect stuff or put it out, whatever it is.

And their suit is their protection. And so for a golfer, his routine is his protection. And he wants to go into the fire and see what he can do.

So you want to make sure, as you're getting ready to go into a meeting, that your prep is done, that your mindset is in the right place, that you know exactly how you're going to start off the meeting, if you are the person who has that authority. You're not going to go in and ask for a lot of opinions. You're not going to go in and open it up to a lot of discussion. You're going to set the tone.

And so you know, going into this, hey, yes, it's going to be kind of exciting and maybe a little nerve-wracking. But nerves aren't a bad thing. People interpret nervousness equals poor performance. And that's just not true. Nerves mean I care, this is fun.

There is the possibility that it could go great or it could go poor. But I wouldn't want you to go in there like, yeah, I'm getting ready to show off. I'm getting ready to go in here and do something great. Just like if you had a bunker shot-- a lot of people hit poor bunker shots because they go into the bunker nervous and timid and tentative versus, I'm getting ready to go in here and show off.

And so not in a cocky or brash way, but that's the way you want to feel like, going into a meeting, is, yeah, I'm getting ready to go in here and set the tone, and this is what's getting ready to happen. And barring some disaster, this is going to be the outcome.

JOAN WOODWARD: So self-confidence plays a huge role. And I'm a big proponent of having self-confidence. You may screw up, but if you don't have that confidence in yourself, how can other people look to you as a confident person that knows what they're doing in that meeting? So I love all that.

Let's talk about dealing with stress. Because are there people preconditioned to deal with stress better? It just comes naturally. I'm thinking of great players out there, like Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Arnold Palmer, Jim Furyk, who grew up very, very close to my hometown in south of Pittsburgh there, with a 58. He scored the lowest 58 on the Travelers Championship course about five years ago. So are there people who can deal with that stress better? And how do we deal with stress?

MO PICKENS: Well, I definitely think certain people deal with stress better. I don't think that's an innate thing. I do think that's something learned over time. And it might be the household that you grew up in. If things are pretty calm, and there's not a lot of yelling or arguing or that sort of thing, a lot of this-- what a lot of scientists would tell us is that a lot of this starts pretty early in life in terms of what you get conditioned to and that sort of thing.

But it doesn't have to be that way. Because once we get to be 12 or 13, we go from pretty concrete thinking-- concrete thinking is two dimes and a nickel equals a quarter-- to more abstract thinking. Abstract thinking is, maybe I'll do what my dad does for a living. Or now I can think through some more things.

So what I try to make sure my players understand is, once you get to the point where you're doing a lot of abstract thinking, then however you've managed your stress up to that point-- and if you watch little golfers, they're not very good at it. I mean, a lot of 8-year-olds and 7-year-olds cry on the golf course. And that's a pretty common thing because they don't have the skills to deal with it. They just know an 8's not a good score. But that's fine.

And so when you get to that type of thinking, what you really want to do is you want to find somebody to help you learn how to manage that stress. And a lot of that comes with what you're doing prior. A lot of that comes with the off-course foundation.

I mean, if you're tired and you're not eating and drinking well, your body basically has a lower threshold for when you're going to feel stress. That's the easiest way to think about it. The more you're fit, and the more you've been doing things to help your foundation, the higher threshold of stress you can handle. And I think we all kind of know that, once we get into our 20s and later.

But in terms of actually managing that stress, on the golf course, I would have them do certain things. If you're going to the first tee-- every single player is nervous on the first tee at Augusta. Every single player will be nervous on the first tee at the U.S. Open. They may not be as nervous on the first tee at the Travelers, because it's a pretty easy first hole, and it's more of a layup placement shot.

But they all still have some level of nerves. And so what I would want-- and Keegan will be nervous because he's in front of a lot of people that he likes and that sort of thing. And so for different players, it affects them differently. But what you'll see, if you go out there and watch, he's going to take two really hard swings. And these two swings are like 110%. And that's to get some energy and adrenaline out.

Because he's left the putting green. You have to come up to the tee. You get your scorecard. You talk with the other guys. You're waiting around. So there's at least 8, 10, 12 minutes that all this energy and adrenaline is building up. And that helps him get it out of his body and have better tempo on the first shot.

In terms of just non-golf, in terms of managing that, one of the things that is more enlightened now, or there's been a lot more education in the last few years, is a lot of times, we think about cognitively, how I'm going to deal with this stress, and try to think your way through the stress. And there are some things that you can think about. But breathing, a lot of people know about breathing.

But also, they believe that kinesthetically, if you can distract yourself kinesthetically, it can help you lower your stress. And so that would be something like you're walking down the hall, and you're getting ready to go to this meeting. Literally feel your toes in your shoes and focus on how your toes feel in your shoes.

And I can't explain exactly how it works. But it kind of lowers, again, this threshold. Because we have electricity in our bodies, and it lowers the electricity in your body. And the general thought is the higher the electricity, the worse the performance and the lower the electricity.

So there's players right now on the PGA TOUR who have coins or little objects in their pockets. And so you see them stick their hand in their pocket. And it's not just to get their tee out there. They're twiddling something in between their fingers and focusing on that as a way to keep their threshold lower.

So that would probably be-- I would definitely look into things like that. I would be thinking about relaxing. I'd be thinking about breathing, all those types of things. You're really-- you’re not going to think your way to lower stress.

JOAN WOODWARD: Yeah. And people are scared, too, right? I mean, when you're nervous and stressful, what about being scared? Or is that, pros aren't scared anymore?

MO PICKENS: Well, I mean, I guess it depends on how you define it. I mean, they're always scared of hitting a poor shot or hitting it OB. But they know that that's probably not going to happen if I do what I've been doing. But I'm not a robot. It can happen.

And sometimes, it's literally as simple as reframing what you want to do. So let's say you're on a hole. I'm trying to think. Let's say you're on 15 at Travelers. And so there's water on the left, and there's actually OB right up in those bushes.

And so one of the things would be, you're up on that tee. You've got a one-shot lead. You've got four holes to go. And all you can see is the water or hitting it OB right, because you hit it OB there last year, whatever. Literally ask yourself, OK, what do I want to do right now? Where do I want to hit this ball? And be specific about what I want the outcome to be.

So sometimes, if you're going into one of these meetings that we've been discussing, it's as simple as, well, what's the outcome you would want to occur? Well, this is what I want to occur in the meeting. Make sure you're very specific with that. And it gives you a better chance of accomplishing that.

So you'd say, yeah, I could hit it in the water. I might hit, but I don't think I'm going to. Because I'm going to try to hit this right at the right edge of the green. I'm hitting a 3-wood. It's going to draw. It's either going to come up short or just get on the front of the green. That's what I'm about to do and literally speaking that into your beliefs.

JOAN WOODWARD: OK. So you see it happening before you're hitting the shot. You're seeing exactly where that ball is going to drop. OK. I've done that before. Actually, that's helpful.

What about you? So your clients are under enormous amount of stress and pressure. It's very public. I'm sure that increases the intensity of your job. And so, how do you prepare to prepare these guys for their greatness? And is it hard for when you sit back, and you have no control over what they're doing, or you're seeing them spiral or not doing what they want to do? I mean, tell us about your mental state when your client is out there.

MO PICKENS: Well, I'm pretty nervous when I'm watching them. Because I have no control over their performance. I'm really looking for patterns, though. I'm looking for things that we've been talking about.

Because in a general week-- so let's just say, a general week, I get there sometime Monday. Tuesday and Wednesday is a lot of hanging out, walking on the golf course with them, talking about whether it's their putting or their driving, what's going on. I'm asking them questions about their foundation, what's going on off course, how are their kids, how is their sleep.

We're talking about what they've been doing practicing. We're definitely talking about what's going on on that course and the course management and shots that have given them trouble in the past. The 10, 11, 12, 13th hole-- the 13th hole gives a lot of people trouble. And they're thinking about the 13th hole when they're on the 8th hole because it just jumps into their mind.

And so there's definitely some thought into that. But what I'm trying to do, as the week plays out, I'm basically trying to make sure that I provide unique insight that they're not getting from someone else at the right moment to improve their performance. And so the story that I mentioned about Keegan and walking to the first tee at the U-- I mean, I knew what I was going to say to him on Thursday, on Tuesday. But I didn't want to say it to him on Tuesday, because it would be lost by the time he went to the course on Thursday.

So a lot of times, I would think in the corporate world, you might have some good information, and you might want to go tell your boss right away, or you might want to share that right away. But really, there's a little bit of an art to figuring out, OK, hey, when do I deliver this news? Or how do I bring this about? Or what's the right environment to say this in? That's really what I'm thinking about.

When I have to get on somebody, quote unquote, and I want to be like, hey, this isn't really good, one, I'm never going to do that in a public place. I'm not going to bring that up in front of their caddie or their other coaches or other players. So, if one of my players, I can tell that they're not really finishing the job, and their scores are going down, especially if they have a poor round, and they're already in 40th or 50th-- and that develops bad habits over time.

So I'm going to confront them on that. But I'm always going to do that in a private setting and just say, hey, here's what I'm seeing. It looks like you're kind of giving up, or it looks like you're kind of mailing it in. Is that what's actually going on? Or are you just getting so mad that you're losing your composure?

So I think a lot of what I do, there's a knowledge component, for sure. But as much as the knowledge is the timing component. And I think that's also true in the work world, where it's not enough to know what you want to say. It's when do you want to say it to maximize impact and performance?

JOAN WOODWARD: Yeah. And I found-- well, I don't know. You tell me about this technique. My kids used it on me all the time when they were growing up. They would give me the really good news, like, hey, Mom, I got an A on this paper at school, or this and that. And then, oh, by the way, my softball just went through your windshield, like that. It would always be like, butter me up and then hit me with a really bad news.

But even in business, some people, that's the way they operate. They will tell me their good news. And then at the very end, when they're leaving my office or something, they'll say, oh, and by the way, Joan, you scored really poorly on that last webinar or something. The survey results are really bad. You did a bad job. So talk about delivering good news and bad news at the same time or adjacent to each other. How do you think about that?

MO PICKENS: Well, I think it depends on the severity of the bad news, for one. And I think it depends on what that person likes to hear, if you know how they like to receive information. And most people want to leave on a positive. So if I had to make a general statement, I would say, maybe start with a positive, and then say something negative, and then end with the positive.

Or I would probably start with the negative and end with the positive, just as a general rule. But whenever I'm delivering bad news to a player, that sort of thing, one, like I said, I make sure we're in the right environment and that sort of thing. And I always deliver it about the skill and about what they're doing. It's not a personal attack on them.

So if I saw somebody bagging it, I'm like, hey, it looks like you're kind of losing interest, and it looks like you're not really into it. And so that tells me something about your focus or something about your resolve. I'm not going at them and saying, hey, you quit, even though that might be my interpretation of it or my perspective of what I think is going on.

I'm going to try to phrase it in a way that says, it looks like you're losing interest. I see you not doing your routine as sharply. It looks like you're getting a little complacent when you fall into 50th place. Am I seeing that right?

And I think you always want to give somebody, when you're delivering-- especially if you're a little unsure, when you're delivering criticism, you want to give them the option to confirm that, if possible. Because sometimes, we can see things that aren't really there. Because I might see something in one player and then transfer it to another. And that's really not what's going on.

JOAN WOODWARD: Audience, we want to hear from you. So drop your questions in the Q&A for Mo, and we will get to as many as we can, as usual. A couple more questions, though, first, golf really does feel like an individual sport to a lot of people. But we know it's a very social experience. Tell us about how you've seen golf help people build relationships on and off the course.

So again, we'll talk about the SHE Golfs program that we developed. But I think there's a specialness to the networks and the social experience on the golf course than-- It's probably not in any other sport that I play.

MO PICKENS: Well, yeah. And I think part of that is just the dynamic of it. Because you have such a longer time relative to other sports between the action, there is so much of this relaxed phase that's 75% to 80% of your day, where you don't get that. Even if you're in other somewhat social sports, like tennis or pickleball or things, and you have these breaks in between games, but not in between points-- it's kind of right on to the next point.

And in golf, you literally have those breaks between every shot, unless maybe it's two putts close together on the green. So one is, I just think the dynamic of how the game is played is great. And then I think, also, if you're using it for business or if you're in a social setting, is kind of being strategic about what you want to accomplish that day.

Is it, do I want to get to know this person better? Do I want to see if this person-- I know this person has been struggling in their life. Do I want to see little ways that I can serve them or maybe help them? Or whatever it is. Or is it, do I want to strike up a relationship with them and get into business? And how do I go about doing that? And I don't want to do that so bluntly.

So I think golf is probably the most unique sport in terms of the social aspect because of the way the game plays out. And I think there's different types of golf. There's competitive golf, and then there's casual golf with your core group. And then there’s casual golf maybe with people you don't know. And each one of those has a different vibe to it.

But what I advise players going into is like, OK, how are you going to treat this downtime? And how do we want to go into it? And even like in Wednesday pro-ams, I've had to counsel a few of my younger players who are just out of college, or they're young, and they're thinking so much about the golf. And I'm like, hey, these people are paying a lot of money, and you want to interact with them. And one of them may end up being a sponsor for you down the road.

And so sometimes, it's a matter of actually thinking through, OK, the first three holes, I'm going to engage with the guys, and we're going to talk about this. And then we'll focus on your game a little bit. And then we'll get back to engaging them as we finish the nine hole-- A lot of them are now nine holes and nine holes with the two different pros.

But just like they're doing-- and they're kind of mapping out how that would play out. I think when you're playing golf, if there is a kind of-- I don't want to use the word "agenda," but that's what I'm going to go with. If there is another agenda of helping someone or getting into business or whatever, you want to give that a little bit of thought before you get out there.

Because it's such a great-- you're already out in nature. It's usually comfortable and beautiful. And people are outside the office, so their guard isn't quite as up. And they can really tell you what's on their mind. And so I think a lot of probably some of the most important discussions happen outside of the building because people are just more relaxed, and they're more likely to tell you what's really going on in their mind versus the corporate answer.

JOAN WOODWARD: Right, right, right, for sure. I want to spend a minute talking about women in golf. As many of you know on this program, we developed a program here at Travelers called SHE Golfs.

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Logo: She Golfs, Travelers. Text: Almost 4,000 participants at 134 clinics across the country! In four photos, clinic participants pose together.

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And I am proud to say, in less than three years, we've had over 4,000 women, and men. We have a lot of young men joining us, and we're so happy to have them with us.

And we've done 134 clinics around the country and in Canada. So we're very proud of that program. If anybody wants any more information, just drop-- in our survey results, please drop your name, and we can shoot you around our program.

We've actually developed a handbook. So if anybody wants our handbook on how to put on a SHE Golfs clinic, and things we've learned along the way, you can learn from us. And we've learned from our mistakes in things we've done over the past couple of years. But the handbook is really developed for people who want to take it and implement it in their business or in their agency or brokerage. And so let us know.

But back to you, Mo, so tell us what you've seen recently in terms of women getting into the game and girls getting into the game. And what do you think that means for the sport itself?

MO PICKENS: I just see it getting-- I mean, the quality of performance and the quality of play is better at a much younger age. And I generally see students starting around late middle school or high school. But here at Sea Island, we have a great resort. And one of the neat things about being here is that everybody's into golf.

And so every day, we'll have 20 to 30 5- and 6-year-olds out there. And I would say, probably half of them are now girls. And it's just they're getting into it. And so it's a very common thing here. I know that's not like that everywhere in the country.

But to me, that's what I see, is things that were popular at the professional level, and then now the college game has really changed for the women. And their performance is, I would say, decidedly better than it was 10 years ago. And then it filters right on down.

And some of the best students I have right now-- I'm thinking of probably two young ladies. One's a sophomore in high school, and one's a senior in college. And I mean, they're every bit as good as the guys their age in terms of how they perform.

Now, they can't hit it as far, but in terms of the scores they're shooting and the tournaments they're winning and that sort of thing-- and personally, for me, it's a little bit easier. Because a lot of the 16- and 17-year-old boys, they kind of know it all.

JOAN WOODWARD: You think so? [LAUGHS] Yes. Had a few of those.

MO PICKENS: And I can speak on both behalfs. Because I have two sons and two daughters. But yeah, they're just great students. And that's probably the main thing I see when I interact with young women, is they are such good students of the game.

I have this little program on my website, which is an online training program. And the girls have done much better with that than the guys. And I just think it's because they're more responsible, to some degree, maybe at a younger age. And they're just as thirsty.

And so they really soak it up, and they realize they don't have all the answers. And so I've had-- some young ladies have some really exceptional performances the last couple of years.

JOAN WOODWARD: That's wonderful. That's really wonderful to hear. And I also think, insurance is such a golf-centric industry. We sponsor lots of different tournaments.

Of course, the Championship at Travelers is the best. But I think having more women in the game, you don't have to be perfect. As long as you're going to play that charity scramble, and you feel confident enough to just go out there, and I think it really does help the career development as well.

Some audience questions coming at you. This is a more general one, not a golf one. But I think it's a really good question. Jerica Osuna from RRM Insurance, wants to know, how can I prevent burnout? Good question.

MO PICKENS: Well, burnout-- and I'm not sure exactly in what context. But I would say, the biggest thing to prevent burnout is having enough breaks and having that kind of relax. And you want to think about that almost on a daily basis. And then you want to have it on a monthly basis, for a little bit longer, and then on an annual basis.

And so my family, we take probably one to two big trips a year, where we're just-- and the only rule we have on our family vacation is you can do anything you want, but you can't get upset if nobody else joins you.

JOAN WOODWARD: That's a good rule.

MO PICKENS: Yeah, and then on a monthly basis, whether it's a date night or whether it's just taking a day to go do something you wouldn't normally do-- and then what I do, this is probably more on a weekly basis. But every tournament I go to, I'm golf, golf, golf, golf, golf. So, I don't really go to the movies at all when I'm at home.

But every week when I'm on the road, I go to a movie. And I enjoy the popcorn and the Cherry Coke. And hopefully, it's a good movie, but it doesn't really-- but that's my time to get away from golf and just enjoying that.

So I think the biggest key to burnout is being proactive in terms of when you're going to relax and setting that up on a schedule. And every day, you need to have something that you're looking forward to, whether it's a great salad that night, or whether it's a show you want to watch, or whether it's a nice, hot bath. But I'm big on every day having-- I want to really be in control of how I start my day and how I end my day.

JOAN WOODWARD: I think that's great advice. And I also, I tell people-- they ask me a lot, how can I get ahead in my career? And what are the five things I can do? And I just look at them, and I say-- you're my mentor. Can you help me think through this?

And I believe in mentoring people. But at the end of the day, you're responsible for your own happiness. You're responsible for your career. So I think it's great to say, you can control your day. You may not control all parts of your day, especially at work, but you can control what you do to make yourself happy. And I think that avoiding burnout has to be intentional, right? You have to say, I am not going--

MO PICKENS: Oh, yes.

JOAN WOODWARD: This is not going to burn me out. I'm going to keep who I am as a person. Another question coming in from the audience, Lisa Darmetko wants to know what the best piece of advice you've ever received from a mentor that has been especially valuable, you carry throughout your career.

MO PICKENS: I think the best piece of advice, to be honest, is one that I've kind of already shared. And it is thinking through the timing of when you want to deliver certain news and making sure that as much as possible, you have the empathy and the forethought of where this other person is.

So I'll just give you an example. Early on in my career-- because I've been hired and fired many, many times. And I would get fired. It would be like-- I mean, probably within the hour, after I got fired, that I would let my wife know. But it might not have been at a time when she was really ready to receive that.

I mean, she might have been picking the kids up from school. Or she might have been doing something else. And so now, maybe probably the last five or six times that I've been fired over the last 10 years, sometimes I might sit on that news for two days until I feel like she's in a good place, and it's not going to rock her world.

Because I don't know if many-- I don't know if the listeners understand that. So I'm basically paid on commission. So I have a small base salary. But most of my income working with the TOUR players is based on how they perform. And if they finish outside the top 125, I don't get paid. And if they win tournaments, I get a big bonus.

And that's the way I want it. I want it to be very performance based. Because that's how they're paid. So that's how I should be paid. But that's probably the biggest piece of advice, is just it's not enough to have the knowledge. It's really understanding, with my audience, when do I want to deliver this news, either to have the maximum impact or to make sure they're in a safe space where it's not going to freak them out?

JOAN WOODWARD: OK, well, I think that's great advice. One last question coming in. Henry Mahaffy says, from IMA, good friends at IMA insurance, what is the best way to get rid of nervous jitters on the course or during an important meeting? How do you calm your jitters? We talked about this a little bit, but is there any techniques that you personally use?

MO PICKENS: Well, definitely on the course, if it's a long-game shot, it would be that taking some extra swings. And you can actually do the things that we were talking about, like feeling your toes in your shoes or things in your pocket, so definitely something more kind of kinesthetic.

In terms of going into the meeting, I would say some of the same things. And again, the only real cognitive piece of that would be that you're going in there inviting that challenge and asking yourself, how do I want this to go? And at least it may not go exactly how you want it to go, but it definitely probably is not going the way you want it to go if you don't have any idea of how it's going to go,

JOAN WOODWARD: So, see your success. See it.

MO PICKENS: Yeah, see your success, and see it as specifically as you can. Like, OK, hey, by 2:30, I want to have this meeting wrapped up, and I want to have them signed up for these four things. And this is what I'm going to follow up with them. Yeah, OK.

JOAN WOODWARD: Good. Good, good, good, good. Mo, I can't tell you-- the hour's flown by, first of all. And I can't tell you how grateful I am for you coming on and just sharing your wisdom, advice, counsel, with all our audience. Because these techniques for a golfer or for a businessperson are just so important. And a lot of people don't spend a lot of time thinking about their mindset when they go into any kind of discussion or conversation or negotiation.

So I think there's a lot to learn here. And I know this will be a replay that will be very popular on our website. So thank you so much.

MO PICKENS: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for having me.

JOAN WOODWARD: Alrighty, so to my audience out there, take our survey. Tell us what you thought about today's program. We read every word.

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Also, we have a number of upcoming programs. For those of us in Houston, join us at one of our cybersecurity events coming up.

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This event is going to feature a panel from the Federal Reserve and CISA and Mullen Coughlin, a law firm specializing in cyber.

We also have some great webinars coming up.

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Text: Wednesdays with Woodward (registered trademark) Webinar Series. Upcoming Webinars. June 4: Live from the CAT Center: Where Expertise Meets Innovation. July 23: Recruiting Your Rising Stars: The Insurance Industry's Emerging Talent. July 30: Cargo Theft: Rising Frequency, Sophisticated Methods and Protecting Our Supply Chain. Register: Travelers Institute.org.

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June 4, we'll be live at the CAT Command Center at the Travelers flagship Claim University. And this is the second part of our three-part series at the Claim University. So join us then, July 23. We're going to explore the insurance industry's emerging talent.

And most importantly, this is the No. 1 thing you tell us, that you're interested in how to look for young people to join our industry, how to hire them, how to retain them, how to motivate them to want to stay with the insurance industry. And so we're going to have deans from risk management schools around the country talking about ways they teach their kids to get in the insurance industry and stay there. So really, that's going to be a really interesting one and useful for everyone.

July 30, we'll do a deep dive into the latest trends in cargo theft. So, join us then.

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Also, we have a podcast. I'm sure many of you know the Risk & Resilience podcast at the Travelers Institute. Listen to us when you're golfing, gardening and anything else on the road. But don't drive distracted. That's important. Thanks again, all. We will see you next week. Take care.

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Wednesdays with Woodward (registered trademark) Webinar Series. Watch: travelers institute.org. Logo: Linked In. Text: Connect, Joan Kois Woodward. Listen wherever you get your pods. Logos: Travelers Institute (registered trademark). Travelers. Travelers Institute.org.