Golf is one of the most mentally challenging sports because unlike most other disciplines, you are on your own, you cannot relieve stress through physical expenditure and each point counts as much as the others ( unlike tennis for example). What advice would you give to golfers, whether amateurs or professionals?

In golf, chess or poker in fact there is no physical expenditure to evacuate, so you have to learn even more to manage your energy because stress is energy consuming. But each sport has its specificities and I couldn't say if one sport is more difficult than another. The pilot, the boxer or the climber each call on specific mental skills. They must know themselves, draw on their resources and surpass themselves, which is common to all athletes or managers in a company. Everyone wants to become their own champion, that is to say reach their full potential as soon as they want. Whether he loses or wins, the main thing is that he is able to give the best of himself. However, there are obstacles that prevent or promote access to this area: the environment, confidence, concentration, emotions, motivation, permanent learning, management of the issue.

What if you had to give a golfer a mental tip?

The first advice I will give is to be curious about yourself, how it works. To go and study his system like an anthropologist. To observe its own functioning, in a way to do an audit. What works well in competition? Where are my strengths? What can I improve? How? 'Or' What ? Of course, we have advanced psychological tests to do more in-depth work, but I'm sure intuitively anyone can begin a self-diagnosis of their mental strengths and weaknesses. It's a good start. The mind works like a muscle and you can progress throughout your life.

For professionals, a putt on the last hole can sometimes make you lose or win thousands of dollars, or even much more. What advice would you give at this precise moment to the golfer who must play a decisive putt?

The famous "money time", the coup that "should not be missed". We work precisely so that athletes can detach themselves from this, from these thoughts that come out of the moment. They must be imbued, connected in the moment to be able to deliver their best shot at that precise moment. This is the main difference between the very great champions and the others. They deliver their best game when it is needed. Good news, it is working.

One day a pro went to see Jack Nicklaus to ask him how he putt so well under pressure and not feel stress when he had a putt to win a tournament. The record holder for the number of Grand Slam victories told him that he felt stress as much as everyone else, but rather than losing energy and focus trying not to stress, he accepted it and preferred to concentrate only on his putt. Isn't that one of the keys to being successful under pressure? Accept stress, pressure, rather than trying - in vain - to get rid of it?

You have to tame fear like a caged lion. Always beware because it remains a wild animal but over time, understanding and understanding become better. Fear wants us good, it prepares us, energizes us to deliver the best possible service. you have to respect it and end up loving it. By developing your skills as you go, you will be able to take more risks.

In your opinion, is putting things in perspective a good technique to give the best of yourself? After all, a failed or successful drive or putt, on the scale of our existence, and a fortiori of the universe, is ridiculous ...

Not that easy. Go tell that to the children who play "their life" in a tournament or to the pros who try to win it and whose results influence their end of the month. But you're right, the ability to put things into perspective is essential to be able to bounce back quickly. Digest the results. You have the right to be disappointed, it is also proof of your commitment, but it must not last too long or that it breaks your motivation. Debriefings are therefore essential at this level.

As a mental coach, are your advices generally the same depending on the disciplines (sport, business world, etc.) or do you adapt them to the personality you have in front of you? In other words, could you speak a whole different story to two different golfers or the plot stays the same?

There are things in common: we are all subject to our human condition: being born, living with our desires, our fears and our despair, loving and being loved and eventually dying, as late as possible. And differences: each human being is a universe on its own. He has his own way of working, of deciphering information, of assimilating it. So I leave with my reading grids, gleaned over the years, to try to understand each person and then to support the requests while respecting the specificities of each. There is a framework, but above all there is the person and the place from which it starts as well as its request. In twenty years, I have the feeling of never having had the same session and yet I have already dealt with the same subjects thousands of times - confidence, concentration, goal setting - that's what makes this super exciting job. The objective remains to create performance, while ensuring well-being. It doesn't matter which way.

Is the look of others, the fear of disappointing them, one of the biggest performance inhibitors?

The first inhibitor is the look at oneself, expectations in relation to oneself. Then, the expectations of the environment. Then the report to the score which is very destructive and from which we must get out quickly. You have to learn to manage your legacy environment, put it at a distance if necessary, create a supportive environment and maintain it. The goal is to manage to play free from all that.

In your book you talk about "drivers", nothing to do with golf I guess. What is it about ?

No, nothing to do (laughs)! The drivers are hidden programs that we have integrated. They want us good but in excess, their effects become deleterious. For example, “be perfect” pushes us to do well, but when we become a slave to it, it prevents us from savoring a victory or simply being satisfied. It is about becoming aware of our internal mechanisms and educating them so that they let us live. In Knowing yourself better, we sweep the field of all the mechanisms intervening in spite of us that you would do well to question, then to reprogram.

We also learn that scientific research shows that mental preparation can improve physical strength by approximately 12% and muscular endurance by 11%!

These are only studies related to visualization. I am sure that mental work is much more than a complement, an accessory. And the contribution of this work is invaluable. Literature and studies attesting to convincing results abound. I firmly believe that very soon, all clubs will have their mental trainers assigned.

We realize when you read that the human being is "parasitized" by many cognitive means: confirmation bias, framing, self-complacency, escalation of commitment (which consists of persevering in error), etc. Does becoming aware of these biases to which we are all - to varying degrees - subject make it easier to get the best out of yourself?

It is by discovering how we work that we can deactivate what no longer suits us and start new learning, otherwise we risk experiencing our own behaviors over and over again. The more you are interested in a subject, the more expert you become, and it takes 10000 hours - or ten years - to become excellent in a field. By investing in yourself, at least you know where you are putting the money. Or the weather.

In your book, one of the keys that comes up often is to accept your mistakes and failures and get something positive out of them. You also made a long list of these geniuses who, after having failed for a long time or suffered many inconveniences, have achieved worldwide notoriety in their field and a place in our history ...

By reading all of these sometimes incredible stories about celebrities, you realize that their successes are just the dark side of the iceberg. When digging, we often find intuition, perseverance, courage, daring ... it gives us heart-warming balms, especially during off-peak periods.

You stress that very often "the pain of losing is twice as intense as the pleasure of winning". How do you explain it?

It depends on each one but our brain is programmed to engram (leave in the system an imprint) the pains in order to avoid them later. Our preservation instinct is well done. Next, when it comes to the pain of losing, it's a common denominator for the greatest champions. Some speak of "hatred of defeat", personally, I am not very fan of the verb, nor of the idea. I think rather that it is necessary to "accept" it if it has to happen, but above all I think that it is necessary to work to detach from the score to focus in each moment. It is this detachment which makes it possible to free oneself from the fears linked to victory and defeat. It is worked in one or two sessions.

Your book contains many quotes from authors or philosophers. Finally, doesn't a high-level athlete have an interest, on the mental level, in adopting a "stoic" attitude, which consists in distinguishing what depends on us and what does not depend on us? "Act on what you can modify, accept what you cannot modify", said Epictetus ...

Focusing on what you can do now with the current state of affairs without finding an excuse is key. Knowing how to let go of what we don't have control over is another.

Interview by Franck Crudo

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