How does professional sports equip us for, self-mastery? Pro golfer Thane Marcus Ringler, Life coach and Author shares the path to, self-mastery.
In the guest chair today is Thane Marcus Ringler, a former pro golfer turned writer, speaker, collaborator, and entrepreneur and author of the new book “From Here to There – A Quarter-Life Perspective on the Path to, Mastery,”
After competing for nearly four years as a professional golfer, he transitioned out of the world of golf into his new endeavors as coach.
Can you share your journey to becoming a professional golfer and how it marries to your life today as a coach, collaborator and podcaster. There must be a story in there why you actually give up golf, love to hear it.
Journey to self-mastery
My journey like everyone’s life and path is a journey. Journeys take lots of time and usually involve lots of failure and mine is no doubt the same. I started playing golf when I was really young. My dad got me into it and I really enjoyed playing. I was a competitive kid so anything with competition in sports I was in.
In golf, there wasn’t anyone else responsible for your successes. Your path to, self-mastery, depends on only you. I felt like I had the most control in my success. As I progressed it became clear it was something that I could really build. My focus kind of narrowed on golf in high school. I started dropping other sports so that I could really focus on golf. I ended up playing in college at Masters University in California. I worked on, self-mastery, for four years in college.
It was clear that I had the skills to be a professional golfer. So, I decided to give it a shot. In my senior year, I created the business plan and the structure around getting the financing to play professional golf. I got 10 to 11 sponsors and investors to back me. So, when I graduated, I was able to turn professional right away, upon leaving college in May of 2014. That kind of kicked off my four-year journey of playing professional golf.
Professional Golf teaches mastery
It takes a professional golfer about 10 years to get from, here to there, there being the PGA tour, and to self-mastery, the ultimate goal for every professional golfer. It’s not an overnight thing. There’re the people that you know, Tiger Woods, Jordan Spieth and Phil Mickelson and the 1% of the 1% the superstars. Everyone else it takes an average of 10 years to get from, here to there, and to, self-mastery,
My first year was a lot of failure, and a lot of learning. It was this process of development and, self-mastery, the process of learning how to develop and grow as a human very much at the same time.
As a golfer I started to learn to grow and improve and see some slow signs of growth and success. About two years into the journey after I’ve gotten partial status, I started to face a systemic injury which started in 2016. It was a muscle strain in my back. Many different factors combined and that kicked off about a year-and-a-half journey of failing to rehab correctly, failure of treating the symptom versus the injury. When I did reach the end of those first three and a half years, it became clear that my body wasn’t 100 % healed.
But the bigger thing that happened was at my desires and giftings and abilities had kind of shown a different purpose. I felt more called to coach, so I made the decision this last December to transition out of Golf.
Finding true purpose
I truly believe what I’m doing now is my purpose. I believe that golf equipped me for my true purpose. I think that the journey of professional golf was a hyper-focused form of personal development and, self-mastery, because golf again is an arena where at the end of the day you have to take 100% ownership of your career, your life and your success because there’s no one to blame but yourself if you don’t succeed.
There are no coaches, there’s no teammates, there’s no referee, there’s no other external factors that you can blame for winning or losing. You have to take that ownership upon yourself. So, it really it forced me to leave no stone unturned in figuring out how to optimize and to, self-mastery, create the best form of myself as a competitor and as a golfer. You can’t control outcomes, but you can control your preparation and, self-mastery, of the game.
I never planned on being at this place where I am now, as a speaker and a writer and entrepreneur. All these things manifested because I was faithful to do the best that I could. In golf I left no stone unturned, and it has equipped me for his work. If I hadn’t been faithful to do that then I wouldn’t be ready. Golf allowed me to get, from here to there, and to, self-mastery,
There’s a really good book called “The talent code” by Daniel Coyle and he teaches whether you’re coaching soccer or teaching a child to play the piano, writing a novel or trying to improve your golf swing, this revolutionary book shows you how to grow talent by tapping into a newly discovered brain mechanism. He feels that just because you have the talent doesn’t mean
it will be nurtured to the level of, self-mastery, its deep work and deep practice to really develop skill, competence and, self-mastery, in any field it’s always a combination of nature and nurture.
Conclusion
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I think the mindset of a professional athlete is one that is competitive but not just competitive it’s also inspired. I think having clarity is really important as well. As an athlete you get objective feedback of win or lose, so you can figure out how to get, from here to there, and to, self- mastery, I think the same is true about having a vision. You have a goal you are striving for and you get feedback from whether you are successful or not.
What is your quarter life perspective on, self- mastery.
I give a lot of credit for this title to my grandpa. When I was writing this book, he was an influential voice in my head and life.
To listen to Thane’s Quarter life perspective on, self-mastery, Download the rest of this inspiring interview on iTunes, Google play, Stitcher, Podbean, and iHeart radio,
Additional resources:
https://www.thanemarcus.com/who/
The path to Mastery
the-quest-for-purpose-six-holistic-ways-finding-purpose/
https://myhelps.us/how-to-flow-with-desire/
