Hey y’all,
Last night, I went to Top Golf with some friends. (Get it? I went clubbing! Can you believe jokes that good are free?!)
Now, most people will know exactly what I’m talking about, but for anyone who doesn’t…
If you’ve ever been driving down the highway in a populated area and seen a circle of 20 or so giant, white towers that look like they’re a communication field for alien spaceships… well, that’s probably Top Golf.
It’s basically a driving range, laser tag, and Chuck E. Cheese mixed into one glorious creation, and it’s become extremely popular over the last decade.
Now, one thing that is important to know for this story is that I don’t golf… like at all…
Even though I hang around with a lot of guys that LOVE golf (looking at Nate in particular here), and even though I’d love to get good enough to play a round or two over the weekend, I just haven’t gotten there yet. I haven’t made time for it.
In fact, pretty much the only golfing experience I have is the 10-15 times I’ve been to TopGolf or someplace similar.
And, so, needless to say, most of the time I go there, it can be pretty embarrassing.
Shanking balls left, right, and straight up, or missing balls entirely, swinging into the turf… you name it, I’ve probably done it.
But last night was a little different…
Last night, suddenly, I was hitting the ball pretty good.
Now, don’t get me wrong, nobody was gonna confuse me with Tiger Woods out there… or even John Daly…
 (Although I do want those pants)
But I was making solid contact, I was hitting the ball farther and (usually) straighter.
Even the folks I was with were saying “wow, you’re pretty good!”
I am not pretty good. They were brand new to TopGolf, and, fortunately, Nate wasn’t around for me to be compared to.
But it wasn’t a bad boost for the ol’ ego.
And even as I reassured them that I’d never played anywhere near this well before in my life, something hit me…
This wasn’t just some out of nowhere, unprecedented hot streak. This was the result of practice.
Because, see, while pretty much all my golfing experience has been limited to TopGolf, I’ve now been to Top Golf probably a dozen times or more. It’s a pretty popular group outing at the company, since there’s one about 20 minutes from our home office and, again, we have a lot of golfing addicts around here.
So I go a fair amount. As I thought back on the times I’ve gone, it hit me (as stupidly obvious as this may sound to all of you) that I’d been slowly improving over the course of time.
As I took swing after swing after swing, my swing got better and better.
The things that I had to really think about when I started: “Look at the ball, keep your arm straight, keep your feet even… eyes on the ball, arms straight, feet even… eyes on the ball, arms straight…”
Those are just part of the process for me. They’re subconscious. If I think about them, it probably means I’m overthinking.
And for maybe the first time ever, I actually left TopGolf feeling… pretty darn good about myself!
Now, does that mean I’m ready to play at Augusta National next week?
 (The home of the Masters, for anyone not familiar)
No, it doesn’t…
But does it mean I’m excited as all heck for the next time I get to go to TopGolf?
Yeah, I sure am!!
And that’s the thing: something that used to intimidate me, scare me a bit, and embarrass me has become something I enjoy because over time, I put in enough repetitions to get better at it.
And I didn’t even know I was doing it.
As traders, we need to have the same mindset.
Trading can be scary at first. It certainly is for me.
I still have to think every time: “make sure you have the right spread… check the expiration… not too many contracts… right spread… expiration… contracts…”
Over and over again. It’s repetitive. It’s a little intimidating…
But it’s not as intimidating now, on my twentieth trade, as it was on my first.
And I bet it’ll be less intimidating on my 50th… and on my 100th… and probably by the time I’ve taken 200 trades, I won’t even have to second guess myself on those things.
Just like with TopGolf.
The trick is, in either case, you’ve gotta stick with it. And when you shank one (and, trust me, you will shank plenty), well…
You just have to take another swing.
Happy Thursday,
Stephen
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