I often get asked questions about the golf concepts and ideas in my book, There’s No Sex In Golf! Here’s one from golfer Ian Attard.

“I find it interesting that you mention giving up practice in order to improve. What makes golf so different from any other physical sport requiring at least 10,000 hours of practice to master?”

I acknowledge there is a point-of-view that it takes some 10,000 hours to achieve mastery. My question to you is, “Is that true for you?”

I’ve observed over three-generations of my family that Mum and Dad still struggle to use a computer, while it was much easier for me and my sister’s two boys were using one by about age five. Just because 10,000 hours is considered normal, doesn’t mean you have to be normal. If you were willing to be extraordinary, could you master golf in less time?

I have also heard it said that only when you have mastered the violin can you truly play the music and there is some truth in that. Initially the focus is to try and perfect technique – the mechanics of using the instrument – and hopefully this becomes so easy and effortless that the musician can then begin to play music. While the instrument is a vehicle to playing, the idea of mastering it can sometimes get in the way.

Mastering the golf-swing over 10,000 hours requires hard work, dedication and persistence. It can result in you have a great swing and … would you be willing to consider something else? Something called … contribution.

You see, the golf-swing already exists. It was around long before you came along and will be here long after you’re gone. All golfers simply borrow the swing, customise it and use it to create the game they play. Hackers contribute force, frustration and often anger. Champion golfers contribute to the swing by giving it elegance, grace and power; they allow it to be a beautiful thing that is a joy to watch. Check out this clip of Tiger Woods in action. It’s called “Tiger Woods Swing Portrait.” His swing is a work of art.

Here’s a question you may like to ask, often.

“What can I contribute to the golf-swing that would allow it to master me?”

In the book I mention giving up practise in favour of playing. I didn’t say you would not be down at the driving range, chipping or putting green. What if the time you spent hitting balls came from the energy of curiosity, change and fun?

At the golf-club I play, I often see a group of young boys hitting balls at the driving range; except they’re not just hitting balls. They are having a great time as they laugh and chat and smack another one off the tee. For them golf is a game; it’s exciting and they play with it. It’s fun just to watch them and enjoy the energy they function from. Sometimes they swing to top-the-ball … just to see if they can. And other times they will peel-off a gorgeous drive that gently draws, runs and bumps into the back fence. Is that practising or simply playing with golf?

Thanks for the question Ian.

Chapter Ref: What’s Your Approach?/Practice. Page 118 of There’s No Sex In Golf!”

Several Australian State Governments are begining to change the rules on one of the big contributors to global polution … plastic shopping bags

This article in the Sydney Morning Herald, “SA set to ban plastic bags.” combined with other news of supermarkets and whole towns in New South Wales ceasing to use plastic bags, is a welcome news.

This Google search reveals a host of articles and social commentary on other Australian leaders taking action to generate a much needed change.

I have only two questions to begin this fine day:

How does it get any better than this? and What else is possible?

Discarded plastic bags

As of April 2009 Brisbane International Airport became a plastic bag free zone giving the 4.1 million passengers who shop there each year an opportunity to be involved in a long term cultural change towards sustainability.

I was in Brisbane International Airport recently and discovered they have ceased using plastic bags in all shopping areas. As a result, and it’s only been in action since April, one million plastic shopping bags have-not been released out into the world. How does it get any better than this?

Here’s a link to a PDF with the full article

Supermarkets and grocery stores often provide trolleys to assist shoppers in transporting purchases to their vehicles. In Australia, the business is responsible for any trolleys that their customers take off-site and send staff out into the streets to round them all up. Supermakets can get fined if their shopping trolleys are littering the streets.

Supermarkets also provide plastic bags so shoppers can manage their purchases. Shoppers don’t actually buy the plastic bags, they are provided by the businerss in the same way as the trolleys.

Shouldn’t businesses collect all of their plastic bags that they send out into the world?

What if, by being golf, you had access to everything golf is?

If I ask you to be happy, you can actually do that in a flash, if your willing. And in that, you realise that it’s simply a choice – you choose to be happy or to be sad. When you choose to be happy, for example, you immediately have all of happiness available to you. You know exactly what happiness is and become that; no one has to teach you how to do it, you just get it and be it. It’s easy, just as it’s easy to be sad.

So, why doesn’t happiness last very long? It’s not that being happy doesn’t last long; it changes because you choose to be something else. You change what you’re being every 10 seconds. You think that if you make one choice it will last forever. No. A choice is only good for about 10 seconds and then you choose again. It follows, that to be happy all of the time you would have to choose it every 10 seconds. Seems like a lot of work!

You think that you can only be one thing at time, so you have to swap what your being to function. Could you actually be happy and sad at the same time? What would it take to be more?

To be happy and sad at the same time would require you to give up your definitions of what they are. You think that to be happy requires you to smile and laugh. Is that true or could you be happy without doing those things? Could you be happy without doing anything? Smiling and laughing is the way you prove your happiness to others; it has nothing to do with being … it’s a doing. Most of the time you DO and rarely, if ever, BE.

In golf, could you be a winner and lose? Yes; but only if you don’t have a definition of what winning and losing are. One definition of winning is, “the golfer with the lowest score” and if you don’t match that definition you cannot be a winner. What does it mean? Nothing. It’s just someones version of what a winner is. You don’t have to do anything with it.

I was playing golf recently and experimenting with asking a question before every shot. It was a lot of work and I realised I was ‘doing’ question. I got to the eighth and as I walked up to the tee realised that all I had to do was be the question and be golf. And in that, I already knew what was required. I didn’t have to work out every shot, I stood on the tee and just received all of the information that was available; it was like the eighth was speaking to me. There was absolutely nothing going on in my head and it left me totally free to create the shot. The drive flew down the fairway and with an easy six-iron I was three-feet from the pin. It was so easy and truly glorious to play that way.

Being golf is a choice. What choice are you avoiding by the choices you are making around golf? What are you refusing to be, that if you would be it would change everything?

First, let me give credit to Steve Bowman for his article called, “Five steps to operating in a financial crisis – Expert advice for NGOs,” from which I have adapted the five steps underpinning his excellent work. In the article, Mr. Bowman lays out, “… five of the most important things [business] can do … in the current financial environment.” In my article below, I have extrapolated on his expert recommendations and applied these steps to changing the world; another fast growing crisis.

Five Steps To Change The World

1. Look at everything you’ve assumed you have gotten right

There is a philosophy, which encourages business, organisations and individuals to be consistently on the creative edge, constantly innovating and changing, far in advance of their competition. Its easy and simply says,

“Always be in question.“

The moment you decide you have something right or have the answer, every other possibility that was available to you disappears from view.”

Any business declaring they have it right is immediately in decline, because from that point-of-view they will stop creating, innovating and cannot have anything greater show up. The same applies to individuals, governments and mankind. Businesses constantly in question, generate possibility, choice and opportunity.

If Hoover had been more in question, perhaps they would have invented the revolutionary ‘cyclone’ technology that allowed James Dyson to seize market share in the eighties with his bagless vacuum cleaner.

As a powerful and influential force on Planet Earth, when we decide our model of society and life is the right one, it has an enormous effect. And from within that decision, we are unable to see where it doesn’t work or that something else is even possible. The current intensity-of-struggle to survive LIFE, clearly highlighted by the financial crisis, an increasing incidence of disease, pollution, global warming and other results, indicates we’ve been in decline for some time.

The reality is that many aspects of our lives do not work. The most glaringly obvious sign of this is the highly-stressed and fast-failing systems of Earth, for which a plethora of documentaries, films, scientists, studies and reports provide a mountain of evidence. Yet despite this, the majority of mankind appears blind. We seem to administer to LIFE from a false sense of superiority, based on the ‘rightness’ of our point-of-view. How did we become unconscious of what is, and so chronically blinded to what else is possible?

To begin to have a different perspective, we must look at what we have decided we have right, acknowledge where it’s not working and be willing to choose something different. And then most importantly … to actually choose!

The difficulty is that our habit is to choose the same thing, over and over, thinking that because the wrapping looks different, it must be a different choice. It isn’t.

What if we had gotten everything wrong up to now and all we have to do is acknowledge that … and change it?

2. Have a clear understanding of where your thinking is coming from

Thinking is a creative endeavour. An indication of what we are creating with our thinking is evidenced by the results we get in LIFE. The difficulty is that many of us are unaware of what goes on in our head. For many, thinking exists as an indistinct buzz of background noise and is, in the main, unconscious thought.

Our thoughts are creative and our thinking is easily influenced. How much influence does the TV News have on people? For many viewers, it is their only source of information about what is happening in the world. A one-minute snapshot of a single dramatic event colours their thinking way beyond just that event. It can powerfully influence the way they think about a topic, a country or a civilisation. And their thoughts contribute to creating more of the same. When enough people are thinking a similar way, then sufficient energy becomes available to begin transforming thought into matter.

It has been shown in hospitals that patients that are prayed-for have a higher rate of successful recovery that those not-prayed-for. We could simply attribute the result to God’s assistance, but it doesn’t seem to matter if the patient or those praying believe in God or not. It still works. Bringing the attention of minds to a common purpose can be powerful and creative.

If everyone in your family thinks that you are hopeless with money and you buy into their point of view, it’s difficult not to create ‘hopeless with money’ as your reality. As a population of 6.76 billion people, if we believe Earth needs saving then we begin to create that as reality. When we function unaware of our thought processes, we have no possibility of making a change because the result always seems to be something beyond us.

Until we acknowledge that we create everything in our reality we can never change it because we give that talent, that ability and that responsibility away to someone or something else. More people, having a clear understanding of where their thinking is coming from could change the world.

3. Get everyone involved in the conversation

Getting everyone in the conversation … includes Earth. Earth is the one entity that mankind consistently and continually avoids including in the discussion.

From our self-appointed position of superiority and with hardly a mention of the fact that we are creators of the problems, the majority of people have bought into the idea that Earth needs saving, as if that somehow excuses us and puts Earth at fault. I ask you, “Where has Earth failed us?” Isn’t the truth that we, yet again, have failed to be aware of the consequences of our actions, taken without consultation or consideration of all parties.

“Only we humans make waste that nature can’t digest.” Charles Moore

Take a look at the issue of plastics, particularly in the ocean. Captain Charles Moore explores this in his 2008 speech given at TED entitled, “Sailing the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” In our choice to launch into large scale plastics production, for just about everything, we failed to be aware of what Earth would have to deal with once we had used and discarded the many items. In fact even now, we are largely unconscious of the effect we have on Earth with the waste created by 6.76 billion people.

Including Earth in the conversation is not so far fetched; though it will not be in the form of words and meetings around boardroom tables. If we are willing to give up our answers, get over having to be right, ask questions and be aware of the responses coming in a different language; in a different way, then everything could change.

What if Earth was simply changing in order to survive us or at the very least … to get our attention? What if Earth was already calling out and we haven’t been aware of the communication, because we do not acknowledge that capability. That is an insane point of view! Surely a entity that has been able to generate the phenomenal diversity and intensity of life we live with, has the ability to communicate. I mean, come on! Isn’t it time we woke up?

4. Look at the question of, “If we fail here, what is it that we’re going to do?”

If Earth, as an environment suitable for LIFE were to become unsuitable tomorrow; what would we do? It’s a simple question to which we all know the answer.

Hollywood portrays that a small select group would fly off in a spaceship, find a new home and begin again. While that’s a nice hopeful story, it is unlikely. And if that capability is currently available, those who have it are keeping quiet. Our two closest planetary neighbours, the Moon and Mars, are both barren and there aren’t many other options. What would we do?

Our choices could be more effective if we looked at what we can change at home, though our habit has been to sweep the mess under the carpet and apply air freshener. Perhaps we need to ask questions like these,

• What are we being that we can change?
• What is not working that we can change?
• What else is possible? And …
• How does it get any better than this?

Please note that I did not ask, “What can we fix?” We need to choose something different because none of our fixes have worked. We have been trying to fix our failures, over and over, and the results are not encouraging.

Asking questions can generate more possibilities than reworking the answers that continue to fail us. Refer back to Step 1, “Always be in question.”

5. Realise and acknowledge your ability to survive and thrive

Systematically destroying a 5.98 sextillion metric-ton planet requires enormous talent.

It’s not something that just anyone could do. None of the animals, the birds, reptiles, plants and not to mention trillions of insects who have been living on Earth for a long, long time have managed it. In fact, no other species either individually or collectively have even come close. Well, we have.

Acknowledging the brilliance we must be to create such a stupendous mess, is the first step in recognising that we also have the ability to turn it around; to change it. Until we stop judging our creation and us as bad; denying we had anything to do with it and refusing to claim, own and acknowledge our undeniable brilliance … then we will succeed. It is inevitable.

Functioning from the brilliance we truly are, that we have already demonstrated in monumental style, will allow us to generate the changes required to go beyond survival … to thrival. Continuing to pretend we are the victims of some great environmental or galactic joke will ensure our own deaths. How ironic that there will be no one left to laugh.

We have to ask ourselves, “Are we really that clever? Did we really do all of this?” And if enough of us answer, “Yes!” then something can be different; but if we reply, “No! It was all someone or something else.” then it is goodbye my friends. Let us not continue being that stupid.

What’s Next

Earth is dynamically and critically impacted by our choices and actions in multiple areas, though the single key driver of this is population. In addition, two characteristics of our society are voracious consumerism and throwaways contributing to massive pollution.

The depletion of Earth’s resources, in all areas, results from 6.76 billion people consuming, every second of every day. And pollution is the discarded waste thrown-off by 6.76 billion people, every second of every day.

We are consuming the planet at a fantastic rate and polluting it with our waste. The type and quantity of waste we unconsciously scatter has diseased the planet almost beyond healing.

There is a large population of rabbits located adjacent to a control fence built along the Western Australian border – rabbits are not-native to Australia and were introduced in 1788. The rabbits have eaten all of the ground-cover vegetation, including it’s roots. Every tree has been ring-barked as the starving animals have stripped bark off the trunk, as high-up as they could reach; the trees have all died. The rabbits, diseased, emaciated and totally wretched, sit in the dust awaiting their death. That could be us in a few years.

A large reduction in the number of human bodies on Earth, would allow dynamic change to begin.

Nothing else can be effectively changed until the key issue of population is addressed. Is now the time to look at what we have been unwilling to see? And to become fully aware that any species that continues to multiply within a finite environment, will eventually and inevitably destroy it’s life support system; in our case … Earth.

We still have choice, thought the options are thinning with each passing day. Is now the time to stop passing each day as if it had nothing to do with us, and looked at what choices we can make right now that will allow change to begin?

Stephen Outram, Author
www.stephenoutram.com

Sylvia Earle’s speech at TED describes that the ocean is one of Earth’s greatest resources, with a bio-diversity that is beyond most people’s imagination, yet we have damaged it beyond belief. Couple this with Charles Moore’s, “Sailing the Great Pacific Garbage Patch” and hopefully you can get some clarity on how close, to being unable to sustain LIFE, Earth really is.

Despite the growing mountain of evidence that is available and being presented on media throughout the world, still nothing changes. In this TED video, “Sailing the Great Pacific Garbage Patch” Captain Charles Moore shows the staggering quantity of plastics now choking the ocean.

Also have a look at Sylvia Earle’s remarkable speech and maybe you will begin to comprehend the disaster we are all creating, while being unconscious of the consequences of our choices. How does it get any better than this and what else is possible?

If mankind left tomorrow, how long would it take earth to reclaim it’s own?

A Nice Story

In the late 60s, my family lived in north-west Western Australia, in a small town called Port Hedland. I recall that when we arrived in1966, there was no fresh milk, no radio and certainly no TV.

At that time, there was only about 200 miles of asphalt on the 1200 miles of road we drove to get to Perth for our summer holidays. The remainder was just graded dirt and every vehicle was followed by a huge plume of red-dust that whirled high-up into the air as they swept along.

The road was maintained by periodic regrading and following a few years of use, and several wet seasons, the surface became badly corrugated and pot-holed. The local Councils would then cut a new road through the bush, parallel to the old and traffic would use that one. It always surprised me was how quickly the old roadway reverted back to being Australian bushland.

I’ve seen this in many areas of the world, where the earth, without any apparent effort, reclaims it’s own … once we have left. Given some time, land that was completely stripped of all vegetation, then covered with concrete and bricks is able to become ‘nature’ again. It’s really quite phenomenal.

There’s No Where Else To Go

Let’s get to the question, “If mankind left tomorrow, how long would it take earth to reclaim it’s own?” It’s a rhetorical question, because at the moment there seems to be only one way out. And unless there’s massive advancement in space technology, it appears we are here until death. The question that’s really interesting is, “Does earth really need saving?”

So far, our efforts to save earth have had little effect. In the area of greatest concern, climate change, the planet continues to warm while our leaders and scientists debate the right thing to do, while trying unsuccessfully to bind all the major major players in a unified effort. Pollution is out of control; and populations of the many endangered animal species are barely being maintained in managed environments. Conversely, human populations continue to grow.

Note: Animals are smarter than we are. They will not breed when they know the available space, food, water and environment is not sufficient to sustain their numbers. Animals already know Earth’s systems are highly-stressed.

The High Cost of Saving

Saving the whales, tigers, other endangered species, the ozone layer, etc. … and of course … Earth, takes huge amounts of energy, resources, money, people, effort and time. How many projects, world-wide, in operation at the moment are involved in saving someone or something? Thousands? Millions?

Are we so bored that we have to create problems to solve? The current rationale appears something like this, using animals as an example,

“Let’s create a situation where we drive an animal species to the brink of extinction. Then, we can spend huge amounts of energy saving them and demonstrate to the rest of the world how wonderful and compassionate we are.”

Are we ‘destroying,’ so we can then try to ’save’ and somehow feel good about ourselves?

A similar strategy is used by powerful and influential commercial organisations. A problem is created to which they already have a solution and then the solution is sold to the public for lots of money. The Asian Bird Flu is an interesting example, where governments bought huge amounts of vaccine for a world-wide epidemic that never happened.

I have to ask, “Is the ‘destroy-the-world-and-then-save-it’ technique we keep using really working for us and the place we live?”

Plunder Rape and Pillage

When you really look at it, the destroy-then-save methodology is present throughout history. Afghanistan and Iraq were warred upon in order to save them. The Murray River in Australia has been water-mined by farmers to such an extent that it’s virtually dead. The government is now activating programmes and allocating resources to save it. There are many historical examples of plunder, rape and pillage.

Would you be willing to see that the earth doesn’t need saving. It’s fully capable of generating anew and what is required is that we, all of us, allow that by choosing differently.

Some Changes Take Time

You see, the Earth cannot change as quickly as we can. It has this time-based system called ‘evolution,’ built-in as an integral part of its structure. We however, can actually change very quickly.

In a 2008 TV documentary about declining oil supply, a scientist said that the global auto-mobile industry could change from using petrol as a fuel-source powering vehicles, to something different in less than 10 years. That’s fast! That would change the world!

Earth cannot evolve at the speed we create. And much of what we are creating is proving to be highly destructive to this planet … our home. Have you noticed? What would it take to stop-proving we can destroy?

Earth doesn’t need saving; that’s our point-of-view. It requires space and we are gobbling up space like it was Swiss chocolate. It needs us to stop plundering, raping and pillaging. We need to become aware of the changes Earth is generating and be in allowance of that because in a fight for life between Earth and us … we would lose.

It’s not about stopping or controlling Earth changes that clearly, are already happening; it’s about becoming more aware and adapting, moving, changing, morphing and choosing differently. Remember, there’s no where else to go and only one way out.

Your Choice Can Change The World

I don’t have answers to what has to change and be different, or which choices will work. What I know is that we have choice and the ability to choose. Currently though, we are choosing the same as we have always chosen. Our self-appointed superiority is blinding us from seeing what is real, and could well be our undoing. What would it take for all of us to begin choosing differently?

What I do have is questions, which can open doorways revealing other choices. And I will continue to ask them, for when we hold on tightly to an answer … nothing else is possible.

What is clear, is what we are being here on Planet Earth is simply not working … and our efforts to fix it are failing. And our efforts to fix our failures are failing … yet again. The answers we’ve decided are right, are solutions that are fast-running through our fingers. Are you willing to let go of your answers and ask yourself this question?

“What can we be, all of us, that would allow us to choose to generate a totally different reality?”

Earth doesn’t need saving; but perhaps we do!

Stephen Outram, Author
www.stephenoutram.com

“This is the question I get asked the most … “

When I gave my new book the title “There’s No Sex In Golf!” I knew I would get asked this question. And my reply is another question; what does sex not-have to do with golf? Perhaps the following story can provide a little clarity.

A few years ago a friend was showing me the delights of the city of Edinburgh, Scotland. After a busy day sightseeing, which included refreshments in several of its many historic pubs, Colin, a local, took me to a strip bar in the old town. We walked in and nearly doubled the clientele to the grand total of five. There was the two of us, a bartender, one other customer and a stripper. We ordered a couple of pints and sat down. Everyone was watching soccer on a small TV positioned over the bar.

After a little while the bartender nodded to the stripper and she walked over to an old jukebox on the wall to select a song. Stepping up onto a wooden stage she began that timeless dance … bump and grind. Four heads turned and looked in her direction for about 10 seconds and then in total unison, turned back to the soccer on TV with nary a backward glance. The question I have for you is this,

“What makes a game of soccer more interesting to four red-blooded males … than a women taking her clothes off?”

People playing sport, particularly high-skilled professionals, cannot create their game from a linear perspective. They can’t do one step at a time, because they have no idea what is going to happen next. Even if they are the one controlling the ball, they can change the shot in an instant into something completely different. This means that until the ball has been kicked, anything is possible and in that there can be no plan or routine.

A soccer game is a constantly changing kaleidoscope of energy and possibilities, and players must create in the moment and be able to change instantly. Great players function from a state of total presence with what is happening and are intensely-creative. They are willing to see a little of the future and can anticipate well. They receive and have an awareness of the dynamics and energy of the game. And they play being potent, generative and adventurous. Multiply that by 22 players and a game of soccer can be intensely attractive. Is that why thousands and sometimes millions of people will watch matches? Are they ‘turned-on’ to the game, the players or something else?

At the Sydney 2000 Olympics, 130,000 condoms were delivered to the Olympic Village; it was reported that an additional 20,000 had to be provided when athletes ran out – maybe that explains where all the balloons came from for the opening ceremony! Are elite athletes so turned-on by what they are generating that it can effect other bodies as well?

Is it just sport that turns bodies on or is it the energy that is generated when someone is being that potent? Would you be willing to acknowledge the raw unrestrained sexualness that is present with intensely-creative people, be they athletes, singers, racing car drivers, artists, business entrepreneurs or … strippers?

Does this mean you have to be highly-sexed to be creative or that if you are being intensely creative, people might find you more attractive … even sexy or hot!? Hmm … which brings us back to the stripper in Edinburgh.

“What was it that she wasn’t-being, that resulted in losing her audience in 10 seconds flat … to a soccer match?”

The stripper girl had a routine. She did a one step at a time dance that she had rehearsed so she could do it the same way every time. She didn’t even have to be present in her body to do that? The performance was lacklustre and predictable. It totally excluded the play, adventure and sexualness that another intensely-creative dancer might generate. Ten seconds was all the audience needed to realize the soccer was going to be much more of a turn-on. When she had completed her dance, the stripper came and watched the remainder of the soccer with us. It was more sexy to her, than she was.

So, what does sex have to do with golf? Quite a lot it seems. When you turn-off your sexualness, then your ability to create and generate becomes disabled. And then you can be reliant on others to turn you on. Where’s the choice in that?

You, being potent adventurous and the unrestrained sexualness you truly are, will allow you to generate golf or anything beyond your wildest imaginings. What would it take to turn you on … to golf?