Episode 90: Using Executive Functions to Learn Golf

Below you can view or listen to Episode 90 of The Personal Brain Trainer Podcast.

In this episode of the Executive Function Brain Trainer podcast, hosts Dr. Erica Warren and Darius Namdaran explore practical strategies to exercise and strengthen executive functions. The discussion highlights Darius's personal journey of learning golf, emphasizing principles over sequential learning and externalizing processes as strategies to navigate challenges. The conversation delves into the importance of praising effort over inherent ability to foster growth, leveraging natural strengths, and using various processing techniques like kinesthetic and verbal cues. The episode also touches on the broader implications of these strategies in educational settings and personal development.

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#90: Using Executive Functions to Learn Golf

Erica: Welcome to the Executive Function Brain trainer podcast. I'm Dr. Erica Warren.

Darius: And I'm Darius Namdaran. And we're your hosts, sponsored by ivvi. Imagine turning your meeting's audio into a live mind map instantly so you remember what matters. Well, try ivvi for free now at ivvi app.

Erica: ivvi app, sponsored by learningspecialistcourses.com courses and resources that support educators and coaches. Hey, Darius, it's great to see you. It's been a little while and it's always great to be in your presence.

Darius: Yeah, it's great to be here. Erika, I love talking executive function with you. It's going to be a good session to chew the cud and talk about it. Describe what you think our general theme is going to be.

Erica: It really how we can exercise executive functions. And I think there. There are multiple ways you can do that. And, and I think that it'd be fun for us just to share personally how we've been doing that at late.

Darius: Yeah, I like it because. And you said about becoming your best through. How do you phrase it? You said something.

Erica: You know, one thing that I do, I do workshops on dropping into your best self.

Darius: Yes.

Erica: I find that executive functions and strengthening our executive functions, exercising our executive functions, utilizing the tools within executive functions really helps us get on that path of being our best.

Darius: Well, I've got a little story to tell you about that over the last few weeks, and it's to do with golf. And it's a strange example. Okay. I'm not a golfer per se, to know what I mean. But two months ago, I was walking past the park nearby our house, and they've got a little putting green. I decided to get a putter and put the ball and putt it into the hole. It's just like a little holiday thing that you do. Go putting. And I started doing it as a break to just give me a brain break and get out in the sun and the fresh air and so on in the middle of the day. And I got hooked on it, okay? So a month ago, I decided I'd take up golf. Okay. And here's where it's relevant to Executive Function. I took up golf - knowing the way my brain works, okay. And I've got a direct comparable because I tried to take up golf when I was 21, and I completely failed at it. I tried to do it when I was a child. I completely failed at it. I tried to do it when I was completely 21, completely failed at it. I would go out with friends, very occasionally, every three, four, five years, maybe I go around once for a fun game or whatever, lads day out or whatever, and I'd be rubbish at it, you know, like 50 over par, you know, sort of thing. And yet, over the last month, I've become a pretty decent beginner golfer, okay? And the difference is I understood the way I processed information, and I understood the way my mind took on habits or learned how to get the end result. So when you're playing golf, it's a metaphor for executive function in many ways. You know, you could. We've used this as a metaphor in the past before. Like, if you think about cognitive flexibility, you've got to adapt to the circumstances. You can't just say, oh, I want my ball to go from here to here. Why didn't it do it? That was my plan. But it's like nature has another thing coming at you. You know, the wind does something, the rain does something, whatever. You've got to adapt. And there's inhibitory control and there's working memory, but most importantly for me is processing. Now, in our last session, you were talking about your spy a lot. Okay. Your. Your student processing imagery, if I said that right, yeah.

Erica: And for the adults, there's the yippee, which is your professional processing inventory.

Darius: Okay? So this processing, yeah, and this is the big revelation for me over the last two days that really relates to that, processing imagery as well, is when you do a golf swing, okay, you're trying to achieve a goal. You're trying to get the ball eventually in the hole with three or four or five shots, something like that. Three par is three shots in the hole. Four par is four shots in the hole. A decent person, a good person will do it in that, and that's your goal. But you got to do a swing to hit the ball and get it where you want it to go. Now, I am incredibly inconsistent at so many things in my life, and it frustrates me, okay? And sometimes if you've got dyslexia, you can find that you're really inconsistent

00:05:00

Darius: at things. You're inconsistent at replying to emails. You're inconsistent at the way you write. You're inconsistent with your spelling. You're inconsistent the way you pronounce words. Funny, you know, you're just a bit creative with the way you do certain things. You're more of an improviser, maybe, or whatever.

Erica: And you have good and bad days. Yeah, I mean, they're days where I'm just more dyslexic than other days.

Darius: And you get inconsistent, right?

Erica: Definitely.

Darius: And that. That's a big problem when you're playing golf. You've got to be consistent, you know, And I'm like, blooming heck. I've chosen a game where it's all based on consistency. If you're playing football, you can dynamically adapt to a certain situation. And with dyslexia, you're looking at a dynamic situation. You can improvise and that strength can come out. Whereas golf is about. If you've got consistency. And that is the last. Well, I've got.

Erica: It's consistency and flexibility because you want to build certain skills to automaticity so that they become automatic, because there's a symphony of little things to think about and to direct. But the interesting thing about golf and some of these other similar sports is that there are these external stimuli that are variable, that are inconsistent. So in some ways, you have to be consistent. In other ways, you have to navigate the inconsistencies of the. The topography of the weather, of.

Darius: So you've got to. You've got to adapt and be strategic. And I'm good at that. But I'm really bad at being consistent on habits and processes and sequences. And so can you imagine? I'm kind of like, oh, my goodness, what am I going to do? So what I did, Erica, was I said, right, Darius got to solve this by understanding processing and executive function. What do you know about your brain that could actually solve this problem for you that you've never managed in your whole life? Okay, I put golf to the side. But recently I'm like, maybe I could do this. I would love to do this. I like golf. So here's what happened. I decided that I know that I'm inconsistent. I know that I don't get into automaticity very well. So I'm not going to rely on hoping for the best. I'll try it over and over again, and it'll work. And eventually I'll become. I'll get it. No, I know that that habit and that process won't work for me. So what did I do instead? I decided that. I decided to try and externalize the process of playing golf and not depend on me remembering a process. So what I did was. So how do I describe this? A lot of people with dyslexia, what they do is their strategy is to externalize a process to a technique, a tool, a software, a secretary.

Erica: Checklist.

Darius: A checklist. You know, write it down. We externalize a lot of our internal processes to try and relieve our brain from having to do it. So just a human way of using tools. We use tools to externalize our thinking process and make. Give us more capacity. We amplify our capacity.

Erica: So you're taking some of the load off. Yes, the load. So that your working memory can manage. Because anytime you're learning something new, the load is extremely high. Because nothing's developed to automaticity.

Darius: Yeah. And if you think about a golf swing - you've got to have your stance, you've got to have your grip. You've got to lift up a certain way. You've got to bend this arm, you've got to turn that shoulder, you’ve got to bring it down in exactly the right arc. You've got to hit this tiny little ball, and it's got to go 100 meters in exactly the right direction, etc. It's quite complex. Do you know what I mean?

Erica: It's a symphony of complex micro movements.

Darius: It is. You're right. And so, my friend, I said, I've got to find the simp. I've got to find principles to follow.

Erica: You've got to make hard tasks easy.

Darius: Yes. Got to make hard tasks easy. And the way to do that for me is to. I'm sorry, I'm not articulating this very well. I articulate it better in my head while I'm thinking about it but do what I find natural to do.

00:10:00

Darius: Okay, so with the student processing imagery or the. The. The processing tree, there are different ways of processing that you find natural and other ways that you find unnatural.

Erica: Okay, Right, right. Some are just more. It's like almost your comfort zone. Yeah. Some are uncomfortable. And some are uncomfortable.

Darius: Some. Some are comfortable. Some are uncomfortable. That's another way of doing it. And I would say some are natural and some are unnatural. So you can. In golf, you can get certain movements that feel natural and certain movements that feel unnatural. Do you get my drift?

Erica: Yeah, I do.

Darius: Okay. So if you make the choice of, I am going to work in this situation according to my strengths, according to what I feel natural versus what I find unnatural. Okay? If you do that, things change. And I'll give you an example, a really concrete example. So I've only been playing golf for four weeks now. I went to my golf professional two weeks ago for my first lesson. For half an hour, I stood there, and I struck the ball, and he videoed it for me with this Trackman thing. And he said, you've got a really good swing. He's like, it's a single Plane swing. And the golf club followed the plane exactly right and hit the ball exactly right. And. And he's like, that's really good. How, how did you manage that? And what had happened was, because I decided I will only do what I find easy and not the complicated stuff, I changed my swing to a swing that is different than most golfers. Most golfers have a complex two plane swing. It goes this way and then it comes down a different way and it kind of zigzags down. Whereas other golfers, traditional golfers, have one plane. Now, the reason that ended up happening was I sacrificed certain elements in the process to simplify it for me, because I couldn't remember everything else. And all I had to do was to bend my left knee, hold my head in one direction and still and keep my left arm straight at all costs. And everything else could do whatever it liked. I didn't care. And then it ended up becoming a decent swing.

Erica: It just, it fell into place.

Darius: It did. And I just kept three core principles and held on to those. I can't tell you the right process of stage one, stage two, stage three, stage four, stage five, and stage six to hit the ball. I can't even remember them.

Erica: Right, right, right. And in the moment when you're moving quickly, forget about it. That's going to be a huge distraction. So that makes sense. By simplifying the process, you made it, you moved it from a hard task to an easy task, and you probably were more relaxed.

Darius: And I said to him, look, I know I've got this difficulty, okay? And it's held me back in this type of a sport for decades. And so I'm going to make a concession to myself. I'm going to say, I don't care how far I can hit it, I don't care.

Erica: Later.

Darius: Yeah, that can come later if I'm lucky. If I'm not, all I want to do is hit it straight and to a consistent distance. That's all. If it's a short distance, I don't care. I can adapt. I can use strategy for that. We'll do a ball here, a ball there, we'll go here, and we'll get it in the hole.

Erica: Well, then, then you can start to work on those micro changes.

Darius: Yeah. So then talking about the micro changes, so this philosophy of keeping it so simple and the key thing there was I didn't think about processes because I don't remember sequences. I'm not a sequential learner. Okay.

Erica: I'm not either. So I. This, this speaks to me Yeah, I get it.

Darius: Okay. So I'm like, I find that unnatural. Okay, so I've got two options. Option one is, Darius, you should just do it, try harder. Just make it work. That's the way it works. Okay? And I'm like, no, I'm old enough to know better and young enough to do something about it. That's out the window. I'm not doing sequences. Go away. Okay, so what do I do instead? I can't just not do that. I have to replace it with something. And so I said, I really understand.

Erica: Processes more of a simultaneous processing principles.

Darius: So if you give me a principle, I'll remember the principle so I can realize the principle of having my arm straight means that when the ball comes down with the, with the club, it will always be in the right place. Whereas if it's slightly

00:15:00

Darius: bent, it'll go backwards and forwards and make it fly sidey ways. Okay, so you need the, the. The arm straight. All right, I get that. I'm going to follow that principle. It's not a process, it's a principle. Second, you've got to keep your head exactly in the same spot through the whole movement because that becomes the pivot point. When your shoulder gets back to the same point again, it's not going sliding backwards or forwards or anything like that. Great, got it. Then the third principle is you've got to not wobble backwards or forwards. And so the way you have to do that is bend your left knee, keep it bent, and push your knee into the ground like you're trying to crush the ground when you're doing the swing. And if you do those three things, you're pretty. Okay. So I did that, and I ended up with a half decent swing. Okay. So what I ended up doing was I followed a principle, and I externalized it. I didn't think about, oh, what have I got to do inside me? I've got to do this; I've got to do that. I've got to adjust this. It was just externalized into straight arm still, head bent, knee push, down, hit.

Erica: Okay, so what I'm noticing is there is a sequence, but there's a much smaller sequence.

Darius: It's true.

Erica: So it's a smaller sequence that your working memory can manage. You. You also almost turned it into a chant.

Darius: Yes.

Erica: Which is interesting. So you were kind of externalizing this sequence verbally, but you simplified it into like single words that could turn into a chant.

Darius: That's true. And I simplified it into three. I mean, my working memory can't remember much More than three. So.

Erica: So if you have like a chant of three, but you're also supporting your working memory by using multiple processes. You're using verbal, you're using logical reflective, you're using simultaneous processing. I mean, I know you didn't. Didn't say it, but I know your brain well enough to know that you are probably doing a little mini mind map.

Darius: Yeah, I think the simultaneous processing is very connected to the desire to understand principles and patterns. You know, it's like you're not just a simultaneous processor. I'm a simultaneous processor because I want to understand core principles.

Erica: So that what you're doing is you're combining logical reflective with simultaneous processing. You're bringing a logic. A logic has almost like a story to it, which enables you. And that's where I think the chanting comes in too, which is interesting. So what you're doing is you're creating a multi-processing strategy that enables you to follow a sequence.

Darius: It is. I'm trying to follow a sequence without. Sequential. Without being sequential. Do you know what I mean?

Erica: Well, you are being sequential, but you're able to be sequential by utilizing your other processing areas to support it. Because the bottom line is learning this sport requires a sequence of steps.

Darius: It does.

Erica: You are simplified it to a manageable sequence of steps that's fully supported with other processing areas, knowing that at a later time you can change those three steps to something new. Once those skills have become automatic.

Darius: Yes, yes. And I know my Automaticity is roughly 75 repetitions in a row that are all exactly the same. And if I change any one of those repetitions, the 75 count resets to zero.

Erica: Right. Meaning that you have to repeat something 75 times consistently for it to become automatic.

Darius: Exactly the same way. Not just consist, but exactly the same way. If I change the sequence or change.

Erica: It slightly, then you're starting back at square one. That makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. You're resetting.

Darius: So it changed again two days ago. So that was two weeks ago. And then two days ago I was saying to myself, this is great. So I've become consistent in. I'm straight hitting in a straight line. That's nice. Okay, that's really nice. Okay. What if I could become consistent in the distance? I hit it. Like when you're putting or chipping, you have to be quite accurate to get to the mark. Okay. So it's one thing. Oh, I can hit it hard and straight line far and. But then you've got to get it in the

00:20:00

Darius: hole.

Erica: Right. Right now you're dealing now you have to open yourself into the idea of spatial orientation.

Darius: Yes, yes.

Erica: That's a whole another. That's another skill that you have to develop. And you can develop that simultaneously or you can do it separately and then join them together. What's. What's. What are you doing?

Darius: So what I ended up doing, which has surprised me, was the other thing I've not mentioned here, is how it feels in my body. Okay. So, you know, what I've noticed a lot is I think this might be related to adhd. You'll probably be able to tell me more. Is often I use. I rely on sensations to remind me to do certain things, like sensations of my furry teeth to remind me to brush my teeth, because I don't have the authenticity to brush my teeth. So I kind of leave visual cues in certain place and like. Oh, gosh. Yes. So the visual cues, physical cues, different.

Erica: Cues, you know, to different processing cues. You're leaving breadcrumbs.

Darius: I am. To stimulate that next step in a process.

Erica: For example, because you're not sequential, you're trying to find ways to train your brain to be sequential. By leaving these breadcrumbs.

Darius: Yeah. And to get things done and finished and over the line.

Erica: You know what I like about this too, for you is learning golf is also training your brain to be more sequential. And in some ways, it's almost easing you into learning a sequence, which is a really interesting form of cognitive therapy, because I think that there are these ways that are uncomfortable to process, but they can become more comfortable. I would say that my least favorite way of processing is sequentially. But because I've worked with so many students now that are sequential, I've come to learn the beauty in it. I actually see the value now, and I do actually utilize sequential processing much more than I used to, and I love it.

Darius: So an example of sequential processing would be like a checklist or a sequence that you follow.

Erica: As long as it's a sequenced checklist. You know, a better way to think about it is a sequenced process. Like, you know, if you're doing long multiplication, there are steps that you have to go through. And of course, if you are not sequential because you're not like a numbers person, you can also sequence things alphabetically, which is interesting because it's a different part of the brain. You can say A, b, C, D, e. Right. Or 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. But those two sequential processing activities are actually achieved in a different part of the brain. Even though they're sequenced. One's Letters, one's, numbers. But there are ways, I think, of sequencing. You know, it'd be interesting. It'd be an interesting activity to think about the different ways of sequencing. You have talked about sequencing. Logically, a story is a sequence, but a story pulls you through the sequence.

Darius: Yes.

Erica: Right. So you could create a story, a golf story, a golf swing story, and that would pull you through a sequence. A chant will pull you through a sequence. A song will pull you through a sequence. So that there are ways, if you're not naturally a sequential processor, and it's a task that really is going to be best executed sequentially, there are these ways that you can utilize other ways of processing to get you through a sequence. A song is a great example.

Darius: Yeah, yeah.

Erica: A song or a chant.

Darius: E, F, G, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Erica: That song gets. Gets almost everybody through the. A sequence of. Was it 26 letters in the Alphabet?

Darius: Yeah.

Erica: It's funny, I always want to say it's 27. There's a part of my brain that says, no, it's. They're 27, but it's 26.

Darius: So. So I thought you'd find this interesting because it's all to do with processing, different processing styles, etc. And so what I found with the Golf two days ago. So I thought to myself, I wonder how I can be consistent with hitting the ball with the right strength. Okay, so you've got to hit the ball with the right strength, the appropriate strength for the distance you want it to go.

00:25:00

Darius: Sometimes you don't want to hit the ball as far as you possibly can. Sometimes you just want to hit the ball exactly 15 yards because that's where the hole is.

Erica: And that's what strength. Strength is the amount of push.

Darius: Yes.

Erica: It's physics, you know, so that's. It's more of a physics. And that there's a logic behind the physics.

Darius: True. So this is where I went. So I had a choice. I have a choice. My first choice would be, well, you just practice it, and you get a feel for how far it should go and you just kind of feel how hard you hit it.

Erica: Okay, Right, right, right, right.

Darius: The body physics, kind of getting the feel of it, and I'm kind of roughly getting there.

Erica: Yeah, yeah.

Darius: But then I also know I will not remember the feel. I will lose that feel because my automaticity is so bad.

Erica: Not to mention the fact that you're not always in the same environment, so that there are too many inconsistencies. So even if you defined that feel in that place in that moment. It's not necessarily going to apply to another place in another moment.

Darius: Interesting. Interesting. So I've got this in my head. How on earth could I be consistent in the force that I apply? So. And I know this is completely crazy, okay. And I know that this is not the normal way to do golf, okay. So please do not tell me off or whatever. And please do not think I'm a golfing instructor or whatever. I'm not. I'm a complete.

Erica: We're processing instructors. We're trying to help everybody understand how no matter how difficult something is, there's another way of processing that will get you through it.

Darius: Yeah. So here's what I did was if I can concentrate on. If I could just trust my body, and my body did something it found natural, okay? A natural movement that was consistent for my body to do, rather than me deciding what I want it to do that is variable. If there was a movement my body did naturally and consistently, I could delegate this to my body. Do you know what I mean?

Erica: It's like a. It's like a dance routine.

Darius: Well, it's. Okay, so here's what I'm doing. I mean, so I'm putting at the green. Okay. But I need to get it up onto the green and practice that slightly outside of the green so it's a bit further. And so use a chipping. A chipping wedge to get it up there. Chip it up.

Erica: That's. You see, that's the other thing that's so complicated about golf is that you have all these different golf clubs.

Darius: Yes.

Erica: And each one requires some. Different. Wow. It's a lot.

Darius: So. So what I did, decided to do was what would happen if I kept my whole body still. And the only thing I did was move my arms backwards and forwards and didn't even bend my elbows. How far could I go and how much could I hit it? And I realized I could only go a few feet back and then a few feet on the other side. I couldn't go any further if I kept everything still. So I would do that, and it would go 10 yards and do it again. 10 yards. I do it again. 10 yards. Oh, my goodness. Okay. I want it to go further than 10 yards, but I'm like.

Erica: But now you've figured out the 10 yards.

Darius: I can do 10 yards body movement. Right. With this one body movement. Do you know what I mean?

Erica: Right. It's almost like you have different exercises that you do to strengthen your body, and you've discovered a single exercise that will get you 10 yards.

Darius: That's right.

Erica: And body movement.

Darius: What I noticed in that body movement was if I, there was three levels of movement. Level one, I just let gravity pull me down, pull it down, and that wasn't strong enough. Level two, there was a kind of tension created in my muscles because of it. And then when I released that tension and pushed it through, it sort of was like, it felt like a spring. And then level three was, I hit it. And when I hit it, it became inconsistent because that was me kind of overlaying my force into it. And so my body wanted to do that sort of spring motion.

Erica: Stiff spring, stiff body spring. So now you've, you've taken that activity and you've turned it into a sequence of words. And, and that can remind you on how to get 10 yards.

Darius: That's right.

Erica: And you got very analytical. So what you have, that's, what you've.

Darius: Done, is I've done the logical reasoning.

Erica: You've done a logical thing, and you've turned it into a, not a sequence of steps, but a chant.

Darius: Well, no, no, I didn't do it.

Erica: What was more, you got three words. You had words.

Darius: Kinesthetic. It was the kinesthetic that was key for me. I, I, it was that, oh,

00:30:00

Darius: I'm liking that. I can feel that. I, I can. Oh, now it's time to release. Release. And so as the body was giving me this kinesthetic feedback that was more consistent than my own mental feedback of this is how hard we should hit it.

Erica: So it was body attention.

Darius: Yes.

Erica: So it wasn't even, it was kinesthetic, but there was a consciousness, a conscious kinesthetic.

Darius: What, what, what do you mean by kinesthetic when you use it? I'm maybe using it.

Erica: It's movement.

Darius: Movement.

Erica: But the movement helps you with the process, helps you memory. So there is a certain kinesthetic memory that people have.

Darius: Yeah.

Erica: But what you're doing is you're just supporting it with other. You're supporting it with logic. You're supporting it probably with visualization. Visuals.

Darius: Yeah. The big picture in all of this. Okay. What I'm doing is I'm staying in the type of processing I find most natural. Okay. Rather than the type of processing I find unnatural. Okay.

Erica: So first, you're honoring your best ways of processing.

Darius: That's right. And I'm becoming the best, best version of myself, the best version of the golfer, best version of the golfing Darius, because I'm using these ties. Back to your question at the beginning, how we use Practically executive function in our life. And. And so what I found was I. I knew my weaknesses, and then instead of trying to strengthen my weakness, I'm. I've decided to let go of that and concentrate on what I find natural and a strength to achieve the same end result. So what the result is that I find I've got this logical strength to figure out that, oh, if I lock down my shoulder, I lock down my hips, I lock down my legs and one of my. Both my arms, I've got this small movement. So what ended up happening was this, Erica. I discovered there were four gears that I could unlock in force. Okay. Gear number one was two arms locked. Okay. Which only allowed one arm to give proper, proper movement, which was a low power. Then gear two, I was allowed to bend one of my arms so that I could raise up my club to halfway up, 90 degrees or parallel, and then strike it down. And that went 25 yards. And then gear number three was I was allowed to bend my shoulders as well and then hit it, and that went 45 yards. And then gear number four was I was allowed to do my. My arms, my bent arm, my shoulder, and turn my hips and hit it. And that went 85 to 90 yards. And once I had that, I was like, oh, my goodness.

Erica: Okay, so you're bringing in kinesthetic memory.

Darius: Yes.

Erica: And you're. You're also throwing in a lot of language tags.

Darius: Yes, that's right. So I've got the word spring as a. As opposed to strike. So I'm saying to myself, yes, let yourself spring through that. Don't strike it. Don't use force, use spring, because the spring will be consistent and your strike will be inconsistent.

Erica: So this is verbal. Even though you're not saying it out loud, you're saying it out loud in your head. You're using your inner voice, which is a verbal form of processing. And you're combining verbal processing with analytical, because you're getting very analytical about things. You're really. You're having fun with language by boiling a process down into a word that defines a bodily presence or a bodily stance for you. Spring has. Communicates to you something very specific.

Darius: The feeling I need. Yes.

Erica: Right. You're assigning feelings, bodily feelings, single words, which you're chunking. You are chunking. That's what you're doing. You're chunking, which is an outstanding working memory strategy. So chunking enables you to. If you have a limited working memory of, say, three, you can now chunk. If you chunk three things in each chunk, then you're up to nine. So you are expanding your working memory by chunking.

Darius: Yes, that's very true. And I noticed that yesterday because I divided it into four gears. Okay. Arm one, arm two, shoulder and hip.

Erica: That's chunking.

Darius: That was chunky.

00:35:00

Darius: But I wasn't. I didn't like that so much. I thought to myself, actually, it's three. It's arms, it's shoulder and hips. It's kind of like half arm, full arm power, you know? So really, I chunked it into three.

Erica: I think, knowing you, and from everything you've ever told me, that you feel that your working memory is best at 3 and 4. Was feeling a little unwieldy, so you pulled it back down to three. But within that, you're able to chunk in three, which gets you up to nine, which is what you need in order to be successful at learning golf.

Darius: That's right. Yeah. Yeah.

Erica: So you're managing these long sequences by chunking and supporting it with your kinesthetic processing, your verbal processing. You do have a certain rhythm. You have a certain rhythm. So I'm going to say rhythmic, melodic, but it's really more of the rhythm. But I hear you. Even in the way you say your sequence, there's almost a chant to it.

Darius: Yes, yes. Like, for example, I've got a triple sequence where when I'm going to hit the ball, I go relax. And so I have to relax my shoulders out the way so that my shoulders, like arms stretch. And then I load it, load the spring, and then I release. So it's relaxed. Load, release.

Erica: And, and, and, and you know, what you're doing is you are ultimately doing sequential processing.

Darius: Yes.

Erica: That is supported with other ways of processing. You're able to get to be a sequential processor by using these other processing modalities. Fascinating. Fascinating. You know, it's very interesting because lately makes me think about. I've been writing a. A workbook for children on how to develop their working memory. In particular, I'm really getting into the working memory and how to simplify this for children. You know that you have these three tools. You have your inner voice, your inner visuals and spatialization. And really trying to break it into something and turned it into kind of like a comic book, in a way, and have comic kind of images and helping them to learn how to utilize each of these tools to regulate your emotions, to offer you the kind of support, how to be your best, really. Right. And it was interesting because after I taught them about these different, different tools, I actually ended the book with A strategy, and the strategy was chunking. And chunking enables you to expand your working memory and teaching kids how to chunk. If your mom asks you to remember nine things for a shopping list, that's going to be very difficult. But if there were three fruit, three vegetables, and three meat, and you were able to categorize things in that way, you are much more likely to be able to remember those things. And so I integrated all these activities for the kids to be able to take nine items and categorize them into three different categories and to get them to be kind of thinking that way. But it's fascinating because by doing this workbook, it's gotten me to be more conscious of utilizing working memory strategies. And I've been using my outer voice a lot more to support my inner voice. Because your inner voice, when it becomes an outer voice, or sometimes even if it's. If I don't even make it an outer voice, I'm using that inner voice repetition. So if I don't want to forget something, I'm using my inner voice more where I'll just have it repeat. I'll say, okay, keys, keys, keys. I'm doing something else that has to be done, but I don't want to forget the keys. But I almost turn it into a song in my head, because a song can be going on in your head. I'm having fun kind of exploring and playing with these different ideas of how you can utilize. And I'm teaching the kids, too, how to utilize. How can you utilize your inner voice to help you go to sleep? How can you use your inner voice to help you regulate your emotions? So I'm making it, like, super concrete. But it's so interesting by getting really heady and breaking it down for children. I'm noticing that it's changing my working memory, and I'm starting to use my tools more because I got super conscious about what can I do to teach this to children in a way that's palatable and fun, you

00:40:00

Erica: know? So it's been a really interesting process for me. I'm just now at the point of editing it. It's funny because the inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility workbooks were much more visual and very few words. And this one has a lot of words because there's. To teach about the inner voice. The inner voice is a talker. So there are a lot of words. It's completely different than the other two because there are a lot of words. And I integrated a lot of assessments because I wanted kids to become conscious of how they are an assessment of your inner voice. How are you using your inner voice? And just by seeing how they're not using it can make them conscious of how they could use it. So the idea is, how can you bring your scores up so that you're using it in all the different ways that you can use your inner voice and your visualization and spatialization as well as. It was such an interesting process of writing this book. It was this workbook. It was the hardest one. Cognitive flexibility and inhibitory control were relatively a breeze. And they were. They're really fun. They're really cute. A lot of drawing and kind of fun little games where this got. I was like, how do you turn working memory into something engaging for a kid? And that's why I went comics, or I tried to bring in a lot of these images of showing children actually utilizing the tools, whether you could see their. In what they were thinking in their inner voice, or whether you could see their inner visuals or their inner spatial skills showing the inner workings of the brain. It's been a fascinating and painful. It was definitely the hardest workbook. I'd love to share it with you just to get your feedback. Yeah, I'd like to see before I release it because it would. You know, my only concern is, like, if you're dealing with elementary kids. Elementary kids don't read a lot. I mean, it's easier to teach them through other modalities. And then I just decided that I'll probably put in the book somewhere that this is a book worth reading with a parent.

Darius: Yes.

Erica: Or with an adult so that they can go through it and get heady about it and have fun with it. Because I don't want them to get caught up in the language if they. If reading is hard. And I don't want them to lose the wisdom or the. The strategies that are within the workbook.

Darius: Can you turn it into like a little mini audiobook or something? Read out and then they could read along?

Erica: I mean, technically. Yeah, but that's why I've included a lot of these. These images of. Of kids and so that they can see it. I. I don't feel like it would work well as an audiobook. It's not a story.

Darius: Yeah, yeah, but.

Erica: But, yeah, no, I. I think. I feel like it's something that it would be great for a classroom to do because they could do the activities together in class or read a couple pages in class together.

Darius: I. I noticed talking about inner voice, when you're playing a sport, you know, often your inner voices Interacting, you know, oh, you shouldn't. That. That was a terrible shot. Or, oh, darn, I didn't do that. Right. Or you could have done. Or, you know, and often it's quite negative. Do you know what I mean? And it's fascinating how much the inner voice shows up in your mind when you're playing a sport. And I was just walking by this guy playing tennis in the local tennis court, and he didn't just have an inner voice, he had an outer voice. And he was obviously verbalizing what was going inside of his inner voice. I'm like, oh, my goodness. I would not like to live in this guy's head. Swearing, blinding, aggressive with himself, aggressive with other people that he's playing with. I'm like, oh, gosh. You know, and it's a very powerful force, the inner voice. And in. You often hear it most obviously when you're playing a sport or doing something practical. Do you know what I mean?

Erica: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think you're right. I think it can become very loud and assertive and. And some people do make their inner voice their outer voice. It's almost like, isn't that ultimately what Asperger's is? Can't withhold their internal thoughts. And so you're hearing their inner voice. That's fascinating. I had never thought about it that way, but that's true. That is true. But, yeah, a lot of that section of the workbook is about learning about all the different inner voices that we don't just have one inner voice. We have many inner voices. And some of them come from our parents, and some of them come from our teachers. Some of them come from our emotions. And

00:45:00

Erica: helping kids to be more conscious of picking the ones that are helpful and talking back to the ones that aren't helpful, because the more they are conscious and encourage the kind and calm and positive inner voices, the louder they become, and the more we push away the negative inner voices and speak back to them and. Or block them or whatever you have to do to manage those negative voices. And just. It's funny how you can change it. I think, you know, in the American culture, a lot of people are walking around with very critical inner voices. And I think that that comes from cultures. I think there are other cultures that. Where people have much more positive inner voices.

Darius: Wow. Do you think that America's got more negative in her voice? Because Americans are so. You associate the positive thinking with Americans. You know, they're so positive compared to other cultures.

Erica: Maybe it appears that way, but from my perspective, we tend to be a very critical culture where we're always criticizing other people. And that sense of criticism also turns into a critical inner voice. I think. Well, they're different camps. Yes. I think that there are some Americans that are incredibly positive, but I think there's real value in training your. Particularly when it's speaking to you, training your inner voice. You know, I had a British mum sniff up her lip and that she unfortunately was very good at training a negative inner voice. You know, be modest. If I ever complimented myself, she shamed me because it wasn't appropriate or whatever. But we. But I think there's an incredible amount of value to training the inner voice to be positive, not narcissistic. That's not positive. I see that as negative. You know, you don't want to be just like gloating or.

Darius: It's not. Yeah, yeah. You're so great. You're amazing. You're natural at this.

Erica: You're better than everybody else, you know? Yeah, yeah. It's. It's. It's a softer and kinder and supportive and you've got this. Give it another try. A resilient inner voice.

Darius: They did some research on this in the UK, and they researched how effective praise was. Okay. Praising someone. And I think this relates to how effective this is on praising yourself. And I find this, when I'm playing golf or doing any other thing, I often have to praise myself in the right way. Because what they found was that not all praise is equal. Some praise is better than others. And they did.

Erica: Some praise isn't good if you're just constantly praising something that's not even necessarily true. Like you might say to a kid that isn't good at something that they are.

Darius: Yeah, that's false.

Erica: Praise. Praise is damaging.

Darius: So these scientists did this experiment, and they got a really surprising result. Okay. Really surprising. And it's. It comes from this book, Bounce. Okay. And what the experiment was they took a hundred students at primary school, in junior school, and they. Against another hundred. Okay. And what they decided was they would give them the same tasks, and they would. The only difference between the two was when they finished the task, they would give them their result and they would say, you must be really good at this to one group. And to another group they would say, well done. You must be really good at this. And to the other group, they said, well done. You must have worked really hard at this.

Erica: That's. That's the sweet sauce.

Darius: Now, what do you think happened? Who performed better?

Erica: The ones that were praised for working hard.

Darius: Yes. So what they found at the end of the results was that the group that they had praised, you must have worked really hard at this, increased in their ability at that mathematical challenge that they set for them by somewhere around about 20% improvement. Okay. But what they found was the people that it said, well done, you must be really good at this, they got worse by 10%. It, it wasn't just mutual or slightly less than the other one. It made them worse. And what

00:50:00

Darius: they found out was what happened was in the child's mind, they said to themselves, oh, I got a good result. If I'm really good at this, then I need to protect myself from being real to be really good at this. And what they did was, they don't have to grow. Yeah. They set four different challenges, and the children could choose whether to do. It's a really cleverly designed experiment. It wasn't just, you have to, you.

Erica: Have to get the name of it so we can put it in the show notes.

Darius: Yeah. So the first exercise was a mathematical exercise. They did all their sums; they got their results and that was it. The second one, after they were told, you must be really good at this or you must have worked really hard, they said they gave them a set of tasks that were impossible to complete. You couldn't complete them. Okay, yeah, they were nonsense mathematics. So the first group who said, you must be really good at this, they gave up earlier. And the second group who worked hard, they gave up much later. They stayed that longer. Okay, now this is where the magic happened. Experiment three. Okay? They gave them the choice as to whether or not they would take an easy lesson or a hard lesson. Okay. So the really good ethic group went for the easy lesson, all of them. And the really hard-working ones, you must have worked really hard at this. Now, they all worked equally hard, and they were all equally as good. Okay. We have to say that that was all interspersed. They went for the harder one. So that when they gave them the final test, you must be really good at it all got worse results than their first results. And the ones that you must have worked really hard to get better. So the answer in terms of our inner voice is how do you praise when someone has done something well? And an example would be doing a piece of art. When someone paints a piece of art, what an adult normally does is says, oh, gosh, that's a really good piece of work. You must be good at art to be encouraging. And we could say that to ourselves, but that doesn't actually help them. That hinders them.

Erica: Whereas how many times does someone say that when they don't even believe it? It's like the part of the problem is, is when you hear that, you don't really believe that someone believes that. I mean, there are times where, you know, you don't look good and someone says, oh, you look really good, or I like your shirt, and you can just tell that they're just complimenting you just to compliment you. But there's not. There's no truth behind it, so you start to not believe it. So there's somewhere between not believing it and then the fact that, yeah, it's.

Darius: Even worse is when you believe it. Okay, okay. So these kids were believing it because their teacher told them they were very good at it. They got the result. They didn't see anyone else's result. So they would say, oh, here are your results. Well done. You must be really good at this. Do you know what I mean?

Erica: Right. It almost tells you, don't even try any harder. You've already reached the high mark, so you don't have to put any effort.

Darius: Into it yet, kind of. And what they found was they protect their goodness by not showing, oh, actually, I'm trying the hard thing. It didn't work so well. I'm obviously not as good as they think, so I'll do it on the easy one and protect my goodness at it. And they don't grow. So it's fascinating, that inner voice, how you should praise yourself.

Erica: It goes back to Carol Dweck's work, you know, where she talks a lot about the growth mindset. And again, the growth mindset, very similar, same kind of stuff, which is you want. You want to praise effort. That is, that's what really works. Praising effort and turning it all the.

Darius: Way back to the beginning of our premise here is I was honest about what I found as a challenge. I don't find sequential processing easy. That automaticity is not easy. So I had to go to my strengths. And what I found natural, that logical, that kinesthetic, that chunking of the words and speaking to myself and simplifying it into these kind of processes. This, this feeling and. And sort of externalizing. I trust the golf club, I trust my body, but I don't trust my ability to feel the force I need to put into it. So I start to sort of really work with my body's limits and use that to my advantage and so on. So it's kind of like accepting what you can do and embracing the limits of what you can Do. And within those

00:55:00

Darius: limits are often huge payoffs, which I found within the limits of my body, the limits of doing it this way, I can actually now use that to more calibrated aim my distance and so on. So there's just so much in that that I think executive function and sport is a fascinating arena, like how executive function can be expressed in sport or exercised within sport.

Erica: And I think that whether it's in sport or it's in academics or it's in life at large, that the more we can praise people on effort, but not only praise them but grade them on effort, the more we'll see growth. And that happened to me when I was a child. I was not doing well in school, and they decided to stop grading me against anything about other than effort. And it completely turned me around incredibly quickly. And I think there's an enormous lesson in that. And I think. And just to pull it all together, I think that if we can not only grade our effort and efforts externally to others, but also internally to ourselves.

Darius: Yeah.

Erica: Like having your inner voice, instead of saying like, you dumb idiot, you know, saying like, you gave it your best shot.

Darius: You.

Erica: You'll get it next time.

Darius: Yeah.

Erica: You know, and really, really nurturing that.

Darius: Yeah. Instead of, oh, you're really good at this, you go, oh, good effort. You know, that worked. Good effort.

Erica: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Yeah. How can I repeat that? That was really good.

Darius: Yeah, that didn't work so well. But that's okay, you know, we'll keep working at it. Oh, that was a good one. Or. And. And often we. Over the things that go slightly wrong, and I noticed that it's not binary like with golf. It goes off a bit. You go, oh, yeah, it's off. But, you know, that's a good bad shot. And there's a phrase in golf which is, you're only as good as your bad shot, you know, so you need to make. You need to have good, bad shots. So everyone's going to have bad shots and you, oh, that was a bad shot. But do you know what? That was a pretty good bad shot. You know, it's kind of pretty close. So you're okay there.

Erica: Or go back to the effort. Go back to the effort. Like, that shot wasn't what I wanted, but I put a lot of attention into it, and I know what I can do next to take it up a notch.

Darius: True. But the value for me is that my goal is to make my bad shots pretty good and my good shots really good. So you don't want like six really good shots and four really bad shots, because those really bad shots will cost you dearly.

Erica: But. But bottom line, you're putting an enormous amount of effort into learning golf right now.

Darius: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Erica: And that. And that's what I'm praising.

Darius: Yeah. Thanks.

Erica: To bring it full circle.

Darius: Good, good. Sorry for that huge indulgence in sharing my personal passion right now of learning how to play golf, but I hope some of you have learned something from that process.

Erica: Well, and it's a metaphor. You know, it's a metaphor for how to be a conscious learner. This is. And we're also learning that we have to, both internally and externally, really reward our effort.

Darius: And the interesting outcome is I'm now better at it than if I was a sequential learner.

Erica: Even though you are a sequential learner, but you got there with an enormous amount of processing support.

Darius: Yes. Through my.

Erica: I'm going to argue with you. I'm going to say, Darius, well done. You mastered sequential learning.

Darius: Yes. Okay, I'll take that. I'll take that. Thank you. I'll put that. Yeah. By the back door. Yes.

Erica: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly.

Darius: Yeah, yeah. Well, should we end it on that?

Erica: Absolutely. That was a nice one.

Darius: Okay.

Erica: Until next time.

Darius: Until next time.

Erica: Sponsored by the Executive Functioning Coaching Assessment, a quick online assessment that uncovers challenges and develops personalized strategies for success.

Darius: Sponsored by ivvi. Imagine turning your meeting's audio into a live mind map instantly so you remember what matters. It's ideal for students and managers with dyslexia or adhd. Try ivvi for free now at Ivy App. That's ivvi App. Thank you for joining us at the Executive Function Brain Trainer podcast.

Erica: Check out our show notes for links and resources and follow us on social.

00:59:45

Episode 90: Using Executive Functions to Learn Golf

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