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In Episode 67 of the Defining Success Podcast, Fred discusses what he’s learned teaching golf and how people tend to learn best and enjoy the experience when they are allowed to learn for themselves.  As a coach, Fred avoids passing judgement and simply guides his students to be more aware of their experience during the process.  Learn how Fred Shoemaker cultivates the best learning experience.

Fred Shoemaker is the founder of Extraordinary Golf which provides an environment where golfers could know their remarkable ability and learn to unfold it moment to moment.  The school has been named One of America’s Top 25 Golf Schools in America by Golf Magazine and has been a life-changing experience for many participants.

Fred has spent most of his career—over 42,000 lessons, and thousands of golf schools and workshops—helping people overcome the obstacles that prevent them from discovering and expressing their potential.

Fred fell in love with golf at an early age and at some point he realized that there was a lot more to the game than just the golf swing.  He was a coach at UCSB in 1975 and has been involved in the game for a long time.

Fred’s Dad was in the military and they were stationed in Guam at an early age and he began visiting the golf course regularly where he fell in love with it.  Fred was not fascinated in playing golf professionally, but he became fascinated with coaching the sport.

Sometimes golfers need to look at what they do before and after they get on the golf course to help improve their game.

Fred knows that his first ready-made answers don’t help people.  Letting people experience the learning process is the real key to success in learning and education.  Since 1950 human beings are not getting better at golf. The learning experience is a key component to learning and happiness.

Anybody who has developed anything has gone through a lot of failures along the way.

Extraordinary golf focuses on the individual and works with each golfer individually.  Extraordinary golf helps to capture people when they do something that is extraordinary.  The basis of extraordinary golf is awareness.  Human beings are capable of accomplishing anything as long as they are aware.

Transformations are difficult.  Fred has been a part of some remarkable transformations and to watch people undergo those transformations is profound.  Fred has been able to change the way golfers think about their swing and how they respond to positive and negative thoughts.  Through that he has witnessed many transformations.

Golf is a game where you can keep improving well into your seventies. We have a sport that can teach us something about life if we choose to learn from it.

One of the biggest mistakes Fred feels he has made is not acknowledging the people who have had an impact on his life.  The connectivity of all of us is undeniable and he feels like he’s a link in a chain and he intends to be the strongest link in the chain he can be.

There are some people who have chosen a purpose to play golf and for those people who have found a reason to play golf that makes sense . . . they have won the game.

Discussion Questions:

• Would you like a life of endless interest or endless boredom?

Links to Great Stuff:

• Extraordinary Golf – “Extraordinary Golf challenges the cultural views on learning. We’ve come to see that golfers are far more able than they believe. But, they haven’t learned to develop–or access– what they have.”

Success Quotes:

• “Success is to be up for something bigger than what your life is about . . . to have a cause that’s worth giving your life to.”
• “There is no such thing as a bad day in gratitude and appreciation.”
• “Really successful people always interpret the world in a way that empowers them.”
• “How we interpret life . . . is what changes our world.”
• “When one changes one’s language you actually physically change your body.”
• “If you rob people of their failures, you rob them of their future.”
• “The golf swing is the most analyzed human motion in recorded history.”
• “Sometimes the questions make the difference and not the answers.”
• “The way we do one thing is the way we do other things.”

Visit the website for our new book, The Social Golf Course.