The PAR Approach for Optimum Performance with Dr. Joe Parent, Mental Game Expert and International Bestselling Author of Zen Golf

Cindra: Dr. Joe, thank you so much for joining me here on the high-performance mindset podcast. I can’t wait to talk to you there’s so much that we’re going to cover in this interview and I’m just grateful to spend time with you and to learn more about your principles. One of the books I read many years ago was Zen golf and I’m really looking forward to talking to you about this, as well as your other great books that you have.

Joseph: Thank you it’s a pleasure to be on here with you and to meet you face to face.

Cindra: Yes, exactly. It feels close to in person. So, Dr. Joe just gets us started and tell us a little bit about what you’re most passionate about.

Joseph: Number One, you know I got started in college, I was always a science and math was in high school and I went to Cornell in the school of engineering, but something happened, while I was there and I decided, I wanted to focus on what was most important to me and I realized that it was less important to me to invent a cleaner running engine to reduce air pollution. Okay, a better to help people have cleaner running minds to reduce mental pollution.

Cindra: like it.

Joseph: Working with my own state of mind and others, so I transferred into psychology and I knew I didn’t want to go to abnormal or clinical psychology and purpose. I felt like ordinary people have enough stuff going on, so I majored in social psychology that was that was my focus. Not long after that I got involved and interested in eastern wisdom traditions. Okay, particularly Buddhism.

Cindra: Yeah and…

Joseph: Met a couple of my main Buddhist teachers and was introduced 15 years ago, so you know before it became current the invoke to mindfulness and awareness practice that’s what has been the base the basis of everything that I’ve done so Initially it was working with mindfulness and awareness practice for presence and self-discovery, okay, also for stress management.

Joseph: The golf connection is teaching a program and a young golf pro came to attended to learn about mindfulness and I said you’re a golf pro this is cool let’s go out on the golf course because I’d played since I was a teenager but wasn’t that good and we get on the course and he says okay tell me what my mind is doing on the golf course, and I said I got a deal for you I’ll tell you what your mind is doing on the golf course if you tell me what my body is doing on the golf course importantly, he gave me direction I helped him understand the mental game and that led to him, inviting me to do clinics with them, and that was really the stepping stone to my into sport psychology. I’ve already been I’d already been working with individuals and with businesses, consulting on communication skills and leadership and stress management and handling the challenges of change and working with habit change based on principles. To take this out of the out of the office and under the golf course that was fabulous so that has been

my passion for the last 30 years and started working with pros for the first time about little less than 25 years ago not long after I started, I one pro led to a higher level pro led to a tour pro and then in 2002 just shortly after Zen golf came out I started working with DJ saying and helped him get to number one in the world in the middle of tigers rain, it was he was the only one who broke through and validate your period when Tiger was number one in the world, a few years later Cristie Kerr got in touch with me and I was, I was very gratified to help her get to number one in the world as well, so it’s been a privilege to work with great athletes and in that way now my sister has been writing and editing children’s books for Disney for over 20 years and a woman editor at Disney had read about a Japanese practice of getting back to nature that and she said, and it involved mindfulness so she contacted my sister and said I know your brother teaches mindfulness, would the two of you like to write a book together because getting back to nature, the perfect character, for that is does a bear live in the woods, yes Winnie the Pooh.

Cindra: Oh wonderful.

Joseph: That lives in the woods in the hundred-acre foot, so she had this title in mind and my sister and I wrote this book called a walk in the woods meditations on mindfulness with the bear name Poo. Now my wife is, who I met through my sister in the graphic designer for Disney and she is the designer for the book so she and the interior design and beautiful job as this book is my is kind of my baby because it’s my latest book and it’s for everyone it’s for kids I like to say from four to 104 because who doesn’t love Winnie the Pooh, and it’s really for families, because there are stories of Winnie the Pooh and then between the stories are adult language instructions in mindfulness, kindness, and gratitude. Come compassion and forgiveness patients all these different virtues that our family values, so this is really a book for parents to read to their kids and then, as the kids get older for the kids to read to their parents and actually do the practices together at whatever age is appropriate. So that’s kind of my baby and it is all about mindfulness and kindness and don’t we need more mindfulness and kindness in the world today.

Cindra: Yeah for sure in the world today and I’m also thinking and I have two boys and even having it more in my own family, would help us a lot and I know help them continue to thrive, so what a gift and I can see that by it’s your baby if it’s you know your people that you love you get a contribute with them that’s really wonderful, so the book is a walk in the woods meditations on mindfulness with a bear named poo so I’m also thinking, Dr. Joe what you said about like your work just grew in golf that’s because you’re doing good work right and it’s like if you weren’t doing good work it wouldn’t have spread so some of these people that you helped contribute to their success so tell us a little bit about instance your practice is mindfulness based, and I think a lot of the listeners know what mindfulness is and might even practice it but tell us what that means, from your perspective and how you, you know you might help people use it in their life and in their work and in their sport.

Joseph: Yes, and I think you’d be surprised that there is a mix and a lot of people who really don’t haven’t heard or don’t know what it is. That mindfulness, if you think about just the word,

first mind so it’s working with your mind. Full your mind flow now usually the word mind soul is a is the meaning would be paying attention, and that is exactly what mindfulness is it’s paying attention, but more than that we can use mindful in another word, and that is your mind is full

of your experience in the present moment. Too often our mind is full of thoughts about the past or the future with regrets about the past and hopes and fears for the future and it fills our minds with all sorts of unnecessary anxiety, but this practice is to shift your attention and be mindful or pay attention to what you’re experiencing in the present moment in a continuous stream moment to moment to moment for as long as that lasts.

Cindra: Yes.

Joseph: So, mindfulness is both a state of being and a practice. So, state of mindfulness is presence. The practice of mindfulness is noticing when you’re someplace else. Your mind has wandered and gone to the past or the future and I tried to explain your body is always in the present its location in space is here, its location, time is now your body is always in the here and now, but your mind is a time machine. Yes, it can go to spend a lot of time, the past and future. For our peak performance, and this is the performance podcast, yes, it for the peak performance your mind and body, need to be synchronized. Same place at the same time, focusing on the same things, so the only place, you can do that is the here and now, because that’s the way your body can be. Yeah, training is very simple, easy, as my teacher said, easy to do hard to accomplish and the to do part is just waking up there’s a moment when we all wake up from a daydream, otherwise we go off in one and never come back.

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Joseph: But waking up from the daydream in that moment, we make a choice, do we continue on in it, do we go into a different a dream, or do we come back to what we were doing because the interesting thing for me is the ancient Indian language from 2500 years ago the word to describe mindfulness is sanity and it means remembering what you are doing. Oh well, that’s great experience that we needed for the kitchen, we got a little distracted.
Yeah, and then we finished with that went to the kitchen and we came in and we go okay, “What am I doing”, “Why did I come in here”, “I don’t happen to me this morning, Joe”, “I don’t remember what I was doing.” That’s a lack of mindfulness so remembering what you’re doing is this capacity to keep track and pay attention the keeping track is the awareness, the paying attention is the mindfulness so mindful awareness paying attention and noticing when you’ve wandered and coming back to that object of attention.

Cindra: Yeah.

Joseph: So that, in a nutshell, is the practice of mindfulness now the best anchor for that.
Not just your body, the physical body, but the process of breathing because breathing also relaxes you, as you know, as a sports psychologist when you inhale that energizes when you exhale it activates the relaxation part of our system so nice full deep exhalations tend to settle us and relax us, because when we’re under stress our energy moves up in our body and faster

we use our breathing to counter that by slowing everything down and moving our energy down like out of our head and into our body and people in sports performance and in business performance they overthink things. They get their head. And they lose connection with their body and that’s when performance suffers.

Cindra: Yeah oh, I could ask you so many follow up questions to what you just said, I think, I think? Dr. Joe like what’s helpful, I want to point out, is what you said it’s like a skill and a practice so it’s something that you develop that’s make makes me think of a skill, but then it’s the practice of being mindful.

Joseph: And one other thing. Cindra: mm hmm.

Joseph: People get confused and here’s good news for you people think well distraction, is my default mode, I have to find this mindfulness I have to find this ability, the ability to stay present it’s not something that you have to find it is our natural state of being our natural state of being is that our mind and our body are simply here. What happens is distractions overlay that with confusion and take us away but that’s why because it’s our natural state of being that’s why we wake up from a daydream there’s a gap in the thought process and where do we find ourselves a week. We present and we find ourselves not someplace else but, in the present moment so that’s the default state you don’t have to figure out how to be present you already are the skill, is the is the training yourself. To return to that I have that intention that I won’t just stay in distraction when I wake from it back into the daydream, I’ll return to what I’m experiencing the present and that’s the practice.

Cindra: Excellent so a couple of questions I have to follow up, that is, you know when you think about goals and goal setting and I’m thinking about even some of the best in the world right they have some goals and what they’d like to do where do you think that fits in with mindfulness because you know that’s maybe thinking about the future. So, what are your thoughts about where does that come into the practice of mindfulness.

Joseph: That’s a great question and I want to start by quoting one of my Buddhist teachers who came over from Tibet in 1970 and started teaching in America, and he said, you have your vision and then you adjust. So awesome goals, goals our vision, mm hmm, we need to have a vision or else we don’t have direction. Okay, and it said that that vision or wisdom and skill are like two wings of a bird if you have the skills, but you don’t have a vision of how you’re going to apply them. And where you want and what you want to accomplish with them, they don’t help you if you have the vision of what you want to accomplish but you don’t have the skills you won’t get it done. So, you have to have both together now the idea of vision is gold is that’s your goal and goals or something that aren’t necessarily objective or measurable okay. Objectives are measurable, so they are the steppingstones in the direction of your goals and your vision. Now you can consider goal being number one in the world check in a particular

that’s your goal, but you can’t go from number 180 can run one tomorrow, you need to have the steppingstones.

Joseph: So that that’s the vision now what’s the difference between getting ahead of yourself. Yeah, and fantasizing about being number one. Yes, thing in the present. If you can have a vision, and I remember Gary Player visualizing himself holding the trophy at the end of the of a major tournament and he saw himself and he said okay everything I do I want to be in the direction of fulfilling that vision, but he didn’t just play golf spending the whole time imagine yourself holding a trophy. I know that as his inspiration and then yeah did the stepping stone so your vision for the future and you’re planning, you have to be able to plan, but you have to know the difference between I’m in the present and aware of my circumstances in the present and what I can do as next steps that’s a very important phrase next steps and know that whatI’m doing in the present is planning for the future, but I also know that these plans for the future are subject to change because the future is unpredictable. So, so I have my vision I’m ready to adapt and adjust. I have my next steps toward that vision and then after you do the next steps you pause reevaluate maybe adjust your vision, if you need to and then start again in Japan it’s called kaizen, or the path of continuous improvement and I brought that out in Zen golf. As the par approach or par system preparation action response to results you prepare if it’s a business presentation, or if it’s around a golf. You do your preparation, or a golf shot you do your preparation you visualize what you want to accomplish you feel and make you know check off the boxes of what you need to do to accomplish that. Then you go to the action part so that’s preparation, then action is, can you act with minimum self-interference, can you get out of your own way and perform to the best of your abilities through commitment and freedom and trust, and then the last part is how did it go and that’s response to results so we are and the response to results is you reinforce your successes and you learn from your mistakes and adjust your preparation for the next time see have a cycle of continuous improvement your response to results lets you prepare better and act more effectively and get better results and then continue to reinforce them.

Cindra: Yeah, excellent Joe, I was thinking a lot about when you’re talking about vision and goals similar to how I see it, you know I think goals should be your motivation and to keep you going and kind of what you said inspiration, but sometimes people think about the goals at the wrong time, like when they’re playing golf or when they’re competing or in the middle of a presentation. You know where that’s not the right time to be thinking in the future right it’s really about high-performance peak performances is staying focused on the here and now, I have a question about. You know, since you’ve worked with some of the best you know number ones in the world, what do you see them do differently, and maybe give us a little insight on like what got them there if it’s like Vijay Singh or Cristie Kerr, for example, I’ll tell you the theme that runs through four or all great players like that, and my personal experience with the two of them, one is passion, loving the game.

Cindra: yeah.

Joseph: Wanting to be the best and willing to put in the work to be the best and then, the second is discipline. The quality of the routine and the willingness to commit to it, and that level of commitment and trusting their own skills that’s the third part, trusting their own. Okay, so I watched Christie play and in the LPGA Championship her routine was the most consistent you could possibly imagine, even after on the last hole.
She had a 11-shot lead and did her routine to a TEE birdied the last toll and broke the record for margin of victory and the LPGA championship and we assessed her tournament. About 260 shots or more, there were only six shots in the whole four days that she did not hit with full commitment.

Cindra: Wow six out of the 260!

Joseph: 98%. So, so that that level is what sets records and trust that level of discipline in the routine both pre and post shot and when I talked with Vijay about something he said I don’t want you to check on me, I will do it if I if I feel like this is going to work for me, you can be sure I did it and we talked about a change in his language and what he was looking at and focusing on before shots and I didn’t check with him I checked with his caddy and I said after about two weeks, I said how’s he doing on that change, he said 90%.

Cindra: Wow.

Joseph: After two weeks that’s how willing and able to make those changes and you could see you can see that in all great players and this is what I wanted to share with you, they aren’t satisfied. No matter how well they’re doing they always want to excel and see what could I do better or not complacent, do you want to be a champion you can’t be complacent.

Cindra: I think that’s so powerful and also I’m thinking a lot about this doesn’t just relate to golf I mean it relates to all sports, you know, but really all people at the top of their game or their top of their business, you know, it’s like this constant never ending improvement, but the thing I heard you say there was always excelling and learning, you know now I didn’t hear you say like beating themselves up for the mistakes, they may just like this more of this learning mindset Joe we just we did a study last year, where we interviewed elite so they’re all they’re all pro athletes we interviewed 18 of them about how they developed their grit and actually the way they described grit was exactly what you said, like passion, they always wanted to get better they were disciplined they were willing to make sacrifices, you know, so I think that that theme is consistent in your answer, which is cool and language is important, because what just what you said beat yourself up, I mean I, I have a chapter in Zen golf. Fire your evil caddy and I do an exercise with people and say what if your caddy just before you teed off said, “oh, you know everybody’s watching so try not to screw up”, and “you know just get it over with what are you waiting for I’m sure you’re going to mess this one up.” And I said how I want that guy is your caddy and everybody answers they’re already fired I said okay now how often have you said those things to yourself and the room is this merlin oh yeah.

Cindra: Right.

Joseph: You carry this evil carry around with you, judging yourself and criticizing yourself and the key is yeah language I stay I don’t say what are your strengths and weaknesses, I say what are your strengths and where are these areas with room for improvement.

Cindra: Okay.

Joseph: You don’t you reinforce your success he doesn’t be yourself up for mistakes you learn from them and use them as an opportunity and great players who said, I never learned anything from a match that I won. Only learned when I fell short and what I needed to do to excel even more in that situation. So that’s what champions do.

Cindra: Well, and there’s so many concepts that I got your book right in front of me with all the tabs I wanted to talk about you can see the things I highlighted and I’m just thinking about a few things I really like that I think reinforce what you just said is like you, are not your thoughts, you talked about in one of the chapters there and then you later on, you talk about like how to get good at a bad round of golf or how to love and enjoy it. There we go and I like that idea, I think that really fits with what you’re saying here is like learning even you know if it’s not going great for you and taking that mindset. So maybe that’s where we go first and then I want to ask you about how you produce what you fear so. Maybe tell us a bit more about how to enjoy a bad round of golf because I think obviously this relates to golf but maybe it’s a bad day of work or maybe it’s your day starts, you know bad whatever bad means right that sounds like a lot of judgment, but you get out of bed, and you got a headache and you think your day’s going to be terrible right or you have a tough meeting at the beginning of your day there’s so many ways that we could apply this idea.

Joseph: Well, I have a chapter I’d rather focus on, that is, who knows what’s good and what’s bad. It’s an old story where something happens that seems to be bad and then it turns out hey That was good and then. Okay, so that’s good and then that turns out to be bad and they say oh that’s bad and that turns out to be good. The example I give is you miss you miss your flight at the airport you think oh that’s bad I’m going to have to do all these things on my when I get on the other end and I’m going to miss this appointment and you’re sitting at the bar and commiserating with somebody next to you, and they say and what is it that you do, and you end up meeting somebody that’s a connection that gets you a much better situation.

Joseph: And the you know and huge contract of business so who knows who knows what turned out what was good and what’s bad, so how we think things aren’t always that way and, and if you have that round of golf you okay one of the things that it usually what usually happens is you go in thinking I found the secret oh I got this one swing field is one key and that’s going to that’s going to take me all the way, or you think oh I got this. That I made this comment at a presentation and it went it went over really well and I’m going to use that in my next one, and you get out there and it doesn’t hold up and yeah and somehow the ball isn’t going where you thought it was going to go and you make your presentation you go and nobody reacts and then you panic okay, and you go oh that’s and so you say “okay, what can I

learn from this not to take things for granted.” To understand that everything’s always changing not to bring something canned and something that you’re trying to copy from a past experience to a Next there is the learning opportunity, and you get one bad round of golf that. You find and you’re working and trying to find your key and you find a key that leads to a dozen great rounds after that. Yeah, how bad around was it was it bad or was it turned out; it was good. That happened to you because look what it led to.

Cindra: Yeah, that’s what I enjoyed about reading that chapter was you know it’s like letting you know letting go of the poor result you had on the last tool and having a gives you a better chance of enjoying. The whole that you’re playing now, and you said you can’t know for certain if it’s a bad around until the rounds over but it’s like our judgment just kicks in right so it’s learning to soften that voice which I think is really what mindfulness helps you do.

Joseph: Absolutely and realizing that judging voice, and I remember I listened to one of your podcasts about judging, yeah and you know the question go, you know why is it bad to judge, and the reason is because we focus so much on the negative. Right, you can roll in six five-foot putts in a row, and you missed the seventh one what stands out in the round. Use that easy but wait a minute what are all the other ones that you could take credit for, you see, we have this expectation I’m supposed to do things right. Yeah, goes wrong it’s a big deal. I want to say you know what why you don’t make a big deal out of how right things go some.

Cindra: That’s wonderful.

Joseph: And give you some rewards. Yeah, for doing those instead of always beating yourself up and judging so that’s what I came up with the ideal habit change system.

Cindra: Okay let’s talk about that, and then I then I want to go back to Zen golf because I got these tabs in here they asked you. But let’s talk about, we have a change, this is a in Zen golf and it’s a chapter pebbles in the bowl.

Joseph: Okay it’s a habit change system that I trademarked as ninja and I and J and it stands for necessary intention and non-judgmental awareness and I’ll make it very simple. Hey sorry intention, you need to want to change, you know we you know we psychologists have a joke about how many psychologists does it take to change the light bulb only one, but the light bulb has to want to change. So, somebody has to be motivated, you have the discipline to change. Their habits, but the second part is the easy part non-judgmental awareness and that is if you beat yourself up you only feed that habit you fuel it so head, we just keep mindfully keep track how many times I did have it I’m trying to refrain from.

Cindra: Okay.

Joseph: And how many times I also, how many times I did I have it I’m trying to cultivate.
And so, each time you do it and reward yourself for cultivating but or don’t judge yourself for when you did it but know that your intention is to do less of them. You will move in same way

that plants turn towards the sun it’s your it’s human beings’ natural tendency to move in the direction of their intention if they stay ahead of their own way. And that the non-judgmental awareness comes in it’s simply being mindful of what you’re doing while you’re doing it and not judging yourself of what you should be doing differently. Okay.

Cindra: Yeah, perfect I was listening to an interview with BJ Fogg, I don’t know if you read his book called Tiny Habits and he was talking yeah one of the best ways to reinforce your habit is to celebrate what you just said, and he said, like think about when you’re working watching your favorite sports team and at the end they score a field goal, or you know when, at the last shot and he asks the people to think about the audience and think about like how would you celebrate and I was thinking that I would celebrate like yes, you know the big pump so I’ve been trying to do that when I’ve been thinking about habits to in dislike reinforcing my own habits is celebrating those which would you basically you know said, along with the non-judgmental awareness and not beating yourself up.

Joseph: It’s amazingly powerful and it works for physical things it works for speech patterns and even thought patterns, like some sometimes I’ll pre rehearse what I’m going to write in an email the next day. Already okay, so once or twice it’s valuable once I pretty much have it, I don’t have to keep replaying that thing and its but, but since we put energy into it, it creates a little neural tape loop in our brain and there, it goes again. So just by saying you know what I’m done with that I don’t need to count it I don’t need these anymore, each time the tape loop starts when I’m because I’m mindful of it and I set my intention, I simply go oh mentally oh that’s one. Then time passes, oh that’s too and it’s amazing how few come back after that.

Joseph: So, I encourage you, you can see it in Zen golf that that same it’s in Zen tennis to this habit changing system and it really, really makes a difference and it’s it’s it’s simple and again it’s painless because it’s non-judgmental. Other chapter, you were looking at for Zen golf you produce what you fear.

Cindra: Tell us about that.

Joseph: Well that’s kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy and this came up with Vijay one of the first thing he asked me was you know I’ve been around a long time I played these courses a lot, I know where the bad places are, how do I not think about those and, in fact, if you focus on what you’re trying to avoid yes, you will either go there, because your brain has a mistaken image of where you think you want to go or you’ll go completely in the opposite direction. Now, in golf there’s a tendency that we produce what we fear, because if we’re afraid of missing a putt, for example, we get very tentative and kind of diesel we get to the ball and get kind of guiding rather than trusting our stroke, we’re afraid we’re going to miss it, we miss it. You know if we’re afraid of hooking the ball we kind of don’t want to go so far to the left that’s the direction the hook goes, and our body stops moving our hands flip over and the ball goes to the left so very often the thing that we’re trying to avoid is exactly what we produce and that have.

Joseph: happened in business as well. If we’re worried about losing a client, we act very needy and the client sees that and says, if these guys are worried about losing me what else Should I be worried about and they go somewhere else so it’s important to know what your limits are be aware of your capabilities, but then trust those capabilities and pre accept the full range of results pre acceptance is the key to commitment.

Cindra: Pre acceptance is the key to commitment.

Joseph: If you can’t accept if you can handle what’s going to happen. You will not commit to the path that you check.

Cindra: Hmm so give us a sense of how that plays out either in golf or life or business.

Joseph: Well, i’m in golf if you are hitting towards the flagstick but there’s trouble to one side of it and you can’t accept that you know what if it goes into trouble, I can handle it. You will not let yourself go all the way through you’ll stop at the ball or you’ll push it in the direction away from the trouble.

Cindra: Yeah.

Joseph: If you’re afraid of losing a client and you say you know what I’m going to present what I think is best for this client and if they decide that our company is not the best for them well, maybe they’re not the best client for us and then you’re going to present with confidence, but if you’re worried about saying the wrong thing and the client might leave. You’re going to come across tentatively in the same way and not really make a cut and you won’t be able to make a committed presentation that says here it is here’s the whole thing and maybe you’re holding something back and not to trust you.

Cindra: And it makes me think there’s one piece I highlighted on page 104 in Zen Golf and it was he said fear produces the tendency to overcook over control. So, the first step towards going beyond fear is acknowledging it, we can recognize our fears and learn to choose how we respond whether than then to automatically destroy react to them and it makes me think of one of the things I really liked in the book, which is you talk about giving up control they get control tell us a bit about how that’s important in your work in general.

Joseph: that’s essentially the same thing that if you feel like you have to control things it kind of means you don’t trust it. You know, ordinary language what’s it what would you be described as a control freak that’s somebody who feels like they have to make sure everything’s taken care of and they’re worried about their needing to get a particular result and afraid of not getting that and that’s what I’m saying pre acceptance saying I can handle yes, I have a result that I’d like I have my vision that I know how things are going to turn out.

Cindra: And I can adjust and adapt as things play out because I can’t ultimately control the goals there’s a lot of uncontrollable factors there.

Joseph: Were its life is a lot of life is beyond our control and it, you know your level of success is not going to be as much what happens to you as it is how you respond to what happens to you.

Cindra: Yeah, excellent so Joe, how would you answer this question like what advice would you give to somebody who wants to either get to the top of their game or stay there.

Joseph: Well, I think I’ve talked about all the things you need to do get to the top of your game and then have that vision and the discipline and commitment and passion to work hard to get step two step two step to step on the way to that, how do you stay there. Not being complacent about staying there, but always wanting to get better and get to and do more, andthen to really stay there, say, this is what I’ve been able to accomplish how do I help others accomplish what they’re trying to as well as I was able to, and when you can when you can expand to others, then you really stay at the top of your game that’s, who is the most respected not somebody who’s just doing it for themselves, but somebody gives back and somebody who wants to bring everybody else, along with them that’s what a leader is, not somebody to accomplishes for themselves, but somebody who wants to accomplish for the whole organization.

Cindra: Excellent! So Joe, you I could have you back I need to I was thinking we could keep on talking for a couple of hours so tell us a little bit about all the great work, I mean I just am impressed with all the books that you have obviously we talked about Zen Golf a lot of Zen Tennis, you have a diet book, the best diet book ever the Zen of Losing Weight and then your new book A Walk in the Woods: Meditations on Mindfulness with a Bear named Pooh so tell us where we might get any of these books and other things that you could offer to those who are listening.

Joseph: I think the simplest thing to do is go to my website that’s drjoeparent.com. it’s all there so you’ll see the different topic areas my business consulting which is keynotes and executive coaching and mindfulness training programs for business and stress management and then golf and other sports, life coaching that connects with mindfulness and relationships and also the weight loss, based on my diet book So those are the four main areas, and then the services as we, as I just talked about I do virtual coaching like you know zoom and facetime and Skype and WhatsApp around the world, both for golf for other sports and for business consulting and executive coaching. Then I also teach in person at the beautiful Ohio Valley in Southern California, but you’ll see all that on the website, you see my books videos audios I have a Zen golf APP. That it’s not an interactive one it’s a library of all my audios and about 100 videos all of those are available, and I have a YouTube channel same name, Dr. Joe pair where you’ll see, and you can listen to and participate in my guided mindfulness sessions and those guided mindfulness sessions are ones that I do on zoom. Every two weeks, so if you sign up for my free quote of the week you’ll get notices of when those sessions are or you can find it in the free resources at Dr.. Joe parent calm. But I send out a golf quote a golf video tip and a life quote from the diet book or the Winnie the Pooh book every week.

Cindra: Oh excellent and I checked out those videos on YouTube the other day and I thought they were really powerful you know that you, you could actually go right now and listen to a mindfulness session or an awareness session or some compassionate meditations with Dr. Joe.

Cindra: So website again is drjoeparent.com and you can find all the resources we just talked about their Joe there’s several things that I wrote down that I’m going to just work to recap. I enjoyed what you said about how mindfulness is a skill and a practice, and I think that’s helpful for people to know when we were talking about what the best of the best do, and you know that they’re constantly working to improve they have passion, discipline, they’re willing to make sacrifices, but then I also heard in that that they’re there the learn right that they’re continuously growing and not beating themselves up or judging themselves and what we also talked about is your ninja system of habit change I think that’s powerful to really take this kind of non-judgmental awareness when you’re trying to create a new habit so Joe Thank you so much for joining us I’m grateful that you’ve been here do you have any kind of final advisor or comments for us.

Joseph: I think we’ve covered pretty much everything and I’m really happy to have been able to participate in the in the program I do really want to invite everyone to participate in these guided mindfulness and compassion meditation sessions and again, you can find all that on Dr. Joe Perry COM and it’s a pleasure meeting you virtually I hope as crossing person sometime and thank you for having me on.

Cindra: Thank you Joe.