{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Play It As It Lies","description":"Hey friends, Chase here Let\u2019s talk about golf. And before you check out because you\u2019re not a golfer, hang with me for a minute \u2014 because this episode isn\u2019t really about golf. It\u2019s about life. It\u2019s about what happens when things don\u2019t go according to plan. When the ball lands somewhere ugly. When you\u2019re stuck behind a tree, buried in the sand, sitting in a divot, or staring down a shot you didn\u2019t want and didn\u2019t ask for. In golf, there\u2019s a phrase: play it as it lies. You don\u2019t get to move the ball just because the situation is inconvenient. You don\u2019t get to pretend the shot is easier than it is. You don\u2019t get to rewrite reality so it matches the version you had in your head. You look at what\u2019s in front of you. You accept the lie. And then you play the next shot. That idea has become one of the most useful metaphors in my life. Because life, like golf, rarely unfolds exactly the way we imagined. Even our best-laid plans run into rough patches. The course changes. The weather shifts. The terrain surprises us. Sometimes the thing we thought would be straightforward turns into the hardest shot of the day. And the question becomes: Can you stop fighting reality long enough to respond to it? That\u2019s what this episode is about. Not golf tips. Not swing mechanics. Not how to lower your handicap. It\u2019s about resilience. Presence. Ego. Preparation. Adaptability. Learning from mistakes. And remembering that the little things \u2014 the short putts, the quiet choices, the small daily actions \u2014 often matter just as much as the big dramatic swings. Here\u2019s the thing golf teaches you fast: You can do almost everything \u201cright\u201d and still end up in a bad spot. You can prepare. Practice. Visualize. Get coaching. Set goals. Build routines. Show up with the best intentions. And still, eventually, you\u2019re going to hit one sideways. That\u2019s not failure. That\u2019s the game. And more importantly, that\u2019s life. The people who keep growing aren\u2019t the ones who never hit bad shots. They\u2019re the ones who learn how to recover. They\u2019re the ones who don\u2019t let one ugly moment become the story of the whole round. They\u2019re the ones who can take a breath, look at what\u2019s real, and ask: What\u2019s the best next move from here? The Core Idea You don\u2019t get to choose every lie. But you do get to choose how you play it. That\u2019s the heart of this episode. In golf, the course is full of imperfections. A root here. A bunker there. A weird patch of grass. A branch that grew out at exactly the wrong angle. A divot you didn\u2019t create but now have to deal with. You don\u2019t get to pretend those things aren\u2019t there. You have to confront the reality of the shot. Life works the same way. Sometimes you get the clean fairway lie. Sometimes you\u2019re in the rough. Sometimes you\u2019re blocked. Sometimes the conditions change overnight. Sometimes you did everything you could and still landed somewhere difficult. The mistake most of us make is wasting energy wishing the lie were different. But the power move is acceptance. Not passive acceptance. Not resignation. Not pretending you like the situation. Acceptance as in: This is what\u2019s true. Now what? That mindset builds resilience because it pulls you out of fantasy and back into agency. It reminds you that while you may not control the terrain, you still control your next swing. What You\u2019ll Hear in This Episode This episode is built around a set of lessons golf has taught me \u2014 lessons that reach far beyond the course. Why \u201cplay it as it lies\u201d is one of the best life philosophies for dealing with reality, setbacks, and uncertainty How to stay present after a bad shot instead of letting one mistake define everything that follows Why your best shot might come right after your worst one \u2014 and what Tiger Woods can teach us about staying neutral The hidden value of playing with someone new and staying open to unfamiliar people, personalities, and situations How ego quietly ruins the game \u2014 in golf, creativity, business, relationships, and life Why mistakes are feedback when you\u2019re willing to study them without shame What it means to play against the course instead of obsessing over comparison Why preparation matters even when you can\u2019t control the outcome How the little things add up \u2014 the one-inch putts, the daily habits, the small choices that shape the final score Play It Like It Is The first lesson is simple: play it like it is. In golf, the traditional phrase is \u201cplay it as it lies.\u201d Wherever the ball lands, that\u2019s where you play from. You don\u2019t get to deny the circumstances. You don\u2019t get to pretend you have a perfect lie when you don\u2019t. You don\u2019t get to spend the whole round frustrated because the course has imperfections. You adapt. That\u2019s such a powerful life lesson because so much of our suffering comes from arguing with what\u2019s already true. We think, This shouldn\u2019t be happening. Maybe it shouldn\u2019t. But it is. And the faster we can stop resisting reality, the faster we can begin responding to it. This doesn\u2019t mean you don\u2019t have emotions. It doesn\u2019t mean you don\u2019t get frustrated. It doesn\u2019t mean you don\u2019t acknowledge that something is hard or unfair or disappointing. It means you don\u2019t stay stuck there. You look at the lie. You study the conditions. You adjust. You play the next shot. That\u2019s resilience. That\u2019s adaptability. That\u2019s life. Your Best Shot Can Follow Your Worst One One of the most iconic moments in golf came from Tiger Woods at the Masters. The shot itself was extraordinary \u2014 the ball rolling slowly, almost impossibly, toward the hole, pausing for a split second, then taking one final turn and dropping in. But what makes that moment even more powerful is what came before it. That incredible shot followed one of his most disappointing shots of the tournament. That\u2019s the lesson. Your best shot can come right after your worst one. But only if you stay present enough to take it. Most of us do the opposite. We make one mistake and immediately leave the moment. We replay what went wrong. We narrate the failure. We spiral. We decide the round is ruined, the project is doomed, the day is shot, the dream is over. But the next shot doesn\u2019t care about the last one. It only asks whether you\u2019re here. That\u2019s the discipline: staying neutral. Staying composed. Staying available to the possibility that something beautiful can happen next. Not because you\u2019re pretending the bad shot didn\u2019t happen. Because you\u2019re refusing to let it own the rest of the round. Play With Somebody New Golf has this funny thing built into it: sometimes you show up and get paired with people you don\u2019t know. That can feel awkward. It can feel inconvenient. It can feel like a curveball. But if you stay open, it can also be a gift. You might play with someone who\u2019s been at it for nine months or nineteen years. You might learn something from a beginner. You might learn something from a veteran. You might meet someone you never would have crossed paths with otherwise. You also might get paired with someone who doesn\u2019t exactly light you up. And that\u2019s part of the lesson too. The point isn\u2019t that every stranger becomes a lifelong friend. The point is that there\u2019s value in staying open. There\u2019s value in learning how to share the course. There\u2019s value in practicing patience, kindness, curiosity, and connection over a few hours. Life works this way all the time. We get paired with coworkers, collaborators, clients, neighbors, strangers, and people whose rhythms are different from ours. Sometimes it\u2019s magic. Sometimes it\u2019s friction. But either way, there\u2019s something to learn if we\u2019re not closed off before the first shot. Disconnect From the Ego Golf will expose your ego fast. It\u2019s hard to hit a tiny white ball with a club toward a hole hundreds of yards away. It\u2019s hard to do it consistently. It\u2019s hard to make the body, mind, mechanics, course, weather, and emotions all cooperate at the same time. And because it\u2019s hard, the ego wants to jump in. It wants to explain every bad shot. It wants to justify every mistake. It wants to narrate every swing so nobody thinks less of you. I used to do this all the time. Good shot, bad shot \u2014 I had a comment. An explanation. A little story about what happened or why it happened. Eventually, I realized: it doesn\u2019t matter. That was all ego. The shot is the shot. The score is the score. The work is the work. When you can detach from constantly judging yourself \u2014 good or bad \u2014 you free up so much energy. You can laugh. Learn. Keep going. Try again. You can be in the experience instead of performing an identity around the experience. That\u2019s true in golf. It\u2019s true in creativity. It\u2019s true in leadership. It\u2019s true in life. The ego wants protection. The game requires presence. Learn From the Mistakes Golf is endlessly humbling because no two rounds are exactly alike. The course changes. The grass changes. The greens change. The wind changes. The pin placement changes. The conditions you played yesterday may not be the conditions you face today. That means mistakes are inevitable. But mistakes are also information. When a shot doesn\u2019t go as planned, you have a chance to study what happened. Was it your setup? Your focus? The wind? The club selection? The lie? The speed of the green? Your emotional state? The point isn\u2019t to shame yourself. The point is to learn. This is one of the biggest differences between people who keep improving and people who stay stuck. Stuck people turn mistakes into identity. Growing people turn mistakes into feedback. Nobody plays a flawless round. Nobody lives a flawless life. The goal isn\u2019t to avoid every mistake. The goal is to build the capacity for error recovery. To adapt. Improve. Persist. Keep moving. That\u2019s where growth happens. You\u2019re Playing Against the Course Yes, golf can be competitive. You can play against other people. You can compare scores. You can enter tournaments. You can measure yourself against the field. But at its core, you\u2019re playing the course. You can\u2019t hit someone else\u2019s ball. You can\u2019t control their swing. You can\u2019t determine how they handle pressure, luck, weather, mistakes, or momentum. You show up and play your round. That\u2019s such a useful way to think about life. We spend so much energy comparing ourselves to other people. Their success. Their timing. Their resources. Their audience. Their path. Their scorecard. But comparison pulls us out of our own game. Your job is to play the course in front of you as well as you can. That doesn\u2019t mean you don\u2019t care about excellence. It doesn\u2019t mean you don\u2019t compete. It means you understand where your power actually lives. Your preparation. Your choices. Your attitude. Your recovery. Your next shot. When you focus there, the results have a way of speaking for themselves. Preparation Is Key Preparation matters in golf just like it matters in life. Not everyone can swing like a pro. Not everyone has the same athletic ability, experience, or natural feel for the game. But everyone can prepare. Everyone can stand over the ball with intention. Everyone can build a routine. Everyone can line up carefully. Everyone can take the setup seriously. That\u2019s a powerful distinction. You may not control the outcome, but you can control the setup. In life, that might look like how you start your day. How you enter a conversation. How you prepare for a meeting. How you train your body. How you manage your attention. How you create the conditions for better work. No Olympic hurdler goes from the couch to the starting line without warming up. And yet so many of us expect ourselves to perform at a high level without creating the conditions that make performance possible. Preparation isn\u2019t glamorous. But it compounds. And when the pressure comes, you\u2019ll be grateful you built the habit before you needed it. The Little Things Matter One of the funniest things about golf is that a 390-yard drive and a one-inch tap-in both count as one stroke. The big swing and the tiny putt have the same weight on the scorecard. That\u2019s humbling. It\u2019s also a perfect metaphor. In life, we tend to overvalue the big moments. The launch. The deal. The breakthrough. The dramatic decision. The visible win. But the small things matter just as much, often more. How you start your day. How you speak to people. How you recover from frustration. How you express gratitude. How you care for your relationships. How you practice when nobody\u2019s watching. How you handle the little putts. A successful life isn\u2019t only built on big swings. It\u2019s built on the accumulation of small, deliberate actions repeated over time. The details count. The short shots count. The quiet moments count. Every stroke matters. Timecodes (So You Can Jump to What You Need) If you\u2019re not listening straight through, here are a few landmarks to help you find the part that speaks to where you are right now: 01:46 \u2013 Why golf became an unexpected obsession again 03:13 \u2013 The lessons from the course that go way beyond golf 03:41 \u2013 Lesson 1: Play it as it lies 05:58 \u2013 Lesson 2: Stay present after a bad shot 07:42 \u2013 Lesson 3: Play with somebody new 09:30 \u2013 Lesson 4: Disconnect from the ego 11:13 \u2013 Lesson 5: Learn from mistakes 14:13 \u2013 Lesson 6: You\u2019re playing against the course 15:58 \u2013 Lesson 7: Preparation is key 17:32 \u2013 Why the little things matter as much as the big swings 19:00 \u2013 Bringing the lessons together: presence, ego, mistakes, preparation, and playing the lie you\u2019re given Read This If Life Has You in the Rough If you\u2019re in a season where things aren\u2019t going according to plan, I want you to hold onto this: You don\u2019t have to like the lie to play it well. You can be frustrated and still be powerful. You can be disappointed and still be capable. You can wish things were different and still take responsibility for the next move. That\u2019s the work. So much of life is learning how to stop waiting for perfect conditions. We tell ourselves we\u2019ll begin when the timing is better, when the resources are better, when the path is clearer, when the lie is cleaner. But the course rarely offers perfect conditions. And if we wait for them, we miss the game. The question is not, Is this the shot I wanted? The question is, What does this shot require? That shift changes everything. It moves you from complaint to creativity. From resistance to agency. From ego to presence. From helplessness to the next right action. Questions to Ask Yourself If you want to turn this episode into action, take a few minutes and sit with these: Where in my life am I refusing to accept the lie in front of me? What reality am I arguing with that I could be responding to instead? What was my last \u201cbad shot,\u201d and what can it teach me? Am I letting ego narrate my mistakes instead of simply learning from them? Where am I comparing my round to someone else\u2019s instead of playing my own course? What small habit, detail, or \u201cone-inch putt\u201d deserves more of my attention? How can I better prepare for the challenges I already know are coming? What would it look like to stay present for the next shot? A Simple Practice for Playing It As It Lies Here\u2019s something practical you can do this week. Pick one area of your life where the conditions are not ideal. Maybe it\u2019s work. A relationship. A creative project. Your health. Your schedule. Your finances. A goal that feels harder than expected. Then write down three things: The lie: What is actually true right now? The resistance: What do I keep wishing were different? The next shot: What is one useful action I can take from here? Keep it simple. Don\u2019t solve your whole life. Don\u2019t redesign the entire course. Don\u2019t wait for clarity to arrive in perfect form. Just play the next shot. Because momentum doesn\u2019t come from perfect conditions. It comes from honest action. Final Thought Golf has reminded me that life is not just the big swings. It\u2019s the small strokes. The recovery shots. The bad lies. The quiet adjustments. The willingness to laugh, learn, reset, and keep moving. It\u2019s playing with new people. It\u2019s staying present after disappointment. It\u2019s disconnecting from ego. It\u2019s preparing well. It\u2019s learning from mistakes. It\u2019s remembering that you\u2019re not really playing against everyone else. You\u2019re playing the course in front of you. And some days, the ball is going to land in a divot. Some days, it\u2019s going to end up in the bunker. Some days, you\u2019re going to look down and think, Really? This is what I have to work with? Yes. That\u2019s the lie. Now play it. Until next time: stay present, let go of the ego, prepare well, and remember \u2014 play it as it lies. ","author_name":"The Chase Jarvis LIVE Show","author_url":"https:\/\/www.chasejarvis.com\/project\/chase-jarvis-live-podcast\/","html":"