3 Keys for When Your Dream Goes Differently Than You Planned, with Thane Marcus Ringler

Today my guest is Thane Marcus Ringler. Thane was a professional golfer but when a back injury forced him to make a change… he decided to come alongside leaders, entrepreneurs and professionals to help them apply the elite athlete mindset to everyday life. Listen To The Podcast: Thane's new book is: From Here To There: A Quarter-Life Perspective on the Path to Mastery. I know we're wrapping up 2018 as you're listening to this, and I know many of you are thinking about different ways to set yourself up for new levels of success in 2019. We talk about going after big dreams, especially if you're feeling like your dream's taken some hits or maybe even hit a dead end. RESOURCES: From Here To There: A Quarter-Life Perspective on the Path to Mastery Book: https://www.thanemarcus.com/book/from-here-to-there Website: thanemarcus.com INTERVIEW: Thane, welcome to DREAM THINK DO, brother. Thanks for having me, Mitch. It's going to be a fun time today, excited to see what comes of it. No kidding. Me too. You were a professional golfer for four years or so. When did that hit you as a dream? Were you three years old and hitting golf balls? Yeah. Well, I was three years old swinging a golf club. I don't know how many balls I was hitting at that age. I didn't know what I was doing exactly, but it was fun because dad was out there. Yeah, so it started at three or four, and really, the dream of it, of playing professionally, I would say, didn't really take root for me until college. It was always a bigger dream for my dad. He obviously wanted me to play professionally, and that was a goal or at least an idea or thought and vision he had, but I was always a little too realistic or practical to let myself entertain that idea until it became much closer to reality. I withheld that as a dream because I didn't want to be let down by not reaching it, right? In college, once I started getting closer and closer, I started getting a little more excited about it and seeing it as an actual possibility. Can you remember a moment where you thought, "This could happen." Maybe it was a game or a particular shot where you're like, "Okay, maybe I can do this." I wouldn't say there's a specific moment, but I would say that my sophomore and junior year in college were really the times that it started sinking in more. I got a couple of wins under my belt and could see my scoring average in my game progress consistently and could see how I stacked up against others at a broader range, a broader pool of players. That was when I really started entertaining it and saying, "Okay. This could be a possibility.", and then starting to figure out what that would look like. And then it wasn't until between my junior and senior year was really when I wanted to make the decision. I wanted to decide if I would commit to doing it or not and that was because I really wanted to not waste time. A lot of guys will graduate from college and then play the summer after as an amateur and then try to raise money that Fall for Q School. I wanted to jumpstart into it a little bit faster and just turn professional right after graduating. So, I. I really reached out to coaches, to friends, to family, to other people that knew me, knew my game and knew the field, other players who had played to get some background research and just try to get an objective view of is this really a good opportunity, is this something I'm capable of pursuing. The feedback was, yes, it's worth a shot, you have the skills, the toolset, go for it. So, my senior year I worked the whole school year on developing a business plan so that I would have the funds needed to launch right in, right after I graduated, which was a great learning process as well. My grandpa was a great influence in that. I came up with this plan and then pitched it to individuals in my life and to people, I knew who might be interested or able to invest,