Ep: 97: Bubba Watson: Professional golfer and two-time Masters champion

Bubba Watson is a professional golfer. He has won two major PGA championships, both victories at the Masters.  He has a total of 12 PGA tournament wins and reached a world ranking of 2nd in 2015.  He has played in the LIV Golf league since 2022.

 

Some interesting insights from this episode:

  • Bubba never had formal lessons. He was entirely self-taught. He would just go by feel and practice over and over until he understood how to position himself and swing to achieve a certain shot.
  • In college his drive to be better at golf was due to immaturity – he was mad at people. These days his drive to be better is so he can help people.  Paying it forward is much more important than trying to be the best in the world.
  • He built a distinguishable brand as Bubba – the new age redneck country boy, despite not hunting or dipping or smoking or country music.
  • He was kind and considerate off the golf course but had a hot temper on the course. Pride and ego was eating him alive.  He got caught up in the rankings and allowed that to dictate how he felt about himself.
  • His first Masters victory was on the heels of adopting their first baby so allowing his mind to focus on something outside of golf removed him from the excessive pressure which allowed him to play the match of his life.
  • Joining LIV Golf wasn’t about the money but an opportunity to play golf in a team format which he misses and the entrepreneurial opportunity to own a franchise in an emerging league.
  • “Excellence is touching others in a way that makes their lives better. It’s giving people an opportunity to be successful.”

 

Notes:

Book: Up and Down: Victories and Struggles in the Course of Life

Personal Website: Bubba Watson

LIV site: Bubba Watson and the RangeGoats

Ep 35: Beth Comstock: Disrupter, Innovator, Change Agent: The Former Vice Chair at GE

Beth Comstock spent over 25 years at GE where she was a vice chair, CEO of Business Innovations and Chief Marketing Officer among other roles. She has been featured in the New York Times, Forbes, Fortune and Fast Company and has been named to the Fortune and Forbes lists of the world’s most powerful women.  Her new book is titled Imagine It Forward: Courage, Creativity, and the Power of Change.

 

Some interesting insights from this episode:

  • Risk taking is a skill that can be learned.
  • “Most of us fear losing what we have more than we desire winning something we don’t have.”
  • Due to her risk taking mentality, Jeff promoted her to Chief Marketing Officer, a role that hadn’t existed at GE for over two decades.
  • She had to overcome a lack of self-confidence along with her introversion in order to speak up, challenge others and be effective in her role.
  • Success correlates as closely with confidence as it does with competence.
  • Much of the success of Hulu was attributed to hiring an entrepreneur from the outside and keeping him independent vs hiring someone from the inside.
  • She led GE’s disruptive green initiative called Ecomagination which pushed an aggressive clean energy agenda throughout GE’s multiple business lines.
  • GE executives often struggled to see parallels from developments happening in other industries due to a common cognitive bias called Functional Fixedness.
  • She pioneered a new program at GE called Fastworks which leveraged the lean methodology to experiment with new product ideas, increase innovation and accelerate time to market.
  • “Excellence is a never ending journey of learning and trying to get better.”