Steve Chandler knows where to find success. He spent much of his career as a sales trainer helping sales professionals to optimize their selling skills, and now he helps professional coaches to build thriving practices.
What Chandler understands is that most coaches struggle to build a meaningful book of business because of one simple reason: a fear of doing what is truly necessary to create success. So, for example, he believes that most coaches won’t engage in the conversations that might lead to a new client because they fear rejection. They fear the “No.”
To help his clients overcome their fear of No, Chandler constructed a simple mental model – a fresh way of thinking about selling. He tells his clients: “YES lives in the land of NO.”
With simple words and imagery, he helps his coaches understand that if they want to find a YES, they must be willing to metaphorically walk out into the land of NO. They must be willing to engage with potential clients. And they must be ok enough hearing “NO” a lot until they finally come upon the YES.
(In fact, he says that they must learn to love the NO because of what it means: that they are that much closer to the YES they are looking for.)
His approach is a kind of mental jujitsu for coaches and sales professionals. A way of reframing the challenge ahead so that they can stay in the game long enough, overcome setbacks and discouragement, and ultimately be successful in their businesses.
It hit me recently that the journey that we are all on learning the Single Plane Swing could be served by a similar metaphor. So, my version of Chandler’s mental model is this:
Success lives in the land of Not Yet.
Say that out loud. Let it sink in for a minute. Think about what that means.
Golf is a hard game. Golf played well is even harder. It’s easy to get discouraged, to doubt one’s ability to ever “get it,” and to simply give up and go play bocce instead.
But the journey need not feel that heavy. Not if you know where Success lives… and you are willing to go out and find it. In the land of Not Yet.
I get it, Success can feel elusive at times. It’s hard to find. Especially on the golf course. But you can find it on the course in essentially the same place you found success anywhere else in your life: In the land of Not Yet. A place where you didn’t get it right at first, where you made mistakes, and had to play the role of the student for a while. A place where you willingly stepped into action, practice, objectivity, resetting, getting back at it, joy and an upbeat attitude.
And it’s a place that makes it possible for you to see a 95 in your last tournament as feedback, not failure.
I like the concept of Not Yet for two reasons. One: it’s factual and objective with no emotional baggage. It’s the truth – and there is no judgment hanging all over it. Two: it plants a seed in your subconscious that whatever you are trying to do is possible and is not a matter of “IF”, but a matter of when.
Operating from possibility is one of my favorite concepts. I don’t always achieve it – but if I can connect to the idea of possibility, especially in the middle of struggle or a challenge, then I am FAR more likely to stay connected to my full potential in that moment.
Where are you in our journey right now? Are you struggling to find the success you have hoped for? If you are, that’s ok. It’s part of the process. Stay the course. Realize that your struggle is only so because you have interpreted it as such. In fact, the struggle might be a result of your use of the word “failure” instead of Not Yet.
Consider anchoring to the idea that all the misses and struggles and that you are experiencing are not failures, they are simply Not Yets – an important part of your journey. In fact, what if Not Yet means that you are in action towards your goal? That you are making progress? That you can only fail if you stop moving?
Here’s to the land of Not Yet… and to the signals it gives us that Success is nearby. And here’s to a fresh way of thinking about the success that can be yours if you are willing to go to where it lives.
Paul Monahan, PCC is a Peak-Performance coach, member of the International Coach Federation and a certified COR.E Performance Dynamicsä Specialist. He resides in Cleveland, Ohio with his wife Paula and is the proud dad to three young men.
