You're listening to The Life Coach School podcast with Brooke Castillo, episode number 528.
Welcome to The Life Coach School Podcast, where it's all about real clients, real problems and real coaching. And now your host, Master Coach instructor, Brooke Castillo.
Hey, beautiful friends. I'm just so happy to be sitting here talking to y'all. I just got from three months, basically the entire summer, traveling through Canada with my son Christian on his debut pro tour. And it has been an amazing adventure. We have learned so much and done so much and bonded so much. And it's just been like one of the most incredible experiences of my life.
And I'm also thrilled to be home. I bought this house in San Diego, I don't know, six months ago. And I've stayed here like seven days. Literally been in the house seven days total. And so it's not even decorated. We just have like all the furniture in here, but I haven't accessorized it. I haven't done anything with it because I just haven't been here. And it's totally fine. It still feels so great to be home and not in a hotel and not traveling for a minute.
So I literally just landed this morning. We flew in from Winnipeg to Minneapolis to here. And Elijah is doing his draft for his fantasy football league. So he's with a bunch of his friends in Napa and I the whole house to myself. And I'm just really excited to sit and record a podcast, which I could be unpacking. I could be unpacking all these boxes, all these shipments that come. And I just wanted to sit down at my desk with my big computer and my microphone and record this podcast.
I had wanted to record this with Christian while we were still in Canada. We talked about this concept and I got a lot of his ideas while we were on the golf course. And so I think I'm going to be able to share a lot of great ideas with you, but it just would have been really cool for you to hear his voice as well and his thoughts and ideas from his mind.
Most of you know that I have really shifted gears to focus on him and to help him and to coach him and to travel with him. And it has been such an extraordinary experience because of the parallels that his life has to mine in terms of wanting to do something that most people are unwilling to do the work to do.
So he's always been like me and had huge dreams and been a huge risk taker and been willing to put himself out there. And I want to share with him everything that I've learned in terms of the accomplishments that I've created in my own life and the success that I've had in my own life and the impossible dreams that I've had. I want to share as much as I can with him as he's going through this journey.
But what I'm realizing is that I'm learning so much from his journey too. And I want you all to know that I think in terms of parallels all the time. So when I'm thinking about Christian playing golf, I'm always looking for analogies and ideas that I can share when I go back and coach my Scholar students or I'm coaching my certification students who are building businesses and my entrepreneur clients.
And so this podcast is really for anyone who is trying to do their best at anything. And I'm going to use the examples of building a business and I'm going to use the examples of trying to go pro in a sport to demonstrate these ideas to you.
So one of the things that I have watched over and over and over with my students is them putting in their best efforts, them showing up, them doing the very best that they believe that they can do and not getting the results that they want right away. And I've watched this happen with my son, right? He's putting in all the effort. He's doing all the practice. He's doing all the things to do his very best and he's not getting the result that he wants yet.
And in both cases, it's usually beginners, right? It's usually people starting out. And it doesn't matter that Christian's had a golf career in college and it doesn't matter that someone else has had another business. When you're starting something new, everything's new and there is so much failure. There's so much falling on your face and learning and growing and committing.
And as a mother, I've always taught my kids to just do the very best they can, to access the best within them and to make sure they bring that forth. And that's also what I've taught my students because doing your very best is literally all you can do. And it feels amazing to know that you've laid it all out on the line.
But what sucks about it sometimes is that sometimes your best isn't good enough. Sometimes your very best doesn't get you the trophy. And sometimes your very best doesn't get you the clients or the income or the success that you need in your business. And the question then becomes, what do we do when our best isn't, when it isn't good enough for the result?
So Christian and I were talking about this in terms of his golf. And we were out on a course and he was doing what they call a qualifier. And I was caddying, which means I'm carrying his bag. So we're talking in between holes. And I told him about this podcast and I said, what is it like to do your very best and have it not be good enough?
And it's hard for him because he feels like sometimes, you know, he'll look at someone that maybe isn't working as hard as him or someone that isn't as committed as he is, and they're doing better than him sometimes. And I've had so many students say this to me too, like, how is this girl over here, Susie, able to get so many clients and she's not even working as hard as I am? And she just shows up and it's like all of a sudden she has all these clients and it seems to come so easy and she's not even running ads.
I think that's one of the most maddening things, is when you see other people being able to do something that you are unable to do yet, even though you're doing your very best. So I came up with like three sections of this podcast I want to talk about. And I'm going to make my case for doing the impossible again. I'm going to make my case for repeatedly doing your best, even when it's not good enough, because I think it's a message that so many of you all who are in the grind of this need to remember.
One of the things that I'm always saying to Christian that I don't know that he quite understands or believes me yet is that this is the best part. When the ambition is the highest, when the drive and the motivation and the dreaming is the highest, that for me was the best part.
And I used to think that arriving here where I am now and creating the success that I have created for myself and being able to help as many people as I've been able to help, I thought this would be the best part. And there's so many great things about it. There's so many cool things about having accomplished and completed your dream in so many ways. But it's definitely, for me, not the best part. The best part was the grind. And I couldn't even appreciate it at the time, right? That it was the absolute juiciest, most delicious, best time.
I was sitting with my computer and one of the things that's happening right now is that there are a lot of people emailing me and wanting to share with me the success that they've had in Scholars. And they've been with me for many years and how their life has changed. And they're wanting to email me and share that, which is beautiful.
And I actually was thinking today, I really want to do like a yearbook for scholars so we can have a collection of all of these success stories and all these wonderful messages of gratitude and accomplishment for our coaches and for the work that we do. So we will be creating that.
But to be someone that receives every single day, email after email about, and even on the calls, when I'm talking on the calls, people are expressing that to me a lot right now. It just feels so peaceful and fulfilling and satisfying. But to me, it doesn't feel like the anticipation of success. It's just a very different experience. Both are delicious.
Okay, so here is the very first question that you need to ask yourself when your best isn't good enough yet. You want to ask yourself, what is your best? How do you even answer that question? What is your best? What is your best in this moment? And what is your best in your capability to be able to do?
And so there's doing your best right now, and then there's believing what your best is and what you are capable of. And oftentimes there's a gap between the two, right? Between your current capability and your capacity, right? Your potential. And that gap is so maddening when you're trying to create a result. And the answer is always, how do we fill that gap? But we have to know where we're starting from. We have to know what is our best right now.
And so when you answer that question, there's kind of four components. What is your best in terms of your skill right now? What is your best in terms of your attitude right now? What is your best in terms of your commitment? And what is your best in terms of your resilience, your ability to overcome and continue? And I think this is a question worth really living within because there's often times where I will see students, I'm thinking about, I have a lot of my kids' friends that are kind of like my kids, like my godchildren, who a lot of them want to be entrepreneurs and they want to build businesses too.
And so I talk to them a lot about what doing your best looks like. And what is the perception of what they're capable of and what their best is? And many times I will say, and this is true for my employees, this is true for my students, where they see their very best and where they see their capacity, I see way beyond. I see that their best isn't anywhere near where they are, that they could be doing way more, way better in so many areas. And sometimes you have to question what your best is to know, are you really bringing your very best in terms of your skill, your attitude, your commitment, and your resilience?
So live into that question and have a definition for what it is and what it looks like in those areas. And question yourself if you really are bringing your very best to the work that you're doing, to the accomplishment, to the thing you are trying to create.
And then the next question is you ask, is your best good enough to get the result? And this question is one of, I think, the most important questions to contemplate, because I will have students, I will have mentees, I will see this with my kids, where they will come to the conclusion that they're not good enough, that their best isn't good enough to get the result that they want. And in that moment, that is when they quit.
And it's what the survival brain wants you to do, because if in your brain you don't think you're good enough to achieve the result, there is no reason to continue to pursue it at the expense of how you feel. That is what our brain is designed to tell us to do. And we have to be willing to overcome that. The only way you will ever know if your best is good enough is to keep going, is to not give up.
Now, so then that opens up the question of, okay, so at what point do we change routes? Or at what point do we decide not to do this anymore? And here's my answer to that question. It should never be because you stop believing in yourself. It should never be because you don't think it's possible.
It may be because you don't know how to have fun doing it anymore or you're tired, you don't want to do it anymore. You have something else you want to do more than what you've been doing. Those are all fine reasons. You want to make sure you like your reason. But it should never be because you stop believing in yourself and in your capacity to create the impossible and to be good enough to be the best at something to create the result that you want.
Okay, the third question you're going to ask yourself is, why isn't your best good enough right now? So you're asking yourself, the first question is, what is your best? Your second is, is it good enough to get the result ultimately? And if it is, then why isn't it good enough right now? That creates that gap. And you need very, very specific answers and a very, very specific plan to pull you forward.
So for example, let's use the example of Christian and we'll say, why isn't your best good enough right now? And we'll get into some very specific answers. So the first one is in terms of skill. You know, the drives aren't hitting enough fairways in terms of facts and statistics, and he's not making enough putts. Okay. Those are just facts. That's just why his best isn't good enough. He is trying his very best and we're not hitting enough fairways and enough putts aren't dropping in. So that's it.
So all of a sudden, now we've answered that question. We know how to solve for that, right? Here's the reason why my best isn't good enough, we have to make my best better. And what is my plan to do that?
The second one, attitude. Is my attitude good enough? Is my attitude at its best or isn't it? Is that one of the reasons? Is my commitment one of the reasons? Is my resilience one of the reasons? And in Christian's case, it really isn't any of those things. He has no doubt in himself. He doesn't question himself. He doesn't beat himself up. His attitude is very positive. He's always learning. One of my favorite quotes that we've been using a lot with him is you keep learning until the L goes silent. So good.
It's so good for business too, right? When I'm talking with my kids that are trying to build businesses, like what is your very best right now? And why isn't it good enough? And how do we close the gap between your best effort and where your best needs to be in order to win at business or in golf or whatever?
Now, as soon as you create that plan to close the gap between your best not being good enough yet, you're going to have to create a plan for resilience, commitment, and attitude, because it is against what your brain will want to do.
It's the exact opposite of what your brain will want to do. It will want you to doubt yourself. It'll want you to criticize yourself. It'll want you to give up. It'll want you to sabotage yourself. So having a plan that propels you forward and to have the discipline and the resilience and the attitude to continue to take the action that you need to take in order to get to the point where your best is good enough is the key.
There were so many times for me in my business over the last 20 years and in my career where my best just wasn't good enough to get the job done. And I had to become a person that raised the bar on myself. Because if I say, ìI'm trying my best and this isn't working, so therefore I should quit,î that is a very legitimate, valid argument. But the alternative is my best right now is not good enough. I am trying my hardest and it is not good enough. My best needs to get better. So how do I close the gap so my very best is good enough to get the result that I want? That's the key.
Now, trying your hardest is a given. You have to try your hardest if you want to be excellent at anything. But your hardest is not good enough yet. How do you make it better is the question. And the discipline required and the overcoming required to raise your level of best, to raise the standard within yourself for your best to be better is where all excellence comes from.
And the last question, and this is a very serious question, is when you think about the journey to find out what you're capable of, can you tolerate it? Can you tolerate the journey to find out what you're capable of? And I put the word tolerate in there when I first wrote this down when I was thinking about it. Like it's so tough. And one of the things that's amazing about golf, and it's such a great metaphor, is it all happens so fast, right?
So I get to see each hole and if the hole is a success or a failure. And I get to see each round and if the round is a success or a failure. And I get to see every match, like is it a success or a failure, each tournament. And to watch how Christian handles and tolerates the failures, the lack of success. And he does a really good job tolerating it.
But one of the things that I realized after we'd done like five different tournaments and they were all filled with success and they were all filled with failures, is the question had to change from, can you tolerate the journey to find out what you're capable of, to can you enjoy it? Because they say the average time for somebody to get on the PGA Tour is like five to seven years. And we're just starting, we're three months in here, right? And if you're just tolerating the process, it's not going to be worth it. It's not going to be worth it. Can you enjoy it?
And that's the question I have for so many of you. Can you enjoy the process of building your business? Can you enjoy the process of all of the failures and all of the progress that you need to make?
Now, here's the key, you can't just keep showing up and doing your best and tolerating failure and not moving anywhere. And a lot of us do that, right? We burn ourselves out spinning our wheels. And it's because we're not asking the question, what is the reason why your best isn't good enough? Why isn't or why wasn't your best good enough to get the result? And solving for that, because that's the only way the action changes enough to get a different result.
If you think about the model, your A-line determines your R-line. If you keep doing the same A-line, you're going to keep getting the same results. So you have to question, what is it about my best that isn't good enough yet? And how do I close the gap with my skill, with my attitude, with my commitment, with my resilience? How do I do that?
And to add to that question, can you enjoy the journey to find out what you're capable of, even if you ultimately never get the result? Is the journey enough? Is the constant improvement, the constant questioning, the constant closing the gap, the constant evolving and improving enough to enjoy the process even if you don't get a result? And if the answer is no, what are you doing? You are anticipating a result that you think will change your life, and it won't.
You cannot have a journey that is filled with doubt and arrive at confidence. You just can't. It just doesn't work that way. You can't have a journey that is filled with dread and regret and think that you're going to enjoy the success of it. First of all, the chances of success are so low, but even if you do get there, that taste of that success will be so temporary. You will not find sustained joy within it.
And so many people say to me, "Brooke, Brooke, Brooke, Brooke, Brooke, if I'm not going to be happier when I arrive, if I'm not going to be happier at the top of the mountain than I am at the bottom, why in the world would I climb it?" And the answer is not for the view. I promise you it's not. It's for the joy of the hike. The joy of the journey up the hill, the falls, the heavy breathing, the wrong turns, the tumbles down. That is the point of it.
And it's such a cliché, right? People will say, oh, it's not the destination, it's the journey. And you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Give me the money. Give me the thinness. Give me the medals. That's what I ultimately want. But we think it's the getting of those things that makes us happy, but really it's the wanting of those things.
It's the believing in those things that fuels us and makes our lives worth living. And that is why, my friends, every student I've ever had that has made a hundred thousand dollars or made a million dollars comes to me and says, okay, what's next? I want to get back to the wanting, the anticipating, the creating, the evolving. It's always the next version.
I just watched Full Swing and was listening to Brooks Koepka talk about this in terms of golf. It wasn't enough to win one time. But if you would have asked him years ago, like, do you just want to win a major? Yes. But then once you win it, then you have to win another one. You want to win another one. You want to win another one. It's the wanting. There's never going to be enough to make the accomplishment as juicy and exciting and evolving as the journey.
So what is the reason to do it and why am I constantly trying to encourage everyone to do the impossible? It's because I believe that that is ultimately the call on our life. The call on our life is not to accomplish something. The call on our life is to try to accomplish something with all of your heart. And it's such an important distinction. I think a successful life is one in which we have a dream and go after it, not we go after it and achieve it.
Now, achieving it is fun. I love a little achievement, right? Why not? Feels great. But that's not the call on our life. The call on our life is to find out what we most want and what it is within us in terms of our capacity that may or may not achieve it. It is that journey.
And the reason why I am so dedicated to helping people have extraordinarily huge goals is because it's the difference between change and transformation. If you have a small goal, you can just improve a little bit. You can just change slightly. You can just alter a little bit to improve, right? You get a job, you get a little bit of a raise. You have another year, you get a little bit of a raise. You can constantly do small incremental improvements for change to achieve a goal.
But when you have an impossible goal, when you have a goal that is so much bigger than you can even wrap your mind around, that failure is almost inevitable, those types of goals require us to transform, not just what we're doing in our lives, but who we are being. Because the audacity to believe that you have a goal that is so much bigger than what you have the inclination to dream initially will require you to transform who you are being.
And that, I believe, is the ultimate call on our own experience of being alive. To grab a hold, not just of what we do, not just to make a decision of how we will act, but to make a decision of who we will be. And not to define that by what has happened to us in the past. Not to define that by what we've already accomplished, but to define it by the future, by the clearing, by the space that that plan opens up to us. To define yourself by who you want to be from your imagination versus defining yourself of who you already are based on your past and socialization.
You get this amazing source of power when you declare an impossible future. I learned all of this, all of this magical information from The Last Word on Power, the best book I've ever read on this topic. And that source of power comes from having a future and having the audacity to claim a future that is beyond what you currently are capable of. That is beyond what your best is right now. It's a calling to make your best better.
Who you are right now is not who you're going to need to be to achieve that dream. And we are calling on you to become that person that you most want to be so you can achieve that dream.
Now, it's much easier to just sit on the couch. It's much easier to have an incremental goal. It's much easier just to be realistic, not to set your hopes too high. So instead of letting your failures, which are an inevitable part of this, instead of letting your failures define you, you actually let them create you. Your failures become your invitation to define yourself. Because if you go and you miss a putt, you go and you miss a cut at a tournament, you go and you miss top 10, or you miss winning, that is your invitation to define what that failure will mean to you.
And if you define it from a future where you're already successful, you will have to transform. And if you define it by the present moment and your current capability, you will end up quitting because you will look at your current reality and you will tell yourself that it's not possible to be that person that you want to be because you don't have the physical manifestation evidence yet.
And if you define yourself by your past, you can look and say, I've never been a successful business person. I'm too young right now. I don't have what it takes. I don't have any clients yet. I haven't been able to create any success yet. You will make that mean that you, who you are, is not capable of the dream that you want. But if you look to your future to help that pull to define, from success you define this failure. You define it from success.
For example, if I look back on a failure that I had in terms of life coaching in my business 10 years ago, the way that I define that now is it was just a little blip on the screen. It was just a little lesson I had to learn. But when I was in that moment, the way I could have defined it is I'm not good enough to get this done. It's not possible to get this done.
So your source of power comes from declaring that future. And instead of letting your failures define you, you let them create you. What you decide to make failure mean is where all your power comes from. What will you make it mean when they beat you? What will you make it mean when you come up with nothing? What will you make it mean when you aren't successful today? You have to make it mean that you're just not as good as you're going to be. Your best just isn't good enough yet.
And the next best thing that you can do is to define why not, and to close that gap. To close the gap between your very best now and the very best that you're going to be to create the result that you want.
That's what I have for you today. I have two more podcasts that are in the works right now. And it's so interesting, I want to talk about them right now. One of them is Greatness vs. Happiness. And the other one is How to Frustrate. And these are both podcasts that I have created in my mind from traveling and working with Christian and watching him golf. So I'm excited to share them with all of you. I think that you will be able to apply them beautifully to your lives in whatever endeavors you're after.
Sometimes your best isn't good enough yet, and that's okay. We just need to know why so we can close the gap. All right, my beautiful friends, have a wonderful rest of your day and I'll talk to you next month. Bye.
