I'm a coach. I read what's underneath the surface for a living. On Sunday, the story was right in front of me on a tee box, and I missed it completely.

A while back, in a Zoom breakout with a stranger, I asked one question. When the breakout ended, he repeated it to a room of sixty people. As this episode goes out, I'm on a flight to New York for dinner at his home.

In this episode: a tee box, a Zoom breakout, and two questions I want you to sit with until next week.

If it lands, CoachReg.net (click the conversation button). Newsletter: coachreg.beehiiv.com.

Hey, welcome to the Things You Can't Say, podcast.

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I'm Coach Reg.

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Two things happened this week.

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So let me take you back to Sunday.

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Arlene and I had our regular tee time

and it is a set tee time every Sunday.

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It is for couples.

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So there's a group of us

and we rotate playing.

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With different couples

each and every Sunday.

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This particular Sunday , it's early in

the season, so we hadn't seen this couple.

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We played with we'll call them,

Liz, and we'll call them Mike and.

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It was interesting because we really

like playing with this couple.

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But I noticed that Liz was pretty

quiet the whole round and Mike

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was really struggling, with his

game, especially off the tee.

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Lots of tee shots like going 30 feet.

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Hard left, just, struggling

mightily could not hit a tee shot.

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So at some point early in the

round, he turned to me as like,

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for the life of me, I can't.

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Tell what's going on?

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What do you see?

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So I, I shared with him that I,

the ball was going off the Zel,

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which if you can pitch your golf

club I'll call it toe in the heel.

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So the toe is the outside of the face.

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So the club, the heel is the inside face.

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So the, the heel would

be closest to the player.

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And I noticed that as, see he's swinging.

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The, uh, the ball was going off

the heel, not in the middle.

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Ideally, you wanna be in the middle,

so I said, I, I think you're standing

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a little bit too close to the ball

'cause it's hitting the zel or the heel.

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So I'd back up six inches.

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it got a little bit better, but

really struggled the entire round.

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Arlene and I had a really good round.

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And so it was probably frustrating for

Liz and Mike to like, see us hitting

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it down the fairway and then, having.

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Us wait for them to find their

balls and catch up to us.

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But that's the game that happens.

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Not a big deal.

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So after the round I said to Arlene, I'm

like, oh man, Mike was really struggling

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today and I noticed Liz was really

quiet and Arlene Turner me and she's.

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They were fighting.

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I said, I didn't hear them fighting.

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She said, no, but you could have Mr.

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Intuitive one.

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How did you not see that?

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I didn't see it.

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And once she said, oh, they were

fighting, then it all unlocked

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for me because of course there

was something deeper going on.

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There was a story underneath the story.

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And so.

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I am the coach.

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I'm Mr.

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Intuitive one.

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And I did not comprehend what was

going on right in front of me.

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I just did not have those goggles on,

and I purely evaluated what was going on

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with Mike from a tactical point of view.

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Arlene saw it.

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I didn't shame on me.

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Performance is almost

never about technique.

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It's usually what's running

underneath Mike's approach.

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Certainly there was technical

flaws in his swing, but that

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wasn't the problem on Sunday.

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It was his relationship that morning.

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The grip on his golf club and the results

of his shots was merely a symptom.

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This is the same in business.

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If something's not going right

in the business, what do we do?

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We look at the p and l,

we look at the offer.

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We look at the funnel.

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We fail to ask the question that should

be asked, which is, what else is going on?

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Like, what's going on at home?

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How are you feeling?

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Are you sleeping?

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Which is a question I'll often

ask a client, by the way.

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When they are talking about being

stressed and they're talking about

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things kind of not working out, one

of the first questions I asked them

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is, how are you sleeping lately?

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And that gives you an indication

of their level of stress, their

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levels of cortisol in their system.

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And it's a way to.

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Understand that maybe there's a deeper

story going on and our time would be

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better spent talking about that versus

what's going on with your sales funnel.

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But I just was reminded that on

Sunday, me somebody that for a living.

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It works with people and reads things

that are going on underneath the surface.

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I completely missed it when the

story was right in front of me.

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Now next story.

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Speaker 14: several weeks

ago I was on a Zoom call.

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There was about 60 of us put together

by my friend Michael Roderick.

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In this room, our founders, professionals,

entrepreneurs and we got ourselves

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set up in breakout rooms and we had

a topic that we were talking about.

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So I was paired with a stranger and I

got paired with Chris out of New York.

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Chris is a very interesting

person, his business model.

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Is about and around

the topic of gratitude.

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And his core offering is a dinner.

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A dinner that he holds in his

home once a month in his home,

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not in a restaurant, in his home.

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And he invites people that are

in his life, clients, friends,

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colleagues, strangers like me,

and people that he is just met.

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But the kind of dinners where the people

in the room are handpicked, they're

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curated, and the conversation gets real.

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And what I have come to understand from

Chris is that his clientele includes

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CEO's, executives, founders for sure, but.

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Has had Super Bowl champions, coaches

celebrities, actors, actresses, the

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gamut, and that's fascinating to me.

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But what happens is, is when

people show up at this dinner.

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The labels are taken off 'cause

we're not introducing ourselves

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as Bob, the golf coach, or Bob,

the CEO, or Sam the celebrity.

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This is about connecting as humans, and he

puts together a very special experience.

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Essentially it's gratitude and pasta.

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It is an Italian meal with a

glass of wine and a bowl of pasta.

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And the main topic of the evening is

gratitude that dinner is happening

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today.

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As you are listening and as you are

reading this newsletter I am on my way

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to New York City to go to this dinner

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. I was in this breakout session with

Chris and he was working on a question

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regarding his next book, and he had

two books that he could be working on.

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One was a safe book, one is risque

and would be controversial and would

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be risky, and he was questioning

out loud whether to take the safe

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approach or the risky approach.

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Now in the conversation I said,

Chris, are you looking for advice

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or are you looking for permission?

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And he paused and he said something to

this effect, which is, what do you think?

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I'll react worse to give me that?

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And I said, Chris, plain and simple.

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What I hear is that you're asking me for

advice, but you really want, and what

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you really are looking for is permission.

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And that landed deep

because Chris went silent.

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And kind of shook his head and really

was like yeah, dude, that's what I need.

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Now here's what's interesting

is that when we, that was right

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at the end of our breakout.

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We were digitally, escorted

back to the main session, and

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Michael asked, , does anyone have

any feedback about their breakout?

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Chris spoke up right away,

and I'm just going to share

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with you exactly what he said.

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Word for word.

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Hey.

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I had Coach Reg, phenomenal.

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By the end of it, he asked me,

do you want advice or permission?

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I won't even tell you

what we talked about.

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Just asking these two simple questions

to whoever you're selling to, leading,

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loving, surrendering, serving, whatever

it was, it was fucking phenomenal.

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I said that in front of 60 people.

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And to be acknowledged for that publicly

in a room of very powerful and special

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people meant a great deal to me.

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I sent him a thank you email

and, he shot back immediately.

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He said, Hey, coach, love to

have you at dinner next month.

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As soon as I heard the invitation,

I, remembered my improv training

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from my friend, Meredith, and

I said , yes, I'll be there.

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What it entails is less

than one day in New York.

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I'm flying in this morning.

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I'm going to dinner this evening and

I will turn around and get on the

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first flight out of New York, back

to Chicago, 5:00 AM Eastern time.

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It is a very quick trip.

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I am looking forward to it.

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My expectations are very simple, that

I am going to be in a very warm home.

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I am going to have a phenomenal dinner.

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I'm going to meet tremendous human

beings, and I have no expectations of

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this being something where I get business

out of it, that I get anything out of

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it other than I have the experience

of being connected deeply to other

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human beings for the evening and.

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I am going to thoroughly enjoy it.

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I am trying to be much more yes

and in my life and in my career.

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Here's the question that

I'm asking you this week.

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What did you say no to recently?

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That if you'd said yes, you might be on

a flight somewhere now or on a call now

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or getting in the car for sit with it.

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Don't answer fast.

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If it's something you wanna talk

through, you know where to find me.

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Go to coach reg.net.

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Click on the conversation button.

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I look forward to sharing with you

next week how the dinner went, and I

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can't wait to hear your stories about

what you've either said yes to or said

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no to, and which you had said yes to.

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We'll talk to you next week.

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Be well.