One day, I was golfing with my son, Gavin. I don’t remember the exact circumstances of what happened on the hole, but safe to say he got a bogey or a double bogey. If you’re not a fan of golf, just know he didn’t get the score that he wanted to get on that hole. In golf, there are 18 holes, each hole has its own individual score that all adds up to the total score. The score for hole four has no numeric impact on the score for hole five but can have a significant mental impact, so you have to have a short memory. 

So, in trying to help him, and subsequently myself, with the mental game of golf, I repeated something to him that I had told him many times before: “Don’t worry about this hole. The next hole is a new hole. Let’s just move on.” I wanted him to take the lessons he learned and move on, start the next hole with a blank slate, and go after it. What often happens, more for me than for my son, is that I shoot a bad score on one hole and let it get in my head, allowing it to impact the next five or six holes. I didn’t think my supportive words landed great at the moment; however, on the next hole, he did really well. As I high-fived him, he said, “Next hole, new hole, right?” This became a mantra I would repeat to him whether golfing with him or dropping him off at a tournament: “Next hole, new hole.”

Thinking back on that story, I’ve realized that “next hole, new hole” is a critical concept for business as well. The mindset to move on to the next one, take the lessons I learned, but start with a blank slate was very much needed. Throughout my career, and certainly throughout my entrepreneurial journey, some meetings with clients went well, and some didn’t go well at all. Some interviews of new team members went well, and some didn’t go well. You win some, you lose some. I had to be able to look at the wins and the losses, take the lessons learned, and move on. If I dwelled too much on what went wrong, I’d go down into a false sense of negativity, compounding the issue. Conversely, if after my wins, I was so full of myself, patting myself on the back for all the things I did great, and didn’t look at what I could have done better, I could end up going into a false sense of positivity, leading towards an over-embellished self-confidence and an ego that would set me up for failure.

How good are you at the “next hole, new hole” mindset? What can you do to learn from, but also move on from, a bad meeting or interaction to avoid compounding the issue?