Is NO Negative? Only if You Make It So!

There's a scene in the Go for No movie with Art Jonak who is talking about our feelings about the word "NO." In it, Art says, "From a very early age, we're programmed with "No" being negative. Is it negative? Hey, it's just the way we've been programmed, right?"

We couldn't agree more. Almost nowhere do I see push back to "NO" as with our book title, Go for No! Just recently I was told that a person with responsibility over a large organization for sales and development didn't like the title Go for No! because it's negative. This is exactly what we're talking about!

If NO is "negative" then the options are...

1) Ignore and pretend that NO's don't exist. (We've tried this actually and it didn't work). This is a recipe for mediocre performance if not disaster. Pretending that there isn't "rejection" and "failure" and NO's out there in the world is like deciding you don't need flood insurance when you live near the river. Just ignore it and it won't happen. Well, you KNOW all those NO's are out there. And ignoring it, to our mind, just gives it power and makes people deathly afraid of getting the NO's. And if you're getting NO's, well you must be screwing up and failing right? And now how excited are you to keep going? You don't. You quit. This tendency to protect and pretend is not about thinking "positive" or "negative" - it's about understanding the truth and empowering yourself with strength and courage - not fear and hopelessness.

2) Make "NO"positive. Accept the NO's - invite them and become empowered. It's pretty simple: Go for No! When you 'go for no' the yeses will show up your door often in greater quantities than you ever imagined!

Failure & Success: Go for No! vs. PLUCK

Most people know us for writing the book, "Go for No!" Actually we have written and published 4 books altogether. "Go for No!" is our most successful having sold now well over 100,000 copies. Two of the others had decent success (around 25K-30K each) and were in the retail niche. The fourth book was called "PLUCK" and was mostly for service-oriented businesses in the "retail" industry. We printed 10,000 copies. We have 8000 on hand still. It is a good book too. We made some significant mistakes though. The cover being one of them. And the title being another (don't ask).

Bottom line... people think we're so successful with "Go for No!" and we are. But don't forget about the 8000 PLUCK's we still have. Most of the time, you don't know what's a "Go for No" and what's a "PLUCK." So you have to just take action and realize you'll get a bit of both along the journey.