Nurturing NO

Do you nurture your NO's?  When we made our DVD Movie, 'Yes is the Destination, No is How You Get There' we interviewed 58 people on how they have failed, been rejected, and used the 'go for no' philosophy in their business and lives to reach a high level of success.

One of our sales experts, Mark Heerema, told us, "I realized that in order for me to really succeed, and this is my first lesson - that I had to get my NOs in order to get yeses. I was never taught that, no one ever told me that. So what I learned was, "No" is inevitable -  I was going to get no - the question was, what was I going to do with it?"

In the movie, almost all of our fabulous experts agreed that most people get a no and that is it, it's over. The end of the road! Of course what the people in the movie think when they hear 'no' is exactly the opposite - they figure a way to go around it and they understand that 'no doesn't mean never, it means not yet.'  It has clearly been a huge factor in their success.

When you get a 'no' don't throw it away.  There are only two times you do take a NO and let it go.

1) It was a Good No. The person as it turns out is completely unqualified for what you are offering. (Example: my husband Richard is a really bad candidate for hair care products.)
2) They have told you 'no' and expressed to you that it really is a 'never' and to push beyond would be rude and disrespectful.

Otherwise, nurture your no's as they often will grow up to become YESES!  

Going for No on American Idol

Our "go for no" philosophy was none more evident than on American Idol last night. Okay yes we admit it, we do watch the show. The fifth? sixth? whatever season began yesterday and the truth is we don't watch a lot of TV but we will watch Idol.

It reminded us that auditions are the breeding grounds of "No." A lot of No's were handed out last night on American Idol. Rejections are commonplace in the world of show business. Your favorite working actors are getting rejected still, all the time. It's par for the course.

In fact, in the February issue of BestLife, actor Jeremy Piven is interviewed and says, "The average person would never be able to take this much rejection... you have to understand the journey can be so brutal at times and there's so much rejection that weeds out people." And we say the more rejection, the more you are willing to hear "no" and move on, the greater your changes for ultimate success.

The reality is that a lot of the people told "no" on American Idol deserved to hear it. Yet, even on last season, Simon Cowell told the winner of the entire competition (Taylor Hicks) that there was no way he would make it to the final round. So, the question is who should quit? The bottom line is that for each and every one of us there is a unique formula and it relies on (in varying amounts) things like: talent, some timing and luck, and always the willingness to keep going forward, to fail our way to success.