I finished reading a book called The Prosperous Coach last week and I can't get Appendix 5 out of my head. It's called "The NO game" and it's breaking my mind in the best way.
We're afraid of making requests and getting rejected in all kinds of areas of life and work. We apply for a job and never hear back. We reach out to a past colleague asking to catch up and they never reply. We reach out to a colleague and ask if we can grab lunch with them and they don't write back. We start psyching ourselves out of making requests because of the fear of the NO.
Back to Appendix 5, the author loves to give his clients an assignment during the course of working with them:
"Your mission - if you choose to accept it - is to see how many no's you can collect in the next seven days. How many people can you get to say no to you in the next week?"
Enter... The Game of NOs.
He goes on to say that most people feel so rejected by the no's that they stop asking. Turning it into the NO game and having your only goal be to see how many requests you can make that result in no, changes everything.
Wait, so the thing that we absolutely dread is now the goal?
It's actually awesome if we get a no rather than paralyzing or defeating?
So if you think about areas where you've stopped asking because you got a no or two... What could you do this week to try to get, let's say, 12 no's in that area? What freedom and playfulness does that create? What types of requests will you make knowing that you're almost hoping for a no because the request you're making is so big and bold?
If you start making a lot of bold requests, with the game of getting as many no's as you can, you might just be surprised by the number of yes's you get in response.
"Make your measure of success the number of no's you collect each day."
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