Fighting for a Yes
Hearing no is hard. In fact, I hate hearing no. It’s deflating and discouraging. In my life, I hear “no” daily, many times over. I sometimes feel like my actual vocation is me just putting my thoughts, creations, art, and self out into the world and receiving a barrage of “NOs!” coming at me, and then finally, hearing one small “yes” somewhere in the crowd.
And it’s easy to think that I’m the only one that hears “no.” But the more conversations I have with people I respect and admire, the more I realize, everyone experiences this. “No” is a constant in most of our lives, especially when we’re working on cool and challenging things.
So, I’ve been thinking about all the “Nos” we hear and why they exist. After all, shouldn’t some things come easy? And would life be better if they were?
Recently, I read this book called the Obstacle is the Way. In this book, the author, using Stoic Philosophy, illustrates the ancient idea that failure, instead of becoming the obstacle that stops you in your path, is the guiding light for the right path to success.
It’s made me wonder this:
Could “Nos” be a gift because every single “yes” has a specific amount of “nos” we must experience in front of it?” Do we need these “nos” to get to the next “yes”? And if we could view these “nos” as just another stair in front of us, leading us to the final landing of the thing we’ve been searching for, could it help us to keep climbing toward the “Yes”?
Climbing stairs is a good analogy for hearing “no” because
1) stairs are easy at first to endure, but get harder with each step,
2) The more intense the height of the stair, the more difficult it becomes to climb it,
3) When you’re looking directly in front of you on a set of stairs, all you see are stairs. You don’t see the landing, you don’t see the end point, all you see are stairs and more stairs, endless stairs directly in front of you.
“Nos” are like stairs and “Yes” is the landing. “Yes” is the destination.
When I was a recruiter for Amazon, I was tasked with hiring for some of the organization’s most difficult roles. Many of these roles would be open a year, possibly longer. Amazon has incredibly high standards for who they bring in, especially into leadership roles. The candidates that we would consider were often people not looking for jobs, well rooted in other parts of the country and successfully employed with other amazing companies. And it was my job to convince them to move to Seattle and change their life completely. Can you imagine how many “nos” I got before I got a “yes”? Spoiler alert: it was a LOT.
The way I managed this was by using a business mechanism called Funnel Metrics. Funnel Metrics tells you to work backwards, to start with the desired outcome and work out how much work (or more often, how many “Nos”) it takes you to get from step to step.
Warning, I'm about to get real nerdy on you. Are you ready? OK! For example, in the hiring world, Funnel Metrics could look something like this:
Outcome: Amazing candidate hired
Step 6: on average, 2 offers extended to get to 1 hire
Step 5: on avg, 8 candidates interviewed in person to get to 2 offers
Step 4: on avg, 30 candidates phone screened to get to 8 candidates interviewed in person
Step 3: on avg, 100 candidates with email exchanges to get to 30 phone screens
Step 2: on avg, 15 reach outs to get to 1 email exchange
Required step 1: reach out to 1500 candidates (15 reach outs x 100 email exchanges) to get to 1 hire
The point? A seemingly undoable task is doable if you 1) break it down into many micro-tasks, 2) are willing to do the work that you've now defined and finally 3) stick to it through the "nos" that will come at you because you know you're on your way to a "yes."
I’ve found that Funnel Metrics work in every single aspect of my life, anywhere there are “Nos” to be heard and a "yes" is in sight.
In music, I hear “no” all the time. And this is hard because the music I make is much more intimate than recruiting or business, closer to my heart. If someone says they don’t like my music, in a way, it feels like they’re saying they don’t like me. But now that I’m here, all-in with my music, playing 12 shows a month, working late nights, making 1/20th of the money I used to make and stepping off a cliff onto the invisible tight rope that I believe will catch my feet, more than ever I need to hold onto how Funnel Metrics have always worked for me, and believe that “Nos” are an instrumental and required part of the process to get to “Yes.”
When my son Cooper first got his diagnosis of being on the Autism Spectrum, the team from our public school system came to our house to do a treatment assessment. After several hours of questions and observations while my rickety and crumbly heart barely held it together, they told me that they wanted to offer us once a month Occupational Therapy and once a month Speech Therapy in the home. I was aghast. Once a month? Here was a bright 3 year old with all the opportunity in the world in front of him, and they wanted to invest so little in his progress? Did they really care so little? After all of this assessment and treatment, once a month?
I stood up, handed the forms they had given me to sign, back to the team leader unsigned. And a voice I had not heard from myself before said, “No thank you. We will take the three days a week communication preschool instead.”
They looked back at me silently, eyes wide. Finally, the team leader said, “Uh, we didn’t offer that.” And here it was, my first “no.”
I responded, “Nevertheless, that’s what we’ll take. I won’t sign anything until we’re enrolled in the preschool.” The team exchanged glances, grabbed the papers and began to gather their things. “I’ll reach out to your manager today,” I said, “and cc you on the email exchange.”
They walked out of my house, and I went to my computer. I sent an email off to the case manager and to the case manager’s manager. “We will only sign the treatment assessment when we’re enrolled in the communication preschool. Three times a week. Thank you,” I wrote.
The response I initially received was silence. My second “no.” I wrote back. Again, silence. My third “no.” I called. The response, “we have limited resources, we can’t fit him in at this point.” My fourth “no.” My response, “we won’t sign until he’s enrolled in the preschool. Let me know if I need to call my lawyer” (FYI I did NOT have a lawyer.). Their response, “There’s nothing I can do.” Our fifth “no.” My response, “I’m coming in to meet with you on Monday. I’m inviting the superintendent to join and including all assessment paperwork and this email thread.” Their response: enrollment paperwork to the preschool delivered to my email inbox. Cooper was enrolled and I signed the treatment assessment. I got to the “Yes.”
Today, Cooper’s entire team is amazed that a kid needing the level of services he needed at three is now at the top of his class, both socially and academically. The are amazed at his understanding of language and his communication skills. They all say that they wish they had 30 Coopers in their class because he’s so helpful, empathetic, focused, and fun.
That was my first real foray into not taking “no” for an answer, but without apology, without fear, working for my “Yes.” It was a serious situation for Cooper, and nothing is more inspiring than the needs of your children. But, it made me realize that there were other areas in my life that I needed to approach with that kind of ferocity.
I know you are working on something big. We all have some huge task in front of us. I think that this is the human way, to have an insurmountable task ahead that we do not yet have the ability to finish or accomplish. If we didn’t, we’d be bored useless animals. Instead, as humans, we grow and learn and get scared.
And I want to tell you that the spark of inspiration that got you started on this project is important, divine maybe. The world needs you to challenge yourself and to try something new.
And I also want you to know that you have many many “nos” in front of you on this project, and I’m sorry for the pain that this will cause you. But remember, they’re just stairs, stairs getting you to the “yes” that you need to move your project forward. Keep climbing and when you get discouraged, look up at what you’re climbing toward, rather than right in front of you. And then take the next step, knowing that with each “no”, you’re one step closer to your “yes.”
You got this. Haters gon' hate and the "nos" will come, but we still have work to do. Let's get to it!
Sending you all the love and courage to keep climbing,
Jen Deale
Boss Lady, Camp Crush // SBP Smoothies // Cooper and Bailey
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