I’ve spent a lot of time in my life knocking doors.

My door-to-door sales career began with solar. I moved on to alarms, and ended in the water purification industry. Throughout this time, I’ve been told “no” lots and lots and lots of times. Now, with the Build Your Network Podcast, I’ve learned a whole new definition of the word. I’m reaching out to potential high-level guests and being turned down by people that I genuinely respect and admire.

At this point, I guess you could say I’m something of an expert in rejection. I’ve been told “no” in many different ways by many different people. But guess what? I’ve never learned to love the word “no.”

I’m not alone. Everyone gets rejected and no one loves how it feels. Even Tim Ferris, in his book, Tribe of Mentors, has an entire chapter on different people who rejected him when he asked them to be a part of his book.

While you will never learn to love rejection or love a “no,” you need to be as comfortable with rejection as possible.  Since I’m a “rejection expert,” I’m going to share three different principles that you can use to grow your ability to handle being told no.

Before I do, I just wanted to let you know that I covered this topic on episode #155 of the Build Your Network Podcast – so if you’d rather listen than read, CLICK HERE to check that out now. If you’d rather read – keep scrolling!

CONVICTION

Conviction gets you comfortable enough to go for the ask in the first place. If you don’t ask, you can’t get rejected. You don’t give anybody the opportunity to reject or accept whatever you may have.

Now, there’s a couple of things you need to be convinced of in order to get started.

1. Be convinced of your product or your service or your company.
   Now, remember that there’s a difference between a belief and a passion. You don’t have to be passionate about it in order to be able to be convinced of it. You just have to have a certain level of belief that allows you to overcome that fear of going in for the ask.
2. You need to convince them of your “what” and your “why.” We’ve all heard Simon Sinek talk about your why. If you haven’t, you should definitely look up his stuff. Your “why” is a deeper meaning or purpose behind everything that you do. Whether it’s your family, a legacy that you want to leave, or something else – you need to have a good grasp on what your “why” is.I don’t know about you, but for me, my “why” is a really deep emotional part of me. When I look at my why, it makes me really introspective. That doesn’t always lend itself to immense productivity. Sometimes, it’s your “what” is the thing you need need to prompt you toward immediate action. Your “what” could just be the amount of money that you’re gonna make on a deal or the how your product or service is going to help your customer do better in in their life.
3. You need to be convinced of the worst case scenario principle. Simply put, the worst case scenario principle says that the only way to lose in a situation is to not ask.

   Let’s say your favorite celebrity walks by and you really want to get a picture with them. If you ask, there are two possible outcomes. Number one, they say “yes” and you get a picture with them. Number two, they say “no “and you don’t get a picture with them.

   If you don’t ask, you will 100% not get a picture with them because I guarantee that they’re not going to go offer to take a picture.
   So you’re in the same situation regardless of whether you asked and they said no or if you didn’t ask to begin with. You only have things to gain if you ask.

CONSISTENCY

You must ask a lot. This is probably the most difficult part of this process because this is where you’ll probably go through the most rejection. You’re in the learning phase. This is the part of the process where you’ll need to make up in numbers what you lack in skill.

It’s a numbers game. If you ask enough, someone will eventually say yes. The only reason that you need to remember any of the “no’s” is to learn from them. So focus on the “yeses” because what you focus on is what you attract more of.

CONFIDENCE

You have to ask the right way a lot. This is by far the most important part of the process.  Imagine your confidence level is like a bank account. The more confidence that you have in your account, the better you are at asking and getting the result that you want. So your only job is to make sure that your confidence account is full at all times.

Eery time you get rejected, it takes a hit on your account. Every time you get the “yes,” you make a deposit in that account. The key here is to mitigate that withdrawal by doing the first two things that we talked about. By having the consistency and by having the conviction. If you can implement those two things, then that withdrawal is going to be a little bit less every single time.

You are not who you are. You are who you believe yourself to be. Every time that you go back on your own word to yourself, you subtract your belief in you. Every time you keep a promise that you’ve made to yourself, you add to that belief.

If you say that you’re going to get up early, do it. If you say you’re going to fast for three days, do it. If you say you’re going to read a book a week, do it. There’s no faster or more efficient way to gain self-confidence than to do that.

If you can keep these three simple principles in mind, you can learn to become more comfortable with rejection and find the courage to ask for a “yes” more often.