A friend of mine who sells life insurance policies possesses a ‘never say die attitude’. There have been several occasions that he has visited me, called me over the phone, sent me messages and listened to the several “not now” answers that I have given him. It never mattered to him and his persistence paid off just last week when he grabbed a policy of high value from me. So, how did he deal with the ‘No’ that I had often told him?
His comments to this question were very cryptic but provided powerful insights.
These were:
‘No’ is said to the request or proposal made
‘No’ is never forever
‘No’ is not to the ‘person’ but to the ‘request/ proposal’ made
‘No’, if seen this way, shows the way forward
‘No’ should not stop and intimidate us
‘No’ never stopped the extraordinary
‘No’ never stopped Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King
‘No’ is eventually and finally followed by ‘Yes’
He finally concluded saying that the ‘meanings’ we assign to ‘No’ make all the difference and hence it was important to understand this critical distinction and march on unabashedly.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
17 comments:
It used to be key area to work with in my earlier assignments. For it was NO that we used to encounter always !!
Hats off to him for having persisted. And hats off to you for having seen the value, acknowledging his effort, and ofcourse, posting here !!!
:)
What a fantastic post and what an awesome attitude your friend has.
I wish more people would learn to never give up. Ever.
Steady On
Reggie Girl
His patience and attitude must have helped him to win you and congrats to him.
Thanks Kavi. I understand in Amway, it is the way of life.
Hi MMM&RS -thanks for the superlative coment.
Thanks Priya. Keep coming and egging me on.
wow...that's an awesome attitude and way of thinking.
good on him!
I wish I was more like that!!! For me NO means just that NO!!!!
Fantastic attitude, specially in his line of work where he must have had the door slam on his face a lot!!
Your blog has such a nice variety of experiences and thoughts recorded...hope to visit often!
Ooooooh!
No is not said to a person?
Oh..why didn't anyone tell this to me thirty years ago?
Vivek
What a wonderfully positive way of looking at the negative!
And really nice of you to acknowledge and appreciate his optimism and persistance.
Like your blog and your way of sharing your experiences....Blogrolling you.
Thanks Sriram for posting your valuable comments.
Thanks Ranu for coming over again.
Thanks Roshni for the appreciation and egging me to write more.
Your comments are just the icing on the cake, Patwardhan Saab.
SGD, you have visited my blog for the first time, and thanks a lot for your nice comments. Thanks for the encouragement.
wow! An entirely different perspective, and makes sense really!
Thanks for sharing:)
My father was a salesman, and I spent a lot of my childhood selling items from door to door.
He told me that for every 10 times I knocked on the door, to expect to hear "no" nine times.
I admire your friend's persistence.
Pearl
Very deep insight!
I would try to be like that!!!
Thanks :)
You need to have a lot of perseverance, commitment and maturity to accept NO without giving up and eventually convering to YES. Great salesmanship.
In Corporate parlance,Extraordinary Personal Effectiveness.
Thanks Naperville Mom for your acknowledgment.
Thanks Pearl. Your appreciation will go a long way in my self expression. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Amit. I never knew you read what I write.
Thanks Giri for coming over. Where were you?
Attitude is what makes you! Beautifully explained.
Rashmi
Thanks Sir for enquiring. My son was hospitalised for a week and did find little time for blogging. He has been discharged and is perfectly fine now. The first thing I did is to visit the blog of K. Parthasarathi, yours and Chinmayi
Post a Comment