Why are successful men able to do things they don't like to do while failures are not? Because successful men have a purpose strong enough to make them form the habit of doing things they don't like to do in order to accomplish the purpose they want to accomplish.
Sometimes even our best producers get into a slump. When a man goes into a slump, it simply means that he has reached a point at which, for the time being, the things he doesn't like to do have become more important than his reasons for doing them. And may I pause to suggest to you managers and general agents that when one of your good producers goes into a slump, the less you talk about his production and the more you talk about his purpose, the sooner you will pull him out of his slump?
- Albert E. M. Gray
Perhaps the single biggest mistake we make when we say No is to start from No. We derive our No from what we are against - the other's demand or behavior. A Positive No calls on us to do the exact opposite and base our No on what we are for. Instead of starting from No, start from Yes. Root your No in a deeper Yes - a Yes to your core interests and to what truly matters.
Nowhere did I learn this more clearly than from a relative of mine who suffered from a serious addiction to alcohol that nearly cost him and others their lives in a car accident. He tried many times to give up the habit but always failed. Then at the age of sixty, just when all hope seemed lost, he found in himself the will to say No and stop drinking. The secret? "When my first grandchild was born," he says, "I wanted more than anything to live long enough to see him grow up. It was his birth that motivated me to get treatment and stop drinking. Since then, for over fifteen years now, I have not touched a drop." His Yes to being present for his grandchildren - to be able to play with them and see them grow - motivated his powerful No to alcohol.
His story serves to illustrate an everyday paradoxical truth: the power of your No comes directly from the power of your Yes.
Your Yes is the underlying purpose for which you are saying No. The first step in the method is to uncover the Yes that lies behind your No. The deeper you go into your core motivation, the more powerful your Yes will be and thus the more powerful your No.
From Reactive to Proactive
The biggest obstacle to saying No successfully is not the other, however difficult they might be. It is ourselves. It is our all-too-human tendency to react - to act with intense emotion but without clear purpose. We humans are reaction machines. And our Nos tend to be reactive. We accommodate out of fear and guilt. We attack out of anger. We avoid out of fear. To get ourselves out of this three-A trap, we need to become proactive, forward-looking, and purposeful.
This challenge is vividly captured in an old Japanese story about a samurai and a fisherman. One day, the samurai went to collect a debt from the fisherman. "I'm sorry," the fisherman said, "but this last year has been a very bad one for me, and I regret to say I do not have the money to repay you." Quick to anger, the samurai drew his sword and prepared to kill the fisherman on the spot. Thinking fast, the fisherman boldly said, "I have been studying martial arts and my master teaches that you should never strike out of anger."
The samurai looked at him for a minute, then slowly lowered his sword. "Your master is wise," he said quietly. "My master used to teach the same lesson. Sometimes my anger gets the better of me. I will give you one more year to repay your debt, but if you fail by even a penny, I will surely kill you."
The samurai returned to his house, arriving late at night. He crept in quietly, not wishing to wake his wife, but to his shock, he found two people in the bed, his wife and a stranger dressed in samurai clothing. With a surge of jealousy and anger, he raised his sword to slay them both, but suddenly the fisherman's words came back to him: "Do not strike out of anger." The samurai stopped for a moment, took a deep breath, and then deliberately made a loud noise. His wife instantly woke up, as did the "stranger," who turned out to be his mother.
"What is the meaning of this?" he yelled. "I almost killed you both!"
"We were afraid of robbers," his wife explained. "So I dressed your mother up in your samurai clothes to scare them off."
A year passed and the fisherman came to see the samurai. "I had an excellent year, so here is your money back and with interest," the fisherman said happily to him.
"Keep your money," replied the samurai. "You repaid your debt long ago."
When you want to say No, remember the samurai's lesson: do not react out of anger - or indeed out of any negative emotion such as fear or guilt. Take a deep breath and focus on your purpose - your Yes - in this situation. Ask yourself what you really want and what is really important here. In other words, shift from being reactive focused on No, to being proactive focused on Yes.
- William Ury, The Power of a Positive No
