Your work life becomes 100X better when you learn the ability to listen to a no.
Listen to a no from a recruiter.
Or from a prospective client.
Or from your boss.
Or from a colleague.
And when you have the resources and are looking to hire someone, have the ability to listen to no from a prospective hire.
It is honestly heartbreaking to see so many people think “they are bad” because someone said a no to them.
I would ideally be the happiest if someone said a no to me instead of saying a yes and making my professional life devoid of the joy I feel in it.
Rani Mukherji once said in an interview about her husband Aditya Chopra (the film producer), “He is very chilled when an actor says a no to working in a movie. If the actor is not dying to work in a movie, they certainly shouldn’t be inn it.”
Same is the case with all our no’s.
If the person we want to work with is not dying to work with us, we should rather go and invest our energy to work with someone who will.
Your time is finite.
Don’t spend it converting the yes’s into no’s and proving it to someone else on “how they should not have said a no to you.”
For every no, there is an opportunity of 10 more yes’es.
Go find your yes.