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Jan. 30, 2022

No's Are a Yes In Disguise | w/ Andrea Waltz author of "Go For No."

No's Are a Yes In Disguise | w/ Andrea Waltz author of

NO is the most powerful two-letter word in the world. Chances are, when you hear the word NO; you associate it with rejection, failure, loser, defeat, stupid, and not good enough. So it's no wonder you avoid hearing the word at all costs.

But going for YES is riskier than hearing the word NO because it causes you to become judgmental, selective, and only go for sure thing, and you rob yourself of rich opportunities.

What if you go for NO instead, writes my guest, Andrea Waltz, co-author of the book Go For No. She and her husband believe in the mission so much that they've devoted their lives to helping others transform their relationship with the word NO.

Today, you'll discover why YES may be the destination, but NO is how you get there.

Stick around to the end because I have two bonus questions and a challenge for you.

HUGE thanks to Andrea Waltz for making time to come on. Grab your life-saving copy of the book Go For No and connect with her on Twitter and LinkedIn @goforno. 

Keep it simple. Keep it moving. Never settle. Stay tough. 

Transcript

no is the most powerful two letter word in the world chances are when I use the word. No & powerful together. Your mind immediately steers toward the negative. Doesn't it. Other words get associated to the word. No rejection defeat failure, loser. Stupid, not good enough. So it's no wonder that we steer clear. And avoid the no at all cost, but only going for yes is actually risky because you begin to judge what you have or don't have. You become selective and you Rob yourself of so many valuable opportunities because you were looking for a sure thing. Why not go for no says my guest. Author, Andrea waltz, she and her husband believe in it so much that they wrote a book on it. Go for no, and they've made it their life's mission to help others change their relationship with that tiny two letter word you're listening to the sales life, a top 5% podcast in the world. I'm your host marsh, Buice today. You'll hear why. Yes is the destination. And is how you get there. Stick around to the end, because I have two questions and a challenge for you. Enjoy today's episode my guest today is Andrea waltz, co author of the book go for no, yes. Is the destination and know is how you get there. Andrea, thank you so much for coming onto the sales life. I am so glad to be with you, Marsh. Thanks for. You, you pin to your Twitter profile that. We just crossed 3000 reviews and it only took us 14 years to get there. And you know, when I look at the reviews and most of them like Andrea 93% of them are four and five star reviews, you know? And, and when you look at the comments, it's, you know, this book changed my life. I wish I would've read it sooner. This book will change your life. Um, it changes your relationship with no. Why is a little 80 page book, so impactful for so many people. Do you think? Um, I love that question. Thank you. Um, I think it's just because it's a fable and I think that's a big part of it. Um, Because people connect emotionally to the character. We kind of made the character a, not a superstar salesperson, but he's also not horrible. He's not like he's just average. And I know nobody wants to think of themselves as average, but we wanted him to be relatable. And so I think people can kind of put themselves in his place and say, this is kinda how I am, you know, I want to do well, but I struggle with like kind of the day to day. And so I think that's a big part of it. I think the other part of it is just the topic rejection and failure and the fear of rejection and the fear of failure is universal. We're all biologically wired to have those fears and then we all deal with them in sales. We deal with them in life. So I think when you kind of combine those two, it's had impact and I'm so, so glad that it has because, um, I'm so passionate about this topic. Now it become weirdly enough. My life's mission. My life's work. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you definitely embody the gopher, no methodology that you and Richard Fenton, um, have written about, you know, for everybody that everybody sees. Where your life is right now. Um, but there was the then, so before we get into the overview of the book, walk me through the early beginnings, Andrea, of, from the concept of the book to launching it, to taking that. And, and then the early beginnings from there. So I got a bachelor of science degree in criminal justice, and I wanted to be a crime scene investigator. I wanted to be one of those CSI people on the TV show before it was even popular before it was a thing before it was a TV show and they were like, The it's very, it's a very coveted spot. The Sheriff's department was telling me, maybe you can be an intern and work for free for a couple of years in the meantime, which I was really not interested in doing at that. At that point as a starving, I was tired or tired of being a starving college student. So at the time I was also working for LensCrafters and I had worked my way up and they were ready to promote me full time into management. I did that and I was really successful at it and I absolutely loved it. And that's where I met Richard Fenton. He basically taught me go for no taught me this idea. And I actually didn't think that I had a big challenge around rejection, but I had to get honest and realize that actually I did. But in the meantime of, of that, uh, while we were both working at the company, we realized that we had the same sales philosophies, customer service type philosophies management philosophies. So Richard comes to me one day and says, I think we should write a book. It wasn't go for no, it was a different book. It was called unlocking the secrets of retail magic. He said we could write this book and then eventually we could use this book to kind of catapult us out of these jobs and into our own business. Eventually we'll have to quit our jobs. And I was thinking like, all right, well, that sounds a little crazy, but I I'm game. And eventually we did, we quit. We had a little safety net, but not much. And I had no idea what I was doing. I went from B-to-C sales to B2B, where I was, you know, cold calling VP of training and VP of HR, mostly in the retail industry. And we were selling, uh, our workshop, our training workshops, basically sales training. And that included go for no. And somehow a couple good things happened. Um, we went for no a lot and we got a couple yeses right. When we needed them. And then Richard finally said, you know, I think we should, we started seeing like we would do a workshop and we would see the, the thing that people really walked away with was go for now. That's what would be on their minds. That was the thing. And he said, I think we should write. The a book called, you know, a book. He didn't call it gopher. No, he said a book about gopher. No, and we should make it a fable. And I was like, I don't know. I think we should just write like a straight up, you know, let's not make it a fable, just instructional kind of how to do this. Um, but my husband is a creative genius and he was like, no, no, let's, let's write a fable. So I eventually agreed and we wrote, go for no. And that was in 2000. We ordered. Like 5,000 copies, got them all shipped. And the very first thing that we knew, one of the things that we knew we had to do was to get the book in the hands of decision makers of influencers. So we bought a mailing list. We spent a ton of money. We sent out 500 copies to VP of sales all over the country. And it was like crickets, nothing happened. So we started to convince ourselves that the post office maybe just didn't want to ship all these books. So they just threw them in the trash. Like maybe that's what happened. And, and unfortunately we did get an order. Um, we got an order for 50 copies. We'd put an order form in these books because our vision was, every sales person needs to read this. And so these VPs are going to get this book. They're going to read it and they're going to buy. Hundreds, if not thousands of copies. So we got one order and we said, okay, do you remember who your first order was? I did it. I do. It was, um, Diatech funding. It was a, uh, Financial, um, what did they do? Like home mortgages and and things like that. So it was for 50 copies. So we were like excited that we got this order. But on the other hand, we realized that 499 other people said no. So we said, okay, this is going to be a lot harder than, than we thought. We proceeded to basically hit our heads against the wall for the next few years, just giving away copies and promoting the book. And it got a little, we'd get a little traction here and there, and then we'd have, we just got so many nos along the way. And then finally, um, a few years in, we were at a conference and we would always bring books with us and give them to people. And we gave a copy to this guy who was sitting in front of us because I had overheard he was in sales and he called us a couple days later and he said, are you guys open-minded? Um, Which of course we like to think we're open-minded right. We all like to think that, so we said, well, of course we're open-minded he said, okay, well, I want to give you some feedback about your book. First of all, you said it's one of the best, greatest sales books I've ever read. And I've read all of them. He's like one of the greatest sales books ever written, but you have one of the worst covers in the history of publishing. And we said, oh, okay. And he said, if you're willing to change the cover, he said, I want to buy 5,000 copies. So we said, yeah, so we said, absolutely we'll change the cover. So the cover that is on the book right now is directly because of this guy, Tom Shaw, calling us and saying, you guys need to change the cover. It needs to be professional. And that was one of the big mistakes we made is we were always, um, The technology wasn't like today, right? I mean, you can't, you couldn't jump on Canva and make graphic style memes and, and artwork that anybody can do now with graphics. So we kind of bootstrapped it and we made our own cover on word. Richard actually did it cause he also likes to think he's a, he, he. Just such an artist. Um, but not with book covers. So, so it was really bad in the cover. It was just like this red and black muddy, uh, cover that just said go for no, that's basically all it said. So, so did it have byline then or did the byline come later? Cause the byline is just incorrect. Oh, the, the, you mean the subtitle of yes. It's the D it did say yes, it's a destination. No. Is how you get there. Yeah, but I think people were literally judging the book by its cover, which is fair. That's what people do. And I think that was one of the reasons why we were so challenged. In fact, Tom even said, he's like, I almost didn't even. Look at your book. In fact, he says he threw it away and then later went and picked it up out of the trash. Cause he felt kind of bad and started flipping through it and then read it, standing at the trash can and realized, you know, okay, this is a good book, but these guys need help. And that really, that helped our confidence. So sometimes having a champion and being open-minded to that critical feedback, even though it was painful to hear, we said, he's probably right. I mean, he must be right, because we're just getting nothing but nos for the most part. So we changed it and. Went a long way to our confidence, to just keep pushing and keep pushing. And then finally in 2010. So this is 10 years into this process. We hit number one on Amazon's sales and selling list 10 years, but, and the whole time we're. Working on it and working on it and developing more content around it. And speaking, we're speaking this whole time and teaching go for no, but we knew that the book was, uh, gonna be a great door opener. Um, and so ever since then, we have just continued to kind of do more of the same to just, I mean, there's so many people that still need to hear this message. And I know a lot of, a lot of speakers. In our position, you know, they come out with a new concept or new idea every couple of years, nothing wrong with that. I think that's, you know, they're prerogative and sometimes people get tired of talking about the same thing. I don't, I can say the same thing over and over and over again. Yeah. Well I think no matter what, um, you, you have a timeless book, um, and it's so simple in. And it's nature. It's just one of those V8 moment kind of books where you just kind of look at and you like, damn. Yes. And, and you read something like that, but even, you know, it's, it's been out what, 20 plus years. And it just, it seems to just move along with whatever's going on in, in life, because that's one thing that will never change is. No, but one thing that has the opportunity to change is your relationship, um, with it. So what I find intriguing Andrea is, you guys didn't start off in your leap with go for no, it was, it was the other book and you picked up go for no, along the way. Is that, is that right? Yeah. So when we started. We had the go for no message. And fact, we incorporated that into our book for retailers and it was definitely one of the things that we were out there teaching. Um, but then what we saw was that go for no was the thing. And eventually we also just didn't want to stay in that little niche of specialty. And we wanted to, we were seeing that the people buying go for no or. People and insurance and people, financial planners and car sales and direct sales. So it was, we were seeing like, we've got all of these people who need this message. Maybe let's write, go for no, and then we can start to pivot our speaking business and our training business and start working with, uh, with different companies. So that was kind of our thought and that took a lot longer than we had hoped, but at things always take longer than you think. And of course back then there was really no social media. So it came back to how do we now get the word out that we're that? Um, because we were really known in the retail industry. Uh, anybody that you like, if you walk through a shopping mall that was kind of our prospect. So it was, how do we get the state farms of the world to know us and those types of companies? So it became the same thing. It was going back and cold calling and sending packages, sending press kits and things like that. Become speakers for their sales conferences. So that's what, that's what we did there as well. Yeah. Well, one thing to keep in mind, too, you know, as they listen to your story is, you know, the, what it took for you guys to, because, you know, 20 years ago the technology, wasn't what it is. The self publishing industry. Wasn't what it is. Um, you know, the social media. Definitely wasn't even there. So, I mean, you guys, you guys were like back of the trunk, you know, door knock. And I would imagine just literally going for no physically all the time. Right. Totally. I mean that in those days, and I actually kind of feel that I was lucky because, um, I think today there are so much, and the number one thing that I hear from people kind of starting in our business of maybe whether it's coaching or training or speaking, writing books, there's so many options to people to get their message out. I mean, whether it's Tik TOK or, you know, Facebook, or do a course or do this, we basically, it was like go to places. Your prospect hangs out. So conferences, things of that nature, or track them down, find them and pick up the phone and call them. Um, that was basically it or, and, and try to get their mailing address and send them a copy of the book, send them something, but there weren't a lot of options and there was no social media. So in terms of. No, I'm so confused. There's 27 things I can do there really wasn't. There was like six things that you could do. And three of them actually worked. And that was just figuring out who's your ideal prospect and tracking them down and interrupting them basically and saying, Hey, I have something that you might want to look at. Yeah. You write, uh, Andrea in the book. One of my favorite quotes, if you're, if you're not succeeding fast enough, um, then you're probably not failing fast enough either, and you can't have one without the other. So if you're going to avoid one, you're going to avoid both. So how can failing faster increase someone's odds of success? And I wish I could take credit for that quote. I wish I could. So that quote, we interviewed, uh, a guy named George Campbell who was, uh, his profile. Great professional speaker comedian. Uh, And he, his persona on stage was Joe malarkey and he would basically get up and kind of make fun of the, he, he would espouse the virtues of failure basically, um, and make fun of some of the success focused stuff that's out there. And he gave us that great quote. When it comes down to and why we merge the idea of hearing no more often with failure is that no is of course seen as a failure. And so many people have like an issue with failure. I actually had somebody messaged me on LinkedIn a while ago and it has stuck with me. He said, you know, I really think, and I don't think he knew kind of the brand that. Built he's like, I really think that you guys might want to consider you talk a lot about failure. It's really more like, um, a setback or an obstacle. It's not really, you know, failure's such a negative word and. Uh, we actually use failure and we say in the book, we want to use the word so that the word doesn't have power over us. People literally don't like to hear it. You know, let's not use the word failure because it's so terrible. It's got this bad rap, but when you allow yourself to fail and you allow yourself to not be perfect, I call it giving yourself permission to fail. Like we did when we were. That is where the success is hiding. Like, how are you going to know if you can make a successful podcast, if you don't start podcasting and then on your first podcast, have no one listen and have that failure. And then on your second podcast basically failed because you get one person listing, but of course the more you do it, then it's five listeners and 10 listeners. And before you know, it it's like, well, how did you create the successful podcast? Well, it wasn't, it was. It was, it started as a failure. It was, nobody was listening. Right. And that's just how it works. And I think it works in everything. And one of the things is that's important. For me to always get across to people is it's not just about, I think people get uncomfortable cause they think it's just, you just want me to fail like forever. No. And that's why you called out. So I think perfectly the subtitle of yes, as the destination. No is how you get there. Yes. We want yeses. We want success, but. Is in this constant desire to protect ourselves, to avoid the discomfort, to avoid the failure and to care so deeply about what is everybody going to think? What's my family going to think, how is this going to look to people? If I do this or that in that desire, then we're protecting ourselves and we don't give ourselves the opportunity to have that success. Yeah. Do you, do you think, um, do you think it's, it's more so ego-driven when, when people, what their relationship with the word failure, um, do you think that that's something that weighs more heavily than, than anything else is the perception of how they look to other people? I think that's a lot of it because I wrote, I wrote a post about this not too long ago. And, and I basically opened with the idea of, uh, I thought about the movie. Um, of course now I'm going to forget what it's called, uh, with will Smith. It's the. End of days and no, it's, it's the end of days, zombie movie where he's alone. And I think like, I am legend. Love that movie. Yeah. Great movie. He's alone. And he's like the scientist and he's trying to get a cure for trying to come up with this cure for, for what's happened to everybody. Everybody's turned into zombies, right? So my premise was what would it be like if you were him and you were all alone, would you care? What kind of car you drove? Would it, would you care how you looked? Would you, you would really be focused entirely on survival. So to the, to the stamp for the standpoint, Well, Smith looks absolutely fantastic in this, in this movie. Right. He's completely he's he looks great, but he hates us all get on the treadmill. Right, exactly. Um, like he says, he he'll never be beat on that. Uh, you can't beat his birthday work ethic, which I absolutely love. He's so inspiring, but you see him and you go like, okay, well, the reason. Is that way is because he asked to survive. So of course he's, he's doing what he can to survive, but if you're all alone, think about it. Would you care how many mistakes you made, would you, would you care if you looked like an idiot and. I've I've asked people, um, you know, what's your biggest fear and I've pulled people, people who've been in our courses and people who follow us. And the number one thing is not making a fool of myself. That's my, like, that's my biggest issue in front of somebody else. And, and certainly somebody else of greater stature. I think there's like a lot of it is that perception that someone else is more successful than you or. You know, whatever, whether it's money or whether they have a big following or whether they're, you know, quote unquote like a big successful celebrity or famous person. So. I think you're right. I think that's a big, big part of it. And as a society, we are taught to be ashamed of our failures that you come even social media. It's, it's all about here's. Here's how much I bench pressed. Here's how much money I made. Here's this here's that it's not about. We don't go out of our way to show all of the mistakes and all of the failures that's but that is where behind the scenes where we learn, we just don't promote that. In doing so you can't help get the underlying message. I shouldn't fail. I love that. You know, and, and as you're saying that, and I love the analogy with, um, I am legend because, um, you know, going back as you're sitting there saying that when, um, when I got the. I was third in command. Um, and it was the best thing. I was just talking about this yesterday with one of my salespeople. Um, and I said the demotion was the best thing that ever happened for my life. Um, because at that point I was the epitome of failure. Um, and I was at the bottom wrong and it was at that point, Andrea though, I didn't, I didn't care. I didn't care what anybody thought anymore. The initial, yes, it was at a bruise to my ego. Absolutely. But, you know, when they were, when I got demoted and the guy who took my place, he said, look, we're going to, and it's still at the dealership that I work at now. Um, and I've worked my way back up through the ranks. But you, when I first got demoted, they told me, they said, you know, one of the senior managers who took my spot, he said, Marsh look, we'll, we'll just tell people that we've decided to, um, you know, make a shift at the dealership. I've said, no, Um, I'm gonna tell people that I got demoted and what it was Andrew, when I did that. Stripped away any pretenses are. I didn't have to keep living a lie. And so when old customers would come back, because I've been at this dealership for 24 years, when, when customers would say, what are you doing back here? I'd tell them I got demoted, but it was at that point. Where it speaks to what you're saying when you don't care, what anybody else says. It was extremely liberating for me. And that's the traction that I was able to get. So I think in so many ways, you know, we've all had certain points of failure in our lives, but don't shield yourself from it. Um, it's something that actually could be a favor to you. You know, many, many. Years down the road. Absolutely. I think there's something that Bob Burg shares often he's the author of the Go-Giver series. And he says a lot of times we think that we're the only one failing that we're the only one out there hearing. No, and I hear no all the time. I have companies I've wanted to work for wanting to speak for, I get no. Um, and. Sometimes I think like, okay, they just, they don't understand the offer. So I go back again and I go back again and they're like, they literally will say, no, we know about you. We'll call you. When we're ready or if, if, if we're ever, if we ever have a need. So it's that personal rejection that, oh, it's not that they don't understand. They very clearly understand what I do. What I, you know, what the message is. They just don't want it. Um, I think they're wrong, but it's just a rejection. So, and I hear. No to this day. I think there's this perception that, oh, you get to a certain level and you don't get rejected. You don't hear no, you don't make mistakes. And, um, oh my gosh, we continue to make mistakes. We're we're publishers now too. And we've, we've published a lot of books ourselves. We published a few books for other people. I had one book last year that, um, oh my gosh, I made so many mistakes on, it was such a disaster. I eventually got it. Right. But, uh, yeah. Talk about failing. I mean, it was just ridiculous and I. It was co waking up everyday, constantly feeling like, what is wrong with you? Like, just get it together, you know? And sometimes you just have those moments where things are just not going your way and you're just failing and you just learn from it and pick yourself up every day and move on. But we all fail. And I love that story about your demotion because. People hear that for just a split second and they go and they kind of wrap their head about that. And then they go, okay, let's move on. So how can you help me? Like there? Yeah, just it's just over. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, you know, I'm just, I'm curious as when things didn't work for the book and the mistakes that you made, was it something that, was it an oversight on and not speaking specifically in the details, but was it, was it something that you had gotten complacent and, uh, had just kind of relied on your past victories? Or was it something that I just wasn't adequately prepared and I should have done this? Just curious. Yeah. More adequately prepared. And, um, I've definitely had times where I've gotten complacent. No doubt. Um, and I think for me, and also Paul out this, I think also when you get to a certain level of success, I also have had times where I feel a little bit entitled. Like I have worked really hard. I've been doing this for 15 years. Like this should be a little bit easier now. And that I think that when it's not easy, I go like, I shouldn't have to go through this now. No, no. Uh, yes, you have to go through it. That's just welcome to life. I just coach myself, stop feeling. Sorry for yourself. You're not a victim. Just move on. But from a mistake standpoint sometimes, um, I don't know, you know, sometimes I wonder like, is this, are you sabotaging? Are you sabotaging your success? Why, why are you making these like really rookie mistakes? So. Um, I don't know the answer behind that, but that's kind of what that situation was. Yeah. I wonder that sometimes too. I think I've definitely had some form of self-sabotage I've I've gotten to different levels of success and then just totally just scorched it. Um, and it, and it was unpacking in my, in my rebirth that I was able to see that different points where I just felt like internally I wasn't deserving. And I think sometimes, you know, speaking of go for no, um, you know, I think that sometimes is part of that self-sabotage or eliminate some of the self-sabotage when you can actually. You know, put these methodologies in place. Um, and it'll help, you know, because everybody feels like, you know, sometimes we feel we're entitled, but probably more. So we feel like we're not deserving of success and the gopher, no concept. And the methodology is so simple, but when you put these little spots in place, you can actually amplify your success. Walk us through, um, because we haven't even gotten into the book really. Uh, so from a 20,000 over foot, uh, view of walk us through, um, the, the. Yeah, sure. So our main character, Eric, um, average sales person wakes up one morning, goes to bed, has a weird dream wakes up the next morning in a house that is this gorgeous house. He doesn't understand where he is. He's very confused. And we see him kind of go through the house and he's checking things out and he comes to discover that this house. Is that he's 10. He comes to discover he's 10 years in the future somehow. And that this house belongs to the tenure in the future. Him, he is in this house that he himself phones, but this is a wildly successful future version of him. And he sees that he's written some books and he is the head of this company. And he's done all these amazing things. And he actually starts, the majority of the book is where he meets his future self. And they interact. And the majority of the story is them trying to figure out how this wildly successful version of him came to be and how he is average. And what was that situation. And it turns out that this wildly successful future version of him paid attention to a little interaction that happened where he learned the secret of success, which is to go for no, to fail more often. And that the average. Didn't learn that lesson, but the successful version of him did learn that lesson. And, uh, we kinda end on a little bit of a supernatural. Is this real? Was this all a dream thing, but the journey really is it's, it's almost without us planning it kind of wizard of Oz dish, because at some point it's kind of like, how is he going to get back? How is he going to get home? And to his regular life. And when he gets back to his regular average life, what will he do with that? And we kind of leave the reader, um, on a little bit of a mystery in that respect, but the whole idea is that, and what we want people to walk away with is that failure is good. That if you want more success in life, just intentionally go out and start hearing no more often. And I liken it kind of to being, you know, stuck at a bus stop and sitting there and saying like, I don't want to, I don't know where this bus is going and I don't want to get on and I don't want to make any mistakes. You're better off just getting on the bus and taking it down a few stops because when you get out. Who knows where you'll be, but you'll be better off. At least you did something. And that's why I think failure is so powerful and it's. We don't want anyone to again, do something that hurts someone else. And certainly, you know, um, that's why airline pilots train, train, train. You don't want to fail at that. Um, but at some point an air, uh, person, a pilot has to get in a plane and fly for the first time and land. Um, there's some risk involved, so there's always going to be some personal risk involved. Yeah. You know, and, and then you have those, those, you know, and then you, you train for those kinds of things. And then you have people like Sali and, uh, you know, the engines go out and then, you know, what are you, you know, that's where the preparation comes in and that's where, you know, you, you do, yeah, it could have been catastrophic, but also you're going to find many times that you're going to have. These OSPF moments, these oh shit moments. And you just, you know, you hold onto the handles and you figure it out from there. But sometimes that's what, that's what wakes you up in life. Sometimes that's life kicking you out of the nest to get you out of your comfort zone. Um, and there's so many opportunities, rich opportunities, uh, on that curious, I, they, they say that, and I know many times when I'm writing my podcasts, they tend to start writing themselves. Um, What has writing go for no taught you after you wrote it. What has it taught you afterwards? So, um, in terms of the lessons in the book or, uh, which I can go so many directions with this, what are you thinking? Anything. You know, when you, okay, so you write the book, you publish it, but then as you speak to it, what are some things that, oh, oh, oh, oh, okay. I'm with you. I'm with you. I don't even know if I can really, cause I can feel it now. Now this is so good. I understand what you're saying. So much has come out of writing the book and, and so much. There's so much that I talk about today that isn't even in the book. In fact, um, when Richard and I on our onstage together, the majority, there's a story that we tell this in the book, it's kind of like the main signature story. Um, of this clothing salesman interaction, which is kind of the crux of the book, but the rest of it is stuff that isn't in the book. And then there's times where I do, um, I'll do a training for people half hour, hour. I don't talk about, I don't tell that story. I don't talk about the majority of things in that book. I might touch on a couple of things. Like we talk about no goals, setting no goals. So so much has come from writing that book that is deeper than when we wrote it. It was kind of like, here are the main lessons and then in studying it and writing deeper things and being asked questions over the years from people, whether it's on a podcast like this, or just people emailing us and asking questions or us just thinking through it and going, like, what else do people need to know? Like when we created our. Training program. We said, let's see, let's come up with 20 core, go for no concepts. What are those? What are the things that you need to do to go for no successfully? And, um, I even talk about like, things like, um, one of my favorites is gopher know, versus the law of attraction. How does that work? People freak out. They think I'm going to go for no and all I'm going to get his nose. How do I reconcile that in my mind of being negative? And having this, like, um, you know, Engaging my reticular activating system, which is we, what we focus on, we bring about. And so will I just bring about No's and, um, some of the most successful people who train on that, like Jack Canfield for example, speaks a lot to the law of attraction. And he also come is a complete advocate and believer of gopher. No, he was in our gopher, no movie. He talks about the book recommends it had at his seminars. He's re he reconciles the two because it's not about expecting and hoping and wishing and praying for no it's about accepting it as part of the process. Big difference. Right? Big difference of going in sabotaging and saying, oh, I, I, I hope this big deal that could change my life completely falls apart. No, we don't want you to think that we want you to go in with yes. Energy positive. Do the best you can prepare. This is not like, oh, just be sloppy and fail because failure is great. You know, you should go in and completely mess this thing up and. Yeah, sabotage it. No, of course not do your best, but accept that rejection is out there. It's part of the process and you can do the best presentation, like answer every question, look fantastic. And they can just look at you and go like no way, a hundred percent get the hell out. Right. You could also go in and not, and not be, do your best. And we've all had. I'm sure you have as a, such a sales pro where you've been talking to somebody and you're thinking in your head that there's no way if this person is going to say yes, you know, and all of a sudden they're like, yeah, done here. Here's my here's, here's my check. And then you got people on the other side who are like, you're thinking this is a done deal. And all of a sudden it completely falls apart. And so we never know what it's going to be. So point being, let me go back to the, where I started. This is great. This is great. So, so where I started was, yeah, we've learned so, so much has come from writing the book. We, we, we get so many different nuances and roads that I've been able to go down, which to me is really fun. Cause I think if I just had the book and it was just the concepts in there that would get boring, but it had. It has, and, and even technology, like, can you go for no on social media and what does that look like? And what does that feel like? So there's nuances, you know, it's fascinating what, you're, what you're saying, and I've never, and I've read, I've read your book. I don't know how many times, eight times probably. And I've never thought about the law of attraction with gopher? No, because from. Uh, logical standpoint, you go for no while you're setting yourself up for no, but it's actually, you're attracting a yes and, and, and so many opportunities, but it's, it's, it's being willing to, um, you, you, you don't expect a no. But you're willing to accept it. Would that be accurate? Yeah, that, that is accurate. Yeah. I mean, it's just like, if an actor goes into an audition, they can't have energy, which is like, I expect that you're going to turn me down. Right. They've got to perform at the highest level as possible. Um, it's the four agreements. The first one always do your best. Um, and the other one is, um, don't take things personally. I love the four agreements. It's like my go-to for anybody who struggles with those, those kinds of topics, Miguel Ruiz is that dominant galleries. So yeah, you go in and you do your best. Um, and then you accepted if they call you back and go, like, you were good, but you're still three inches too short. Right. You just go like, all right. That's great. So, um, before I get to there, cause I want you to walk through the five levels of failure. It has to be a little surreal. Does it not to see how you started? And then here you are. Talking with Jack Canfield. Is that, did you kind of like, oh my God, totally surreal. We were at his house and I told him, I said, I almost stole one of your hand towels in your bathroom just to prove I was here. He thought that was pretty funny. And I said, I just want you to know I didn't. Okay. Yeah. I, I would have to be like, in that atmosphere, like how in the hell did I get here? Like, whoa. And I'm sure there's been many instances like that in your. So, um, walk us through in the, in the few minutes that we have, um, walk us through there's there's five failure levels that, um, that people. I would urge you as, as Andrea rails these out to write these down, definitely get the book to dig into it more. But this is, this is so key. Can you walk us through the five levels? Sure. So level one is the ability to fail the ability. That's where we all start a hundred percent of us level twos, the willingness. So a lot of times we can move people into the willingness, just listening to a show like this, where they have. You know the messages and they're kind of like, all right, I'm willing to fail. Level three is wanting this. And this is the hard one because this is where only about 5% of the people get for a sustained period of time. And that is really wanting to fail. That's going to sleep at night going. I didn't hear no today. I didn't do anything that looks like failure. I just stuck with success and the safe path and didn't fail level four. It's a little bit different. It's where we fail bigger, faster here, here. No more often. Um, and level four is the fun one, because this is if you can control who you talk to. Um, it's going after those big scary. Knows. Right. And then level five is failing exponentially. And so that's really a function of team leadership where if you can get a team failing together, then you, you know, team, team failure equals team success. So you think of the people working. I imagine when I think of this NASA, you think of Tesla, you know, these people who are out there who are innovating constantly, and they're having all kinds of failures, failure, failure, failure. And then as a team, they have success together because they all failed together. Well, I think it speaks to the leadership to, you know, and that's the exponential component, um, that you speak to in your book where, you know, if the leader is being a sniper and trying to only go for the careful. Yes. Um, then. You don't like your team then, uh, then go look in the mirror. And I think the exponential of failure component to that is, is so key for leadership is, you know, you control that. And if you're, if your team is going to do what you do, and if you're in a closed office are you're, you're not, you're protecting yourself from the no. And just going for the easy yeses, then your team's going to be the same thing also. Oh, absolutely. And if you're protecting yourself and you're sitting in your office with the door closed on the busy days and on the, on the stressful days and on the painful days, and you're not out there with your team. Yeah. They'll have no respect for you. And. So that's a whole other podcast conversation we could have, but from a gopher, no leader standpoint, you know, we always talk about, Hey, celebrate people's nose. They need to, they need to see that just because they didn't, you didn't get the result of the yes. Doesn't mean that it was a waste that what did they learn? What can they get better at? Um, what has surprised you most, um, after writing the book, whether it be a. Uh, and industry segment are a walk of life. What, what has, what has been something that was super surprising for you that be like, I, I didn't realize my book would land in this kind of people's hands. Um, it's kind of landed everywhere. We thought it would. Um, on the other hand, You know, I'll tell you, I know what it is. It's how much and it's been. So these are the stories that I just, just it's so crazy. I'll hear from somebody who, like I heard from somebody in India who read the book to their mother, who was like, Indian woman. I can picture her sitting there probably in her seventies or eighties and read the book and she just loved it. So here's this non-sales person probably who's raised a family and I don't know what they do for a living, but they're, they fit the message. And the story resonates with. So that has been surprising. Also people who have, um, uh, my friend, Jackie, Jackie Omer, she's played the book on CD. Um, she used to play it in her car and her daughter has heard that go for no, like her whole life, like listening in the car over the years. And that's pretty cool. I get a lot of times people will say they've had their kids listened to it, which I never expected. Yeah. And, uh, so that's been fun, but the, the people I hear from around the world and different places and Africa in different countries and India who say like this book is amazing and I go, wow. It translates and they totally get it. And they have the same struggle. Yeah, it's a, it's a universal struggle. Um, and your book has, um, a universal element to it that can help people become their best possible selves. And, and it's so, um, so. Super easy to follow. It's not, it's not, uh, it's not about number one. It's a book that you can read on the weekend. Number two, it's something that you can instantly apply. So, uh, take us home with, uh, Andrea is some, some actions that people can talk can take away, whether you're in the sales profession or you're in the life skills of selling. Um, what are some, what are some actions that we can put into place now and apply it to our everyday? Yeah, I would say first, just create a no awareness. Just look around and ask yourself, like, do I, and I, I had to do this when I first learned it. Like I mentioned to you about getting honest with myself about do I go for no, do I hear, do I ever hear no. Do I, or do I avoid it? And then so create that new awareness and then start practicing it just in those moments. Your friends and family are the safe knows. Right? You asks, you know, your friend, Hey, do you want to go grab Chinese food? And they say, no, that's a safe. No. So start practicing the safe things and maybe start practicing and weird situations asking for things. Um, the. Practice of gopher. No, really comes down to just asking, just having that courage to ask in that moment and that courage kind of fall on your face and look foolish. I never forget. I was, I hadn't heard a no in a long time. I was at Walmart, so we're randomly. And so I asked the girl at the, um, the young lady at the checkout I'm like, so are there any other coupons or discounts? And she looked at me. She was so, and she came to this look. She was so annoyed. You're at Walmart and I went okay. Fair. Just ring me up. I'm sorry. I just, I thought I'm just going to go for no, maybe she'll say yeah, we've got this $5 coupon or she'll just tell me no, she told me no, she was pretty, she was pretty annoyed. So just practice, just have fun with it. I'd rather hear a no than assume window. Um, so many times we, we just, we judge it and we're like, ah, they're not going to say anything. So hell just, you know, it's, it's the, it's the, if you ask and it's a no, at least I know that it's a no, versus just assuming, um, because I, I won't even have that opportunity that it could be a yes. If it's never even put out there, I tell my daughter all the time, what do you get? If you don't ask. Ask. And even if it's a no it's the same result, keep it moving. Um, so this is, this is, uh, this has been a tremendous honor and a delightful conversation. So, uh, tell the listeners, um, how they can connect to you on, so how do you stay? So. How do you, how do you say so consistent on social media? I got to ask you that before we, we take it home and you got 60,000 tweets, like how do you, I've been on a long time? Um, and I, you know, I find that I find the little open spaces for that. So if I'm sitting in the car for five minutes, I'd jump on Twitter, tweet something. Um, yeah, I just, I just kind of work it into. To my schedule and I don't, there's other things that I say no to that I don't do, but, um, yeah. I'm so I'm go for no on Twitter. Go for no Facebook go for no and Instagram. Um, and to me, there's, I mean, if I can, uh, be out there and social media has been a great way to just be there when somebody has read the book and says like, Say something to her. I want to be there for that. You know, I want to hear that. And, um, my goal is this message. Does this message, I, I need advocates. That's what I need. I need people to be out there who are like, you need to read this book, you need this message people like you. So thank you for what you have done sharing it. Um, and so I want to be there when they want to talk to. Basically. Yeah, that's great. And you are there. You're so receptive. Um, and you're, you're definitely, um, creating a, a huge influence on not only myself. Um, you have, you have gotten me, uh, through some many tough times where I just, I just was on, on uh, oh and 11 street. And I've been able to Andrea to, to go back to you and Richard's book and reference back to that. And it's, it's, it's instantly recalibrated me and got me back in the game where I could have just settled shrugged my shoulders and just given up. So for that, I'm grateful to, uh, to both of you guys for, for doing this and writing this. Well, that's very kind and I appreciate that, but also I, I, you do the work, you do the hard work, so, well, thank you so much for coming on to the sales life and hope we can continue this conversation in the future. Absolutely. Thank you. Well, what did you think as promised. I have two questions for you & a challenge. The first question is how has going for yes. Stunted your growth and the second question, what will be your first go for no moment. The minute you turn off this podcast and my challenge to you. I want you to keep a no count this week, every day, tally up. How many nos you got and not the automatic knee-jerk No's the No's that you ended up having to earn when your mind was trying to pull you back and you went forward anyway, so much value in no three. Come to mind. Going for no gives you experience courage and rich opportunities I'm pulling for you. Let me know how your progress is going. Go to marsh, bice.com. That's M a R S H B U I C E. It's spelled like juice. Whether it be in. They're in the bottom, right? Is a mic a link from you to me, let me know how your progress is going and what I can do to help I'm no hair, but I'm all ears while you're there. marshbuice.com there's over a thousand free resources, videos, blogs, and of course, podcast episodes. All right there for the learning Remember the greatest sale that you will ever make is to sell you on you because you're more than enough. Never settle, keep selling your way through life. No matter what. Stay in the sales life.