Another day, another "NO"

And so ends another week where the proverbial "Green Light" we've been eagerly awaiting for comes back rejected. In fact we manage to successfully receive two NO's back-to-back (literally in the space of an hour) to kick-start the second half of the year... Just bloody brilliant!

Months of meetings, planning, editing budgets and revising proposals now all seems like a big waste of time as the reply email from client reads "Thanks, we love the concept, but unfortunately... blah blah blah” you know how the rest goes. “Covid-19, budget constraints, bad timing, new management, etc.”

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHH! The frustration, the rejection, the self-questioning, followed quickly by complete belief-destruction. That moment of joy we've been when that celebratory bottle of champagne that's been in the fridge for months now waiting to be "Popped" eludes us yet again. At least we got an answer I suppose, for some bizarre reason it seems to be massively fashionable at the moment for large companies to "Ghost" smaller service providers (especially in South Africa). Ghosting is when you get no answer at all despite your hard work, time and considerable amounts of effort and input. As we all know, there is NOTHING worse than getting the silent treatment yet is seems to be the norm - Perhaps a post/article/discussion for another time... Anyway, onwards we go with this one.

Your mind starts to wonder and spirals down a dark and depressing path of "This is the way it'll always be", "You’re not good enough", "Maybe you should be doing something different with your life". You question everything; your skills, your offering, and everything about yourself as a entrepreneur/salesperson/job hunter/bursary seeker/ ultimately, and possibly a family-provider.

You start to experience four of the five stages of "Grief" in a matter of minutes: 1. Denial... 2. Anger... 3. Bargaining... 4. Depression… But wait, where’s number 5? Where’s the end of the "Grief"?!

The closure hasn’t arrived yet and won't until you face the first four. So after you've experienced the the Denial of pure disbelief of receiving the "no", the Anger kicks-in and you blow-off some steam by stupidly shouting at the neighbour’s dog for making a noise, you smack you keyboard because the computer is too slow, and shout at the top of our lungs into a poor innocent pillow, you aggressively change the music because it's creating a "bad vibe" and destroying your Mojo. The Bargaining options reveals itself as you think about writing and email back or calling to ask what you can do to make this work... PLEASE?

Then we say "Hello" to the Depression, and unfortunately, this one lingers for a little longer than the other three. You have a little cry, you walk circles and then find yourself staring at the fridge wondering if you should make a smoothie or pour yourself a Vodka-tonic, you look on social media narcissistically hoping to find some other poor bugger that is experiencing a crappy situation too, if anything, to make you feel better by comparison.

Now this is where it starts to become interesting... It’s on this cusp of Depression and Self-destruction that there's a mental shift towards the positive and this is why: You begin to understand that there are two motivational forces on this planet: Pleasure and Pain. The latter being the more motivational of the two. Humans (and animals) will do a-lot to accumulate pleasure, but will do ANYTHING to avoid pain.

Annnnnnnd BOOM! Stage Five arrives; Acceptance! There’s a shift, and it’s at this point here that the magic starts to happen.

You remember that you are quite possibly the luckiest person on earth because you are who you are today because of all the shit you've already been through in the past. You start to Accept that his is nothing in the grand scheme of things. You turn and look at your life with gratitude and satisfaction and understand that you are your biggest critic and your own worst enemy - As they say, "In the end, it will always come down to YOU vs. YOU". So you ride-out this Acceptance with a small smile beginning to build in the corner of your mouth, you dry our eyes, close the fridge door, and a beautiful sense of clarity sweeps over you. You apologise to the neighbours (and their poor dog), you pick-up the pieces of your broken keyboard, you toss the tear-filled pillow in the wash, and crank-up the music letting the happy chemicals of Dopamine and Serotonin flood your body and mind. You get our head back in-the-game by making the important decision that "this too shall pass " and this is nothing but another chapter of struggle in your story to success. You remind yourself that "Pain is learning" and we need to *eat elephants while **hunting whales en route to becoming a ***Unicorn. (*How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. **Whales: Big clients/deals. ***Unicorn: Private company with a valuation over $1 billion)

So Screw the negative thoughts, screw the self-pity periods of weakness, and screw the nay/no sayers too! It’s because of them that you WILL succeed and I'll tell you something, that success will taste soooo much sweeter after the battle. The best feeling on earth is doing something that others say you can't. (Intro your favourite soundtrack here).

This my friends, as we know, is Life... It's not easy!

Some of the best philosophers suggest that Life is Suffering, and facing it head-on is what makes it so worth-while... Overcoming difficulty is the journey. The skills needed for these periods of time (because there will be more) are Grit (Passion plus Perseverance), Confidence, having a Growth Mind-set and Self-belief, knowing how to Deal with Failure, and having a little Pride too. It’s a Mind-set, an Approach, an Attitude, and ultimately a Decision.

So, to you I say, build those skills, gain that Grit, and get that Flywheel turning so that no force on earth is able to stop it! Value yourself and your offering to the world, and NO MATTER WHAT, keep kicking-down those doors because the sweet taste of success is just behind one of them. Go get ‘em tiger!

Dene

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