How to Accept a No with Grace

Welcome to part three of the core Ask for What You Want tools! Last time around I shared my tools for asking for what you want , this time I’m covering my tools to accept the response with grace—and thus build stronger relationships. Here are the steps, to recap:?

1. Articulate what you want with curiosity
2. Ask for what you want with pride ?
3. Accept the response with grace (you are here!)
4. Try again using what you learned

It’s wild to me how much people hate a “no.” They hate saying it, they hate hearing it, they even hate thinking about it. And I don’t use the word hate lightly! Yet if you make a habit of asking for what you want daily as I have, you will find that the world mostly tells you no. Most infuriating of all, those no’s usually don’t sound like no’s. They sound like “maybe next quarter” or “I’ll try my best” or the ghostly silence of no response at all. It’s tempting to fool ourselves into calling these yeses, but beware: they can torment you for months or years with their endless ambiguity. I prefer a simpler, less stressful life where I embrace the no’s instead of avoiding them. So to me, anything short of a “hell yes!” is a no.

Why do we hate these poor no’s so much? Because they threaten our agency and our relationships. Historically, that’s how we kept ourselves safe in the world: through improving our circumstances and having a community we could rely on to help. In some sense agency and relationships are both the same thing: influence. We can’t achieve much without the help of others. So with every no we give or receive, there’s a natural fear of losing influence and thus losing safety.?

No wonder we tend to freak out when we face a no! In practice, those freakouts can show up as:

• Believing we deserve a yes and feeling furious we didn’t get it!
• Labeling others as crazy/toxic/irrational and concluding there’s nothing we can do.
• Worrying intensely about others’ judgment and thus withholding our true feelings.
• Feeling exhausted by the stress and giving up on our ask altogether.?

Yet for all that we react to them like tigers, no’s are more like ants: everywhere and mostly harmless. Sure, every once in a while a big one will bite you and it stings. But mostly we build them up to be far worse than they are—any given rejection is very unlikely to meaningfully hurt our influence.?

What really can hurt our influence is our response: do we freak out, or accept the no with grace? When we hear no and freak out, we show others that our capacity for dealing with stress and conflict is highly limited—not a great quality in a potential collaborator. We also rob ourselves of the opportunity to learn from their feedback, since in our whirlwind of emotions we’re usually not hearing their response clearly. If we don’t build a strong relationship with them, we’ll never get the chance to close the loop! Sure, regulating our emotions when we hear “no” can be challenging, but it’s a skill we can learn with practice—and for better or worse, life gives us plenty of that.

The opportunity when you do master accepting a no with grace is to cultivate genuine relationships that are far more open to mutual influence. In a genuine relationship, you share your genuine desires, seek to understand theirs, and treat both with genuine care and respect. This builds an incredibly strong platform for collaboration! Instead of fighting you can collaborate creatively, negotiating to find a win-for-all solution.? With so much of the risk of asking eliminated, you no longer need to carefully ration your asks for fear of asking too much:

• Since you can handle any response with grace, you can ask freely and openly, knowing your relationships are unlikely to suffer.?
• Since you won’t settle for anything short of a “hell yes,” you know there’s little risk of coercion or resentment.?
• Since you’re advocating for both your desires and theirs, the vibe is collaborative, not combative. It’s both of you vs. the problem, not them vs. you.

Together, these changes can transform an awkward moment into one full of connection and fun. Let’s dive into the tools that make it all possible.

Tools to Accept a No with Grace

Normalize hearing no

Often when I meet founders and executives for the first time, their fundamental question for me is not, “How can I take my company to the next level?” but something along the lines of, “Am I…normal? Because this feels really hard. Too hard.” Execs, they’re just like us! And I’ve seen it all, so usually I say, “Of course! I see it all the time. No doubt you’ve got a challenging gig, but there are ways to make it feel easier.” Moments later I can already see their faces relaxing with relief—before I’ve even shared any tools to help.

So what’s going on here? Imagine they’ve just asked a potential hire to join their team and got turned down. Primary emotions are how they react to what happened: perhaps disappointment and/or frustration that the hire didn’t work out. Secondary emotions are how they react to the stories they make up about it, which can vary wildly:?

• Shame: “Clearly I don’t know how to hire, what am I even doing?”
• Fear: “There’s no way I’ll hit my goals without them, I’m going to get fired for sure.”
• Anger: “I can’t believe they strung me along and wasted our time this way, so unprofessional!”

Primary emotions are a fact of life, ideally we just learn to process them and move on. But these secondary emotions are often far more intense and make it nearly impossible to accept a no with grace. The good news is they’re also far more malleable! The strong secondary emotions stem from believing these stories—and, crucially, that their narrative constitutes a threat to our safety. But how sure can we be of that? Often in the moment our stories feel 100% certain, but when we check the facts the risk of real danger is minor. Especially in a work setting, worst case scenarios are typically being fired and having to find a new job—stressful, sad, frustrating, but not usually dangerous.?

Take nearly any no, and when you check the facts you’ll find they’re not dangerous—they’re normal. Disappointing, but normal. So before you even make your ask, start by normalizing hearing no. Sure, you can also be hopeful for a “hell yes!.” But recognize that most of the time you’ll hear something short of that, and that is 100% business as usual. It doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences of course, disappointment most common among them, but those consequences are normal too. Trust that you can handle it, and so can others around you.

The opportunity when we normalize hearing no is to build a genuine relationship with the person we’re asking—so we’ll have the opportunity to ask again next time. By checking the facts on our stories, we can show up to accept their response calmly versus freaking out. Don’t make it their job to calm you down, that’s your job! Your feelings still matter, and it’s important to share them. But you’re unlikely to do so effectively when you’re mid-freakout. The payoff is that you can actually learn from their response: what would it take to get to yes?

Changing what you believe can provide near instant emotional relief—and that’s just what I see on clients’ faces when I assure them their struggles are normal, not dangerous. They stop believing the no’s they’re facing constitute a disaster and start believing they’re an opportunity. So when you make your next ask, choose a new story. A no is normal: it’s an opportunity to learn from the response and strengthen the relationship. A yes is a treat: a happy surprise, not something to take for granted. It’s a small change in perspective with big benefits.

Name the no out loud

It is so exquisitely tempting to take something short of a “hell yes” as a yes. Imagine the temptation of a “sure, I can give that a try” or an “I guess so” or even a flat “OK”—perhaps with an expression that seems to disagree. But the moment we start prioritizing getting to yes over a 100% consensual agreement, trouble starts to brew. Because if it’s not 100% consensual, it’s not a real agreement at all. So later on you start to discover unpleasant surprises: people not following through on the “agreement” or harboring resentment for being pressured into doing something they didn’t truly want to do.

Now, some of you might be thinking, we all have to do things we don’t want to do! Does everyone truly love taking out the trash, doing the laundry, washing the dishes? What about fixing bugs or responding to customer complaints? Clearly many of us don’t love these tasks. So if we don’t do them out of pure passion, why do we tolerate such drudgery? They’re means to an end. Trash, laundry, and dishes are the means to a clean home and a happy family. Fixing bugs and responding to complaints are the means to a thriving business with happy customers—not to mention stable employment and financial security. So often to get to “hell yes” on these dreary tasks, we need to be reminded of the meaningful outcomes they represent.

If we settle for something short of “hell yes,” it’s easy to forget why we do the things we do. We start telling stories that we have to do this, that we don’t really have a choice. We all have free will, so we always have a choice—we just don’t always like the consequences! And it’s the fear of those consequences that often drives people into all sorts of non-consensual, coercive agreements. It might seem like a small point, but it feels very different agreeing to something because you want to keep your job versus because you fear losing it. Yet without regular reminders of our freedom, it’s extremely common for people to enter into agreements out of fear—with the inevitable resentment and unreliable results that follow.

Hopefully that makes clear why it’s so important not to settle for anything short of a “hell yes!” You can start by explicitly calling out lukewarm responses when you hear them. Coercive agreements are everywhere, so to avoid them we have to make 100% clear we won’t accept them. And the best way I’ve found is to provide a bit of a translation service, since most people don’t operate with my definition of a no. Let’s take some examples:

“Can you get that bug fixed for me by Friday?”
“Sure, I’ll give it a try.” 
“OK, sounds like you can’t commit to a fix by Friday, but you’ll give it a shot, do I have that right? What would it take for you to commit to a fix by Friday?”        

“Can you get that bug fixed for me by Friday?”
“Sure, I guess so.”
“Hmmm, doesn’t sound like you’re so sure to me. That’s fine! So what aren’t you sure about?”        

“Can you get that bug fixed for me by Friday?”
“Ugh. Okaaayyy.” 
“Sounds like you’re not happy about it, fair enough. But here’s the thing: getting those bugs fixed is what keeps the lights on around here, even if it's not always fun. Can I rely on you to help anyway?”        

Naming the no out loud means inviting reticence or hesitation out into the light instead of trying to sweep it under the rug. It means reflecting back whatever hesitation you hear, even if it’s subtle or unspoken. Showing them that you care about their concerns, not just your own. And that you won’t settle for anything less than a win for all—even if it means embracing a bit of drudgery for a higher cause. Now, this doesn’t mean you have to turn every task conversation into a therapy session. But by highlighting and embracing hesitation when it matters, you reinforce that you’re in the business of creating mutually beneficial agreements, not coercive ones.

Take responsibility for understanding

Now we’ve normalized and named our no’s, narrowly avoided freaking out, and built the strong relationships that result. But what about actually getting what we want? You know, those dreams we got so excited about? That’s a not-insignificant part of this whole process! When does that happen?

We learn how to get what we want by accepting and understanding the no’s we hear along the way. If we stare rejection in the face and embrace it, it has so much to teach us about how to achieve our dreams. But often we can barely meet the eyes of the person telling us no, and our response to rejection is closer to curling into a ball than opening up for an embrace.

But understanding and learning from the no is the big payoff we’ve been waiting for! We can’t guarantee we’ll always hear yes in response to our asks, but we can guarantee there will always be something to learn in the response. So having spent all this time and energy articulating what we want and asking for it, we can hardly waste all that effort by not collecting our reward.

Of course, a no doesn’t always feel like a reward at first. Often our initial reaction is an unpleasant cocktail of frustration, worry, and disappointment. So we’ll start making up stories: say that we’re right and they’re very wrong. Or we might go the opposite direction, making ourselves wrong for making such a terrible ask in the first place. Or throw our hands in the air, saying we can’t make sense of the response at all.

The reality is that in every relationship there are at least two valid perspectives to understand. There’s never a clear right or wrong. Articulating what you want is understanding your own perspective. But what about theirs? The opportunity when you hear no is to take responsibility for understanding their perspective instead of being stuck in your own. If you want to influence them, you'll have to understand them. And you can’t do that if you’re telling a story that they’re wrong—or crazy, toxic, irrational, inscrutable, unknowable, etc.?

That’s why it’s on you to take responsibility for understanding the no. If you want to achieve your dreams, you have to bridge that perspective gap and begin to understand the person you’re asking! If you don't understand, keep asking until you do. What do they want? Why did they say no? What would it take to get them to a hell yes??

One funny story I often hear from clients is that the response somehow doesn’t count. That it wasn’t the right environment. That they weren’t fully prepared. That the person they’re asking just didn’t get it. Or that they are somehow obligated to say yes. Newsflash: they all count! And no one’s obligated to say yes. That’s not to say these other considerations aren’t important, but they are exactly what we should be learning from instead of dismissing:

• If the environment wasn’t right to get a yes, how might you create a more favorable environment?
• If you weren’t fully prepared this time, how will you prepare for next time?
• If they don’t get it, then how can you help them understand??
• If they’re saying no when you expected them to say yes, how did you arrive at that mistaken expectation?

By framing them as “not counting” we can miss lessons that are staring us right in the face. Take responsibility for understanding the results of your ask—whatever they may be—instead of avoiding them.?

Let the consequences flow

Let’s say you’ve been planning to propose to your beloved. You’ve discussed your future together in detail, shown commitment through conflict and hardship, and booked a big trip together to finally seal the deal by getting engaged. The moment arrives, you drop to one knee, and ask for what you want.?

Then they say no. No way, no how. Absolutely not, can’t do it. How would you react? Whatever your temperament, I suspect pretty much all of us would lose our cool, overwhelmed with emotion! What would the consequences be? Would you talk it out? Break up? Move out? What else? All no’s have consequences, but most are relatively small—a big no like this might have bigger consequences. Everything has consequences! That’s life.?

But often instead of letting consequences flow freely, we try to limit how much gets through, or dam the flow of consequences altogether. We fear how others will react! So we try to shield them from consequences to protect ourselves from further consequences downstream. The most classic example in the workplace is withholding feedback. Let’s say one of your reports isn’t performing to expectations. What are the consequences? Do you share the feedback, and ask them to reach the high bar you’ve just set? Or do you withhold the feedback? Maybe you believe they can’t reach the bar, and thus it’s not worth the uncomfortable conversation. Or that they’ll respond so poorly to the feedback it will make things worse. Or even that you’d rather have predictable low performance than invest a lot of energy in their professional growth.?

Whatever the reasoning, shielding others from consequences is always a short-term fix. It prioritizes our comfort in the moment over learning and progress. People who never hear where they’re falling short inevitably end up quitting or being fired in the end. They’re missing exactly the information they need to succeed! They end up looking for a new job, and you end up doing their work and recruiting a new employee. Now, that’s not to say every employee will respond well to feedback. Sometimes letting them go is absolutely the right move! But wouldn’t you rather it happen sooner than later? Blocking the flow of consequences only prolongs the discomfort and delays or worsens the inevitable outcome.

So when someone says no to your ask, let the consequences flow. Trust you can both handle it, even if it’s not perfectly gracious. We can't control whether people say yes or no. But we can control whether we let them feel the consequences of their actions. Making a great ask only does so much to influence others. They need to feel the consequences of their actions if we want them to make a more informed choice next time around. That said, we’re talking about natural consequences, not punishments. The goal is always cultivating genuine relationships: advocating for a solution that’s a win-for-all in the long term.?

When we hear no, the first consequences are personal. How do we feel? What do we think? What does that no mean to us? What actions do we decide to take as a result? And if we want others to prioritize our desires, it’s on us to share this context with them so they understand the stakes. Of course we don’t have to share every thought or feeling that arises for us, but the ones we can’t quite let go of are usually the ones that need to be shared. The trick is sharing that feedback the same way we ask : proudly yet humbly, without righteousness, entitlement, or blame. Once we’ve found the courage to share our personal consequences, often sharing the broader consequences feels easy by comparison.?

Ideally most of our asks will draw us closer together, building genuine relationships by pursuing mutually beneficial outcomes. But especially when one or both parties are inflexible in what they want, that may not be possible. And when we can’t get what we need out of a relationship, the natural consequence is often becoming more distant instead of closer. Everyone has needs, and it’s painful when they’re not being met! Yet because we value our relationships so highly, it can be very tempting to ignore that growing distance and pretend everything is fine. So if you have a relationship in your life where you’re not getting what you need despite many asks, it may be time to accept that no once and for all. Sometimes the most powerful consequence of all is taking no for an answer—and moving on.?

Change your approach and try again

Perhaps you’ve heard the apocryphal Albert Einstein quote, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Yet we all do it! With the whirlwind of emotions we experience when we hear no, often we miss its most basic message: our ask failed. It’s hard to accept. Sure, hopefully you’ve learned from it and built stronger relationships. You’ve normalized no, so you know this “failure” is utterly commonplace. But you still don’t have the darn thing you wanted in the first place!?

So how does this happen? Either by consistently giving up on our asks, or making the same asks repeatedly despite clear rejections. Asking frequently is effective only when we change our asks: both to improve them and demonstrate to others we care about their feedback. When we don’t change our asks they have the opposite effect: they become increasingly ineffective (it’s annoying!) and demonstrate to others we don’t care about their feedback. So it’s not enough just to ask frequently: we also have to respond to feedback and try something new each time.

So what will you try next? Giving up or trying the same thing again are knee-jerk reactions driven by fear. So give yourself a little time to think about it, and return to our fundamental asking process:?

1. Articulate what you want with curiosity
2. Ask for what you want with pride
3. Accept the response with grace
4. Try again using what you learned

Let’s reconnect with what you want and get curious about what you can change next time:

• How are you resisting accepting the response? Before you even get into the response itself, check in on your own resistance to it. Are you making yourself wrong for your ask? Are you making others wrong for their response? Are you trying to convince yourself it’s a yes? Give yourself the time to work through the emotional side before making any big decisions.?
• What was the response and why? Remember to take responsibility for understanding the response—it’s on you to get curious and make sense of it. What are the consequences of the response, yes or no? Since we’re pursuing a win-for-all solution, what does it mean if the other person doesn’t want what we want??
• How has what you want changed based on the results of your ask? Is that same dream still strong as ever? Or has it transformed, subtly or dramatically, based on the response and its consequences? Are you letting consequences flow??
• If your dream is the same, how might you change how you ask for it? Different words, different tone, different intensity, different person, different environment? How might you adjust the scope or framing of your ask??
• If your dream has changed, how does that change how you ask for it? Remember that an ask needn’t be coercive. Instead it can be a vulnerable reveal, a bid for relationship, a vision for a better future, an experiment, or all of the above.

The beautiful thing about asking for what you want is there’s always hope. Sure, our dreams don’t always come true. But there are always new dreams to replace them. Sure, people mostly say no when we ask. But they also show us how to improve our ask next time. Sure, our feelings loom large when we hear no. But when we handle them well, we build genuine relationships that can last a lifetime.

And that’s it! Let’s review how to accept a no with grace:

Build genuine relationships

• Hear anything short of a “hell yes” as a no
• Prove that you can handle a no without freaking out
• Don’t settle for anything short of a win for all

Process the emotions that arise from a no

• Normalize hearing no
• Name the no out loud

Learn from the no and take action on those lessons

• Take responsibility for understanding
• Let the consequences flow
• Change your approach and try again

Got questions for me about your most challenging rejections? Or stories about what you learned from them? Please comment below! In the meanwhile, make sure you’re following me on LinkedIn and subscribe to the AFWYW newsletter to stay in touch. Finding meaning in this work? Please share it with your network so we can build this community, I look forward to the conversations!