Episode 465 Andrea Waltz Go for No Turning Rejection Into Success Transcript

Go for No Turning Rejection Into Success

[00:00:00]

Scott DeLuzio: Hey everyone, welcome back to Drive On. I’m your host, Scott DeLuzio, and today my guest is Andrea Waltz, the author, co author of Go for No. Uh, and we will be discussing the power of embracing rejection and overcoming mental hurdles on our path to success. But before we get into all of that, uh, I want to welcome you to the show, Andrea.

I’m really glad to have you here.

Andrea Waltz: Thank you, Scott. I am super excited to be with you.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. So, um, tell us more about the book, uh, Go for No. Kind of what inspired, what led you to get to this point of writing the book? Um, I got to imagine there were some tales of rejection along the way that, that kind of led you here. So what, tell us a little bit about that, that journey getting to the point to say, Hey, I need to write this book,

Andrea Waltz: Yeah, absolutely. Well, the key to the book Go For No is the subtitle, which is, Yes is the destination, No is how you get there. So this book is all about the [00:01:00] power of failure and how important embracing no is to success. And it’s actually a very short book, so it’s easy to read. So for all of those listeners out there who are not readers, who don’t identify as readers, let me just tell you, you could fly through this book, it’s literally 80 pages, and it’s a fable.

And it’s about a guy who wakes up one morning, he goes to bed one night, he has a crazy dream about golfing. And he wakes up the next morning in a house that belongs to a 10 year in the future, wildly successful version of him. And between the two of them, between him today, who’s pretty just mediocre, and this super successful version of him, they have to figure out how this other him got so successful, right?

I mean, could you imagine waking up in this great house and you meet this other you and wouldn’t you want to know, like, who’s Oh my gosh, what did you do? You have to tell me. Why are you so successful? Right? [00:02:00] Um, and the secret, he learns, is this idea of go for now. And that is that you need to have the courage to ask.

You need to be willing to fail in the process. And when you ask, you are often going to be told no, but that is merely part of the process. And there’s a little story that goes, uh, kind of a business y story that goes along with that, and, and some other lessons. But that is fundamentally the idea behind the book.

We actually wrote this book, Going on now 25 years ago, which I hate saying because it so dates me. I, I hate saying it, but, uh, initially, I mean, the, the success of the book took forever and I joke about that. It was a 10 year overnight success story. When we put it out, it did nothing. It didn’t sell at all.

We finally got it on Amazon in 2007 because Amazon was barely even a thing when we launched it, and it hit the number one sales and selling list on [00:03:00] Amazon in December of 2010. So it took a long time to be successful, Scott, and I haven’t been willing to give up on this book since. My goal is to sell a million copies.

We’re getting close, um, but that’s kind of the history of the book.

Scott DeLuzio: Okay, and so, obviously, in just the writing of this book in general, uh, there were some roadblocks, right, you didn’t hit the initial success that you were hoping for right out the gate, you, you had some Some issues, but it’s not like you just gave up and said, well, I guess nobody’s going to read it.

And then, you know, let’s move on to the next thing and let the book kind of just fade into oblivion. You kept working at it and didn’t accept that initial, you know, quote unquote, no, um, you know, from the, uh, the market, I guess if you want to call it that, um, right. That, that [00:04:00] initial,

Andrea Waltz: Yes, yes, that’s well put. The no from the market, which sometimes that’s what it is, right? You put something out there and nobody responds. It’s like, okay, the universe is telling you no, and you have to make a decision to quit. Or, I mean, I will tell you, we had a lot of conversations about quitting and a lot of, a lot of just down days where we said like, Okay, let’s quit for now and then we’ll wake up tomorrow and maybe have a different perspective, which is funny because we’re like, supposed to be these super persistent people, but we couldn’t have, we couldn’t have written Go For No if we didn’t have the same, if we didn’t have these challenges, like, if No didn’t, like, if No wasn’t a problem for us, if No didn’t affect us, if we were like, hey, get over yourself, it’s so easy, we couldn’t have the empathy to even write it.

So we, we need this as much as anyone reading this book needs it.

Scott DeLuzio: Right. And, and I think for, uh, for you to get in that headspace to say, Hey, this is something that somebody else might be dealing with. Like you, like you said, you wouldn’t have had that [00:05:00] empathy if you didn’t experience this yourself at some point in time and kind of realized, Hey, well, we’re not the only ones who are dealing with this.

There’s other people who are dealing with this. And how do you deal with it? Um, and, And I think maybe just for the listeners, the, the picture that I’m getting in my head when you’re talking about this whole concept of, you know, uh, using these nos as kind of like the, the roadmap to get to the yes or the success in, in life is not being afraid to Ask the question.

Asking for the promotion. Asking for the the raise. Asking for, uh, Even in business. Asking the market to try this product that you think is gonna be great, But it may be a flop. You don’t know until you get it out there, right? And the picture that I have on a business [00:06:00] side anyways is Um, when Apple introduced the iPhone, prior to that, there were cell phones, sure, but there, and there were, you know, PDAs, I’m dating, you were dating yourself before, I’m dating myself too.

Um, you’re talking about some of the younger people are like, what the hell is he talking about? Um, there, there were, you know, BlackBerrys and you know, those types of things, but nothing like the iPhone, right? And when Apple introduced the iPhone, it was a complete game changer as far as the cell phone market goes.

And. Over the last, I don’t even know how many years now, 20 ish years since the iPhone came out, um, I mean, the cell phone technology has just blown up and there’s so many possibilities with this type of technology now that had Apple not gone for that, you know, Hey, let’s put it out there and see what [00:07:00] happens.

Um, and I’m sure there was more discussion and more thought behind it than, than, Hey, oh, let’s roll the dice and see what happens. But, um, having not done that, you know, we’d still be on our, you know, Nokia, you know, old school phones that you got to hit like three letters or three numbers to get like one letter and all that when you’re sending a text message.

And, and, It would just, it would still be painful, you know? So yeah, take a chance. And you know, what’s the worst that’s going to happen? You’re going to, you know, maybe hear a no. Okay, well now you have one more piece of information. Use that and move on. Right. Um, So, so the show is, you know, largely focused on, you know, military veterans and, uh, you know, their, their family’s kind of struggles that they may be going through.

So what are some lessons that you think, you know, from, from your book, what, what are some lessons that military veterans can draw from the book regarding adapting to rejection or [00:08:00] failure? Maybe it’s in their transition out of the military, maybe, you know, things like that. What kind of, what, what do you, where do you see that fitting in?

Andrea Waltz: Yeah, absolutely. Well, and I’ll say that I’ve had, um, a little experience dealing with a veteran. My dad was in the Air Force, uh, retired colonel, uh, flew the A 10 in Vietnam. Um, and, um, and I, I, You know, watched him retire out of the Air Force. He got a job teaching calculus at the University of Arizona.

Super smart guy. And he graduated the Air Force Academy as well. Um, and so some, some of that transition was really hard. One of the things though, that I think that, uh, I would love my father to have embraced. And this is, this is, I think, part of the challenge you. With being in the military and having the principles of the military, which are so, uh, so [00:09:00] many of them are incredibly important for life, their life, their, their principles for life, basically.

But my dad has a, uh, no failure attitude, right? It’s kind of like, we, we don’t, like, failure, it’s the failure is not an option attitude. And me coming from an entrepreneurial. Side, where I left the corporate world when I was 25, I’ve had my own business ever since. Failure, to your point about even Apple, failure is like, Silicon Valley is littered with failures.

That’s, that’s what it’s all about. It’s, it’s like, you’ve got to try and fail. You’ve got to embrace that failure, fail fast. And so I think one of the things in the book that we talk about that really goes to, especially people who are transitioning into civilian life and. Kind of having to relearn some of the, some of what that means just on a day to day basis and, um, getting into the [00:10:00] work, like getting into a new career, the working world, whatever, that failure is not necessarily such a bad thing, like it is, I believe, like, My dad flying airplanes, like you, there’s no room for making a mistake and otherwise it’s going to cost you your life potentially or someone else’s.

So relearning that and there’s a model that we have in the book, we call it the failure success model and there’s the old model that we’re all taught and trained, which is. We’re in the middle. Failure, rejection, hearing the word no is on one side. Success, yes, everything that we want is on the other. And we have all been taught to avoid failure, avoid rejection, and go towards success and the yes.

And the new model, especially in the world these days of business and communication, where you’re asking for things that you may not receive, You’re really on one side, failure, rejection, hearing the [00:11:00] word no is in the middle, and the success that you’re seeking is on the other side of that. And I think that, like I said, just kind of looking at my perspective from dealing with him, it’s like, Um, I, I think that people have to remember that failure is not necessarily a bad thing when you’re attaching it to learning, when you’re attaching it to growth, and when you’re attaching it to trying things.

Yeah, there are times where failure is not Um, but to allow yourself the grace and compassion to get those no’s instead of saying, I’m not going to go after this job because they’ll just tell me no. So instead, you know, you give yourself the no, or I’m not going to go after this thing or ask for this promotion because I know that this person has something against me or, you know, whatever the case may be.

And so instead I can see how a lot of veterans may shut [00:12:00] themselves down thinking failure and rejection is something I should avoid. That’s what I was taught. Instead, it is, they’ve got to reverse it completely. It’s a very counterintuitive type of

Scott DeLuzio: Well, yeah. And even just to the point that you were just talking about, as far as maybe a promotion, right? Um, there may be somebody who is working at the, you know, in the same role. Uh, maybe they have more seniority, maybe they have, you know, a, you know, a more advanced degree, or maybe they, you know, whatever.

They have something going for them, that one little thing that’s going for them. Um, and maybe it’s not a little thing, it could be a big thing going for them. And, you immediately just kind of write yourself off, like, okay, well, they’re the one who needs to get that promotion, or, or deserves that promotion, I should say, more than me, and, You kind of immediately have just written yourself off and you’re not [00:13:00] even giving yourself the opportunity to think about, well, maybe there’s some other thing that I have, some other quality that I have that might be more valuable than what this other person has.

We’re our own worst selves. Critics, right? And so we, we look at our ourselves and I’m, I’m guilty of this too. I’m sure many of the listeners and people out there are guilty of this too, but we’re, we’ll kind of downplay our own success or our own achievements. Kind of like, well, it’s just a thing I did.

It’s nothing big or extraordinary. It’s just, you know, something that, that we’ve done. And so, You know, in our head, well, we don’t deserve that promotion as much as that other person because well, they have this other thing and yeah, sure, you know, to the eyes of your boss or, you know, some, someone else more senior in the company, well, maybe you have a quality that you may [00:14:00] not even recognize as being a quality, but you may have a quality that is better suited for that job.

Um, you know, there’s a lot of times in, you know, certain jobs, you, you may be really great at doing a particular skill type of work. Um, but you may not be great at managing people and leading people, right? And so you may have somebody else who has more experience. Doing that kind of skilled type of work, but no experience managing people.

Whereas you came out of the military and that’s pretty much all you did is managing people, right? And, and so you, just because. You’re maybe not as good as, as that person at that particular skill, you might be better at managing people. So you may be the better fit for that promotion. Right. And so maybe that’s the mindset that we’re trying to talk about here, right?

Is take that, take that risk and take, take the, that leap and put yourself in for that promotion. Right.

Andrea Waltz: Absolutely. I like [00:15:00] that you said that because now what you’re doing is just making assumptions.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

Andrea Waltz: and then, and that’s, that’s really common because when you make assumptions, then that allows you to say, okay, well, I’ll just assume that X, Y, and Z. And, and then I don’t have to ask. I don’t have to bring it up.

And, um, Therefore, I don’t have to experience the rejection. I don’t have to experience the failure, but again, we have to adopt that new model in order to get to the success that we’re looking for.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. It’s rejection. Isn’t failure. It’s progress, right? That’s I think the, the, the line, right?

Andrea Waltz: Exactly, exactly. And it’s, and you, like, we use the term failure because, and it’s kind of funny because I’ve had people literally message me like, hey, you guys should tone it down. Like, don’t use failure. Nobody likes the word failure. Call it a challenge. Call it an opportunity. And I get that. We [00:16:00] do. But we wanted to use the word failure to really kind of break the ice.

The chains off of that word to stop having it have so much power over us to say there’s nothing wrong with it. Having a failure, just because you experienced that failure, you could have, I mean, Edison failed, uh, thousands of times developing the light bulb. Colonel Sanders drove around trying to sell people on his chicken recipe, was turned down 1009 times before finally, somebody finally said yes.

Lots and lots of failures didn’t make that person a failure. And that’s, that’s the real distinction there. Scott is that we’ve got to. We’ve got to take away how the, um, personalization of we’re a failure, even if the things that we’re trying are, are failing.

Scott DeLuzio: Right. Yeah. You got to kind of separate those two. Okay. That one thing didn’t work. It doesn’t mean that I don’t work, that I’m broken, that I’m damaged. [00:17:00] I’m, I’m not good enough or whatever. I it’s like, okay, I tried something. It didn’t work. All right. Well, you know, who, who hasn’t had, uh, who hasn’t done something in their life that didn’t work?

Right. We’ve all, you know, look back to when you’re a kid, if you want to, you know, we’ve all had trouble. We’ve all had trouble learning how to ride a bike, you know, we all, we all failed at something somewhere along the line, but the more we try different things Eventually, we get to that success, right?

And, you know,

Andrea Waltz: sure.

Scott DeLuzio: that’s, I think, the mentality that you’re trying to put in there. There’s a, um, uh, podcaster, Jocko Willink, who, uh, I know a lot of the listeners are going to be familiar with, um, but, You know, whenever he’s talking about failure or, you know, setbacks like that, his, his response is good, like, good, you know, now I don’t have to, I don’t have to do that thing anymore, that thing that doesn’t work, I don’t have to worry about that anymore, I can move on, I can try something else, I can try something [00:18:00] new that will get me closer to Whatever the objective is, whatever, whatever success looks like in this case.

Um, and so, yeah, good. I’m glad that that happened. So now that’s one more piece of information. I’m better off for it now. Now I don’t have to waste my time on whatever that. Other thing was because I’ve, I’ve tried it. I realized it doesn’t work and now I can move on. Um, so yeah, in a way it, it’s kind of good, right?

It’s a good thing.

Andrea Waltz: Absolutely.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. So, so talking about this rejection isn’t failure, it’s progress. Uh, that kind of line that I gave just a minute ago. Um, can you talk about a little bit and how, you know, we can maybe help shift the perspective on rejection, failure, you know, whatever word is that you want to. Put to it.

Andrea Waltz: Yeah. So a couple things. One is. Look for the value of the rejection and look [00:19:00] for the, um, what is the learning? Right? And so we talk about like when you get a no, um, Seeing it as almost like a gift and saying, okay, uh, if I see this no as a gift, what do I usually do when I get a gift? Well, you have to unwrap it and you have to figure out what you’re going to do with it, right?

Where are you going to put it? Where are you going to hang it? Where are you going to set it down? Whatever. How, how is it going to be valuable to you? So when you look at it that way, a no can be very valuable, exactly as, You were just saying, what data did you get? What direction is it giving you? Is this person the wrong person?

Maybe you’ve got a no, and this person doesn’t have the authority really to give you a no. And so you just found out that you’re just asking the wrong person altogether. So that’s gonna, that’s gonna help you go after the person you should be talking to. Maybe you discovered in getting that rejection that.

[00:20:00] There was a different, there’s a different opportunity for you to go after and you end up going a whole different direction. So I think the thing with rejection is to see the value in it. And instead of just taking it and kind of throwing that gift away is saying, okay, what are all the lessons? Where’s all the value that I can find?

And, and also, and this is something that is certainly not lacking. I think in anybody who’s coming out of the military, um, but for most of us, just experiencing that helps build up some resilience, some self confidence. Uh, sometimes confidence to show yourself that, hey, I survived this and I can survive it again.

And it’s, you know, I didn’t die and it’s not that big a deal. And a big part of rejection, especially when you’re experiencing it over and over again, is just numbing yourself to rejection. Just having that experience, [00:21:00] numb yourself over and over, and that becomes valuable too. Because, I mean, There’s a line that this guy, um, I remember he said it on Twitter.

He said, um, either thicken your skin or lower your expectations, which I thought was so great. And that’s really, that’s really what you have to do when it comes to rejection. Yeah.

Scott DeLuzio: that’s difficult, which may be something like asking for a promotion or a raise or, uh, and I’m, we’re using this in, in a business context, but really it applies to anything, right? Asking that girl out that you like or something like that, that could be kind of scary too, right?

And you might get rejected. Okay, well, good. She’s not the right one for you and move on. You know, that type of thing. But there’s all sorts of examples. But when you’re being faced with a difficult challenge and to your point, [00:22:00] everyone in the military has gone through something difficult at one point or another.

Um, it could have just been basic training. You know, they don’t make it super easy. For a reason, like they want to challenge you. They want to kind of push you outside of your comfort zone to, uh, build that confidence. Like, hey, there was that hard thing that I had to go do, you know, climbing a wall or, you know, you know, whatever the obstacle course or confidence course is that they, they have.

Um, you know. You gotta go do all those things and then afterwards you’re like, you know what, I feel pretty damn good about myself because I was able to do this thing, which maybe I had a little anxiety. I was nervous. I was, I don’t know if I can do it. I was, you know, having, having some trouble with that.

Maybe even basic training as a whole, as a whole. Maybe, I don’t know, can I actually do this? Um, and then you’re standing there on graduation day and you’re like, you know, Oh man, I, I did it. And, you know, that, that builds some confidence there too. So, um, you know, use [00:23:00] some of that confidence. Go do that scary thing or, or that hard thing or the, the thing that you’re unsure of.

I don’t know. I don’t know how this is gonna work out, but I know maybe it’ll work out. All right. Um, and kind of a thought just kind of occurred to me too, is that. Uh, in, in talking about there’s lots of scary things that, that we, we have to do and there’s a lot of different ways that you can be rejected or, uh, you know.

I have to deal with, uh, you know, difficult situations is, um, you know, for a lot of military veterans dealing with mental health issues. Um, I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going to happen when I go into that therapist office. I’m going to be told I’m broken or, you know, whatever, like, what are they going to do?

You know, how is that going to work out? And, you know, that’s a scary thing to do it anyways. What’s the worst that’s going to happen. You know, um, and so I, I feel like [00:24:00] there’s just, just so many examples of things that people can, uh, overcome through this kind of mindset. It’s like, just do it anyways, right?

Andrea Waltz: Exactly.

Scott DeLuzio: So for. The listeners, is there any like practical, practical advice that you can share with them as far as being persistent, specifically when they’re encountering a series of no’s, where it’s like almost like constant rejection. I know you said almost numbing yourself to the nose, but, um, you know, how did, what does that look like?

Andrea Waltz: Yeah, um, there is. Well, and first of all, I think the, we talk a lot about mindset. I mean, Go4No is all a mindset thing. And persistence is such a big part of that because oftentimes the know that you get to whatever you’re asking for promotion, um, date, [00:25:00] uh, help of any kind. A lot of times it’s going to be a no initially.

So you’ve got to switch your mindset from, oh, they told me no, that means never to, oh, they told me no, that means not yet. And how you deal with that in that moment, uh, goes a long way. It, instead of seeing it as never is think of it as not yet, but also Scott, I will say this, um, uh, Big part of dealing with rejection and having to be persistent and having to deal with the quote unquote failure and all of the fallout from this and the, even the discomfort, I think, of asking. Part of that comes from just not really knowing and having the tools of necessarily how to ask and how to ask in such a way that even when you’re persistent, [00:26:00] it doesn’t come across as pushy. So I just want to back up here, being that you brought up persistence, And say that for the people, for the listeners who may be struggling with, well, how do I actually ask?

Like, how do I ask for help? How do I ask for that job or the person to maybe Refer me to somebody who could help me, you know, all of this discomfort. I think having some guardrails in place for how you, how you ask, um, can go a long way and how you ask absolutely will help you in being persistent because you never have to ask and do it in a pushy or aggressive way.

Or, and I, I, I imagine this is probably a fear of a lot of people listening to this. Or to where you’re begging. Um, and, and I say that because one of the, one of the things I’ve done in the last couple of years is I’ve done this challenge called the [00:27:00] Go For No 21 Day Challenge. And it’s kind of a fun, fun thing.

It’s, it’s actually a way to gamify going for no. So, um, and I’ve done the seven day ask your ask off challenge as well, which is kind of a different one. And the whole idea is to ask as many times as you can for as many things as you can, In as many instances, some people, most of the people that go through my challenges are applying it to their sales career, right?

They’re, they’re in sales of some kind. Um, but, but other people have, have taken it and they apply it to everything. They just, they look for the opportunities to ask and they start building up that skill of asking. So one of the things, whenever you’re asking for anything is to, To identify, if you have any discomfort, what that discomfort might be and to be vulnerable enough to share it and to call out what it is so that you don’t come across as pushy.

So, for example, let’s [00:28:00] say, um, we have this, I’m on your podcast and let’s say I’ve got a new book coming out next year, which I do actually, um, and, um, I want you to have me back on the show, right? But I don’t want to look pushy. I don’t necessarily want to ask, but I really have to stay persistent if I want to get on your show again, right?

So I have to reach out to you and say, Hey, Scott, we’d really love to be on your show again. What do you think? Right? That’s the first ask. Just polite, upbeat, but let’s say you don’t respond to me. So, um, Um, now I, I have to think about, well, how do I re approach this? So this is all about how to be persistent.

And I could say something like, Hey, Scott, I know I was on your show just a couple months ago, but we’ve got a new book. I think it would be phenomenal for your listeners. Here’s why. Here’s a couple things that are in it for you. Can I, um, can we schedule a time for me to be on? When I say what’s in it for you.

That [00:29:00] is like, that’s what everybody’s always like in the back of their mind, right? Like, I want to help you, but also what’s in it for me? So if you can tie your ask. into what’s in it for the person. So if it’s, you want a promotion, it’s, you talk to your boss, hey, here’s what, here’s the job I would like.

And I think I would be great at this job. And here’s how it would help you, our department, this thing, the company, right? Um, but you ask positively, yes, politely. And then you have to ask again. And you have to ask again, sometimes the first no. is most of the time it’s just a knee jerk reaction or they don’t even, they’re not even paying attention to you.

They’re, they’re busy, they’re whatever, and so you think, oh my gosh, this person is really paying attention to me. And they know that I’m waiting for the answer. Not necessarily.

Scott DeLuzio: [00:30:00] That’s, that’s a great point, actually. And I’m glad you brought up the, the podcast example of, you know, coming back on the show and, and, and all that, because I get so many emails from people who are pitching themselves or, or sometimes they’re like PR firms that are pitching their clients and things like that to get on the show.

And Sometimes the emails that I get, they might as well have published it in a book because they’re just so damn long. It’s like, I’m sorry, but I’m not going to read through all of this when it’s paragraph on paragraph on paragraph, like, just Short. Tell me, what is it? What’s in it for me? You know, like if, if you’re looking for an answer for me, I need to be able to kind of distill that down and I’m not going to read through 10 pages of emails to figure out what it is that’s in it for me.

And so sometimes they, those emails get ignored. And [00:31:00] then they follow up, they, they, they are persistent. Sometimes they they’ll, they’ll send three, four, five, even six follow up emails sometimes, uh, over the course of the next couple of months. And they’re almost the same email, no, no different other than, Oh, I’m just following up to see if you saw that last email, here’s everything all over again.

And it’s like, I’m sorry. I’m not, that’s the problem that they have. That’s the reason why they got rejected was I’m not going to read it. And. I don’t, I just don’t have time with, with the amount of, uh, emails that I get in, and I know that makes, maybe that sounds kind of bad the way I’m saying it, but it’s like, there’s just too many, and I don’t, I don’t have time to read through all of them, and if you can send me a short One or two paragraph thing that says, here’s who I am.

This is what I can offer. Boom. And I’d be way more likely to say yes, then if you’re sending me your whole life story. [00:32:00] Um, so yeah, to that point, like the way you ask is very important. Um, you know, we have a prior relationship because you, we’re talking right now, obviously, and, and, you know, we’ve been on the podcast.

So, when someone like you reaches out to me, I’m going to be a whole lot more likely to open up that email and hear you out and what you have to say. Um, and, um, I don’t always have guests back on, but I do sometimes. Um, if you have something that’s worthwhile for the audience, yeah, absolutely. But again, it’s in, in the way that you present it.

If, if you, you’re just like, Hey, I want to come back out and talk about the exact same thing that we already talked about. It’s probably gonna be a no. So, um, But if you’re like, Hey, I have a new book as a kind of different, different topic, but still would be applicable to your audience. Yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, that would be a, to me a pretty easy yes.

Um, but just don’t give me your whole life story.

Andrea Waltz: Right. [00:33:00] Yeah. And I think, I think that’s the thing is, um, when I do these challenges, you know, the primary reason for doing them is to get people into action. That’s the one thing, right. To just get people in action, to make it fun. So if there’s anybody listening to this who you have a goal, you’ve got something you want to achieve, figure out like, how many no’s am I willing to accept, you know, to reach this particular goal, and then make it a game of, okay, I’m going to see if I can get 10 no’s a week, or 10 no’s a month.

You know, like somebody like me, I, my goal is to get on a lot of podcasts, right? So I, I’m one of those people pitching, but I know how to ask in such a way and when you, the more asking that you do, I think the better you get and Scott, just hearing you talk about it, I think reinforces the idea that you [00:34:00] always, when you always, when you ask, you always have to make sure that in that ask you include it.

Why it would be in this other person’s best interest to help you. And sometimes, sometimes it’s not necessarily a direct benefit. Sometimes people just like to help, you know, so sometimes, um, especially, uh, you know, if you are a veteran, People feel, I mean, I’m just speaking from my experience, my perspective here, helpless sometimes to help veterans, you know, how do you, how do you help this person, you know, and, and so if somebody was to reach out to me and say, hey, I’m a veteran, I’m, I’m trying to get back on my feet, or I’m doing this thing, and I need a help with this, this thing, Just knowing that I’d be like, Oh, cool.

It’s a way I can help. So [00:35:00] I think what it comes down to is again, having the courage to make those asks and to include information. And the more that, you know, you can keep it succinct, keep it like directed at what you’re trying to do. I think the, the more, um, the better chance you have, um, of getting that.

Yes. Yes. But still, so important that you ask. So important that you ask, because even if you get a no, it was worth, it was worth trying.

Scott DeLuzio: Right. And there’s a, this is probably a bad example to put in here. I’m going to say it anyways. Um, there’s a, uh, uh, lottery, uh, from back commercial from when I was a young, when I was young, I don’t even remember when this was maybe in the 80s, 90s, I don’t know, whenever. Um, but it was a lottery commercial.

I was like, you can’t win if you don’t play. Right. And that mindset is kind of similar to what, Guys, don’t take this as, like, gambling advice, like, you’re [00:36:00] probably not gonna win anyway, so don’t play, like, it’s, it’s a waste of time, so, it’s a waste of money, I should say, um, but, um, that was getting off track, but, the, the point is, If, if you don’t ask, you’re, you’re definitely not getting the, the yes, a hundred percent.

Like, there’s, nobody’s going to just be like, hey, you were thinking of, uh, asking for that promotion, weren’t you? Well, here it is, you know, and like, no, go out there and, and, and get, get it yourself, you know? And, uh, yeah, if you, if you don’t, you can’t win if you don’t play, right?

Andrea Waltz: Exactly. Well, and to dovetail on that, and I, I completely, uh, agree with what you’re saying about gambling. No, no go. Uh, you can’t win if you can’t quit. That’s a big

Scott DeLuzio: There you go.

Andrea Waltz: Um, But, but another, another saying that I really love, and this was a book I read years and years ago called, I think it was called Play to Win.

And I love the idea. They say, play [00:37:00] to win, don’t play not to lose. And playing not to lose is just playing to where, okay, I’ll play just enough, but if I, but if it looks like I’m going to fail, if it looks like I’m going to get rejected, then I’m going to shut down and I’m not going to play. Well, no, you got to play to win.

And we all know that winning requires, you’re going to have losses along the way. So I really like that as well.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, because even, you know, take a sports analogy where you have the team who wins the World Series at the end of the year, well, they’ve lost a few games throughout the season too, right? So, they didn’t win every single game, uh, through the whole season.

Andrea Waltz: are the best example too.

Scott DeLuzio: gosh,

Andrea Waltz: Right? Hitting 300 is phenomenal and you’re still striking out a lot.

Scott DeLuzio: right, hitting 300 for people who aren’t, you know, baseball fans, you’ve gotten a hit 30 percent of the time. You’ve succeeded 30 percent of the time, and you are world class, [00:38:00] elite, top of your game, you know, like, that’s, that’s pretty damn good, and it’s only 30%, like, that’s not, that’s not a great, that’s failing in school, like, if you only got 30 percent of the questions right on the test, you failed, but in baseball, so it’s also, um, it’s also relative, too, to whatever the situation is, right?

I think that was a good example. Yeah. Um, I guess with, with this mindset that, that you’re talking about, you kind of have to learn from the nose as, as you go, right? Um, any specific examples or strategies for how, how people can kind of accomplish this and learn from these things as they go?

Andrea Waltz: Yeah, so, I think, um, one of the things is to, if I were to kind of put it into a process, right, you You think about the goals that you want to achieve, kind of maybe create a long term [00:39:00] vision for what that is and, um, and it could be short, it could be something even short term, um, but create a no awareness to, to, like, Think about like, how many no’s do you actually get?

You know, for most people, it’s not many, because most people are doing that thing where they’re playing not to lose. And so you start by creating no awareness and then start by setting a no goal. Just to have fun with it and talk about learning from your nose. I wanted to share this as well, because this is something where if you want it, if you want to put this as a practice to just push yourself out of your comfort zone, there was a guy who wrote a book called Rejection Proof several years ago, and he he did this crazy thing where for 100 days, Every day for a hundred days, he did something where he was going to get rejected, potentially, um, he made some kind of ask, and he was doing crazy things, he went into a [00:40:00] donut shop and asked them to create, um, he went into a Krispy Kreme and asked them to create the, um, Olympic rings out of donuts, which, which they did, and that video actually went kind of viral on YouTube, um, He asked, he was on a Southwest flight and asked if he could speak to the passengers over the loudspeaker.

They let him do it. He went into a mattress store and asked if he could take a nap on the mattress. They let him do it. He asked, like, I remember when he was doing this, he was actually soliciting ideas, like, tell me what I could do. He would ask people for money on the street, like he’d ask strangers for five bucks or a hundred bucks.

He asked. People, this was one, one day he asked if he could give them money. Can I give you 5? And people said no to him because people are so, you know, like, oh, it’s got to be a scam. There’s got to be some trick, right? And so this was a hundred days of rejection therapy, just every day practicing something, and he said he [00:41:00] got a ton of, a ton of yeses, a lot of no’s as well along the way, not everybody said yes to him, and it was his way of, he was, um, to him, and it was his way of, he was, his dream, it started because he wanted to, he, he, his up, and he realized how horrible it was and he couldn’t Not handle it. He realized he just hated being rejected. He was just could barely survive it. And he thought I’ve got to solve this because if I’m going to, if I have any shot at creating the technology I want to create and the company I want to build, I’ve got to get over this rejection thing or I’m never going to never going to achieve my goals.

And that’s why he did it. So I think that, you know, It’s a practice, Scott, like how to, how to deal with this. It’s, it’s putting yourself in position to do it because [00:42:00] On a day to day basis, there’s not always a lot of times to ask, right? You’re not like asking for a promotion as a once in a year type thing.

Or if you’re looking for a job, it’s hopefully short term. Then you got your job. So now what are you doing? So I think if you just create that no awareness and look for opportunities, and especially if you’re out there and you’re listening to this and it’s like. You think, um, and we’ve all had this happen.

You see somebody get something that you wanted and you think like, why didn’t I just ask for that? I could have asked and gotten that exact same thing. So just be mindful of the opportunities out there and don’t Let your pride hold you back from asking for help or asking for those things that you want because it’s the secret.

Like in our book, our main character, he learns the secret. How did this other him become successful? Through asking and hearing no. If he was [00:43:00] prideful and wasn’t gonna, you know, didn’t want to ask for things, would have never had the success that he wanted. I think sometimes, especially those of us, um, You know, that, uh, grew up in a military household or from the military.

You have a lot of pride of pulling yourself up on, from your bootstraps. And even though you’re, it’s a team effort, I think there’s some pride in, like, I can do this and you’ve got to be willing to let that go.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, sure. And from that example that you’re talking about, that guy had the hundred days of, of all those asks. If you were to tally them up, and I don’t know what the numbers were, but let’s just say it was 50 50, 50 yeses, 50 nos, uh, on, on the hundred days of, of asking. If same guy went through those same hundred days and never asked at all, he would have had zero yeses.

[00:44:00] And instead he ended up with 50. I don’t know what the actual number is, but again, just as an example, even if he only got one, he still got one, as opposed to if he never asked, he would have had zero. So he’s still doing way better with one. Yes. Because who knows what that yes could have been. That could have been a life changing, you know, a promotion or something like that, that, um, you know, gave his family more stability, more income, you know, that, that type of thing.

Um, But if he didn’t ask, well, he wouldn’t have gotten it. Um, you know, maybe it was Olympic rings on, in donuts or something like Krispy Kreme, but you know, it could have been, it could have been anything. Um, you know, big or small, he still got the, the yeses. And the more you do that, I think that the point of all this is the more you do that, the more you go out and, uh, put yourself out there.

Make those asks, you’ll start to learn from those no’s, right? And you’ll learn, okay, well, [00:45:00] the way I asked for, for this one, or, or something that I asked for in, in this particular ask didn’t work. Maybe I, maybe it was too big of an ask. Maybe, maybe, maybe the, um, the raise I was asking for was, you know, I was asking for a million dollar raise.

Well, okay, well, I’m not going to get that. Okay. Well, maybe I got to scale that down a bit and see what’s, What is reasonable? Um, okay. And, and then, so you learn from that. Um, but, but you, you move forward and you keep doing those asks and, and you kind of figure out what works and what doesn’t. And then eventually the asks start to get a little bit easier, right?

And, and you start to, um, Find yourself finding more yeses in those asks because, to your point before, with the podcast, uh, you know, the second interview, uh, type of, uh, conversation, you’ve already kind of discovered what works and what doesn’t work, and so you’re not going to send me, you know, a ten page, uh, And I’m going to ask you to write a biography of who you are to ask me to [00:46:00] come back on the show, because you know that’s not gonna work.

I’ve already told you it’s not gonna work. So, um, but, but so you know what will work. And so you’re, if, if that’s something that you’re, you’re interested in, you’re going to, you’re going to use those strategies that you’ve learned or the, you know, whatever you’ve learned from other no’s and make those adjustments so that you.

You get more yeses. They’re not all going to be yeses, but you’re going to get more than, than you would before, right?

Andrea Waltz: Oh, for sure. Yeah. And that’s what’s so important is, is, is data. A lot of people don’t, you know, they don’t ask enough, so they think, well, I asked this one time, or I asked a couple people, and they said no, and it’s like, well, that’s, that’s just not enough. That doesn’t tell you anything. That would be like an actor going on one edition.

Going like, oh, I went on one edition, I didn’t get the role, so I guess my acting career is not going to take off. Like, what? No, you’ve got to go on hundreds.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, exactly. Um, so for the listeners, uh, what can you. You know, maybe prompt them [00:47:00] to help them start practicing this go for no, uh, you know, in their, their lives today.

Andrea Waltz: So, I would highly recommend you grab the book. It’s on Amazon or Audible if you’re a listener. Um, also, they can come to GoForNo. com and we’ve got a, uh, GoForNo little assessment that people can take. It’s free. Really fun. Asks you some questions about your mindset in relationship to failure, rejection, success, and all of that.

And then at the end, you get a score. Whether you have a high no quotient, we call it no quotient quiz. a moderate no quotient or a low no quotient, and then kind of do an analysis of each question. Like why, you know, if you answered a certain way, how it could be better. So it’s a really good learning tool to kind of help you, um, start your journey on developing a high no quotient, which is what we want.

We want you to be able to hear no often and keep going. That’s, that’s a high no quotient. So that’s kind of a fun thing for people to do.[00:48:00]

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And just going back to that point of, you know, for that guy who had a hundred days of, you know, those asks and, you know, if he had 50 nos and 50 yeses, let’s just say, um, it probably wasn’t. And even split, but high nose being, you know, like he had a lot of nose in that, those, those hundred days too.

And so, you know, a lot more than if he just didn’t ask, right. And so the point is, get out there, ask, you know, make those asks for, if there’s something that you want, you want, you want Olympic rings out of donuts, go ask for it, you know, maybe they’ll say, no, we can’t do that. Okay, cool. Well, now, you know, and go someplace else.

Maybe another donut shop will make it for you. But, you know, then. If you ask them, maybe they’ll make it. Now you got your answer. Now you got your yes, right? So, um, so that’s, that’s, that’s awesome. Okay. And so, uh, told us about the book, where, where to get it and all that. Um, and you, you did mention that you have another book coming out.

Anything you want to talk about that before, uh,

Andrea Waltz: um, yeah, we have a [00:49:00] sequel coming out in 2025. Um, so, uh, not sure exactly when. Um, but yeah, but we won’t, we won’t even worry about that. We’ll just get people to go to Go4Note. Thank you, Scott, for plugging that though. Go to Go4Note, take the quiz. I think it’ll be helpful. And, um, yeah, you know, just, just have fun with it.

I think that’s what I would leave people with is You know, just don’t take yourself so seriously and have fun learning to ask. Have fun practicing going for no.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, well, I guess With that, I do want to thank you for taking the time to come on the show, uh, sharing your insights and kind of strategies to help people, uh, you know, find more success in their lives. Yeah, yeah, sure. Getting the no’s, but you know that those, those no’s are the, uh, the roadmap, I guess, to, to the yeses.

And so, um, so thank you for sharing all of that and I do appreciate you coming on the show.

Andrea Waltz: Thanks so [00:50:00] much, Scott. My pleasure.