Self-Motivation: Turn a Million No's into Yes

(Note: Referenced from my Self-Motivation series blog at www.walshamsolutions.com/personal-blog

The actual title was inspired from an interview I saw a little while ago with Kevin Hart where he said something like "All you see is the million yes's that I get but no one sees the million no's I had until I got someone to say yes" and that always resonated with me because it really describes the marching through the snow era I had when I was 18 and going for my first role.

One thing that was a very challenging obstacle for me was my age, as the response I got was that an 18 year old wasn't serious enough for the role which I was applying for as oppose to someone who was older that had more responsibilities than an 18 year old would, as well as the gap in experience and knowledge to fill the role.

It's interesting to think about those times as when I look at an 18 year old these days and I actually see how young they really are, how young I was when I was travelling damn near across the whole of London for interviews and people could not believe I was there interviewing for a full time role they assumed work experience or some other reason.

I was so hungry back then I was doing literally 2-3 interviews in one day just so I could land my first role. Did I hear a Million No's? Absolutely! But at that time, I actually didn't care. I had almost become immune to it after a certain amount. It can be discouraging to always hear “no” especially when you really give a great interview but someone else was just that much better....you have to keep pushing. The moment you quit looking, stop looking, start caring about being told No or understanding your competition, goal or objective....that is when you are really telling yourself No!

The below sections and benefits of my experience aren't about how to perform an interview but more on controlling your persistence. Your self-motivation should want to keep your eye on the prize...that Number One objective which is landing that role! These were the points and experience that helped me when I was first going through this obstacle.

Travelling

I didn't care where the role was or how unrealistic the travel was because where I may have not gained the role, I gained experience. Anything you go through yourself on no matter the outcome is still experience gained.

Me travelling further distances made me learn routes & get familiar with different places to get to certain areas which were handy if any roles came back around that side. I gained experience from knowing the organization, researching what the company was about and how my role would contribute towards the business as well as experience of the interview meeting new people understanding their requirements and them understanding what you can bring to the table and how you will be a perfect fit. Each of these experiences contribute to your resilience and hope towards securing your role. Even more advantage these days as when I did this I had to use the A-Z or print out a map and work out the route before Google maps was able to locate you 😀

Deal with Million No's

This will more than likely happen. Typically takes the first No you receive for you to start on your mission of resilience to it. When I say the “No's” don't mean anything to me I don't mean just accept it and ignore feedback as such but more that a “No” means not right now. As stated before every interview is an experience you go through

When I was doing multiple interviews in one day it's even more impactful when you hear multiple No's for each role. If this mission was easy everybody would do it but it's also a test to see how serious you are about this and what your dedication is to what you are looking to do. I remember another quote from a rapper name Derez DeShon who said something like "When you get to the point where you're like I don't want to do this no more, and then you push on that's when you start to succeed with it" which was very true for me which I will come back to later on.

Feedback and No Feedback

Now I find when you are starting out some feedback is no feedback at all where it doesn't actually help you and overall makes your task even more frustrating because you don't know either where you went wrong or why you didn't get the job.

Whether feedback is either vague or dismissive, it’s the perfect time to build thicker skin when it comes to hearing bad news such as this. I felt at the time the worst ones are ones which were either false hope or adding salt to the wound where someone says "It was extremely close between you and another candidate" or "We wanted to take you both on" or "Please keep in touch with us as we are still interested in him/her in the future" which to someone who is young or looking for their first role is kind of a wind up as for all the million times I heard this I'm afraid to say that nobody actually kept their word to none of them. The positive thing I can say is feedback like that means you are getting really close. But in actuality it's never what we want to hear not at those times. I was told "Eventually someone is going to say Yes. Every time you hear you came second or close someone will say Yes and the other person would have come close"

Sharpen Your Sword

Your technical knowledge is your sword, your discipline your technique (talking martial arts hear now 😀)

Starting out you will get technical questions to see how strong you are, generally questions which you should know, some which they wouldn't expect and a couple which they know you wouldn't get and this is where you want to aim!

I wanted to cover every and any base and some of the stuff I knew no one could even believe I got right especially at 18/19 with little experience. Your hunger is really displayed at this point but that's not the only part of it, your sword has to be sharpened on two sides. One side is technical knowledge whilst the other is your experience of all of the one billion interviews you already had. A lot of people use words or phrases like I have the passion, drive, focus etc but these are all emotionally driven. In my opinion these are verbs not adjectives. The million No's, knowledge build your sharpen sword and this alone shows you have all of those as you wouldn't be sitting there in that interview for the millionth time if you weren’t! Something is keeping your persistent!

Remember it's Two Ways

This is something I also need to tell myself! This was something I had to eventually understand as my eagerness would have put me in positions I may have not wanted to do but I wanted the experience at almost any cost.

For example, I had an interview for a role in which the requirement was to work a night shift something like 8pm until 8am and I was totally fine with this (well actually I didn't care and was like ok) and I actually had this role in the bag, then he said I was going to meet his boss because he was happy with me taking the role. The boss saw me for a few minutes that was it. Next day I heard I didn't get the role and I went ballistic! The reason I wasn't given the role was because I was too young! Funny thing was that I was actually too young to understand why I didn't get the job because of that lol the point is don't let your eagerness set you up for anything just because you want that first role so badly as you could get taken advantage of., and in that situation in hindsight they really saved me from myself.

How this all helped me

To go back to the point of the quote where you have to feel like you don't want to do this anymore, I did!

I had an interview at (won't say where unless people really really ask) and I destroyed the interview, technically and all the competency based questions and I was ready for everything they had and there was some stiff competition.

A couple of days later I heard the dreaded "Unfortunately it's a No on this occasion but you were so close they wanted both of you and wanted to create a position for you and they still are trying to". Now I knew this wasn't true, but I thought I would give them the benefit of the doubt and chase them on this.... until they no longer responded...

This was the point where I was at a breaking point and I was feeling like I didn't want to keep doing this anymore. But the energy you develop when you are at this point is tremendous, it's like you build a euphoric state of I don't give a damn-ness! It's tough to push on after...but that's what separates the people that are successful and the people that are not.

So...I had a string of interviews don't remember specifically the order but I had to attend mass meetings where everyone took a technical test, multiple telephone and face to face interviews etc I did approximately 5 in a week. And that's another point...see if you are being invited to so many interviews there is definitely a demand and interest in you! But again, still not what you want to hear and may most likely never look at it that way until later on.

So it went for about a week or two where I heard absolutely nothing...at this time I was advised (forced by my mum 😊) to perhaps take a little break just to review my CV, active job boards and then the unexpected came....I had received the ultimate "Yes"!

The feeling of that moment……priceless!

Finally, I had done it. Then shortly after that I had feedback from another place for a second interview! Whilst I completed that after a tough interview but since I had another offer I had a lot more confidence, like scoring a goal in football then think I can play for Manchester United!

I was asked when I wanted a decision and it literally jumped out of me to say today! Funny thing was I was chased by the agency for this role for a few days to take the interview but I reached a point where I wanted to take a break from it after multiple No's. Then whilst that happened the many many interviews I did in the past had started coming as offers, and another one and another one......I had 5 offers in total to choose from!!!

For once I was the guy who was just slightly better or 1st place for a change. Even felt guilty when I had to let roles down.

And this was my experience of turning a Million No's into a yes. What would be the next logical step after this? Perhaps maintaining a Million Yes’s 😊