I was taking an all-Taylor Swift Peloton spin class (highly recommend) this week when the instructor sang out one of Swift’s lyrics. “Did you wish you’d put up more of a fight?” she sang, and then immediately, sheepishly answered the rhetorical question. “Always.”
“That’s what I’m talking about!” I thought. My female friends, colleagues, and family are always telling me how they wished they had clapped back, pushed back, fought back instead of just accepting various situations. It’s not really something I struggle with (I can hear my friends laughing as they read this), and I wish it was something more women would embrace.
I have my Mom, who is literally named Karen, to thank for it. One of her favorite phrases is, “If you don’t ask, you don’t get.” It’s a mantra I’ve lived my life by, leading me to boldly ask for things that at times has resulted in some side eye, but more often than not has gotten me more than I could have hoped for.
Here’s one recent, quick example: When my company was figuring out how to respond appropriately to the terrorist attacks in Israel, I led a group of Jewish coworkers in asking for what we wanted leadership to do—and they listened.
But, sometimes when you ask—or even before you ask—the answer is a firm no. There’s nothing I hate worse than hearing that response to something I desire. Unfortunately, nos are more common for women to hear, as one study on salary gaps and another on raising funding found.
Rather than simply take the L and move on, I’d like to inspire you to in turn ask yourself, “How can I turn this no into a yes?” It’s not an easy thing to do, and sometimes for your mental health you need to just move on at a certain point, but sometimes—sometimes—you can make it a “yes.” Take inspiration from Oprah Winfrey, Anna Wintour, and Lady Gaga—all of whom were fired before making it big. Or J.K. Rowling and Meg Cabot, who each received more than 10 rejections before publishing Harry Potter and The Princess Diaries, respectively.
Or take inspiration from Sania Vucetaj and Morgan Reis, two women who know a thing or two about how to turn a no into a yes. Over the last couple of years while completely and gloriously reshaping my eyebrows at her cult-favorite Sania’s Brow Bar in NYC, Sania has told me the story of how she started this business from her drive alone, despite significant pushback. And for even longer, I’ve been watching my sales colleague Morgan masterfully command attention and buy-in while wondering how I can channel some of her boss bitch energy.
Turns out they have some advice. Here are their top tips.
1. Believe in your yes.
For Sania, her inspiration was right on her face in the form of a scar on her eyebrow where there is no hair. “Every morning I’d wake up and have the gap in my brow and fill it in, and every day it was a reminder of how good it made me feel,” she says. “You’re always going to hear nos. If it wasn't for that passion, I would have probably been talked off the ledge.”
I’ve been in awe of how she worked a full-time job, raised four kids, and put herself through beauty night school to pursue her dream—not to mention disregarding her family and friends telling her she couldn't do it or colleagues saying it wasn’t a viable idea. “I’m not saving the world, but I am saving brows, so it’s a little piece of the world,” she says on how she kept going. “That's what makes me tick—seeing people leaving happy. And being able to give some people hope.”
Morgan agrees with the importance of sticking to your guns. “How can you ask someone to buy into you if you don't believe in yourself?” she says.
2. Depersonalize the no.
Just like building any other muscle, “there is a musculature to enduring no,” Morgan says. “You become not desensitized to it, but you're able to depersonalize it and able to be curious about it and potentially turn it into a yes depending on how you react.”
As tough as it can be, it’s important to remember that the no can be about something completely random. “They’re in the middle of service, they're angry about something, their cat died. You never know what’s going on with someone when they give you a no,” Morgan says. Talking to other people in her industry going through the same struggles helps her depersonalize her nos.
3. Be genuine.
People respond really well to vulnerability—just look at Brené Brown, who’s made an entire blockbuster career out of it! So if you are asking from a genuine, vulnerable place, people are more willing to help you.
“People don’t like to be sold. They like to be heard,” Morgan says. “Be authentic. Be vulnerable. As a means to an end—to connect. It’s that connection and rapport that gets the next gate open and allows them to really talk to you about what’s going on.”
3. Acknowledge the no.
Morgan says that barreling over someone’s no can actually be harmful. So before you do the barreling, at least take a moment to acknowledge it. “It goes back to what I was saying before, you have to hear them,” she says. “If you skip over the hearing and acknowledgement, you’re back to square one.”
But the next step is where the key moment comes in, according to Morgan: “Then you need to ask a powerful question. You need to follow up with a genuinely curious, powerful question. So [when selling a product against a competitor’s], for example, I might say, ‘When was the last time you put the two systems side by side?’”
5. Never stop asking.
When I asked Morgan how she knows when it’s time to accept the no, she refuted the idea. “If there’s room to be curious about the no, then I usually always push,” she says. That doesn’t mean, though, that you have to pester someone. Save it for a follow-up email later, she suggests, if necessary to give that person some space.
6. Know your no.
That being said, Morgan says it’s important to recognize when enough is enough—for you. She remembers a time she was physically removed from a place where she was cold calling. “There are certain instances where no is like, ‘Yeah, that’s a no for me, too,’” she says. She recommends trusting your gut to know those moments.
Listen, none of this is easy, unfortunately, especially at first. As Morgan says, “I remember when I wasn’t good at it. You have to be bad at it for a while.” I’ll reiterate my own piece of Karen-patented advice to the mix: Just ask the question. If you get a no and don’t want to take it further, you can at least know you tried.
Next up on Girl Problems: Turning a no into a yes is hard. But what I think is even more insidious is how to overcome telling yourself no. We’ll explore that next.