Yes Lives in the Land of No

We are often afraid of asking for what we want because we dread hearing no. What if we operated under the assumption that “yes lives in the land of no?” I share some of my deepest fears, recent client successes and misses that demonstrate that yes, “yes lives in the land of no.”

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Full Episode Transcript

Hello! Welcome to episode number 24. This is Born to Thrive with Jamie Lee. I’m your host and coach, Jamie Lee.

How are you?

How have you been?

Today I want to talk about how YES lives in the land of NO. I love that.

I got that quote from this great book that I am re-reading. It’s called The Prosperous Coach, written by Rich Litvin and Steve Chandler, and it’s all about enrolling coaching clients. So if you are a coach and if you are listening to this, I highly, highly recommend it.

I think it’s so relevant to remember that yes lives in the land of NO for our negotiation strategy because negotiation is simply a conversation with the intention of reaching an agreement where everyone has the right to say NO. And you’ve had that right to say NO ever since you were, what, two years old if you are verbal?

So take your current age - I’m 36, so I’m gonna take two from my age, so for 34 years I have enjoyed the right to say NO. I continue to enjoy the right to say NO. And for 34 years, I’ve engaged in countless small, big conversations with the intention of reaching an agreement where I had the right to say NO.

And it’s the same for you.

In other words, we’ve negotiated most of our lives. Ever since we’ve been able to say that word, NO, because negotiation requires your autonomous decision-making process.

In other words, negotiated agreement is one where everyone involved in the negotiation has considered all the reasons they’d say NO to something.

They’ve considered all their objections.

And in that process, either because of their objections or in spite of their objections, they have arrived at YES. YES, let’s proceed with this particular agreement.

I think it’s really important to remember that because we live in a culture where we are uncomfortable with objections. It’s almost counterintuitive to think through that we have to listen for objections because in our culture we tend to listen for agreement.

You listen to somebody speak at a conference and they’re saying something that you totally agree with and you’re like yes, yes, this is it! And you love it, you’re nodding your head and you write down what they’re saying because you love listening and agree.

Negotiation can be uncomfortable because we have to listen through their objections, address them and help the other side get to a decision and we’d like them to get to a YES, usually, right?

So I see this problem of the discomfort around YES, the discomfort around NO, play out in my business in two ways.

It creates this fantasy because we think of YES and NO as binary. We think of YES and NO as either/or not that YES lives in the land of NO.

So one way this impacts my business is that sometimes I get afraid of doing something really, really well. It’s a very subconscious level of fear. I have this fantasy that if I provide a solution, if I give an offer to my audience, give one freebie webinar, write one spectacular email and then I’ll be just overwhelmed with so many YESes, so many clients will come knocking down my door that I wouldn’t know how to handle this level of success.

There will be too many YESes, and what will I do? They’ll find out that I’m not good enough and it’ll be a total failure.

So there’s this, at a deep level, a fear of success or a fear of too many YESes.

Or there are the other times where I fear getting one stinging rejection and that fear of getting one stinging rejection holds me back from making my ask as boldly and confidently as I know that I could.

And I know that with my clients sometimes this fear of rejection, fear of hearing NO holds them back from speaking up, showing up and having their say.

So you think there’s gonna be either too many YESes - well, I say, I have experienced the fear of too many YESes.

Hasn’t happened yet, though.

Or that there’s gonna be this one stinging NO that’s going to hurt me so much that I would not be able to recover and function.

So this trap happens when I think of YES and NO as binary, as either/or.  But when I consider the truth that YES lives in the land of NO, it sheds light on my negative, limiting beliefs. It helps me see that yeah, I can deal with YESes, I can deal with NOs.

In fact, because YES lives in the land of NO, I should seek out NOs and in the process of seeking out NOs, I can get the YESes.

I also want to tie this back to negotiation strategy, because I know a lot of people that are listening to this, you’re interested in how do I negotiate better? How do I negotiate my salary better, right? And I have spoken in the past of the key strategy of anchoring high and anchoring first.

I think this strategy has sometimes gotten misunderstood by my audience, by people who read my content, so I want to clarify that. I want to clarify that in this strategy of anchoring high and anchoring first, yes, the YES lives in the land of NO. It involves both YES and NO.

Let me clarify. So, anchoring first and anchoring high means, first of all, you want to understand what your target number is. You want to decide on it.

So if you are gunning for a position and you decide I’d be really happy with $100,000. I’m making $80,000 right now and so I would love to make $100,000 in my next job. That’s your target number and you have done your research, you’ve spoken to people in the industry, you’ve done some online research and you know that the going market rate ranges. It’s around $90k to $100k plus.

So once you have done your research and you have prepared your value statements that you can demonstrate your benefit to your potential employer, you can articulate that you are somebody who can help solve their problems and you are somebody who can hit the ground running by contributing value to the company’s bottom line. Once you have done that level of preparation, now let’s talk about your anchor number.

In other words, at this point, you have your target number, what you really want, and you also have prepared your why statement. Why you want what you want.

Okay, so you’d be happy at $100k, but you know that this is a negotiation and that employers are incentivized to hire the best candidate for the least amount of money. It’s not because they are evil. It’s not because they’re anything else. It’s because that’s how good businesses are run. So it’s in their interest to hire for the least amount of money and it’s in your interest to present your case as to why you deserve the high end of the range.

So if you want $100,000, don’t ask for $100,000. Instead, go to your anchor number, go a step or two higher, so ask for $115,000. So when, during the interview process, you’re asked what is your desired salary range, I would suggest to my client in this specific case to go ahead and anchor first and anchor high. “I’d be really happy at $115,000.”

You’re telling them what you want.

This strategy doesn’t just assume that just because you asked for your anchor number that it will be given to you automagically.

It assumes that this will invite the other side to a more in-depth conversation.

So, to be more specific, if the other side says, “You know, that’s a little bit higher than what we had budgeted. Could we talk about other ways to make this work?”, that is an invitation to a brainstorming conversation.

What else do you want? Are there non-monetary terms? Do you want a bigger title? Do you want more PTO? Do you want more face-time with the CEO?

In other words, how can we make this work so that you get what you want, closer to your target number and also sweeten the deal so that you accept this job offer sooner rather than later?

Now, this is an ideal situation, of course. It doesn’t always go that way, I have learned.

I just recently spoke with a client who unfortunately had a negotiation go...not so well. I didn’t coach her through this negotiation, she sought me out after it all went down.

She had assumed that the art of anchoring high and anchoring first is to really, really go extremely high and she did not anticipate the NO. She did not anticipate the objections.

What had happened was she was in a role making about $50,000 and she looked up the role that she wants to have and in that research, she found out that the going market rate is $75,000, which is 50% higher than her current salary.

So she brought this research to the negotiation with her supervisor and she asked for $75,000. She asked for a 50% salary increase.

And the response was a loud and clear NO.

$75k is, she was told, the salary that somebody receives at levels two or three levels higher than she. So they made it clear to her that no, this is not something that we can do. You will get a salary increase but this is not possible and it’s because, in our eyes, you are not a director. You do not have the title of director. We’re not giving you the title of director. So, no, that’s out of the question.

And so, if I had the opportunity to coach her through this, I would have done a few things, which is to advise her to find out what is a reasonable salary range for the role that she is going to be in.

Remember, she was being promoted, just not at a director level. So I would have advised her to do more research so that she could have anchored at a more reasonably ambitious mark.

Also, another thing I would have advised her to do after this juncture, after hearing the initial NO, is not to go to bargaining mode.

Not to say, “Okay well, if $75k doesn’t work, let’s go to $72k. Does that work?”  No. Don’t do that. Obviously, there’s been a mismatch of perception. This NO gave her a lot of information that at this particular employer, that $75,000 range is what somebody who would be two or three levels higher than she would make.

I would have suggested that she just get curious.

She obviously hadn’t done enough preparation, enough research to make a reasonably ambitious ask, but this is also an opportunity to get curious and find out, “Okay, well, you know what? I’m really glad you told me that. I obviously didn’t do enough research. I’d like to find out what is a reasonable salary range for the role I’m going into and I’m also curious. What can I do to set myself up for that director, senior management track? Because I’d love to be contributing at a higher level and also, at the same time, I’d love to be making more money and so, I’d love to know what are you looking for in terms of people who get hired at that level? I’d love to know how I can bridge that gap.”

And so this could have turned into a great conversation that could have generated advice, mentorship, and better understanding.

But I was told by her that unfortunately, this is not what had happened.

It’s so painful to get that initial NO because in our society and culture we have the tendency to attach our ego to our jobs, our salaries, to YESes, not NOs.

What would be possible if we didn’t attach our ego to the outcome?

What if we didn’t attach our ego to that number?

It’s just a number.

And I can hear your eyes rolling as I say this.

Jamie, you don’t understand. That’s easy for you to say because you’re a coach. I need this job. I need this money. I need to be respected. I need to be heard.

I feel so disrespected. I feel so undervalued. You don’t understand. I really need the negotiation to go well so that I can prove myself.

To which I want to share this gem of a quote from one of my favorite negotiation books, it’s called Start With No. It’s written by Jim Camp and I think it’s relevant because when we operate under the assumption that YES lives in the land of NO and when we welcome NOs and welcome YESes equally, we need to lose our neediness. So, I’ll read from this book:

“Today, in the twenty-first century, we’re not needy. We’re just not, but we nevertheless still hear people say, “I need this jacket.” Or “I need to make this call.” Or “I need this job.” Or “I need to talk to you.” Or “I need this deal.” We use the word 'need' much too casually.

The only things we truly need are the basics of physical survival - air, water, food, clothing, shelter - and everyone reading this book already has these.”

And I would add, everyone listening to this podcast, as well.

“We also need the basics of intellectual and emotional well-being - love, family, friendship, satisfying work, hobbies, faith - each reader has his or her own list here. But it’s a short list and it does not - or should not - include the $500 jacket or the $100,000 car, because there are other jackets and cars. It should not include this particular job or sale or deal, because there are other jobs and sales and deals.”

So, what I take away from this quote is that when we lose our neediness, we open ourselves up to abundance. And when we open ourselves up to the fact that YES lives in the land of NO and yes, there may be more NOs than YESes in that land of NO, so much can be possible.

What if we aim for NOs?

What if we aim to listen for the NO and for the objection and to really understand why people say NO to our ask?

What could happen?

I have a client who recently flipped a NO into a YES and in the process negotiated a $15,000 salary increase.

She had a contact with her dream job company. It’s one of the largest online websites in a particular field, I’ll say, for job search and she had one contact, a friend who worked there, so she reached out to her contact, her friend, and she got information about the work culture and through that connection she got inspired to apply for a position with that job through a recruiter.

So she applied and she went through the initial phase of that process, but then she was rejected after that first round, I think it was a phone interview, because they said, “Oh, you know, you’re not quite what we’re looking for, so oh, sorry, we’re not gonna proceed with you.”

So, she was told NO.

But she didn’t let this NO discourage her. She didn’t let this NO get to her ego and create stories about how this isn’t gonna work out for her or that anything would work out for her. Instead, she was open.

And the recruiter said, “Well, we’re not gonna proceed with you, however, if you would like an informal interview, informational interview with one of the hiring managers here since you are particularly interested in this particular job, we can set that up for you.” And she said yes. She said yes to the offer for an informal interview after she was rejected for the job.

And then she did the thing that most people don’t do. She actually followed up on that offer, even though she was rejected. She connected with the hiring manager.

The hiring manager gave her a tour of the office and at the end of this conversation, the hiring manager said, “Hey, would you like a job here?” To which she had to say, “Well, you know, actually I did apply and I was turned down.”

But because she was optimistic, because she followed through, because she showed up in person, the hiring manager said, “Well, you know, we could take that job that you were turned down for, bring it down a notch in terms of hierarchy and see if that will work.”

And so that’s what she did, she was initially applying for a managerial position and then she interviewed again through that hiring manager connection for an assistant manager position and she got that job. And in the process she anchored, she framed for benefit and she increased her salary by $15,000. So, for her, YES lived in the land of NO. I love that story.

So, I just want to wrap this up with this: in your negotiation journey, you’re going to get a NO. You’re going to get NOs. And that’s a good thing. Because it means that you asked. It means that you’re gaining experience.

And when you get that NO, don’t get furious, just get curious. Try to understand why people said no. Listen for objections. And if you listen long enough to their objections and if you try to really understand their objections from their point of view, you have the opportunity to flip that NO into a YES like my client did.

So, I wish you many YESes and I wish you as many NOs, because YES lives in the land of NO. Thank you, and I’ll talk to you soon!

Questioning: It's Unfair I Bungled My Salary Negotiation

In the book The Prosperous Coach, Rich Litvin says, "One advantage of me spending so much of my own life feeling powerless is that I now quickly see how powerful people are." 

Same here. 

In this episode, I share my experience bungling a salary negotiation that left me feeling powerless and resentful. 

I question my own negative beliefs that held me back from speaking up and asking for what I wanted. 

If you've ever felt small, powerless, and resentful at work, you'll want to check this out.

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Full Episode Transcript

Hello! Welcome to the twenty-first episode of Born to Thrive with Jamie Lee. Twenty-first! I love that. It means we’re legal now!

My name is Jamie Lee. I work as a coach and you can learn more about my services on jamieleecoach.com.

I believe that we’re all born to thrive. I believe that negotiation skills are leadership skills, and I’m curious to know: How are you thriving today?

Today I’m thriving because books are magic.

This book that I’m reading right now, The Prosperous Coach by Steve Chandler and Rich Litvin, it’s rocking my world and if you are somebody who’s interested in becoming a coach or who is a coach who wants to become a prosperous coach, I highly, highly recommend it.

There is a quote in this book that really inspired me and resonated with me. The quote is:

“One advantage of me spending so much of my own life feeling powerless is that I now quickly see how powerful people are. This is something we can all do. Your client is the god of their world because they create their own world. They don’t even know it.”

I love this quote because it totally resonates. I think it’s 100% true. For me, I see that yeah, earlier in my life I had long periods where I felt very powerless.

One of those times when I felt powerless was definitely ten years ago when I bungled my salary negotiation and ended up earning fifty percent of the going market rate - fifty percent - as a hedge fund analyst.

Now when I think about it, I can’t help but laugh because of all the mistakes I made and I think this experience inspired me to do the work that I do now because I’m like, wow, how could I have made so many mistakes, so many obvious mistakes?

So, at that time I was pivoting from a career in procurement. I used to buy steel plates and copper plates for a heavy industries company and then after that, I was buying shipping boxes and cartons for a beauty company. And then one day a colleague of mine told me that if I post my resume on Craigslist, that could be another way to get a job.

It sounds pretty crazy now, I know. I mean, I would not do this. I would not advise anyone to do this.

But back then I was naïve and I thought, “Oh, let me give this a try.”  So I did. I posted my resume on Craigslist and then I got a call from a hedge fund that was looking for somebody who was multilingual. I speak Japanese and Korean and English so they wanted me to come in for an interview for an analyst position. I was a qualitative analyst, meaning I was just reading a bunch of research and news and data all day long as a hedge fund analyst.

In any case, this is how I bungled my salary negotiation, okay?

Number one, I didn’t do any research.

I don’t know, I just didn’t think about it. I went to Wikipedia, I read one entry on what a hedge fund does and I’m like okay, that’s enough.

Number two, I didn’t ask anyone in my network. I didn’t reach out to the alums from my school who are in the finance industry to ask them for advice around how to negotiate my salary.

I was just ill-prepared. I was completely unprepared for this conversation and the hedge fund manager, basically, he came to me and he said, “Okay, well we’re ready to make an offer. What is your minimum salary requirement?”

And at that time I was making $43,000 as an entry-level buyer for a beauty startup, and I thought, “Well, I was making 43, so I should make at least 50, right, in the next job? But I’m sure they’re gonna offer me more. They’re a hedge fund, I mean, maybe my minimum is 50, but they’re gonna give me more.”

That was my unarticulated thought.

Oh, boy.

Can you guess what happened?

Yes, $50,000 became my starting salary and he said, “Take it or leave it. There is no room for negotiation. This is it.” And so, you know what I did? I took it.

And then a year into that job - a year into that job, that’s how long it took for me to realize how big a mistake I had made - I read a research report on the average going salaries for hedge fund analysts and I see that it’s $100,000.

When I found out that I was making 50% of the going market rate, I felt powerless.

I felt small.

I felt resentful.

And eventually, as a result of that and some other things, I ended up quitting after two years, and I ended up taking an unpaid internship with a women-focused angel investment fund and this internship eventually changed my life.

Since then, I’ve learned a few things and some of the key things that I’ve learned are:

Number one: That real power is inside of me not outside of me. I think so many of us, including me, we mistake that power lies in other people outside of us.

Number two: I abdicate that power when I blame other people for how I feel. I learned that I am responsible for my own feelings. That’s called emotional maturity.

Number three: I learned that feelings are not actually irrational. They don’t just come out of the ether. They’re not meaningless.

Because thinking generates feelings.

And feelings generate actions.

Actions generate results.

And I’m not just pulling this out of the air, there’s been a lot of research that shows that people make decisions based on how they feel. Everyone is biased in their thinking and that bias is your belief or your repeated thinking pattern.

So, thinking generates feelings. Feelings generate actions. Actions generate results.

So, what the hell was I thinking back then ten years ago when I completely bungled my salary negotiation?

And that question led me to revisit some old resentments that I harbored towards my former boss at the hedge fund. I’ve had many, many, countless thoughts - some very colorful - about him and that situation at the hedge fund, but two really stick out as the thorniest:

Number one: It’s unfair he paid me 50% of the going market rate.

Number two: I want him to pay me respect.

So when I entertain these thorny thoughts, I feel like a victim. I feel tightness in my gut and a collapsed feeling in my chest. If I just entertain that thought again right now, that feeling comes back. And the situation feels hopeless.

And the brain is hard-wired for stories, so it goes on overdrive making up stories about the past and future and then I see images of all the other times people treated me unfairly, how my life is so unfair. And I also see images of the future about how I’ll never succeed.

It’s madness.

And I recognize that I have the power to stop that thinking pattern.

I have the power to get back to reality as it really is, not as it should be or as I imagine that it was. To get back to this reality, I have to slow down.

My process is that I write my negative thoughts, my negative stories, my negative beliefs on paper and then I question them. I consider the facts that my hijacked brain completely overlooks.

For example, let’s consider the facts of this situation.

My starting salary was my minimum salary requirement. I pulled a number out of the air and it turned out that was 50% of the going market rate.

Here’s another fact: I took that job. I said yes. I consented to that salary even though I was disappointed with the offer because I was afraid I’d be even more disappointed if I didn’t take the job.

And here’s another fact: once I found out about the going market rate, I did not communicate. I did not try to negotiate for more because I was afraid of not having a job. Mind you, this was a year after the 2008 financial crisis.

Here’s one more fact: I didn’t respect my boss. Truth be told, I feared him and mostly I tried to avoid him.

So you might be thinking, “Jamie, don’t be so hard on yourself!” A lot of people have told me that, especially early in my life, and it might sound like I’m being harsh on me.

The truth is, when I question my thoughts, I feel liberated. And I see how powerful I really am in creating the results in my life by entertaining thoughts that generate feelings that generate actions that generate results. And I see that I have the choice of not believing negative thoughts, not having them.

And I can see that without this negative thought, the negative story that I need him to respect me and it was unfair, I see that I’m actually doing well. That I am free. I am free to make choices in my life, and in fact, I am grateful for the experience. It gave me a valuable lesson in life and work and negotiations. And in fact, truth be told, I have written about how I’ve bungled my salary on LinkedIn and it’s on the Muse and I’m talking about it again. The experience was instructive.

Ironically, the inversions of my negative thoughts are actually closer to the truth. The truth being I gave the fund 50% of my commitment and focus. I held back on expressing myself out of fear. I held back on speaking up. I held back on negotiating. That was my part.

Here’s another truth: I want me to give me respect. I want me to respect myself. I also want to earn people’s respect. I don’t want it handed to me by people that I don’t respect, like my boss.

When you consider the truth, it just makes me feel almost giddy and I feel compassion for my younger self.

Look, I’m not condoning the practice of underpaying people, no matter how inexperienced they are, as I was ten years ago. The point I’m making, again and again, is that I have the power to choose my thinking. I have the power to choose my action. Choices that generate results. We all do.

And this is what I see in my clients, as Rich Litvin said, I have experienced feeling powerless and that helps me see how powerful people really are. How powerful my clients are, especially when they feel that they don’t have power.

I work as a negotiation and leadership coach. This is really important because negotiating, leading the conversation, influencing people, these are all acts of power.

The power to question negative thoughts that hold you back.

The power to see yourself with agency to change perspectives and results.

The power to engage in conversation with other people as their colleagues, not adversaries.

You do have the power, so what will you do with it?

Yeah, I’m really asking you. What will you do with it?

This has been such a joy for me to revisit the feeling of powerlessness, revisit that feeling of resentment and see that no, actually, we are really powerful.

And on that note, I am leaving on vacation at the end of this week and in the meantime, I wish you a wonderful week, and if you want to learn more about my services, come check out jamieleecoach.com. Talk to you soon!