No Means Not Yet
A no may signal growth, not inadequacy.
Sep 24, 2026 · 18 min · 9 segments
Send us Fan Mail You've been treating "no" like a verdict on you. It isn't. It's just the first move in a conversation you keep walking away from…
And I would please maybe kick off with a psychological side of things in the sense of why does a nose think so much more than a not yet or a maybe? What do you think?
This is such a great question and I'd like to start because I love this topic of saying no and receiving no or hearing no. It's something that I had to learn in my life because I was not able to hear it and I took it super personally.
Anytime I heard no.
And only later on, I understood why.
And I would love to hear your thoughts, Christine, but what I learned about the psychological effect of no is that we learned, even as kids, that every time we received no or we heard no, we heard it as rejection of ourselves.
So when we were kids, the no usually didn't come with a single no.
It usually went with punishment that followed it.
So we learned that every time we receive no, that means that there's something wrong with us.
We're not good enough.
We are bad people or whatever else.
You can just insert the blank, whatever limiting belief you attach to the no.
So now when we're adults, even though no one punishes us, We hear no.
And the trigger, this is the trigger that just launches the same reaction in our body.
And it took me so long to understand that The no from other people is actually not a rejection of myself.
It's not something that I should take personally.
But it's just a no to one of the strategies, one of the wishes, one of the asks that I'm giving to that person.
So this differentiation has made a huge difference in my life.
But I would really love to hear your thoughts, Christy and Melanie.
If you can identify with what I just told or if you see the no differently than me.
And I would please maybe kick off with a psychological side of things in the sense of why does a nose think so much more than a not yet or a maybe? What do you think?
This is such a great question and I'd like to start because I love this topic of saying no and receiving no or hearing no. It's something that I had to learn in my life because I was not able to hear it and I took it super personally.
Anytime I heard no.
And only later on, I understood why.
And I would love to hear your thoughts, Christine, but what I learned about the psychological effect of no is that we learned, even as kids, that every time we received no or we heard no, we heard it as rejection of ourselves.
So when we were kids, the no usually didn't come with a single no.
It usually went with punishment that followed it.
So we learned that every time we receive no, that means that there's something wrong with us.
We're not good enough.
We are bad people or whatever else.
You can just insert the blank, whatever limiting belief you attach to the no.
So now when we're adults, even though no one punishes us, We hear no.
And the trigger, this is the trigger that just launches the same reaction in our body.
And it took me so long to understand that The no from other people is actually not a rejection of myself.
It's not something that I should take personally.
But it's just a no to one of the strategies, one of the wishes, one of the asks that I'm giving to that person.
So this differentiation has made a huge difference in my life.
But I would really love to hear your thoughts, Christy and Melanie.
If you can identify with what I just told or if you see the no differently than me.
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3 of 8
No Means Not Yet
A no may signal growth, not inadequacy.
Why Rejection Feels Personal
Rejection feels personal because we learned it.
Three Banks Said No
Repeated rejection can reveal a different path.
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