One huge consequence of our worry of embarrassment is that we’re nearly all overly delicate to rejection. We haven’t constructed up our acceptance-of-rejection muscle mass, and it is a main obstacle to company.
I’ve discovered that essentially the most environment friendly solution to construct these muscle mass is to make audacious requests.
Most of us fastidiously assess which requests that we’d make are acceptable and which go too far. We keep away from any request that’s more likely to generate social friction, behaving as if it could be instantly deadly to have a request denied. “I simply moved to the town, need to present me your favourite lunch spot this weekend?” “No.” Zap, lifeless, by way of bolt of lightning. What a tragic and untimely demise!
We additionally actually don’t like the sensation of being advised “no,” of receiving what seems like a judgment that we’ve overestimated our price. Therefore, we decide out of requesting.
But, concurrently, we all know that if we attempt to stop ourselves from ever experiencing rejection, we miss out on many alternatives in life. In case you are decided to keep away from rejection wholesale, you’ll probably by no means:
Ask somebody on a date who is likely to be out of your league.
Ask somebody in a discipline the place you haven’t any expertise for assist getting a job.
Ask somebody you admire for mentorship or suggestions in your work.
Ask somebody to fund your startup, analysis, or artwork challenge.
Negotiate for larger pay.
Deepen a friendship or relationship by speaking about dangerous topics.
Publish inventive work on the web.
Once we deal with rejection as an existential hazard, we’re restricted to a predictable existence.
A extra useful standpoint is that rejection is a type of data. Whenever you expertise rejection, you’ve discovered {that a} given request received’t work. That avenue is now shut off, liberating you to strive one thing else.
The high-agency mindset about rejection takes issues even additional. It says that you need to search out rejection, or at the very least welcome it. Congratulate your self on listening to no. Remind your self that if you happen to don’t routinely encounter rejection, you aren’t asking for sufficient—you’re solely making requests which are extraordinarily more likely to obtain a sure.
How do you get comfy with the high-agency method to rejection? Alas, it’s publicity all the best way down. The extra instances you hear the phrase no and spot that it’s not deadly, the much less aversion to rejection you’ll really feel. You possibly can pace this up by in search of it out.
I recommend that you just begin by asking for just a few unreasonable issues.
The Artwork and Science of Asking Large
I consider in asking for “unreasonable” issues for a lot of causes, past the emotional coaching.
One: For those who habitually keep away from rejection, you aren’t going to be properly calibrated about what’s cheap—which is likely to be greater than you anticipate.
After I began coaching myself to make bolder asks, I discovered it useful to think about myself as sporting rejection-sensitivity goggles, which I had to determine the best way to take off. The goggles restrict company in some ways. By attempting to defend us from rejection, they steer us away from approaching individuals who could possibly be of giant assist.
The goggles don’t simply trigger us to overrate the severity of rejection. In addition they make us overestimate how typically we can be rejected.
In a collection of experiments, researchers Frank Flynn of Stanford and Vanessa Lake of Columbia College obtained college students to ask strangers for assist. Requests included “Can I borrow your cellphone?” and “Are you able to fill out this questionnaire for a examine I’m doing?” They requested the scholars to foretell how probably individuals could be to assist, and located that they underestimated by 50%—about twice as many individuals as anticipated agreed. Flynn and Lake concluded that the scholars displayed an “selfish bias,” focusing an excessive amount of on their very own emotions. They imagined that as a result of asking for issues felt awkward, it should even be awkward for the individuals receiving the requests.
However after all, it typically feels nice to be requested for a favor that you could capably grant. We simply overlook this once we ask for favors, performing like we’re visiting a curse on an harmless particular person somewhat than giving somebody a chance to exhibit their functionality and generosity.
Once we take off our goggles and begin asking, we free ourselves from this bias. We’re then capable of interact in a brand new, correct coaching course of, the place asking for what appears unreasonable generates knowledge about the place the traces actually are.
Two: Whenever you prepare your self to be much less afraid of rejection, you can see your requests are granted extra typically, since you’ll make them with better confidence.
Human beings are topic to emotional contagion. For those who’re scared to ask somebody for a favor, they are going to really feel your worry and take it as a cue: They’re scared to ask this, so it should be a extremely huge deal. I ought to say no!
For those who don’t sign worry, they’ll be extra more likely to contemplate the request cheap.
Three: Unreasonable requests can open the door to cheap requests.
This impact was documented in a traditional examine by Robert Cialdini. When the big request got here first, the chance of the strangers agreeing to the smaller, fallback request tripled.
Based on Cialdini, it’s due to the social norm of reciprocity, which says that if somebody makes a tacit concession (“You’re proper, my ask was manner too huge”) we must always reciprocate with a concession of our personal.
One smart way to make use of this impact is in wage negotiations.
4: Unreasonable requests generally is a filtering mechanism.
The purpose is that most individuals will say no, however just a few shoppers will say sure. It not solely ensures you’re paid a “cheerful worth” but in addition acts as a filter for essentially the most motivated shoppers.
Making a request that 99% of individuals will say no to is a incredible manner of discovering the 1% of the inhabitants you’re most aligned with.
5: Unreasonable requests can result in productive conversations.
I believe it’s honest to say that asking to be appointed to move a corporation you’ve by no means labored for is flat-out unreasonable. Sending this, I knew the recipient would possibly regard me as delusional.
The recipient by no means responded on to my e-mail, however I nonetheless contemplate my message successful: Just a few months later, when the group was spinning up one other main challenge, she reached out to see if I used to be .
Lastly: Making requests helps construct your muscle for creativeness.
Whenever you begin questioning what you may ask for, you construct your imaginative muscle mass by asking the easy query, “What else is feasible that may at the moment appear unreasonable?”
Don’t Hedge or Hector
A key factor about audacious asks is that you could’t do them hesitantly or midway. Ask for what you need, straightforwardly.
It’s additionally important to take rejection gracefully. Be sure you say one thing to the impact of, “I perceive, thanks for listening to me out.” For those who sense a no isn’t essentially the tip of the dialog, you may ask: “Okay, I’m not attempting to persuade you to vary your thoughts—however may you inform me why it’s a no for you?”
This was a lesson that Jia Jiang discovered in his 100 days of rejection, and he ended up adopting it as a serious precept: Don’t run, ask why. He discovered what few hassle to study: that there’s an infinite distinction between our tales about why individuals flip us down and why they really do.
When making daring asks, remember the fact that company is all about breaking by way of the fictional limitations of your life and letting your self be restricted solely by actual limitations. A agency no is an precise barrier. Present respect for that, and inform your self that you’re now that rather more conscious of one other restrict, and free to pursue one other ask.
Excerpted from the ebook YOU CAN JUST DO THINGS by Cate Corridor with Sasha Chapin. Copyright ©2026 by Caitlin Corridor and Alexander Chapin. Used with permission of Harper Edge, an imprint of HarperCollins. All rights reserved.
