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Are you the kind of person who refuses to accept no for an answer?  Do you push forward and persist in your endeavor regardless of how many naysayers you meet along the road? Are you the kind of individual who views every obstacle you encounter as a challenge thrown out just for you ? Does the thought of overcoming challenges excite you and push you to do bigger and greater things? Can you think of a few times in your life when someone telling you no served to propel you on to success?  Personally I can think of many such occasions.  Then again, there’s a family story that my mother used to tell about me giving her a dirty look when they put me on her stomach to cut the umbilical cord, and how she knew she was in for a run for her money with me. She decided right then and there that I was going to be a very stubborn kid. I don’t know if that was a self-fulfilling prophesy, or if she saw something in me in the very first moments

Sometimes being tenacious doesn’t serve you.   Have you ever expended a great deal of energy arguing with anyone and everyone who disagreed with you, or who who threw an obstacle into your path?   That energy might have been  better used to your advantage in a different way. Would you have reached your goal faster or accomplished more if you hadn’t gotten stuck along the way confronting and arguing? Of course, I have no way of answering that for you, but maybe it would be helpful to take a look at your history.

Stubborn is really in the eye of the beholder.  Unyielding and rigid people can definitely be annoying. They aren’t easy to live with a times.   Stubborn doesn’t always mean someone is rigid, though. It might just mean he or she is more of a visionary than the average person. A creative person sees things that not everyone sees, at least right away. The idea or vision might be so clear and so exciting, that it is impossible to give up on. An idealist may march forward out of a commitment to a belief, and/or out of a need to make the world a better place. People who surround such individuals often can’t understand it when someone is so steadfast. They may perceive of this as fixated and unrealistic and may feel they are superior because they believe themselves to be more practical.

Which are you, then? Do you view a “no” as an obstacle or as an opportunity? Does the no stand firmly in your way, causing you to freeze or to give up? Does the no spur you on to do your thing?  

Tell us your story, please, about how getting a no answer helped you. Maybe your story is different. Did receiving a no cause you to let go of something important? Where are you now emotionally, when you think about that?  I would love to hear about it. Why not post on my blog, or email me at

ir**@vi*******************.com











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