Essay: A Life-changing Piece of Advice
An exceptional piece of advice I acquired on my digital travels recently was from an Author called josh Kaufman who wrote a book called ‘The Personal MBA’ which is basically a business master’s in a book. During this interview on the ‘Modern Wisdom’ podcast, he shared a piece of advice that he uses to guide himself to success:
"Make them tell you 'No'"
Seems pretty simple but one problem of being a clever clog is that you can mistake your assumptions for reality and miss doors that might be open instead of closed. “Make them tell you ‘no'' forces you to test your hypotheses in the real world and see what happens...
This piece of advice could apply to a job, starting a business, asking a girl out. Whatever the challenge, the basic principle is that rather than assuming you know what’s going to happen to save yourself the hassle, go over and make the extra effort to hear a 'no.' Only when you hear a ‘no’, do you know! (Savage)
This is an efficient strategy to maximize opportunities because the cost of being told no is very low. However, the potential upside of a yes might be life-changing. Don't let your intellect tell you what’s going to happen in advance. Meet the gatekeeper of opportunity and hold out to find out for yourself because sometimes what you think will be a 'no' can be a 'yes.'
This applies in many other areas when you think there's nothing new to be learned. If you can imagine what the end is like, why go on the journey? Except you can't, our imaginations are flawed and only based on your current level of experience up to that point.
So, what has to trump the intellect is your desire for adventure, and the desire for adventure is a desire to go and see for yourself. "Make them tell you 'no'" doesn't just apply to job opportunities and women; this wisdom applies to life itself.
There's no point to anything until you see the point of it. And frequently, that conclusion can only be reached by the information you gather on the journey, so don't assume anything.
Make life tell you 'no' first, see the limits of what you can achieve for yourself, and most of the time, you won't see any limits at all. Go see for yourself because the adventurous and curious attitude is a lot more meaningful and productive than the alternative and you never know what unexpected wisdom and lessons you will learn along the way.