Entrepreneurship: How to Stay Positive When Business Gets Hard
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Entrepreneurship is one of the most rewarding journeys you can take, but it is also one of the hardest. The path is paved with setbacks, rejections, and long stretches of uncertainty. Yet, those who succeed are often the ones who find ways to embrace the struggle and persist through the toughest moments.
One of the biggest lessons I share in my book Yes Your Way to Success! (https://yesyourway.com/products/yes-your-way-to-success) is understanding the power of rejection, what I call the Power of 99 NOs. This concept has shaped how I view business and perseverance, and it is something every entrepreneur should remember when times get hard.
The Power of 99 NOs
In the late 1990s, I worked for Merrill Lynch. My job? To cold call 100 strangers a day. That meant sitting down with a phone and a list of people I had never met and convincing them to talk to me about their financial future. Out of those 100 strangers, the goal was to get 10 of them to agree to a follow-up call.
From there, I needed one person out of the ten to purchase a $275 financial assessment. That was the definition of success: not how many people rejected me, but how many said “yes.”
Here’s the reality though: to get that one yes, I had to fail 99 times. I had to hear “NO, thank you,” “Not interested,” or sometimes worse, 99 times a day. Most people would take those NOs as a personal defeat. But I learned that those 99 rejections were not failures. They were steppingstones to the one yes that mattered. The 99 NOs were learning in disguise.
That’s the essence of the Power of 99 Nos. Success in entrepreneurship often means pushing through rejection after rejection, knowing that each NO only brings you closer to the yes that could change your business.
Why Entrepreneurship Feels Hard
Entrepreneurship: How to stay positive when business gets hard is a question most business owners eventually ask themselves. When you create something new, a product, a service, or even just an idea, you are taking a risk. You are facing uncertain results, unpredictable customers, and the vulnerability of putting your vision out into the world.
Failures and rejections can feel crushing, especially when your dream is on the line. But those difficulties are not signs that you’re on the wrong path. Often, they are proof that you’re doing the hard work required to find the right opportunities.
Just like my experience on the phones at Merrill Lynch, you may need to go through 99 doors closing before one opens. But that one open door can completely change the trajectory of your business.
Real-World Examples of Persistence
The lesson of resilience in entrepreneurship is not new. Many of the most successful entrepreneurs in history had to push through hundreds of failures before they achieved success.
· Walt Disney was fired from a newspaper job because he supposedly “lacked imagination.” His early businesses went bankrupt before Disney Studios became the empire we know today. Imagine how many NOs he endured before his vision finally got the yes it needed.
· Colonel Harland Sanders, founder of KFC, pitched his fried chicken recipe more than 1,000 times before finding someone willing to partner with him. Every “NO” along the way wasn’t failure, it was one more step toward global success.
· Sara Blakely, the billionaire founder of Spanx, was rejected repeatedly by investors and manufacturers who didn’t believe in her idea. Yet she persisted and eventually built one of the most successful clothing brands in history.
These stories are just a few reminders that entrepreneurship is often less about genius ideas and more about tenacity. The common thread is simple: they didn’t give up when rejection came. They pushed forward, knowing they hadn’t yet reached their “yes.”
How to Stay Positive When Business Gets Hard
Entrepreneurship: How to stay positive when business gets hard comes down to how you choose to frame rejection. If you let every NO weigh you down, you’ll quickly burn out. But if you see NOs as progress markers, you can actually draw energy from them.
Here are some strategies to keep going:
· Redefine success. Success isn’t just the final yes, it’s the process of moving through the NOs. Each rejection is proof that you are doing the work, making attempts, and putting yourself where opportunities live.
· Shift your mindset. Instead of dreading rejection, expect it. Anticipate that 99 NOs might be required before the yes arrives. That way, when you hear “NO,” you can remind yourself it’s part of the formula, not a failure.
· Celebrate small milestones. Every time you move someone from a NO to a maybe, or from a cold call to a second conversation, you’ve made progress.
· Remember your why. The road gets hard, but your vision, the reason you started, should always serve as fuel. When things get tough, remind yourself why you chose entrepreneurship in the first place.
The First Yes is the Hardest
When you finally get that first customer, the feeling is indescribable. Suddenly, all the 99 failures feel worth it. That first “yes” validates your effort and your vision. The second yes comes easier, and then the momentum builds.
For me, that first yes at Merrill Lynch wasn’t just about making a sale, it was proof that perseverance pays off. It taught me that rejection was not an enemy but a pipeline to success.
Final Thoughts
Entrepreneurship: How to stay positive when business gets hard ultimately boils down to reframing rejection as opportunity. It’s about understanding the Power of 99 NOs and realizing that success doesn’t require everyone, just the right one.
When you face rejection after rejection, remember: every NO brings you closer to a yes that could change everything. The greatest entrepreneurs don’t avoid Nos, they push through them. That’s how Walt Disney, Colonel Sanders, and Sara Blakely did it. And that’s how you can too.
Your job as an entrepreneur is not to avoid hearing NO but to embrace it, learn from it, and keep going until your yes arrives.