Know Your Value, Know Your Worth: NO Is Just The Beginning

Have you ever experienced moments when you know you’re destined for something amazing, but your pride, ego and excuses just stand in your way? Those are the moments when you need to know your value, know your worth.

If so, then you may know and understand a little of what Garrain Jones experienced, when his attitude led to a life with no purpose, passion, or direction. Which, eventually, led him to become homeless, living out of his car for over two and a half years.

Many people wallow in those low moments for far too long, and some never come out, but by making simple mindset shifts, your entire life can drastically change. Take this opportunity to learn from Garrain, so that you can begin living life on your terms.

Many people believe that hearing NO, essentially failing, will be the end of their business. But, it doesn’t mean that, NO is just the first step in heading towards success.

The Beginning of No

Garrain’s first foray into hearing NO, was when friends were telling him that he should be a model. He was skeptical, he knew the odds were against him, being only 5’9” and having no abs, but he decided to go all in.

He wanted this with every part of himself. So, he took the time to write down every single modeling agency he could find. He took that list and visited every single one, receiving NO after NO, but he never let that melt his resolve. He stuck with it and visited the top two modeling agencies, Wilhelmina and Ford.

Immediately upon visiting Ford he received his 12th NO and thought that was it. He began fearing, fear itself. The only thing that pushed him to go to Wilhelmina was that he didn’t want to be in a position where he went and got rejected 12 times and never heard a YES. His main driver was shame.

When it came to visit Wilhelmina, there were 80 people already waiting to be seen, he didn’t look like any of the other models in the room, and thought about leaving because everyone else had been turned away and he didn’t have a portfolio. After most of the 80 people had been rejected, he decided it was time for him to go, when his inner voice spoke up and told him to keep going.

He went in, had his meeting and Wilhelmina said they’d love to represent him. Garrain went on to do some amazing things with that company.

You have to earn your YES, by going through your NOs.

When you hear a NO, the most important thing you can do is take the time to determine what you learned. It is literally one of the best ways to grow and change as an entrepreneur. “How will I do things different next time?”

Throughout the next phases of Garrain’s life he heard NO over and over again. He tried to become a singer, and was told by so many people that he’d be the next hot thing. He was even fortunate enough to have a pretty dedicated following on MySpace (when MySpace was huge), but when it came down to it, the industry wanted him to change who he was and in changing who he was, he began to lose followers, and more importantly himself.

The Truth of The Struggle

After not being able to find himself after changing for the music industry, Garrain had created this momentum in his life that he didn’t know how to crawl out of. He stopped making money, his girlfriend left him, and his daughter started asking him how come he didn’t love her anymore. Wave after wave of roadblocks kept hitting him, it was the darkest time in his life. The only place he felt safe was in his car, which is where he ended up living for over two and a half years, he felt like it closed him off from the world.

He realized change was necessary when he reached the point where he was thinking, “Either I die, or do something about it.”

He was afraid, and even in a room full of thousands of people, he felt completely alone. THIS is where he hit rock bottom, and when you hit rock bottom, you have no option but to bounce back up. Not everyone will hit rock bottom, but you have a choice, and we get to make choices in our life, and you can choose to do something with your NO’s and rejections, or you can take them for the negative, or we can take them for the positive.

Up until this point in his life he had always focused on what he didn’t want out of life, it’s important to remember that whatever you focus on is exactly what happens in your life. So, instead he flipped this and started focusing on exactly what he wanted out of life. He’d say things like, “I want to be healthy! I want to be happy! I want to be surrounded by nothing but positive people! I want to make a bunch of money, but I want the money to represent something that I passionately believe in, and that I would do for free”

This was the point when everything started to shift in Garrain’s life.

The Big Shift

Garrain was introduced to an environment where the culture nurtured self-development and creating the best version of yourself. He had manifested a culture of success-conscious people that were going for something, that were goal-driven, that were driving for something that’s much bigger in life than just, “Oh, poor pitiful me.”

Anyone can manifest a life like this. Just say what you want out of life, and really really focus on that. Then, turn off the TV, turn off the radio, be more intentional with your time. Listen to podcasts geared toward where and how you want to develop, start reading or listening to self-development books. These are the things that will truly strengthen you, so that you are strong enough to move onto the next level, and remain there for your entire life.

The NO’s will still come, but you’ll look at them as tests and challenges, as if you’re working out a new muscle, instead of failures. Sure, it will be hard in the beginning, but if you keep going and doing it over and over again (never giving up), eventually you become stronger and those “muscles” grow bigger and bigger, and you start hearing the YES’s.

It’s so important to remember that the faster you go through the NO’s, the faster you will hear the YES’s.

In Garrain’s life, he’d hear “NO” 80% of the time, and “YES” 20%– but, he never looked at the NO’s as TRUE NO’s. He knew that 90% of the time, those NO’s would turn into a YES eventually.

It’s all in the follow-up.

Don’t let the No’s deter you, keep going. Keep checking in, and following up, even if you end up losing friends. If you continue to transform, grow, and live a life that others want to live, people will see that and come around. They want to live the life you have, so never give up!