{"id":38513,"date":"2021-04-09T10:00:44","date_gmt":"2021-04-09T14:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/simpleprogrammer.com\/?p=38513"},"modified":"2021-04-09T09:08:28","modified_gmt":"2021-04-09T13:08:28","slug":"no-isnt-scary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/simpleprogrammer.com\/no-isnt-scary\/","title":{"rendered":"Why \u201cNo\u201d Is Not The Scariest Thing You Will Hear"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spoiler Alert: Simple Programmer is actively seeking 2021 writers and contributors. Want to learn more? Check out our Write for Us page<\/a>. Nervous about sending us a submission? Read on…<\/em><\/p>\n

Many people will never step outside their box of comfort and complacency because they fear the rejection.<\/p>\n

They fear hearing that tiny little word: NO<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\"No\"I somehow missed that sequence in my DNA structuring.<\/p>\n

Want to know how to eliminate it from yours?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The way I figure it, if I’m already not doing something I want to be doing, then I’m getting a big old NO<\/strong> anyways.<\/p>\n

If this were a fifth grade logical word problem, the sequence would go something like this:<\/p>\n

Elisa wants to do Thing A, but she is not currently doing Thing A.<\/p>\n

In deciding how to get to the end result of being about to do Thing A, Elisa is faced with two possible courses of action:<\/p>\n

Solution\u00a0#1 – Keeping with her current course of action and hoping that she will get to do Thing A.<\/p>\n

Solution #2 – Asking the ominous Gatekeeper whether she can do Thing A<\/p>\n

Which solution should Elisa select if she wants to have a greater chance of doing Thing A?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Folks often ask me how to launch a freelance career and get gigs, as I once made it my life’s work. I’d like to say that I was a brilliant strategist who oozes such talent that people are veritably tripping over themselves to get me on a call with them.<\/p>\n

Sadly, this is not the case.<\/p>\n

The truth is that you just need to be a super stubborn person<\/a> who is completely unaware of the correct “protocol” for most situations.<\/p>\n

Picture this: It is New Year’s Day of 2021 (the heralded “end of 2020 we were all waiting for!) and like everyone else you were having an exceptionally crazy turn of the year.<\/p>\n

Staring at the course you had chartered for yourself<\/a>, that includes coding a whole new app or finally learning how to play the didgeridoo, you become physically afflicted wondering “Is this what I want? Is this what is going to make me happy?”<\/p>\n

This is exactly what happened to me a decade ago.<\/p>\n

It was 2010 and I wanted to write.<\/h2>\n

Blogging was something that I loved, and people seemed to think I was half-way good at it, so I just needed to find a way to back up that life decision with tangible proof that I could sustain a life writing little articles and columns. Assessing the landscape for syndication, it was obvious that online media was the direction people were heading.<\/p>\n

I spent a few hours looking at various outlets that I was familiar with and thought I might have a chance at getting a meeting at.<\/p>\n

Finally, I settled on pitching Maine’s largest newspaper and media site with a column on relationships and dating. 2010 was my year of Love (#protip: choose a word to center long-goals around so you feel like you have direction and purpose) and it seemed like a good way to focus on my intentions.<\/p>\n

I knew less than nothing about pitching a column.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I researched Greater Portland’s singles demographics, nearby media blogs, and wrote a sample piece. Scouring the site I found a tiny link at the bottom to email a content producer, since they did not have a full page with detailed instructions for How to Write for them.<\/p>\n

(PS – we have one of those pages here on Simple Programmer, telling you exactly how to submit a piece<\/strong><\/a> we’ll fall in love with and want to publish.)<\/em><\/p>\n

They absolutely positively could have\/probably should have\u00a0said “No” to me.<\/h2>\n

In fact, I was fairly certain that they were going to. I had an entire laundry list of reasons that they would be idiots to hire me for this gig. They included, but were not limited to:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. I had no experience with a regular writing assignment<\/li>\n
  2. My only credentials were an assortment articles for local newspapers and my own blog<\/li>\n
  3. I thought<\/em> had no idea how to write a pitch “correctly”<\/li>\n
  4. Having not been in a relationship for over a decade, I was one of the least qualified people ever to write about relationships<\/li>\n
  5. I felt like I had no real business passing myself off as a writer when (in reality) I was a middle-manager for an insurance company<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    But something I wrote caught the attention of that crazy<\/del> amazing content producer and she agreed to meet with me on a Thursday.<\/p>\n

    My pitch had done the job<\/a> it needed:<\/p>\n