<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div>Greetings Gotham-</div><div><br></div><div>The Towers group is meeting 2 short weeks from today in our new venue, Omega Diner in New Hyde Park. We have a great topic decked up with the article below from our great Chair, Steve Lichtenstein. Would love to see some of you riding the circuit 4/16 to join in a great discussion. </div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr"><div><p class="s3" style="text-align: start; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span class="s2" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Being Powerful in the face of \u201cNO\u201d</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">We all get Weird in the face of \u201cNO\u201d.</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">If you are not powerful in the face of \u201cno,\u201d you will not be powerful in life or any of your endeavors.</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">In order to</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> make anything happen in life you are going to have to deal with the \u201cno\u2019s\u201d that are in your path. \u201cNo\u201d never stops people who are planning something extraordinary. \u201cNo\u201d illuminates the path that must be followed to fulfill something now or later.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">For example, as a Gotham Group leader, when someone misses a meeting that is a \u201cno\u201d towards what I am comm</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">it</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">t</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ed to. (Building relationships in a short time, leveraging those relationships and helping members to make connections)</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. I could choose to take that personally as a \u201cno\u201d to me, but that would not empower me in my commitment to transforming the way that people network in an uncommon manner. Instead, I take that \u201cno\u201d as evidence that human beings struggle and have breakdowns around being in their world. It is evidence why when you do come to a meeting you ultimately walk away with something valuable (a lead, a connection, a newfound appreciation for something you\u2019ve missed). So</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">,</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> when people are absent, I look to see what </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">the </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">context</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> is,</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> inside of people </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">who </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">find ways to justify not doing what they said they would do and then we can have a conversation to distinguish that.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">In your life look at areas where you can\u2019t be with a \u201cno\u201d. Where do you not </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">take action</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> or compromise your speaking to avoid getting a \u201cno\u201d? Where have you gotten a big \u201cno\u201d in the past and now you do everything </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">in your power to avoid getting another one of those? You must be willing to hear \u201cno\u201d! The only way to avoid \u201cno\u201d form others is to not want anything from life, and then, unfortunately, YOU end of being the one who is a big \u201cNO\u201d to life.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Stop being afraid of \u201cno\u201d. In sales and in love, I\u2019ve come to realize that each \u201cno\u201d gets me closer to a \u201cyes\u201d. The poet Wallace Stevens said</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">,</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> \u201cAfter the final \u201cno\u201d there comes a \u201cyes\u201d, and on that Yes the future of the world depends.\u201d</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">As you may discover, although you think another person\u2019s \u201cno\u201d stops you from reaching your goal; it does not. You are thinking that person\u2019s \u201cno\u201d means something. You must go beyond that \u201cno\u201d. Experiment</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> with how many \u201c</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">no\u2019s</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">\u201d you must get to get one \u201cyes</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">\u201d</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> and then start getting those no\u2019s. If you can then visualize that \u201cno\u201d as a pathway to the \u201cyes\u201d, you will go after those \u201cno\u2019s\u201d quickly so that the \u201cyes\u201d shows up that much sooner.</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In summary, please understand that it is our reaction that prevents us from reacting to what is happening with our request, at that precise moment in time. \u201cNo\u201d may only mean \u201cno\u201d for right now; it does not mean \u201cno\u201d to us and it may not mean \u201cno\u201d forever!</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Steven D. Lichtenstein </span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">[With credit to an old </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">mentor,</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> Chris Lindstrom who helped me to discover this blind spot in 2004]</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><a name="_GoBack"></a></span></p><p class="s3" style="text-align: start; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><br><div id="AppleMailSignature" dir="ltr">Sent from my iPhone</div></div></div></blockquote></body></html>