Hi,
Let me start by saying I'm writing this one as much for myself as you today.
Lately, I've been in a season of more "no"s than usual. Nothing dramatic, or career-ending. But the kind that, after a few have piled up, start to make me wonder what's going on. Is it my pitch? My follow-up? Was it just bad timing? Or was it just... me?
I spend a lot of time giving advice on how to pitch better, post more consistently, and build a stronger point of view. I like to think it's helpful.
But there's another part of putting yourself out there that we don't talk about often enough, and how you approach it determines whether all of the rest of it will stick.
It's what you do when you do all the right things, and still hear "no."
Here's what I've learned, over a decade of some cycles where it felt like every email I sent landed perfectly, and plenty where it felt like all of them got immediately deleted:
Confidence isn’t a feeling. It’s a behavior.
When you hear “no,” whether it’s in response to a pitch, a partnership, or even just a LinkedIn post that goes nowhere, the story your brain wants to tell you immediately after is that it means something about you — your credibility, your positioning, whether you actually know what you're doing.
Most of the time, it doesn't.
A reporter passes on your pitch because they just covered something similar three weeks ago. An opportunity goes to someone who’s been hounding it for longer. A potential customer goes with someone they already know.
None of that is a referendum on whether you're good at this. It's just how a competitive, noisy, timing-dependent industry (aka, all of them) works.
That doesn't make it feel better in the moment. I'm not going to tell you it does.
But here's a distinction that's helped me: a "no" is information, not a verdict. A verdict is final. Information is something you work with.
So when the no’s come — and they will keep coming, for all of us — the question isn't whether you feel confident. You probably won't. The question is what you do.
The founders I've watched build real, lasting visibility aren't the ones who never doubt themselves. They're the ones who give themselves a short window for the doubt — feel it, sit with it for a minute, and then do the next thing. They send the next pitch. They write the next post. Not because they've convinced themselves the last one was great. Just because the next one is the only thing they can actually control now.
Confidence as a feeling is unreliable. It shows up when things are going well and disappears exactly when you need it most. But confidence as a behavior — pitching anyway, posting anyway, trying again with slightly better information — that you can do regardless of how you feel.
You don't have to feel ready. You just have to do the next thing.
So if you're in a season of no right now — I see you. I'm in it too. It's not a signal to stop. It's just Wednesday.
Do the next thing.
See you next week,
Megan
P.S. If you're getting no’s on your pitches or posts, and want a second set of eyes on what you're sending, hit reply. I'm happy to take a quick look.