The 50 No's Challenge
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- —
A decision rule Simon gives clients who say they can't get customers. Instead of setting a target for yeses — which nobody controls — he sets a quota of rejections: fifty no's inside ninety days. The mechanism is deliberately hidden from the client. Because the only way to accumulate no's is to keep putting yourself in front of people, and because more exposure mathematically produces more yeses, anyone who works the challenge properly will start closing business long before they reach fifty rejections. The target is therefore designed to be unreachable. It converts an emotionally loaded outcome metric into a controllable activity metric, and it needs a third party holding the person to the number for it to bite.
Origin
Extracted from Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal
How to run it
- 1
Diagnose the activity gap first
Before prescribing anything, ask how many conversations they've actually had in the last few weeks. Simon's client answered 'just a few' — which located the problem in volume, not in the offer.
- 2
Set a no-quota, not a yes-target
Assign a large, specific number of rejections to collect — Simon uses fifty — and make it the only scoreboard that counts.
Watch out Never explain the mechanism up front. The client needs to chase the no's genuinely for the exercise to work.
- 3
Bound it with a fixed window
Attach a deadline — ninety days — so the quota forces a daily outreach rate rather than drifting.
- 4
Score every no as progress
Log each rejection as a point earned. This inverts the emotional weight of rejection: a no now moves you toward the target rather than away from your goal.
- 5
Report the number to someone else
Simon's role was to hold the client accountable to the challenge. Left alone, people procrastinate and move the goalposts — his stated reason coaching works at all.
Pro tip Set a check-in cadence so the count is spoken out loud to another person.
- 6
Expect the yeses to arrive first
The more you put yourself out there, the more chances for a yes. When the client messages to say they won't hit fifty because business is closing, the exercise has succeeded.
In the wild
A client told Simon she was finding it challenging to get clients for her business. He asked how many conversations she'd had in the last few weeks; the answer was just a few. His challenge: get me fifty no's in the next ninety days. What she didn't know was that if she did the exercise properly she would never reach fifty, because sustained exposure inevitably produces yeses. Shortly after, she messaged him on WhatsApp saying she didn't think she was going to get to fifty. Simon, smiling to himself, asked why. Her answer: she had just got her sixth yes.
→ Six paying clients inside the ninety-day window, and the rejection quota was abandoned as unreachable.
Common mistakes
Targeting yeses you don't control
A goal of 'ten clients' depends on other people's decisions, so a bad week reads as failure. A rejection quota depends only on how many conversations you start, which is fully within your control.
Treating a no as a verdict
The whole design assumes rejections are inventory to be accumulated. Stopping outreach after a handful of no's is exactly the behaviour the quota exists to prevent.
Running the challenge with no witness
Simon's stated view is that when we are the only one holding ourselves accountable we procrastinate and move the goalposts. An unreported count quietly becomes optional.
From the transcript
“my challenge to you is in the next 90 days I want you to get me 50 notes”
“the more we put ourselves out there the more chances for that yes”
“I've just got my sixth yes”
From the episode
Life Coach: Why Your Energy Drives Your Success In Life - Simon Alexander Ong
Simon Alexander Ong