Just Say No

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I want to talk about saying "no."

It's one of those words that usually gets perceived as a negative word and not a lot of good things that come from it. But the older I get and the more I get asked to do, the more I realize that no is maybe the more powerful thing that I can say.

It's for multiple reasons. First, when you say yes to everything you're unintentionally saying no to a lot of other things. You just don't realize it yet. Because now you're so busy that something may get presented to you that you're not able to take advantage of because you've overextended. It also means that the things that you say no to make you more available to the things that you do say yes to.

I used to be terrible about getting asked to do something, looking at my calendar to see if I had anything else that was going on at that time and then going "oh, I'm free then. I can do it" - completely not realizing that what was happening was I was just filling my calendar instead of being impactful. Instead of being useful with my time. I was just going to wherever people pulled me instead of being intentional and purposeful about where I spent my time and what I was doing so that I could have the greatest impact where I was putting my effort.

I was thinking about when I used to have a retail store and selling LSU merchandise. I'd get hit up for advertising all the time. In the beginning, I did a lot of advertising on the radio and magazines, billboards, TV - all this different stuff. I found that the more I advertised, the more sales reps would come to me and try to sell me advertising. What was happening is all those sales reps were just looking at where other people were spending money and then thinking "oh he's spending money, let's go see if he wants to advertise here." And so the more I advertised, the more I got asked to do it.

It's the same with saying yes. The more you say yes, the more you get asked to say yes to other things. And as I've gotten older, while I don't regret regret the things that I've said yes to in the past, it's led me to this point where now I have to be more intentional about where I spend my time. I'm actually more of a default no than a default yes, because then I'm able to step back and look and say "yeah, here's a really good use of my time. This is where I want to put it and I'm prepared to do so."

I hope you have a great weekend. I'll catch you on the other side

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• How to Host a Mastermind Retreat
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• Why did Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney buy Wrexham? The full story
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• How BeReal missed its moment
  - Platformer
  
  

• Taco Bell’s innovation team could probably solve all the world’s woes if we asked them to
  - The Hustle
  
  

• Career Bending Times.
  - RISHAD TOBACCOWALA