Do you know how and when to say no? A plain simple, no. No thank you, I am not interested in a business deal; no to an acquaintance who asks you something that is just simply not right for you?
I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. As my business grows, I have more and more opportunities coming my way. Some are bad, which I have no issue saying no to, and some are really good, but I still struggle to say no if the offer is not what I think I deserve.
I am so bad at saying ‘no’, at selling myself. Hubby, my real better half in the field, always tells me that unless I feel 100% comfortable about a project and its proposed revenue, I should say ‘no’. But I’m a people-pleaser, and I hate to say ‘no’. I’m better at it now than I was in my early 30s, but I still don’t like to say no, and many times, I have accepted deals for my business – or my personal life – where later on, I was like “hold on… why did I say yes to this again?”
And as I’ve been processing this entire concept in my mind for the last few weeks or so, my husband recently told me about Steve Jobs and his view on saying ‘no’. Steve Jobs would ask his employees how many times a day they had said ‘no’ to something to assess if they were fully focused on their assigned task. The more they had said no, the more productive and focused they were in Jobs’ eyes. Sounds simple, right? Well, it is BRILLIANT! When you know your focus, saying no to anything that is not completely, utterly, fully aligned with your focus should be disregarded and you should move on to the next thing.
I also came across a quote from Helen Mirren on my personal Facebook timeline last week. Mirren was quoted on the New York Daily News saying [and pardon my French, here] : “At 70 years old, if I could give my younger self one pice of advice, it would be to use the words ‘f**k off’ much more frequently.” Yes, yes and yes to that, friends! Why is it that we, most generally women and/or female business owners, fear that saying ‘no’ would portray us as ‘rude b**tches’? I am not trying to have a feminist approach here, but if a man says no to a business deal because it is a bad business deal, nobody blames him for that, right? Because it was a BAD deal!
Do we want to be people-pleasers, or do we want our business or personal-self to grow?
I’ve been trying to implement my “laser focus” strategy in the past few weeks, and I managed to say ‘no’ a few times. And you know what? I feel more focused, more at ease with my personal and business decisions. Everything is getting clearer, and I’m learning [this may take a while] not to care if I come across a ‘rude b**ch’ because I said no to something that simply was not good for me.
What about you, do you know how to say no? Cheers friends, xo, Si-
