257. Get Good at Saying "No" Without Feeling Like a Jerk

You're not bad at saying no, you’re just really good at saying yes to the wrong things. ;)

Because every invite you say yes to, every collaboration or coffee chat or those favors from a business friend that you said yes to when you didn't really want to… those were all NOs to your own priorities.

But we don’t think about it like that. We just feel guilty about letting others down (and truthfully, it feels so good to be wanted when an invite comes our way).

This episode is about the connection between your commitments, calendar and results. Because if you don't protect your time, you'll always feel like you don't have enough of it. 

So whether you feel stretched too thin from saying yes to everything, or you know the requests are only going to keep coming as you grow, this is the kick in the pants you need to start being more intentional about where you show up.

Episode Nuggets

• The reason saying no gets harder as your business grows (and what to do about it)
• The identity trap that makes every request feel personal when it doesn't have to be
• The shift that takes the guilt out of declining something
• My exact system for never having to deliver a no myself
• The one person you haven't considered saying no to yet

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Transcript

Heather (00:11)
Well, hey friend, welcome back to another episode of the Hint of Hustle podcast. It's your coach, Heather Sager, and today we are digging into how terrible you are at saying no to other people. Yeah, we're gonna get right into it today. this episode was inspired by a conversation that I was having with a couple of my business friends in a boxer thread, and it reminded me that this is something a lot of us.

are terrible at. And I say us and we because I quite frankly still struggle with this at time. However, struggle with this at times. That was a tongue problem. Tongue twister, tongue problem. Whatever. Here we are. I still struggle with this at times. However, I have trained myself to be super freaking good at saying no. I still have opportunities. I still have an internal battle battle around this every single time and fear that everyone's gonna hate me or think that I'm a total bee.

However, I still say no. And so today's conversation is around how you can get better at saying no. we're specifically talking about requests that come into your world that may or may not fit your overall priorities. So we're talking about business, but honestly, this conversation also can transcend into your personal life too. I think about I have a really good friend who is constantly being asked to volunteer at school or to

help out with I don't know another friend needs something. Like they're the person who always says yes, yes, yes. And I bet at one point it felt really good to be that person, but at some point she got really resentful for it. However, she feels like she can't say no anymore. And now she really resents that people come to her all the time asking her to be that person. And I share that because nothing's wrong with my friend. It's just

I truly believe that there are some people who have an easier time saying no. There's some people who have a more difficult time. Wherever you fall on the spectrum, I think we could all benefit from today's conversation and get better at saying no, not to be an asshole who doesn't help and support other people, but for our own mental well-being and our own priorities, whether it's your own health, whether it's your again, sanity, whether it's the relationships that matter most to you.

Whether it's generating revenue in your business, you have responsibilities. And every time you say yes to someone else, you are saying no to your own responsibilities. That is the fact here. And so this is the quote I want to start the episode with today. This quote is by me, written by me. and it's this: if you don't protect your time, you'll always feel like you don't have enough of it. I'm gonna say that again. If you don't protect your time.

You will always feel like you don't have enough of it. So let me just get real for you for a second. How often do you feel busy? How often do you feel like your plate is very full? Probably often, right? Now the reality is most people walk around feeling very busy, feeling like their lives are full. Now, not to toot my own horn here. Ha, I talked about this before, but I don't identify with being a busy person.

I don't identify with being overwhelmed. In fact, I don't really use either of those phrases in my life or rarely use them, and it's intentional. I choose what I put on my plate. I choose how I spend my time. And years ago, when I made that swap of being so busy, I realized that I was being a victim of myself and my schedule when I was the one saying yes to all the things on my schedule.

What about X, Y, and Z? I have to take my kids to school, or I have to go grocery shopping, or I have to do all these things. I'm gonna push back here and tell you there's a lot of shit that we feel we have to do, but we actually don't. And if you're willing to push back on yourself and your own thinking today, I think you're gonna find a lot of value on this conversation. But if you sit here as a victim, I'm saying I have no control over anything.

I'm gonna push back onto all hail and say if you have that attitude, you are never going to get out of your current situation. So step number one is you have to see that things can change. And if you are unwilling to accept that, things won't change. Now, I say that knowing that if you're listening to this show, if you're spending time working on yourself and your personal development and your learning, I don't think you're in that closed mindset of I'm a victim, life happens to me. I definitely think that you are more.

asking questions around how can I improve? How can I do better? How can I improve my life? And not from a like over high achieving granite, we are over higher achievers, but not from a like constant state of I have to grow because I'm now I'm addicted to growth. It's that you generally want to have a better life and live more fulfilled. Right. So if that's true, you do need to start asking some really tough questions. And just like

Here's a metaphor we're gonna use just like with a overgrown bush in your yard. Let's talk about your bush in your yard, an actual bush, right? Not your bush. you gotta trim that shit. you also probably maybe want to trim your bush too. But I digress here in today's conversations. Wow, we're getting really started in true Heather fashion. But if you're new here, welcome. we talk about random shit and I make very inappropriate references. But back to it, just with like a plant, let's say plant instead of bush.

You gotta trim it, you gotta take care of it, you gotta water it. But the trimming part is the point here that I'm trying to make is you always have to be asking questions of what am I cutting, what am I trimming, what am I removing from my plate so that my plant or my bush can flourish. Tracking with me here. If you want your priorities in your life to be able to flourish, you have to make sure that they have space to do so. And you and only you are the person that determines whether or not you have capacity for those things to flourish.

You with me? Okay. So first up, I want you to mentally think or pause this episode and check it for yourself, but open up your calendar and look back at the last month, maybe even the last week or two weeks. And when you look at the things that are on your calendar, well, first re reflect, do you actually put things on your calendar that you work on? Or is it more of like an ideal calendar that you never follow? That's like a conversation for another day.

But when you look at what's actually scheduled on your calendar and the work blocks that you have, or maybe go back and look at the work that you've done in your day planner, like wherever you keep track of the work that you've done, maybe you need to go back and look at your project management tool or your journal or wherever, right? You can reflect back of what you've done over the last couple of weeks. The question is, like, what are the things like did you choose the items that you worked on or were they chosen for you?

That's a big question to ask and get get real with that for a second. So, for example, if you were writing emails promoting other people's things a lot over the last month, however, you haven't had time to work out, or you haven't had time to promote your own product, or you are behind on an important project that you had declared for the quarter. No good, bad, or indifferent here, but it's recognizing that ooh, I chose.

Other people's priorities over my own. Now, this conversation, let me just clarify here before you start feeling like bad or a tying shame or whatever else around that. This episode is not intended to shit on our past decisions. It is intended for us to become more aware of our choices. Because consciously or not, we are making choices.

every single day of how we're spending our time. And the challenge that so many have is the visible choices, aka an email comes in my inbox or I get a text message or I get a direct message where someone's asking, hey, can you go to coffee with me? Hey, can you review my I had a friend recently, hey, can you review my book? she was writing a a book and want to be the first person to read it.

I had somebody recently ask me if they would be if I would come on their podcast. This just this week alone, I've gotten seven pitches to either have me be on someone's podcast or speak at their summit. Right. I'm not telling you that like, look at me, but requests are going to come in. Now, those are visible choices, right? It's visible because I'm reading it, it's tangible. And so me saying yes to those things, it's it's a little bit more conscious.

But what I'm not really visibly thinking about unless I am aware of it is going, what are the choices that I'm making every single day? Right? Am I choosing really to go out and go on a walk? Or am I sitting on the couch scrolling on my phone? It's yes, visible, but not really that visible. It's just kind of subconscious. We're constantly making choices of how and where we spend our time. And this episode is helping you declare that it's not an issue of you being like.

A lack of discipline. Like, this isn't about that we're doing anything wrong. It's just raising our level of awareness and making more intentional choices. So here's the first thing that I want to talk about. Most people associate I'm bad at saying no, is that they have a discipline problem, or they're a people pleaser, or there's something wrong with them. This is not like it's it's not that. I want you to start seeing this. The fact that you're getting

You have this tension point of people are coming into your inbox and requesting your time. So this is for you. If we're talking about people ask for coffee dates, people are asking for you to be on their podcast or contribute to their summit, or maybe they're pitching you and saying, Hey, will you send this to your email list? Right. You're getting requests from people, paid or not. A lot of the times these is like free, free stuff, right? What I want you thinking about here is this is an indication that you are actually very capable.

And successful. And this is something that we should be celebrating. I remember when I started my business and I started networking with other business owners, I got really excited because it felt great when people were like, that's so awesome. Come on my podcast. And I'm like, Hell yeah. It feels really nice to be in demand and to feel like people value what you have to say. And especially in the beginning, if you're like

I just want to get out there more, especially if you want to be more visible, right? You want to be involved in more collaborations. You want to be seen as that authority. When you start getting these requests, it feels really great. But there comes a point when you realize, like, oof, I'm now getting too many of these. or maybe I need to be more intentional with my time. But I want you remembering, or a lot of people think, sorry, I have like seven thoughts merging at one point in time. Let me take this where I want to actually land this. People think.

it's going to get easier the more successful I come I get. But what I want you to recognize, it actually gets even harder to say no, to say no the more successful you get. And let me clarify that is because in the beginning, or maybe early in your business, or maybe where you're at right now, maybe you were getting requests from a variety of people, right? And maybe some of these are podcasts you've never heard about before, or acquaintances or strangers that are pitching you.

It feels much easier to practice a no with someone that you don't know. But the more successful you get, the more connected you get, the opportunities might start becoming more luring. So maybe you're getting invited to bigger opportunities, or maybe you're having opportunities to go to live events and you're feeling like, yeah. And you you start that traction. Have you had this happen before where you start saying yes to more things because you want to be in the loop, in the no, you want to make sure you don't miss the conversations.

But the lore with this is you can then fall into this rhythm where, my gosh, I am quote unquote successful. I am in demand. But the return of those things is more around your feeling of being in the action, but it's not actually profitable or creating the return that you want. And it only gets worse the more successful you get, the more people want your time and attention.

So I bring this up with you is because when nobody warns you about the fact that it gets harder as you go, we actually think it's gonna be easier, but we need to start practicing that no muscle now, at any point in time in the journey of where you're at. You gotta practice that no muscle and you should practice on things that actually feel easy to say no to and then start working your way to things that might feel a little scary to say no to.

But you have to practice that muscle if you want to protect your time. Because as I said, if you don't protect your time, you'll always feel like you don't have enough time. Now, I feel like it needs to be said right here that I'm talking a lot about saying no, no, no, no, no. And I feel saying no can get a bad rap. Where if we're saying no to everything around us, we're kind of selfish and self-centered. And we need to have more of a group win-win.

Mentality and yes, collaboration is important. But all this comes back to you and only you know what your top priorities are right now in this season of your life and business. Different seasons require different levels of discipline when it comes to saying no. So for example, for me, right now with a toddler at home, I'm in a season where I have to say no a lot because my schedule needs to be as free as possible for my clients and my kid.

That's it. I don't really have time right now. This is gonna sound totally asshole, but I don't have time right now for podcast interviews. When I say I don't have time, I literally mean I do not have protected childcare time for interviews. It is a rare situation where I'm saying yes to interviews. Same thing. I'm not really taking guests on my podcast right now, is because I cannot commit to having scheduled interviews with other people. Because any protected time where I have a sitter or childcare coverage,

I'm spending that time with clients on the phone or leading a training or something that's revenue generated in my business. Like right now, it's the third of July when I'm recording this. My husband's not working today. So I'm recording in these little bits and corners where I can because that's the season I'm in with a toddler at home and now with all of my kids home for summer break. Is this my permanent boundary moving forward? No. Do I make exceptions of this? Absolutely. Things shift, but we have to understand what are our priorities and our capacity.

So this I think might be really interesting for you. Have you ever sat down to really ask yourself how many protected hours? And by protected hours, whatever protected means for you, but how many actual hours do you work every single week? And what does that look like? Now, this year alone, I know I've talked about it a couple of times this year on the show, but this year alone, I got really freaking clear around I work Monday and Friday from 7 to 10 a.m. at a coffee shop. That is my head down create content.

Do admin work, crank it out. Me and the computer make sweet love and we get shit done. That's my get shit done every single week. Now each week kind of depends. Some weeks are more admin, some weeks are more creative. Every Friday I write my newsletter, hint of Heather. Like I I have my groove around that. Then in addition to that, I know I have defined client call blocks. I know exactly what my capacity is for client work. And I'm very, very clear. Now, ebbs and flows, if I have projects that come in or certain things,

That have to happen, okay, I'm gonna need to find some corners in my week to make it work. But what I don't do is I don't have a blank slate with no knowledge or awareness around how much true capacity I have each week to run my business. What this does is it also forces me to say, huh? Okay, if I am gonna take a live call, I have to ask the question, one, do I have capacity based off my current client commitments? And two, if I do have capacity, is that where I want to spend my time?

Do I want to spend it there or do I want to spend it with my kid? Or like whatever those questions are that you ask yourself, right? So I think when I was talking with a friend around this, she hadn't actually sat down to ask the question of how many hours per week do I truly work? And how many could I work if the conditions were right? And I know this sounds like a really stupid question. Like, like, of course we should know this, but I do think that there is a

Challenge that comes with us as entrepreneurs who work for ourselves and potentially work at home, and especially for those of us who work in the pockets of whenever the F we have time to get things done. What happens is our work just kind of trickles into everywhere and we don't put edges around it. So differently, we don't put boundaries around our work. And I know a lot of people have issues with the word boundaries. I'm a fan of boundaries, but I think that people really get boundaries wrong. So side note.

I'm gonna link to the episode that I did around boundaries. I highly think that you should listen to it. It is an old episode. I think it's from like 2020, but it is so freaking good. You should go back and listen to that one. but we have to create a container. So have you ever heard of, let's use another metaphor for this. you know those decluttering shows? If you watch the home edit or Marie Kondo or any other show under the thing where they talk like under the in the planet that talks about decluttering, one of the

principles is you have to make sure everything has a home. And within a home, make sure that you have boundaries for your items. So for example, if you're gonna have a drawer, it talks about creating like little, I don't want to say nooks and crannies, but like little tiny containers in a drawer so that you know once I have too many, let's say, paper clips, my paper clips only go in this one container. And if I have more paper clips in this container, I have too many paper clips and I should get rid of them. Like this is the container for where I keep my paper clips.

Very stupid example here, but it's the idea that you have the signal of that is how much capacity I have for paper clips. I don't need to order more, right? Stupid, stupid example, but you're following me. The same thing needs to happen on our schedules. Okay, tying this back to your calendar, right? We have to be able to look and see on our calendar, do we have space for saying yes? Now, let me get super honest with you on this next point that I want to make. Saying no.

Isn't always just about the time it takes to do something. I think it actually ties more into an identity that you and I, probably both of us, have around the same yes or no to this time slot. Let me explain what I mean here. I think it threatens who we believe that we are.

And who I believe that I am, and I think that you believe that you are, is you identify as the go-to person. They identify as the reliable person, someone that people can count on. The fact that someone looks to you is this indication that, like, I've built a reputation where people can count on me and they want to like be hearing from me. And I think we get a lot of self-worth out of that.

So when it comes to someone making a request, maybe it's a business friend or an acquaintance, and they're saying, Hey, Heather, would you please come on my podcast? We feel, ooh, good. We're like thought of. Two, I love that they trust me enough for their audience. And we start thinking about how it makes us feel and how it proves the identity that we have around ourselves and how we want others to see us. And we make the decision, yes or no, based off of the fulfillment of that identity. Are you tracking with me?

So here's what I want you to start shifting and thinking about is one, are you answering that because of the identity and that you want that approval, right? That validation that yes, I am that person. Or can we shift the conversation? So I think here's what happens for a lot of people. A request comes in, let's say it's from a business friend that you're in a group with and they say, Hey, will you do this thing? And you deep down are going, shit, I don't have time for this. I have my launch coming up, or I have so many things.

But you want to protect the relationship. You also want to protect that identity because you don't want them to think that you're too good for them. You don't want them to think that you are like calculated and who you say yes to and that you don't think their audience is big enough or whatever story you have in their head, they're gonna be mad at me, they're not gonna like me, they're never gonna want to promote my thing. If I wanna ask them, like it's this reciprocity. We I have to say yes, otherwise they will have a negative opinion of me.

or they won't like me or something like that. And I know a lot of this sounds a little bit dramatic, but I know you have a version of this happening in your head. Like don't even pretend that you don't, okay. Here's what I want you to think about. We make it too personal. What I want you to start shifting of is it's not about the identity of you and the identity of the person. You need to start thinking about the actual time on the calendar. So when someone approaches you and says, Hey, will you do this thing, right? You're not going, hey, I love you. I'll do anything for you, which side note

If it was like your sibling or your best friend, there are a few people that hell yeah, I would do anything for. But we still need to then go, like for the majority of people, we need to go. Does this make sense on my calendar? Does this make sense in my capacity? Does this make sense in my priorities? Is saying yes to this, what am I then saying no to? So instead of rejecting the person, what we can start thinking about is going, oof.

The priority. Like I have a lot on my plate right now. So I don't have the capacity to promote that. Or my calendar is already committed or my emails are already committed for the next month. Unfortunately, I won't be able to promote that. But can you keep me posted for next time? You're not saying no to the person. You're saying no to the opportunity or thing that they presented on your calendar. You see that shift? You're not saying, I hate you, you suck. I don't want to talk about you, dumb bitch. Of course you're not saying that. You're saying, oof.

I'm already committed on my content Cali Next to Beast or all my evils are spoken for. I'm in the thick of other things. I'm already committed. Keep me posted for next time. You can kick the bucket to not it's not a no, it's a not now. Now, granted, there's something to be said there if you really want to say no, but you're saying not now to preserve the peace. That's a conversation for you and your therapist around rejection and your people placing tendencies.

I don't think a not now. I think a not now is totally fine. but just be prepared when they do circle back around. If you truly meant no, you're gonna have to then have a different, different conversation. But you can kick the bucket to that for later. But remember, you're not saying no to the person, you're saying no to the opportunity they presented. Okay. Those are two different things. And I find when you shift it around like, my commitments and my calendar.

Like I, I just don't have the capacity for that right now, or my schedule's already done, or my team won't let me say yes to things. You can blame it other people. we're granted, probably don't do that as a leader, take responsibility for your stuff. But anyways, point being, stop making it personal and start making it about the thing that we're talking about here. Okay. Now, you're probably asking, okay, this is all wonderful, but how do I actually put this in practice? So I'm just gonna offer you a couple little thoughts here, and we're gonna make this episode shorter today. So

Number one, remember what I said is you're not saying no forever. You need to think about the season that you're in. So sometimes I'm thinking about season of life. Sometimes I'm talking about the season of your business. So for example, if you're in pre-launch mode and you need all eyes focused on getting ready for your launch, probably not a time for you to be scattered and all over the place, right? You probably don't need to be doing a ton of things. However, if you're off season, maybe doing podcast guesting or speaking at that conference or participating in those summit, those things might fuel an upcoming pre-launch.

So maybe they make sense. So you have to really think about how do these things fit in your priorities? Which side note, I know I'm using a lot of visibility examples given the context of what I've been talking about for the last eight years. But if you need some help in being able to decide which opportunities to say yes to, like free opportunities that are coming in, how do you say yeah? Like what do you say yes to? Like, should you say yes to free opportunities? Does it make sense? If you want me to give you some filters around how I

say yes or qualifying opportunity and then how I gently let people down with a no. we will link to the episode where I talked about free speaking, when to say yes, when to say no. There's some really great scripting and some clarifiers in that episode. But so what I want you thinking about, kind of coming back to it, is gotta think about the season that you're in, right? Whether again it's a life season like me with a toddler at home, or maybe it's a season of summer. I know a lot of working parents are like

Summer, we really, we really shut off things in the world, right? We don't take a lot of yeses. and again, maybe you can be intentionally with your season. So maybe you want to have a really busy season, so let's say the fall, because you know you're gonna do a winter launch. So maybe you have a busy season and you try to do as many summits and podcast interviews and you really try to batch and do a lot of yeses in that season because you know that all of those additional visibility, those eyeballs that exposure is going to front load your list and your audience.

As you head into your launch. That could be really strategic. Side tangent idea here. If people are reaching out to you and you want to say yes, but the timing isn't great, always feel free to offer that back. Say, right now is a really busy season for me, or I'm already committed with X, Y, and Z. But this season over here, aka the fall, would be awesome. Could we put a pit into this this until then? Or, like, for example, my friend Cheryl is doing

the summit around email. And she had sent an email at her audience saying, hey, I'm looking for some people with this. She's a friend of mine. So I replied back and said, I'd love to do this if this one little topic that I suggested here makes sense. Let me know if you still need someone. And she responded, heck yeah. She sent me the information to sign up, get everything ready. And I didn't respond because I got a little, I got a little overtaken on my calendar. And she followed up with me a couple days ago. And I sat there and I looked at it.

And side note, over the last three weeks, I have taken on a very large corporate client that has multiple executives that I'm working with on one-on-one high performance coaching. So my calendar has my capacity has definitely shifted. My client spots are almost all entirely full. And I don't have capacity anymore for visibility opportunities right now in this season of summer with my kids at home. So I had to email Cheryl back and say, I got a little excited.

And I overdid my shot here that this actually happened. I explained to her the client piece and I said two things. One, I already told you I would do it. So if you need someone, I absolutely will make time to make this happen. However, if you have an alternative person that you have on your radar that you want to work with, go that route and then win-win for everyone. So she circled back, no problem. I'm gonna with that other person and then I do have another one happening in January. I'm like, great, circle back with me. So

I share that example with you is because sometimes, even with the best intentions, we say yes and then realize, holy shit, I didn't really think this through, or the context changes about your capacity. And I think a lot of people would just grin and say, I already said yes. So blah, blah, blah. But if you don't truly have the capacity to do something, it's always, I think, worth it to check in with the other person and honor the commitment by saying, I know I made this commitment. Here's what's going on. And you can offer to uphold the commitment.

Or offer an alternative. Now that alternative could be, for example, I had someone in J December who wanted me on their podcast and I had to push it. And then when we were gonna push it, I realized I still don't have capacity for this. So I'm gonna have to take it off the table. Right. Now, someone might hear this of saying, Heather is not keeping her word, or Heather is unreliable. And someone might have any of these thoughts, and I can't control what someone thinks about me, but what I can control is my own effing calendar.

And what I can control is coming from a place of integrity by as soon as I know I'm out of integrity of having that conversation. Does it mean that I'm always saying no to things? No. Does it mean that I'm always dropping the ball and getting out of things I committed to? Hell no. I do my best to keep my word, but I also do my best to keep my word to myself. And if I know that I'm in a situation where I have overcommitted, I'm going to communicate that and I'm going to make it right.

And I think that's the best that we can do as humans and as business owners and as leaders is I think we need to be more honest with ourselves and honest with other people. And it doesn't mean that we need to take people our baggage and be like, holy shit, this thing's on fire. I overwhelmed. I'm doing this. Like, I can I get out of this thing. Like, no, don't dump your drama onto someone else and make it their fault when you're the one that said yes. But what I do think is if you can think about how you can make something a win-win, like how can you still win with this other person?

Right. Let's say they I'm using podcast examples a lot because this is a really easy one that comes up a lot with business owners. But if if it just doesn't work in your calendar right now to be on someone else's podcast, or if you have a guest on your podcast and you realize it's not working in your season right now, I don't think there is anything wrong and it doesn't signal anything negative about you by you having an honest conversation that, hey, my schedule has changed or this no longer makes sense in my content schedule. Can we push this to later or can we reschedule this?

You can't control what they think about you, but you are responsible for your own sanity and your own calendar. So I think we can do it with love, we can do it with compassion, but we have to be willing to choose us, choose our priorities, choose the people that we care about. We have to come back to what our existing commitments are first and foremost, even when we make secondary commitments to other people. So a couple things tactically that might help you here. So one.

Make a promise with yourself. This is what I did is you never say yes immediately to anyone. And this might be hard. And again, as you get more successful, you might have a tendency to be like, hell yeah, let's just say yes and make it work. Give yourself a pause. Now, if you're into human design, you might know a little bit more about yourself and your decision making. For me, I'm an emotional authority in human design, which translation, if you don't know what that means, it just means I've learned that I need to sleep on decisions.

I s when I say something when I'm super excited, I typically when I go through all the emotions, a lot of times if I then wake up the next day and I'm not in that excited space, I regret those yeses. I need to ride out a decision in all of my highs and lows in order for me to have clarity around whether or not this is the right fit for me. So I used to think, my gut is really good. And I do have good intuition, but when it comes to decision making, I need to give self myself some space. So what that looks like for me.

Is when I get a request in my direct messages or my text messages somewhere directly to me, like in Boxer, I'm gonna kick that conversation to my inbox. And I'm going to loop in my assistant Dorothy, which I'll talk about next here in a moment. But I always kick the conversation. And it could go something as simple as like, this sounds so exciting. I'm so happy for you for X, Y, and Z. And when I whatever response, it's genuine.

Like, I'm not gonna like put in a scripted prompt here. I'm genuinely excited. Like, this is an exciting opportunity, or I love that you're doing this. Thank you so much for thinking about me. Genuine response and then kick it. Hey, can you send over all those details to me and Dorothy on my team? And I give that information, kick it to email. Number one, put space between you and the person, especially if they're a close friend. Kick it to the inbox. Now, in the inbox, you can handle it one of two ways.

Way one is you can then sit down and make the decision and handle the conversation. Or way two is you let your team do that work for you. Now, this is a strategy that I learned years and years and years ago where I leverage my assistant. This is part of her role of managing communication for any and all of my visibility opportunities. And the reason for this is I know it's much harder for me to say no to a close friend than it is for my assistant to do it. And she can handle it with grace, a lot of respect, a lot of kindness, and very professional.

And I can maintain the friend mode. So what this looks like is my assistant and I will review and take requests and we can do that in casual language on Boxer or on our project management tool around whether or not this opportunity makes sense. And then she can handle it from there. We have templates for saying yes. We have templates for saying no, which she customizes and we obviously personalize as we need to, but she handles that so that I don't have to.

And that has been a wonderful game changer. Now, if you're sitting here and going, my assistant's not in my inbox, or I don't have an assistant, or I don't really have someone that can handle that. well, put on your big girl panties, you can do it yourself. Or two, this is gonna sound maybe really embarrassing, but before I had an assistant, I used to answer as my assistant. I made up a name. I don't remember what my assistant's name was. And you've heard many people do this, like many billionaires talk about when they were started, they would do this.

They use their middle name and signed emails off their assistant. Look, don't judge me for this. And if this does not feel like integrity for you, don't do it. However, sometimes it's easier if you put on like the hat of, I'm Sally, Heather's assistant, and respond back. do what you gotta do, but create separation. And again, you're not you're not rejecting the person, you're rejecting the opportunity. Okay, those couple things have helped me with it.

the other things is I put in some blankets around what types of opportunities I'm saying yes to versus no. my friend Ellen Yin does this really well. She actually has a a list written out for her team around the types of opportunities she says yes to and what are the firm no's. So they don't even have to go and ask her when opportunities come in. They know X, Y, and Z is a no. for example, for me, I used to be very black and white. It was a hard no for summits. And then I talked about this a couple episodes back. I did a experiment.

In 2024, 2025, where I started saying yes to a few summits. And after that experiment, I actually validated that I'm a no for summits. So I do not do traditional summits with a ton of speakers, unless there's a couple caveats with that. But I don't do summits. It's a hard no for me. The this is gonna sound very asshole-y, but I again I don't really care if someone judges me for it. The time to value return ratio is not there for my business model.

Now, no, I'm not saying for me, it's not personal, but for my business model, it's not a time to value return. I don't sell, let me explain why, just in case anybody hears this. I don't sell low-ticket digital products right now. I don't sell lower ticket things. So for me, my value, I sell one on one services or higher ticket group coaching. Those typically come from referrals and marketing efforts that I do. It is very rare that someone

logs in or signs up for me from a bundle or a summit and becomes a high-ticket client. And and again, that might happen for some people, but in my experience, my data, my business model, it just doesn't, it's not worth it for me. I don't need a really big list and a big audience. I want aligned prospects into my world. So now if I ever change to more digital products and have more email funnels selling things in my business, maybe I'll change my tune. But for right now in the season that I'm in,

It just isn't alignment. So for me, it becomes a very simple, hard no. the other thing right now, I'm not doing podcast interviews. it's very rare. and there's usually a relationship strategy around the ones I'm saying yes to. But I'm in a season, as I mentioned, my calendar is protected. It's just not visibility season for me in that way. I'm not telling you these things because I think you should adopt what I do. I'm telling you that you have to ask questions around your own priorities.

And what makes sense in your business and your priorities to figure out what the right fit is. All this to say coming back, you have to exemplify that role of a leader. Leaders aren't afraid to say no. Leaders aren't debating with themselves how, like the shame and the guilt around those things. They might feel that, but they don't allow themselves to sit in these indecisions. They understand at the end of the day, these are business decisions, and it's about the work.

The time and the capacity, it's not a personal thing. Your relationships can hold true even when you implement boundaries, even when you say no to opportunities. Those two things are not intertwined. You can hold really awesome relationships and still hold your calendar as something that you prioritize. So I'll circle back to what I opened with. If you do not protect your time, you're always going to feel like you don't have enough of.

And if you're challenged that with right now, I think your biggest opportunity is to start auditing. What are you saying yes to and who's dictating your time? And even, I'll challenge you with this last thought. Even if it's past you, this is gonna be deep here for a second. Maybe the person you need to say no to is the past you. What are the things that past versions of you committed to?

said yes to that have put on your calendar that now you're doing because you think you have to because it's been done this way for X, Y, and Z time period. Maybe that's things you offer in your program. Maybe it's deliverables that you have. Maybe it's your weekly email. I have no idea. I but I want you to ask, what are you doing right now that you're doing over and over and over again on whatever frequency? But the question is, is you current today? Are you saying yes to that right now?

Or are those things sucking up your time? If you don't protect your time, you'll always feel like you don't have enough of it. And it's your responsibility to be super freaking like clear, a little cutthroat with yourself of saying, is this adding value to my priorities? Now the big question is, what are your priorities? That's up for you to decide. My priorities are my kids, my husband, my health.

My priorities are making money right now in this season. I have some big ass financial goals, both professionally and personally, that we're chasing. My priority is ensuring an incredible experience for every single one of my clients. Those are my priorities right now. Now, everything else around it, there's some optional things. There's some other little mini pet projects that I'm excited about working on, but my priorities are very clear to me and they're in priority rank order.

And by getting clear around what that looks like, it allows me to take the emotion and the personal peace out of saying no. All right. I'm curious what you struggle with when it comes to saying no. Again, you have those follow-up episodes. So one, if you need help with boundaries, check the show notes. Two, if you need help with vetting incoming visibility opportunities, how do you actually vet it? What do you say yes to? What do you say no to? And then how do you let them down gracefully while preserving the relationship? Be sure to check out those follow-up episodes.

And keep on being your badass self. I'll see you same time, same place next week. All right, bye, friend.