340 nos, not counting anything else proposed during that period. At
the 1997 MacWorld Developers Conference, he explained, “When
you think about focusing, you think, ‘Well, focusing is saying yes.’
No! Focusing is about saying no.” Jobs was after extraordinary results
and he knew there was only one way to get there. Jobs was a “no”
man.
The art of saying yes is, by default, the art of saying no. Saying
yes to everyone is the same as saying yes to nothing. Each additional
obligation chips away at your effectiveness at everything you try. So
the more things you do, the less successful you are at any one of
them. You can’t please everyone, so don’t try. In fact, when you try,
the one person you absolutely won’t please is yourself.
Remember, saying yes to your ONE Thing is your top priority.
As long as you can keep this in perspective, saying no to anything that
keeps you from keeping your time block should become something
you can accept.
Then it’s just a matter of how.
All of us struggle to some degree with saying no. There are many
reasons. We want to be helpful. We don’t want to be hurtful. We want
to be caring and considerate. We don’t want to seem callous and cold.
All of this is totally understandable. Being needed is incredibly
satisfying, and helping others can be deeply fulfilling. Focusing on
our own goals to the exclusion of others, especially the causes and the
people we value the most, can feel downright selfish and self-
centered. But it doesn’t have to.
Master marketer Seth Godin says, “You can say no with respect,
you can say no promptly, and you can say no with a lead to someone
who might say yes. But just saying yes because you can’t bear the
short-term pain of saying no is not going to help you do the work.”
Godin gets it. You can keep your yes and say no in a way that works
for you and for others.
Of course, whenever you need to say no, you can just say it and
coco
(coco)
#1