531. NO-vember Special: How to Say No Without Saying No

Jay Papasan:
Hey there ONE Thing family. Welcome to this edition of No-vember. For the month of November, I sometimes like to write articles for the TwentyPercenter or do a podcast around the idea of saying no. How do we say no, so that we can say yes to the stuff that really matters? 

And my favorite story of saying no actually is one that we told in the book, The ONE Thing, and it’s about Steve Jobs. When Steve Jobs was invited back into Apple after his short period of exile, they had a tremendous number of products. And I’m kind of an old Mac fan, so I remember it. They used to have printers and print cartridges. They put an Apple logo on just about anything you could think of that you would sell in a computer store – all of the different accessories. 

And so, according to different people, you look at his biography, he took the company from building 350 products or selling 350 products all the way down to 10. And in some versions, down to four. He said no to all of that stuff, so they could focus and say yes to a few things and actually make great products. The way it’s been told is he created a matrix. We will have one consumer portable, and we will have one consumer desktop. We will have one professional portable, and we will have one professional desktop. And you would end up and you would have the iBook, the iMac. You would have the Power Book and the Power Mac. And those four products became kind of the focus of all of their attention.

So, did all of that saying no actually pay off? So, I had some fun. Thank you to our AI friends, like ChatGPT and Perplexity, doing a little research. You go all the way back to December of 1997 when he was making these decisions. Know how much Apple stock was worth? About 10 cents a share. If you had invested a hundred bucks then, do you know how much that would be worth today? That would be worth over $57 million when you count for all of the appreciation of the value of the stock, all of the different splits that have happened along the way, that hundred-dollar bet on Steve Jobs saying no to all the things, so they could say yes to a handful and be truly great, would’ve paid off. I didn’t even know what the ROI of that. A hundred dollars becomes over 57 million. 

So, that’s the power of saying no. When we say no to the stuff that doesn’t matter, we can focus on the stuff that does matter. So, that’s why we’re gonna have this special edition of the podcast, call it the No-vember. We’re putting the no in November with this edition, and I’m gonna walk you through different techniques, 11 for saying no, often without actually saying the word no. So, let’s dive in.

I’m Jay Papasan and this The ONE Thing, your weekly guide to the simple steps that lead to extraordinary results. 

So, before we dive into all the different ways to say no, let’s examine why we don’t say no. I think there’s a lot of fear of missed opportunities, right? FOMO. So much that that’s been passed around that a lot of us are like the joy of missing out, JOMO. That’s me a lot of times with social stuff. But in the work environment, if I say no to this new responsibility, will I get passed over for a promotion? When the next opportunity comes along, will they say no? So, is there this idea of missing out on either social things or opportunities in the workplace or in our social life? 

We also have a lot of people-pleasing tendencies. I see it all the time. We don’t wanna say no ’cause we don’t wanna offend people. We wanna make them happy. We wanna serve them. And that’s very validating when we can say, “Sure, I’ll help you out.” And I covered this in my giving episode. Be careful how much we say yes to helping others. If we’re not doing it strategically, we can really undermine our future.

I think the other thing is we overestimate, kind of, the social cost of saying no. A lot of times, when we have to cancel, maybe it’s a lunch date, maybe it’s a get together, we’re afraid that if we cancel that, it might impact the relationship. The truth that I’ve seen more often than not is that people are kind of relieved. They’re busy too. Yes, we can take a rain check. We’ll just do it next week. Yes, we can take a rain check. We’ll look for another time. They don’t mind because they also have calendars that are overflowing with both opportunities and obligations and they just don’t have space. That is kind of our actual condition in this day and age.

And the last one is just the general anxiety, right? What if they don’t ask me again? What if it’s not just missing out on something, maybe in the future? Like I don’t get to have this opportunity again. It’s a one-time shot. So, I think the reality is, is that people respect people with healthy boundaries. I find that most people are not offended. They don’t take it personally when we have to create those boundaries. And in some weird way, if you’re always declining the invitations, maybe they take it as you playing hard to get. Maybe they’ll even try harder. Maybe it’s the opposite of what you expect to happen.

So, there’s all of those things that kind of keep us from saying no. We wanna help. We want to be that people-pleasing part of us that can go out there. We don’t wanna miss out on opportunities. All of this social pressure drives us to the yeses. But the real cost here is the fact that we never look at, what are we saying no to when we say yes to that? And we are going to disappoint people. You’ve heard me say it on this podcast before. I’ve once heard a conversation between my last coach and our current head coach in the organization, Jordan Freed and my friend, Jen Davis, you will disappoint other people but are you disappointing the right ones? 

I remember witnessing a conversation between a real estate agent and their spouse. And they were coming up to my wife after she had given a presentation and the real estate agent said, “Man, I just can’t say no.” And the look on the spouse’s face when they said, “That’s not true. You say no to your family every night.” And what they were implying is that because this agent had been saying yes to their customers and working late and saying yes to work, they’d been missing out on the family time. They didn’t actually understand that they were saying no to their kids and spouse, but that’s in fact what they were doing. So, we have to look at, what is the cost of every yes that we’re giving? Are we even weighing it out? If I say yes to this, what am I saying no to unintentionally? And the people we don’t want to disappoint are gonna be our family and our friends. 

And there’s one secret person that we disappoint all the time by saying yes, too much. You know who that is? It’s not your spouse, it’s not your kids, it’s not your family even, and not even your partners and your coworkers. The person you often disappoint the most when we say yes too much is your future self. You are undermining your own dreams and your own ability to move forward by constantly saying yes to others, we often end up saying no to ourselves.

I’ve done this. I’ve looked up and I’ve checked all the boxes. I’m gonna be a good husband. I’m gonna be a good father. I’m gonna be a good boss. I’m gonna be a good coworker. Check, check, check, check. And at the end of the day, the things that I’ve actually said no to in order to say yes to those were hobbies, downtime, friend time, the stuff that actually fills me up. I’ve been through that. We all have. So, take it from someone who’s been down that path. Be careful what you’re saying no to when we go out there and say yes to everything.

And here’s the final thing. If you say yes to everything, you’re saying effectively no because you can’t serve everyone. You can’t say yes to everything and do everything. When you try that, you will fail. You’re going to be letting people down but you’re gonna be letting down people in a different way. You didn’t say no upfront. You’re actually just failing at the task you said yes to. You’re late. It’s incomplete. It’s not as good as it could have been. And that creates its own cycle. 

So, let’s get past this idea that there’s the problem with saying no, that it’s unmoral unethical or antisocial behavior, whatever that might be, that story that you’re telling yourself in your head, saying yes is great, but it has to be done really, really consciously. And we need to protect the few yeses that belong in our life. Our one thing, our core relationships, our spiritual life. Those big circles of our life that we need to attend to, those are the things we want to say yes to and we need to surround them and protect them with nos, just like Steve Jobs did.

Man, if you can imagine how much more valuable Apple became, how much more enjoyable can our life become? How much more fulfilling can it become when we’re saying yes to the right things and no to everything else? So, the opportunity cost framework, right? A yes to this means you’re going to have to say no to something else, consciously or unconsciously. And so, when we go into this, realize the most valuable thing that you can learn to do as a leader, as a business owner is learning what to say yes to and how to say no to everything else. So, without further ado, let’s dive into 11 different ways that you can say no without actually saying no.

So, as we dive into these 11 techniques, none of these are like scripts. Even though I will role play some of the answers, I’m gonna give you the big idea, I’ll tell you some of the things that people say, and you probably will hear in your head, “Oh, that’s like the time that so and so said that to me,” and you may hear different versions of these different things in your head. They’re not technically scripts, but they are very useful to have in your back pocket. 

How can I say no without saying no or do it indirectly? A lot of these are no, unless you meet certain conditions. So, it’s a yes but on my terms or it’s a no now and a yes later. But it’s a way to kind of avoid the uncomfortable “Nope, not doing it,” which can be a little confrontational that give you different ways to get out there and protect the yeses that you do want to make. 

So, let’s go to number one. It’s get ahead of the ask. And what we mean here is what we teach in The ONE Thing. When you know what your one thing is, your core priorities, go ahead and put them on your calendar. Go ahead and put them on your calendar, so that that 9:00 AM to a 12:00 AM block, your mornings, your core work time, that is filled with your core priorities, the beginning of your day. So, when someone asks you, “Can you go to a closing?”, “Can you meet with a vendor?”, “Can you do this or can you do that?” you can quickly look at your calendar, “Oh, let me check.” And then what you say is, “I’m sorry, I’ve already got another commitment at that time.” Now, we can explore other times, but you’ve indicated that you’ve already said yes to something else when they want you. 

Now, very, very, very, very few people will ever ask you, “Well, what are you doing then?” Right? So, first off, never ever tell them that the thing that you’ve time-blocked is time with yourself to do your most important work. That is like the real secret to this hack, because if that is your coding time, that is your lead gen time, that is your writing time, not just time with someone else but this is the time you’re actually keeping your biggest commitments to yourself, it’s an appointment with yourself to do your most important work. Right? The core definition of the 20% of time blocking, don’t let them know that it’s just you ’cause if they know it’s just you, they’ll just say, “Well, can you do that later?”

So, just keep to the core statement, “I’m sorry, I already have another commitment at that time. Can we look at another time?” And 99 times out of a hundred, you have dodged that moment, you can stay focused on your 20%, and you can say yes to that at a time that is convenient to you. 

Now, the thing that’s key to this is you have to take the mindset that those core time blocks, not every time block, but the core ones around your most important work, that they are immovable objects. If you don’t adopt this attitude, what you will do is, “Oh, I was supposed to be doing this at that time, but I bet I could do it another time.” You start making concessions. So, just stick to the core truth. You’ve got those time blocks on your calendar. They are the big commitments you’re making to your future self, and probably through that to your family and to your loved ones because when you’re successful, everything else goes better. There are really high stakes here if you stop and think about it. You are gonna keep those commitments, those commitments matter, and you’ve got them on the calendar ahead of the ask

So, number one is get ahead of the ask. You’re gonna time block your big commitments, the things that you’re truly saying yes to before people ask you for that time, and then you’re gonna protect it. Those are the things that you will absolutely not move unless something is truly, truly, truly an emergency. That is getting outta the ask. Let’s move to number two.

Number two is be on a mission. And this is all about being in motion. And a lot of you, high achievers are very good at this, almost to a fault. You can go and you can dive into the work, and people look at you, and they can see that you’re busy. You’re moving fast, you’re not making eye contact, you are on a mission. You are a person on a mission. And so, you know what they do? They just say no to themselves. They don’t even ask. 

Now, the person you’re most likely to see this, like exhibiting this behavior, is usually the waiter that you really wanna get their attention so you can get the check. Waiters have mastered this art. I used to be one. That’s one of the ways I paid my way through college was waiting tables. And when you were really moving fast, you were in the weeds, as we would say, you learned really quickly not to make eye contact because you had to get back to the server station, you had to get those cold drinks, and you had to get them to the right table. You had to get that hot steak and deliver it while it’s still sizzled. And then, you could circle back ’cause you did see them, you just didn’t make eye contact. You can circle back and take care of their needs.

So, look like you’re someone who has something purposeful to do. Be on a mission is one way to just make the ask go away as well. Alright. So, number three. 

Number three is delay the decision. Now, you would be amazed at the half-life of most people’s expectations of us. They’re gonna ask you for something, but if you delay giving them an answer so many times, so many times, their need for you has already expired. So, the way it looks is someone comes up and asks you, I don’t know, to help them out, “Hey, I need some help with this project. Can you come by and do it?” And all you’re gonna say is, “You know what? Let me check my calendar. Can I circle back later?” That’s all you’re gonna say. “Can I circle back later? I don’t know if I can do that or not. Can I circle back and give you an answer?”

My default answer for people is, “Let me check. Can I circle back next Tuesday?” because that automatically almost always builds in buffer time, whether it’d be a few days or a lot of days. And people will tell you, it’s like, “Nope, I need to know this afternoon,” or “Nope, can you tell me by noon,” or “Nope, can you tell me by Monday?” Fine, I’ve bought time. 

Now, you get to circle back, but you are owning that, which is one of the reasons they agree to it. You’ve said, “Can I circle back?” which means I am now owning coming back to you about this task. You’ve delayed the decision. You circle back on Monday, you circle back on Tuesday, whenever you’ve agreed to do it, and you say, “Hey, first off, do you still need help with that project?” You have to stop and ask the question to see. And what most of the time they’re gonna say is, “You know what? Thanks for circling back Jay, but it’s already taken care of. I actually found someone else to help me, and we’re off to the races.” And then, rarely you’ll hear, “Yes, I would love your help.” But now, you get to do it on your timing and your terms. It’s not interrupting your most important work. 

So,  that’s number three. Delay the decision. You’re just moving the decision to say yes or no into the future. And oftentimes, their need for you has already expired. 

All right. Technique number four, escalate commitment. What you’re asking them to do is they have to do something for you in order to get your yes. So, this is a yes but it’s with conditions. So, it could be really, really low bar. Like, “Can you email me the details and then I’ll decide?” So, you’re actually asking them to formulate the request in the form of an email and send it to you.

Now, if they’re asking for something bigger, you could say, “Hey, I actually need more information. Can I get you to fill out this form?” I know lots of departments and companies that if you want time with marketing, if you want time with legal, if you want time with our tech department, you actually have to fill out a formal request stating what it is you need, the scope of that request, the resources you believe you’ll need, so that they can actually look at that and say, “Do we have the bandwidth to handle it? Is it really a priority for the company or not?” So because you’re asking for a lot of resources, a whole department or a very valuable person’s time, they are gonna ask you to complete a form, they’re gonna ask you to do a survey, whatever that is, in order to get access to that. It’s very normal. Happens all the time. 

A lot of times, if you wanna work with a professional, like a lot of times in my executive coaching, it’s by application only. I’m looking at the application. If we’re not a good match, we’re not gonna work together. So, you look at those things and it is an application of some kind, a form, a higher level of commitment in order for you to get their higher level of commitment. 

If it’s a really big ask, then it may be that they have to actually sign in an agreement or a contract. And a good example of that is people in professional services. If you’re a CPA, if you’re an attorney, a lot of you are in the real estate business, you can just simply say, “Hey, that’s a service that I reserve for my actual clients. And if that’s something you would like for me, I would love to sit down and walk you through my working agreement.” Now, it’s a formal application to work together and they have to clear that hurdle. And in many cases, you have to legally sign that agreement in order to represent them but that’s because you’re actually doing work for which you might be liable for and which you have very high standards. 

So, you could have a low level ask, and it’s just like, “Email me the details.” Now, you circle back on Tuesday and then email me the details. You can delay it and escalate commitment, so that they can go back and just do this little thing. You will be surprised how many people go away because they’re unwilling to escalate the commitment and actually do the thing that you’re asking them to do, even if it’s totally reasonable. 

And I could give you example after example, after example.I remember once I went to my partner Gary Keller. I had an opportunity to buy a business. It was a very short timeline. And I looked up and I was like, “Hey, I’m just short about $20,000 to have this amazing opportunity. And here’s someone I know that is very wealthy and very successful. I’ll start there.” So, I went to him. I said, “Great. Hey, I’ve got this opportunity. This is what it looks like. Would you do a short-term loan for me? I just need four months. That’s how long I needed the money. I knew exactly when I was gonna get the replacement, so I could repay the debt. If you’ll offer me some terms, I would love to do this and just knock it out.” 

Said, “Absolutely. Talk to Valerie who works on my team.” I get to Valerie. And now, she has an escalating commitment for me, and one of them was like, “If you’re gonna borrow that money from my partner, we are gonna ask you to do this, this, and this.” And one of them was I had to include it on my life insurance. They had thought so far ahead of the liability around this, like, what if I died before I paid it back? Well, just my life insurance will pay it back. I looked at the commitment they were asking for me and I was like, “You know what? I can go get a loan from someone else.”

And I’ve done that to other people, maybe not at that scale, but I’ve asked them to do a series of things. “Hey, can you summarize what you’re asking for? Can you email it to this email address, and I’ll take a look at it then?” And a lot of people cannot be bothered, and you’ve not said no to them, you’ve actually offered to help them, but you’ve done it on terms. So, that’s escalate commitment. There’s a thousand versions of it. And when you realize it, you’ll realize that lots and lots of professionals, lots and lots of businesses escalate commitment from people that they are willing to serve to make sure that they’ve got the right person in front of them to be serving. The people who aren’t willing to invest in themselves by making that commitment often aren’t gonna value your time either. It’s a great trade off and it’s a great test, and it makes a lot of these requests go away.

Alright. Number five, shift the deadline. This is a no now but a yes later. As parents, we’ve done it a million times. “Nope, we can’t have a snack now. Dinner’s coming up in 30 minutes, but we can have dessert afterwards if you finish your meal.” It is a no now but a yes later. Like if you’re old enough to remember the gone fishing signs, that was a no now, but a yes later. Our store is literally closed in small towns. You’ll see it. It’s closed for lunch. I’ll be back at one. That is a no now, yes later. They have carved out space for something else they need to do  but they have set the expectation of when you can get their time.

And we can do that all the time with our time blocks. If you show your calendar to your team, you can say, “You can always look at my calendar. If there’s free space, you can ask for it.” But now, you’ve blocked the time that you need to do your most important work. It’s a no to the times that don’t matter to you but a yes to the times that will work for you. Now, “I can’t meet today, but I’d be happy to meet tomorrow at one o’clock.” This is kind of like offering an alternate time. No now, yes, later. That’s the most common version I see. 

And this often comes with you getting ahead of the ask. You’ve time-blocked the time, so someone will say, “Hey, can you meet tomorrow morning at 10:00 AM?” You know that that is your quality work time and you’re not gonna move your work to accommodate them. You say, “I’m sorry, I’ve already got another commitment.” And now, we’re gonna shift the deadline. “You know what? I can’t meet in the mornings. Almost every morning, I’ve already got commitments, but could we meet after lunch?” or “Could we meet for lunch?”

I like to see people offer me two times, if I’m honest. That’s really highly professional. “I can’t do it that time, but I could do it at 1:00 PM or 3:00 PM. Would either of those work for you?” Shifting the deadline allows you to control your time while still offering to say yes to them, but on the terms that work for you and your schedule.

Alright. Number six, we’re gonna do this one and then we’re gonna go to break. So, align on the priority. This is one that we created just for people who may not be in the position to actually say no. So, imagine it’s your boss coming up to you, right? Or your worst, your boss’s boss, and asking you to do something. This technique is to make sure, are we actually doing the thing that we need to do right now? Because you’re asking me to do something that is, kind of,  against the rules of what you said that I was supposed to do before. So, you’re just checking in with a question. 

So, sometimes, we just can go back and say, “Absolutely, I’d love to help but we agreed earlier this week that we had a deadline of Friday to do X. Is that no longer a priority? Is this the new priority?” You’re just checking in. You’re getting aligned on priorities. ‘Cause sometimes you know this, if you’re a business owner, hey, things turned around it. That thing that we talked about on Monday, it’s not important now. This new thing, it’s really important.

As long as this is not hallucinated urgency, which is something we see a lot from leaders and business owners, you just want it done fast and that’s just for you. But if you actually answer in terms of priority as the business owner, you might say, “You know what? You keep doing what you’re doing, and we will circle back to this later.” You may move the deadline for them if you’re the boss. So, ask, “Is this really the priority?” but try to be specific. “Hey, I thought we were supposed to be focused on this right now. Is that no longer true?”

Now, I’ll give you a specific example. I remember, we were promoting an event, and one of my coworkers was really unhappy with the way it was going. And it’s like, “You know what? I’m gonna write the invitation email myself.” And it’s like, “Let’s do it. Let’s do it, let’s do it.” So, we sit there, we’re staring at the screen, and we are doing the job of our marketing department, and I’m very aware of it. And our job was to do something else at that time. And I just remember asking the question, “Hey, so and so. If this marketing email fails, then who’s at fault?” And I just waited and they paused and they said, “You know what? Let’s let marketing do this,” because it wasn’t that they were dodging accountability. What they really wanted was the department who owned the responsibility to also get the accountability, whether it worked or not, or the reward if it did. But that impatience that we sometimes see in the workplace to jump in and do other people’s work, a lot of times, you’re sabotaging the whole system.

So, align on priority. Is this really the work that we should be focused on? If so, great, that becomes a yes. If not, then we’re both agreeing it’s a no. That’s how aligning on the priority works. Alright. So, that’s six of the 11. Before we go to the end, let’s take a quick break. I’ll see you on the other side.

All right. Welcome back, folks. We’ve covered the first six techniques on how to say no often without saying no. Let’s get on to number seven. And this one is called appeal to fairness. And this has got to do with the other commitments we make in our world. So, someone comes, you’re stretched thin, and they are asking for something, and you’re just gonna invoke fairness. And the way we say no in this instance is, “Man, I would love to help you out but, unfortunately, I’ve already made another commitment. And if I say yes to this, I’m effectively saying no to someone I’ve already said yes to. And that just would not be right. Thank you for understanding.”

Now, that last bit is really important, “Thank you for understanding.” All you salespeople out there, what am I doing? I’m kind of assuming the close. I’m giving them credit for being a fair human being without them saying, “Oh, you’re right. That would be wrong.” I’m not gonna wait to have them do that math ’cause I’ve already done it. “It wouldn’t be right. I’ve already had a commitment. I have to keep that commitment. I’m so sorry I can’t help you out. Thank you for understanding.” Thank you for understanding, the assumed close is what makes this one work. 

So, don’t forget that last little piece. It’s a nuance, but when you say it, it actually makes them feel good. It’s like, “Ah, I’m a fair person. Of course. That’s right.” And they’ll come back at you and say, “Well, when can you do it?” Now, you can look at your calendar, you can look at your commitments, and you can say, “You know what? I think I’m gonna be coming up for air next Tuesday. This project’s gonna be over. Do you want to talk then?” You don’t have to say yes later. We can delay the decision, right? We’ve already covered that one. We’ve already appealed to fairness. They’ve agreed. Now, we can delay the decision until after that period’s over, and we can revisit what they’re asking us. 

It may be that you have new responsibilities. I think the great thing that, kind of, short circuit us here is we always, always, always assume that we will have more time tomorrow or next week or next month. And the reality is we always seem to have less time ’cause we keep pushing these commitments into the future.  We say no to our future selves by saying yes to these people and these requests. 

So, we always assume we have more time in the future than we actually do. Guess what? Sorry, folks, but this should not be a surprise. You’re gonna be just as busy tomorrow and next week as you are this week, unless you master these skills. So, appeal to fairness. Go ahead and get that assumed close. Thank you for understanding. 99 ties out of a hundred, they’re not gonna negotiate with you. All you have to do is now delay the decision to the future.

Number eight is cite conflicts. This is like a appeal to fairness, but now you’re evoking kind of hard and fast rules. Citing conflicts. You can still say, “I would love to, but I’m sorry, I just don’t ____,” or “We don’t ____,” or “In our family, we don’t do this.” What you’re doing is reminding people or informing them that there are hard rules around these things. And if there are real rules, we wanna be honest about this, it works all the time. 

Now, a common example will be like, “Hey, I’m sorry, but we only pay invoices on the 15th and the 30th of the month. We’ll have to wait until then.” I’ve had people, as a business owner, ask for advances. “I’m sorry, we only pay out on the 15th and the 30th.” There’s a reason for that. That system works. We don’t end up double paying people. We have a time to accumulate the right amount of payroll, so that we can pay people,” right? It is a system and people understand that. 

It could be as simple as, “Hey, folks, no cell phones at the table. We’ve agreed to this. This is the rule that we’ve agreed to or we’ve set as a family.” So, what are the rules that you can assert in your life that you can then evoke later. You’re gonna cite conflicts. “I’m sorry, I won’t violate commitments I’ve made to my family,” “I’m sorry. I’ve agreed to be my child’s soccer, basketball, volleyball coach. I can’t do that ’cause I already made this other commitment.” But this is not just kind of a soft commitment where I’ve already said yes to someone else. This is now, “I won’t violate a rule. I won’t violate a hard commitment.”

So, this is just an escalation of the last one but it is highly effective. I will tell you personally, I love it when people use this one on me. “I am so sorry, Jay. I would love to do that podcast, but I’m gonna be on vacation with my family. We’ll have to do it at another time.” I had Pat Flynn, one of my heroes, was exploring speaking at our ONE Thing summit. And I was really, really excited that he might come and speak for us. But he told me right off the bat, he goes, “I have to wait and find out when my kids’ band practices because when they have band performances, I don’t miss them. I don’t miss them.” And you could tell from the way he said it, that this was a hard rule in his life. 

And it wouldn’t be personal. It’s not about him saying no to me or no to the event. But he had already said yes to something and it was a rule for his life, and he was not going to violate it. Guess what? I was disappointed he couldn’t do it, but I respect him even more for doing it that way. We tend to respect people that have healthy boundaries in their life. It  might disappoint us, but it’s not something that we disrespect in any way. So, never get afraid of citing conflict if they’re around true rules, especially if they’re tied to your core values.

Batch decisions. This is a kind of advanced way to delay the decision. And I do it all, all, all the time ’cause what I’ve found is that when I make commitments on the fly, I almost always violate and make the wrong commitments, or I get in conflict with other commitments I’ve made. So, I always batch decisions around my calendar. If any of you have ever tried to DM me on social media, on LinkedIn or Instagram, if you’ve sent me a cold email or a cold text, pardon me, you will get, often, a standard response. This is a good hack. If you are on your phone and you type TY, what does that do? It doesn’t matter if you’re Android or Mac. It’s gonna translate TY to thank you, right? That is an automated process. Did you know, on any phone system, you can create your own little shortcuts.

So, I created one called “NoSocial,” all squeezed together as one word. So, there’s no chance I’m ever gonna type that by accident, but “nosocial,” if someone has DM’d me a request for my time, “Will you appear on my podcast?,” “Will you speak at my event?”, “Could you meet with me to possibly explore coaching together?” whatever that is, even if it’s an opportunity for me, my response is gonna be some form of the following. I’ll type in “nosocial” and it auto-populates like a short paragraph. “Hey, thank you so much for reaching out. I’m really trying to avoid making commitments via text or social media. Please email me at this address,” and I give them the work email. “And then, I will get together with my team. We will look at my calendar and see if we can do this together.” And then, I can go in and I might say, “Thanks, Pat,” “Thanks Fred,” “Thanks, Sally,” whatever that is. And then, the rest of the script. And at the end, I might be even more specific. “I’m sure I’m gonna be able to do this. I just don’t know when. If you’ll just be patient and send that email, I will circle back and offer times.”

Most of the time, I wanna say yes but I’ve gotta batch the decisions because if you have a lot of people asking for your time, what you want to do is have a bigger model. And this is when I stole from very powerful executives. I’m gonna get together multiple times a week, sometimes multiple times a day. And I’m gonna sit down with my ops team. I’ve got an amazing chief of staff, and we’ve also got a part-time EA that serves her. And we’re gonna look at my calendar. We’re gonna look at my existing commitments and say, “When can we add this new opportunity?” And then, we will offer up those times. It almost always works, but it’s a no now or no in this context, I’m gonna batch the decisions, so that I can make a commitment that I know I can keep. 

It’s also easier sometimes to circle back and they’ll say, “I’m sorry. I really can’t do that. I looked hard at my calendar. We could not find a way to make it work.” It gives you a way that’s not immediate with all of the pressure of the immediacy of a text to respond. You’re delaying the decision, you’re escalating commitment. You hear all of this. It is a combo move. You’re not gonna decide right now. You’re gonna batch the decision later. You’re also escalating the commitment by asking them to email you. And you look up and now I’m looking at all of the opportunities at the same time, I don’t want to say yes to, I’m just gonna make this up. You know, a $15,000 speaking opportunity when there’s a $50,000 opportunity at the same time. 

Now, we see this all the time, batching decisions. I know a lot of real estate agents that get people who wanna make offers over the weekend. And in some markets, they’ll say, “Thanks so much. We will consider all offers at 12 noon on Monday.” And they are batching all of those decisions because what if they say yes to a lower offer, but a better offer comes in on Sunday, right? That offer on Saturday felt pretty sweet when it was isolated, but when you get four more the next time, now you’ve got a multiple offer situation, right?

So, there’s lots of ways that we can use this. All of those calendar invitations, all of those party invitations, batch them. Batching decisions allows you to make better choices with your time. It is a great way to say no without saying no because it involves all of those escalations. You’re delaying it, you’re asking them to do a little bit, and you’re getting to do everything together so you make the best possible decision.

Okay. We’re down to the last two, 10 and 11. This next one, you’ve probably used but you didn’t have a name for it. It’s just the alternate resource. Someone is asking you to do something or give your time, or your money, or your resources, and all you do is redirecting them. The most common answer from dads across America is, “Hmm. Have you asked mom?” Or from moms, “Hmm, have you asked dad to help you out?” Parents do this to each other all the time consciously or unconsciously. They redirect traffic to the other parent. 

Happens with different people in different departments in bigger companies. “Have you already asked someone in marketing to help you out?” or “Have you thought about asking someone in marketing?” There may be not just an alternate resource but a better resource. “Hey, before you do that, have you thought about reading this first?” And you’re escalating commitment, and you’re also giving them a resource that might actually serve them better than you. “Hey, we created an FAQ. Would you mind just surfing through there?” That’s what businesses do all the time. Before you get on the phone with someone in their operations department, you are on their help page and there’s FAQs on everything you could ask. 

It’s a little irritating sometimes. I grant you that you have to kind of navigate all of those alternate resources before you just get to the one you wanted to begin with. I just talked to a representative, talked to a representative, right? Yes. But there’s a reason for that because it allows them to staff fewer people to do an important job, but they know that you’ve cleared a few hurdles before you get there, so that is a good investment for them. 

Now, I know there are some companies that index the other way. I won’t debate that. But I like the alternate resource myself, especially if you have a small team with limited resources. There are lots of things that we could point people to that might be better than ourselves. 

I’ll give you a more involved example. When The ONE Thing first blew up, and it was becoming a national bestseller, pretty much everyone in my circle and then just outside of it that had ever thought of a book started reaching out. And at least, that’s the way it felt like. I would get three or four requests every single month of people saying, “Hey, I’m thinking about writing a book. Can we chat?” And it would be very easy to say yes to those ’cause a lot of people had helped me and I wanted to say yes to them, but what I started noticing, it was harder and harder to fit those on the calendar. As good as it felt to tell people about my experience to help them on their experience, I just couldn’t do it. 

And I eventually settled on an idea I actually learned from my partner, Gary Keller. He shared with me when he was the sales manager in an office, people were always coming to his door with kind of just-in-time learning moments. They’d say,
Hey, I really don’t know how to write this kind of contract,” and he’d be like, “Well, did you think about attending my contracts class?” “Well, I can’t wait till next Thursday. I need it now.” And this is how far back it goes. He would pull a VHS tape of his contract class out and say, “Here, there’s a machine in the other office. Go watch this. Come back. I’ll still be here if you still have questions.”

Guess what? The contracts class was absolutely comprehensive. Almost no one had to come back but they had to self-serve. But that allowed him to serve more people and have more leverage. So, I stole that idea. I did a quick talk on how to write a book and my experience on it, and I’ve updated that about three times over the years now. And when people ask me for that time, I kind of do this combo move where I escalate commitment and I offer an alternate resource. So, like, “Hey, I would love to help you out. I actually taught a class on this a long time ago and recorded it. It’s still relevant today.” Escalate commitment, right? If you will email me at this address and say, “Can I get access to your publishing class?” then alternate resource, my team will send you a link to this hidden video and you can watch it. Awesome. “And if you still have questions,” escalate commitment again, “email us again. And then, I will offer up 30 minutes on my calendar,” but now we’ll both be talking about the same things.

I won’t have to educate you on everything. For me, it’s far more leveraged. It’s a strategic yes that I put all of these different barriers in place. But what I looked up is, I tracked it for a few years, for every seven people who would ask me for my time, only one of them ever circled back. And I would like to believe they got all the answers they needed from the video, I’ve been told it’s really good, right? And it’s now on its third edition as I’ve added what I’ve learned over the years. And I look up and it’s like, “Great, maybe I’m saying yes to all these people by a one-time investment of my time to create a great resource for them so they don’t have to give that time on repeat.”

And guess what? If I give that time on repeat, will I remember all the things that I did when I prepared to teach a formal one-hour class? Probably not. So, it’s probably a better resource most of the time than my time. And if people still need help, they can circle back. 

So, I’d like to believe this alternate resource, if you’re really strategic, can be very, very powerful. So, look up in your business, in your life, are there things, there are questions that you are answering on repeat? How can you get that future time back by giving them or creating an alternate resource for them? Maybe it’s just a script, right? You’ve written this really great answer and you just copy and paste it, and then just timely add different things.

Alternate resources are great ’cause they allow us to put our best answer in some sort of formal environment or someone else’s best answer on display, and then point them to what they truly need, especially if it’s not necessarily us. I would much rather them go talk to my friend, Bob, if he is the one that they need to talk to about designing their website ’cause that sure as heck ain’t gonna be me.

Now, we’re down to number 11, our final one. And it’s pretty simple. It’s just apologetic regrets. Now, this is the closest we’re gonna come to saying no but we’re gonna do it strategically because saying no, especially to potential client, whatever, you want ’em to come back when the time’s right. 

So, I learned this at Harper Collins when I was an editorial assistant. We would get manuscript after manuscript, most of them unrepresented by agents, not from established authors, and very rarely would we have the time or energy to go through them. We would actually have pizza parties on the end of the every week, and all the editorial assistance we’d go through, they called it the slush pile. And our job was to clear it out every week, and then to write rejection letters. And we were taught very clearly that the way to say no to someone who had written an entire book, they put all of this effort into it and printed it and mailed it to you, the best way to do it was to say, “Thanks so much. I’m sorry. This is not the right opportunity for us at this time. Warm regards.” 

And you’re like, “But wait, you didn’t say anything. You didn’t say why.” And that’s exactly the point because I remember at one point I was like, “Do I need to tell them?” It’s like, “Hey, this could be really good, but get an editor.” And the guy I was working with just said, no. We’ve learned the hard way. If you give people a reason, the really aggressive ones will argue with you. You know it’s not right for us. We’re not the right place, it’s not the right time. We don’t have the resources to help them. They need to go look somewhere else. They need to go do the next thing they need to do to be prepared. And if you give them too many reasons, people will argue with you. 

So, this is just apologetic regrets. You reply back, “Hey, I would love to, but I’m sorry, I just can’t at this time.” Very vague but it’s strategically vague. Don’t give them a reason to argue with you. Don’t give them an opening to kind of poke through your defenses. “I’m sorry, this is not the right opportunity for me at this time,” “I’m sorry I can’t do this at this time.” That’s it. “I’m sorry. I can’t,” it’s a kind of saying no, but “I can’t” is implying that you’re unable to do this. Not necessarily unwilling, so it’s not personal. And they don’t take it personally. 

So, that’s 11 different ways that you can say no. And they’re all good, and they can all be used situationally. Maybe you need to listen to this episode on repeat. Maybe you need to take notes. What are the ways that you could be saying no, that you aren’t today? How can you defend the yeses that you’re making in your life at a higher level so that you can protect the yeses that really matter to you?

So, I’ll give you one observation. In my coaching and our executive coaching, when people show up, they often are like that person I alluded to before. One of the challenges, and we devoted a whole chapter on The ONE Thing to it is they’ll say, “I don’t have the ability to say no.” The inability to say no is one of the great thieves of productivity. And the ability to say it, man, listen to that Steve Job story. A hundred dollars in value to 57 million plus in value through the art of saying no. It is one of the great skills that you can have in business. 

Here’s a hack. Some of the things that we’ve noticed in our coaching, a lot of times, your inability to say no, it’s got less to do with these techniques and knowing what to say and how to say it. It’s got a lot to do with your environment. Maybe you’re in an environment, you don’t have a bunker. Your focus is not protected. Maybe you’reout in a cubicle. You can’t shut a door. You can’t keep other people from invading that space and asking for things. So, we like to look at, first, do they have a physical bunker? Do they have a digital bunker? 

The biggest thief of your attention right now is probably your phone, ’cause you’ve got notifications on, because you allow yourself to look at it 87 times a day. When I walk people through the exercise of looking at their screen time, how many hours a day they’re spending on their phone and how many times they pick it up, they’re often shocked. It’s below the conscious level. So, do you have a physical bunker? Do you have a digital bunker? And both of those will help keep the people who are not currently supporting your goals kind of away from you.

The best way to say no is not to have to say no at all. And that’s by being protected from all of the ask. So, can’t be found. You’re in your bunker, right? You’re in that place where you go to work. You’ve got your digital bunker up, you’re not looking at your text messages, you’re not looking at your emails, you’re not getting notifications to distract you. If you build better bunkers for your physical and digital world, you’ll find that all of this gets much easier. 

So, here’s your challenge for the week. I’m gonna keep it really simple. You’ve been listening to me talk, and I’ve been going a thousand miles an hour. I’m excited about No-vember. I’m excited about teaching people how to say no. You’ve probably thought of several things that you would like to say no to. All I want you to do is pick the biggest thing that’s not currently serving you in your personal or professional life, and I want you to say no today. I want you to say no as soon as you finish. If you have to pull over the car and start texting, use one of the techniques that you just heard. Maybe it’s, “Hey, man, I really want to, but this is just not a good time for me. We’ll have to try another time.”

You know how many times people have told you that? A million. So, my challenge to you is to say no to one thing right now, today. Practice. Start practicing saying strategic nos, so that you can protect the yeses that really matter. That is how extraordinary success happens. We have to protect the big commitments and that often evolves some form of saying no or avoiding the ask. Thanks so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed.

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