A client has asked me

“How do you say no?
When you’re too busy, you’re weighed down, your priorities rule you, but you just want to say yes to everyone. Don’t want to let anyone down. You bend your life to fit them in and then you lose sleep because it just doesn’t all fit.
How do you say no?”

No is the most productive word in the world.
Danielle Storey, the Million Dollar Client Relationship expert insists that “No opens the door to yes” and that has been my experience also.

So why don’t we say it more?

There is a common saying that if you want to get something done, give it to a busy person. This is built on the concept that they won’t say NO.

There are a couple of elements to this that we need to examine:

1) Our Image
We don’t want to be seen as someone who lets another down. We want to say yes because if we don’t we think that someone else will think poorly of us. That someone else could be a friend, a family member, a boss, a colleague, a new friend, an old friend or even a random stranger.

The first thing you MUST take on board is this. What other people think of you is none of your business.

They may think poorly of you but if they are someone who truly values you, they will accept whatever your response is because they will know you have a lot more going on in your life than what they know about. Do you really want to spend time with someone who gets upset because you won’t do them a favour? You are worth more than that.

2) Who is Asking
My experience is the difficulty to say NO depends on who is asking. It can be very difficult to say no to a family member. They also have the advantage of more power when it comes to emotional manipulation purely because of their history with you.
The same can be said for a Boss or a client. For some reason we think our job or the contract is at risk. As I will explain later, they both actually WANT you to say No. They just don’t realise it.

3) Self Belief
It is so important to realise that you are worth saying no for. Too often we can see how others should say No more often but can’t see that we are in the same boat. Trust me, you are truly worth it. Your time is more important to you than it is to anyone else. Your own plans need your attention. Your own desires and needs are also important. Do not sacrifice yourself and your own needs and wants unnecessarily for others. Being a martyr is not as good as people want you to believe it is!

I love what the flight attendants say every time I am on a plane. “When the mask falls from the ceiling, please be sure to fit your own before you assist others.”

If you don’t look after your own needs, no one else will. You have to be ok first before you can be of service to others.

4) They Want you to Say No
Without realising it, other people want you to say No.

Most people operate on the basis that you are a mature person and when you have reached capacity you will say so. To keep saying yes when it is costing you in terms of time, energy and even sanity is not fair to you or to the business or family unit. So even though they may seem like they don’t want to hear you say no, they will be much happier you did that to come to them at the deadline and say, “Sorry I didn’t get it done.”

To get a bit hippy for a moment, saying no is one of the biggest acts of self-love that you can do.

By all means, please do things for other people. Please give of yourself generously but not at the expense of yourself.

You owe it to yourself to say NO. It is the most productive and most powerful word in the world.

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There Is NO Escape!

This is one of the scenes from where I have been working for the last four days. Not a bad pool!

I was fortunate enough to be hosting a conference at Sanctuary Cove in Queensland.

Too many people can’t wait to get to places like this to escape their life. They seem to feel that either their business, job or relationship (or worst case scenario, their entire life) is so bad that they need to escape it for a holiday. It takes a few days to chill out and feel the sense of escape and then half way through they remember what they are trying to escape and start to take on the stress again.

There is NO Escape!

Your life is yours to create, so if you are not enjoying it or feel you need to escape it, change it! Change jobs, sell your business, work on your relationship, do whatever you need to do to address your issue. You can’t avoid your life forever or you will die trying. The quickest way around is through so face your stuff and live a life you don’t want to escape from.

See you in paradise!

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You Know Better Than That!

A good friend of mine is going for a senior postion at a very large company.

As a manager, they are AWESOME!

• They have stood toe to toe with union officials and negotiated powerful outcomes that turned out to be in the best interest of the company and the union member.
• They have a level of loyalty in their staff that no other manager has ever created in this company before.
• They continually step up into their boss’ role for prolonged periods as their boss travels and consults elsewhere
• For seven years in a row their major projects have been nominated for major awards and have won the award on several occasions
• They are half way through an MBA at Australia’s most prestigious university (and getting really good marks)
• Their division in the organisation is constantly referred to as the “role model” by the senior executive team
• They have done the hard yards and performance managed the “dead wood” which has lifted the morale of the team

​Having said all of that, my friend still doubts their value and I spent an hour or so coaching them on understanding what they are worth.

Whether you are negotiating salary deals, contracts or any other deal you know better than to discount yourself – yet I see people do it everyday. Women seem to discount their value more often.

DON’T DO IT!! STOP IT!!

This is all about value. Make sure you know what you are worth and hold your value. You are only discounting yourself if you don’t. Be confident and proud about the value you bring. We all know charlatans who got paid more purely because they believed.

So Dear-Reader, what is your value or the value of your product or service?

Here is what Bob Newhart has to say about it.

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What Do You Get?

So often when I talk with people at conferences, their focus is “What do you get?” It was a delight to spend time with some people whose focus was “What can I give?”

I had the privilege of peforming MC duties for 250 women attending the Emerald Community Girls Big Night In (a Cancer Council fundraiser) and the following night performing the same duties for 150 people at the Big Brother Big Sister Awards night (pictured above). We heard some great stories of people who willing gave of themselves only to feel like they get so much more in return.

The work place is the same. You need to give to others on the team before you will get what you want. Unfortunately, too many people are focussed on the payrise, the position or the next political move rather than, how can I help my customers, my team and my business get what they need and want.

Zig Ziglar said, “The best way to get what you want is to help others get what they want.”

If you shift your focus from “What Do I Get” to “What Can I Give”, you will be amazed and how good you feel and what will get dropped in your lap.

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What’s Your Solution?

I am up in the lovely state of Queensland visiting clients and doing some tech support for my mum and I have to say it, mum’s boyfriend is a very handy dude.

He loves working in the garden but the sandy soil and loads of creatures up here makes for special problems. One of the solutions is to grow the strawberries in containers.
But he didn’t want the containers to sit on the grass and kill it. Also they are very heavy to lift and move, so what did he do?

A couple of old golf buggy wheels, a jockey wheel off the caravan, a wheel-less wheel barrow, some coaster wheels and a few bit of wood and steel all got made into portable plant tables you can see in the photo. A fantastic solution that just took a bit of thinking, looking at what resources were available and what skill sets were present to come up with a solution.

In the work place today it seems that we struggle with solutions. We are so used to “Other People” providing the solution, managers telling us what to do or giving up because “it just can’t be done”.

Next time this happens to you, think of my mums boyfriend and ask:

• What resources have I got available?
• What skill sets are available?
• What is the outcome I am after?
• How can I combine all of this to achieve the outcome I want?

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