Kay:
Hey-yo Questers hope you’re having a terrific Tuesday on this beautiful May 25th. This is episode 362 and today we have a quote from an American mogul that many of you may know, may he rest in beautiful entrepreneurial peace, the one, and only Steve Jobs.
Shi:
He tells us, “I’m as proud of what we don’t do as I am of what we do.”
Kay:
Man is this a good quote, especially from a couple of doers who sometimes have had a hard time saying no.
Shi:
I appreciate the experience behind this quote because Steve Jobs is famously not a very nice person to work for. So, not here to try and contend that he was this ‘end all be all great leader,’ great person, but I don’t think anyone could disagree with the fact that he was an innovator, that he changed literally the world, and that his impression and energy will be felt here for a very long time. So, listening to advice from someone who’s had that level of impact and that level of vision and that level of innovation is worthy to take. You might think that someone at that level says say yes to everything and just move and just take action and when the opportunities come take them. We’ve certainly seen that at a certain point in your entrepreneurial journey, you have to become more discerning if you want to keep growing.
Kay:
Absolutely and when that discernment comes into play, it can be difficult because if you’re on an entrepreneurial journey or maybe you’re just on a life journey it can be super hard in the moment to say, no especially if the person who’s asking you is someone you love, or someone you respect or someone who you want to have a good image of you. So, you might end up turning yourself into a yes person and before you know it, you’ve yessed yourself into a no situation where you don’t feel good. This can be a stealer of your joy and your energy.
Shi:
A great example is back in 2018, we were gearing up or we got reached…
Kay:
Reached.
Shi:
Someone reached out to us…
Kay:
Oh, okay.
Shi:
…and said they’ve got this great restaurant space, and it would be the perfect spot for a Squeeze In and we went down and looked at it and it was a good spot, and it was a good deal, and it was a motivated landlord. The traffic council was there and there was a way that we could make it work, but we’ve been beating the entrepreneurial drum for enough years now to at least, even though it was extremely hard to please trust us, it was very hard to say no to this opportunity. But we did say no to it ultimately. In the end, the owner who was very nice and very involved came back and said, please, and we’ll make these as special exceptions, and we’ll do this deal with you. It’s hard to say no to that, but we did say no to it and we both were kind of like, oh, we didn’t mess that up. Just six weeks later, the most perfect opportunity came along for our Carson City location and we did follow that one because it was better than what we had just said no to, even though saying no to the thing was hard and it was a good opportunity in all of those things. This was just one of those examples for us where sometimes you have to say no to the good stuff so that you can say yes to the great stuff.
Kay:
Mm, that’s a great entrepreneurial example and this can go from whether you’re making business decisions or down even into personal decisions. I want to just take a quick aside and for those of you who are millennial listeners, and if you’re older then you will, because you’ll kind of know this trait in millennials. We are known as being the flakiest generation of all. I really think that a part of our collective flakiness has to do with the fact that we don’t say no when somebody asks us to do something that we don’t want to do. Do you not want to go out to tea or coffee with that person when they ask you? Then just say no instead of canceling on somebody 10 minutes, five minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes beforehand, or having anxiety for two weeks because you actually don’t want to do the thing. Just say no. Save yourself the suffering and save the other person on the other end of the deal the pain of you flaking out on them at the last minute and just say no at the beginning. So that was my exclusive advice for millennials but if you also need that as an older adult, feel free to take it.
Shi:
Now we do not have the time to try and give you all of the strategies of how to say no eloquently. But if that is something you struggle with, guess what? There’s a book, there’s a podcast, there’s a YouTube video. There are so many resources that can give you the right turns of phrase and the right energetic shifts and the right organizational tools that can help you say no more easily. It doesn’t mean you just snap at the person who asked you out for coffee. No. No, I’m not doing that. You can find a way to do that gracefully that’s still in alignment with your values, that helps you continue your journey forward without that anxiety piece or without that flaky piece. So, from entrepreneurial pursuits to personal pursuits, this advice is just plain good advice that came from Steve Jobs who told us, “I’m as proud of what we don’t do as I am of what we do.”
Kay:
Alrighty gang you’ve got a Do and Don’t Quest today. For today’s quest, we want you to focus on what you don’t do just as much as you do focus on what you do, do. So, make a list of the things that you’re proud not to partake in. Maybe you don’t partake in systemic racism. Maybe you don’t follow the influence of the media and just realize that what you don’t do says so much about your character or almost just as much about what you do, do. So, look at that list and think if there’s anything that you might hope to integrate in there in the near future. Make that your focus for today and remember, are you ready? Say it with us.
Kay & Shi:
Let’s quest!
