Saying No To Say Yes | Part Two

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hey friends, welcome to the Uncommon Freedom Show.

Speaker 2: 0:04

I'm Kevin and I'm Becca, and we're your hosts here to help you reach your potential and maximize your impact in every area that matters. Let's get started. Last week, we talked about the idea that sometimes you can't do it all. This can be a hard thing to accept, especially if you are someone who wants to say yes to everything.

Speaker 1: 0:21

So this week we are going to dive into the ideas behind figuring out when to say no, why it's so important to say no, and how saying no is often you saying yes to something else.

Speaker 2: 0:34

Yep, that's been a good concept for us to walk through, right. We know some people that like to say yes to everything.

Speaker 1: 0:39

Yes, we do. So, Beck. Saying yes to everything means you're really not saying yes. What means is you're not setting priorities and you're not being conscious about your life and what's most important to you. So how do you know what to say no to?

Speaker 2: 0:56

Man, this has been a hard one. Well, not hard. It's been an interesting shift, but the more we've learned about how to say no and how to say it graciously and what it means, it's gotten easier over time. So I would say, the things that we look for when we make decisions are does it align with our goals? So, when we say no, it's something that doesn't align to our goals, something that doesn't align with our mission, which, for us, is to reach our potential and maximize our impact, or something that doesn't align with our values. So those are some of the things that we look for when we're deciding which things to say no to.

Speaker 1: 1:28

Yep, that's really good. So this is a great filter, and I think probably one of the challenges that a lot of people struggle with is they don't necessarily number one, they don't have clearly defined goals. We know that very few people actually write out their goals. So if you don't have your goals written down, if you don't have a personal mission statement written down, or at least in your head, and if you haven't really identified your values, then you don't have those tools, those filters, to run decisions, decisions through to, to make that decision, if it's something you're going to say yes to or something you're going to say no to. Let's talk about some strategies for prioritizing.

Speaker 1: 2:14

One of the things that we talk about all the time is rocks, and many people are familiar with. You know the analogy of filling up a jar. If you start with the big rocks, it looks like it's mostly full. You can add in some pebbles At that point. A lot of times it does look full, but then you can add in sand and then you can really fill in every nook and cranny. And what we know is that so many people and we used to be guilty of this fill up their bucket with the sand, but when you think about the sand and the pebbles.

Speaker 1: 2:52

Those are things that are not nearly as important as the rocks, and for us, you know, the rocks are each other or marriage, spending time, quality time with our kids, not just letting things you know happen, but being very intentional about it. And being one of the things that we've learned is it's really important to calendar the rocks. So we actually calendar our dates for the most part Doesn't mean we don't ever do anything spontaneous, but what we know is if we calendar, it's going to happen. We've talked about this many times, but years ago we made the decision to intentionally date our kids and it's not like we only spend that one to two hours or three hours with the child per month, but that is guaranteed time every single month. That is non-negotiable and it's flexible.

Speaker 1: 3:44

So we move it around on our calendar. But we have a placeholder there. The first, you know basically each Friday afternoon there's a date on our calendar with one of our kids and then we move it based on their schedule and our schedule. And some people would say, well, if it's that important, you shouldn't have to calendar it. But the reality is the flip side is, if it is important, why wouldn't you calendar it Right. You look at all the things that we put on our calendar. You know getting a haircut, getting nails done, taking the car in for an oil change None of that has any lasting significance, yet we put it on our calendar. So it's really important to calendar the rocks.

Speaker 2: 4:23

Yes, and because we work from home, I think the calendar has become the boss is the way we would describe it within our coaching business.

Speaker 2: 4:29

So because we have a lot of flexibility of when we work, but it's not optional. If we work, if we want to grow our business, serve our clients well and create things for our family's lives, then we need to calendar them to show that importance. And so, from exercise to appointments we have with the family, then we also use our calendar for our business appointments. And if you are someone who works from home, you don't report to a boss, your calendar will need to be. It will be essential for you, and we recommend, obviously, a digital, online shared calendar with your spouse, the people that you live with, and what's beautiful about that is we like to talk to each other, but we talk about how our calendar can take care of a lot of the nitty gritty, small conversation things where you know we have designated work time, so we also just calendar things on our designated work times without having to check with each other, which gives us a lot more freedom so we can spend our time talking about more important things.

Speaker 1: 5:19

Absolutely so. Let's talk about the idea of saying a wholehearted yes or saying no when you can only give a little of yourself to something. Is it worth doing?

Speaker 2: 5:32

Do you have an example of this? I don't have.

Speaker 1: 5:37

Well, I think there. Yeah, so one example would be, over the years that I've been involved in worship ministry, and it's been. I haven't been on a worship team in over seven years since we left Oregon, but there were some worship teams that had higher commitments than others and actually when we moved here and finally settled in a church, once I saw what the commitment was to that worship team, I realized that wasn't something that fit with what I had capacity for, with where we were in life and business and with raising our kids. The other thing is well, actually you know I've talked about this, but actually after I left law enforcement full time, had the opportunity to go back to work very part time where literally I was picking my schedule. I only had to work one to two days per month, which seemed like very little, until I got a taste of freedom and then literally got to the point where I was only working one day a month and that was my least favorite Every time that day come up.

Speaker 2: 6:46

I came up, I was like why are you doing?

Speaker 1: 6:48

this, I dreaded it, yeah, and I was asking myself that same question. So you know I did that for a few months and you know there was this conflict because the sheriff's office I was working for, you know they invested some money in me to get me retrained, to do what I was doing for them and to just get me certified through their program, but also realizing that my tactical edge was completely gone And-.

Speaker 2: 7:17

Thank you for telling me this now.

Speaker 1: 7:18

Well, I made the decision years ago and I just realized I had no enthusiasm and you know, there's some things that you can do without being a wholehearted. But you think about surgery, right? Do you want a surgeon who's doing it just to collect the paycheck or do you want someone who's doing this because they're passionate about it and they're into it 100%? So that was a scenario that you know. On the front end it sounded like something kind of the perfect opportunity for me to keep the gun in the badge, which was something that appealed to me. But I realized I just didn't have my heart, wasn't in it anymore and, like I said, my tactical edge was gone and I was really. I was more of a liability to myself and others at that point where, you know, at that point that's when I actually an example of when I had to say no, when I had to quit something.

Speaker 2: 8:06

Yes, we were very glad when you stepped back from that and into things that you were more passionate about. So I would say too, sometimes we commit, maybe with a half-hearted yes just to make a contribution, but it could be something we should have said a no to, and I think we've discussed lately that there's very few times I say notice something that I really really regret it. Occasionally there's that, you know, fear of missing out or I would have done a retake potentially. But there's many times I've said a half-hearted yes and wish I'd said a no.

Speaker 1: 8:34

Yes.

Speaker 2: 8:35

And so, you know, there might just be certain situations like there's with our kids and their sports and school. There's a million opportunities to volunteer and I really appreciate that that they let us be involved and they asked us to partner with them from the sports and school standpoint, and there are a lot of parents that do, and it's something that I do enjoy doing when the season is right, you know, and with the right scenarios and things like that. But I also I'm a recovering people pleaser and so I really struggle. Like on the football team there's a sign up for about 15 things per game, it seems like, but there's like 50 kids that play sport, play that sport, and I know I initially signed up for like three things right out of the gate, cause I wanted to control my yes at that point, knowing the times we were traveling and what I had capacity to do.

Speaker 2: 9:17

And as last minute things have come up, it's been really hard for me not to just say, oh, I'll just do it, but I've waited and I've let other people kind of step in, because there are a lot of families and if every family just took one or two and I took three, you know, then we would have the schedule filled for everything that was needed, and so for me I, as a recovering people pleaser, I have, I've done a better job.

Speaker 2: 9:38

I think of creating some boundaries for myself, because my initial response to most things would be yes, and it probably comes from, you know, not wanting the need to go unfulfilled and also just being that person who's willing to do whatever it takes, and that's not always been healthy for us. So I think when you can remove yourself from that and say, is it your best? Yes, and then you know, sometimes we sacrifice. If it isn't our best, yes, but it needs done, we do it anyway. But sometimes there's people that are just dying to be that person or they need to step in because basically, they haven't been involved in anything and we need to give space for that as well.

Speaker 1: 10:09

That's great. So the next thing is to talk about is it okay to stop doing things, and is it true that winners never quit? Cause that is a saying that we frequently hear, and there's one of the biggest challenges. So winners know to quit the. They know what to quit. That's how we'll say that.

Speaker 2: 10:29

High performance people quit the right things. And I think they quit a lot of things that don't serve them.

Speaker 1: 10:35

And there's, I think, the challenge, especially in today's culture where grit is such a rare commodity or personality trait.

Speaker 2: 10:42

People might be too good at quitting right now Exactly.

Speaker 1: 10:44

Yeah, I think most people in America for sure are too good at quitting, and we don't want to understate the value of grit, because one thing that we've seen is we've worked with hundreds and hundreds of people over the last 12 years that one of the most defining characteristics in someone, whether they're gonna be successful or not, would be grit. And obviously, if you have grit, you don't quit the things that matter. But it absolutely is okay to quit things that no longer make sense, and I want to be cautious about saying things that no longer serve you, because I also think that there's we've become too selfish and people get to the point well, it no longer serves me, so I'm quitting. Well, what about the commitment you made to other people? I think that we need to make sure that we have a high level of commitment, but also understand that once our commitment is filled and sometimes you may have to break a commitment, but to not take that lightly.

Speaker 1: 11:47

And the scenario we talked about with the Sheriff's Office in that very part-time job that I had what we realized is that my full-time career and law enforcement was over, that I was pursuing other things. Um, financially, we no longer needed it was actually costing us to do it. It just didn't make sense and, um, since I made no commitment to a timeframe, uh, it actually was a very easy thing for me to quit.

Speaker 2: 12:16

Um, and I think you know, another example we give often is I'll talk about, you know, reading personal development books or listening to a podcast, and you know, like it's, a lot of us are great starters and very few are great finishers. So I think one of the things that we know about people who pursue excellence, people who are high performers, people that want to grow and build things in their life and in their business, is you need to be someone who can finish things, not just start them. But, uh, I think it was Darren Hardy that first kind of talked through this concept of you know, high performing people actually quit a lot of things. They quit things that don't serve them, and that's one of those things I've given myself permission for a lot.

Speaker 2: 12:49

When it comes to, you know, reading a book or watching something or finishing something is like if I, if I'm giving this book a fair chance and it's just not resonating with me, I might press through because someone else told me it was really excellent book and I need to finish it.

Speaker 2: 13:02

I might also say, you know what? This author doesn't speak my language or this doesn't really fit the scenario of the type of business that we run. I'm not going to spend my time on it and I'll just set it aside and I will easily quit some things like that to open up time for things that serve me better. And I think so. It's that balancing act of knowing when we quit it's not always a bad thing, it's often just opening up our, our schedules and our capacity for things that serve us better. Now, if you quit reading a personal development book and you go fill it with Netflix, then you're probably not making a good trade. But you know that's for each of us to decide, as we're deciding what's important to us and what we're creating in our lives.

Speaker 1: 13:34

Now I know that this is very rare and probably only going to apply to a very small population, but how would you recommend that people handle any guilt that they might feel when they quit something? Either temporarily quit something or they actually decide that they're done with it forever?

Speaker 2: 13:53

Oh man, you're asking me this question. I don't like to quit things. So this is, um, this is a tricky one for me, even as we let one of our kids step back from a sports commitment. You know, I really struggled with that because I'm kind of someone when you make a commitment to something, especially a team in athletics, you finish that commitment. Um, and I've been on some teams that I hated, you know. I hated the coach, I had a miserable experience, but I still fulfilled my season.

Speaker 2: 14:17

So, um, for me this is a difficult one, but I think the better I get at defining or the better we all get at defining what really matters to us, then we can move past that and understand that if we're quitting just to go lay on the couch and do nothing with our life, then we probably should have some guilt associated with that because it's not really fulfilling our purpose.

Speaker 2: 14:35

But if we can step back and say it's to help me better do something else, then I think we need to release ourselves from that and really be free to know that, um, we're not going to make a hundred percent of the decisions accurately when we go into commitments, even if we think them through, and so sometimes it really is time to pivot. Or you have a life change or season change. That's happened with us, where you know we've committed to things and then something came up with one of our children. Some of some of you may have gone through some health things that have happened or something and you need to make a pivot, and so I think it's looking at it more like a pivot than a quit, completely depending on how you are redirecting your time and resources.

Speaker 1: 15:07

Yeah, We've shared this in the past, but there was a season where we were marriage mentors Uh, and this was gosh about 12 years ago.

Speaker 2: 15:15

So we were early in our business.

Speaker 1: 15:19

Uh yeah, we were well 13 years into marriage.

Speaker 2: 15:21

Which, by today's standards, is pretty darn good. That's true.

Speaker 1: 15:24

But we went through a training process and made a commitment. We were actually mentoring three couples. Uh, that all like none of them.

Speaker 2: 15:35

They needed additional resources.

Speaker 1: 15:37

They needed additional resources and weren't the type of people that we were naturally drawn to. And so it was really draining for us emotionally.

Speaker 1: 15:46

And we had three young kids and we had three young kids and we were, you know, in the launching phase of our business, which is very relationally intense, and what we realized because we were at a very different season prior to us committing to this and what we realized as we were in the middle of this is, wow, this is, this is taxing, um.

Speaker 1: 16:04

And so we fulfilled our commitment to those three couples and then said we're going to take a break from uh, from the marriage mentoring with the church that we were part of at that time and we left the door open. But you know the what we've found as many times when we quit or take a break from something, we actually never go back to it, and I think that's also a healthy reminder for all of us is, if you're doing something and you're not that passionate about it, that take a break, because a lot of times that distance will show you, actually reveal how little it's benefiting you and that you shouldn't be doing it, because had we continued with it would have been easy for it to continue indefinitely. But by taking the break, it actually showed us, gosh, this really wasn't a good use of our time at that time.

Speaker 2: 16:56

Yeah, I totally agree with that. So we have a couple of examples of commitments that we step back from and, again, top performers know when to quit something. So you know, we talked about letting one of our kids step back from sports team because it was causing too much stress and leading to poor grades, and that again was hard for me as a parent. But you know, we need to parent the child. We have not the ideal in our heads because none of us are ideal and we've seen their grades pick up, their countenance change and so, even though that was not easy for me personally, it was the right fit for that child and so we think it's okay for kids to be stressed, we think stress is actually a good thing.

Speaker 1: 17:30

Yeah, within reason, right. But what we saw, you know, we had to make a parenting decision and when I talked to the coach I said you know this, this is not something that we take lightly. Like this is very difficult for us to initiate, but actually we were making kind of a health decision for our child at that point where the consequences of him sticking with it were not were too great for us to allow it and we basically had to make a decision in unique circumstances based on that individual child, and then you have a couple of them that you want to talk about.

Speaker 1: 18:06

Yeah, I mean there was a networking group that I joined when we first moved to Arizona and my recollection is it was a one or two year commitment and you know as when we moved here, we were just doing everything we could to connect with people because we really didn't have any sphere of influence.

Speaker 2: 18:24

We're looking for community, yeah we were.

Speaker 1: 18:26

We were starting from scratch and it was there's actually two relationships out of there that I still have to this day but I realized that it wasn't serving me, I wasn't getting out of it what I had hoped to, but I fulfilled my commitment and then let them know hey, I'm not going to be continuing beyond this. And once again, it was one of those things where you know I might be back a year from now. And what I've seen by stepping away and I think this is the lesson in this is that there's a lot of people who are afraid to step away from things and you get such good perspective when you do that, because when I stepped away from this networking group and created that distance, it actually revealed to me how little benefit I was getting from it and how much better my time was spent doing other things.

Speaker 1: 19:15

Same thing with a men's group. It was a men's Bible study group that served me well initially and I realized people might be thinking it's all about what we're getting out of it. And that's not what we're saying, because we believe fully in investing in people. But are you investing in the right people that you can really maximize your impact with? And so with this group I got a lot of great things out. I was introduced to Darren Hardy from this group.

Speaker 2: 19:42

Oh yeah.

Speaker 1: 19:43

But after a while the dynamics of the group shifted a little bit.

Speaker 1: 19:47

There was actually more of an employee poverty mindset that came in not saying that everyone was like that and I was kind of at a crossroads in my life where I realized that, like John Maxwell says, you know, if you're the whatever the smartest person in the room, you need to find a different room. And I had people that were 10, 20 years, my senior actually asking me for a lot of advice and what I realized is that was not the room where I was going to be pulled up, where I was going to be challenged. I was actually probably towards the head of the pack in that group and once again made a decision to step back, left the door open so that I could go back, but yet once again, that time caused me to realize that that was no longer the best place for me and actually allowed me to basically hand create, hand select with another friend, a group that we call an Eagles group, which is a concept of just a bunch of people that are or a handful of people that are flying really high.

Speaker 2: 20:48

I love that, and we're not saying that we don't stay in groups where we can be a mentor to people, because obviously that's important. You want people to mentor you and you want to become a mentor. You know, having that multiple levels of mentorship is a good growth method for most of us, but it depends on where you are and how long you've been in those situations and whether you're getting fed, because you also can't pour from an empty cup, and so I think if you're the only one pouring out and no one's pouring into you, then you're not going to be that much use as a mentor either. And so we've been in those seasons where we've done the pouring out, we've done just the receiving, and then we've done both. And even within our business we naturally pour out with our kids, we're naturally pouring out, and so I think, for us, we're kids.

Speaker 1: 21:24

sometimes we're getting sucked dry. We're getting sucked dry yeah.

Speaker 2: 21:28

So we're cautious, we're very cautious. We have a lot of boundaries. People know that about us. They know that we're not quick to make commitments. We don't say yes to everything, and sometimes it does bother me because I think that outsiders might view us or people in the company, you know, looking for us to help with things might view us as not overly willing. But we're just careful, and I think that that caution, though, has allowed us to be wise in certain situations where we haven't jumped at the first opportunity of something that maybe wasn't even the right thing to spend our time and energy on.

Speaker 1: 21:54

But when we commit, we commit at a very high level. Yes, that would definitely be a good one, and like especially for you when you commit to a training or main stage presentation. Like you're known, it is obvious that you've invested hours and hours and hours of time rehearsing and practicing at a level that many others don't, so that's important. So how, would you say, people will know when it's the smart decision to stop versus when it's just giving up?

Speaker 2: 22:23

So just a couple of things for you guys to reflect on that we work through is the activity isn't helping you grow in areas that are a priority to you, right? So if it's not helping us grow in our marriage, our parenting, our business or our finances or our relationships, then that's an easy no for us. And that's a lot of areas, so maybe for you you're just trying to focus on one area. Number two the activity isn't moving you closer to your goals. So we talked about being in something where, again, we were in it, it was a commitment, but we weren't seeing growth from it. And number three the activity can fix conflicts with your values, and that should be either an automatic no or a quick no once you realize that that's a spot that you're in.

Speaker 1: 22:59

Yeah, when you think of, especially about the area that we work in with is helping people get healthy, we see a lot of quitters and the interesting thing is people they come to us because they have a goal of getting healthier, they want to get to a healthy weight, they want to improve their blood markers and things like that, and the action steps of working with us is helping them get closer to those goals. But sometimes they quit, and so that's the difference between grit and sticking out with something that will help you get to your goals, versus just you know, if it's no longer serving you, then that's when it makes sense to quit.

Speaker 2: 23:40

Yeah, absolutely, let's recap.

Speaker 1: 23:42

Let's recap and, by the way, good job, not coughing, having a coughing fit. Goodness, gracious, just got home from our 25th anniversary trip to Lenai and you picked up a post nasal drip that you thought was like cancer or something.

Speaker 2: 23:56

Oh, I thought it was strep throat. Okay, gotcha. Well, we're glad you're okay. It sounded amazing, so at least that's healing. But yes, once I start coughing I really can't stop so.

Speaker 1: 24:05

All right. So the key takeaways here is saying yes to everything means you're probably saying no to the most important things. Bottom line is don't let others run your life. If you can't go, go all in. You probably shouldn't do it. You rarely get the full effect by toe dipping.

Speaker 2: 24:23

Yep, and as we've heard I think we've shared this on our podcast before and it's from the one thing by J Papa son and Gary Keller Yep, every yes has to be defended by 1000 knows, and so that concept is a way for you to really make sure you're saying yes to the most important things and giving yourself permission to say no or quit the things that are not serving you well in this season.

Speaker 1: 24:45

Awesome. Thanks for listening, friends. Thanks for listening to the uncommon freedom show. We believe freedom isn't man's invention. It was created by God. If you are enjoying the show, please give us a five star review on the platform you're listening to us on. Then subscribe and share with friends and family that you think will enjoy the show. You can connect with us at Beck and kevcom for more resources to learn biblical principles, essential disciplines and the winning habits that help once average people lead the life they want instead of accepting the life they were given.