Wise up

Some opportunities are right up your alley. All you have to do is say yes.

Some opportunities are terrible. It’s easy to go, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

But many opportunities fall into a gray area — financially, emotionally or otherwise — where they don’t scream “RUN,” but they’re also not a “HARD YES.”
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It’s important to know how to decline these opportunities, too — without risking a hit to your reputation.
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The key is to walk a line between being honest and being respectful, between saying too much and saying too little.​
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Whether it’s a job, an invitation or a date, your job is to provide a clear reason for saying no without appearing ungrateful or (sometimes worse) overexplaining.

It also helps to find small ways to be helpful to people, even as you turn them down.

Maybe you refer them to a better job candidate. Maybe you propose a new idea. Maybe you offer them some advice on your way out.
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Generously investing in someone even as you part ways is a superpower.
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In fact, there’s a way to decline opportunities that actually strengthens a relationship.

But the art of declining opportunities also requires you to be very in touch with your own needs.​
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If you don’t know what you truly want — if you don’t know what truly matters to you — it’s hard to know which opportunities to accept and which ones to decline.
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And it’s almost impossible to feel at peace with that decision afterward.
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So gracefully declining an invitation isn’t just about framing things in a way that makes yourself look good.
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It’s about knowing yourself so well that being honest about what you do and do not want no longer feels risky in the first place.

We can only be understandable to other people to the extent that we understand ourselves.
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And if you’re interested in hearing how this idea played out in a listener’s life…

Check out episode #1,052, where we took a question from a small business owner who was struggling to decline jobs with difficult clients.

In that episode, we talked about how to say 'no' in a way that wouldn’t blow up in his face. We also talked about how to elicit the information he needed to make sure he was choosing the right clients, and how to be helpful to people even as he turned them down.

Thinking about this listener’s situation reminded me how important it is to say 'no' to certain opportunities, and to do so in a respectful and productive way.

Have you found this principle to be true in your world? Struggling to make use of it?

Hit reply and tell me about it. I’m all ears!

On the show this past week

​1057: Nina Aouilk | Ending Forced Marriage and Honor Killings Part One​

​1058: Nina Aouilk | Ending Forced Marriage and Honor Killings Part Two​

​1059: Putting Predator on Blast for His Abusive Past | Feedback Friday​

​1060: Dreams | Skeptical Sunday​

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