Learning to Say No

I probably truly learned to say the word “No” for the first time over forty-five years ago.  I know that the word No was not my first word uttered, but it is safe to assume that, like the rest of us, it was most likely in the first dozen or so.  “Mama” and “Dada” most likely came before “No,” but not by much.

Being the older brother of two siblings, the older cousin to five and the father of two, I can tell you that children learn to say “No” among their first few words.  Oftentimes while shaking their head and refusing to eat something that you want them to.

Why is it, then, that over the ensuing decades I have found it increasingly difficult to say “No”?  Of course, we all say it thousands of times in the normal course of conversation.  Someone might ask if you went somewhere in particular or have ever used such a product and the answer is easy.  Not so easy is being asked or, in many cases, directed to do something that you would rather not do and/or that would be a complete waste of your time.

As an economic development professional, much of my job description centers around attracting new businesses and assisting existing businesses, in which case I rarely say No.  In my real life, I have become such a pleaser and somewhat passive father, husband, son, brother, friend and neighbor that I have almost never said No. 

Want me to watch your dog for a day?  Sure thing.  Want someone to help you move something heavy?  Ask me.  Need someone to drive all the kids somewhere because the other parents are busy?  I’m your guy.  Of course I will do it.

While on my constant quest for self-improvement financially and in every way, I have read literally hundreds of self-help books, thousands of articles and blog posts on a wide variety of topics written by everyone from Nobel-prize winning scientists to mommy bloggers with a few hundred followers.

A common thread among many is the importance of learning to say No.  None less than Warren Buffet advises this when you Google the term.

I recently read three excellent articles on the topic, so will share some lessons learned as well as detailing how I, myself, am learning how to practice what I preach.  Without painfully dissecting every instance, I will share how I said No ten times last month, most of the instances in which I would not have previously done so.

A People Pleaser

Part of what has not necessary brought me great success, but what has helped me remain gainfully employed in a difficult profession through the entire Recession and beyond, and have also received the top raises that my employer could give, is by being a people pleaser.  A team player.  A “nice guy.”  Well, the older I get, the less that I respect and admire being a nice guy team player people pleaser.  It may work well for worker bee employees like me, but it does not launch you into the millionaire class or financially independent retire early or FIRE class of folks.  It just gets you a small raise to pay your escalating bills.

Learning to say No is a great way to increase your focus and productivity on more important things than the ones that you or I might typically say Yes to in order to be nice or not offend someone.  Saying No to those time wasters that will always continue heading our way no matter what will help eliminate those low leverage activities and allow us to focus more time and energy into high leverage activities, i.e. the ones that will help us achieve better results faster.  I could think of a million examples and I am sure that you could too.

I have just recently embraced the notion of not trying to please everyone and make everyone like me.

Buffet Time

Because of my search history, my Yahoo! feed recently provided a link to an article titled “Warren Buffet Says This 1 Simple HabitSeparates Successful People From Everyone Else.”

That habit, of course, is learning to say No to things that are not worth his time.

It goes without saying that Warren Buffet’s time is more valuable in a monetary sense than mine or yours.  During the time that you watch a Game of Thrones episode, he may decide to purchase or possibly not purchase an entire railroad system.  While he sleeps one night, the interest and dividends that he earns may amount to more than you will earn in your life. 

That does not mean that your time is any less valuable to you.  If you could be writing a blog post that will ultimately earn you a hundred bucks or make something that you could sell online or spend some quality time with your family rather than attending a useless meeting, then your time is valuable as well.

Buffet learned long ago that the most valuable commodity is time.  Buffet said that the difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say No to almost everything.  Whether he meant that in terms of his own experience, which would undoubtedly include saying No to most people pitching him investment opportunities, is not as important as the advice itself which applies to you and me and the stuff that people try to waste our time with.

Collins Time

Author Jim Collins of Good to Great suggests that instead of creating to-do lists, like I will be doing first thing tomorrow (Monday) morning, we should make “stop doing” lists instead. 

The examples of these are myriad, but a few to consider that apply to Yours Truly include learning to say No to opportunities and things that do not excite us, speak to our values or further our missions in life; another is learning to say No to superficial networking events like the many Chamber of Commerce events that I am invited to and some of which I attend; a third is learning to say No to spending time with negative, critical people who will drag us down.  Time is too precious to spend too much time with those Negative Nellies out there.

A big one that I am currently grappling with is saying No to overworking.  Because I have a new millennial boss who thinks nothing of emailing back and forth to people twenty-four hours a day including weekends, it looks bad if I do not do the same.  But I do not.  He may include me in a string of texts and/or emails over the weekend, but I do not have access as of now to my work email unless I am at work and I do my best to not get sucked into texting meaningless shit in evenings and weekends.

I do know quite a few middle aged guys like myself who have gained a moderate amount of success, but have spent far less quality time with their families than I have.  Lately I have had no choice but to miss some concerts and events in the evenings, but that was due to attending Board meetings that I must attend.  But damned if I am going to miss one of my children’s concerts or dance performances for schmoozing with a bunch of fakes who want to sell me or my employer something.

Breaking a Habit

After two-and-a-half years of reading, thinking and writing about self-improvement in both the monetary and non-monetary sense, I have come to believe that you, me and everyone else already knows what we should do.  And if you do not know, then you can search almost any term that piques your interest and find myriad advice, most, but not all, of it good. 

We can read posts about saving money, cutting out the lattes, Paying Yourself First, becoming more frugal, hustling up side gigs and what not twenty-four hours every day and you still would not be able to read everything.

I can and will self-publish eBooks on the issues and some people will buy them.

Reading about it, knowing about it and even writing about it is great, but not the same as actually doing it.

Like saying Yes to shit that you know you should or wish you should have said No to.

While you are building up a career, as I still am even at the ripe old age of forty-seven, you say Yes to lots of things.  I like to help people who may help me accomplish my work-related or even personal future goals. 

For one example, as I have started blogging about money and have contemplated writing one of those books that seems to do so well about “What I have learned by interviewing ‘x’ amount of millionaires,” I will not pass up a chance to ask a successful business person how they did something or their philosophy on some particular matter even if I determine that they are unlikely to do a project in my community.

As I recently met with a person who owns quite a few successful mid-sized hotels, I figured it a golden opportunity to gain some information to use for myself or my friends in the future as well as with my readers.  It was quite fascinating, as well.

But I have come to say Yes so much out of habit in the hopes of bringing more success my way that I have often said Yes to things that I knew in my gut were a waste of not only my own personal time but also the taxpayers of my community. 

As we become more successful, the key challenge then becomes learning to identify those things that may provide more value to us than others and then prioritizing them.  Because of this phenomenon, we often try to do this without saying “No” definitively, which sometimes results in a lack of clarity and overcommitting ourselves. 

The best way to combat this is to learn to say “No” more definitively and break the habit of always saying “Yes” or “maybe.”

In my personal observations, most of the successful people who I know are pretty good at saying “No” without any wishy-washiness, excuses or traces of anxiety.

I am striving to learn to do that, myself.

You Can’t Pick My Brain Over Coffee

I love coffee and I mean love it.  For years, if you asked to meet me for coffee I would readily agree whether you are a furniture salesperson, someone trying to find sites for self-storage facilities or just someone looking for a good investment opportunity in the community that I have headed up economic development efforts for since 2005.

If I have had a hundred meetings where someone picked my brain for the cost of a cup of coffee, I hereby report that none have ever resulted in any projects whatsoever.

The requests that I get once per month or so typically start with the “can I pick your brain for a few minutes?” request or people who would like to tell me about some great opportunity that I might be interested in (oftentimes insurance- or investment-related).  Some folks have prefaced their request by blowing some smoke up my behind by saying things like “I heard you’re the man to meet with in [my town]” or that someone who we both know “suggested that we get together to talk about how we could work together to benefit [my town] and my business.”

I have sat through many of such meetings while nodding as if I am both interested and listening.  On a few occasions, I have listened but more for my own learning than any business opportunities for my town.  Legit developers or business owners rarely ask economic development officials to meet over coffee to bullshit for an hour.  They come into meetings at City Hall with attorneys, engineers, business partners and/or architects.

Just recently after having many coffee and lunch meetings where I sat through someone’s pitch or answered a hundred different questions about various properties in town, I decided to become selective and say No to these requests.

Said “No” Ten Times

The first time that I said No to something this past April, I felt a bit empowered and began thinking about saying the word more often and emphatically, although always nicely.

I also sought out my wife’s advice on how to reject such requests that I felt were not worth my time, coffee or no, so I would not necessarily permanently burn those bridges.

The following is a brief recap of the ten times that this mensch said No when I would have normally said Yes or a long “Maybe.”  Some of the times were easy and fairly routine.  After all, I am an economic developer and saying No is common among my brethren.  Some times were not so easy.

Six Easy No’s

Gambling Cafes – the community that employs me allows those holding licenses to pour liquor to apply for a video gambling license.   I have worked with all the big ones: Betty’s Bistro, Stella’s, Dottie’s and others with old-fashioned women’s names.  Nearly all the restaurants and bars in our town have the video poker machines.  There are no shopping plazas in the town that do not have at least one business with gambling terminals.

I still get calls at least once per week from some Schmo who wants to open another one.  Some come from people who own ten already and others are from guys who live in their mother’s basements who think that they might as well get on the gambling money-making wagon.  I do not begrudge these guys their dreams of opening one in my town, but it is very easy for me to tell them No nicely and sometimes not so nicely.

Even though I said no to at least five such business propositions in April, including one that was not so easy because it was with a national chain fuel station, I still count those five as one “No” and a routine one at that.

Self-storage – the self-storage industry is strong, well-funded and expanding.  I would not mind owning a self-storage facility, yet if I encouraged one to apply in a commercial area in our town, they would hang me by my balls.  Especially on a property owned by our town that I am trying to attract a hotel to. 

I have said No to many a proposed self-storage facility at that property as well as several others.  I nicely explain that it is not me, personally, saying No but that the community that employs me would most likely not make the necessary zoning approvals to bring one to whatever site. 

No incentive for you!   For the sake of brevity, something that I struggle with, I will combine two fairly easy ones into this one.

With my new boss, I have designed a new financial incentive program for my community.  The program’s primary focus is to attract new business investment for eating and drinking establishments and retail stores.  Not financial advisors, doctors, dentists, chiropractors and the many non- sales tax producing businesses that thrive in our community without one public dollar being invested.

I was asked twice for incentives this past month including once at a public meeting.  The two requests came from a dermatologist office opening in our town and the other was from a long-time dentist.  I said No both times.  Nicely but emphatically, of course with an explanation that the program is meant to attract new sales tax producing businesses.

No to lunch – my best friend in the economic development profession holds the job that I wish that I had.  We were the two finalists for the position but he got it and I did not.  Well, life goes on and I remain good friends with him.

I was at a conference on Foreign Direct Investment this past month.  I have done quite a few deals with foreign firms but do not claim to be an expert at it.  I am improving and have experience with about six or eight such companies.

Following the half-day conference, my friend told me that he was going out for lunch and invited me and another colleague who I like.  He also invited a woman who I do not like and who always gives me a hard time.  She also takes many of my own initiatives and programs and then claims them for her own.  I agree that copying is the sincerest form of flattery and I realize that none of my programs are completely unique.  It’s just that if I do something new in April, I would appreciate it if she would not contact our community for the details every time and then do the same thing one month later, like in May.  There are other reasons too, but suffice it to say that I do not care for her although we interact cordially quite often.

I would normally have gone to lunch with my friend even if someone that I do not care for came along, but I thought it another opportunity to say No to something that I would have gone along with in the past. 

It makes me a little happy to think back now that I avoided an unpleasant hour of having my brain picked by this woman about my town and what we are doing so that she could somehow use the information to her advantage.  By the way, she lives in the town that employs me and does economic development for the town next to mine thus her keen interest in everything that I and my town do.

No trucks – there are some brokers that have been very successful in the Chicago area the past few years and have even represented quite a few projects in the town that I work for.  One of the brokers that I am fairly good friends with called and asked many questions that I answered about some unincorporated properties on the northern border of our community.  The properties have a few derelict and abandoned buildings on them.  They are owned by a successful attorney who gains income from them from two billboards on the properties.

When my broker friend called early in the month to alert me that he and his partner would likely be brokering the site and bringing development and having them annexed to our community, I was glad and detailed the type of development that we would like to see.  Again, in the interest of brevity, I basically said that we want good development.

When he called me about two weeks later to ask if a truck fleet guy could use one of the buildings for a dispatch office and store trucks on the remaining one-plus acre, I said “No” but nicely.  It was not too hard.  Again, I said that it is not me personally saying No but that I wanted to save him and the truck guy the time and expenses of applying for that type of use only to be shot down.  Truthfully, I told him that I would not want to be the guy appearing before our Council asking to annex the property to use as a truck storage and dispatch center.  Then I cited one of my well-used lines, that I would rather tell him a quick No than a long Maybe.

Did he kick and scream?  Not at all.  He thanked me and told me that is what he thought and what the other towns that he called told him too.

That’s the six easy ones – no self-storage, no truck depot, no more video gambling cafes, no incentive for a dermatologist, no incentive for a dental practice and no hour getting grilled by a rival economic developer.

Four Tougher No’s

There were four more times that I said No that were not quite so easy.

A mobile app developer – a woman who has failed at several other marketing-related businesses has taken a short class on building mobile web applications at one of those code academies.  Because she has long been affiliated with our community’s Chamber of Commerce, she figured it a no-brainer to start big by selling a mobile app to our community for a few grand and then including a monthly fee for maintenance.  The app would include descriptions and links to shopping, drinking, dining, entertainment opportunities and events in the community.  Not a bad idea, but something that is already there but in two or three places instead of one.

This woman did not have one app developed to demonstrate and when I asked her to make a short presentation, all she really showed me was information about how many people use various websites and the value of mobile applications that she undoubtedly downloaded from other sites.

Nothing at all about even one single freakin’ app that she has ever designed or created.  Even though she promised me that she could do it and we could even test it for free for thirty days.  Keep in mind, I do not work for Chicago or Aurora, but I do not work for a Podunk town either.  I have been pitched before by app developers who have designed hundreds of them including for Fortune 100 companies.  Indian guys with advanced degrees in computer science.  In other words, very successful website and mobile app developers. 

This woman continued calling me and emailing me and I kept being nice.  Inviting her to send more information when she develops an app, etc. 

Finally, I sent her an email last month that was something akin to the many rejection letters that I used to get back when I applied for other jobs.  You know how they go unless you are truly blessed in everything that you do.

“Thank you for providing the information on mobile applications for our community…while your presentation was impressive [a bold lie]…we have decided that should the Village pursue development of a mobile application…we would retain the services of [someone who isn’t you].”

This woman sent me another garbled and angry reply which I promptly moved into my “Reply to Later” folder which truly means “I am keeping this email for a few months where I will not see it and then will delete it later this year” folder.

The only reason why this was a little more difficult than the others is because I have known her tangentially for a while and whenever a guy like me rejects someone affiliated with the Chamber of Commerce, you have to have a good reason for doing so.

I truly hope that I never hear from this woman again, but suspect that I will.

Title Insurance – no disrespect meant to those in the title insurance business.  If and when you transact real property, title insurance is an important aspect of it.  But that is about the only time that title insurance comes into play.  When it comes to the field of economic development, title insurance is what you think of after the afterthoughts.

Thus, when a title insurance guy first made contact with me soon after I issued a Solicitation of Bids and Request for Proposals (RFP) for a Village-owned property, I did not think much of it.  After issuing that document, I got calls from many people related to the development field from the actual developers of multi-family developments all the way to curious residents of the community.  I even got some crank call messages left on my voice mail, one of which was quite funny.

And I got a call from a title insurance guy.

At first, he asked quite a few questions about the property and the project.  No worries, I have had prospects and leads generated from more sources than you could imagine.  Why not a title insurance guy?

The more I chatted with him, the more I began thinking about the God-awful boring but predictable post-municipal career of working for a title insurer, so why not be nice to this guy?

We emailed and chatted twice before the offer came to go to lunch.  I’m sure so he could “pick my brain” while extolling the virtues of his title insurance company, who I will not name but is basically the only one that anyone uses in the State of Illinois. 

I let it sit for a while before it became one of the first lunches out on someone else’s dime that I turned down.  I would not even want to have steak and lobster if I had to listen to anything about title insurance.

Seeing as how not even one business or developer has ever asked for my advice on a title insurance company in eighteen years in the field, I sent the following response:

Hi [Title Insurance Dude],

My apologies for the delay.

Things are going fairly well and I have been busy just trying to keep up with development projects.

I am going to respectfully pass on meeting, but invite you to send me any and all materials about [your title company] for future reference.

I sincerely hope that your firm does business with development projects in [my town]; however my task is to generate and assist these projects throughout their site selection and approval process and have never been asked for title insurance assistance in over seventeen years in this profession.

I am sure that our paths will cross again soon.

Regards,

[Money Mensch learning to say No]

I don’t mind him giving it a shot to become the title insurance king of my community, but I hope that I never hear from him or any other title insurer again unless it is for a property or properties that I am purchasing on my family’s behalf and, even then, I would rely on my attorney and/or lender to take care of that.

Early morning Vegas – I am heading out to Vegas two weeks from today to attend RECon.  The impetus for that is, once again, to attract a hotel to the community that employs me.

I am attending with my young millennial boss and our town’s Mayor and will be marketing our area as one town in a consortium of ten.  We have a booth that we work on putting together as a group including staffing it from early morning through the entire day for three days.

I was asked by the person who has the unfortunate task of organizing our booth to staff it first thing Monday morning.  This is at 7:30 a.m. after we attend multiple cocktail parties at different casinos and I probably won’t be able to sleep much if at all.  There’s no way on God’s green earth that I want to be in a suit at the convention center by 7:30 the next morning.

Even though I am known to be a “good guy” and a “team player,” damned if I was going to agree to this request.  I spent a day or two contemplating how to say No without writing too many excuses before finally deciding not to offer any excuse besides that I would not be able to do it.

It was much harder than telling some schmuck that he could not put self-storage on a Village-owned property or another schmuck that he cannot open a video gambling business in town.

But after emailing a definitive No, that this person responded to with something like “We’ll find a way…” I am quite pleased to have said No to this request. 

No to a major player – another call that I received in response to marketing one of the Village-owned properties was from a major player.  How do I know that he is a major player?  Easy.  He told me so.

This guy actually is a major player, but not in the field of development.  He is a major player in the field of marketing.  He actually is, having made millions as the founder of a professional sports team, having been retained by the Big City to work on naming rights deals and being the president of a successful marketing firm in the Big City.

He “knows” big developers and has a close working relationship with quite possibly the best-known development attorney in Chicago.  A name that I know very well and represents some of the biggest developers in the game. 

If that attorney called, although not a developer himself, I would drive for hours outside of work time to treat him to lunch.  But this is a marketing guy who has exactly zero development deals under his belt who wants to meet me because “we should know each other” and “we could make money together.”

I told both my boss and my wife that line with a chuckle.  If I had the money to develop these properties myself, I obviously would not be in the position that I am in now.  For me to “make money” with him, he would need to bring in an actual developer with actual financing and an actual plan to develop the site and, in turn, make me more valuable to my employer and attract additional development to my town.

While this guy would be an interesting guy to meet with and perhaps learn something from and perhaps I could pick his brain, I decided to not meet with him after he blew off a coffee meeting with me last month and then emailing weeks later apologizing and explaining that he was sick.

You may think me a jerk, but really I am not; however, I sent him the following email politely saying No after consulting my wife on how to do so:

[Major Player],

I am sorry to hear about your illness a few weeks ago and am sorry that we did not meet.  Things are extremely busy right now, so I am going to take a pass on rescheduling.  Please feel free to send me more information about any development projects that you have in mind or pass my contact along to any clients or colleagues that you may have. 

Regards,

[Money Mensch learning to say No]

There you have it.  Short and sweet and the "extremely busy" part was a suggestion of my wife's and it happens to be true.

Perhaps some other time my path will cross with this guy’s or perhaps I will come to regret not meeting with him for coffee.  More likely, I saved myself an hour-plus of nodding and pretending to pay attention while my real work awaited me at my office.

So There You Have It

I am not claiming any type of victory or feeling particularly successful.  What I did was save myself a few wasted hours of brain picking.

Saying No to self-storage guys, truck depots and video gamblers is easy.  Not so easy is saying No to a colleague about staffing a booth or saying No to a persistent Chamber of Commerce member.

I may not yet have gained a significant amount of wealth, but the older I get, the more I realize that time is a valuable currency on its own.  When I was off work in my younger days, I would sometimes feel like a bum while thinking about all the movers and shakers making big money in the financial district in Chicago and other lucrative ventures elsewhere.  Now I envy those with more control over their own time and scoff at those who are stressed out in the financial district while I am walking through the forest preserves or reading a good book in my back yard.

When it comes to email, I recently read a great post that it is really tantamount to someone else’s to-do list.  This hit me hard, since most requests that are made of me, whether by my boss, another co-worker or a broker or developer, come in the form of an email.

It is a topic for another post, but if I can be requested to do something that is difficult for someone to ask me over the phone or in person, some of these people are going to see a lot more No’s from me than Yes’s. 

Eventually, as I become closer and closer to not needing to please others all the time, I will have months when all the No’s will become part of the easy column.