Alecia St. Germain and Jonathan Dugger in episode 120 of The Conscious Edge Podcast cover art about when to say no in business

When to Say No in Business (and How to Say It)

September 29, 2026

Knowing when to say no in business depends on where your business is right now. Early on, saying yes to almost everything is how you learn what works and who you serve. As you grow and know your numbers, no becomes your default and yes becomes something you choose on purpose.

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You look at next week, and every block is full. You said yes to all of it. When they asked, it was a month away, and you were sure your schedule would open up by then. It didn’t.

Keep saying yes long enough without checking in, and it adds up. You end up with a client roster that drains your energy. You have a pile of strategies and assets with no system holding them together. And you’re trying to carry all of it in your head.

Saying yes to almost everything makes sense early on. It’s how you learn what works and who you’re here to serve. The trouble starts when your business grows and your yes doesn’t grow with it. Knowing when to say no in business starts with knowing where your business is right now.

In this episode, my co-host Jonathan Dugger, a clinical psychologist and entrepreneur, and I walk through four times in a business when yes makes sense. We also talk about the yes you say just to get out of an awkward moment. And Jonathan shares three ways to say no without closing the door.

What We Cover

In this episode on when to say no in business, you’ll discover:

The four times in your business when saying yes makes sense, and how to tell which one you’re in
What “yes with a thesis” means, and how it helps you see the real cost of an opportunity
Why “no by default, yes on purpose” gets easier once you know your numbers
How a big assumption can keep you saying yes out of scarcity, even when you’re exhausted
The next-week test for catching a yes you’ll regret
What a flinch yes is, and why even seasoned business owners still say them
Why some people get stuck saying no, and what imposter syndrome has to do with it
Three ways to say no that keep the relationship intact

When should I say no in my business?

It depends on where your business is right now. My co-host Jonathan and I discuss four times in a business when yes makes sense, and each one calls for a different kind of yes. When you’re starting out, in survival, you say yes to almost everything because you need income and data. In traction, your yes needs a reason behind it, like a result you expect or a cost you’ve weighed. In positioning, you know your numbers, your strengths, and who you serve, so no becomes your default and yes becomes a choice. In legacy, you say yes to people and purpose, even when the pay is small. Say no when a request doesn’t fit the stage you’re in now. The yes that made sense a few years ago may not fit the business you run today.

Is it okay to say yes to everything when I'm starting a business?

Yes, for a while. When you’re first building a business, you don’t know yet who your best client is or what work fits you. You have to test things in the market to find out, and the only way to test is to say yes and see what happens. Every yes gives you data, even the ones you wish you’d skipped. Those show you what you don’t want to do, and that narrows your focus. The problem comes when you stay in that stage too long. At some point you’ve collected enough data, and saying yes just to stay busy starts to cost you. Watch for clients who drain your energy and projects with no system tying them together. Those are signs your yes needs to grow up with your business.

Why do I keep saying yes when I'm already exhausted?

Often the yes has little to do with the request in front of you. It comes from a belief running in the background. In my Immunity to Change® work, I call this a big assumption: a belief about how the world works and what you have to do to stay safe in it. It might sound like, “If I turn this one down and say no, another opportunity won’t come.” That’s a yes from scarcity, and it can start to feel like a cage. For some people, a packed calendar is also a way to avoid the risk of success. If you’re too busy handling everyone else’s needs, you never have time to go after the big goal. Once you can name the belief under the yes, you can test when it holds true and when it doesn’t.

How can I tell if a yes is one I'll regret?

Start with one question: would I say yes to this if I had to do it next week? Researchers Gal Zauberman and John Lynch found that people expect to have more spare time in the future than they have now. So a request a month out feels easy to accept. When you picture it next week, on the schedule you really have, you get a more honest answer. Also watch how fast you say yes. My co-host Jonathan Dugger calls a knee-jerk yes a flinch. It’s a yes you give to escape an uncomfortable moment or skip the awkwardness of saying no. Research by social psychologist Vanessa Bohns shows that awkwardness is strong enough that people say yes far more often than askers expect. When you notice one, look at it with curiosity instead of judgment. Ask what you could say differently next time.

How do I say no without burning a bridge?

You have more options than a flat yes or no. My co-host Jonathan Dugger shared three. The first is the full no: “I’m not the right fit for this. Here’s who might be.” It’s honest, and it still helps the other person. The second is the no, not now: “I can’t take this on until next quarter. If it’s still relevant then, let’s talk.” That keeps a future yes possible without committing to it. It also shows you who is willing to wait for you. The third is the counteroffer: “I can’t do the whole thing, but I can start with this part.” Most requests have a middle ground. Having the words ready ahead of time makes it much easier to say no in the moment.

Why the Yes That Got You Started Stops Working

Here’s a pattern I see again and again. A business owner says yes to almost everything for a long time. Each yes made sense when they said it. There was always a good reason.

Then they look up and they’re exhausted. They’re doing work outside their expertise, just because they can. They’ve become the bottleneck in their own business, jumping in and taking things over instead of leading.

Mandy McAllister named this in Episode 119, The Framework That Will Change How You Look at Every Income Stream. At the time, she had a good reason for every yes. Looking back, she learned a lot. It also cost her peace and rest. As she put it, she’d have more money and be more rested if she’d made different choices.

I’ve lived this too. For a while, I had a pattern of saying yes to things that felt like safety nets. I’d tell myself, this is a sure thing. I can learn more. Maybe I’ll get closer to another coach who can help me get better. I could justify every one of them.

One of those yeses was working for a coach who taught people how to build their lists by hosting online summits. I’m very grateful for everything she taught me. But I was limited to following a very specific framework. I was using maybe a pinky’s worth of the knowledge and coaching expertise I had. And I was trading time for money, working for an hourly wage.

Those yeses came from a feeling of not enough. Then I had a realization. I’m very skilled. I’m a Certified Immunity to Change® Coach, trained in a well-researched, psychology-based method developed by Harvard faculty, and I was starting to master it. I also had years of training and curriculum development experience behind me. I thought, I can bet on myself.

What I couldn’t see before was the cost. All the time I spent serving those yeses kept me from the yes to what I wanted to build. That’s why knowing when to say no in business matters more the longer you’re in it.

“I was putting so much time into serving those yeses that it was keeping me small in my own yes.”

Four Times in Your Business When Yes Makes Sense

Jonathan and I talked about four times in a business when saying yes makes sense, and how your yes changes at each one. Jonathan gave them names.

Survival: Yes to Almost Everything

Almost every business starts in survival. You have a skill. You need to make money. You don’t know yet who your client is. So you say yes to nearly every opportunity and figure it out as you go.

Jonathan points out that entrepreneurs learn by doing. Hand us a cookbook and we’ll still change the recipe. The only way to collect data is to say yes and try things.

Even the yeses you wish you’d skipped are useful. Jonathan remembers me telling him once, “I don’t know where I’m going yet with my coaching business, but I know what I’m not.” Every yes that didn’t fit showed me what I didn’t want. That narrowed my focus.

The trouble comes when you stay in survival after you’ve learned what you needed to learn.

Traction: Yes With a Thesis

Traction is when you’re past the early scramble and seeing some momentum. It doesn’t feel stable yet. You still need more data and more experience.

The difference, as Jonathan puts it, is context. Your yes now has a thesis. “Yes, and I expect to make this much.” “Yes, because this helps me learn who I get results for.” In survival, the question was simply, “Will this pay my bills this month?”

Real estate is a good example. When people start investing, most get some kind of education first. They read a book or go to a seminar and learn a lot of different strategies. So they try them all. A rental here. A flip there. Maybe a mobile home, then some wholesaling. Each one needs its own team, and there’s no single system that repeats. In traction, the yes to everything turns into something clearer. Here’s what I’m good at. Here’s what I enjoy. Here’s what I have a good team for. And here’s what I don’t want to do anymore.

You also have enough data to see opportunity costs. You know how much time and money something will take. Early on, you might say yes thinking a project will take a week, and it turns into a commitment that runs all quarter.

This is where energetic capacity comes in. You start to see what fills you up and what drains you. Then you let go of what drains you, or you put a system or a person in place to handle it. This is also the stage where learning when to say no in business starts to pay off.

Positioning: No by Default, Yes on Purpose

By now you know your numbers, your strengths, and your best clients. You can build a brand, market to the right people, and plan ahead. You can say no with confidence, for the right reasons.

A lot of people want to start here. They want to build the brand and pick the ideal client before they’ve tested anything. They want everything to look and sound good from day one. Underneath is what I call a big assumption: “If I don’t look and sound professional, then no one will do business with me.” Jonathan’s advice is to make the plan and hold it loosely. Every point on the map is a guess. Sometimes your best client isn’t who you thought it would be.

Jonathan’s corporate training work shows what positioning looks like in real life. The end of the year is his busiest time, which surprises people. Many companies have a yearly training budget. If there’s money left late in the year, they want to spend it so their budget doesn’t get cut next year. It took Jonathan several years to see that pattern. Now he plans for it.

That kind of planning comes from tracking your numbers all year. It’s the piece most business owners skip, because they don’t see how important it is. Your numbers are the story of what’s happening in your business. When you read them all year, you can plan ahead instead of scrambling at tax time.

In positioning, Jonathan’s motto is “no by default, yes on purpose.” No is the natural answer because your schedule is full of the right work. Yes is something you choose. (He’d like it on a coffee mug, with credit.)

“No by default, yes on purpose.” — Jonathan Dugger

Legacy: Yes to People and Purpose

The fourth time is about meaning, passion, and relationship. Money isn’t the main driver anymore. You’ve checked the boxes, and your income is stable.

So you make room for things that feed your values. Jonathan gives examples like serving on a nonprofit board, speaking at a fundraiser, or flying across the country for an event where the pay won’t even cover the travel. He sums it up this way: yes to people, yes to purpose, no to proving.

Why You Keep Saying Yes When You’re Exhausted

When I start working with a business owner, one of the first things we look at is their immediate need. Is it time? Is it money? Are they safe? Sometimes they aren’t paying themselves enough to sustain themselves. So they run around doing everyone else’s job.

Often there’s a big assumption underneath. That’s a belief running in the background about how the world works, how you have to show up, and whether people will do business with you. It’s part of your psychological immune system, working hard to keep you safe.

The brand belief from earlier is one I hear a lot. It can have you spending to plug holes that don’t need plugging, when the real gap is leadership. Another is, “I have to say yes, because I don’t know how much business is left.” That’s a yes from scarcity.

Here’s how that can look. You say you want to stop taking on work that drains you so you can focus on your best clients. Your hidden competing commitment is making sure you never run out of business. The big assumption underneath is, “If I turn this one down and say no, another opportunity won’t come.” So every yes feels like protection. That’s your psychological immune system working perfectly to keep you safe.

Jonathan says this is when your yes becomes a cage instead of a step forward. It comes from fear and from questions about your worth. Mindfulness helps here. You can step back, even in the moment, and ask what’s driving the yes.

Mandy McAllister, a former client of mine, talked about this openly in Episode 119. She shared the belief underneath all of her yeses, the one that had her chasing trophies instead of trusting her own worth. She also walks through Return on Brain Space, a framework she built for deciding what to grow, what to fix, and what to let go of.

When Busy Protects You From Success

Some people fear success. They worry they won’t be able to hold it all. So they say yes a lot and don’t realize why. They stay busy with the things they know they can win at and with everyone else’s drama. That busyness keeps them capped, safe from the risk of the big goal.

So when you’re deciding when to say no in business, check whether your yes is protecting you from something.

When Your Yes Is a Flinch

Some yeses come before you’ve thought at all.

Jonathan calls this a flinch. It’s a knee-jerk yes. The research he pointed to comes from Vanessa Bohns, a social psychologist at Cornell. In her studies, people made requests of more than 14,000 strangers. The askers expected far fewer yeses than they got. People said yes about twice as often as expected. Jonathan calls these social pain avoidance yeses. The discomfort of saying no drives the yes, and Bohns’s research points to the same cause: saying no to someone’s face is hard.

Even after years in business, this still happens. Jonathan was at a conference with peers he respects and caught himself giving flinch yeses. He’s learned that in busy social settings, he sometimes says yes to escape the moment. Afterward, he had to go back and turn some of those into “yes, but” or even a no.

We don’t usually think of yes as avoidance. It can be. You’re dodging a hard conversation or an awkward moment. Jonathan and I talked about the line between a boundary and avoidance in Episode 117, How to Tell the Difference Between a Boundary and Avoidance.

The Next-Week Test

Here’s a quick test Jonathan shared. Ask yourself, would I say yes to this if I had to do it next week?

The research behind it holds up. Gal Zauberman and John Lynch found that people expect to have more spare time in the future than they have today. A month out, your calendar looks open. As Jonathan says, your schedule doesn’t change much unless you change it.

It reminds me of the introvert who makes plans a month ahead. Month-ago me made the plans. Today me is mad about it.

When you catch a flinch yes, Jonathan’s advice is to look at it with self-compassion instead of judgment. Ask what you could have done differently and what words you could use next time.

When Fear Keeps You Saying No

The flip side is real too. Some people need to be saying yes, and they’re stuck saying no.

That was me early in my business. I was qualified, and imposter syndrome still had me turning down work that was mine to take. I was the best connector around. I’d pass business to everyone else and take none for myself. That makes it hard to feed yourself and your business.

Jonathan tied this to fear of failure. A lot of people say no because they’re scared to fail, or they don’t think they can handle what comes after. Once you see failure as a natural part of the process, how and why you say no starts to change. We go deeper on that in Episode 100, Why Struggling Doesn’t Mean You’re Failing (And What It Actually Means). Knowing when to say no in business also means noticing when fear is doing the talking.

Three Ways to Say No

Having the words ready makes the moment easier. There’s research behind that too. Vanessa Bohns and her colleagues found that giving people the words to say no leads them to feel freer to say yes. Jonathan shared three.

The full no. “I’m not the right fit for this. Here’s who might be.” It’s honest, and it still helps the other person. It also takes away the pressure to say yes just to seem nice.

The no, not now. “I can’t take this on until next quarter. If it’s still relevant then, let’s talk.” It leaves room for a future yes without a commitment. Jonathan has found it also shows you who really wants to work with you. The right clients will wait a reasonable amount of time, the same way you’d wait for the right resource.

The counteroffer. “I can’t do the whole thing right now, but I can start with this part.” Jonathan used this one after that same conference. On his flight home, a new contact texted him about an all-day meeting the following Tuesday. He already had things on his calendar that day. He looked and found two free hours, and they mainly wanted him for the mindfulness piece. So he offered those two hours, and the answer came back: absolutely.

Yes and no feel all or nothing. There’s almost always a middle ground.

“Yes to people, yes to purpose, no to proving.” — Jonathan Dugger

Taking Back a Yes

Here’s what I do with clients who’ve said yes to something that drains them. I can’t make anyone do anything. I strongly advise them to own that yes, take it off their plate, and say no.

It doesn’t feel good at first, especially for people pleasers. What will people think of me? So we test it and find out. In my Immunity to Change work, this is a safe test: a small experiment we design ahead of time, with clear data we’re looking to collect. Then we look at what really happened when you did the thing you’ve been avoiding. On the other side, my clients feel relieved, like a weight has lifted.

Each test shows you when your big assumption applies and when it doesn’t. That lets you plan for it and make better choices. Over time, knowing when to say no in business gets easier, because you’re working from what really happened instead of what you feared would happen.

Resources and Links Mentioned

- - - - The research behind the next-week test: Zauberman, G., and Lynch, J. G. (2005). “Resource Slack and Propensity to Discount Delayed Investments of Time Versus Money.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 134(1).
        
        Read a plain-language summary (ScienceDaily)
        
        Read the full study free (PDF from Gal Zauberman’s Yale faculty site)
        
        View the published study (American Psychological Association)
      - The research behind the flinch yes: Vanessa Bohns, a social psychologist at Cornell, studies why it’s so hard to say no.
        
        Read a plain-language summary (Association for Psychological Science)
        
        See her research, including “(Mis)understanding Our Influence Over Others” (2016) and “Giving People the Words to Say No Leads Them to Feel Freer to Say Yes”
      - Immunity to Change® is a registered trademark of Minds at Work®, the organization founded by Dr. Robert Kegan and Dr. Lisa Lahey.
      - Instagram: @aleciastg

Your next move is a Capacity Assessment Call. We'll look at the yeses filling your calendar, the beliefs driving them, and which ones your business is ready to let go. Simply book your complimentary Capacity Assessment below.

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You Might Also Love

EP 119: The Framework That Will Change How You Look at Every Income Stream

EP 117: How to Tell the Difference Between a Boundary and Avoidance

EP 100: Why Struggling Doesn't Mean You're Failing (And What It Actually Means)

Full Transcript Here

Alecia St. Germain 00:00
Before we get started, did you know you can get behind-the-scenes access to these episodes before anyone else? Meet other listeners of this podcast and connect with show guests, my co-hosts, and me live in real time. All you have to do is become a member of Podcast Club. We record episodes in front of a live virtual studio audience. Then, after the episode is finished, we open a private, unrecorded conversation where you can share your thoughts, ask questions to go even deeper on the topic of the day, and even influence the content covered in future episodes. Here's the thing: I love podcasting, but I love having real conversations with real people more than broadcasting into the ether. Social media promised us connection. Now it's morphing into something else entirely-a distraction to keep you scrolling. Podcast Club is my way of reclaiming the space for connection. If this sounds like your kind of room, come join us. Go to consciousedge.com/club and become a member of Podcast Club. How do you know when you're in a season of saying yes to everything just to see where it takes you, or when it's time to start saying no? If you keep saying yes long enough and you don't check in to make sure that it's still that right time. One day, what ends up happening is you've got a client roster that completely drains your energy. You've created a sampling of strategies and assets, and there's no repeatable system holding them together. And you're trying to carry all of it in your head, and the mental load becomes very taxing. So that's what we're going to dive into today. Hey, you leader, entrepreneur, business owner, solopreneur, whatever you call yourself, we know you're a visionary business builder, wealth seeker, looking to combine a passion for doing good with leading consciously. It's time to shift from a traditional focus of pure wealth accumulation to one that integrates well-being and fulfillment. You're here for a purpose, and it's time to shine your light. So here we go. Welcome back to the Conscious Edge podcast. I'm your host, Alecia Saint Germain, founder of the Conscious Edge. I am here with Jonathan Dugger. So excited to have you!

Jonathan Dugger 02:30
I'm so excited to be back.

Alecia St. Germain 02:32
So I gave you a whole smattering of things that our podcast club members asked us in previous conversations, and I said, "Which one of these do you want to do? And you said, "I want to talk about saying yes. Why?

Jonathan Dugger 02:46
Yes. Well, a variety of reasons. I think it ties into a recent podcast we did related to boundaries. That's very important. It's sort of a continuation in a more practical way of the or in a practical way in that, and then for purely personal and professional reasons, I myself am in a season of yes, and I haven't been in this particular setting in a while, and we may get into some of those specifics of reasons for that, but it feels very timely, and I also note, speaking with a lot of other professionals lately, there are a lot of folks that are in that place too, where they're wearing different hats, they're changing approaches, their pipelines have changed, their finances have changed, so they've found themselves now in a new season or a season that they haven't been in quite some time, and are having to figure out some new strategies, like you just mentioned, systems put new systems in place or adjust systems. So it feels like that this is very timely. The subject is very timely.

Alecia St. Germain 03:54
Yeah, I would agree. Well, and there's a reason it came up last week. On the last episode, we had Mandy McAllister on, and she was talking about how, at the time that she was saying yes to all kinds of different things, she had a really good legit reason in her head for why she should be doing it, and so it all made perfect sense. And then looking backward, she definitely learned a lot through the process. It led her to a lot of different things, but also at the cost of her peace and being able to rest, and also financially, she said, "I would have more money and I would be more rested if I had made different choices. So that's kind of where this comes from. So I was thinking about when is the first time that we get into that period of being in a season because it's about seasons of yes. So when is the first time in our business that we have a season of yes? I think of like maybe you have a skill or strategy. You're you're first building your business, and you don't really know who your client is. You need to make money, and so you you start by just saying yes to every opportunity, and you kind of figure it out. What do you think?

Jonathan Dugger 05:14
I agree. I mean, in our society, there's a lot of societal pressure, systemic pressure, and terms of this whole yes and no conversation, but if we try and boil it down more to practicality in terms of building a business, almost all businesses, especially entrepreneurs and small businesses, start from a place of survival. How do I collect enough data, make enough money to perpetuate this in a positive way, and there really is a time in most businesses where you say yes to almost everything because you are still figuring it out. And for entrepreneurs in particular, I think you guys listening can attest to this. We, by nature and by personality, we learn by doing. So, if somebody gave us a cookbook, we're still going to do it, adjust it. We're going to. We can't go by a formula. We have to learn by doing. We have to test things out. The only way you can do that is by collecting data, and the only way you collect data is saying yes to things and doing more things. So often that's a place we start, and it may feels haphazard at first. The problem comes in is when you stay in that, doing things just for the sake of doing, because at some point you should have collected enough data. Like we were talking about this before we hit record. I distinctly remember when you told me one day, I don't know where I'm going yet with my coaching business. I don't know exactly my focus, but I know what I'm not. You had said yes to a lot of things and some things that, I mean, regrets are probably not the right word, but that you could honestly say, I wish I hadn't said yes to that. That's okay because that's good data. That's good information, and there's a lesson there of that's not what I want to be doing, and that helps narrow your focus. That helps you laser beam in on where you do want to be going, who you do want to be talking to, what kind of work you do want to be taking on. The yeses you really want to be taking. Same yes.

Alecia St. Germain 07:20
Yeah, I I can remember. I know, and I know specifically. I think I know what you're talking about. Is I had a pattern of saying yes to things that felt like safety nets, like oh, this is a sure thing. This is something that I can do, and I could justify it and be like, oh, I can learn more. I'm gonna like have proximity maybe to another coach that could really do more for me, like help me be a better coach, and it really came from a not enoughness, like not enough. And then I had the realization, oh, like I am very skilled. I have this very prestigious certification behind me, I have practiced it enough that I'm now. I would say, like, I'm starting to master that particular methodology really well. And I was like, I think I can bet on myself. And what was happening was I was putting so much time into serving those yeses

Jonathan Dugger 08:22
that it

Alecia St. Germain 08:22
was keeping me small in my own yes, like the yes to me and what I really wanted to build and what my vision was.

Jonathan Dugger 08:32
Yep.

Alecia St. Germain 08:32
So that's where that came from. Now on the flip side, like, well, hang on before we go to that. What's the next season of Yes?

Jonathan Dugger 08:42
I was just trying to work out some language around these. So the next one I called traction. So a season of traction, and many of you that have built businesses from the ground up, you know when this season comes in. It's when you are past the place of sort of desperation, and I'm going to use that word because that's really what it feels like a lot of times when you're getting started, and you're to a place where you're seeing some momentum, you're seeing some forward progress, but it's not a place of stability yet. At least it doesn't feel like that. You're still gathering information, you're still getting direction, but you still need more data. You need more experience. You need more reference and context to be able to get to a leverage point of the next season. So the difference between survival and this one, though, I put the pivot point is you have context. So you have yes, but or yes and yes, and here's what I'm going to do next. Yes, and I'm not so sure about the first part, but the next part I'm going to figure out. Yes, and I expect to make this amount of money. So it's yes with a thesis. It's yes with context. In survival mode, you're saying yes, and often there is no context. It's just yes. If that does that, does that pay money? Let me

Alecia St. Germain 10:01
just yeah. Let me see where it takes me.

Jonathan Dugger 10:04
Yeah, yeah. Yes. Will this pay my bills for the month? Yes. Is this exposure? Is this experience? Is

Alecia St. Germain 10:10
this helping me figure out who I like to work with and who I actually get result get results for? Even in real estate. So when you first start buying. Like everybody usually gets some kind of alternative education. They read a book. They go to a seminar. They do something. They're like, I'm gonna be. I'm gonna start doing some real estate stuff, and then you learn all these different strategies of investing in real estate. And so then you end up with like smattering of like, I've got a rental over here. I'm doing a flip over here. I've got a mobile home. I'm like, let's try doing some wholesale, whatever. And so you don't have any kind of for

Jonathan Dugger 10:50
the ADHD brain replicatable

Alecia St. Germain 10:53
thing though, because then you have all these different teams.

Jonathan Dugger 10:56
Yeah,

Alecia St. Germain 10:56
and so I think as you make that transition, it becomes yes to everything, and then it becomes. But here's what I'm really good at. Here's what I enjoy doing. Here's what I have a good team for. Here's what here's what I don't like to do. So I don't think I want to do that anymore.

Jonathan Dugger 11:14
Exactly. That's an important piece. Yep. Yep.

Alecia St. Germain 11:18
So you really get a sense of where you fit in and the money. I think this is where I would go into energetic capacity, where it's like energetically you figure out what fills you up and what drains you, and you got to get rid of what drains you, or put a system, or a person, or someone in place that takes care of the drain.

Jonathan Dugger 11:42
Yep. Help me remember to track back to that because that's an important piece about yes, and I'm glad you just said it that way-the capacity piece.

Alecia St. Germain 11:49
Yeah.

Jonathan Dugger 11:50
So.

Alecia St. Germain 11:50
So okay. So that traction level is like getting a lot more focused in on which things are yeses.

Jonathan Dugger 12:00
Yes, and it's also that's when you start determining what your opportunity costs look like, like how much time commitment is this going to be, how much money commitment this is going to be. I need to spend money to make money. Those kind of you have enough data now to really understand those opportunity costs. We're up front. You don't. You may say yes to something and just reference something you've done in your past, and I was like, "Oh, this will take me about a week, and it ends up being a quarterly commitment sort of thing.

Alecia St. Germain 12:29
Yeah,

Jonathan Dugger 12:30
but you have enough data then to start building toward the next season of yes that I'm calling positioning, and this is where you have enough focus that you can create a brand. You can create a labeling. You can create a system that perpetuates itself. You can now start marketing in a way that's very directed and targeted. You can start planning and scoping, and you have enough data to really, really with confidence say no for all the right reasons, because you can like your work with Jen is hugely related to this. You can scope and say, okay, this is what I've made over the past three quarters, and I've had consistent averages based on this, and you can see if there's seasonality to the work you could do. You can see if there's a tie to economic cycles. If there's a tie to seasonal cycles, where there's a higher stress level over this quarter, like for instance, my corporate work in training development often has a seasonality to it, and right now is my busiest time, which a lot of people would think this would be a slowdown. It's a busy time for me, and it took me several years to figure out to get to this place of positioning with this particular line of work. But it's because corporations often will have a training budget that's annually based, and if they have money last quarter of the year left over in their budget, if they don't spend it, they lose it, or it goes into their forecasting for budget for the next year, so they want to spend it all, so their budget doesn't get cut the next year. So I'll get people coming out of the woodwork that'll say, "Oh, we need to update this. We need to do this, or it'll be sometimes small piecemeal things, and I have to decide then is if I do have capacity for that in that given place, but I've been doing this long enough now that I can position in a way where I realize that's coming. So I realize that's so I scope for that. Usually, this season of yes is different, but we'll probably get to it a bit. But there's sort of a seasonality to that, but you can't know that until you have enough. You've gone through that survival phase, that traction phase, and now you're in this season of positioning. And I put this, and I kind of like this. I think I might get it on a T-shirt. I said no by default, yes on purpose. So when you're in your positioning phase. The no is just a natural progression of I just don't have room in my schedule for it, and the yes is intentional. No by default, yes on purpose.

Alecia St. Germain 15:10
I like that.

Jonathan Dugger 15:11
Put that on a coffee mug. Okay, if somebody uses that, you at least got to reference me. She wants royalties.

Alecia St. Germain 15:19
Yeah, that's really good. I want to go track back for just a moment to what you said. For anybody who's new to the podcast, listening, Jen Boss is the financial leadership lab coach that we run inside of the Exponential Entrepreneur. She's also does the books and outsource CFO for my company, and she works and does your stuff too, and so we set up budgets. We do forecasting. We look at what kind of growth we're looking for, what kind of information we can gather from the activities. It's the numbers. The numbers are the story of what is happening in the business financially, and how does that relate to the actions and activities of the business, and so we really, really, really promote that you are doing more than just being compliant with your taxes, but that you are actually creating a plan for your financials and how you're going to drive business, and not wait till the end of the year and then have no time to react. So, I just wanted to give reference to anybody who's like, "Who's Jen? Jen, that is who Jen. I should have given

Jonathan Dugger 16:27
some context. Yeah, Zen Jen.

Alecia St. Germain 16:31
And I do think that's probably the point where that's when you do start to work with someone like Jen. Is you've got some track record. You're really able to see going forward what you've done historically, where you want to go next. Obviously, you're going to keep your books. You can forecast some things going forward when you're first getting started, but you really haven't shook out what you want to do yet. So it's just really tracking and seeing what works for you and what doesn't at that point. Okay, so that's in what was this phase called?

Jonathan Dugger 17:05
Positioning.

Alecia St. Germain 17:06
Positioning. Yeah, yeah. So a lot of times people want to build. I do want to say this: people want to build a brand, and they want to decide who they're going to work with, and they want to do all that, and they want to do that because they're going to set the business up right from the start.

Jonathan Dugger 17:19
Yeah, and it's

Alecia St. Germain 17:20
like you don't really know because you have to test everything in the market. You have to see how how the client responds to see who you get results for. Who is your customer? Because sometimes it's not who you think it's going to be.

Jonathan Dugger 17:34
Yep.

Alecia St. Germain 17:35
So,

Jonathan Dugger 17:37
and maybe that's a podcast in and of itself. That I don't think we've covered that in a direct way, but starting about starting a business,

Alecia St. Germain 17:44
yeah,

Jonathan Dugger 17:45
like in some of the specifics, because you're exactly right. There's so many people that take that place. They've read the books, they've been to the seminars, and they've talked to a coach, and they need to come up with a plan. That's great. We a plan is helpful. A plan can be useful. A roadmap can be useful. Just know all your points on the map are a guess. They're a place to start, but it's not where you're going to end up. If you try and do that, and it's a big mistake with a lot of small businesses, they I might say waste a lot of money, but they spend a lot of money Unnecessarily because they create something that is thrown out a year later that completely changes into something else, and I've done that myself with businesses. So just knowing from the start, everything is a work in progress. Everything is somewhat of a guess. It's a place to start, and you're going to develop as you go through these various seasons and get more data and get more experience.

Alecia St. Germain 18:50
So, I want to take a different perspective on yes, and it maybe it goes a little bit to survival and and figuring out what season you're in with these three phases. There's a fourth one we're going to get to in a second, but the very first thing that I do when I'm sitting down and I'm working with an entrepreneur, and we're going through and we're kind of assessing the capacity, and a lot of times people come to work with me, and I think this is pretty possibly true for you too. Is like the executive, the CEO, the person is kind of become a bottleneck in their business, and they're not maybe leading well. They're not outsourcing as well. They're not delegating. They keep jumping in and taking things over, and so it's really like they're at a plateau in their business. And so I'll find out from them like what is the immediate need like is it time? Is it money? Is it are you safe? We look at their like their safety and like are you getting everything you need? Because sometimes they're not paying themselves enough in their business to sustain themselves, and so that's why they're running around. Jumping in and doing everyone else's job, and so that's when we need someone like Jen to kind of reallocate funds. Because what brought this up is a lot of times people have big assumptions that make them spend to plug holes that don't need to be plugged when it's really a leadership issue.

Jonathan Dugger 20:18
Yeah, like I need a brand

Alecia St. Germain 20:20
so I look really good. I need to know whom I need to be able to have the perfect to my customers. We need to do things to look good, or no one will do business with

Jonathan Dugger 20:31
us. Right, that posturing and ego piece is the downfall of quite a few large companies, corporations, but especially small businesses and entrepreneurial organizations-it can be for sure.

Alecia St. Germain 20:45
Yeah. Well, and I think sometimes the smaller business owners they don't have as much runway to serve the ego because they don't have extra cash to spend. So I want to mention mention those big assumptions that live in the background. Those are the beliefs that you have about the way the world works and how you operate in it, and whether people will do business with you or not do business with you, and how you have to show up, and all the manipulation tactics that your brain unconsciously uses to keep you safe.

Speaker 1 21:15
Yes,

Alecia St. Germain 21:15
and so it's like if you can't get out of a season of yes, and you are exhausted, and you are doing things that are not your expertise just because you can, or even not the best use of your time, just because you can. The yes can feel like I have to say yes because I don't know how much business is left, and so it's like becomes like a yes from a place of scarcity.

Jonathan Dugger 21:42
Yeah, that's what I was going to say, and that's where scarcity actually is a legitimate reference in that framework because we throw around scarcity and abundance a lot these days. You see it in a lot of pop culture references, but it's really not what those concepts mean in a lot of cases. But this really is when you come from a place of being trapped by your yes, and it becomes a cage instead of positive steps, movement in in a forward direction. That's coming from a place of scarcity. That's coming from fear. That's coming from worthiness challenges and issues. So, that's a really good test when you hold it up with what's driving your yes, what's behind that yes, and that's where mindfulness, the practice of mindfulness, can become very helpful too. Where you can take a step back or in the moment and decide if the net yes is. There's one researcher that calls it a flinch, where it's basically a knee jerk reaction, and you say yes on out of as a reaction for a variety of reasons, but often it comes from one of these places of scarcity, or is it a yes with context? Is it a yes with thesis? Is it a yes with intention behind it. Now that doesn't mean you have it all figured out often, but you can say yes because or yes and, and that's an important distinction.

Alecia St. Germain 23:12
Now on the flip side, the no's like when are you in a season of no? I was in a season of no at the beginning also of my business because of imposter syndrome. Despite being qualified, it was like no, that's not my. I was so good. I was the best connector because I would pass business on to everybody else and take none for myself. So there's also times when you should be in a season of yes, like we were talking about at the beginning, but there are some people who are stuck actually in a season of no because of imposter syndrome, and those that that makes business really hard because you don't have enough to feed yourself.

Jonathan Dugger 23:54
Yeah, and what you're describing ties back to one of our episodes that I recently just rewatched or listened to, and it's when we talked about being okay with failure, failing up, accepting failure from a place of the lessons in it and growth. And a lot of people say no because they're scared to fail, and they don't want the after effects of failure, or they don't think they can handle the after effects of failure, but when you again go back and listen to that episode, because when you learn to shift, make the cognitive shift of failure is part of the process, and it's a natural part of the process. And if you're not failing, then you're probably not striving in the right direction, and it changes everything. It changes to how we say no and why we say no. Outside. just want to throw this in because this came up in my head while you were talking. Even those of us that have been in our own businesses for years and years, we still fall into these patterns sometimes. I mean, I still will have happened to me last week. Was at a conference with some peers that I really respect, and I had some flinch yeses. I said yes to some things because, on some level, I felt like I had to or I needed to, but there was no directionality behind it. It was just yes, of course, you asked me, so yes, and I've got to now go back and say yes, but to some of these people, or possibly even some noes. So some regretful no's because it's a this is something that I should not have said yes to. So it's it is important to remember some of you that maybe you're thinking I just did this last week, or I should have said no to this, or I know I should have said no to this, and we all go through that. So the important part is to identify it in a very mindful and self-compassionate way, not from a place of judgment, but from a place of lesson and learning. What could I have done differently? How could I have changed the language? And if we have time in this, I'm going to give you some language suggestions because just having some script to fall back on sometimes can be super powerful when it comes to these yes and no moments, pivot points.

Alecia St. Germain 26:15
Well, and I do. I make my clients when they do that, when they say yes to things that they're not supposed to. I don't make them. I can't make anybody do anything. But I coach my clients.

Jonathan Dugger 26:24
I strongly advise. I

Alecia St. Germain 26:27
strongly advise to go back and be responsible for those yeses that are going to drain their energy and take them off their plate and say no. And it doesn't feel great, especially for the people pleasers, it's like, oh, I don't want to do that. What will people think of me? And it's like, oh, let's test it out and let's find out. Because on the other side of it, like they feel relieved. It's like, oh, I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulder. But the thought of having to say no is so painful, and we have to work through that because you do have to learn to fix those things.

Jonathan Dugger 27:05
It's very interesting because that whole concept of the the flinch yes comes out of this research that was done from the standpoint of these these researchers were theorizing that no would be a lot more prevalent answer in just general circumstances. So they had this study with 14,000. I may be getting that number wrong, but I think it was like 14,000 people. It was a large study base where the power was in the asking a question. It was the the emphasis was on the person asking a question of a yes or no, and they were super surprised by the number of yeses, and then they would go back though and ask follow up questions about the yes to see how many were like legitimate yeses and how many were they called them social pain avoidance yeses, and that happens a lot where we find ourselves in situations where we feel like we need to say yes, but for all the wrong reasons. Through, or we don't even have a reason. It's just like we got to say yes to that. So learning where our triggers are, where whether it's a type of person, a type of setting, a place where we are from being sleep deprived or overwhelmed, and that happens to me when I'm in social situations, like at a conference setting, which I was in last week. There's so much going on that sometimes I say yes. I've learned this about myself. I say yes to escape the moment. It's like yes, and we can talk more about that later, or yes because I've found that to be a way that I can get myself out, get relief in that moment of situation. Keep

Alecia St. Germain 28:45
tracking back to our avoidance episode again. From

Jonathan Dugger 28:48
it is, it ties directly to it. But yeah, you don't often think we don't think of cognitively. You don't think of yes as a form of avoidance, but it can be, absolutely can be. You're not. You're trying to avoid a a social faux pas or a hard conversation or whatever it is, you're avoiding something.

Alecia St. Germain 29:07
One of the things that I often find with really individuals who have a fear of success, like the concern, the worry that they won't be capable of holding it all, that they won't be able to handle the level of success that they could create if they actually owned how awesome they are. Is that they keep a very busy? They say a yes a lot, and they don't even realize it. It's a strategy or tactic to be too busy to actually do what needs to be done in order to hit the big goals, and so they keep themselves so busy handling all the things that they know they can win at, like only the things they know they can win at, and handling everybody else's drama and doing everything for everyone else, that it keeps them at that ceiling. It. Keeps them capped from the risk of success.

Jonathan Dugger 30:03
Yep.

Alecia St. Germain 30:04
So that's another place where yeses become a scarcity or a like a avoidance mechanism. Yeah. Okay. So give us some scripts that will help.

Jonathan Dugger 30:18
First of all, there's sort of the litmus test question, and this comes out of really good research too. Interestingly enough, I knew this, but I had to remind myself of it when we decided to do this subject. There's a lot of really good research and actually interesting research. Even if you're not a science geek like I am, a lot of people when and quite a few business books have been written out of a lot of this research, but one litmus test that comes out of this research that was about proximity, time proximity around a yes, and they ask it about work related and money related. So they call it forecasting. So if you say yes to something that's a month away, you're much more likely to say yes to it. But if you ask yourself the question, would I have said yes to this if it was next week? If I had to do it next week, that is a true indicator of would it been a true yes or a no in a lot of cases. It was like 75% of the cases it aligned with people really willing to be doing something, really wanting to be doing something when they change the time proximity. So if it's a month out, because we have this magical thinking that our schedule will open up 30 days down the road, or we have enough control over our schedule, we can open it up. But next week, that's hardwired. So, the reality is, our schedule doesn't change that much unless we directly change it, unless we take some point of action and change it. So, just asking that-that's just sort of a quick question. But

Alecia St. Germain 31:45
that reminds me of the introvert that makes plans a month from now. The and so a month me a month ago made these plans. Me today

Jonathan Dugger 31:55
is mad and having a panic attack. Absolutely, absolutely. All right. So here I said three sentences you can borrow, and I called this one the full no. I'm not the right fit for this. Here's who might be. So this is one of those where you own this. Isn't something you want to be doing. You're in that place of positioning, moving to knowing your brand, our attraction to positioning, knowing your brand, and you say, you know what, that sounds great and interesting, but I am not the best fit for that. So that's a hard no, but it's a no with context, and it's a helpful no. So it's I like it because it removes the societal stuff, the pressure of us being nice, the pressure of us saying yes because we're nice, and we don't want to be perceived as rude or not thoughtful or whatever. So you're being honest; it's an honest no with a helpful back end. The next one I call it the no, not now. I can't take this until Q4, when I know I have some openings in my schedule. So if this is still relevant two months from now, let's talk about it. So it's again, it's no with context, but it's context of future, maybe a future yes, but it's not committing, and that's legitimate. That's absolutely legitimate, and that's how we learn to really scope for future projects, and it's also how you use. And I've learned this in the past few years. It's how you start weeding out clients that really want to work with you, and clients that aren't willing to wait on you. If somebody really wants to work on work with me for a particular whatever reason that is, they will wait. Now, not indefinitely, but in a realistic amount of time, and businesses wait all the time for the right resource. Happens all the time. I do it as a business owner. I wait for a particular company to open up. I wait for a particular product to be available. I wait for Zen Gen to have time on her plate to meet because it's important to alignment with what I do and how I do it. So, same thing on that end. All right, and then I call this one the counter offer because of my real estate talking. You could also call it the negotiation. So, the counteroffer. It's like I can't do this whole thing right now, but how about if I get started With X, so yes and no is often seen as black and white. Very yet, it is or it isn't, and no middle ground. There's always a middle ground. I love living in the middle ground too. So there's always a middle ground, and often we can be very effective at moving something forward by just taking on a piece of it at a time, and that's this one came up because this actually happened to me on my flight back from a contact I made at the conference. Somebody texted me internet on flights. Not know if it's a good or bad thing, but somebody texted me. And said, "I just had this come up next week, and after talking to you at the conference, I think you're a perfect fit for it. Would you be willing to hop on this? It was a an eight hour something or other, like a continuing ed type. Oh, it's an advocacy mode. There's a thing called the advocacy. Anyway, hop on this meeting. That's an eight-hour meeting. It will take all day on Tuesday. I already had some things on my calendar on Tuesday, and I was my initials like I'm going to have to say no to this. But this sounds so cool. Like that was my where I was with it, and so I pulled up my calendar and I was like, I have two hours. I have two hours on Tuesday that I could legitimately do this, and I was like, "They just want me for the mindfulness piece. I can do that in two hours. So I texted her back, and I said, "I can't do the whole day. Would 10 a.m. to noon Central Time work for me to just do my piece?

Jonathan Dugger 35:57
And she got back up to me and said, "Absolutely, let's do that. So again, that's a negotiation. That's a counteroffer to their expect setting an expectation of something that you can't take on the whole thing. And we don't often, for whatever reason, we don't often think about it. If we're in a yes and no situation, it has to either be all or none. And that's not necessarily true. And most of the time, and it's not true.

Alecia St. Germain 36:21
Yep. All right. Last time that we're in a season of yes, got to wrap up.

Jonathan Dugger 36:27
All right. So I called it legacy. I was looking for a better word, so maybe you guys would come up with a better word. But this is when you're in a season of, and it's about meaning, passion, and relationship. You're to that place where it's not financially driven. It's not financially hinging on a financial decision. Of course, it's good to get paid for your efforts. That's always a great thing. But this is when you start saying yes to things because it feeds you, and it feeds your values, and it feeds your sense of direction. You could call them heart-based projects. You could call them passion projects if you want. But it's coming from a place of I've checked the boxes. I've got my passive income coming in. I'm stable in this area. I can say no to some of these things that maybe I had felt like I had to say yes to a few years ago in order to open up some time to commit to being on this board for this nonprofit, speaking at a fundraiser, an event, traveling across the country where I know what I'm getting paid isn't going to even pay for my travel expenses, things like that, where you can make decisions based on arriving to a place and leaving something behind that's worthwhile and that feels powerful and feels helpful. And I said, "This didn't come out quite as well as my coffee mug statement, but I said, 'Yes, you're saying yes to people. You're saying yes to purpose. You're saying no to proving. You don't have anything to prove. This is about the people you want to work with. It's about the purpose driving it, and there's no proof in terms of I'm going to make this amount of money. I'm going to build my brand by getting my face on this billboard or this placard or whatever. So, yes to people, yes to purpose, no to prove.

Alecia St. Germain 38:31
Awesome. All right, so that wraps it up for today. We're going to hop into a private Zoom room now with our podcast club people, and with all of that being said, sending you so much love.

Jonathan Dugger 38:46
Be well, everybody.

Alecia St. Germain 38:48
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