The best reason: to make room for “yes.”
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Notes
The source of “yes” (and, thus, of “no”) should be a commitment to the practice—to a process that leads to shipping creative work.
“Yes” allows a consistent and generous “no” to:
- Assignments, lunch dates, new projects, favors, “small asks”
- Responding, reacting
- Short term over long term, urgent over important
- Others’ lists
- People pleasing
Generosity is not saying “yes” to everything, but focusing on the change we seek to make.
- Selective priortization
- Responsible
- Vulnerable
- Without excuses
- Short term discomfort
But “no” must be grounded in the “yes,” or it may:
- Become selfish, solipsistic
- Become a way to hide
- Cut us off from the people we mean to serve
A self-trusting focus on shipping “the right work to the right people” avoids the “narcissism of always saying yes. Or always saying no.”
Thoughts
This is a longer chapter than usual, covering a lot of ground. The idea, at least as I can connect it to what I’m trying to do, is that neither yes nor no can be understood separately from the larger purpose of the practice. If the “yes” is does not align with the process, then it risks distracting or derailing us; in such cases, we should say “no.” Similarly, if the “no” hides from, or refuses, the process, then we should be saying “yes.”
I want to say that this is too vague for me to fully grasp, but that’s nonsense. I say “yes” to a lot of things—sometimes for seemingly generous reasons (e.g., a project or meeting at work), sometimes as a means of escape or distraction (e.g., Facebook or YouTube—at least I deleted TikTok…). I prioritize things without even realizing that I’m saying “yes”—I almost laughed aloud when Seth mentioned “Inbox Zero,” which I have embraced as it comes to work and/or personal communications.
And every time I say “yes” to something, I’m saying “no” to others—to practicing the guitar, to writing a song, recording, mixing.
In other words, yes contains no within it. So saying “yes” to the right things arises from trusting your self and your intention—a direction, a willingness to value long-term hospitality over short-term comfort.
“When you own your agenda, you own it,” Seth writes. We are responsible—I am responsible—for that dance or interplay between “yes” and “no.”
This series is meant to capture my thoughts as I work through Seth Godin’s The Practice. It’s a book with over 200 (very short) chapters, which I hope to work through and, I further hope, to implement over time.
If you’re interested in more of Godin’s ideas, or my thoughts about them, you can check out this collection of posts. Note that if you’re more interested in the former, you should probably get Godin’s book and read it yourself; my notes will be both incomplete and idiosyncratic, and my thoughts will relate to my own experience.
But if my thoughts resonate with you, or if you think I’m just silly, I welcome your comments.