The most Powerful and the least Accessible Superpower within Us
“The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.” - Warren Buffet
Did you ever feel that your life is going at lightning speed and that you are not able to find time to pursue your interests? Each week goes by faster than the previous week – you feel as if you have no control over the goings on in your life? I used to feel that all the time until about two years ago.
So, recently I was nominated (forced, really) to become the treasurer of the residential society where I live. It is normally an elected position but I guess, given no one came forward and given that I was a recent entrant into the society, I was tactfully forced to take up the role of the treasurer. I accepted the role because I thought it was my turn to contribute to my residential society and also because using my finance background, I may be able to improve our “financial” processes.
Last week I resigned from this role. I found the decision hard to make because I had to contend with a number of questions: was I being disrespectful to people who nominated me, was I skimping on my civic duty, will it impact my fledgling reputation in my new living environment etc. The fact that I was not adding meaningful value to the role clinched the decision for me.
Two years ago, I made a much more seminal (for me) decision when I decided to quit a well-paying, progressive corporate role at a large global bank. That decision was much harder to make because of the huge financial implications that I had to contend with. But the realization that I was not adding meaningful value (my appraisal ratings were OK) finally precipitated that decision there too.
“A 'no' uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a 'yes' uttered merely to please - or worse; to avoid trouble.” - Mahatma Gandhi
Saying “no” is one of the simplest, yet, one of the hardest things to do.
We are soft wired to say “yes” by default. Belonging to a social group turned out to be one of our differentiating survival tools through our evolution. During our hunter-gatherer days, one could not survive for long as an exiled individual.
Our natural propensity to be agreeable is so strong that most of us find it very hard to say “no”. In fact, many times, we say yes despite wanting to say no. We do not want to offend others by saying no. We viscerally fear the consequences of not doing the socially expected things. Also there is the fear of missing out when we say no. Many times, we do things just to “belong”.
“Saying no can be the ultimate self-care.” - Claudia Black
By not saying no, we spend time and energy on things that we may not really care for. We end up doing sub-par quality work with sub-par commitment. We constantly carry a pervasive sense of anxiety, unease and unhappiness. This precipitates indulgence in escape mechanisms – things like partying hard and binging on digital entertainment. We may even eat unhealthy food in unhealthy quantities.
The biggest cost, perhaps, is losing ourselves in the process. We do not discover things that we truly value. We squander away our most premium and scarce resource – time.
If you critically think about all the activities that you currently spend time on and say “no” to things that you do not really care for, I’m sure you will be able to find more than enough time to spend on your most important priority or two. Even without doing something as dramatic as quitting your job or something like that, I’m sure you will find sufficient non-value accruing activities to eliminate.
“Focusing is about saying no.” – Steve Jobs
I rely on an investment manager to manage my stock portfolio. Recently I was listening to him on a YouTube knowledge channel where he was invited to speak. He spoke at length about his investing framework. He said that using his framework, he typically is able to reject most of the ideas that come his way, in under a minute. This leaves him ample time to go really deep into the ideas that do filter through. In my mind this is a fine example of operationalizing the value of saying no.
Bottomline
“Saying no to something is actually much more powerful than saying yes.” —?Tom Hanks
Saying “no” to most things is a way to unlock hidden capabilities, time and freedom. To be able to say “no”, one should have a clear idea of the things one does not care for. It further helps if one has a good idea of the things one does care for. Most people do not spend sufficient time in developing a framework to guide their decisions. This certainly was the case for me until two years ago. Not saying no leads us to spread our time too thin across a number of activities, resulting in living an unexamined life, largely. Saying no is neither natural nor easy but an imperative for a well-lived life.
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Thanks for taking time to read this. In this newsletter, I share my learnings that could help you improve your decisions and make meaningful progress on your goals and desires. I share stuff that I have personally experienced or experimented with. If you find this newsletter worthwhile, please do share it with others – of course, only if you do not mind it.
A bit on my background
I worked in India and the USA with most of my work experience with large global organizations. My last corporate role was the Head of Technology for “Treasury and Trade Management Solutions” for Citigroup South Asia cluster. At Citi, I set up from my Business Unit and grew it from a team size of 1 to over 1900 Citi employees in a span of eight years.
I quit Citi in 2021 to focus exclusively on my interest area of improving decision making. In the last 2 years, I studied this topic closely and developed a training course to systematically improve decision making ability.?I’m also an Investment Advisor (RIA) registered with the Securities and the Exchange Board of India (SEBI). As an RIA, I analyze and prepare financial plans to help people achieve their financial goals.
I have done MBA in Strategy and Finance from Carlson School of Management at University of Minnesota and B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay.
MD, APAC Operations & Technology for Payments
1 年The hardest thing to do and the most liberating when done!!
Senior Vice President - Operations @ BNY Mellon | Asset Servicing
1 年It takes courage to say “No”