Episode 224: 5 Reasons you think you can't say "no"
There are so many parts of our day where we should really be saying no. We're not standing up for ourselves. We're not standing up for our business. In today's episode, Fiona talks about five kinds of core reasons why you feel like you cannot say no and how it can lead to overwhelming stress and burnout. Tune in!
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
Life Instyle
People pleasing
Worried about money
Falling into the trap of rules that don't actually exist
Thinking it's part of scaling your business
Setting boundaries
Conclusion
Get in touch with My Daily Business Coach
Resources and Recommendations mentioned in this episode:
There are so many parts of our day where we should really be saying no. We're not standing up for ourselves. We're not standing up for our business. And we are taking on things, taking on often other people's things. And then it's leading to greater pressure in our own business, overwhelming stress, burn out all of the things.
Hello and welcome to episode 224 of the My Daily Business Coach podcast. Today, It is a coaching episode and I'm really excited to get into this one because I think it is something every single person in business deals with it's something I have had to really work through myself, which is why I feel like I can definitely bring you a kind of firsthand experience of this. And it's something I work with my clients on all that time. This is definitely one of those episodes that you may wanna take notes on. Of course, we'll have all the show notes over at mydailybusiness.coach.com/podcast/ 224. But if you wanna take some notes of your own, feel free to do that. But before we get stuck into that two things, firstly, if you're listening to this in real-time, Hello, and if I see you today at life in style in Melbourne, please come and say hi.
I would love to say hello to as many people as I can. Of course, I am definitely meeting with some people who have booked coaching, which is part of Life Instyle offerings that they do, which is great. And I'm also running a workshop there. So hello to anyone who might be listening to this on their drive-in to life in style in Melbourne today. But if you are listening in real time, please make sure that if you want to be part of group coaching, you go and apply. We are shutting that down at the end of the month, we have been interviewing such amazing people already. I'm pulling together such a lovely, just warm, creative, a curious group of people. And I can't wait to get started in August with that group. And if you wanna be part of that group, please let us know because we will not be offering this again this year.
And I'm changing up the whole format of what I've been doing in the past because just learning so many things myself. When I started group coaching, it was four years ago, and we have changed it up each year. Every year it's slightly changed up, but I'm really changing quite a few things in this group as well. So really looking forward to it. If you wanted to get into that, you can find all the information at mydailybusinesscoach.com/groupcoaching. And we'll link to that in the show notes.
The second thing is I want to pay my respects and acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of the beautiful land in which I'm lucky enough to live and play and work and record this podcast and the land that is always so healing to me. And particularly at the moment when I can't really move outside my house, actually, if you are seeing me at Life Instyle and you see a big, hot water bottle behind my back, you will know why that is. I've really been going through a lot of back challenges and this land has provided so much for me, even now, as I'm recording this, just looking out into these beautiful bushlands, it's incredible. So I wanna pay my respects to the Wurundjeri and Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation and just acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded. And as a small business owner, I pledge to work in ways that aid in true equality for first nations people. All right, let's get into this coaching episode.
So today's episode is really about the five, I'm sure there's more, but the five kinds of core reasons why you feel like you cannot say no, this is something that comes up all that time. This idea of not feeling comfortable enough, not feeling confident enough to say no, even when we know that we really should say no, and I hear it all the time, I hear it from people who've been employed staff and they're like, “I know I should probably fire them, but they're just such a nice person” or all the time I hear this, oh, we're working with this agency. They haven't really performed at the standard that we'd like them to, but they're such nice people. And I'm like, nice people are great, be friends with them, but don't give them money to do something that they're not actually able to do.
And there are so many parts of the business where maybe we really think that we are feeling an instinct with somebody and it's not a good instinct. And yet we still take them on as a customer or a client. Perhaps we've had a bad experience with a stockist and we wanna be able to have that conversation and sort of say, no, I actually don't want you stocking my stuff, but we don't. Or maybe someone comes and wants to put their stuff into your store. And you're like, there's just something about it. And I really wanna say no, but I feel bad. And so I wanted to kind of walk through five areas or five reasons why you feel like you can't say no and kind of give you some insights as to maybe why you're not saying no.
And how you can kind of move forward in a way where you feel comfortable and confident to say no, or at least to know why you feel like you're not saying no. And what you can do to work on that part of your life or part of your business. So there is no particular order, but I'm just gonna walk through the five most common reasons that I think people are not saying no, and this might be in business and in life. But obviously, this is a small business podcast.
So mainly in business and it can apply to all parts of the business from who you're hiring, what sort of stock is, the suppliers you're working with, through to things like not getting back to emails on time, not picking up the phone, all sorts of things. There are so many parts of our day where we should really be saying no. We're not standing up for ourselves. We're not standing up for our business. And we are taking on things, taking on often other people's things. And then it's leading to greater pressure in our own business, overwhelming stress, burn out all of the things.
So if that is you, and I'm guessing that pretty much, most people can relate to this in some way. So if you wanna take notes, feel free to take notes. We'll also be able to have all of the show notes for you over at mydailybusinesscoach.com/podcast. In no particular order. And of course, I have to preface this by saying, I am not a psychologist or anyone in that field, but these are the things that I think I have seen from seven years of coaching, thousands of small business owners, that really are the reasons that you can't say no.
Or that you feel, you can't say no, cause you actually can say no, but that you feel that you can't say no. So just listen to them and see if you're like, “That's me.” That's totally me hands up all over the place. Or maybe you are like, “Actually, that's not me,” but I can totally see that in my friend or in my fellow business bestie or in someone else. And so if you are seeing that, please feel free to share this episode with them. So I guess the first big common one is people pleasing. The reason that we can't say no is that we wanna please the other person and there are so many self-help and psychology books on that whole topic. So if you are like, I've never heard of that. I mean, I don't know where you would be if you hadn't heard of that, but maybe you haven't considered that in relation to your small business, then definitely go and check out.
There are hundreds of books on people pleasing and why we all do it. And it can stem from all sorts of things. It can stem from your relationship with your parents. It can stem from relationships in the schoolyard, when you're a child, it can stem from all sorts of things. Some people even go as far as to say, as it can stem from when you come out of the womb. But the reason that I think a lot of people don't say no in business is this idea of people pleasing. It's I don't wanna upset that other person. I don't want to let them feel like they're not good enough or mainly I want to control or have some sort of semblance of controlling their opinion of me, which when you say it out loud is actually ridiculous.
No one can control somebody else's opinion of them. We have no idea what other people think of us and really it's none of our business. It actually shouldn't matter what anyone else thinks of us. It should just matter what we think of ourselves. And maybe your significant other, or your mom and dad or somebody really close. You're obviously like, I want them to like me, even though even saying that though you don't owe anyone anything and you don't have to make anyone else like you. And I think we might know that on a kind of rational level, like, I'm not trying to do that. And yet say someone contacts us for a collaboration. And we're like, I really don't think this is gonna work. Or you can see that there's a massive imbalance.
And actually, they're gonna get a whole lot more from it than you are. And yet we don't say no, we don't say, “Actually, I'll have to pass on that.” Or we do all this justification. If we do say no, we have to justify it by being like, “I would love to so much.” But I'm just really busy right now or this or this. And so we are trying so desperately to control their opinion of us, their opinion, which we will never actually know because even if they say one thing, they may well be thinking the complete opposite. And so we say these things to save face, but also to act as if we are the most likable person in the world. And we are equating being likable with being agreeable.
And I think they're two very different things. And so you cannot control what other people think of you. You just can't as much as you might like to, as much as you might wanna come across a certain way, you have no idea what people think about you just as, we can all do it. We can all put on a smile and be like, “She's so nice.” Even if we think the complete opposite. So we will never ever know what other people think of us, whether they're our customers, our clients, our suppliers, our stockers, or manufacturers. So it doesn't actually serve us at all to try and please them and to try and keep them on our side at all times. Even if that leads to us, having to do things we are not comfortable with or to do things that ultimately we are not happy about, which brings me to another point, which is, if you do not say no, and if you are doing this constantly to please people, you'll end up being full of resentment, you'll be like, “Sure, I'd love to do that collaboration.”
Or I'd love to do that event even though you don't want to because you feel bad or you feel like you're gonna come across in X, Y, or Z ways that are going to be negative. You believe that they won't like you. If you say no. And so you go ahead with something and you end up not enjoying it. And then you get resentful because really there's no one to blame except yourself. And so you can't do that. So you then project that resentment out and you can see it, you see it all the time when people don't wanna do things and then they end up doing them, and then it can actually lead to a worse relationship with that other person say in, for example, with the collaboration example, if you say yes to something, even though you really don't wanna do it, because you say yes, because you don't want the other person to think that you are mean, or you think too much of yourself or whatever it is, then you end up resentful.
Then you might end up being a bit catty or a bit sharp in your language, or maybe passive-aggressive, which will actually damage that relationship far more than if you had just said, you know what? That's not gonna work for me at the moment. But I think it's an awesome idea. And you may even go as far as saying, I'm happy to give you some tips, but I can't collaborate on that right now. And that's it. The thing is even that response was a bit too much, cuz you don't have to justify things. I actually had a wonderful response the other day from somebody, I very much respect. I was organizing a dinner and I sent out a text message to this person and they said, “Hey lovey, that's not gonna work for me. Have an awesome time.”
And there was no justification. And I realized in myself, even though I'm talking to people all day long about this sort of stuff, how much I justify. So if I couldn't make something, I would quite often be like, “I'm so sorry. I'm not gonna make it. Have an amazing time.” I'm so sorry. I can't make it because X, Y, and Z is happening. I was like, “Yes, I am going to start using that response a lot more.” Because it was just, that's not gonna work for me. Have a great time and not, that's not gonna work for me because let me tell you all the reasons that I can't come and justify my response. Just that's not gonna work for me, have a great time. And I thought what a lovely response. It's nice. It's not horrible in any way.
She's still saying have a great time. It's just not gonna work for me. And that's fine. And that could be a perfect response in this collaboration example as well. Like sounds great. It's not gonna work for me, but I wish you all the best or any sort of way that you wanna cut it. But what I'm saying before is if you get to the point where you are resentful because you have not said no, because you want to people please, and you want that person to quote like you or think a certain way about you, which again, you have no idea if they actually do, you will end up potentially damaging what could have been a great relationship. Anyway, likewise, I mean, if you could take that same in collaboration example and put it in so many ways, if you take on, let's say a friend wants to work, let's say a friend has lost their job and you actually have a job going in your business and you say, they're not actually the right fit.
They don't actually have the skills, but they come to you and they say, you know what? I was looking. And I saw that you have this job available. I know I don't have all those skills, but I think I'd be so great. And wouldn't it be so fun to work together? And so you say, “Okay, yeah,” I don't wanna be like the mean person. She doesn't have a job and I've got this job going and it's okay that she doesn't have the skills, but maybe we can just teach them to her. And so you take on somebody and maybe they're a good friend and then you take them on and it doesn't work out and you start getting resentful because they don't know what they're actually doing. And you've been like, but it's okay. We'll just teach them. Even though you've gone against things because you want them to like you and you want them to think certain things about you.
And then you end up in a situation where you've got somebody working for you. Who's a good friend who you have to kind of let go, which is now gonna make your friendship even more strained than potentially it would've been, if you just said at the start, you know what? I actually really need someone with a lot of experience. We've had people in the past that haven't had experience and it's just not worked out. And I would hate for our friendship to suffer in any way because of work. So let me help you again, probably going too far, but let me help you with your CV, and let me keep an eye out for any jobs that might be suitable. That is a better way than taking something on, which then potentially leads to resentment. The other thing in this people pleasing is we've gotta be aware of it in ourselves.
And I think most people are pleased to some extent, I'm definitely raising my hand. I have definitely been a people pleaser and there are definitely parts in my life where I'm still a people pleaser. And I think it comes from if we're gonna go into therapy, I think it comes from when I went to primary school and I didn't have friends and I was kind of bullied by this one person. And then I changed schools and I have a lifelong friend from grade five onwards. That's so long ago, I'm so old. But the point was, since that I've wanted to like, “I need to be a people pleaser.” And I've learned it about myself and I've talked in therapy sessions about it, but I think we have to be aware of it.
And we also have to be really conscious of when it comes up and it might come up in just the most random or mundane of things. So I know for example, with my own business, we had somebody during COVID during the lockdowns hardcore lockdowns in Melbourne where I'm from. So there was a point at which, I mean, it felt like Melbourne was just a little island by itself, like Tasmania or something, it was like Victoria, and where I live in Melbourne, that's the state, we were just sort of cut off. It was like the rest of Australia was going about their business and we were not, and it was horrible. It was really psychologically damaging. And I know that anyone who's listening to this from Melbourne or Victoria is nodding their head going. I totally remember that.
And it felt as if we were the lepers, it was awful. And so there was a point at which somebody from another state contacted us and because of lockdown and homeschooling and at the same time, there was no childcare. So I had a, I think it was like a 10-month-old or no, he wasn't going to childcare then must have been like he was, I know around 12 months old. So a one-year-old being at home, my husband being at home, my son being at home, trying to do grade one, and then me trying to run a business. And I had somebody contact us. And my VA at the time was also going through immense challenges in her country with stuff. And so someone had booked in for a one-hour session and they had not gotten back to you within 24 hours.
And on our website, it said, we will contact you. I think we said between 24 and 48 hours after you book, however, they booked on a Friday, and we had not gone back to them until Tuesday. And the person went off and was like, said something kind of not nice about, well, this is a great way to start a relationship over promising and under delivering, it says clearly on your website, you'll be back within this time. My beautiful VA sort of diplomatically sent it to me and said, what would you like to do about this? And I said you know what, let me reply. And I just replied and said, “Hey, you're in another state right now. I would say tread lightly and go kindly with anyone in the country. But especially people in Melbourne right now.” And I said, “My VA is also in a country that is experiencing a huge amount of turbulence.”
And yes, we did not get back to you. However, it is a weekend. So technically Tuesday morning is still within 48 hours. And I said we will give you a full refund today and thanks best of luck with your business. And they wrote back saying, “No, no, no.” And tried to backed and were like, no, I didn't mean that. And I was just like, I don't need you if you're going to be like this if you're going to talk to my VA like that when you haven't even started working with us and the amount of money that you're paying is not worth the stress that you potentially are giving us. And I don't care to please you at this time. And so I had to be aware.
And he must think this about us. And I was like, no. And I loved it because my VA then said, “I love that you stood up to him. He was so rude.” I didn't wanna say that. And then she said, this is a real learning experience for me as well. And showing me that I can stand up to people in my business as well. And I just thought it was a beautiful exchange. And I, and you're leading by example. And so that's an example of being conscious of the people, pleasing tendency, but also being conscious of like, no, I don't want this to lead to resentment. So I'm gonna put this up and, and put it back on you right now. And I have no regrets whatsoever. So that's the first one people pleasing.
We're 20 minutes into this podcast. The second reason that I feel like people don't say no, even when they want to is they are worried about money and this is a big one. This is not something that can easily be like, just say no to every job you don't want, because it's fine and manifests all your money. I do believe that there's an element of manifesting and putting the work in and letting the universe come to you. I'm not dismissing that for a second, but I don't think that it's always realistic to be like, you know what? I've got $0 in my bank account, but I'll just manifest a hundred thousand overnight. So I get that saying no can be extremely hard when you are not making the money that you need to make. And maybe you're getting a client or you're getting a customer or you're getting a supplier or somebody coming to you and you're like, you know what?
This isn't perfect, but we'll figure it out. And sometimes that's what you need to do just to kind of keep your head above water. But there are some elements and some frameworks that I think if you can get your head around will really help you be in a position to feel confident to say no. So when we are thinking about being worried about money, the first thing is to know your numbers. And I say that so many times, I've said that repeatedly on this podcast to know your numbers, what are you trying to achieve financially? And how are you going to do that? And one way that you can do that is to go through money mapping. Now, if you're interested, we do have this in a full course. I say full course. It's actually just a short course. It's like an hour video. And then a workbook that might take you an hour or two to work through depending on how well you know your numbers already.
And if you are interested in that, definitely check it out. You can find the Money Mapping Course at mydailybusinesscoach.com/shop, and then you will find it. So the first thing though is to figure out your money and mapping your money can really help. So mapping out your money is really about figuring out, firstly, what do I need to survive? What do I personally need to survive? So what does my home life need me to bring into the business from the business into my lifestyle? So it could be things like childcare, fees, home insurance, car insurance, all sorts of things that you need to bring in. So for some people, a lot of people that I work with have to bring that into their household. There will be the outliers occasionally who have a business and they don't need to bring money into their household because they're lucky enough to have, I don't know, other ways and means that money is coming into that household.
And so if you figure out your survival number, firstly, for yourself, but then what the business needs to survive. So the business survival number will maybe be your equipment. It could be your commercial rent. It could be a certain amount of stock. It could be your staff fees. It could be all sorts of things. So you wanna add those two together and I should say in your survive number, you will always have your wage. And if you are in Australia or elsewhere, you're superannuation or your 401,000 is incredibly important. I know so many people in creative businesses do not pay themselves. Please start putting money away. Because especially here in Australia, women in their fifties and sixties, I think are like the highest rate of homelessness that we're seeing an increase because they are leaving marriages or they are having to take time outta the workforce to look after elderly parents look after children and they end up with very little super.
So please start adding super to your survival figure. So you've got a survival figure. Then you wanna add to that what you actually want to do, no one wants to just survive. So you wanna add to that, maybe you wanna take an international trip once a year for research purposes. Maybe you want to have a trade show stall. Maybe you want to do X, Y, Z. And so that is added and you then have your thrive number. And then once you have your thrive number, you can start your money mapping. So you have your thrive number, literally in the middle of a page, and then you have the different revenue streams around it. So for instance, in my business, I'll have one-on-one coaching, group coaching, speaking gigs, my books, and hopefully soon E products like online courses, and eBooks. I'm trying to think, I'm sure I have six, but I can't remember what the last one is.
So you would have those things and you would make sure that each of those adds up to total your thrive number. And so that is your money mapping. And once you have that, it is so much clearer to be able to say, you know what I can say no to that because I know that this stuff is bringing in my total thrive number. Also, I should just say, I don't know why, but my husband has decided to do some woodwork, right? When I'm recording this. I don't know if you can hear that, but I just keep going. So once you've got your money mapping, one of those revenue streams that it kind of linking into these total thrive numbers should be. But really you should work on trying to make this happen.
Our recurrent revenue stream. So I've talked about this many times on this podcast before, but your recurrent revenue is gonna stabilize your income. And that is really where you can get your confidence from. So my recurrent revenue, having two groups of group coaching going at any one time, means I've got a certain amount of money coming in every single month for 12 months. And it just means that I know that that's the baseline and that certain things are covered like finance, like expenses wise. And so then I can say no to a certain amount of clients or say no to, I don't know a particular gig or a speaking event or whatever it is that doesn't align with me because I have the confidence that I know that we've got enough money coming in. So it's really important, especially for anyone I was gonna say, especially if you're worried about money, but really it's important for anyone to map out your money, to understand where your recurrent revenue comes from and then have a way of tapping into your numbers on a frequent basis.
So that could be 10 minutes, five minutes of going into your mile or your Xero or whatever program you use and checking QuickBooks or whatever it is, checking your numbers. It could be as simple as an Excel sheet. I used an Excel sheet for many years. So I had Xero. I was paying for Xero, but I wasn't using it properly. It could be some sort of calculation, it could be something written down on your notepad, whatever it is, but know your numbers do not get to the end of the year or the end of the fact tax year and be like, I didn't make as much as I thought, I should have said yes to that thing because you'll start doubting yourself. And again, we wanna build confidence. Confidence comes from clarity. And if you're clearing your numbers, you're clear where your money comes from.
It is less likely that you'll feel the pressure to have to say yes to something when really you wanna say, no. The third thing that I think stops people from saying no is falling into these like rules. And I put rules in inverted comments, like these rules that seem to be out there in the ether, floating around that people think, make a good business or make a professional again in inverted comments, business. And so we have these rules like I should get back to somebody's email within 24 hours. I should have it inbox zero. I should. And again, the should police comes up. So think about what are the rules that you are carrying around in your head that tell you I have to do this, or I can't say no to this. So for example, I pay someone, I pay the wonderful Yricka, who's the best OBM ever.
So any email that comes through hello@mydailybusinesscoach is answered by Yricka. If she needs my help, she will put it into Asana and I will get back to her and she will reply to the person. Yricka hassles me all the time. She doesn't hassle me. She's wonderful, but she will be on my case to answer an email. So emails are answered quickly. If an email comes to my own personal address @mydailybusinesscoach, it may not get answered. That's true. It may not get answered immediately it may not get answered for a few days. Sometimes I may miss an email. I may read it and forget to answer it or forget to forward it to Yricka, which is quite often what I do just forward them to her because I know that she will deal with it and she will also then hound me until I have dealt with it.
And so I know it's not the best thing that's out there. I know that it must annoy some of my clients. I would tell them from the start, that this is why I pay somebody to answer my emails. So please, if you have a question, please email hello@mydailybusinesscoach, because I will see it as well as Yricka and Yricka will be able to get back to you in the first instance. And she will get back to you. She works every day. She will get back to you quicker than I will get back to you. Particularly at the moment, I have been on reduced hours because of my back. So it's just one of those things that we have this rule like a good business, a professional business gets back to emails within 24 hours.
It's like who came up with that? We are all taking this kind of corporate mentality. This sort of very capitalist, very much like a factory mentality. Like this has to get back, we're all robots. We have no nothing else going on outside our lives. And also what we are doing then is saying yes to other people's requests for information, rather than getting on with what we need to get done. I know, years ago there was this big, maybe it was an article on medium. I can't remember, but Ashton Kucher kind of came out and said emails other people's to-do list landing in front of you each morning or something like that. So I'm badly paraphrasing and he's so true if we spend the whole of our, morning answering other people's requests all day, rather than getting on with what we need to get done. And maybe having like an hour in the afternoon or an hour, maybe one-hour late morning and one hour late in the afternoon or evening to get back to people that that's enough. We don't need to be firing off emails all day long because they're interrupting us and there.
The statistic says it takes 20 minutes for us to get back to something after we've been interrupted. So if we're working on a job and a ping comes through and really please turn your notifications off, unless you are a PR agency or someone who needs to have them on, then we get this ping. And then suddenly we're over here dealing with this email, putting out a fire from somebody else's staff versus what we need to focus on. Then it's gonna take us 20 minutes to get back into what we need to focus on. So really thinking about, are you falling into these kinds of rules, and what are those rules? Firstly, are you falling into, that your phone should always be answered, and in some cases, yes, it should be? But in other cases, it doesn't have to be, I have had somebody who just recently requested to follow me or to link in with me on LinkedIn.
I basically say yes to everyone because I'm like you never know who these people are and where you might like wanna connect with them in the future. So I have people from all over the world, and I have amazing fun conversations with people from Israel. Like I've had one person in Afghanistan, like just interesting. So anyway, this person contacted me and he'd written some nice sort of thing. And I said, “Nice to meet you. Thanks for connecting.” That's it. And two seconds later, my phone rang and it was a number I don't recognize. And to be honest, I rarely answer people I don't recognize these days. Because I get so many spam calls and I answered, and it was this guy from the other side of the world who had connected on LinkedIn and just wanted to have a chat.
And I was like, “Hey, thank you so much. But I am in the middle of my work day and I'd really like to get back to work.” And I said, “Happy to have a chat over LinkedIn messenger if you want.” I also was a little bit like how did I get my phone number? But I think it's pretty easy to find these days on the internet, but I was just a bit like, you know what? I don't need to say yes to having a chat because it suits you on your timeline. And now you're trying to sell me something. I accepted your request. I did that in my time, but you don't need to come into my personal space by phoning me and having a conversation in the middle of my day. So I just politely got off the phone.
And I think that's another thing where we have these should like, if somebody calls me, I should just drop everything and have a conversation. And I'm really good. Now, if I can see people, even people that I know or clients or whatever, and I'll be like, you know what, right now is not the time to be chatting to them. Because maybe I've gotta deal with my children, deal with them. Look after my children or maybe it's just, that I'm in flow mode. And I wanna keep being in flow mode. And I quite often will turn my phone onto work mode or sleep mode or whatever it is so that I'm not interrupted, but we have to let go of these rules that we have often made up or society has made up for us or the corporate world has made up. And we are taking those things into our business.
We have to let go of those rules and learn to say no. No, I'm not answering my phone right now because it doesn't suit me. No, I'm not gonna get back to you within 24 hours because I'm not working today or no, I'm not going to do X, Y, and Z. So if that's you and you're like I feel very overwhelmed. Look at what you're actually spending time on. And if you're like, you know what? I just seem to be like getting back to people's emails all day long because emails are like, I don't know. I'm trying to think of something that just multiplies over and over like the gremlins, like wasn't it the gremlins where like you put water on their back and they just like multiply. I feel like that's what emails are. You send one reply back and you get like 10 responses back.
Every time you're answering an email, you know that you're gonna get another email back this is why Yricka and I work in Asana. So we do not send emails back and forth. Like very rarely will we send an email? What happens is Yricka sets up a task in Asana, which is a daily review. And I go into that. She has to, I think she has to like update it by like 12 o'clock in the day or 11:00 AM or something. I go in, I update it by 12:30. So I know that from 12 to 12:30, I go in, I action things. I update stuff and then she'll work on them the rest of the afternoon. So it's a great process for us. And if there are emails, Yricka pulls them in magically because she's so good at automation and all these check things.
And she pulls them into Asana so I can see them and I don't have to go into an email to see it. So she just links it in and I can see the email and I can reply within Asana. And then everything is actioned. Yricka is incredible. I dunno how I'd run my business without it. But that is outside of the point. The point is to stop falling into these rules. Maybe write a list of the rules that you have told yourself and then think about how can I start culling these? How can I start saying no to some of these? Because maybe they're not working for you. The fourth thing that I think stops people from saying no, is that you somehow think saying no will stop you from scaling. I have seen this. I know it sort of sounds counterintuitive, but I really do think that there are people out there who do believe that you have to hustle 24/7 in order to build anything.
Everyone knows I am so anti hustles, I've been anti-hustle from the very start I have set up my business to not hustle. I definitely think there are periods of business where you have to work hard. I'm not saying everyone can just like sit back on a beach lounge and you know, digital nomad 24/7 by the beach. And I'm doing no work. Like it's not reality. Sometimes. Particularly if you're launching something, there will be more work that is needed. However, I do not think that on average, if you look at the average kind of way that you work, that people need to hustle, I do not think that for a minute. I see it all the time with clients who are making incredible amounts of money or not just money but having successes in other ways. So maybe they're getting time off. They're able to retire their partners into their business, all sorts of things.
They're selling their business for a huge amount of money or they're selling their business and able to walk away feeling really great about what they've built. And they've done that in an anti-hustle way and you see people that have hustled all day long and they're burning out and we're seeing incredible amounts of media at the moment about burnout, because I think so many people have just hustle, hustle, and where has it them necessarily. So definitely think people need to work hard, but I don't think that you need to hustle anyway, I'll get off my soapbox. But the point of this number four is that you think it's part of scaling. You think that this is just part of part and parcel business. You have to say yes to everything you have to reply to every single email you have to get back to every single DM within 20 seconds like it's exhausting.
And we have so many ways that people are coming in and contacting us at the moment. So I think one of the big things here is that it doesn't have to be about you not replying to an Instagram DM or not replying to an email. One, as I said before, you could set up your own rules. You might say, I'll get back to emails within two days or I'll get back to emails within five days, whatever works for you. But in number four, when you think it's part of scaling, you may decide that it's not about not doing the task. So not getting back to somebody, but it's about organizing that. So either delegating that or bringing on a resource that is going to help you do that. So you allow them to say no or automate things so you can automate stuff.
So instead of you having to say yes or no, you are automating things or you can set particular lines in the sand. I mean like, this is what we say yes to, this is what we say no to. So at the moment, for example, on this podcast, we get pitched. I would say, it seems to have increased slightly. I would say probably three times a day. We get pitched to be for people to be on this podcast, which is lovely. And I think it's basically because the podcast ranks and so people see that and don't even listen to it and just send us requests all day long. And so Yricka, because they all go to hello@mydailybusinesscoach, sometimes they come to me, but I will just forward them on. Unless they're from like a friend or somebody that I know or a client or something, but they go through Yricka, and Yricka decides not decides, but she will.
She will say no pretty much most people because most of them you can tell in a heart a second that they've never listened to the podcast. They have no idea what we actually do. And then if she thinks something's good, she will forward it to me and then we'll decide. But for this year we pretty much filled up. Feel like I'm from New Zealand and I will fold up. No, we filled up so sorry for anyone listening from New Zealand, that was a terrible accent. But we filled up all the spots for interviews for this year pretty much. And so, but we did have somebody recently that Yricka saw and was like, they're amazing. They sound really interesting. And she forwarded on and I was like, “Yes, they sound like a perfect fit.”
So awesome. Say yes. And so that is one way of delegating, but we also have automation of certain things as well. So instead of us saying no to a client or something, we get people to book a call through Calendly or without, instead of us having to go back and forth a million times on email to get something set up, we set it up and automate it. So thinking about, can you do this task instead of having to say no to something, could you do it, but automate it so that it's not on your to-do list anymore? Or could you delegate it and also think really looking at people who have scaled, who have built businesses, where they are able to say no because they've got the space and the time and their financial stability to say no and start looking at those.
I think in the world of entrepreneurism, we are seeing so many of these like, I don't even know what to call it. I just worked like seven days a week for 24 hours a day and I just had to do it and come on, you just have to do it. And like you have to post a hundred times a week and just this stuff that is just not true. It really is not like I just get really frustrated when I see so many of those kinds of stories out there because, for every single one of them, I tell you, there are five people that have done the same thing without having two hustle without having their marriages fall apart without all sorts of things. So I remember reading one book actually from a well-known woman in Australia, in the kind of business community.
And I just got sick of it. I actually threw it across my bedroom. I was so disgusted that her book, because I know that her book would sell and I'm just like, you are just preaching this awful message that people have to basically kill themselves to work in order for it to work. And it's funny because now she has completely flipped the other side and is suddenly talking about anti-hustles when she has been one of the biggest lecturers on hustle, hustle, hustle until it kills you for so long that I've just, it's just actually disgusted me that now that it's trending, she's suddenly gone on the anti hustles bandwagon when she has probably ruined so many people's lives telling them that they had to work 24/7. Anyway, that's a side note, but the point is I could literally tell you even just from my clients alone, many stories who are people who are making it work, working hard.
Yes, for sure. Working hard in some areas in some parts and periods of the business, but also able to take a holiday, able to know that money is gonna keep coming in, able to have a relationship, able to go out for dinner with their family, able to see their kids and to be able to make a great business. So do not buy into the hype that you have to say yes to every single opportunity in order to scale your business. You do not. And the other thing in that is when we are thinking about saying no or delegating or working really hard or moving into hustle territory, which you do not wanna do. Let's sidestep the hustle, everyone. That is why the Group Coaching program is called sidestep hustle. So I'm teaching you how to run your business successfully without hustling that you can't, especially if you're a service-based business.
One of my earliest business coaches, I remember her saying to me, you can't want it more than them. So you can't want it more for your clients. You can't want success more for them than they want it for themselves. They have to do the work as well. They have to meet you. And I think at the start I wanted it. I wanted everyone to succeed and I still want everyone to succeed. But now I'm more aware of like, you also need to put in the work. I can't be doing extra work and extra work in order to help you if you are not putting the work in yourself as well. So it's sort of like often say that business coaching and lots of service businesses are like this. It's akin to a personal trainer. Like the personal trainer can give you a meal plan.
They can give you the workouts, but you have to do the work for things to change. And it's the same with the business coach. You gave the best business coach in the world, but you need to make the changes for your business to actually make the changes. So that's number four. If you think it's part of scaling really come back. I know there's a great book called Leap Stories by the wonderful Kylie from Ofkin Kylie Lewis. My book shows you multiple people that have been able to build their businesses and not had to hustle 24/7 and like kill themselves doing it. There are many books that are out there. Kate James has written many books. She's a business coach, a life coach in Melbourne. There are many that are out there about how to do this. Kaylene Langford has also written a book.
How to do this without breaking yourself because no one wants that. No one wants that. Everyone needs to like listen to the new Beyonce song and just be like, you won't break my soul and you will let me say no, she'd actually, didn't put that last line in as the lyrics, but maybe she should have. So that is what you need to listen to. If you are thinking that scaling is all about saying yes every single time because it's not number five. And this is really important, the reason you can't say no is that you've never learned to set boundaries. This is a big one. And again, this could be something that you talk to your psychologist about for years, if you wanted to. And I would say again, that most of us don't know how to set boundaries.
Most people have not been taught how to set boundaries. Maybe you were lucky enough to have parents that were very clear at setting boundaries, but for most people, we haven't learned to set boundaries. And it's something that we have to do, figure out as an adult how to do both in life and in business. So in business, not setting boundaries can look like taking calls on the weekend. When you're not in real estate or you're not in another sort of area that has to work on the weekends, it could be taking calls after hours. It could be saying to somebody that's outside of the scope and them saying no, no. And kind of gaslighting you until you go, okay. And you're not setting boundaries. It could be people talking down to your staff.
And I have seen that so many people don't seem to know that I also have access to the hello@mydailybusinesscoach email address. And I've had a couple of clients that I've seen, just the tone of voice, where they speak to me and the tone that they have in email speaking to Yricka or to other people that I've employed has been very different. And so, I'm definitely somebody that was taught very early on. You treat every single person with the same level of respect regardless of what they do. And so I think that I've had to have chatted to some like maybe one or two in about six years. So it's not too bad, but you wanna have a think about, do I set boundaries? Do I set boundaries in my personal life? Because often in business we are reflecting on what we do in our personal life.
So whether it's people pleasing or not saying no or taking on too much, often we'll do the same thing in life and business, especially these days when your life and your business are so integrated and so enmeshed. And so when I think about, am I, someone who sets boundaries, do I have clear guidelines of when people can and can't speak to me even at work? So I had a client, one of my first clients years ago, she is just the wonder most wonderful person. And if she's listening to this, she may be able to figure out who she is. So she had a problem in that or a challenge really. So her business had grown, I think it was like seven or eight staff. And what was happening was that all of those staff were relying on her, for things that they probably could have been able to figure out themselves.
And so we'd almost got into a point where she had trained people to think, I'll just ask her, I'll just ask her rather than I'll go and find the answer out myself or Hey, this is in the process documents or this is something I could be able to find on my own initiative. They would just ask a question. So what would happen is she was getting to the office really early in order to not get bombarded with things and get some work done. And then basically when people would start coming in, she was just getting bombarded for hours with people popping into her office, asking another question, cutting out, somebody else popping in there wasn't any kind of formal meetings in place. And so what happened was that she had enabled by not setting boundaries this to happen. And I think that can be a confronting thing to look at.
And I have talked before about really stepping back and going, how is this my fault when something happens and it's not about blaming yourself, but it's about looking at the process and being like, what is broken here? How did this happen? How have I allowed this to happen? And so what we ended up doing was that two or three days a week, she would go to a cafe. So she would leave her house. She would go to a cafe until about 10:30 and then go to work. And then it meant that those people had to figure it out. Like they had to get to work and figure out the problems and they weren't allowed to email her at that time. So it wasn't like she's just gonna get to work. And instead of those people coming to knock on her office door, there are like 30 emails waiting.
It was about saying to people and she sat down and said to people, this is what needs to happen, getting the processes in place, but also getting one-on-one meetings in place. So people can sort of store up their questions for that time. And if they can't see you before that time, often they are fine at figuring out the answer. I mean, of course, if there was an emergency, she would be available, but it was about switching her phone off, getting her work done so that she wasn't coming in, and feeling like she was on the back foot every day. And that then she has to work until nine or 10 o'clock at night after everyone's left to get things done. And I think quite often we are scared of doing that. We worry about it again, kind of comes back to people pleasing or maybe this is the first time I've run a business and the first time I've hired staff and I want them to stay and I want them to have a good place.
And what if they feel unsupported or all sorts of things can go through our minds. But in this instance, it actually worked really well. And I think I'm not sure I haven't checked in with her for a while, but I wonder if that's still going in that, in that way. And that's been something that many of my clients have taken on, taking themselves out of a situation, setting boundaries about when you can and can't talk to me, you don't wanna be one of those people like, so scary. You can't talk to him or her or them, but being really clear, like I need to get stuff done too guys. So if you need to talk to me and it's urgent and urgent means blah, blah, blah, then yes. But if you're not, please look in our systems, directory look at the work you've already done ask one of your colleagues if you have to, but quite often when we kind of force, but encourage people to find the answers they do, they find the answers.
Most people have initiative, they just don't use it. So you wanna be someone in your company that sets boundaries because by setting your own boundaries, you're then enabling other people to set boundaries. And you're leading by example. I know in my own business, I've had a few people that work for me and I'm sure she won't mind me saying this, but with Yricka coming on board and I had the wonderful Nezi before her, there's been a few instances, at the start, especially when we're kind of figuring it out where I have said, please look at the systems and processes this documents that we have set up. Please watch the videos that we have. Please look at this. And you do. There's a part of you that again comes back to people pleasing me. Like I don't wanna sound mean, but it's like, no, I can't keep doing this.
The work that is clearly laid out as part of your role. So please look at the process, and familiarize yourself with the process. All the information is there. And I think sometimes when you sort of not push people but guide people to do that, then they take the initiative. And I have to say, Yricka has got huge amounts of an initiative to take that and run with it. So setting boundaries is really, it could be like that example of the person not coming into work straight away and getting some stuff done. It could also be setting up auto responses. If you're out of the office saying, “Hi, I don't work on these days. So you won't get a reply from me.” It could be setting boundaries about who you're going to take on. Maybe you're a store and setting clear boundaries around.
This is what we expect of the people that are stalking us. I was talking to somebody just recently about influential marketing and the kind of collaborations and partnerships they're doing in their business. And we were talking about we need to set boundaries around when we say, we need you to post on Instagram. It means this, we need these hashtags. We need this. So that everything is clear. I think again, I'm always saying clarity equals confidence. It really does. And the clearer you can be on boundaries, the easier it is for everyone around you as well. So if you are listening to this and thinking that is definitely something I need to work on. There are some great books to check out. One is just called Simply Setting Boundaries by Dr. Rebecca Ray. And we'll link to that in the show notes.
That is something we actually have in the business book club every year since the book came out, Rebecca Ray is an amazing doctor and an amazing thought leader and psychologist and coach from New South Wales actually, Queensland. I think it's Queensland. And an incredible speaker. If anyone's listening and really needs somebody to come in and talk about everything from like mindset setting boundaries, how to make small habit changes, definitely check out Dr. Rebecca Ray, another book that is really great as well is Set boundaries, Find peace: A guide to reclaiming yourself by Nedra Glover Tawwab, and we'll link to that in the show notes. I recently came across that book through a live that Oprah was doing with Nedra and my good friend, Christina put me onto that. Thanks, Christina. And we both watched the live from our own homes and we were texting each other the whole way through, but such a good book on boundary setting as well.
So we'll link to those in the show notes, but just to recap, the five reasons that you may not be able to feel like you can say no. One, you are trying to please people, you are a people pleaser. Number two, you're worried about money. Number three, you're falling into the trap of these rules that don't actually exist. Number four, you think it's part of scaling your business, that you just have to say yes to everything. And number five, you have never learned to set boundaries. So I really hope that helps again. If you're listening to this in real-time, I might see you today at Life Instyle. Let's all pray that my back gets through it and that I can actually sit there and do the, do the work all day. And if you're not in Melbourne and you're not coming to Life Instyle, please get in touch.
You can either DM me @mydailybusinesscoach, you can email us hello@mydailybusinesscoach and Yricka will get it through to me. Or if you're interested in working with me, definitely check out Group Coaching. It starts next month. I am super excited about this one as I am all group coaching programs, but just changing it up a little bit with this, and you can find all the information and how to apply. Please apply in the next two days over at mydailybusinesscoach.com/groupcoaching. Thanks so much just a reminder. If you wanna go through this in text format, you will find it at mydailybusiness.coach.com/podcast/224. And if you found this useful, please leave us a review. It just really helps us get found. We get so many DMS, which is so lovely, but I'd also really love it if you're finding it useful, please leave us a review. It just really helps this little podcast get found by small business owners across the world. And perhaps many of them need to learn how to say no as well. Thanks so much for listening. See you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to the My Daily Business Coach podcast. If you wanna get in touch, you can do that at mydailybusinesscoach.com or hit me up on Instagram @mydailybusinesscoach.
