Executive Summary
As financial advisors progress in their careers (and lives), their attention is often pulled in many directions as opportunities present themselves. Some will be professional, such as speaking engagements or prospect inquiries; others personal, from community service to family obligations. Many of these requests are meaningful and made with good intentions. But if the advisor says "yes" to all of them, the result can be an overcommitted calendar, drained energy, and very little capacity to do the work that moves their businesses and lives forward. At the same time, saying "no" can feel awkward, and many advisors may fear that declining a request might erode the relationship.
In this 177th episode of Kitces & Carl, Michael Kitces and client communication expert Carl Richards discuss when and how to say "no" in a way that protects capacity, prioritizes what matters most, and actually earns respect in the process.
One of the biggest challenges in learning to say no is the discomfort it can cause, especially in the moment. Saying "yes" feels easy, postponing the consequences that show up later when time and energy are exhausted. However, every "yes" is also an unseen "no" – agreeing to one request today often means turning down (or under-delivering on) a future opportunity or obligation that might be more important. By contrast, saying "no" preserves space for the work, rest, health, and family commitments that are supposed to come first.
To make saying no easier, advisors can build systems that remove the guilt and guesswork from protecting their time and energy. One approach is to create and communicate clear personal filters and capacity limits. For example, establishing minimum client fees or identifying types of work that consistently drain energy. Making these boundaries visible – such as by publishing fee minimums on a website or adding intake checkboxes acknowledging those minimums – helps preempt misaligned requests before they reach the calendar, reducing the emotional labor of saying no in real time. Advisors can even ‘outsource the no' by routing certain requests through an assistant or designated team member, which maintains goodwill while still enforcing boundaries. These tactics can help advisors avoid situations where they may be tempted to compromise their own standards.
Importantly, the skill of saying no also applies inside the firm, especially for associate and support advisors who are just beginning their professional careers. When a junior advisor is asked to take on more than they can do in a given week or do work misaligned with their current goals and priorities, the conversation doesn't need to become confrontational. Instead, the advisor can reflect the trade-off back to their supervisor, reviewing their weekly priorities and measuring different trade-offs. For example, "The priority is to get three plans out each week, and my full schedule is committed to that. If I also take on this new project, something will need to give. Which work should come first?" Framing the conversation around prioritization instead of refusal invites collaboration and keeps the decision with the person who sets expectations.
Ultimately, the key point is that saying no with clarity and grace is not about being rigid or unhelpful; it's about being purposeful. For advisors looking to grow their firms, deepen their client work, or reclaim time for family, every "no" becomes an investment in what they value most. Saying no is a professional and personal skill that allows advisors to lead with intention, protect their energy, and do their most meaningful work!
Authors:
***Editor's Note: Can't get enough of Kitces & Carl? Neither can we, which is why we've released it as a podcast as well! Check it out on all the usual podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts (iTunes), Spotify, and YouTube Music.
Show Notes
- K&C 176: Ways To Say Yes Sustainably To Prospects In Need Who Don't Fit Your Minimums
- Jason Fried (Basecamp): "Yes and No" discussion
- The No Club
Kitces & Carl Transcript
Michael: Well, good afternoon, Carl.
Carl: Michael Kitces. Michael Kitces. How are you? Hey. I heard we're going to do a speaking engagement together. Actually, it's kind of a secret, but she told me...this person who's running the speaking engagement told me that she's getting a blue couch. I know. Let's not talk anymore about it. People are sick of hearing about the blue couch. So, anyway, I'm doing great. I'm doing great.
Michael: You can never be sick of hearing about the blue...Look, we did the blue couch so much that now, years later, people are setting up speaking engagements for us with the blue couch. Are we allowed to say what and where this is going to be? Because I know now, we've just piqued some people's curiosity, and I truly don't know if we're allowed to say what the thing is.
Carl: I think maybe we should just say it's an FPA chapter in the East for right now. Maybe we'll announce it later.
Michael: Okay. And they're going to have a blue couch. I'm very excited.
Carl: They're going to have a blue couch, yeah. It's super fun. So, anyway, I'm doing well.
Michael: I'm very excited about this because it has been absent from your background for too long.
Carl: I know. It's going to make an appearance tomorrow at the retreat we have at our house. So it's still making its way around.
Michael: All right. I'm glad to hear it's doing well.
Carl: Because the blue couch...interestingly enough, the blue couch started saying no. It started saying no to...
Michael: To what, like its travel engagements?
Carl: Yeah, its travel engagements. Started saying no, I'm really comfortable here in the house. So, the blue couch had to develop the ability to say no.
Michael: I have to admit, I...I'm pretty sure you want to do a theme around having to say no, because last week's episode was about how to say yes. But I feel like this might be more of your wife, who bought the couch, saying no. But let's go with the couch is saying no.
Carl: She said no. So I think that would be...Actually, speaking of saying no, we should talk about that today, because I was just thinking about our theme of last week or last month, last two weeks ago. Last episode. Let's talk about it.
Creating An Initial Filter For Saying No [01:59]
Michael: Yeah. It's funny, even as I reflect back on the last episode, it was...Look, no one likes saying no, and it's yucky, and it feels negative. And I know I've gotten my share of feedback of, "Look, all the research and that stuff we put out at the end of the day, serving clients below your minimum creates business problems later, and we need to practice how to say no. And that feels really sucky and negative. So, we did a whole discussion last week of how to at least say yes in a way that just is sustainable and doesn't create problems for your business? And sometimes we really just should be saying no, which I guess really is...That's not even just a clients who don't fit my minimums thing. Although that happened to be the theme of the week last week. There's lots of places that word could come up more than it probably does. Community commitments and family things and PTA things and all the different ways that it gets ludicrously difficult for most of us to say no.
Carl: Yeah, yeah. Look, I think this is a fun discussion because if we keep in mind of why do we want to be better at saying no, is often we hear from these amazing people called financial advisors, financial planners, who have big things they want to do, an impact they want to make in the world. And one of the things they say, one of the things we all say, gets in the way, is, "I'm too busy." And so, then to me, this is the why behind this discussion is like, okay, if I'm too busy to do some of the things that are really important to me at work and at home and for my health and for my sleep...as soon as you start listing it, you're just like, ah, okay, well, then I need to be better at having the ability to say no to things that don't fit.
One piece of framing that's been really helpful for me...and I think I first heard this from Jason Fried at Basecamp. I think it was from him. He said that "yes" is like a blunt instrument. I think he compared it to a shotgun. Every time you say yes to one thing, you're saying no to a whole bunch of things. You just don't know what they are, right? By saying yes to that one thing, you are automatically saying no to something else. You just don't know what it is quite yet.
Michael: Well, yes, but to me, that's the point of the problem. Saying no to the person standing in front of me is frickin' awkward. Having it turn out that I don't have capacity later is future Michael's problem.
Carl: That's exactly right. But in saying yes is this blunt instrument. Saying no is a precision instrument, right? I'm just saying no to the one thing. If I say yes, I'm saying no to a bunch of things, but I don't know what they are. If I say no to one thing, I'm just saying no to that one thing. So, I love that framing. And your comment is really smart, too, the idea that saying no right now is painful. I don't know what I'm going to be saying no to later. If I just say yes to this, it's fine. But I've had this come up so many times where I'm like, "Darn it, I said yes to that thing. And now something really important is coming."
Michael: Oh, yeah. I think we've all had those scenarios. Then something comes along and you're like, "Oh, God. I really want to do this, and I can't because I'm really, really, really too busy because of the list of things that I said yes to in the past." And I say, like, "Darn it, I shouldn't do that to myself. I'm going to get better about saying no from now on." And then next Tuesday, I'm like, "Oh, God, I just did it again. I said yes to something again."
Carl: Well, you know what I think would be fun? Let's just pretend like you've already gotten clear about what your big yes is. Here's my priority. So, we've already gotten clear, and now I need to create space by saying no to more things. And let's just, tactically, almost, let's talk about how to say no. So, I'm not just...To be honest, I think we've covered how to say no to clients or prospective clients that aren't a good fit. That's kind of...I think we've covered that. I would be more interested in how do I say no to things that will put me in this position where I can't devote the time to the things that really matter. Does that make sense?
Michael: Yeah.
Carl: How do you think about that? And have you seen any ways of saying no that you're like, "That's really amazing."
Michael: So, the path and process for me around this, I guess I can't entirely separate this from the comment you made earlier around just like, what are the things that you're saying yes to that become the trigger point? So, I realized, though, the way I think about this is in terms of filters, right? Just, opportunities come, right? Sometimes good opportunities, sometimes not really my ideal opportunities that could be business opportunities that could be life opportunities that can be chip in for the family or the community or the school or whatever opportunities. I'm using opportunities very loosely here, right? There's lots of opportunities, way more than I can possibly say yes to. And so, I realized, at least it works for me, I needed some kind of filter or series of filters that became my rule set, as it were. And I realized that this sort of evolved two ways. So, part of it was just getting clear on what the filters are. So, very practically, if I had a filter, I'll pull it back to the business side for a moment.
I had a filter for the minimum client engagement that I would accept. If it doesn't get to this number, it just doesn't work for me in the business. And so, I need to have that number as a filter. If you can't at least meet this financial number, it just doesn't work. And as the business evolved and grew, that threshold moved up over time. And so, there was a financial metric. For some others, it's a time-energy metric kind of thing. I just really don't enjoy doing that. And it takes away...sucks my soul away. So, I'm just not going to do that anymore. I'm going to hire someone to do it if it's a thing I can delegate, or I'm just going to say no because I just really don't enjoy doing that and the way I feel after I do the thing. So...
Carl: Hold on to that one for a minute. Let me tell you a quick story because I think that's really interesting. I have a really good friend who's a really well-known author. He sold millions of copies of his books, and I asked him to come on a podcast with me. And he said...and it took him a while to reply, and I was sort of like, "This is interesting. He finally replies like, "Can I...?" And the email was sort of dripping with angst. He was like, "Can I just be really honest with you?" He's like...
Michael: So that means no.
Carl: Yeah. He was like, "I don't like being on Zoom calls, and I don't like setting up the camera, and I don't like sitting there, and I don't like the pressure of people listening." He's like, "I'm going to come on, and what am I going to sell?" He's like, "What am I going to sell? Seven books, and I keep $3 a book. It's $21." He's like, "You what I love is talking to you." His language, "Could we just get together for a beer and have a conversation? I like that." And I thought that was super interesting from what you're pointing to an energy thing. I don't really like doing it.
And here it's...this is another interesting angle because sometimes we feel like we should do certain things for exposure, any of us. Come speak to the Kiwanis Club, or come speak to the Chamber of Commerce, or...And we feel like, "Boy, we got to accept any exposure we can get." I sort of enjoyed, years ago starting telling people, like, "Exposure can kill you." Or, "I'm overexposed. I don't need any more exposure." But I think it's interesting to think about, like...It turns out just because somebody is offering you something really nice that will lead to possibly, maybe something, it doesn't mean you have to do something that you don't enjoy. So back to your, sort of, energy thing. Or, like, I don't like doing that.
Michael: But the second thing that I found that comes with...first, it was creating the filters just to get clear. I need $3,000 per client, or my business just isn't going to work. The second thing...So, first, it was just sort of a clarity moment for me. Like, "Okay. Really, where do I have to draw this line of where I'm going to say yes and where I'm going to say no?" The trick I found next that...at least is for how this worked and played out for me, the next thing that happened was that when someone would ask to work with me, I would say, "Well, I have a minimum fee of $3,000. That's what we've determined at the firm as necessary in order to be able to do our best work with clients." I would essentially blame, like, "This is where the firm set the minimum." And the funny thing at the time was that I controlled that business and where the minimums were. So, it's like, "The firm says I can't do this because the minimum has to be $3,000." It's your firm. You could make that number or any number that you want. But for some weird reason, when I could blame the firm...even if the firm was me, when I could blame the firm, it's like, "Look, this isn't personal. I'm not rejecting you personally. This is..." – right, I hate to say it – "This isn't personal, it's business. The business needs to be able to do this. And so, I'm not able to make exceptions because it's not viable for the business."
And I found this weird effect where I could blame that this is what the business needs, and it made it feel like it was less about me in a way that was comfortable, which I then amplified down to well, the other thing better than that is, well then I'm just going to put the minimums on my website and just be really clear about them. And frankly, that was the biggest shift, to me, because once I put the minimums on the website, people that didn't want to pay that much stopped calling. And then I didn't have to say no very much because they filtered themselves out. And then I found a few who started coming through anyways. So, we actually added a field to the intake form that says something like...I can't remember exactly what the wording was, but, "I acknowledge and am comfortable with the fee minimum that is stated on the website." And they had to check that to go through the intake process to schedule an intro meeting. So, I made them explicitly acknowledge that they were comfortable with the minimums so that I could further filter out who was getting in front of me. That in essence I found the easiest way to not balk in the moment of saying no is to not put myself in a position where I need to say no.
Saying "No" By Crystallizing Priorities [14:14]
Carl: Yeah. How do you apply that to other areas? So, let's think about other...And I'm actually quite curious about...I stumbled upon this because...this idea of the no club. There's a great book.
Michael: The no club.
Carl: Yeah, it's called The No Club, and the subtitle is, "Putting a Stop to Women's Dead-end Work." And I'm sort of curious about this idea of the non-promotable work and our need to take on tasks that go unrewarded. And so, I'm curious about this in the setting of a firm. I'm curious about this in the setting of the really good things we get asked to do in our community. We could go all the way to PTA club, soccer coach. We go to pro bono financial planning work, away from clients, but how do we say...? So, I first got introduced to the no club because, again, I asked somebody to be a guest on something I was doing, and nobody had ever said no. In three years, we did it every month, nobody had ever said no.
And I actually asked for permission to share this story. But I still feel like I want to protect the person who...She's a really prominent professor at an Ivy League school. I asked, and she said no. And I said, "You're the first person who's ever said no. I'm a big fan of your work. Count me as an even bigger fan. Can I just ask you some questions about saying no?" And she said, "Yeah, I'm part of a no club." She said, "I have to be very disciplined about what I say yes to. And I'm glad I impressed you with my no. I have a no club that's really helped me hone in on the skill." So...
Michael: How did she reject you in the first place...
Carl: Well, here's what she said, the....
Michael: ...that you were like, curiosity was piqued, and you appreciated the dignified no, that you like her more because of it?
Carl: Yeah. And keep in mind, I've saved this email, this was so impressive to me. And I've got another example from how Brene Brown said no. So, this professor...
Michael: I love that most of us struggle with rejection, and you literally collect the rejection.
Carl: I know. I'm a huge fan of these rejections. So, this professor got introduced by another very prominent professor. And the other very prominent professor was like, "Hey, I just had this conversation with him. You guys would love [to talk]." It was all good. And I was like, "Great. Let's do it." And then she said, "It's lovely to meet you. Thank you for the message. I'm deeply absorbed in running my research center at, insert university, these days, and I do a very limited number of outside engagements. If you would like to meet my speaker's agent, here's their address. You can talk to them about availability and rates. Best, signed." There was no opening.
And that's when I was like, "I love this reply. You're officially the first person who's ever said no. This is incredible. Can I ask you some more questions about it?" And then that led me to some of the research that was done by some of her colleagues or friends and pointing to this being a particularly challenging problem, unrewarded or uncompensated work, and it being a particularly challenging problem with women. But it led me to this idea of, tactically, how have you had to say no to things that are good? How have you learned to say no to, "Can you speak at this event? Can you help with the PTA project? Can you...?" How do you say no?
Michael: So just very practically, the way it's evolved for me, I have gotten clearer and clearer over time about what my capacity is. My capacity for just like working hours and how many hours of stuff I can do between worky work and volunteer work and some nonprofit boards that I'm involved with in other organizations. I've gotten really clear about my capacity mostly through a span of multiple years of misjudging the capacity and experiencing the pain and then going like, "Okay. Well, that was clearly too much. We need to rein that in and adjust." But a few years of that and some self-reflection on that, I've gotten really clear on where my capacity is. And so, the language that's really evolved for me is simply to say, like, "Thank you so much for the opportunity, but I don't have capacity to do that, to support on that, to be involved in that right now," whatever the contextually appropriate language is.
Carl: Nothing. No justification, no long email. No...
Michael: Yeah. "I'm sorry, I just don't have capacity to take that on right now." And because I still typically feel some moral obligation to those in need, I will usually at least try to say like, "And here's somewhere else you can go. And here's another resource." If I have an easy way to say, "I'm sorry, I don't have capacity, and here's someone else who might be able to help," I'll at least keep you moving along on your journey as best I can. I think I mostly do that to assuage my own guilt. But I want to be helpful. I'm wired that way.
Carl: Either way, it's okay to do it either way, right? It was just to get rid of your own guilt, that's fine, but it's still helpful.
Michael: But, "I don't have capacity to do that, to take that on," whatever the thing is, has become a go-to language for me that I just...I guess I could have said that at any point along the way, but I've gotten such clarity on where my capacity is. It's very authentic. It feels authentic to me. I'm not just saying this is a blow-off. I'm like, "No, really, of all the things I'm doing, I just don't have capacity to do that, to take that on. Here's someone else you might talk to instead."
Carl: No, I love that.
Michael: And...
Carl: And I'm just...Go ahead.
Michael: No. Sorry. I was just going to add, in the spirit of what you commented on the rejection from the professor, I've never had negative pushback or blowback on that. It's the fascinating thing. Even for the one you read, what was it? Like, was it, "I'm deeply absorbed in my research," or something to that?
Carl: "I'm running the research center at the university," yep.
Michael: Yeah. So, it's fine to me, I've seen a few or experienced a few, sort of, rejection declines like that over time. "I'm so sorry, but my priorities right now are my work and my son's senior year of high school. I really don't have room to do anything else right now because I'm focusing on those things." And I've known a few people that have sent forth rejections like that. And every single time, to a T, the response is almost always something to the effect of..."Well, damn, someday I hope I have my stuff figured out as well as that person does." They got their priorities clear.
Carl: Admiration. Yes.
Michael: I'm a walking hot mess all the time. Not the fear version that we have. Oh my gosh, if I say that, they're going to be angry, they're going to be pissed off. They're going to be upset about their rejection. I'm like, no, every time I've been on the other end of one of those rejections, I just respect them more and go, "Wow, I hope someday I can articulate my priorities clearly enough to be as good at just saying, 'I'm sorry, these are my priorities, and you don't fit. Moving on.'"
Carl: Yeah. No, I agree. I first started thinking about this probably...it was probably 27 years ago when I had this experience with my neighbor, who was an emergency room doctor. He was also the teacher of the year at the med school, and everybody loved him, and so they kept asking him to do more and more stuff. And his wife finally bought a bunch of 3-by-5 cards, index cards, and she just wrote "no" on every one of them and kept a stack next to his laundry. And every morning she would slide that into his scrubs as he would get dressed to go to work. And she would make him practice. She's like, "If anybody asks you to do anything, just pull the card out, look at it, shrug your shoulders, and read it out loud. You just say, 'No'."
So I think find...because again, why do we care about this? If you're building a business, you've built a business, you're running into capacity issues at any level, getting laser focused on what really matters to you and what will drive the results that you're after, whatever those are, if the results are growth, that's fine. If the results are more time, whatever those results are, if you're clear about those results, then the next step is I've got to learn how to say no. I got to learn how to say no to anything that doesn't align with those results. And I think we get so much angst...I finally wrote a template email that said...and I stole this from Brene Brown. It said, "One of the things I love about my work is that I get to hear from so many people, so many readers. One of the things that drives me crazy about my work is I simply can't respond to every single one of them. So, thank you so much."
Michael: Oh, that's beautiful.
Carl: Well, because it's true. You know what I mean? It kills me that I get asked to read probably two or three books a week in email, and it kills me. And part of it kills me because it's like, I want to read those books. I want...but if I did that, I would never get to do my own work, let alone sleep, let alone see my kid. So, I've played with different versions of it. If I say yes to every single one of these things that comes in, I have to say no to my kids. That felt a little too guilt trippy.
Carl: So, I just designed this idea of like...And so, I would be thinking, if I was an advisor and I got asked to do something outside of my laser focus area of opportunity, I would just say, like you, either A, "I don't have capacity, or that's just a little tangential, or it's just a little outside of what I'm focused on right now. In fact, there are two or three people..."
And the other thing I would do, I was just thinking as you were talking, I would open my ChatGPT account, I'd start a project right now called the No Project. And every single time I had to say no, I'd go into the No Project, talk it through, and say, "Help me write an email," until I refined, refined, refined. So I don't have to think about it. This is a classic cold start problem, right? Saying no is...
Michael: How do I start putting the language down in this email to make it gracious and not awkward?
Carl: Yeah. And it's emotional. You got to get all in your feelings. If you can just go into Chat and go, "Hey, I'm all in my feelings. I feel deeply about this person. I really want to help. It kills me that I have to say no. But I have to say no. Can you look at all the other times we've said no inside this project? Write me a short, sweet email saying no to this person, and in fact, give them two or three suggestions on where they could look for help for this particular request." I would do that all day long.
Outsourcing Who Says No [26:08]
Michael: Interesting. The other thing I would note is a thread to this conversation...I don't know how much this generalizes to others, but the other thing I'm struck by with your professor example was she opened the door to possibility, right? It was like, "I do accept a few engagements a year, and here's my speaker's bureau person, right?" So, it's like, I do accept a few things a year, but I'm not going to be the one that says yes or no. I'm assuming behind the scenes she still decides what she's taking with her speaker's bureau. But she just created a situation where even if the answer is going to end up being no, she won't have to say it.
Carl: Well, yeah, and...
Michael: Someone else will say it. The speaker's bureau will say, "I'm so sorry, Ms. So-and-so is not available for your engagement." And I will admit, I've seen a power of this as I...When I got to the point that I hired an executive assistant and put them in my inbox to help manage emails, including a lot of things I get requested on in various ways, I know all the people, and I have the relationships, which makes it so much harder to say no to people about things, even when I've got good reasons and they would probably be fine with the no. I still feel bad for all the various relationshipy reasons. She doesn't have that history with those folks. So, she doesn't get caught up in the same emotions that I do. She's lovely and a very personal person, but just there's baggage that we have in saying no to someone that other people saying no on our behalf don't have. And it becomes much easier for them to say no than for me to say no.
And so that doesn't work in a lot of situations. I can't always insert someone from the workplace into my personal situations who I'd also like to say no to. But that principle of, if you are your own worst enemy about not saying no, can you put some barriers in place so that you don't set yourself up to have that problem in the first place? So, I put minimums all over the place on everything with a lot of prominence so I don't put myself in a position where I need to say no and then compromise my own filters or thresholds. I've tried to put team members in places to help filter things where I can guide them. Here's what I want to say yes to and what I want to say no to. Now, please help me do that because I'm going to compromise myself if I put myself in the position. And it helps.
Carl: Totally. Tactically, we could just call that outsource the no, right? And you see this with orthodontists. My orthodontist was a friend of mine. I rode bikes with him. I went to the office, I did the initial interview, the initial whatever exam. He came by for three minutes, double-checked everything in the initial exam. Then I got whisked away to a room where pricing came up, and guess who wasn't there, right? My friend, the orthodontist. And so, I asked because I'm curious about these sorts of things. I'm like, "Where is Jeff, and why isn't he here?" And they said, "Well, the reason he's not here is because everyone knows Jeff, and everyone wants a Jeff discount." If Jeff were here, he would do this for free for everybody because that's...So, this is not unusual to put something between...
Michael: And there's even kind of a like, "No. I actually sort of respect Jeff because that's a good point. And he is such a nice guy. He probably would blow up his whole business doing it for free for everyone. Good for Jeff."
Carl: Good for Jeff. That's right.
Michael: Good for Jeff.
Carl: Be like Jeff.
Saying "No" To Your Manager As A Junior Advisor (By Setting Priorities Collaboratively) [29:56]
Carl: And the other thing I loved about this professor's email was what she really was doing is taking uncompensated, unrewarded work and saying, "Hey, if you want this, here's my availability and rates." And I think it's very interesting to think through as a junior advisor, as an associate advisor, as somebody working in admin or office management in any of these firms, just thinking carefully through, how do you navigate saying no if it's not part of your job, but you also want to be a good team player? That's where this stuff gets really challenging. Saying no and putting minimums up, that's hard. But how do you navigate saying no...? And I'm thinking of some of the conversations I've had recently, mainly here at retreats here at the house, where it's actually not part of someone's job to do some things they were being asked to do.
And here in this professor's email...and I have to think every word of this was very carefully done. I'm super focused on this thing that's really important. If you would like this other thing, reach out here, and here's my rates and availability. So how would you see it applying to somebody who is being asked to do things, and not by their boss, because that's a different discussion, but somebody who's being asked to do things that's not really their jobs? How would this change? How would you go about it?
Michael: I'm struggling to time with this only because a lot of it still depends on who's on the other side of the conversation and whether or not power dynamics are kind of underway, right? A coworker is different than senior coworkers is potentially different than boss, and...
Carl: Let me clear it up because I'm super curious about this. Let's pretend like it actually is your boss, and they've given you a very clear set of strategic initiatives and maybe even KPIs that they're measuring you against. And you know what you need to do to get this. And they keep asking you to do stuff that's outside of that. It doesn't measure against this. What do you think about that conversation?
Michael: I mean, like, I come back to, I mean, just reflecting that back to them, You know, Joe, you've told me that it's a priority to do, you know, to get the financial plans prepped and shipped and that it's really important that we get through two a week or three a week or whatever the number is, but I'm already spending all of my time doing that. So when you ask me to do this other thing, I don't have time in my schedule. The only thing that can give is that I don't do one of the plans that you told me was really important to do. So I feel like I have conflicted directions from you and I just need you to re-sort what's really priority for me here.
Like do you want me to keep doing the three plans a week you said you want or do you want me to do two plans a week and the other thing? Because I'm putting in the hours and working the full time and it just doesn't all fit.
Carl: Love that. Yeah, that seems exactly...
Michael: You tell me it's your firm, Mr. or Mrs. Boss, like it's your call, just you tell me how to prioritize the things with the limited time that I've got and I will do those things. But I don't know how to pick the ones that are in conflict of each other. So I need you to tell me which one's really the priority.
Carl: Yeah, Love that. And again, I think mostly back to your original comment that anytime you get an email from somebody like this, you actually are like, go Jeff. You know, I think a reasonable supervisor or boss – and "reasonable" in giant asterisks and quotes – like, a reasonable supervisor boss respects that, right? Understands like, "Oh, I didn't realize I was putting you in that position." And then has, especially if somebody comes to you without that challenge and has proposed solutions, like I can either do this or this, what would you like me to do? And you're now in a position of strategy and creativity rather than just saying no and fighting. Yeah. Yeah, I love that.
Michael: To me, the question of this is we come towards the end for folks that are listening. What... you don't have to do it my way, but my approach to these, what are your filters? I need to generate this much revenue per client. I will only sit on one nonprofit board at a time. So when the second and third and the fourth come because the community wants community things like "I'm so sorry, I have capacity for one nonprofit board at any particular time, but I'm already on such and such. And I just don't have capacity to add another one. I'll let you know if I drop the other one and create some capacity for myself. So, I only do two things for exposure in the community every month. So I'm sorry, I can't do the Chamber of commerce because I already did the Kiwanis Club and Rotary this month."
Right. Whatever, whatever it is, like, what are your filters? Where is your capacity for the things that you get asked? Because if you can create clarity, and then just be able to say, "I'm sorry, my capacity is blank and I'm already at that capacity," right? "My capacities, I'm deeply... I can't do my research and the other speaking things at the same time. I'm deeply absorbed in my, running my research center. Please go here." It gets a lot easier to filter when you're really clear on where your capacity limits are. And the powerful thing, and I think the takeaway I hope folks have from this, when you can get clear about what your filters are and articulate them to someone else, we get worried that they're going to be upset we said no. And my experience almost universally is everyone else just goes, "Wow, I wish I had as much clarity about my priorities as that person does."
Carl: Totally. No, I love that. And again, we end up at the same place that these are often, often the biggest problem with any of these things we're addressing is in our own heads. You know, it turns out if you just speak clearly and kindly. Right, is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind? Right, if I can speak true, directly, kindly.
Michael: It tends to go okay.
Carl: It tends to be just fine. And if it doesn't, right, like we can live with that because we can't keep doing too much all the time. Cheers Michael. That was super fun.
Michael: Awesome. Thank you Carl.
Carl: Thanks
