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Yes is a Liability in the Future
Yes is a Liability
You heard that right, “Yes” is a liability.
This insights newsletter is just a straight essay to hopefully help you reflect and rethink your commitments. It is an important message that I encourage you to read till the end. It is the blending of many philosophies, but with a twist that I hope will resonate with you as much as it did with me.
Yes is a Liability.
The Commitment Business
We are all in the commitment making and keeping business. This is one of the simplest ways to look at it.
We make commitments to our friends and family, and then we then either keep them or we don’t. We do the same thing in business. We make a commitment to a customer and either keep it or break it. More importantly, we even make commitments to ourselves and either honor those commitments or we fail ourselves.
I can tell what you are personally committed to by the results that you get in all aspects of your life.
The same goes for the businesses that we interface with daily. At Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, they are committed to excellent service. McDonald’s is committed to amazing consistency in food product delivery. SpaceX is committed to lowering the cost of launching things into orbit. They are each making and keeping these commitments.
Do You Trust Yourself?
When you are looking to make a personal transformation for growth you are a making and keeping commitments with yourself. After you make a commitment to yourself, can you trust yourself to keep it? Are you confident that you will get to the goal, on time, and fulfill your dreams? Can you trust yourself that when you say you are going to do something, you do it?
If you are making and keeping commitments with yourself, then you are compounding your confidence and strengthening your resolve and beliefs about yourself. This is largely what schooling is or should be about. Why should you learn calculus (or convince your kids to learn calculus)? You are not likely to encounter calculus in the future. This is about trusting yourself to make a commitment, do something hard, and keep the commitment to yourself. Learning calculus is a confidence building exercise and not an exercise in learning math to prepare you for a future career (unless of course you really are going into engineering, etc.).
Doing hard things is where you grow. You make a commitment to become more and either do or do not. You learn about yourself, which is the most important learning in the world.
How do you get better at making and keeping commitments?
The key is to know when to say, “Yes” and when to say “No”. You are where you focus your time and attention. To do more, you must become more. But you must make time for success and growth. So, you become what you say “Yes” to, and you are also what you say “No” to.
When you say “Yes” you are making a commitment in the future. Hopefully, you are saying “yes” to the right things for the results you desire. That’s because “Yes” is a liability. “Yes” is a debt to be paid in the future with your time and attention — it is a commitment made. When you say “No” you are making time to succeed in other avenues of your life — to the commitments you have already made. In this regard, “No” is a credit that you get to redeem in the future. “No” is a chance for another choice that furthers your growth in the areas that are important to you.
When you say “Yes” you truly should be thinking about when and where does the bill come due. When you say “Yes” that liability gets paid by you or someone else in your life. In the extreme, when you say “Yes” to scrolling on TikTok you are paying for that liability somewhere else in your life. A more mundane choice would be saying “Yes” to a random coffee meeting with someone you don’t really want to meet —this liability is now diverting your energy, time, and emotions before, during, and after the meeting. These are the liabilities that add up in business and in life, and can become more costly to you than you initially think. At least that’s what I’ve come to learn about myself and those meetings — those types of “Yeses”.
It’s time to think about those liabilities and who is paying for them when you say “Yes” to something that you really shouldn’t be saying “Yes” to; is it your children, your spouse, yourself, or your customer? Those bills are costly and not even money could repay the balance due.
Pick One: Retain Pathways or Close Pathways
Saying “Yes” either takes you on a pathway you want to go down or down a path away from where you wish to be. Saying “No” is about retaining and keeping time for the pathways to transformation.
We are so intensely protective of our money and property, but not the most valuable thing, our time and attention.
Say '“Yes” carefully.
What are you committed to this week? Month? Year?
What are you making time for?
What are you NOT making time for?
Where’s your attention directed?
What’s a “Yes” for you and where you want to go?
And what is a big “No” that gives you credits for the future you want?
After you answer these questions, ask yourself “Why?”
When you answer these questions, you know where you are going. Those are your commitments. You will know what you are committed to by the results that you produce.
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