One of the more surprising things people learn about me when they interview me is how often I say no.
That sounds strange coming from an entrepreneur.
Aren’t entrepreneurs supposed to say yes? Yes to opportunities. Yes to growth. Yes to networking. Yes to hustle. Yes to every customer, every invitation, every possibility.
But working for myself has taught me something different.
Balance doesn’t happen by accident.
When you work for yourself, every yes costs something. Usually time. Often energy. Sometimes peace.
So I say no to a lot of things.
Not because I’m lazy. Not because I’m ungrateful. Not because I don’t care.
I say no because every no creates space to fill with something better.
That “better” isn’t always productive. Sometimes it’s just life.
A movie with my husband.
An evening knitting.
A nice dinner.
A quiet afternoon.
Space to think.
Space to create.
Space to enjoy the business I worked so hard to build.
The point of working for myself wasn’t to become unavailable to myself.
That philosophy shows up in my work in practical ways.
There are things that need to happen to keep the business running that I simply don’t enjoy doing. So I hire people.
Delegation isn’t failure. It’s design.
Housekeeping? I hate dusting. So I pay someone else to do it.
That purchase isn’t about avoiding responsibility—it’s buying back time.
Time I can spend writing.
Time I can spend learning.
Time I can spend with people I love.
The same principle applies to opportunities.
People occasionally ask me to travel for speaking engagements.
Years ago, I might have automatically said yes.
Now?
If you want me to travel, you either need to compensate me enough that the tradeoff makes sense—or be located somewhere I’d genuinely enjoy visiting. Ideally? Both.
Travel isn’t just two hours of speaking. It’s preparation, airports, hotels, transit, recovery time, and days away from my family.
That’s a high price.
But technology gives us options. Want me to do a live Q&A? Great. Let’s do Zoom. One hour of meaningful interaction instead of several days lost to logistics.
That’s not saying no to people. That’s saying yes to a different way of working.
I use the same approach with my daily to-do list.
If I don’t want to do something—or don’t realistically have time to do it—I move it to another day.
People sometimes call that procrastination. I call it scheduling.
Because something interesting happens when you put things off, intentionally.
A surprising number of things never actually needed doing.
Other things turn out to matter and rise naturally to the top.
Deferring isn’t always avoidance. Sometimes it’s clarification.
You discover what’s essential by giving yourself permission not to do everything immediately.
Saying no with kindness isn’t about becoming closed off.
It’s about becoming intentional.
It’s recognizing that your calendar is a reflection of your values.
And if you fill every available space with obligations, there’s no room left for joy.
No room for relationships.
No room for curiosity.
No room for the things that make all the work worth doing.
Your life is finite.
Your time is finite.
Your energy is finite.
Spend them on purpose.
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