Rob Dube (00:21):
Hello everyone. My name is Rob Dube and I am here with Gino Wickman. Gino, it's so good to see you.
Gino Wickman (00:28):
Right back at you, brother.
Rob Dube (00:29):
All right. Today, we are going to discuss the art of saying no, which in my opinion, is definitely one of your favorite topics in this life.
Gino Wickman (00:41):
Yes, it is. It is. Yes, it is.
Rob Dube (00:44):
What I will do is start by referencing the famous quote by Warren Buffett, which goes like this. "The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything." All right, it's all you now.
Gino Wickman (01:04):
Well, interesting. I want to make sure that I say something new or different in this episode, and I don't know that I have anything new or different, and so I'm excited to see what gets jarred loose, okay? Because foundationally, we've talked about this, and foundationally, I just want to say out loud that, number one, the way you will become expert at saying no is to say no to the first five Disciplines. So, everything in the first five Disciplines. I want to start with that foundational understanding. Number two is, I want to remind you, and maybe everyone, that I am masterful at this in my business life. My aha in the last year is that I'm not masterful in my personal life. So, I look forward to learning and uncovering some things in this conversation we're about to have. And so, I would love it and ask that you do challenge me, take the reins a little bit, share some of your perspectives because I feel like something's going to jar loose that's maybe new and/or different. But I want to start with that basic premise.
(02:18):
So, what comes up for me first is people-pleasing, okay? And so, for those that suffer from being a people pleaser, they will struggle the most with saying no. And this was my aha because in business, I am not a people pleaser. I'm pretty direct. In my personal life, I am a people pleaser, And it's like it was almost depressing to discover that it was roughly a year ago. But what's beautiful about that is now with that awareness, I'm on this path to go to the root of why and where these people-pleasing tendencies came from, and just kind of shedding all of that and becoming stronger in setting personal boundaries, telling people no in my personal life, and I'm starting to get really good at it. So, there's my jumping off point, and I'd love to hear what that prompts for you and let's see where this journey takes us.
Rob Dube (03:15):
Well, I mean, in the group coaching setting, when we're going through the say no discipline for that session-
Gino Wickman (03:22):
Yeah.
Rob Dube (03:23):
... I notice contraction from people. And so, a lot of people will ask questions during the session or offline to talk about strategies for how they can better say no. So, how can they get past feeling badly about saying to a team member, "I can't help you with that. You've got to do that on your own." Family issues, family events that they don't feel energy going to, what's the strategy? How do you gracefully say no? So, I wondered about that, mainly from you in business, I was thinking about how do you gracefully say no to people, because I know you're doing that a lot. But now you're getting me thinking about how are you gracefully saying it in your personal life too?
Gino Wickman (04:12):
Yeah. Yeah, and let's go back to, again, the foundation, say no to everything in the first five disciplines. So, again, Ten-Year Thinking, Discipline One. Take time off, number two. Know thyself, number three. Be still, number four. Know your 100%. And so, bring all that together, and again, I'm going to go to the business side and why I'm so good at this is my ten-year thinking is so clear in business. Again, I take the perfect amount of time off for my energy. I know myself clearly, I'm being still regularly and I know my 100%. And so, all of a sudden, there are all the boundaries. If there's anything in business that's going to affect my time off, my 100%, what's in my ten-year thinking, it's just like slam dunk. And so, I just don't want to lose sight of the power of those first five Disciplines and those boundaries.
(05:00):
Now, let's go to the personal life. It's less clear in my personal life, and I take great pride in saying no to people in my business life and I'm masterful at it. So, something else we've talked about is whenever you say no, make sure you offer something. So, when you're saying no to someone and you break their heart, they always go away from me in business feeling good about the no because I offered something that might solve their problem but didn't require any of my time. In my personal life, the best way to look at it is my personal life is very full, and it's just full and it's a blessing. We spend a lot of time, I spend a lot of time with family and friends. And I love spending time with myself, I love spending time with family, I love spending time with friends.
(05:51):
There's a lot going on. We travel a lot, and so it is full and I just cannot fit it all in. And so, I have been trying to fit it in forever to the point where it was having an effect on me. And now, I just simply look at all of those things, now we bring ten-year thinking into that, of all these wonderful opportunities, what is most important? And some things just have to give. And so, it's a little less family time, really with more extended family. It's a little less time with some friends, which is kind of painful. It's a little less time with a certain group of friends, which is painful. Requests that if I don't have the time in my personal life that I have to say no to, then there's also problems that need to be solved in my personal life with maybe friends or family that need help. That's really important.
(06:45):
And so, I need to lean into those and carve out time. So, it's getting clearer and clearer. And so, I don't know if that helps. I don't know if I'm being clear, but this is all this swirl of stuff that I've been dealing with and it's just really getting clearer.
Rob Dube (06:57):
Yeah.
Gino Wickman (06:57):
And my decisiveness is getting so much better.
Rob Dube (07:00):
Yeah. I'll share just a little bit on my end because really, it's just our two perspectives to help maybe get the listener's mind going.
Gino Wickman (07:09):
Yes. Yeah.
Rob Dube (07:10):
So, for me, a couple of things come to mind. My schedule is fairly regimented. I like to be, kind of getting ready for bed around 8:00 PM. So, for my friends, which are most of them who like to go to dinner at 7:00 PM, I'm a lost case. It's just not going to work for me. And so, I remember very early on struggling with that and feeling like I was letting them down, and I was the one person in the world who wanted to go to bed early and everyone else was wanting to stay up later. But what I learned from consistently doing that and just saying, "I know, I'm a little wacky about this whole thing, but this is how I feel." I actually, my friends started to say, "Hey, we know you like to go to bed earlier. How about if we do 6:00? Could you compromise and then you can get home by 8:30?" Or something like that. So, they really respected that. So, that's one way. The other thing is with family engagements. Actually, family was easier for me than business. I was the opposite.
Gino Wickman (08:16):
Wow, interesting.
Rob Dube (08:17):
Yeah, because I just started saying, "That is not serving me." Any sort of drama kind of situations that I was going to be involved within family, I just felt like I was wasting my life away in those situations. So, I just started saying, "We just aren't going to make it to that particular event," and some family members just stopped inviting, which was great.
Gino Wickman (08:39):
Yes.
Rob Dube (08:39):
Not a problem.
Gino Wickman (08:40):
Here, here.
Rob Dube (08:41):
So, those are a couple of things that came to mind for me. Now, I do want to say, if you're struggling with saying no, I think during your discipline number four, be still time, you can really think about, you can allow and listen and tune in to how could I be really graceful if it's somebody that you deeply care about and you feel like you're really going to disappoint them, but you know in your heart of hearts it's the right thing for you.
Gino Wickman (09:12):
Yeah.
Rob Dube (09:12):
So, that's one way you could bring in one of the disciplines.
Gino Wickman (09:16):
Yeah, and you jarred something loose there. Recently, I just had a conversation and we were talking about structure in our personal lives, and we were talking about making time for friends. And this particular person wasn't making enough time for friends, and then I realized how I structure that and what my boundaries are. And what I realized that I do is I carve out one night a week for friends. Now, one night a week, that night, similar to you, is 4:00 to 6:00, just having a couple drinks with a buddy or a few buddies or whatever it is. But once a week, and that's my capacity is once a week with friends. Twice a week is too much and zero times a week is not enough because to me, I really believe in a balanced life. So, I love spending time with friends, family, and myself, and that's my kind of personal balance.
(10:14):
So, that once a week thing really came clear and that's been a formula of mine for a long time and it really works for me. And so, the thought there is, I pay attention to what takes me out of whack. It's just something like my energy's off, my central nervous system is off, and I just find that if I'm getting together with friends too often, it just kind of throws me out of whack. Or just the opposite, not spending enough time with friendly members and myself. And so, I've got time for one time a week. And so, what's funny about that is, there was a few of us having the conversation and there's this pushback on that, "Oh, you're so rigid and you're so structured." Listen, it works for me. So, knock my rigidity and my structured nature, but that just absolutely works for me and doesn't take me out of whack or knock me out of whack for what that's worth.
(11:04):
So, there's an example of a very specific boundary that works really well for me. And then, the challenge is, I'm only getting together with friends roughly once a week. I got a lot of friends, and so then it gets really challenging making the time for everybody when there isn't a whole heck of a lot of time.
Rob Dube (11:22):
Do you feel that for the friends that you would love to make more time for, do they understand the flow of your life?
Gino Wickman (11:33):
Yeah. I've never really explained that. So, if any of them listen to this-
Rob Dube (11:36):
Yeah. Well, maybe they'll listen.
Gino Wickman (11:37):
... episode, they're on to me.
Rob Dube (11:39):
I like that.
Gino Wickman (11:40):
But I like that you're saying that because I am going to share that because sometimes they'll reach out, and I also travel a bit, mostly personal travel. And so sometimes I'm saying, "Yeah, let's get together, have a drink," and it's three weeks out. So, I feel kind of bad when they want to get together tomorrow, and I'd love to do that. So, yeah, I think sharing that is probably, I've never really specifically shared that.
Rob Dube (12:05):
One of the things you were talking about is this balance and harmony in your life. I can't remember if you used the word harmony, but that's what popped in my head, and energy. In preparing for this, I was thinking about discovery number two, decisions are made from love or fear. And I was thinking about the levels, and in this art of saying no, do we sometimes find ourselves blocked, and is that why we're saying yes? And is there more work to do for us? In other words, is there an opportunity to get curious, slow yourself down, quiet yourself and ask yourself some questions like what's going on under the surface here? Why do I feel like I need to say yes? And am I really tuning into the energy that is driving me towards, they say a full body yes. You know in your full body yes to something. There's a no question about it.
Gino Wickman (13:06):
Yeah.
Rob Dube (13:06):
Yeah, does anything come up for you on that?
Gino Wickman (13:08):
Well, I think it's just the same thing. Going back to what I suggested at the beginning is that, if you are a people pleaser, as I realized I was in my personal life, you got to get to the root of where the people pleasing comes from, and that's exactly that. You're just digging into why I feel so guilty telling someone no, because there shouldn't be guilt. If it's the best decision for you, there should be no guilt. So, why the guilt? What's at the root of that? And I think if you chase it down, it's going to go back to age seven and something to do with your parents or some situation in your life that you just couldn't say no for whatever reason. And so that's, you're saying exactly what I was saying in a much more eloquent way, and I'm oversimplifying it, but that is exactly it. Go to the root of why you are a people pleaser and why you feel the need to say yes.
Rob Dube (13:56):
For everything. I think about things like we've been having discussions a lot about speaking engagements and getting paid, not getting paid, when do you decide? I mean, you always get paid. So, for the listeners, Gino always gets paid, but sometimes I would do some things that would help us get the word out about the 10 Disciplines, getting paid, not getting paid.
Gino Wickman (14:18):
Yeah.
Rob Dube (14:18):
I can feel the energy shift inside of me when I'm getting paid, when I'm not getting paid, and starting to pay closer attention to that. And for those that are newer into getting into speaking, just to use this as an example, is what's really driving you to do it at no cost? I mean, maybe there's good business reasons, but are there other reasons beyond that? So, these are things that you can tap into. I'm trying to give the listener some ideas, some scenarios in business because we get faced with many opportunities.
Gino Wickman (14:53):
Yeah.
Rob Dube (14:53):
And there's a lot of good ones and it's hard to say no.
Gino Wickman (14:55):
Yeah. Well, let me grab that because it's interesting as you're sharing, speaking as an example, and I'm mentoring somebody on our team, as you know, about speaking and how to structure themselves as a speaker, in charge as a speaker. And so, my formula has been very simple for more than 20 years, okay? And so, again, you're just going to, I'm going to let you into my psyche around this because it's so simple, because most speakers, when they start out, it's so complex. Their fee structure is complex, everything's negotiable, and that's just not acceptable to me. And so, going back to day one, when I decided I was going to start to speak, I decided that my speaking fee was going to be five grand. So, my fee plus travel, and that was it. But I also had a very particular boundary, okay? And so this, I want to make clear, and that is I was never going to do less than three talks a year and never more than five talks per year.
(15:51):
And so, I've done that now for more than 20 years. And so, the beauty of that and those boundaries is I'm able to determine my supply and demand. And so, when demand grew, where that $5,000 was getting me more than five talks a year, I would raise my fee, raise my fee, raise my fee, raise my fee, and I've done that for 22 years. And so, my fee is considerably higher than that. But to this day, I never do less than three or more than five. And I just keep dialing that fee in to manage the supply and demand. And so, when I do get that call, Karen shared it with me, I think I turned down 60 speaking engagements last year. But what I do is I refer those to different levels of speaker and different types of content. But the point I'm making is, of those 60, there's five that apply real pressure.
(16:40):
"Hey Gino, why don't you give back? Hey, here's the reason you should charge less for this one." There's so many good reasons, but listen, I get all your reasons. With all due love and respect, I'm a businessman. This is how much time I have to jump on a plane and go speak per year, and I'm never going to do more than that. And so, I love you, but this is just my business model. And so, if that was clear, there's so much to that. But you can apply that to everything going on for you out there in business because everybody's tugging at you for your time, and what is your time worth? And so, you just got to set those boundaries. And so, people will say, "Well, that's easy for you." They look at where I am now. Listen, I was terrified 22 years ago just putting that in place. So, anyway, hopefully that made sense.
Rob Dube (17:28):
I know. I love that. And that's the art. I mean, that's how we started this whole thing.
Gino Wickman (17:32):
Here, here. Here, here.
Rob Dube (17:33):
All right, Gino. We're just about out of time. Anything else coming up for you on this one?
Gino Wickman (17:38):
I think that's it for me.
Rob Dube (17:39):
Okay. Well, to all the wonderful listeners out there, thanks as always for joining us and we look forward to seeing you next time. In the meantime, stay focused and much love.
Gino Wickman (17:50):
Thank you for listening in today. We truly appreciate you taking the time to spend with us, and please tune in for the next episode. Until then, if you'd like to see where you are on your True Self journey, go to ShedAndShinePodcast.com to take the True Self-assessment and receive personalized guidance. If you're all ready to begin your inner world journey with Rob and myself, please join us for the next round of the 10 Disciplines group coaching program. We wish you all the best in freeing your True Self, stay focused, and much love.
