[00:00:00] Lauren Brollier Newton: Hey, welcome. Ooh, I got a topic for you today. Cause we’re going to talk about saying no. Now, most of the coaches that I served, we serve at Brave Thinking Institute. We serve men and women. And most of the coaches that I serve are women. And I don’t know if it’s just a woman thing or if this is across every gender or what the deal is, but I will tell you, saying no to something that doesn’t feel life giving, something you don’t want to do can be so hard for some coaches, especially women. I don’t know if that’s a thing, but this episode is all about the power of saying no, mastering selectivity. So again, we’re not just saying no cause we can, because we want to become a successful coaching cause we really want to help our clients.
[00:00:42] Lauren Brollier Newton: So power of saying no, mastering selectivity to catapult success, that you will find I think by the end of this episode that your willingness and ability to say no is going to help the mission, not the other way around.
[00:00:56] Lauren Brollier Newton: So I’m going to start with a quote. It’s a little bit of a longer quote. Stick with me because [00:01:00] I think it’s so insightful, so important when it comes to saying no.
[00:01:04] Lauren Brollier Newton: This is a quote from Steve Jobs. He said, people think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on, but that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred of other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done, as the things that we have done. Because innovation is saying no to a thousand things.
[00:01:28] Lauren Brollier Newton: Especially the more successful you get, you cannot say yes to everything. When you think of someone like Tony Robbins, there’s probably thousands and thousands of people who want to interview him, be coached by him. He cannot say yes to everything because at the level of fact, as powerful of spiritual beings as, we are also in a human body and there is a bandwidth where we have a certain amount of time in a day, and we have got to be selective about that.
[00:01:53] Lauren Brollier Newton: I think for the beginning coach, it can be harder to know what to say no to because you’re just getting started and you’d love to attract [00:02:00] clients. And so there’s this temptation that, Oh, if I say yes to everything, that somehow, something’s going to stick and I’m going to be successful. So today, I really want to teach you about the art of selectivity, the art of saying no in service of the business that you’re dreaming of having.
[00:02:16] Lauren Brollier Newton: Now, if you’ve already got a successful, I know many of you who listen, have 6 figure, 7 figure businesses. You are going to get more and more constraint around what you can say yes to and what needs to be delegated and all of that, so really listen with an open ear here.
[00:02:31] Lauren Brollier Newton: So let’s just start by why it can be so hard to say no. Why can it feel so hard to say no to things? If you come across a decision moment, and you’re wanting to say no, but you’re struggling with the no, open up your mind and notice what you’re noticing and notice what you’re thinking is doing.
[00:02:48] Lauren Brollier Newton: Often, you’re thinking a thought like someone’s going to be mad at me. They’re going to think I’m something if I say no. If I say no, who else is going to do it? I’m good at this. I should just do [00:03:00] it because I can get it done fast and blah, blah, blah. Any of those thoughts are not goal driven, vision driven, success driven thoughts. There’s someone’s going to judge me or it’s not going to work if I don’t do it.
[00:03:11] Lauren Brollier Newton: And so again, coming back time and time again, especially on this podcast, being an abundant coach, those are not abundant thoughts, first and foremost. But to be an abundant coach, you can’t be thinking from constriction and condition all the time. It’s just going to have a life limit. it. And it’s not going to work.
[00:03:30] Lauren Brollier Newton: So, why it can be so hard to say no? It’s because you’re thinking is telling you that something bad is going to happen if you say no, that you’re going to look like something, or someone’s going to think something, or it’s not going to get done.
[00:03:40] Lauren Brollier Newton: I once was working with a client. It was fascinating. This is why it’s so important to notice what you’re thinking and notice why you don’t say no. And she was feeling like she wasn’t being successful. And she was frustrated with the state of her coaching business. And as her coach, I was saying, tell me more about what you think is getting in the way of you having this successful [00:04:00] business. And she said, I work from home, and I can never get anything done. Because there’s just so many distractions at home.
[00:04:05] Lauren Brollier Newton: And so, I’ve trained you on this in a different episode before, something that we can ask is tell me more about that. Cause when she’s saying there’s all these distractions, I can make an assumption. It’s laundry, it’s TV, it’s this, it’s that. But I want to know what is her experience happening.
[00:04:18] Lauren Brollier Newton: So I asked her, tell me more. And she said, I always am getting interrupted in my office because I have a dog, and I’m constantly worrying about the dog and the dog is coming in and out. And my husband and this and that. And I said, okay, so I’m hearing you say that your family, your dog and your husband are the primary people you live with seem to be distracting you all day long.
[00:04:37] Lauren Brollier Newton: She said, yes, I feel like I can’t get any work done. So I said to her, as one option, I said, would you be willing to mastermind some ideas of how we might change us? And she said, yeah. And I said, one simple solution that I see is close your door and have work hours. These are the hours in which, I’m not on dog duty, and I’m not on husband duty either, that these are the hours where I’m working.
[00:04:59] Lauren Brollier Newton: Cause if you think [00:05:00] about working from home, I don’t want to go off on a big work from home tangent here, but if you think about working from home, if you were in an office, your husband and your dog would not be coming in and connecting with you all day, every day.
[00:05:09] Lauren Brollier Newton: Now, for many of us, I love working from home. I’m working from home because I get to be with my husband way more, and I love that. So I know that’s benefits, but it can also be a drawback. Don’t create some structure around that. So I said to her, could it be possible that for a certain amount of hours a day that your office door is closed, and there’s no dog duty during that time?
[00:05:29] Lauren Brollier Newton: And when your door is closed, your husband knows that this is a time where you’re working. And she responded and she said, I can’t do that. I really don’t think I can do that. And I said, okay, again, tell me more. And she said, I don’t want to shut them out of my life. And it was so severe. If I shut my door for work, I’m shutting them out of my life.
[00:05:46] Lauren Brollier Newton: That to me was a big leap. And I said, Oh, so this is the fear. It’s always going to be a fear driven decision about saying no to interruptions. And the fear was that, they will think that she’s shutting them out of her life. And her [00:06:00] big underlying paradigm limiting belief fear was that she was going to lose her moments of connections if she actually closed her door and got work done.
[00:06:09] Lauren Brollier Newton: How powerful is it? So this is why we’re going into this. Why is it hard to say no? Because there’s all these underlying beliefs and fears about the other people in our life, or that we’re saying no to, or that we’re saying yes to, that if we don’t examine them, they’re running our ability to create success or not.
[00:06:26] Lauren Brollier Newton: So it was really great. First of all, great for this client to go in depth here, good coaching on my part that I’m asking questions that are actually leading to this kind of depth. So then, here’s how we solve that. And I’m telling you this because you can apply these same questions that I asked her and these same conclusions that we drew in your own life and also with your clients.
[00:06:48] Lauren Brollier Newton: So I said to her, is it possible? We’re not saying it’s for sure going to happen. We’re just saying is one possibility in this infinite universe that you could maintain a deep and beautiful [00:07:00] connection, and close your door for a few hours a day and get work done. Is there a possible way that we can create that makes that feel good?
[00:07:07] Lauren Brollier Newton: And I think I said to her, and could it even be better, because you’re not getting annoyed with them and feeling disrupted with them. But the time you actually do spend with them is quality time rather than just disruptive energy time. And we worked through a plan for her to feel really good about being able to close her door.
[00:07:23] Lauren Brollier Newton: So you want to know when you’re thinking about saying no, and you’re not going to say no, because whatever reason you think you can’t say no, let’s unlock some of the things that are going on below the surface, so that you can transform those, so you can feel empowered to say no. Something else I think you have to have in place, especially as a business owner, when you’re thinking about the things to say yes to, and the things to say no to, every business owner, especially in a coaching business should have not just a business plan. Like I’m going to do this many webinars. I’m going to invite this many people. This is my growth plan. I’m not talking about a plan, so just take that away if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m [00:08:00] talking about a vision, a dream. What is your vision for your business with a magic wand? What would you most love to create? And have that written down. Because not only is it going to help you manifest it faster, not only is it going to take help you take action, but when you know what your vision is, every time a possibility comes in, you can measure it against that vision and decide if you’re going to say yes to it or you’re going to say no to it. If it doesn’t serve the vision, I’m saying no. If it does serve the vision, then I’m going to consider saying yes.
[00:08:32] Lauren Brollier Newton: So for example, I’m going to give you a perfect example of this from my own coaching business. I’m going to take us back to early 2019, I had been coaching for exactly a year. I had generated a good amount of income. I think I had generated probably by that point, about $60,000 in my coaching business. And about half of that year, I was working full time. So I thought $60,000, that’s a great start to a coaching business because I didn’t make that much as a [00:09:00] teacher. And I had all the tax benefits and all the good stuff. I’m taking home more. I can decide what to do with it. It was awesome. So I makes this $60,000. And I had up until then, every single month, I’ve been having a small in person workshop. So when I was dreaming up 2019, I was dreaming up going bigger, having bigger workshops. Instead of just a handful of people at each workshop, I would have maybe every other month or quarterly workshops where a large amount of people would come to the workshop. That was my dream for 2019.
[00:09:31] Lauren Brollier Newton: My dream for 2019 was also to speak on more stages because I knew when I was speaking, that was my number one client attraction tool, whether I was hosting the workshop or I was on someone else’s stage. So those were my two main visions for 2019. My vision was to generate multiple 6 figures as a coach. My vision was to, like I said, speak, do workshops. My vision was to serve probably within a hundred clients that year. And so I’m just visioning what I would absolutely love. [00:10:00] And I decided I wasn’t going to work on Fridays that year. I might work on projects or admin or things like that, but I wasn’t going to be client facing on Fridays. So I had a vision of what my year would look like.
[00:10:10] Lauren Brollier Newton: So, as opportunities started to come in, I now had a blueprint that I could work off of a vision. And does this match the vision? And this is why I think without a very specific vision and a continual revisiting of that vision, it can be easy as a coach with all the many opportunities, become an expert in LinkedIn, learn how to DM, learn how to TikTok, learn how to give a presentation in five minutes, learn how to network. There can be a million different classes you take, strategies you use, but does it match the vision?
[00:10:43] Lauren Brollier Newton: So for example, in that particular year, I had the opportunity to do a social media, study course, whatever. And it actually looked great. I’m like, Oh, I would love to improve my social media skills. But when I looked at what my main initiatives were, and I asked myself, do [00:11:00] I believe that improving my social media skills to this extent will actually fulfill my goal of speaking on more stages, doing workshops, taking Fridays off. Do I really believe that’s an alignment?
[00:11:12] Lauren Brollier Newton: Now you could say, Hey, if you got good at social media, you would attract more people and it would fill that. But when I went within myself, I could see that feels a little bit more like a distraction than a thing that’s actually going to serve what my mission is this year.
[00:11:25] Lauren Brollier Newton: And so, that was a no moment for me. And so, you’re going to want to have a very clear vision of what you’re doing in your business this year. What are you putting your primary focus on ,and when opportunities come, which they will, does this really serve the model that I’m using? The thing that I would love to be doing. So you definitely want to have a vision, so that you know what to say yes to or no to, because it becomes like your North star.
[00:11:50] Lauren Brollier Newton: The third thing is another way to know what to say yes to, or what to say no to, is to notice for what I would call expansion [00:12:00] or contraction.
[00:12:01] Lauren Brollier Newton: For example, an opportunity comes across your desk. You think about you vision, putting it on your calendar and living that opportunity out, does it feel life giving to you? Do you think I would absolutely love to do that? I’m thrilled to do that. Or does it feel a little bit more, I don’t know. It sounds okay. Is it expansive or is it contractive?
[00:12:23] Lauren Brollier Newton: Now, important lesson in here, something can be expansive and you can be scared at the same time. Something can feel life giving to you and terrifying at the same time.
[00:12:32] Lauren Brollier Newton: I remember one time, Mary Morrissey asked me to speak on her virtual stage at DreamBuilder live. It felt amazingly expansive to me. And yet when I heard that there were going to be more than 5,000 people listening, my freaking nervous system got super scared. The fear itself, speaking and making a difference, expansive. Did it trigger my nervous system of Oh, there’s some fear there? Yes. That doesn’t mean it’s constrictive. It means something is expansive, but I’ve never done that [00:13:00] before. So my nervous system is like, Hey, this is unknown, there’s a safety mechanism that pops in there. And so something can be both expansive and scary at the same time. It doesn’t mean I’m going to say no, because it’s scary. We could do a whole episode on fear, but let me just say, fear is not a stop sign. It’s a qualifier, Mary would say.
[00:13:17] Lauren Brollier Newton: So I did the speaking engagement. It was awesome. There’s a part of me that wanted to throw up before I did it, but I did it. So contraction is different. Contraction is just, there’s no part of me that wants to do that. Not because I’m afraid of it, but just because it’s not landing for me. It’s not resonating for me.
[00:13:32] Lauren Brollier Newton: For example, I use this example a lot. It’s a little bit dramatic, but I think it’s a good example. I used to teach school. If you said to me, Lauren, we will give you a million dollars, but you have to go back and teach school for a year. That does not feel expansive to me.
[00:13:46] Lauren Brollier Newton: I taught for eight years. I feel so grateful for the experience, the mentors I had, the kids I met, but there’s no part of me that wants to go back and teach in a classroom. Even with a million dollars, that doesn’t feel life giving to me. It doesn’t feel expansive. That’s a no for me. [00:14:00] And so, you can just feel how does this opportunity feel when you try it on. And you’re going to get your answers that way of should you say yes or should you say no.
[00:14:08] Lauren Brollier Newton: So, if you are still feeling afraid of saying no, I went over the first thing and the office door closed and all that, but I know there’s going to be some of you who are listening to this and saying, I still feel bad about saying no. Someone wants me to do something and I say no. Someone invites me somewhere and I say no. I get an opportunity and I say, no. I feel bad about that, Lauren, I can’t help myself. I get that you’re saying that, all the things you took me through, but I still feel guilty. What do I do?
[00:14:35] Lauren Brollier Newton: So I want to introduce you into the idea that there is no private good. Here’s what I mean by that. In this universe, there is very clear vibration of good.
[00:14:46] Lauren Brollier Newton: What is good? What feels expansive? And it can’t be that something is terrible for someone else and good for you. Not really good. So you could say, Oh, I’ve seen business people, screw someone else over so they can get theirs. [00:15:00] But is that truly a universal vibration of good? No, it’s a vibration of greed.
[00:15:05] Lauren Brollier Newton: That’s not good. It wasn’t good for the business person because ultimately they’re operating on the vibration of greed. So I want you to think vibrationally, there is no private good. Meaning, it can’t be good for only one person and bad for everybody else. That’s not how this beautiful, exquisite universe works.
[00:15:21] Lauren Brollier Newton: Do people go in and screw it up sometimes? Of course they do, but that’s not really a vibration of good. If somebody breaks into your car and steals from you. Is it really good for them? They’re a person having to break into a car. No. So there’s no private good. It can’t be good for one person, bad for the rest.
[00:15:39] Lauren Brollier Newton: So let me give you an example of how this might work in your life. I had a client once who lived in a little house, bought a house, had a little office in it. She was a coach consultant, more of a consultant. And she had a sister who was in an abusive relationship. Her family was trying to help the sister get out of this relationship.
[00:15:59] Lauren Brollier Newton: So my client [00:16:00] said, I think I’m going to let my sister and her son come live with me for a little bit. And I don’t know if I intuitively just had a hit in this moment, I didn’t react like, Oh, you’re going to do that. I didn’t react like that, but I just said to myself, that can absolutely be an option.
[00:16:12] Lauren Brollier Newton: I just want to make sure before you make that decision, does it feel expansive to you, life giving to you, to have your sister and son come live with you. I just want to gut check that and make sure that feels like an expansive thing for you. And she said, no, not really. If there were other options, I wouldn’t do it.
[00:16:27] Lauren Brollier Newton: In fact, her child has a lot of challenges and I work from home, and I think it’s going to be a big challenge, but I want to help my sister get out of this relationship. So you can see here, she’s thinking, it’s okay for me to be uncomfortable. And she didn’t use the word suffer, but suffer a little bit, for the good of my sister and her son.
[00:16:45] Lauren Brollier Newton: Now, I explained this example to her that there is no private good. It can’t be bad for you. And the way she said it was way more significant than that. I’m making it seem like she was just like, Oh, I wouldn’t really love it. No, she was very concerned about having them come live with her. And the fact that she works from [00:17:00] home, and it’s a small house, and she was already dreading it, but she wanted to help her sister, and it wasn’t expansive to her, so I gave her the no private good example. It can’t be good for your sister and her son and bad for you. There’s one vibration of good.
[00:17:14] Lauren Brollier Newton: And if you’re constricted and off that there, that’s not going to be good for them ultimately. So let’s think of some other ideas. Could there be a way that you feel amazing and your sister feels amazing? She doesn’t want to be in a place where she’s not wanted. What would you be willing to mastermind and brainstorm some additional ideas to help your sister?
[00:17:33] Lauren Brollier Newton: To make a long story short, they did get help for the sister. There was a perfect solution. The sister and the son were thrilled and it didn’t include having to move in with my client. So we always want to be before we’re saying yes or no, get rid of the guilt, get rid of everything.
[00:17:46] Lauren Brollier Newton: There’s always possibilities. And get really involved in what you would love. And know that’s going to be a win for the other person too. All right.
[00:17:53] Lauren Brollier Newton: Let me say one more thing about no private good. Just a very similar example. I was working with a coach who was [00:18:00] wanting to write her book and start her business. And she was a high level executive for a long time, and really wanted to start the consulting side of her business. So I was helping her and I was coaching around becoming a coach. And she was taking care of her elderly parents, very similar thing. And feeling all this guilt about not being there enough.
[00:18:20] Lauren Brollier Newton: And when she is there, she’s tired, and I’ve got to take care of them, and I’ve got to be the only one. So again, enter this no private good. You’re suffering, you’re burnt out, you want to pull your hair out. That’s not good for your parents. I know you think it’s good because you’re helping them, but it’s ultimately not good for them to have a daughter who’s making herself sick. That’s not a vibration of good.
[00:18:40] Lauren Brollier Newton: And so, all we did is a simple brainstorm. So what’s the outcome you’d love to see? Why do you feel like you have to take care of your parents? You want them to be safe. You want them to be fed. You want them to be taken care of. So let’s paint a vision that your parents are safe, and taken care of, and enjoying their life. And do you feel like it has to be you? I know you [00:19:00] feel like you do think that right now, but in an infinite universe with infinite possibilities, would it have to be you? Or would you be thrilled if they were happy, safe, taking care of loved, and you didn’t have to be the only one doing it?
[00:19:12] Lauren Brollier Newton: She’s, Oh no, I’d love that. So we have this vision, parents safe, taking care of loved, enjoying their life, meals are cooked for them, blah, blah, blah. Okay. So now, we ask the question. What steps can I take to achieve that vision? Now, one idea is, I take care of them. Sure. But we came up with, I think by the time we finished masterminding, we had a list of 14 or 15 ideas of what she could do to support her parents that didn’t necessarily just have to involve her.
[00:19:40] Lauren Brollier Newton: And there were a couple ideas that just jumped off the page at her. I can act on these like tomorrow. And she was so excited, and she was so thrilled. So I want you when you’re thinking about saying no, if you’re noticing yourself partnering with period at the end of the sentence, it’s like it has to be me and it has to be this way, and really get clear about that with yourself. All right. [00:20:00]
[00:20:00] Lauren Brollier Newton: Final thing about saying no that can be challenging for a coach. I mentioned this earlier, but I’m going to bring it back around here is, it’s easy to get shiny object syndrome. Oh, there’s this webinar about this over here. Webinar about that over here, this over here, this strategy, that strategy, this group of people who are meeting and practicing together and this and that.
[00:20:17] Lauren Brollier Newton: And ultimately, you’re like shooting yourself in the foot, because doing all those things usually means you don’t implement all of them. And not implementing means not creating success and results. And the other thing is most of the time you’ve got to try on a strategy long enough to get it to work. It doesn’t work the first time.
[00:20:37] Lauren Brollier Newton: And then you get shiny objects. And you’re like, let me try this and let me try that. And let me try this and let me try that. And nothing works.
[00:20:42] Lauren Brollier Newton: I want to tell you a story about a client that really illustrates this because there’s a deeper rooted issue when you get shiny objects syndrome, that’s not what you would think.
[00:20:50] Lauren Brollier Newton: I had a client, we coached one-to-one together. So every week we would have a one-to-one call. I was taking her through a VIP program of mine. Every week, we would come up with some great steps [00:21:00] she could take to grow her coaching business. And we would come up with those steps. She would feel really expansive about it. We did it in an expansive way. And she’d come back the next week, and she would say, Oh, I decided not to do those because I decided to do this. And it was always something shiny object. There was a webinar, someone was teaching on a LinkedIn training, or there was this, or there was that. Let me be clear, I’m not saying don’t expand your horizons and learn, but only if you’re going to implement it. If you’re going to do something with it to help people and grow your business. So we’d always come up with these great ideas that served her vision that were right on point. And then she’d get distracted and come back and say, I didn’t take the action.
[00:21:36] Lauren Brollier Newton: And so finally, one day, after seeing that this was a pattern, I said to her, do I have permission to be rigorous with you? And when I say rigorous with you, it’s going to be more in the category of ass kicking, is that okay? And I always say that. Before I’m going to give a tougher coaching, I always preface it with, would it be okay with you if I did that? If not, it’s okay. She said, yes, absolutely. And I just pointed out to her, [00:22:00] every week, we come up with great tools, a great plan. You don’t do it. You get shiny object syndrome. And then you come back and say, I’m not being this while I haven’t enrolled any clients.
[00:22:07] Lauren Brollier Newton: She was like, Oh, she’s wow. I didn’t see it, but now that you say it, wow, okay. I just invited her to an inquiry of, what do you think that’s about? Let’s think about that. And I think she didn’t know in the moment, but the next week she came back to her coaching session and she said, I know what it is. I really know what it is. I’m like, okay, great. What is it? And she said, I just realized that deep down, I actually have a fear of enrolling clients. Cause I’m afraid I’m not going to be good enough to coach them. Mind blown.
[00:22:36] Lauren Brollier Newton: So what her thing was is if I do the actions, I know, Lauren, the actions that you and I come up with together are absolutely going to grow my business. Deep down, I’m freaking terrified of that because I’m scared I’m not going to be able to serve clients, scared I’m not responsible enough. Scared. Scared. Scared. Okay. Let’s get to that. Let’s transform that fear.
[00:22:54] Lauren Brollier Newton: So if you’re a coach that gets shiny object syndrome, and you’re saying yes to everything, [00:23:00] something that’s going to help you to say no is to understand what’s really going on. It’s not that dissimilar from the closing the office door story. But I’m really inviting you to reflect on this. Don’t just turn off this podcast and then go on to the same old crap. Really, ask yourself if that’s you, if you identify within some of these things we’ve talked about. What’s the step you’re going to take?
[00:23:21] Lauren Brollier Newton: Maybe it’s some deep reflection because you’ve got to know, what am I really afraid of here? Maybe it’s just, there’s some things that you feel constrictive to you and you felt guilty so you said yes to them. And now, you’re going to go back and say, no. This is very important. This is really good.
[00:23:35] Lauren Brollier Newton: Take this, apply it, use it with your own clients. I am holding for you that now, everything on your calendar is going to be there because it serves the vision, and because it’s life giving to you.
[00:23:46] Lauren Brollier Newton: I love y’all very much. And I will see you in the next episode.
