The power of "no"
Learning from the Book "Essentialism" by Greg McKeown
Hi there, Shiro here 👋
📌 Quick Update:
This week I finished started reading “24 Assets” by Daniel Priestley and started “Essentialism” by Greg McKeown & “The Possibility Principle” by Mel Schwartz.
I will be sharing a review of 24 assets very soon on Instagram and more insights on Twitter so make sure to follow there if you aren’t already. Would have shared it here but I prefer to keep these letter short and impactful. Let’s start with the learning of the week now…
🧠 Weekly Learning (s):
Have you ever said yes when you meant no simply to avoid conflict or friction? If you have, you are not alone. I‘m among you too. Navigating these moments with courage and grace is one of the most important skills to master - and one of the hardest.
So in today’s letter, I’m sharing 2 methods to say “no” softly I have learned from the book “Essentialism” and through engaging with many, many people almost daily on Instagram. The book has many other methods too but I’ll be sharing the most effective ones according to me. I hope these are going to help you someday…
The soft '“no” (or the “no but”). Whenever I receive some promotion request from an author which I feel doesn’t fit my audience or won’t be able to add much value to me and to my people, I often reply “no” like - “Thanks for reaching out, and I’m honored with your kind consideration. But, I won’t be able to proceed with the request as I’m already a bit overcommitted with other projects. Though I would love to work with you in the future someday. Thank you. Have a great day/weekend.” It works best as I don’t sound rude and able to save my time for more worthy books. 😉
I can’t do it but X might be interested. Sometimes I genuinely don’t feel like doing something with others like the IG QnA Live session. It just doesn’t fit my personality. In that case, I say like: “Hey mate, Thanks for reaching out but currently not into these but my friends X, Y, Z would be really happy to help you. Do reach out to them.” It also works because It feels like I helped them.
Did you find that useful? If yes, please let me know through a comment on this by using the “reply” button.
🖊 Quotes of the Week
“The right “no” spoken at the right time can change the course of history.” - Greg McKeown
“We can say no and regret for few minutes, or we can say yes and regret it for days, weeks, months or even years.” - Greg McKeown
“The only way out of this trap is to learn to say no firmly, resolutely, and yet gracefully.” - Greg McKeown
That’s all for today. I hope you got some great learnings today.
Liking this letter will help this letter to get discovered by others too.
Bye-bye for now. See you next Sunday.
Shiromani Kant (Readerpreneur)
Instagram // Twitter // YouTube // Amazon