#1381 - Are You Saying NO Enough?

for episode number 1381 , happy Wednesday . We are talking about a simple question , a simple but profound question . Are you saying no enough ? I know when I started this journey , i used to hear people who would say something similar to that .

They would say as you become more successful or as your time gets spread more thin , whatever it is , you have to understand the importance of no , and I was like I don't know . I feel like saying yes all the time is probably the answer , because you get more opportunities . You want to say yes to everything is to get more opportunities .

But now I also understand at a deep level that no is one of the most powerful words you can use , because it helps you stay in alignment with what you believe is best , and sometimes the opportunities you're getting or the pressures that you're getting are not aligned for your short term and or long term goals . So that's what we're talking about today .

Alan , you had a story for this episode . I'm going to kick it to you . No , okay , next level nation . We will talk to you tomorrow .

Nice 22 plus , crushed it , absolutely crushed it , and we were at the next level Hope Foundation event and she's one of the volunteers and there is always pizza at those events , because why wouldn't we have pizza at the event ? Excellent pizza , okay , and I am a huge fan . I talk about pizza all the time . Kevin and I , both huge fan , love it .

So , anyways , we're getting exercise with all the kids , we're doing arts and crafts , we're doing football , we're doing basketball , we're doing a wiffle ball What was the name of that Pickle ball ?

She's like , yeah , i'm like you're in your cut . So she was two weeks left in her I don't remember how long I probably should know , since I was her coach in this whole process . She had two weeks left And she's like , honestly , i think I just want to speed up , i'm suffering too much . This sucks .

And I said , okay , drop your calories by another hundred , let's do it in two weeks instead of three weeks . So she said okay , and then , as pizza was coming , she was really , really hungry And she just decided to leave . So she said , no , i'm not going to stay .

And so that's really the point that I want to make with that whole story is one , to celebrate Bianca , but two and more importantly , that is what it takes to hit goals . You have to say no to pizza If you want to lose 22 pounds . And again , obviously you can eat pizza and lose 22 pounds .

So I don't mean that literally , but figuratively speaking , whenever you have goals . So Q two is about to end . Q two finishes in five days , kevin told me today as of this recording as of this recording . And Q three is about to start . Excuse me at the burp , excuse me Long one . Okay , production team . If you want to edit that out , feel free .

If not , i totally understand . So Q three is about to start And in Q three I do this thing called dreamlining . I do it with myself , i do it with Kevin , i do it with all of the NLU team , i do it with my clients And it's a very simple process . We did an episode about it . If you want to go listen to that episode , you can , i think .

Do you remember the title ? Four words , i think it was four words you need to know .

So set some milestones towards those goals in 2023 . And then the last thing is inch pebbles the powers and the pebbles , as Amy Lenious once said , it next level live . Inch pebbles are what are you doing on a day-to-day basis to get to the milestones ? The milestones are what are you doing each quarter to get to the goals ? The goals are annual .

And then the goals annual goals are to get you to your dreams . And so , to bring this all down to the original point of this thing is the moment that you have these inch pebbles , milestones , goals and dreams , you have to align with them , and what alignment means is saying no to anything that is a person-placed thing or idea outside of alignment with that .

In this case , it was pizza's coming . Bianca doesn't want to eat extra calories . Pizza has a lot of calories , unfortunately and so she left the event . Totally understandable . I respect it And she hit her goal . And the question is for all of our listeners is would she have hit her goal if she wasn't willing to say no to pizza ?

I don't know if I'm going to have the discipline to actually not have pizza . So let me make the decision to take discipline off the table completely . And I really think , when we come to , for a lot of us that's what saying no is , because saying no so , just as an example And it's interesting we're going to do an episode .

We're doing an episode tomorrow talking about boundaries , so I'm very excited . But Saturday I was going to see one of my buddies and Taren's family had a cookout . So I went to the cookout and I was like I'm not eating , i'm not going to have anything , i'm not eating , i'm saving all my calories for tonight .

I'm saving all my calories for tonight , but that's just a level of discipline where I can't not go . Nobody cares that I'm dieting enough to say , yeah , you know what ? No worries , you know , although it's somebody's birthday party , like , just don't come to stay home . You know we respect I'm sure they did respect my diet .

Nobody pressured me , but it was that thought of . Okay . Unfortunately , or however you want to look at it , i do not have the ability to make the decision not to be there . So I have to go into this with the understanding that my discipline is going to have to be higher than normal .

I think a lot of us , when it comes to discipline , i hear a little tucky-wucky . When it comes to discipline , it's as important for saying no as it is for saying yes to the right things . I mean , think about that . if you say yes to all the right things and you say no to all the wrong things , you're not going to make any progress .

And let me bring this full circle here for a second . We have an equation called the manifestation equation . At next-level University , we did a monthly meetup on it once . I will put the link in the show notes To this framework . It's a 10-step Circle cycle of how to manifest your dreams , and it's the best that I've ever come up with . And it's not just me .

Kevin helped , emilia helped . It's been really just 34 years of trying to figure out how this all works , but one of the steps in it . I always go through this with my clients , and every single one of them has one that's they're just bad at and then , and then We find the root cause of why they're not achieving their goals .

So , for me , i was really good at the strategy part . I was really good at setting intentions . I believed in myself . Xyz . I really sucked at strict alignment . One of the one of the steps It's a 10-step formula .

One of the steps is strict alignment , and you'll see that I think it's step seven and all as it is is being able to say no to the wrong person's places , things and ideas That are outside of alignment with your goal . For me , i it wasn't self-belief wasn't the issue , i didn't not have strategy .

It was that I was basically not able to say no to relationships that were not aligned . I was , you know , for example , i Have a fitness show coming up and I'm invited to the beach and I know there's gonna be a bunch of food there and alcohol , and I couldn't say no . I Didn't have boundaries . I struggled so much to say no .

I think saying yes to the right things is actually easier than saying no to the wrong ones , and I think that when you get good at saying no , thank you , to the wrong person's places , things and ideas and Again , wrong is contextual , based on your goal obviously . Then I think it actually becomes way easier to be disciplined .

I Would argue that I am pretty consistent and disciplined . I am , but it's because I've set up My life in a way where it makes it easier to be consistent and disciplined . And I'll give one example . So I talked on the last episode about how last night at 11 pm Tariel was puking . We took her to the veterinary ER and I was up until 5 30 in the morning .

And today I have not been super disciplined . I didn't get good sleep . I'm struggling , but normally my life is very designed For discipline and for success and for alignment . So saying no gets easier because I've kind of designed it that way , whereas last night , i mean it was off the rails , i'm not , we didn't wake up . We didn't wake up until 11 30 am .

So When you start to simplify your life by saying no more , it creates the space that you need to Get to know yourself , to grow , to learn to , to make the things that are that you value most . And the last piece I'll share here is something that is Exeggler used to talk about and I it's one of my favorite concepts .

In the entire world a Lot of people are what he referred to as a wandering generality . They don't know who they are , they don't know where they're headed , they don't know their core values , they don't know their core aspirations , they don't know their core beliefs . It's like someone driving around without a GPS They're Carefree , wandering , but they're lost .

What he says is you want to be a meaningful specific , and I do believe that this is what Growing up is about . When you're a kid , you don't really know who you are . You don't know what sports you love , yet You don't know what sports you don't like . You don't know what you're good at and not good at .

You don't know whether you like you know The jocks or the nerds , or the or the whatever . You don't know where you fit in , yet You don't understand the world yet . Blah , blah , blah .

And then eventually you get older , you get older , you get older and you're supposed to become More of a meaningful specific , which is someone who knows their goals , knows their dreams , knows who they are But , more importantly , knows who they're not , knows what they value but , more importantly , knows what they don't .

And this is where it gets a little slippery , because if you're for the environment , that means you're against fossil fuels . Everything has a pro and a con . If you're for inclusivity , you're most likely , you know , against religions that don't let certain people come And everything has that , and so everything has its opposite .

So the more meaningful and specific you become about who you are , what you value and what you want to achieve , the more you're going to have resistance to the opposite And the harder it's going to be to say no . But you have to do it . You have to do it . If I could go back and talk to my younger self Kev this is it man , i'm telling you .

I was saying this in the car yesterday . I was driving with Emilia I said I wasted so much time . I wasted so much time on friendships that really weren't even good for me . They weren't even good friendships . In hindsight . Some of them really weren't .

Some of those people treated me like crap , quite frankly , and I didn't know that at the time because I didn't know any different . But , god , i wish I had someone to say listen , just say no to that stuff . That stuff isn't serving you , you don't even value it . You're doing it because you feel bad or you feel guilty or whatever , and do yourself a favor .

Your future self is going to thank you . Say no to more stuff seriously .

You're not having pizza . Yeah , guilt trip , like I don't want to waste pizza . Can you hear the thunder outside ?

If you can design something where you have to say , no less awesome , if you can't , maybe go in with the understanding that I'm really absolutely in my discipline here , i think that's a beneficial thing to talk about . Next , love of Nation . As of July 6th , how many meetups have we have ? I don't know . We've been doing it for what ? 15 months , 16 months ?

Every single month , if you're a new listener every single month 19 . Jesus 19 . Every single month we have a meetup and this meetup is something where we'll dive deeper into something we've talked about on the podcast . But it's totally private , it doesn't get recorded , it's not live streamed anywhere .

It's completely private where we can build a really good sense of safety behind the scenes . So you can bring questions , you don't have to have your camera on , you can . You can participate , you don't have to . This month's theme three things everyone should know about their intimate partner . So we know a lot about our cell phones .

We know a lot about social media . We know a lot about what's going on in the world , but a lot of us don't know what's going on around households . So we will talk about that .

I want to align with my goals and stop wandering around with these other persons , places , things and ideas that are not in alignment with that . I want more discipline . I want a more simple life . That's more powerful . This article was literally written for you .

It was written for me because I needed it most , and now I'm deploying that with my clients and listeners . So the link will be in the show notes How to express uncomfortable

truths . It's a how to , because a lot of people like , well , you got to get outside your comfort zone , yeah , i know , but like how , how do I do it ?

And so for me , getting outside my comfort zone was expressing uncomfortable truths When it's I don't , i can't go to the grad party , i can't go to that wedding across the country , i can't , i can't do X , y , z or I don't want to wear . That's not aligned for me , which isn't even more powerful truth . It's not aligned for me .

And then how do you deal with the guilt trips afterwards ? So how to express uncomfortable truths ? The link will be in the show notes and thank you for dealing with the fact that I obviously cannot talk today .

As always , we love you , we appreciate you , grateful for each and every one of you and an NLU . We learn fans , we have family . We will talk to you all tomorrow .