The Power of No to Protect Your Peace
October 24, 2024
Glennon Doyle:
Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. If you have not listened to the last episode, please do because what we discovered in the last episode-
Amanda Doyle:
Unless you don’t want to.
Glennon Doyle:
Unless you don’t want to, unless it’s not a big yes for you, because what we’re discussing is how our lives would be so much more beautiful and our relationships would be so much more beautiful, and our work would be truer and we would have more peace if we learned to say yeses, nos, and maybes from who we actually are right now instead of from this fake created version of ourselves that we think we should be. Okay. If you want to hear an in-depth conversation about that concept, go back and listen to the last episode. If you get it already and you would just like to learn how to say more powerful yeses, nos, and maybes that are aligned with who you are and the vision of your life that you want to have instead of someone else’s vision, we are going to enter right now into a practical conversation about how to say no to what we don’t want in our lives, in a way that leaves us feeling like we haven’t abandoned ourselves, also in a way where we feel we haven’t abandoned people that we care about, opportunities that we care about.
How do we have, and both, I hope you have some ideas, sister, go.
Amanda Doyle:
Great. Super practical, super concrete. First one, we are going to start using I don’t as opposed to I can’t, okay. I don’t go out on Wednesdays. I don’t drink except on the weekend, whatever it is, I can’t, sounds super apologetic and like it’s an excuse that’s up for debate. This is actually two professors looked into this and researched it. I don’t know how to say their names. Patrick and Hendrick, whoever. They discovered this, okay, this is real, that I can’t comes across as an invitation to be convinced that you can.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh, you can do it, don’t worry. Whereas if you say, I don’t, it suggests that you have established for yourself certain rules and that you have conviction and stability around those, and people do not push on them. It also doesn’t feel personal to the asker. Would you like to go to the bar with me on Thursday? Oh, I don’t drink except for on the weekends, or I don’t drink. It is not about the person who asked you and the desire to be with them or not. It maintains that social connection. It just says that you have stability around this certain-
Glennon Doyle:
Love that, love that. Can’t suggests, oh, I wish I could, but I have all of these things that are out of my control that I may or may not explain to you. And my life is so out of control that I just can’t do it. But don’t implies a very regal, sovereign, you know yourself.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, self knowing I was going to say.
Glennon Doyle:
You know yourself and you’re introducing yourself to that other person instead of introducing that person to your hectic schedule.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
And it suggests also from, I use it for people who call me asking for money. I say, oh, your organization sounds amazing. I don’t commit over the phone to donations, so I’d like you to send me that in the mail. It doesn’t suggest that I need to alter my approach. It suggests, oh, that’s a bummer. If you can’t send me something, I can’t give to you. If you don’t send me something, I don’t give to you. So see if you can work around that and it ends the conversation.
Glennon Doyle:
It is. It ends the conversation in a nice way. In a way that is fair, feels fair.
Amanda Doyle:
And it’s legit. And I also, I don’t do that.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly.
Amanda Doyle:
But I do like to read and vet and understand. And so it’s accurate of me. It’s not a way to get out of it. It’s, I want to learn about your organization. Please send me the thing.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. But it’s also presupposing a prior boundary having been set. So that’s the other thing is, oh, this choice I have, I’m up in the air about it. It’s like, no, you are establishing that there was a boundary prior to this ask. There will be a boundary post this ask. So this isn’t a personal thing about them, the ask, this is a personal thing about where I am and who I am. I’m the kind of person that doesn’t do this.
Glennon Doyle:
Which makes it vulnerable. That’s why I like it. It’s like, like this or not, this is what I do or don’t do. I do that with texting because for so long I lived with, every time someone text me and I didn’t text back, I would think about the excuse I was going to make. I would come back three days later and say, oh, I’m sorry I was so busy. Which is another word of saying I can’t. It’s like, instead when I meet someone new now or anytime, someone texts me, the first thing I will do or I’ll say it on the phone or whatever we’re doing, I’ll say, I don’t hold myself to responding quickly to texts. That is a fact of who I am. I do not want to live in constant response. I just don’t do it. And it’s not because I can’t, it’s not because I’m busy. I’m rarely busy. I can sit around my house all day and I still don’t want to text back any person who texts me at any time.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s so good and it’s not pretending that you’re different. It’s not like, oh, so sorry, don’t know how I missed it. You’re like, I know exactly how I missed it. I don’t look at it.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. And if you’re someone for whom texting is an important part of a relationship and getting something back from somebody immediately is important to you. Me telling you that is an act of service to both of us because I’m not saying you should change who you are. This probably isn’t a good friendship to pursue. I’m not saying it’s right what I do. I’m saying it’s what I do.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s what I do. Be unsurprised. Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
The other thing I thought was interesting is that Columbia University found that people believed that their nose came across as really aggressive and threatening about themselves, but they found that our perceptions of our own assertiveness is unreliable. We actually think we are assertive enough or over-assertive, whereas others perceive us as under-assertive. So you have to actually understand that when you think you might be coming on too strong or confrontational, there’s a good chance that the other person does not see you that way.
Glennon Doyle:
Interesting.
Amanda Doyle:
Which is fascinating to me. Here’s the other thing, the people believe that the experts suggest that you actually tell the real reason that you’re saying no, which is very surprising.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, I need an example. What do you mean?
Amanda Doyle:
Like, Oh, I’m so busy or I have a lot going on or whatever, that actually saying, no, I am not going to come because I get really anxious in big groups. I’m not going to come because I’m super sensitive to noise, and so I do a lot better in quieter spaces. Whatever it is, allows a deeper intimacy with the person who’s asking you to do it, and it means that they’ll stop inviting you to things that you don’t like to do and instead start inviting you to things that you might like to do according to what you’ve told them. So then you’re not the person that never shows up. You’re the person that actually starts showing up because you’re being asked to come to things that are aligned with what you want.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh my God. It’s like we’re just constantly creating our own algorithm and when we don’t tell the truth about our thing, the algorithm goes to the wrong thing. It’s like the music thing presents a song and we fake press thumbs up. Every time we’re making an excuse, it’s not real. We’re fake pressing thumbs up, and then we wonder why we keep getting songs like that in our inbox. But if we are brave enough to press thumbs down and explain it correctly, then that shifts our algorithm with that other person or that company because they know us better.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes, that’s right. Just using the word because increases the chance that the other person will accept your reason for not doing it by 51%.
Glennon Doyle:
Wow.
Amanda Doyle:
Saying, I can’t come tonight because I promised myself that I was going to get some sleep.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s a good enough reason. Why do we think that’s not a good enough reason? So this is the opposite of what we’re always told on memes and stuff, that no is a complete sentence, which I think is a valid and interesting concept, and I understand why it’s important for women especially to hear that message. I just have never practically understood how it works. I’ve never been in a situation where someone says, Glennon, can you come to this party? Glennon, can you do this opportunity? Where it would feel good or appropriate for me just to write back the word no, period.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah. It’s interesting the things that I have found, and especially because we should talk about this next, but in the business context where, wouldn’t that be a world where your manager says, you take on this project and have it to me next week and you just write, no. I don’t see a world in that which that works super well in that way. So yeah, I have not seen that the research supports that that works that effectively for folks all the time.
Glennon Doyle:
No, it’s just like a sentence that we say in memes, which feels like no is a complete sentence and you’re like, okay, I guess grammatically I can agree with that.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, it is.
Glennon Doyle:
No, period, complete sentence.
Amanda Doyle:
Can you also start a sentence with because, because you could say no, period. Because… So anyway, yes. And then a lot of the phrases are a neutral no. Strive for a neutral no. So you want it to be not opening up. There’s a lot of temptation to try to soften the no with a little sandwich of softness and think that that’s going to get a better response. But they say that that suggests that you’re reluctantly saying no, or that you’re super open and flexible to change it. So it’s basically giving a false invitation to the other person to keep pushing.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. That’s fair.
Amanda Doyle:
So you want to clear to state why it’s a no today and if it is true that you think that things could change in the future, you’d be open to this the next year or the year later or next month or whatever, say that also.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
And that’s the neutral no. I don’t go out on Thursdays, and if you ever do that on the weekend, let me know.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s good. And I think it’s okay to feel like two things at once. I often say no, but feel nervous that if I say no, that person will never reach out to me again. And so Abby knows this. I’ll often say, no, I’m not in a season where I’m doing those things, but could you invite me again?
Amanda Doyle:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
And maybe they won’t, but that feels honest enough. It feels like that’s worked in a lot of times. If you’re actually feeling, I don’t want to do this, but I’m scared they won’t want me in the future and I want to be invited, you can say that. I feel like that’s vulnerable enough that people understand it because they often feel that way.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. Well, because you might also be in a weird period of your life. The last six months of our life has been bizarre. So saying, can you just come back to me in six months when I feel like I’ve settled down, or come back to me in a couple months if something comes up like this again, I’m hoping to be in a different place.
Glennon Doyle:
And it’s vulnerable.
Amanda Doyle:
I’ve said to people, I’m scared that because I keep saying, no, you are going to stop asking me.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
And I want to be your friend. I just don’t want to do these things that you’ve asked, and so I’m scared that you’re not going to keep asking me and I’m asking you to keep asking me. And that vulnerability, it’s like the other person is just scared of being vulnerable and looking like they’re asking you a lot and you’re saying no. So if you share vulnerability back to them, it’s a nice reciprocal relationship. They’re like, oh, we’re doing something here. It’s not just me asking and them saying no.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, it’s very like that whole soft front strong back thing. I like that in terms of responses. It’s like I know who I am, I know what I do and I don’t do, but no, period, no is a complete sentence. Feels like hard front, hard back. Making the other person feel like they aren’t an idiot for having asked you is a good thing too. And I think the beautiful thing is you know by their response, there’s only two options. One, they’re going to respect your decision and your no, and they’re going to respond in a way that reflects that respect and understanding and they get to know you better.
Amanda Doyle:
The no by itself is like, it’s actually totally invulnerable because it gives no information about who you are as a person. It doesn’t say anything about where you are in your life. It doesn’t say anything about what you want to do with that person. It’s a do not enter. It’s a we will not go further here.
Glennon Doyle:
And so there’s that option that the person responds and there’s a moment of beauty which I have experienced a billion times. And then the other option is that there’s not that, and the person responds in a way that shows that they didn’t respect your no and that they’re not seeing you as a human being, and they’re pissed. And then you can be a 100% sure that your no was right. I think that one of the things that happens is we say no in a way that feels like we have not abandoned ourselves and that we have respected everyone in the transaction, and we know our values and we’re saying no, and then the person on the other end responds in a negative way and then we are tempted to feel like shit and like we should have said yes.
That is to me the opposite of what that information is giving us. That information is giving us that we just avoided a fire. If you respectfully say no and the person in their response disregards and disrespects your no, you can smile and hug yourself and pat yourself on the back because you just avoided, you know your no was right. You do not try to further appease the person who is disrespecting your no. You say thank you so much, the end.
Amanda Doyle:
You could call me. Could call me.
I feel like you have gotten to the place, Glennon, where you have developed the confidence in this to, it’s actually become a way for you to be more connected with people.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. I think in all of our businesses, families, whatever, there’s this promise of if I do this, there’s a future. It’s a carrot. If I do this, more opportunities will come. If I do this, it’ll open up a door for something to happen in the future. The amount of people who say to me, if you do this, your life will change. This is a life changing opportunity. And there was a time in my life where if you told me something was a life-changing opportunity, I would’ve done it in a second. And now when someone tells me this is a life-changing opportunity, I say, get the hell away.
If it’s going to change my life, that’s the last thing I want to like my life. And I feel like there’s some element of that that’s in this. It’s like, Abby knows, if somebody says to me now, go to this because it’s a great opportunity for something in the… I’m like, no, no, no. No more carrots in my life. I want to know what it is. I want it to be self-contained. I’m going because I want to be with that person. The ends and the means are all in one bucket. I’m not anymore living like every opportunity is a carrot to something else that is fake and I don’t even want. If I’m making a decision about an opportunity or a call or an event or a coffee date, the only thing I’m thinking is what I want in that thing on its own. Connection with a friend.
Amanda Doyle:
Is that an end in and of itself.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. Not that it’s going to change my life. Anyway, those are two different concepts, but they’re in that thing. They’re in that story both.
Amanda Doyle:
You’ve reached a place in your life. It’s a good segue into the business conversation too, because in most people’s career and in most people’s employment situation, there’s less of a purist approach to ends and of themselves. There’s a lot of things that you do because this is an alignment with your professional goals or where you want to get within the company, or what you want to do creatively, or making those connections that you want to make because you want to work with that client, or whatever it is. So the saying no at work is a big deal, and I did a lot of research on this and they’re all pretty much saying the same thing.
When you get asked to do something or assigned something at work and you don’t, based on your current capacity and your current workload, you can’t fit that in and do a good job on that thing and also do a good job on the things that you’re currently doing. They basically all say that your job is to communicate your flexibility and openness to work on any of the projects and to give the lay of the land, and to ask what the prioritization should be.
Glennon Doyle:
Nice. So give us an example of what that sounds like. That’s so good.
Amanda Doyle:
So thanks for thinking of me for this opportunity. I’m currently working on X, Y, and Z. Is this new project more important than the three I’m working on now or more urgent? What would you like me to reprioritize to get this new project done? Here’s the three things that are in my pipeline. Which one should be deprioritized?
Glennon Doyle:
Alison is really good at that. Alison on our team.
Amanda Doyle:
Alison’s really good at that.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. She often says, I’ll send something in the middle of the day that’s like, oh, we got a blah, blah, blah. And she’ll say, some version of that sounds important. Here’s what’s on my plate. Which one of these things do you want me to move? And what that does is it doesn’t mess up her life, it doesn’t mess up her day. It doesn’t make her flail, but it’s also an acknowledgement of I want what you want. I know this is important to you Glennon. It’s a way of not abandoning herself and not abandoning me at the same time.
Abby Wambach:
And also getting information.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, it’s information, because sometimes you’re saying, I’m sending this to you now because I’m thinking of it now, but it would also be fine to get it next week. But if she were to drop everything thinking that that thing was on fire today, then that would create a lot of unnecessary angst in her life and in yours because it would affect goodwill between you when you didn’t even mean for that to be on fire.
Abby Wambach:
I want to discuss this thing because I think back to the time that I was in the national team and maybe my over willingness to say yes to everything by virtue of necessity,
Amanda Doyle:
What is the necessity you’re speaking of?
Abby Wambach:
So on the national team, we got paid a salary for playing on the team that was sustainable at the time, but most of my income came from outside endorsements.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh, so you’re saying yes to offers for endorsements in order to make enough money to pay your bills.
Abby Wambach:
Yes. And then also on top of that, a lot of what we have to do as a professional athlete, at least back then, was to say yes to interviews, television, print, et cetera.
Amanda Doyle:
Life-changing opportunities.
Abby Wambach:
But my problem is that in the world that I lived in back then, and probably to some extent still now, when you are getting asked to be interviewed by the top media outlets of the country and the world, and you say no on a team, what are they going to do? They’re just going to go down to the next person. And so when people in the world are reading about your team, are reading about this game or reading about what happened and you said no to this interview request, then somebody else is now getting their name out there.
So there’s this, for me I felt like, I don’t know, in the workspace it was really hard for me to say no. And then I was also getting reaffirmed in all of the freaking yeses that I was saying because I was more printed and I was more televised than a lot of my other teammates, and I was also scoring more goals. So it was like I don’t have a question, but I do see that when you do say yes, so often in the workspace, the people who are saying yes get reaffirmed for doing double the load or whatever it may be.
Amanda Doyle:
Well, I think in your case it sounds like you did exactly what you should have done.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly.
Amanda Doyle:
Your goals were that wasn’t a thankless yes. That wasn’t take one for the team Abby and do it. It was if you are aligned, if your goal was to make your life an income sustainable by exposure and by building the brand that you had and by raising your visibility, all of those things were aligned with that. I think the yeses and nos that are harder in the workplace are those that we alluded to this in the last episode, are the ones that are like there is no discernible identifiable benefit to you in this yes other than the horse shit hit of affirmation of your goodness.
Abby Wambach:
Got it.
Amanda Doyle:
That you get from saying yes.
Abby Wambach:
Got it. Got it.
Amanda Doyle:
You are a real team player. You know that Abby, we can always count on her. You know what, she’s a whatever, not a show me the money, but show me the fucking money.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, exactly. That’s what I mean. You were not doing that all the time out of fear, out of management of your controlling other people’s narrative of you. There was a want underneath that. You did want to be successful in there. Everyone who’s climbing that ladder of whatever they’re trying to do to make money, and that is real and true, but do you feel a difference in it when it’s something that you’re really trying to build compared to just reputation management?
Abby Wambach:
No, because I definitely felt like it was a building of a product of women’s soccer. Okay, that’s good.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah. And there’s many times where there might not be a show me the money in this immediate decision to say yes at work. And maybe it is, okay, this is going to help me with my stated goals of getting more experience in X area because in three years I want to be a VP or whatever the hell it is. So it isn’t always going to pay off in the immediate, but you are saying yes for a reason other than making people feel good about you.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s like if you look at that inside of friendship, okay. The amount of times, okay, it’s like I’m going to go say yes to this person because I want that person to think I’m a good friend without stopping to ask, do I think this person is a good friend? Does this person add something to my life? Do I want to spend time with this person? Is this person my good friend as opposed to do I want this? How many times have we experienced this?
Abby Wambach:
A lot.
Glennon Doyle:
As opposed to does this person… I’m going to say yes. I don’t even like this person that much. I actually don’t want to be this person’s friend for a long time. I actually don’t… But the important thing is that this person thinks I’m a good friend. That’s the pause. It’s like, hold on a second, let me take a minute or a day or a week to figure out if this person, if this thing is something that I want or if I’m just doing reputation management here.
Abby Wambach:
It’s good.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, exactly. And I think one of the things that also relates to in the business world, but outside of the business world too, Karen Dillon wrote this book about this and I think it works in relationships and partnerships and everything, is that she wants us to really thresh out before a yes or a no, before trying to short circuit that feel good, I’m a good person, I always say yes situation, to flesh out the costs for both sides. So what you want to do is evaluate the scale and scope of what someone is asking you to do so that both sides understand, okay, this is the cost to you if I don’t do this. This is the cost to me if I do do this, because we do need a rational allocation of resources in life. And when nobody is counting costs of anything, we end up with a very foolish allocation of resources.
Glennon Doyle:
I think that’s so helpful. And the person who is assigning it might not even value it at that and they might not know the cost to you.
Amanda Doyle:
Exactly. If I say build me a spreadsheet of X and I don’t know it’s going to cost you a 100 hours of your life, I might say I value that spreadsheet at 10 hours of work. Don’t make that spreadsheet. That’s insane. And same with friendship, same with if I know I’m asking you to come do something with me or I’m asking you to do me a favor and that is going to cost you energetically whatever the cost is, I need to know that because I don’t value that ask at that level.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Isn’t there also when we talk about managing, we want to, okay, let’s take Abby’s example. She wants to be a person of generosity.
Abby Wambach:
I am.
Glennon Doyle:
I’m sorry, you a 100% are. You are that.
Amanda Doyle:
But she wants to be-
Glennon Doyle:
Thought of that.
Amanda Doyle:
… unflinchingly and constantly and ever presently perceived live tweeted as a person of generosity.
Abby Wambach:
That is the person I was. I actually don’t believe that I am so, and Glenn and you, being married to you and seeing the way you operate, that it has helped me so much to not want to need that affirmation of being this extraordinarily generous person. I didn’t show up for you during your surgery time, sister, because I wanted you to think I was generous. That had nothing to do with it. I don’t operate in that same way. I do think that there’s some insidious stuff that I’m still working on.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. I think for me, and this could be, I’m going to preface this part by saying this could be just an excuse. Okay. But it is how I think about it. I always think I want to be considered generous. Okay, great. By whom? I feel like the amount of times where, for example, I don’t think that generous of time and spirit is probably something that would be the first thing that people who are in my circle would say, I think I’m okay with that. I think there’s other things that they would say that are good, but I don’t think that’s what they would go to. However, I will tell you this. I think that the people in our family, that our kids would say that about me in a second. And for me, I have always added the for whom, because if I’m so busy having a generous spirit of my time and my energy with the wider world, there is a cost to that to my people.
So for me, it’s not about a quality that you just have or don’t. It’s about having to choose for whom that is true and being okay with, if that’s going to be true for these four people, then it might not be able to be true for everyone. It reminds me of when we were trying to figure out how to handle your fame in big spaces and when the kids were littler and people would come up constantly and the kids were little, and it was not an easy situation because it was so important to you in a beautiful good way to be open and generous and kind to strangers, but good, beautiful hearted strangers with children who wanted to come to you and feel like they had access to you. But we had to balance the, okay, you want to be generous of spirit and loving, but to whom? Because here our kids are, and you can look at them and see that they feel scared and they feel like you don’t belong to them.
Abby Wambach:
And it would interrupt conversations. It would interrupt our family time. Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s really hard for a while. And so that was, I felt like, I don’t know if you remember, but that was a grieving when you had to decide, I think I’m going to start saying no to wonderful, beautiful, open-hearted strangers who, because I have to say yes, I want to say yes, a bigger yes to these three kids, but it wasn’t easy, it wasn’t simple.
Abby Wambach:
No, I wouldn’t say it was grieving. I wouldn’t go all the way there. What I would say though, it was very uncomfortable to get used to saying a beautiful, no, by the way, I’m so sorry. I don’t do this when my family’s around. And now the kids-
Glennon Doyle:
Good job if I don’t, instead of I can’t. Good job Abby.
Abby Wambach:
Thank you. And now interestingly enough, it’s starting to make the kids uncomfortable when I say no.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh, interesting. It’s beautiful. It’s changed.
Abby Wambach:
And so the kids are like, no, no, it’s okay. Do it. It’s fine. And, of course there’s moments where I say no, but there’s also moments where I’m about to say no and the kids interrupt and they say, no, it’s totally fine.
Glennon Doyle:
But that’s because there’s a reason for that. There’s a reason for that opening and freedom that they feel now because you taught them, oh no, I belong to you first. They’re securely attached to you in public now, and mostly they’re proud and excited and want to share you with people because they know you belong to them. At the end of the day, you’ve proved that to them, and so now they feel okay letting you go in moments because they know that they’re your priority.
Amanda Doyle:
And that cost on both sides also includes the opportunity cost, like what you’re talking about.
Abby Wambach:
Totally.
Amanda Doyle:
The cost of staying shiny with the public may be not being shiny with my inner circle and vice versa. You have to be honest about the cost and the resources it takes.
Glennon Doyle:
Can I offer a really relatable example?
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
So the vice president asked us to go to this pride event with her and do this dinner, and Tish was coming home from her camping trip that night, so I would’ve had to miss the night back. So the vice president asked us to go to this dinner for pride. It was all around queer rights. On one hand, I’ve got the vice president asking us, the queers asking us, really showing up for the gays is important to us. Okay. So strong value on one hand. On the other hand, I would have had to leave the night that Tish was getting back from a long trip. And we know our Tish. Anyway, we sat with this for a while and I decided, okay, I’m just going to write a letter back. So I wrote a letter back and basically said, here’s the deal. There’s not much that we won’t do for our democracy and especially for the queer community inside our democracy except for piss off our teenage daughter. Okay.
So I’m not going, and I’m not going because I think it will hurt my daughter if I’m not home that night. And I’m hoping that the mamala in you sees and recognizes the mamala in me and that you will understand. And actually a week later, she wrote a letter to us and to Tish congratulating on her graduation. And I think the mamala in her did see the mamala in me, but it was a fun, creative. I also think there’s a lightness we can add to these. One of the reasons we started talking about this episode was we found this thing that E.B. White, okay, E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web had written. Somebody had written to E.B. White inviting them to a thing, and E.B. White responded this way, “I must decline for secret reasons.” Pod squad, if all of this is too heavy and you just want some creative zingers just to like I must decline for secret reasons is beautiful and brilliant. Okay.
Amanda Doyle:
And also by the way, it was an invitation to join the Committee of the Arts and Sciences for Eisenhower, as in president.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. So another presidential ask. If we could put E.B. White on our list of heroic noers, that is heroic. Okay, what the hell is somebody going to say, what are the secrets? No, you’re not. Okay. That person seems mysterious. They seems amazing. Here’s one more from the Virginia Woolf. This is what I always imagined came before this, that her friend asked to come to visit her and she wanted to say no, but she hadn’t listened to this podcast, Virginia Woolf, so she accidentally said yes. The friend came, I imagine it wasn’t a great time. The friend returns home and this is the letter that Virginia Woolf sends the friend. “Sorry, I was so glum. It’s nothing but the truth. I’m in a cursed mood and I can’t bear the human face. So put off coming here again, I advise you, as long as possible. Perhaps by the end of the week, I shall be thawed. God knows.”
Amanda Doyle:
Okay, we have a couple of pod squadders who have good how to say no advice for us. So let’s hear from Leslie.
Speaker 4:
This is Leslie. I just listened to the Life Hack episode, which totally loved, and I have to share my hack, which this is for those of us who are pleasers and have a hard time saying no. For the record, you do not need to be religious to say this, but it stops people in their tracks, especially if you’re at that age where people are constantly asking you to do stuff for your children’s school. So this is what you do. They ask you, Leslie, have you considered being room mother? Or Leslie, would you please bring snacks? My answer I have learned is now I need to pray on that. Basically stops them in their tracks. They do not come back to you. They do not know what to say. It’s the best. I love you guys. I just can’t imagine now my life without you, and I feel like I’ve grown so much in my 53, almost 54-year-old self and I just can’t thank you enough. Goodbye.
Abby Wambach:
Leslie, I’m going to pray on that. I’m going to need to pray on that.
Glennon Doyle:
Leslie is now up there with E.B. White and Virginia Woolf and Leslie as genius noers. So pod squad, somebody calls you and says, can you bring the forks to the party? You pause and you say, I’m going to have to wait for God’s discernment. I’m going to have to discern God’s wishes for me. If you need more ways to say that, I have them all having been in this culture.
Amanda Doyle:
I feel like I could combine everything we’ve learned and say, thank you for thinking of me Betty. I don’t make decisions without God’s direction. I’m going to pray on whether I’ll do pickup. Thank you.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh my gosh, that would just stop the whole thing, wouldn’t it? Leslie-
Amanda Doyle:
Guess you, Betty’s not calling again, I’ll tell you that much.
Glennon Doyle:
No, she’s not. No she’s not.
Amanda Doyle:
Can you bring snacks? I’ll have to-
Glennon Doyle:
I don’t make decisions without waiting on God’s will for me.
Amanda Doyle:
And in fact, God told me that God’s will was for you to be the room parent.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh my God, yes, you could follow up and fix everything. So Betty, I waited the 48 hours on God’s will, and it turns out-
Amanda Doyle:
Good news.
Glennon Doyle:
… God’s will for me is to never bring the forks. I’m as surprised as you are Betty. God said, no forks ever. But God also said that you Betty have the capacity to handle all the shit.
Amanda Doyle:
God promised not to give Betty more than Betty could handle, and apparently she’ll be handling all the forks.
Glennon Doyle:
Heroic. Lola has an idea for us too.
Speaker 5:
Hi, my name is Lola. I just wanted to share about something that I’ve been reflecting on. I think that very often, well, I know that I’m someone that needs to introvert in order to extrovert, especially being an environment like college where I’m constantly around my peers, I can sometimes feel really hard to say no to plans without having an excuse other than just I’m tired and feeling antisocial. So I think that when someone asks to make plans that I’m not feeling up to it, or really just in general, when I talk to people, just being honest instead of saying, oh, no, I can’t do this because X, Y, Z, which is probably a lie, saying, no, I’m not free because I need to rest or I just want to spend some time alone. I think that’ll just help my friends to get to know me better, and I know that if I do that, I’ll probably be in the situation where I have to turn down plans less, if that makes any sense. Anyway, thank you for everything you guys do. Bye.
Glennon Doyle:
Letting people get to know the real you better is a really good reason for saying no when you mean no. And one other good reason, I want to circle us back to when Brenee Brown told the story about her saying no to going to a kids’ event that all the other parents were going to, she had just gotten back from a trip. She was so tired, she needed to take care of herself. She felt like she checked in with herself and the mother she wants to be, she should be would have said yes, but in this moment, she just decided to accept who she was and she said, no kiddo, I can’t go to that thing. I just need some time to recharge. I just need some time alone.
Her kid came to her a couple days later and told her that he didn’t know that other people felt that way, that he also often feels like he doesn’t want to do something social because he needs time to himself, and he didn’t know that it was okay to say no to something everybody else was doing in order to be with yourself. And his mom saying no to the thing that he asked her to do, not only didn’t break the relationship, but helped enforce his own relationship with himself, gave him permission to say nos and take care of himself in the future.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. But I think part of that whole thing is that Brenee had to be vulnerable enough to say to her son, I’m not going to come because-
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly.
Abby Wambach:
… of this thing. A lot of times parents bail out of the vulnerability of the why, and so then the kid is just left to come up with the answer themselves and they just assume, oh, they don’t love me or whatever. So it has to be specific and we have to be brave enough to be able to show our kids our work, our people, our community, who we really are.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, it’s like what’s the real because? I think that’s a good tip. If you look inside yourself and you think this is a no, then take a step further and go to what’s the real because, not the menu options that we’re all given, the fake becauses, because I’m too busy, because I’m this, because I’m that, because I have something else. It’s like we have a fake menu of options, but if we stick with that no, and we go to the real because, and we’re brave enough to offer that real because that deepens the relationship instead of threatens it.
Amanda Doyle:
I also have one last suggestion that I recently learned from my little friend Max, who’s 11 years old. And he is exactly who Max is and is an amazing creature of a human. And Max likes one-on-ones, doesn’t like a highly sensory stimulated person, and he has a little best buddy who he hangs out with all the time, and the best buddy is having a birthday party. And he said to Max, I know that birthday parties are a lot for you, and so would you like to come to my birthday party or would you like to just come over a different time we could hang out and celebrate my birthday?
Glennon Doyle:
So sweet.
Amanda Doyle:
So a big props for that because that is awesome knowing your friend and knowing that not putting them in a position to be like, oh, I love my friend, so I guess I should go to his birthday party. I don’t want him to be upset. So Max decided to do the just hang out one-on-one thing, Natasha is Max’s mom, and so Natasha said that she got home and was just like, I just want to make sure that you know that I think it was an either or. If you choose to just do the one-on-one, I don’t think you’re going to be invited to the party, and I just want to make sure you know that. He goes, oh, that’s totally fine. I’ve been to a party. He’s like, I’ve done that already. So I think I’m going to start saying that when people invite me to a party, I’m going to say, oh, no, no, no, that’s okay. I’ve already been to a party. That’s fine. I’ve already been to one.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh my God.
Amanda Doyle:
Let’s add Max. Let’s add Max to our Leslie, Virginia Woolf and E.B. White cast of heroic, no characters. I’ve been to a party.
Abby Wambach:
I’ve done that.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh, mom, I’ve been to a party-
Glennon Doyle:
But Max-
Amanda Doyle:
… why would I do that again?
Glennon Doyle:
Max is a hero of avoiding FOMO because a lot of our yeses are just FOMO. He’s like, I have fear on missing out on myself. I’ve been to a party. I know what’s there.
Amanda Doyle:
I’ve been to a party. Why would you want to just bore yourself and keep doing the same thing over and over?
Glennon Doyle:
Been there, done that dawg. Pod squad, we love you. We hope that you’ve enjoyed this discussion of yeses and nos, and if you think of it, if you think that you could be added to the heroic list of noers because you have-
Amanda Doyle:
Good luck beating Leslie.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, good luck beating Leslie, but if you have a way of saying no, that is so beautiful and creative that it disarms the entire situation, send it to us. Call it in. I do think that we could do another episode in the future of other brilliant ways to say no, 747-200-5307. That’s the number. Go forth. I do think that this week, if you can’t think of anything else, you just need to say, I don’t do anything without God’s discernment, and so I’ll get back to you-
Abby Wambach:
I’m going to pray on it.
Glennon Doyle:
… And I’m going to pray on it.
Amanda Doyle:
And also, no offense to you, if that’s true of you, good job. You didn’t even need these two episodes. You already bought yourself some time. You pause, that’s like 101.
Glennon Doyle:
I know.
Amanda Doyle:
The I don’t, the pause, the buying yourself some time to consider it. Nailing it.
Glennon Doyle:
Nailing it. We love you pod squad. See you next time.
If this podcast means something to you, it would mean so much to us if you’d be willing to take 30 seconds to do these three things. First, can you please follow or subscribe to We Can Do Hard Things. Following the pod helps you because you’ll never miss an episode, and it helps us because you’ll never miss an episode. To do this, just go to the We Can Do Hard Things show page on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and then just tap the plus sign in the upper right-hand corner or click on follow. This is the most important thing for the pod. While you’re there, if you’d be willing to give us a five star rating and review and share an episode you loved with a friend, we would be so grateful. We appreciate you very much. We Can Do Hard Things, is created and hosted by Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Amanda Doyle in partnership with Odyssey. Our executive producer is Jenna Wise Berman, and the show is produced by Lauren LoGrasso, Allison Schott, Dina Kleiner, and Bill Schultz.