How I’m Saying No and You Should Too

Why & How I'm Saying No To New Opportunities

The thought process and canned email I'm using to protect my time.

This week I've been reflecting on the opportunity cost of my time.

After winning the Waitā Award for Business and Innovation, I've been presented with more opportunities and obligations than I can handle.

I've been interviewed for media outlets and podcasts, received job offers and even advised on government policy.

Don't get me wrong, I'm in a privileged position, but I've said yes too many times, and as a result, I've found myself doing less of what makes me happy and less of what puts food on my plate.

To re-orientate myself here, I spent time last week setting goals for each pillar of my life:

• Health

• Social

• Commercial

• Relationships

If opportunities don't fall tightly within the boundaries of my goals, I will say no so I can focus my time on the important things.

I've created an email template inside Gmail (to do this > draft a new email > click on the three dots on the right-hand side of the draft > select templates > save the draft as template). And I am sending this out to all new requests on my time.

"Kia ora (first name),

Thanks for reaching out. I've got a few goals I'm trying to hit this quarter, and what you are asking here doesn't align with where I'm headed.

Take a look at what I'm working on (here), and if you think you can craft this opportunity to meet those needs, please feel free to send me another offer that will create a win/win for both of us."

This email allows me to say no to anything that doesn't fit what I'm looking for but allows others to align their wants with my own hopefully leading to a win-win.

Notes: William Penn once said, "Time is what we want most, but what we use worst." As founders, we need to spend our time where it creates the most leverage for us, not others.

Business Finances Made Simple | The Bank Balance Test

A simple rule I use to manage business finances

More times than I'd like to count, I've used personal funds to cover wages because I spent money my business didn't have.

I stopped this happening by setting up my business to run using the bank balance check.

I should always be able to answer "can we afford this?" by checking my bank balance.

To make this work, I do three things that probably go against the grain of standard advice.

• I pay all my bills as soon as they are due.

• I don't count revenue before it's in my bank account.

• I keep an emergency stash in a separate account that covers taxes (thanks, Scott)

There's nothing groundbreaking here, but setting up my business so I can assess my financial position by looking at my bank balance makes decision-making easy and has stopped me from getting into financial trouble.

Notes: Small business finances are simple when you set yourself up right.

• ​Management Framework - A 10 minute break-down of how the simple framework Alex Hormiozi (Acquisitions.com) uses to manage his team.

• ​23 Lies - 23 lies you’ve been told about life and work by Sahil Bloom. At the very least these will give you something to ponder.

Cognitive Dissonance - Reality Has A Surprising Amount Of Detail

Our models of the world are often wrong, but intellectual honesty, can get us closer to the truth

Our models of the world often don't map well with reality.

You could ask me, my business partner and my gym manager how we've grown our business over the past year, and you'll get three different answers.

It doesn't mean any of us are wrong; it just means we've interpreted reality differently.

In complex systems like economies, our bodies, our businesses, there's always more nuance than we can possibly comprehend. And so, there are always better explanations (models) of these systems that we haven't encountered yet.

Acknowledging this predicament can help us become more intellectually honest and open our minds to a new and better understanding of reality.

But when you think your model of reality is the only right & proper way - which is never true. You close yourself off to new understandings and better ways of doing things.

Better models of the world exist all around us, and we can add a lot of value to our lives by finding them.

Notes: Acknowledging your limited understanding of the world and opening your mind to the many better models that surround us can bring a lot of value to your life.