Latest / SisterSmart Leadership / 18: How to Say No At Work Without Making Enemies with Sandy Reynolds

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18: How to Say No At Work Without Making Enemies with Sandy Reynolds · SisterSmart Leadership

0:00
From a very young age, we're groomed in a sense as women to want to be
0:04
liked and that's kind of at the root of people pleasing is we want to be liked.
0:10
When I realized as a professional in the workplace that this was actually
0:15
a potentially limiting value, it was one of those shifts in me.
0:18
It was one of those aha moments where it was very much a defining moment because
0:23
I would never have identified as a people pleaser, which is hilarious now that I
0:30
am so aware of it, but there it was that I had this limiting value, and I could
0:35
start to look back in my career and see how that had come into lots of decisions.
0:43
I'm Jill Avey, a career success coach, and this is Sister Smart Leadership, the
0:48
show that explores how women can rise from director to vice president and beyond
0:53
by fully leaning into their feminine energy as their biggest advantage.
0:57
Let's get you one step closer to the recognition and promotion you deserve.
1:02
Imagine living a life that you choose, not because you feel pressured to
1:05
do any of it, but because you've decided intentionally to say yes to
1:10
the things that you're doing in life.
1:11
The way you spend your time, your money, your energy is all in line with what you
1:16
really want and where you want to go.
1:18
And now imagine that you are even more successful than you were
1:22
before you've lived like this.
1:24
That setting your boundaries and saying no to things that you don't
1:26
want actually helped you go farther and faster towards your aims.
1:30
So if you're tired of always bumping up against burnout, feeling anxious,
1:34
tired, and stressed, and maybe even a little resentful because you never
1:38
get time for yourself, you are going to want to stay tuned to for this
1:42
episode, because we are going to talk about saying no in a way that's freeing
1:46
rather than detrimental to your career.
1:48
And you can apply these same tactics to your personal life when you log off.
1:52
So this has been my journey too.
1:53
I used to say yes to everything.
1:55
And I had a lot of pride in being the type of person that got stuff done.
2:00
And I worked very hard to be extremely efficient so that I could do a lot.
2:06
Add to this as someone with ADHD, I also have a brain that
2:09
produces a million ideas a minute.
2:12
And I have a lot of energy and enthusiasm for exploring those new
2:14
ideas and solving complex problems.
2:17
I'm what's called a multi-potentialite, which is
2:19
someone who has a lot of interests.
2:21
So the result was that I was caught in the business trap for a
2:23
good part of my corporate career.
2:25
And I got caught in a cycle of giving too much and burning out because
2:29
I didn't understand the concepts that we're going to explore today.
2:33
So these days I have several structures in place that help me
2:35
put careful consideration to the things that are going onto my plate.
2:38
And while I still like to be busy, I understand these dynamics that
2:42
we're going to talk about today.
2:43
And they've helped me and our clients here at Sister Smart create
2:46
balance between work and personal life that I didn't always have
2:50
throughout my corporate career.
2:52
And I help my clients through this inner module called career growth accelerator,
2:56
because when you get this piece, right, your career can really take off.
3:00
So we are so lucky today to have a special guest on this episode, who is
3:03
an expert in leadership development, having spent 20 years as a training and
3:07
development professional in Toronto.
3:09
And she's an advocate for saying no.
3:12
Sandy Reynolds has a 5 part email series called disappoint more
3:16
people, and she's going to share her joy with saying no with us today.
3:20
So welcome Sandy.
3:21
Hi, Jill.
3:22
Thanks for having me today.
3:24
You're so welcome.
3:25
So, 1st, I want to cover a couple of little things when
3:28
it comes to saying no at work.
3:29
I like to start with the outside influences as we often talk about here,
3:34
because as women we have to understand these because when we understand them,
3:39
they lose power over us and it makes it possible for us to have more choices.
3:44
Let's talk about these first before we get into the actual tactics of saying no.
3:48
First I want to revisit one of the unhelpful habits that we talked
3:51
about in episode 16, which is people pleasing and explore how they
3:56
relate to the topic of saying no.
3:58
So people pleasing is deeply rooted in how women are raised.
4:02
If we think back to how women were raised for hundreds, even thousands of years.
4:07
We had very little power over who we married.
4:10
We didn't have our own money or our own bank accounts.
4:13
We didn't have the right to get divorced.
4:15
We were plucked out of our own families and deposited into our husband's families.
4:18
And so this was a vital skill to be pleasing in order to fit into a new
4:23
family and create stability in our lives.
4:26
So thankfully the situation is drastically changed in North America but cultural
4:31
norms change at a glacial pace.
4:34
And so there are threads of all of this history that we all still feel
4:39
very much in our everyday life.
4:41
So we still feel a responsibility to make others feel good and breaking out
4:45
of that habit can be really difficult.
4:48
So Sandy, tell us more about people pleasing and some of the downsides of
4:53
why we don't want to people please.
4:56
Thanks Jill.
4:57
Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about people pleasing in my life and there
5:01
are a few things that stand out for me when I think about people pleasing.
5:05
The first thing is the whole part of people pleasing that
5:10
can lead to group think.
5:11
So, there's a video called The Road to Abilene, and I remember when I
5:16
was doing my master's in leadership and we watched this video when we
5:21
were talking about groupthink and in the video, there's a family.
5:25
They're sitting on the front porch on a hot day.
5:27
And somebody suggests they drive to the next town.
5:31
This is like set in the 50s.
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So there's no air conditioning in the car.
5:35
They drive to the next town for ice cream and.
5:39
Somebody says, okay, yeah, let's do it.
5:42
And then the whole group decides to go and they, they drive this sweltering hot day.
5:47
They come home, they're back on the front porch.
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And somebody says, didn't that they didn't want to go to begin with,
5:54
but they had only gone because.
5:56
The other person had said they wanted to go, and they were like,
5:59
well, I didn't wanna go either.
6:00
I just said, okay.
6:01
Because they suggested it and I didn't want them to feel bad.
6:05
And the whole thing became this event that everybody was exhausted by.
6:09
And what happens when we don't say no, when we were so stuck
6:15
into peop in people pleasing, and we go along with things that.
6:19
We don't want to go along with, but other people are going along because we go
6:22
along, especially in a leadership role.
6:25
If we say, yes, there's an influence that we have that we need to
6:29
be aware of, and that can lead other people to say yes as well.
6:35
So, that's the first thing.
6:37
The next thing is integrity and trust.
6:40
And when we say yes to things, because that's our default, without really
6:45
thinking about it, or because we want to go with the flow, or we don't want
6:50
to be perceived as a difficult person, whatever it is, can actually erode how
6:56
people feel about us and whether or not they trust us and because they might
7:01
even have a sense that we haven't really bought into something, but we're going
7:05
along with it and I went back to your episode on executive presence recently.
7:12
It's such a good episode.
7:13
And I think if people want to compliment this with another episode, that
7:18
would be a good one to go back to if they're just new and jumping in here.
7:22
Mary Shapiro was your guest and she talked about the um,
7:26
confidence over competence piece.
7:29
And that's actually one of the third things with people pleasing is it erodes
7:33
confidence and executive presence is all about people feeling confident and you
7:39
feeling confident and people pleasing and going along with things is one
7:45
fast way to erode your, your integrity and your own personal confidence.
7:52
It sure is.
7:52
I even have a client story about that.
7:55
I have a client that she has a lot of integrity and very good at her job,
8:00
but she found we have this process where you interview some stakeholders
8:06
as part of your leadership program.
8:08
And when she did that, she found out that she had a trust problem because she
8:12
wasn't speaking her mind and her team.
8:15
Sometimes it would eventually come out how she thought about something and
8:19
she thought she was going along, going with the flow, like you were talking
8:22
about where she was, trying to be a team player and going along with things.
8:27
But what they really wanted was to hear her actual opinion on things, and they
8:31
didn't want to hear about it later.
8:33
They wanted to hear about it at the time.
8:34
And so she worked really hard on speaking up more and that's totally turned around
8:40
her situation and really strengthened her relationships on her team.
8:43
So it, it absolutely has happened in real life for our clients.
8:49
Yeah.
8:50
So for me, I have my own story around this and what happened for
8:56
me was and why people pleasing has become such a big theme in my work.
9:04
I was doing when I was doing my master's degree, we had to do
9:07
something, a values assessment.
9:09
It was a little different process than the one I ones I've done in
9:13
the past where you circle your values and then you narrow it down.
9:16
It was called Barrett's values assessment, and you looked at the
9:21
organizational values, and then you looked at your own values.
9:26
And this was all done online through questions.
9:29
And you didn't know your results until the actual course when they gave them out.
9:33
And then there was a 3rd piece that talked about your values in use.
9:37
So there was sort of your espoused values and then your values in use.
9:41
So I got my assessment back and, you know, we all tore, you know, and you
9:46
do those assessments in a training course and everybody tears theirs
9:49
open to see what their results were.
9:52
And what came back for me was a potentially limiting
9:56
value of needing to be liked.
10:00
Or wanting to be liked.
10:02
And I think that's what's behind a lot of people pleasing.
10:05
And you talked about that earlier about how that's you know, from a very
10:09
young age, we're groomed in a sense as women to want to be liked and that's
10:15
kind of at the root of people pleasing is we want to be liked and so when
10:22
I realized as a professional in the workplace that this was actually a
10:27
potentially limiting value, it really.
10:30
You know, it was one of those shifts in me.
10:32
It was one of those aha moments where it was very much a defining moment because
10:37
I would never have identified as a people pleaser, which is hilarious now that I am
10:44
so aware of it and But there it was That I had this limiting value, and I could
10:51
start to look back in my career and see how that had come into lots of decisions.
10:58
It could be little decisions, like just deferring to someone else, you know,
11:03
like saying, you know, something like, I don't really, I don't care, you know,
11:07
whatever you want to do, I'm not that, you know, I can go along with this
11:11
decision when really I, Had an opinion and it wasn't the one that the rest of
11:18
the group or the team was going with.
11:20
So, it was great.
11:21
It was painful and it was really a turning point for me.
11:24
So how did that turn out for you?
11:26
What, what shifted for you as a result of that?
11:29
I started speaking up more or disagreeing more in meetings with my team.
11:35
So if somebody suggested something and I thought there was a better alternative
11:39
or even an equally valid alternative or option on the table that might be
11:46
less less work or less something else I would put it out there and I would
11:50
say, and I stopped caring about who it was, you know, there, it didn't matter.
11:55
One of the things that I learned is that as women, we often deferred to men in
12:02
meetings, and I'm sure you've talked about this on your podcast as well.
12:05
We used to map out meetings.
12:07
It's where we would draw lines to who was speaking and who was speaking to whom and
12:12
it was very enlightening that often there would be a male presence that everything
12:18
went back to and so I combine that with people awareness of people pleasing.
12:24
I started to disagree a little bit more and not be so worried
12:28
about how I would be perceived
12:31
What effect did that have on your relationships then?
12:33
Very little.
12:34
In fact, something that I remind myself of all the time is that we project a lot on
12:40
what we think people are thinking and how we think they're responding in a situation
12:45
and it's actually has the opposite effect.
12:47
People start to feel like what we're talking about the downsides of people.
12:51
pleasing They start to feel more confident in you and you start to
12:55
feel more confident in yourself.
12:57
And it's, it's kind of becomes a, a good cycle, like a very positive thing.
13:02
And, you know, I'd walk out of the meeting and I'd be like, damn, look at me.
13:06
Like, you know, I didn't find it had a negative.
13:11
I think it just, it was positive right across the board.
13:15
really interesting because I think so many people think like, Oh, if
13:18
I'm going to say something and it's really speak my mind, this is going
13:21
to be a career limiting move for me.
13:23
And what are other people going to think?
13:24
And I feel like, you know, it's taking such a risk to speak out, especially
13:30
when you first get started with it.
13:31
Was that something that you worried about at all?
13:33
A little bit, you know, I had to, You have to get used to being uncomfortable and
13:39
stretching yourself, especially if you're a person who's always been a yes person.
13:44
My default has always been yes in my life.
13:47
You know, I've been the person when somebody says, do you want to do this?
13:51
Yeah, let's do it.
13:53
And then later kind of regret the spontaneous.
13:56
Yes.
13:57
And so starting to say no, which is where I got the course name, Disappoint more
14:03
People for my email program, because I had to kind of reframe people pleasing
14:09
as being okay disappointing more people.
14:12
And it was kind of a fun play on that.
14:15
And and then it would just be, I would have this little thing
14:18
in my head where I'd be okay.
14:19
I'm going to see who I could disappoint today.
14:23
But along the way, I was becoming more comfortable with who I am and,
14:28
and having more integrity in my work.
14:32
That's so great.
14:32
Let's talk about the high cost of, of being nice.
14:35
You know, you turned me on recently to the book called not nice.
14:39
And so I'm only about halfway through it, but it is amazing.
14:43
It's already totally rocked my world about thinking that the opposite of nice is not
14:48
mean it's actually a more like kindness.
14:52
And so we can, we can still be warm, lovely, happy, supportive people, but that
15:01
doesn't necessarily have to include nice.
15:03
Right.
15:04
I am.
15:06
I just finished Gabor Mate's book on the myth of normal, and he talks about
15:12
people pleasing and the cost on people's health of being nice and in women there
15:19
are a lot more physical illnesses.
15:22
So there's a high cost that is beyond just how we show up at
15:26
work and how people perceive us.
15:28
Our actual physical health is directly tied to people pleasing and illnesses
15:36
can show up in our bodies one of them, which is interesting because I'm a melon.
15:40
I had melanoma and that's one that he specifically highlights that people
15:46
pleasers have a higher incident of which I don't even know how they
15:49
do those studies, but that was.
15:52
Mind blowing for me because I've had melanoma and, and I was a lot
15:58
nicer when I, I think I'm still very kind, but, so there's a physical cost
16:07
and I think along with like, just keeping that in mind that if you are
16:11
a people pleaser, there are costs.
16:13
There are costs with group, think there's costs with, to your organization.
16:17
There's cost to your own integrity and there's cost to your health.
16:21
It's a negative thing being a people pleaser.
16:23
And that's why I think we need to learn to be able to increase
16:28
our level of discomfort and be in that it takes practice.
16:33
And saying no is a great way to align with what's true for you and what your
16:39
values are and and learning to speak your truth and you already mentioned
16:45
the kindness aspect to this, but I think when we are learning to say no
16:52
and disappoint more people, we can do that with compassion and kindness.
16:56
I have found that it also, that it's created more curiosity for me if I
17:01
don't just buy in right away and I'm, I'm deciding whether I want to speak up or
17:06
not, I've noticed that it makes me want to ask more questions of the other person.
17:13
And I feel like that's really opened up my conversations
17:15
rather than shutting them down.
17:17
Sometimes we think of boundaries as these brick walls that we
17:19
put up, but they're really not.
17:21
And they're, you know, I like to call them movable fences instead because
17:25
it's just, I'm deciding where I want to put that fence in any given moment.
17:29
And that can really change.
17:31
Yeah, yeah, I like that analogy of a, of a fence rather than a wall.
17:37
So what could help us stay on track when we go out and try to say no.
17:42
How do we make sure that we don't like lose our nerve when, you know,
17:45
when we're in the moment and all of a sudden, you know, this is our time
17:48
to speak of and, you know, I think I might, I might, you know, want to
17:53
back off and try it again another day.
17:56
What are some things that will help us to kind of stick that
17:59
that intention that we have?
18:01
Well, the first thing that I recommend is having an accountability partner.
18:05
So when I first got my assessment back and had my big aha moment, there was
18:10
another woman in my cohort who actually got the same results and her and I had
18:15
a lot of conversations around this And then we just agreed that we would both
18:21
be working on this in our separate workplace situations, and we would call
18:28
each other when we knew we were going to be faced with a situation that we
18:32
would, in the past, have had a hard time saying no to, or putting up a boundary.
18:41
Or just even being quiet, you know, just even not speaking up.
18:45
And so before that meeting, she would call me, she worked in healthcare and
18:50
there was a lot of stuff going on in the hospital she worked in and she would
18:54
say, I'm, you know, I'm meeting with the CEO and he wants to report on this.
18:58
And I, I want to push back on the employee engagement survey, blah, blah, blah.
19:03
And I'm just afraid.
19:05
What he's going to say and she and we would talk and then she would call me
19:11
after and let me know how she did and just having that conversation before and
19:15
after was really, really helpful for her and for me because we were both learning
19:21
from each other and and what worked and also her victories became victories
19:27
for me because then I had less fear.
19:30
And
19:31
I think the other thing I would say here is to be okay with physical cues that a
19:39
lot of us have when we're uncomfortable.
19:42
So sometimes when you're stretching yourself or you're speaking up at
19:46
something, you can flush, your voice can be a little quivery, or high,
19:53
squeaky you can even get teary, and I first of all want to say those things
19:59
diminish as you get comfortable.
20:01
Saying no and working through things, but initially you just have to almost
20:07
just suck it up and say, okay, I might go really red when I suddenly for the first
20:13
time in this team meeting, speak up and offer an alternative or disagree with
20:19
the, rest of the team and that's okay.
20:23
It's okay.
20:24
It's going to feel worse for me than it is for other people and someone might
20:27
even comment on it and that's okay.
20:31
What my goal is here is to build my confidence and that means I
20:36
have to be uncomfortable initially.
20:38
Yeah, that in those first few times they're probably just gonna
20:41
go a little rocky and that's okay.
20:43
, you're gonna live through it, and it's building the skill
20:45
and we have to start somewhere.
20:47
Right?
20:47
Exactly.
20:48
That's really great because I think that just getting out and starting can
20:52
be really helpful when we want to try to, you know, start to speak our minds.
20:56
So let's put psychology on our side and think about how we can work
21:00
with gender socialization to say no in a way that makes it feel easy.
21:04
So the first thing that we want to incorporate is to think about the team
21:09
or the greater group that you're serving.
21:11
So it's going to help your case if we phrase what we're saying in terms of who
21:17
we're saying yes to, and the team that we're supporting by not doing this thing.
21:21
So, that way, it's not coming out as self centered.
21:23
It's coming out as, hey, I'm looking out for everybody here.
21:27
So, let's say somebody comes to you with an invitation to
21:30
join a cross functional team.
21:32
So, 1st, let's start with an answer that.
21:35
You might hear it more frequently.
21:36
So often somebody might say, no, sorry, I don't have time to work on that project.
21:40
I'm too busy.
21:42
How's that?
21:43
How does that answer feel to you?
21:44
Sandy?
21:46
Well, it's everybody's busy.
21:48
That's my first thought.
21:49
I was like, yes.
21:51
Yeah.
21:51
And everyone's busy.
21:53
that's that's how that feels to me.
21:56
I feel like you can be really open to argument with that one, because
21:58
like you said, everybody's busy.
22:00
And that used to be my reaction to that too.
22:03
And I'm not busy, you know, and I kind of would start to want to compete with them
22:06
a little bit about who's the busiest.
22:08
Did you want to check out my whiteboard?
22:10
So think about this answer instead.
22:13
Oh, I wish I could.
22:14
What an interesting opportunity, but I'm fully booked with
22:17
my work on the X project.
22:20
The team's really excited about the impact that this is going to have for the company
22:23
when we launch this new feature and we're working really hard to reach our deadline.
22:28
What about Parikh for this one?
22:31
So you see how that kept the focus on the team and my work with the team and how the
22:36
important the project was for the company.
22:39
And I also kept it really vague about whether, you know, what we
22:43
were doing, how much time we were spending and all of that, because
22:45
that just opens you up for argument.
22:47
And so, and then I redirected into another resource.
22:51
And I think that's really helpful when you have somebody else that
22:55
you can offer that, which isn't always the case, but having some
22:58
kind of idea for them can really help send them in another direction.
23:02
So also say, so here's another situation.
23:05
What about a boss?
23:06
What about the time when your boss asks you to take on a new project?
23:10
That's exciting and like a real honor, but you are already maxed out.
23:14
So you want to say yes to that.
23:17
Something, but you also know that all the things that you're already
23:20
committed to are going to suffer.
23:22
So this is really getting into the critical factor here, because it's
23:25
really hard to say no to our boss, especially for a choice project.
23:30
So, I always like to start with buying myself some time.
23:33
Sure.
23:34
Let me look at my calendar and.
23:36
Let me get back to you and let me see what I can do because that gives me
23:39
some time to think about my response and I can craft it better because
23:42
if I have to think on the fly, I'm not going to do as good of a job.
23:45
And I, I am much more like I'm 10 times more likely to say yes if I'm
23:49
responding in the moment, so then I'm going to take a look at my workload
23:53
and see what I might be able to delay.
23:56
So I'm going to come back to the boss with a plan.
23:59
So maybe I could delegate to someone, or maybe I could drop something all
24:02
together, but I'm going to come back to my manager with something like this.
24:06
I'm really excited about this opportunity, and I think I bring
24:09
valuable expertise to this team with my LM and O skills, , and I'm already
24:15
maxed out with these 3 projects.
24:17
So here's what I propose.
24:18
We can shift around so I can take on this new project.
24:21
And then I'm going to lay out my plan and ask for their thoughts.
24:24
How does this plan work for you?
24:25
In your view?
24:26
Am I getting my priorities right?
24:28
And it because it's up to you to think through the alternatives
24:31
instead of just saying no, or what do you want me to prioritize?
24:35
I find a lot of times the boss will say, if you say, well, what,
24:38
what can I take off my plate?
24:40
They'll say nothing.
24:42
They want you to do it all they've asked you to do it all
24:45
and they want you to do it all.
24:46
And so I think it's up for us to really think through what are your imperatives?
24:51
What do you think are really important for the company?
24:52
What are you trying to accomplish?
24:54
And, and then at the end of the day, we have to think about if this project's
24:58
worth the extra hours, given what that's going to do to your health and
25:01
your relationships and your ability to read, rejuvenate and recover.
25:06
So these are trade offs that we need to go into mindfully because we're making
25:10
these trade offs, whether we think that think about them or not, these trade
25:14
offs are always happening and we can prevent ourselves from getting burned out.
25:19
If we're thinking through things like.
25:21
You know, really thinking things through upfront and then if it's a really juicy
25:25
project, we might go home and, you know, do some negotiating with our spouse or
25:30
with our family members and, you know, get their support that I'm going to be a
25:35
little bit busy for the next few months.
25:37
And this is, this is the benefit to everybody for this.
25:40
And if you get, you know, if you get support, you might decide that
25:43
you do want to take on something extra, but you see how this is
25:46
like much more of a negotiation.
25:48
Rather than, you know, just saying yes to something that you may be not
25:51
even so excited about, or, or you're not excited about the ramifications.
25:57
So, when you were speaking there, I just had this thought of you're going to
26:01
disappoint someone in these scenarios, you're going to be disappointed, your
26:06
family might be disappointed or the person inviting you to take on the
26:11
project is going to be disappointed.
26:12
So in a way, you, you need to decide who you want to disappoint
26:17
on in each of these places.
26:19
And there might be times like the trade off could be you're disappointed
26:24
because this is a juicy project, but you realize that , this bank
26:30
account over here is already depleted.
26:32
And if you said, yes, that might put that 1 in a deficit, you know, so I, I
26:38
really like that last that analogy there.
26:41
We don't have, you know, infinite resources.
26:44
So in a world where we have to decide on how much capacity we have, we do have
26:52
to learn to manage disappointing people.
26:55
I love that you're bringing up disappointing ourselves too, because
27:00
often that's one that doesn't get really much consideration.
27:04
And we're, you know, trying to be everything to everyone else,
27:09
but not necessarily to ourselves.
27:11
And, you know.
27:13
Taking a moment to think about how am I going to feel?
27:16
What is my future self going to thank me for in this situation?
27:19
That's a question I ask myself a lot.
27:21
And it can really change what you do in any situation.
27:24
Yeah, it's a good question.
27:26
So this has been a great discussion and thank you so much, Sandy, for
27:29
coming in and joining me on this one.
27:31
I always like to leave our listeners with three shifts that they can start
27:36
with and that they could implement today.
27:38
And you've been so kind to to bring us the three shifts
27:41
today, what are those for us?
27:43
Okay, so the first one is to start thinking about who could
27:47
be your accountability partner.
27:48
So you might have a formal accountability partner with a coach, or it could
27:53
be a colleague or someone else in your life who you feel comfortable
27:58
with talking about your Desire to increase in your ability to say no.
28:04
And so think about that.
28:06
The next thing would be to set expectations up front.
28:10
So my husband actually wrote a book on managing expectations
28:15
called, what do you expect?
28:16
It's not a plug for his book, but we talk a lot about expectations
28:20
in our, both of us in our work.
28:23
So you can try this in your next meeting.
28:26
You know, we've all been in meetings where we go in and we know that we
28:31
only have an hour or we don't, we have something else we need to get done
28:36
and the meeting goes on an easy way to make a little shift is just to state.
28:42
That as an expectation right off the top, when you sit down, just say, I only have
28:47
45 minutes and we're on the clock now.
28:51
So you've set that expectation and as a good way to just build a
28:55
little muscle there on expectations.
28:57
But whenever you can set expectations up front, especially as a people pleaser,
29:01
it will help you down the road because You won't have to then disappoint
29:08
someone you've already given them a little disappointment off the top, in a
29:13
sense, but one that's quite manageable.
29:16
And the third thing is I mentioned earlier is just practice being
29:20
uncomfortable and seeing how you can use kindness when you're saying no
29:25
to something small and just try that at home first, but just practice.
29:30
Realize it's going to be uncomfortable.
29:32
All growth is uncomfortable and it's a muscle you're building and
29:38
you can also be kind when you're saying no, you don't have to be harsh
29:42
And also, I just want to say, sometimes when you're starting out with something,
29:46
you know, the pendulum swings a little bit, and then it comes back to the middle.
29:50
So, if you do, in a sense, err on that, just blurting
29:55
out no at first, that's okay.
29:58
Be kind to yourself as well.
30:00
So there, I think I made you four.
30:03
yes, yes, be gracious with yourself with the pendulum swing because that's how
30:09
we find our sweet spot is to be able to try the outer edges and it's all right.
30:15
So do you have one thing that comes to mind that you would like to stop doing?
30:19
Put that in the comments for us.
30:20
If you're watching this on YouTube, you might inspire others to do the same.
30:24
I've put together a list of psychological tricks that will allow you to keep
30:28
the door open for next time instead of closing it when you go to disappoint
30:32
people or, when you're saying no.
30:34
So click on the link below to download Empowerment Etiquette, 10 Psychological
30:38
Tricks for Saying No With Grace.
30:41
And I've also included the link to Sandy's Disappoint More
30:44
People program in the show notes.
30:47
And you'll find that at disappointmorepeople.ca.
30:50
You'll definitely wanna get a copy of that.
30:52
Her newsletter is also one of my favorites.
30:55
I make time to read it every week.
30:56
She talks about her latest interest, which is supporting women in their.
31:00
third act of life.
31:01
And I've got my mom and my sister reading her work too.
31:04
She's inspiring us to age with grace and wisdom.
31:07
And she also has a few books that she recommends on this topic as well.
31:12
So three of my favorite books on for people pleasers or
31:15
recovering people pleasers.
31:17
One is the courage to be disliked.
31:20
And you're going to put this in the show notes, but even just the title,
31:24
the courage to be disliked, I think summarizes what we've been talking about.
31:28
I have this one as well on an, on an audio book, and I've listened to it a few times.
31:36
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Bleep by Mark Manson is also a really
31:43
good, easy read and he talks a lot about the importance of saying no
31:47
and learning to say no and to care less about what other people think.
31:53
The third one is not nice.
31:56
Stop people pleasing, staying silent and feeling guilty and start speaking
32:00
up, saying no, asking boldly and unapologetically being yourself.
32:05
It's quite the title.
32:06
The author is Dr.
32:07
Aziz Gazipura.
32:11
Not sure how you pronounce it.
32:13
A great book.
32:14
There's a lot in this book and it's probably, if you're going to buy one.
32:18
Start with this one.
32:20
But I do like all three of those books.
32:22
Yes, all 3 of them are on audio and really good.
32:25
I think those are like 3 great audio books.
32:28
The not nice is read by the author and he's really funny too.
32:31
So I like that 1.
32:33
Thank you, Sandy for those book recommendations, they are really great.
32:38
Must read books, I think, for, for all women, because I was surprised at how
32:43
uncovering how much people pleasing I had because I didn't really think I
32:46
was much of a people pleaser either.
32:48
And lo and behold, it's really everywhere in our lives.
32:51
So this has been such a great show.
32:53
And thank you so much for joining us, Sandy.
32:56
So if you want to dive deeper into women's leadership and how to
33:00
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33:35
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