Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
On the WorkWell Podcast, Jen Fisher — Human Sustainability Leader at Deloitte and Editor-at-Large, Human Sustainability at Thrive Global — sits down with inspiring individuals for wide-ranging conversations about how we can develop a way of living and working built on human sustainability, starting with ourselves.
Jen Fisher:
It's not always easy to say no, especially when you don't want to disappoint someone. But sometimes saying no is one of the best ways to protect your wellbeing. So how can you do it more strategically? How can you harness the power of no to manage your time, focus on your priorities, and even strengthen your relationships? This is the Work Well Podcast by Deloitte. Hi, I'm Jen Fisher and I'm so pleased to be here with you today to talk about all things purpose, wellbeing, and human sustainability. I'm here with Dr. Vanessa Patrick Rahan. She's an award-winning professor, researcher and author. She's also the professor of marketing and the associate dean for research at the Bauer College of Business at the University of Houston. In her research, she investigates strategies to achieve personal mastery and inspire everyday excellence in one self and in others, and is a pioneer in the study of everyday consumer aesthetics. She's also the author of the book, the Power of Saying No, the New Science of How to Say No, that puts you in charge of your life. Vanessa, welcome to the show.
Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan:
Thanks so much, I’m so excited to be here.
Jen Fisher:
I'm excited for this conversation because I absolutely love the title of your book, and I'm dying to know what made you want to research and write about saying No?
Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan:
That's a great question. And you know, from a professional standpoint, I'm a researcher who studies consumer behavior and particularly how consumers make decisions. And so a few years ago I did a series of papers on the topic of self-regulation and how to make decisions that are good for you. And in the process of doing that work, I kind of started studying how to say no. And it turns out that, you know, those two papers that really started out this journey turned out to be super important. People were really excited about the topic and really wanted to learn more. And since then I've invested a great deal of time trying to understand the strategies that people can employ to say no more effectively. What are some of the skills that we need to develop? What are some of the constraints that we experience? And even though it's this tiny two letter word, no seems to be a huge problem for a lot of people.
Jen Fisher:
It's definitely a huge problem, huge problem for me, although I think I've gotten better at it. But I'm excited to learn more about your research and about the strategies, but you know, I guess it seems like it should be simple, but why do people say yes when they really, if you really want to say no, why do you say yes?
Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan:
Yeah. So there are three main reasons that I outline in the book for why we often say yes when we want to say no. And all three of them relate to the fundamental issue that we are social beings. And as human beings, we really care about being accepted and being liked by other people. And we want to be seen in a positive light by them. And that is actually at the root of saying yes when we want to say no. So the problem of saying no is a deeply human problem. Now, if you want to kind of break down the actual reasons, the first is a concern for reputation, which is we want people to see us in a positive light. We want people to see us as competent, as capable, as able to do anything that comes our way. You know, supermen and superwomen, if you will, and saying no, or stepping away from something that someone asks you to do, might we fear or might signal our incompetence or our inability to do something.
Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan:
And that is our concern for reputation. We also are equally concerned that people like us, that people see us as a friend, as cooperative, as kind, as giving. And that need to maintain positive relationships with others is another core reason as to why we often say yes when we want to say no. And the third is a really practical thing. We have never really learned how to say no effectively. It's, you know, we just don't practice it. So it's almost socialized out of us because you know, you if you think about a toddler, for instance, toddlers are very good at saying no to everything that comes their way that they don't want to do because toddlers don't care about their reputation and their relationships. They care about what they want, and we socialize that out of our kids, right? We, we socialize our kids to be much more giving of other of themselves to others and things like that, which is great, but not at the cost of their own wellbeing and happiness.
Jen Fisher:
Yeah. So in a way, we've kind of, you know, like villainized saying, no, and as I listen to you talk, and I know we'll get into this, but sometimes saying no is, the right thing to uphold your reputation and your relationships, yet we still feel like it's not the right thing.
Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan:
Right? And, and this idea that, you know, by saying, yes, we will be liked by saying, yes, our reputation will be secure, this is really not what happens in real life. The reality is, is that if we take on more than we can handle, we are more likely to get burned out. We are more likely to drop the ball on important tasks because you simply don't have the bandwidth, the energy, the capability to do those things. Those are more damaging to our reputation than if we said no in the first place to the things that are less important to us.
Jen Fisher:
Yea. No, keep going.
Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan:
In the same way when we talk about, you know, saying no to people because we want to secure our relationships. If we reflect on this, when we do say yes to things that we really hate doing, we feel resentful towards the other person, and we actually don't like to engage with them, which is damaging the relationship even more. And so in many ways, you know, kind of rethinking, about how to say no more effectively and saying no to the things that don't matter, so that we give ourselves the opportunity to say yes to the things that do. Because Jen, at the end of the day, everything is a tradeoff. When we say yes to one thing, we have to say no to other things. And so making those choices that are good for us, that are good for not only, us but also our relationships with others is so critical and such an important super skill to develop.
Jen Fisher:
And I think your comment about, you know, toddlers being really good at it, I mean, I, think there's a, lot of reasons why we don't want everybody to act like a toddler. But when it comes to saying no, it seems like there's something that we can all learn from toddlers, right?
Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan:
Because toddlers have a very clear sense of what they want, and that is at the crux of the ability to say no. Well, yeah, knowing who you are, having that self-knowledge, having, you know, precise laser focus on what you're good at and what you can uniquely bring to the table, and focusing on those things and saying no to the, the other things, the other things that don't matter, the things that don't bring out the best that we can offer to the world. So that kind of toddler like mindset, but applied to, you know, bringing us, bringing the best that we have to offer to the world.
Jen Fisher:
Right? So we can't have temper tantrums about it, is what you're saying?
Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan:
Preferably not.
Jen Fisher:
That will do damage in other ways.
Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan:
Absolutely.
Jen Fisher:
So let's talk about, before we kind of get into strategies around saying no, like, there's myths that exist around saying no. And I know that you've covered some of them around like, you know, we fear that it'll damage our reputation or our relationships, but are there, like, what are these like strong held believes and myths that we all have societally about saying no?
Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan:
Yeah. There, there are a whole bunch that come up in the research. So number one is, this sense that, being able to say no is a privilege that only some people have and other people are just people pleasers and they have been socialized. And you know, I have lots of people who come up in the research and describe instances where they said, yes. When they want to say no, and they justify it by saying, but I'm a people pleaser. And consider that to be a stable enduring trait. Instead saying no is a skill that can be learned and we need to practice it. And instead of giving ourselves a label that does not do us any favors, like saying I'm a people pleaser, we need to kind of really think about what does that really mean? We have a choice as to when we want to say yes, and when we want to say no and keep labeling ourselves as a people pleaser is one of those things that kind of makes inroads into identity and says, this is who I am when it doesn't have to be. And so one of the big things to change is the way we describe ourselves and to not attribute it to a stable trait. Like saying, I am a people, people, another thing that comes up very often is that if we want to achieve success in life, we must say yes to a lot of things because we don't know where good opportunities lie.
Jen Fisher:
Definitely heard that one.
Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan:
Yes, especially if you're an entrepreneur, you are very often told, oh, you must say yes to everything. cause you don't know where the business is going to be. So just say yes. And to some extent it is true that as an entrepreneur or anybody starting out, you do have to push yourself and give more of yourself than if you were in a stable and predictable situation. But even for entrepreneurs, even for those starting out, having a sense of where your unique strengths lie and aligning those with the task that you undertake is really important to conserve your energy and give your best to the task that you could take on. So rather than taking anything that comes your way using a filter of, is this the right fit for me? Is this a good thing for what I want to achieve? So having a sort of, you know, a sense of what is the end game? What is the best way that I can make this project take off, for instance, can serve as a very useful filter. And you know, the last thing you want is to be someone who attends every networking event and every opportunity ending up just with a whole bunch of business cards, but nothing to show for it. No business, just business cards, no business.
Jen Fisher:
Yeah, I mean, such an interesting way to look at it, right? Is because I think we don't step back and consider the outcome before we say yes or no to something or the anticipated or hoped for outcome. And maybe we'll get into that when we get more into strategies. But, and you've covered this a little bit, but like learning to say no is a really, and you, and you talked about it as a skill, which I love. And so it's a really important skill to learn. So how do we learn it? And then how does it support our wellbeing?
Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan:
So I introduced in the book a set of three competencies that our research based that help people say no more effectively. And I use the acronym art, A-R-T, and to develop the competencies or skills that you need for a more empowered refusal. So let's begin by defining what I mean by empowered refusal, because that's a construct that is kind of very much central to the book. So empowered refusal is essentially a way of saying no, that is effective because it stems from your identity. It gives voice to your values, priorities, preferences, and beliefs. And because it speaks to who you are, it doesn't invite pushback from others, it conveys conviction and determination. And people are more likely to comply with your refusal when it stems from who you are. And so that is the crux of empowered refusal.
Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan:
So instead of looking outwards and seeking reasons for why you can't take something on looking inwards and reflecting on what your purpose is, what your purpose is, what your priorities are, where your values lie, and using that as the infrastructure to craft your refusal is what empowered refusal is all about. Now, how do you begin to develop this ability to communicate an empowered refusal? That's where the art of empowered refusal comes in. So art stands for awareness, rules, not decisions, and totality of self. So the first step is really that piece where we have to reflect and develop the self-knowledge that we need to be able to say a more effective no. And that self-knowledge involves understanding who you are, what you care about, what is your, what are your strengths, what do you bring to the table in a unique way, what do you want to contribute to the world?
Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan:
And depending on your stage of life, that self-knowledge can change and can be the basis of the values that you hold for that period of time and the things that you want to achieve in that chapter of your life. Now, with this deepened self-knowledge, we need to set ourselves up so that we can say no more effectively. We need to develop what I call personal policies. And personal policies are simple rules that we set up for ourselves that guide our actions and decisions. So they are the way in which the lens we use in order to make decisions, they are the systems we put in place that are based on and give voice to those values and priorities that we have. So that deepened self-awareness informs the personal policies. And once we've done that inner work, then we are ready to communicate our empowered refusal. So when an ask comes our way, we are able to use language that implicates our identity as and accompany that with body language that signals empowerment.
Jen Fisher:
And how do you do that in a digital world?
Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan:
Right? So in fact, it's easier to say no in a digital world. Because, you know, when we've ever interacted with somebody who has, and we've, we felt like we are stuck in a corner and have absolutely no way to say no to this person, it's a very often a face-to-face request. We are significantly more likely, in fact, 33 times more likely to say yes to a face-to-face request as opposed to a digitally mediated request. So if there's an email, it's much easier to say no than if it's an in-person request. And even whether it's in person or an email, learning to communicate our know based on who we are and what we value and what our priorities are, requires us to develop this kind of shift in the way we think about it. When we think about our refusal. We need to think about not coming up with a short term excuse to just like, that sounds good that a person will kind of accept in the moment, but deeply reflect on why is it that you do not want to engage and learning to communicate that in, in your, in the way you speak about or the way you write about your refusal.
Jen Fisher:
And what if it is an opportunity or something that we truly do want to engage in, but we just can't at that particular time or that particular moment. Is there a difference in, you know, as I think about what you're saying and kind of, you know an empowered refusal that is, this isn't something that is aligned with my values and who I am versus this is aligned with my values and who I am and what I'm interested in, but I just can't do it right now.
Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan:
Yes. So I think that that's a really important distinction. So I think that there are some things that we want to close the door on for all time. Some things we just don't want to be associated with and don't want to have to deal with again and again, the other things are just not right for us at the moment and how we communicate that matters. So for example, let's imagine that you are someone who just doesn't want to loan money to friends. And I've done studies where, you know, loaning money and dealing with friends as when a deal comes to money is often awkward and uncomfortable, and you just really prefer if nobody asks you to loan them money, in that situation, thinking about an excuse. So I've done studies in which I've shown that if you use an excuse, you leave the door open.
Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan:
Because an excuse by definition is temporary. You essentially say, I'm sorry, I can't loan you the money now because I have some bills to pay or I have to pay my rent, or I'm going on vacation, and I need this money. But if you say, as a person, I don't believe that, money should be something that comes between friends, I really prefer to stay away from any money transaction with friends or something to that nature. Essentially communicating a very stable stance. This is who you are, this is your attitude about loaning money to friends. So your belief system, in the former case with the excuses, you are leaving the door open because you were saying, Hey, you know, maybe, maybe five years from now you can ask me and maybe that time will be a better time. Versus when you implicate the identity or invoke a personal policy, which is this is who I am, this is how I believe, and this is what I believe, and this is stable, this is how I, how I will respond now or five years from now.
Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan:
And that is exactly what we find in the research. In the short run, an excuse will work and the person goes away. And you know, you are, as far as you are concerned, you have successfully said no. But when you ask people, would you go back and ask for money five years from now, in the case of excuses, the door is left open. So you're more likely to get the request again versus a personal policy, which implicates the identity where you're significantly less likely to get that request again. And so if something, as, you know, to go back to the other question, this is not right for me. Now, that is a totally legitimate way to communicate, you know, given my current priorities, given what I have on the plate at the moment, this is not a good thing for me to engage in right now. I hope you will consider me in the future. I hope you we can revisit this in the future. It really boils down to coming up with language that keeps that door open when you want it to.
Jen Fisher:
Yeah, that's really important. So I guess what if you are just unsure about whether or not you should say yes or no to something like what if you've kind of done the work, right? And it's in a gray area. So how do you figure out what to, you know, if I should say no, if it's not clear?
Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan:
Right. So the first thing is a lot of people feel that they need to respond with a yes and no in the moment. And that is the number one rule. Never give your final answer in the moment. Always try to buy time because you need time to evaluate the pros and cons of saying yes versus no. So that's the first thing. Once you have time, maybe you have the opportunity to think through whether this is a good for me activity or a not good for me activity. The second thing is that, you know, deciphering the ask is a really important skill to develop to determine whether you should say yes or whether you should say no. And in the book I come up with a framework that helps people use that, a lens that helps them decipher, is this a yes for me or is this a no for me?
Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan:
And so I come up with a framework that balances your preferences, priorities, beliefs, value systems, and the energy that you will need to invest and contrast that or balance that with the good you can do in the world if you did say yes. So it's a, it's, you know, like a cost benefit framework. It's a typical two by two where there's a cost to you for taking anything on, but you weigh that cost against the benefit that you can give to others. So like, as a very simple example would be something I call pass the salt asks. Pass the salt asks are low cost to you, but high benefit to the other person. So essentially what that means is you're sitting at a, like imagine a situation that you're sitting at a dining table and the salt shaker is sitting in front of you and someone across the table says, Hey Jen, can you pass me the salt?
Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan:
You just lift it up and pass it to them. It was very easy for you to do, but presumably it was a game changer for the other person who really needed salt for their meal. There are lots of tasks that come our way that are easy for us to do and they allow us the opportunity to make a big impact with those relatively easy tasks. Now we have to remember that easy and difficult is a very individual assessment. Like what's easy for me may not be easy for someone else and vice versa. So as a professor, for example, Jen, one of those pass the salt asks are recommendation letters. For me, I have a system in place as to how to write a recommendation letter. I write dozens of them every year. And writing a recommendation letter is relatively easy for me to do for a student, but I know that it can be a huge impact on the student. They might get into their dream professional college, they might get a job that they have been really hoping and dreaming for. So the impact that I can have on the student's life makes me say yes to this, what I call a pass the salt ask cause for me, it's easy for the other person. It's hugely beneficial.
Jen Fisher:
And I love that you know, you have a process in place, you know, it's an ask that you get often where I feel like if you didn't have a process in place, maybe it wouldn't feel as easy, right? But you've done it so many times now you know what to do. You know what to say, you know how to do it. So it becomes an easy task for you to say yes to.
Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan:
Yes. But, it's, we shouldn't just say yes to all easy tasks because we can spend our days spinning our wheels doing things that are completely useless. And those are the kind of tasks that we need to be looking in our calendar for. Are there tasks that we are just doing because out of habit or just because they are easy, that are actually not making any difference to anyone? And can we just stop doing those things and would it really make a difference in the world? And, and so evaluating those tasks, and I call them email, tweet, post tasks, cause they have absolutely no real impact. And there are so stories associated with all of these asks in the book, but the one the most insidious sort of asks, in my view are what I call bake your famous lasagna asks, and these are asks that are very hard for you to do.
Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan:
They in involve a great deal of effort, emotional energy, they take a lot of time. They drain you of a lot of your what you can give to the world. They suck up your time, they suck up who you are. And, yet they really don't make a huge impact on the world. It's not a task that makes a positive difference to the world. And so I kind of give a relatively light example to illustrate this. So in, in the book, I talk about the fact that imagine that a friend is having a potluck party and invites everyone to bring something for the potluck party, but ask you specifically to make your very famous lasagna because it is absolutely delicious. And while you are an expert at making this lasagna, the question that you have to ask is, should I be making a lasagna for a potluck party when everybody else is bringing party trays?
Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan:
So it's high effort for you, but the real impact is insignificant. Your lasagna is going to be on a table with a whole bunch of things that are bought from the grocery store, should you be investing that effort? And so thinking critically about the effort that you invest, the time that you invest and weighing it against the impact that you have or the intended consequences that you would like to achieve. And so the reason why it's so important for us to kind of stop doing Bake Your famous lasagna asks is so that we can invest our time and energy in what I call hero's journey asks. The kind of asks that may be effortful may take a lot of our time and energy and expertise, but they are tasks or activities that actually have a significant impact on the world. We are able to do good with them, we are able to make things better with them. And so as we just, as we discussed a little while ago, everything is a tradeoff. And so realizing that, how do I want to spend my time? Should I spend my time on hero's journey asks, which are worthwhile? Or should I squander my time doing bake Your famous lasagna asks.
Jen Fisher:
Yeah. So for, let's say that your friend that asks you to bake your famous lasagna for the potluck, is being difficult to you saying, no, I'm not going to bake my lasagna, but I will buy it or bring something else, right? So how do you deal with a person that is being difficult to you saying no, especially if it's a relationship that you care about?
Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan:
Absolutely. And this is a real problem. A lot of people fear that they cannot say no to a boss. They cannot say no to a good friend because saying no would hurt them, would damage the re relationship. For the most part, when you use an empowered refusal, people do respond to you favorably. They do not give you pushback. But we'll, unfortunately, once in a while, encounter people who will not take no for an answer. They will insist on their way, even though you have stated that this is something that you don't want to do. Right? And so, I call these people walnut trees, and in the book, and I talk about the idea that there are going to be difficult people and we have to be prepared to handle these difficult people and have strategies in place. So, when we encounter a walnut tree or a difficult person who will not take no for an answer, we do have to know how to handle them.
Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan:
And the reason I use the word walnut tree is because it's kind of a metaphor for this kind of behavior. Now, if you look at the literature, you know, there's a lot of literature on how to deal with difficult people. And difficult people are often called jerks or toxic, or troublemakers or, or critics, all sorts of words that make it feel even more difficult to handle them when we give them those labels. So, what I found in my classes is that when we use this metaphor of the walnut tree, it just makes it seem easier to handle because there are strategies you can develop to handle a walnut tree. Now why a walnut tree? One of the black American walnut tree is a tree that dominates the landscape. It has a luxury canopy and it, and it essentially has a root system that is around 50 feet outside of the trunk of the tree.
Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan:
So it spreads out under the soil. And what this root system does is that it exudes into the soil a chemical called juglone. And that chemical is a herbicide. And while it allows the walnut tree to thrive, it stunts the growth of everything around it. So, some people can act like walnut trees, it's about them. It's about them thriving, it's about what they want. And it doesn't matter that it, you know, doesn't allow other people to have their way, it doesn't matter that other people get to have a voice. And that is essentially what happens when you encounter someone who will not take no for an answer. It's about what they want, not what you want. And understanding that there are strategies that you can employ to deal with a walnut tree is a huge step. So, one of the strategies would be just to invoke a personal policy.
Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan:
Even walnut trees will hear you when you say that you have a policy about a particular thing, or this is your preference, and you have a firm and consistent way in which you respond to a walnut tree. There are also strategies in which you can develop a way to put technology between you and the walnut tree. So, as we talked about, walnut trees are very good at knowing what they need to do to get their way. So, they will insist on a face-to-face conversation, they will insist that you say yes in the moment right now. And so, recognizing these patterns and having systems yourself where I will talk to you on the phone, I will not answer right now. I need time to make a decision. Having those kind of, that basic understanding of how to deal with someone who's a walnut tree is very helpful.
Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan:
If there's a way you can get someone else to say no to a walnut tree on your behalf, like delegate the ask. That's really great. A lot of famous people have people who will say no on their behalf. So, they essentially get to be the good cop. And, you know, maybe their, their assistant is the one who says no, so they become the bad cop. Uh, so there are lots of strategies I discuss in the book on how to deal with walnut trees. But I think the key takeaway is that you do not succumb to the pressure of a walnut tree. There are ways and means by which you can stick with your no. And be true to yourself, even though you are dealing with a walnut tree.
Jen Fisher:
Yeah, I love that. And I love the metaphor of the walnut tree. And, as we're talking about, you know, somebody on the, the receiving end kind of being of your no being difficult, is there guidance, you know, for people that are on the receiving end of somebody saying no. Like, how should we, how do we respond to someone saying no and, you know, potentially the feelings of being disappointed or, you know, having to then go find another solution or another answer or another person. Like, is there guidance for how to receive a no, in the right way?
Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan:
I think you raised such an important point because in the same way that we want to be heard, when we say no, we do need to hear other people when they say no to us. Right? And I think the most important thing to remember is that a no is not a rejection of us. A no is simply the other person asserting their own preferences. And they have a complete right to say that this is not right for me. And, and we should respect that and not consider it to be a rejection of us. Uh, so that's the first step to reframe how we think about saying no. And when no is said to us or when we say no to others. The second thing is to realize that there, there are ways in which to think about what is the best way to get people to do things.
Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan:
I mean, people do things because they are motivated to do them because it aligns with who they are. And one of the challenges of leadership is to be able to find a fit between the tasks that you have and need to get done and the right person to do that task. So, we go back to classic leadership strategy like Jim Collins, he very often talks about, you know, find the right people and put them in the right seats on the bus going in the right direction. That is leadership. And I think recognizing that when someone pushes back and says, no, it's because we haven't found that right fit. And we very often have to just go and look for another person who, for whom that that is a, a better fit. And looking at this as, you know, an opportunity to expand our knowledge of the people that we work with or to expand our knowledge of, practice better leadership. These are some of the ways in which we become better because I do believe that we will result in better workplaces where people are happier, less burned out, and feel more cared for when they do work that is meaningful to them. When they are able to bring the best of themselves to the work. And when they say no to things that are not aligned with who they are or what they care about, we should be able to listen for that.
Jen Fisher:
I love that. Using that as information.
Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan:
Yes.
Jen Fisher:
Yeah. I love that. So, is there anything that you haven't covered that, like in doing this research around saying no, is there anything that you found surprising or that was kind of the opposite of what you thought it might be?
Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan:
Well, not opposite really, but I think that this research really, really underscored for me the power of language and the way we not only talk to others, but the way we talk to ourselves. And so, in the same way that we have to deal with others and say no to them, in order to feel good about the way we live, to be able to have live the best possible life, very often we have to say no to ourselves. And so I think one of the important pieces and important takeaways from the book is using these same principles to allow us to live more fulfilling and richer lives by saying no to the things that don't matter. So, you know, when we agree to saying things and put things on our calendar very often, that's us doing that. We need to develop a set of systems, the self-discipline, to be able to look at whether these are the things that are good for us, rather than just filling up our calendar with things.
Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan:
And just because we have the time. So one simple strategy that I often invite the students in my classes to think about is the set of discipline to shift the question from can I do it to, should I do it. When someone says, you know, can you, can come to work on Saturday? Of course, you can do it right? You can rearrange your daughter's piano recital. You can delegate somebody taking on, you know, the gardening that you were supposed to do. You can do it. The question is, should you, do it? And when we start critically thinking about whether we should do certain things, our decisions become clearer. And so, it's the way we talk to ourselves and the lens with which we make clear decisions that are good for us is something that we can, is a skill that we can certainly develop.
Jen Fisher:
I think that is so important, just because you're so right in, in that it's not just about saying no to others, it's also the skill of saying no to ourselves. cause I think most of the time it's you know, we're the ones that get ourselves into the, into the trouble of being overscheduled.
Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan:
Yeah. And being good to ourselves and knowing our limits and knowing that, you know, taking as you so nicely in your, in your TED talk, which I loved by the way, Jen. It was, it was so important. I think when you said, you know, we take cancer seriously, but we don't take our own burnout and our own wellbeing. Seriously, that is such an important message because it's the daily self-care. It is the daily attention that we pay to what is good for us. That makes us just so much more productive and so much more happy.
Jen Fisher:
Yeah, absolutely. And we, we typically get the big things right? It's the daily decisions that we don't always give ourselves permission for, I guess is the best way to say it.
Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan:
Absolutely.
Jen Fisher:
Well, Vanessa, thank you so much for this conversation. I learned a lot. I have a lot of new strategies that I can put in place and I'm sure our listeners do too. So thank you for your time and your wisdom today.
Vanessa Patrick-Ralhan:
Thank you so much, Janet. It was such a delight talking to you.
Jen Fisher:
I'm so grateful Vanessa could be with us today to talk about saying no. Thank you to our producers Rivet 360 and our listeners. You can find the Work Well podcast series on deloitte.com, or you can visit various pod catchers using the keyword WorkWell all one word to hear more. And if you like the show, don't forget to subscribe. So, you get all of our future episodes. If you have a topic, you'd like to hear on the Work Well podcast series, or maybe a story you would like to share, please reach out to me on LinkedIn. My profile is under the name Jen Fisher or on Twitter at Jen Fish 23. We're always open to your recommendations and feedback. And of course, if you like what you hear, please share post and like this podcast. Thank you and be well. The information, opinions, and recommendations expressed by guests on this Deloitte podcast series are for general information and should not be considered as specific advice or services.