Just Say No!

About two years ago I mentioned on my own website at A Daring Adventure I was looking to take on two new pro bono life coaching clients for people that couldn’t afford it. Little did I know that it would lead to over 50 requests for free coaching from people literally all over the world.

It was tough filtering the applicants and whittling it down to two (which ended up being six over time) as there were lots of great people I knew would really benefit and I wanted to work with.

Unfortunately, I have to say no to 95% of requests and those I do take on usually have to wait a while. Otherwise I’d be living under a cardboard box and eating peanut butter on crackers for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and I don’t even like peanut butter.

The same goes for book reviews. I get about 5 or 6 requests per month and with the books I want to read as well, I simply do not have the time to read them all without giving up all my spare time and then some.

Saying no is a part of life and it doesn’t mean you are selfish or don’t care.

Rich and Happy people get that, they can say no if and when they have to and not feel bad about it. Feeling bad because you can’t help everybody on the planet is an excellent recipe for being poor and unhappy.

The more successful you become as you move forward on your journey to be Rich and Happy the more people will see you as a resource and want you to help them.

By disciplining yourself now with minor requests, from family, friends and co-workers you become better at it later, because, and this bit is really important:

Everything you do today is practice for what you do tomorrow.

Think of people in your field that are super successful, you admire and look up to. Do you think they have the time to say yes to everybody that wants some of their time? Do they take on every project? Do they let down themselves and their loved ones down in a vain attempt to please the world?

Do you think people think the worse of them for that?

Well possibly some do, but who cares about people so eager to judge others?

At the moment Tony Robbins is running a seminar in Orlando. If I popped down to the see the shiny-toothed one (presuming I could get anywhere near him) and asked him to mentor me for 12 months and help us with setting up How To Be Rich and Happy Seminars, do you think he’d have any problem saying no?

I doubt it.

None of this means you shouldn’t help people, far from it, it just means you have to prioritize if you're going to keep your sanity and hit the Rich and Happy status you deserve.

Note: The fact they may say no doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ask somebody well-known to help you if you think they can because asking for help is a huge part of the formula we talk about in How To Be Rich and Happy.  If I really did want Tony Robins to mentor me I’d ask him and then let him decide what he wants to do. In fact, I may just do that!

Speaking of Saying No - Kind Of!

The feedback we have had about our our website has been phenomenal. Both myself and John have been incredibly proud of it and to be honest I think it is better than my own site!

The guy that designed, built and optimized it is a friend of mine and the work he’s done has been massively appreciated. I’m not even sure we could have got this far without him, that's how crucial he’s been.

Just lately there has been more and more to be done in terms of maintenance and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to keep the flow of traffic. We also had the launch of the Rich and Happy Giveaway as well as a host of changes to deal with this last week.

At the same time Dave had taken on other projects of his own and now is the time for him to concentrate on those, and rightly so!

I just wanted to use this space to say thanks a million and tell you guys if you ever need a website/SEO/design guy, then Dave Raymond from Crossridge comes highly recommended.