Say Yes Until You Can Say No

Derek Shivers, founder of CD Baby, has an interesting perspective about saying no. Early in his career he said yes to every gig as he wanted to be a professional musician. He played at a pig farm, he played an art opening, played at a circus. He took a $60 bus fare out to the gig that paid them $75 and then went back home. He took this circus gig and he wound up being in that show for 10 years…from age 18 to 28. He went from $75 a show to $300 a show and it became his full-time job. He eventually bought his first house on the money he made playing at the circus. He said yes to the circus gig so he could “earn the right” to say no and to say yes to the things that would fuel his passion and mission.

So many other opportunities opened up to him because he said yes to the pig show early.

How do you do something remarkable? What makes you remarkable? All it takes is for someone to remark on you. How simple is it for us all to be remarkable? There are people on this call that have already shown up today as remarkable, because they did something as simple as it might be to impress someone else in this organization and one person or multiple people have remarked on you.

When making decisions for your business and getting concerned about how much money it costs, ask yourself, “Is this the right thing to do for the world? For the client? For the people I have said yes to?” If part of your mission is to make other people happy, and even if it costs the business money, go out and make people happy.