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If I had a nickel for every time some random person sent me this:
“Hey John. Send me your Skype ID and let’s chat.”
Or…
“Hey John. Here’s my code. Can you fix it?”
Or…
“Hey John. Send me some clients.”
I’d be sitting on a beach somewhere, slurping a tall rum and coke, listening to some old-school hip-hop.
My answer to all of these: NO.
A few years ago, I was on the verge of giving up freelancing and web development all together. Funny thing was… it wasn’t because I was lacking for work or income. It was the opposite.
I had more than I could handle.
And by the end of that year, I was waaaaay burnt out. I ended up taking a 2-3 month sabbatical. I told all my current clients that I wasn’t taking any new work from them. I stopped taking new clients.
And, I just crashed.
What I hadn’t yet learned was how to say: NO.
I bring this up because at some point in your career, NO… will become the most important word in your vocabulary.
And, so many people struggle with it.
Hell, my wife still has a hard time saying NO to friends and family. I’ve noticed my kids struggle with as they get it older. I mean, I had a hard time with it.
But, you’ve got to do it.
Because the NOs YOU are going to say will be hard ones. Saying NO to a $3,000 project because it’s not a good fit. Or because you already have too much work. Or because the client seems like trouble.
Trust me, that is HARD to do.
But you need to do it. Otherwise, you’ll end up like I did. Overworked, overwhelmed and on the verge of throwing it all away.
And, that’d be bad.
Now, let me give you a little tip on HOW to learn to do this.
Of course, start saying no to little things now. Doesn’t even have to be related to web development. The more practice, the better.
But, the real trick is to learn how to say NO without giving any reason.
Just NO… and that’s it.
It’s harder than you think. Because, often times, the “askers” will expect a reason. They’ll kind of look at you like, “why”. Cause. That’s why.
Try it… and see how uncomfortable it can be.
But, if you can get good at that… you’ll have a good foundation for later when you need to say NO to one thing so you can say YES to another… that’s a better fit.
As always, I want to give a shout out to supporting listeners of the John Morris Show on Patreon. I appreciate all the support you’ve been giving and I love chatting with you all over on Patreon. So, again… thank you!
If you’d like to learn more about becoming a supporting listener, you can visit: https://johnmorrisonline.com/patreon
P.S. If you liked the show, give it a like and share with the communities and people you think will benefit. And, you can always find all my tutorials, podcast episodes and more on johnmorrisonline.com, @jpmorris on Twitter and youtube.com/johnmorrisvideo.
