Think Bigg-r

We are faced with many choices in life.  It is important to learn which bridges to cross and which to burn.  To walk away or to try harder.

This requires the ability to say “NO”.  It is easy to say “Yes”. Those that internalise “being respected before being liked” find it easier to say “NO” to activities that are NOT important and NOT a priority.

You need the courage of stepping away and to say “NO”.  Only dead fish go with the flow.  Being tough is different from being weak.  Weak people are more dangerous, they cannot say “No”.  If everybody likes you, you have a serious problem.

We say “yes” and “no” to many internal things every day (prioritising), but we need courage to say no to friends and colleagues without making excuses for saying no.  Just decline in a pleasant and smiling way.  This is not a bad attitude, rather it shows your standards.

In deciding which bridges to cross we make decisions. We are free to make decisions and we should, but we must know that every decision has consequences, and we are not free to choose those consequences. For this reason, it is important to consider life choices carefully. 

Leadership is a balance of high courage and high empathy.  Saying “no” takes courage, how you say it takes empathy.

I worked with many highly paid people who could never tell their boss the real score. They would tell their boss what they thought their boss wanted to hear.  Puppets.  The fish does stink from the head, normally these were bosses that wanted everyone to agree with them, but that does not give validity to puppet behaviour.   

Inner security is the guidance that disagreeing with your boss respectfully is not burning bridges.  Both must move from opinions to facts. Both must be aligned on getting to the right decision.

Many times, we will cross the bridge and later discover that it was the wrong decision. These are tough moments, deciding to walk away or to try harder.  In such moments working with an outsider is important, someone who does not have any emotions invested into the bridge crossing.  Someone that helps us climb the tree to validate if we are chopping in the right forest.