I’ve read a lot of articles that advise if you can’t say “Hell Yes!” Then you need to say no. They basically are conveying the idea that a life that is over committed is not a good life. It is a life of people pleasing mediocrity. And every time I see this I feel a huge wave of cognitive dissonance sweep over me. Because, you see, that’s not how I have lived my life.
First let me explain what I think is wrong with the “Hell yes or it’s a firm no” strategy of living. Very simply, it is selfish. The world, and even your precious life is not all about you, or about maximizing your own happiness. I say that for lots of reasons, maybe the foremost being that headlong pursuit of happiness is the worst way to attain it. Happiness is better found in being grateful, being content with what you already have and in helping others. Getting out of your own head and your own wish list of desires is easier if you reach out a hand to help someone else. Putting their needs ahead of your own is the antithesis of being selfish, it is being selfless. And almost every time there is an opportunity to help another person it shows up in the form of the classic yes or no decision. And it is rarely, if ever, a “Hell yes”. In fact it usually feels like a strong no at first.
Take passing a car stalled on the side of the road with an obviously stranded driver. Now this is a rural example, it may not be a safe thing to do in the metro world, but stay with me anyway. You can stop and help or drive on by. Why you would stop is no mystery, you would only do that to help someone out. You would only do it because you empathize with their plight. But the reasons why you might not stop, those are legion. Fear of intruding, fear of getting involved with someone who might not be stable or safe. You’ve got places to be and things to do and your time is important. Stop and help, that’s all about them. Drive on by, that’s all about you. And most likely you’ll never ever feel a “Hell yes” when it comes to assisting a stalled motorist. But I’ve done this many times and every time, even if I got soaked helping push a car out of the road in a pouring rainstorm, in my best suit, it felt great. It made me happy!
I’ve told the story before of a pivotal moment in my teen years that changed my entire life. Me, the shyest and most awkward wall flower in my class, agreed to take a lead role in a musical play. We performed that play many times and in front of thousands of people. I was terrified, there was no “Yes” in me at all. I was so firmly opposed to the idea of going down in flames in front of my peers that it made me shake to even consider. But I said yes, somehow I sensed that if I could do this my life could turn a corner. And it did. I went from seeing myself as a nerd with awful social skills to being kind of a cool kid in my own way. And from then on I decided to always say yes unless there were very solid reasons to say no. And fear of failure was not allowed to be a reason.
That philosophy, of always saying yes, led me from company intern to the guy that ran the division for our Fortune 500 corporation. It led me to testifying before both House and Senate committees in DC and it led me to becoming a first responder and firefighter who brought a dead coworker back to life with CPR. It got me a wonderful life partner and three great kids. It made a slightly early retirement with no money worries possible. And to be honest it led to some spectacular failures too. The kind where I now shake my head and say, “What was I thinking?” But the worst that ever happened is I learned more about myself. Looking back at even the worst of my failures, they seem more amusing now than painful.
So what about over committing and being a people pleaser. Over committing is a modern myth in my opinion. That old saying about giving a task that must be done quickly to the busiest person you know, that’s a truism because it is true! We aren’t that busy, not really. Not to the point that we can’t help someone else. If they are asking you to say yes they are just asking for help. As for pleasing people, what is that? Pleasing people is adding to their happiness, right? And that is a good thing. How helping others feel better ever got a bad name is beyond me. I think it is one of our best purposes. So mark me down as someone who sees great value in pleasing other people. That’s providing good service, that’s having happy customers, that’s having raving fans.
The day I wake up and think I need to say no to everything that doesn’t fire me up immediately is the day I start to die. I would not have finished a single one of the marathons I ran if I needed a “Hell yes” to keep running to the finish. I wouldn’t have done any of the hard things that got me ahead in the world of business. I wouldn’t have been the kind of parent that required accountability from and granted trust to my children. And I wouldn’t be the happy person I am now.
It isn’t a one time thing to say yes, in spite of misgivings and fears. You do get much better with practice but every time you say yes to something outside of your zone of comfort it is going to scare you. But that is so much better than rationalizing your way to saying no by telling yourself you are too busy. Too busy to do what? Too busy to win? Too busy to be happy by helping someone else? Too busy to change your life? You are never too busy for that.
What do you think, is this heresy to say yes instead of no? Am I full of myself and just don’t understand your life?
How do you decide when to say yes? Have you ever said yes in spite of fear, what happened?
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“Hell Yes” decisions should be reserved for major life decisions. Do I want to marry her? Do I want to be a doctor? Do I want to travel the next 20 years to do sales? Do I want to sit at a screen for the next 30 years and code all day?
For day-to-day decisions, HY is probably a bad tool. There will be many days you don’t want to go to the gym or go for a 5 mile run or swim training for a triathlon. There will be many days you won’t want to help someone. And as you stated, HY will always be a HN for stuff like this. I find myself helping people (like stranded motorists) only when I ask myself “how would I feel if I were in that situation?”.
And early on in life, you should probably say Yes to most anything, because it’s the only way to figure out who you are. When you’re 18, you probably have no idea what you want to “be” for the rest of your life… but you should move forward on something.
I do agree that HY has become a bit glamorized for making all decisions by uber successful people. It’s a luxury once you’ve “made it” in life.
Totally agree here.
Forget about a “hell yes!” reaction. Forget about even a tepid “yes”. I think in order to grow, you have to do things you don’t want to do.
Steve – you took the lead in a school play even when you didn’t want to. And you grew as a person because of it.
I just don’t see how a person can grow without challenging oneself. And inherently, challenges should elicit a negative reaction or a “no”.
But turn that no into a yes in order to grow.
I couldn’t agree more, nobody ever grew by only doing fun and easy things. I performed and gave talks when I hated it but grew to love public speaking in time. I hated running but had some awesome marathon experiences. And the times my help changed someone’s life for the better all felt like no at first.
Great observations, especially on how the importance of the decision and age factor in. Thanks for expanding the concept!
I honestly can appreciate both sides of this discussion. I am by nature a “Yes” guy and have been all my life. Being so has helped a ton of people and in many ways it has greatly helped me to become who I am which is a happy, happy guy. However, I do appreciate that my life could use some simplification and saying no more often probably leads to that end.
I think what we are looking for is balance, a balance in your life between being the Hell Yes Guy and the Nope Guy. For good or bad, life does not fit so neatly into absolute rules. You need to find balance.
Hard to argue with that, there aren’t many absolute rules in life. I do think your yes orientation has served you and others well very much like mine has. But to be honest my regrets in life include times when I said yes and times when I said no.
Where I have used the “Hell Yes or it’s a No” structure is in deciding career or business options where I’m trying to get a read on my inner compass and block out noise from what I think I “should” do. For example, should I take this project or that one? Should I focus on developing this product or that one? This is where I first had learned about Hell Yes, and I think it’s very useful in that context.
That’s an interesting nuanced use of the concept. That’s sounds pretty useful, in fact, as a way of amplifying your gut reaction. Great perspective and comment Caroline!
Hey Steve. Your comment on the Best Interest last week brought me here. Cool blog and cool story!
My girlfriend and I have this conversation all the time: “We both need to get better at saying ‘no'” 🙂 We say it with a smile, but we’re both fully aware that we sign up for too much, overbook and overcommit, and simply end up stressed out due to lack of time.
Is it better than being too bored? Maybe. But there’s a Goldilocks sweet spot that I miss far too often.
-Jesse
Thanks Jesse, I used to stay way overbooked before I retired to only a small amount of paid consulting. I like the concept of a Goldilocks sweet spot. Hell no just doesn’t eliminate anything and Hell yes eliminates almost everything.
Steve,
Hell yes or hell no has become another oversimplification. With the exception of choosing my wife and some academic goals, many of my life choices have been a lukewarm or even begrudgingly given “I’ll give it a shot.”
The more I try something new, the more I realize I can do other things. Just like your lead role in the play taught you.
When I see the stranded motorist or in my case, the old lady who’s fallen on the sidewalk when I’m driving past, I don’t ask myself how I feel about asking. I ask myself “what kind of man do I want to be?” And then I take action. Sometimes I regret the action. Many times I don’t.
For me, that’s far more important than is this a “hell yes?”
As for doing too much, I find that to be like overtraining. When I thought I was struggling with either one, I was really not. I was just filling my time with actions that were not so important.
Ps. Glad to see you are still posting…hadn’t heard from you in a while
Great to hear from you, Steve! I wonder if the Hell yes concept is more of a millennial or Gen X concept? In my case, as a boomer, we didn’t get a lot of instruction in self care from our greatest generation parents. They were incredibly rugged having lived through things I can barely imagine.
If I had to feel “Hell yes!” to everything, I think there’s little I would do, and that would be a very empty life. There are plenty of things I’ve wanted to say no to because I hate giving up my free time, but there are plenty of things I’ve enjoyed as a result of saying yes instead of no, even if it wasn’t a hell yes. I needed this reminder, though, so thanks! I love learning from those with more life experience than I have!
My first boss used to say, as an insult, that someone with thirty years of experience wasn’t always all that experienced. Sometimes they had the same one year of experience thirty times in a row! But this one life experience made all the difference in my life. Thanks camel rider!