How to Say No

Speaker 1 Here's something that surprised me. 72% of Americans overestimate how much life insurance costs.
We just assume it's way out of reach, expensive like, well, everything is these days.

Speaker 1 That's why I love what Policy Genius is doing. It's not an insurance company, it's a marketplace that makes finding and buying life insurance fast, easy, and actually affordable.

Speaker 1 With Policy Genius, real users have gotten 20-year, $2 million policies for just $53 a month.

Speaker 1 You go online, answer a few questions, and Policy Genius compares quotes from top insurers so you can see all your options laid out clearly.

Speaker 1 Coverage amounts, prices, terms, no fine print games, just clarity. And if you need help, the license agents walk you through everything step by step.

Speaker 1 They'll answer questions, handle paperwork, and make sure you get what fits you. Secure your family's future with Policy Genius.

Speaker 1 Head to policygenius.com to compare life insurance quotes from top top companies and see how much you could save. That's policygenius.com.

Speaker 4 Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things. This is an episode that will fix your life.

Speaker 3 How many have we started like this?

Speaker 4 Well, listen.

Speaker 3 And my life is not fixed.

Speaker 4 I know. I know.
That's the thing about life is it's impossible to get it.

Speaker 3 You should pay closer attention, Abby.

Speaker 4 Yeah, are you listening? Listen, I want to do easier things. Exactly.
Today we learn how to do easier things, okay?

Speaker 4 Which is in the vein of this, a topic that the pod squad has been begging us to discuss. A topic that if we learn this skill,

Speaker 4 we will free ourselves, okay, to live the life we want to live. It is hard, okay? It is hard because it is how to say no.
Oh, Jesus.

Speaker 4 In a world

Speaker 4 that relentlessly, from the moment we wake up till the moment we go to sleep, asks us to do things, grabs us, says, do this, do this, do this. How about this? Do this.

Speaker 4 It is the most freeing, liberating

Speaker 4 space-making skill to learn how to diplomatically and without shame say

Speaker 3 no, thank you.

Speaker 4 Okay?

Speaker 4 Today, we shall learn how.

Speaker 4 Amanda, I'm going to ask you to lead us in this conversation. And if you don't want to, feel free to say no.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 3 What if I was just like, no, now that we've modeled it, go forth. Unto yourselves and knoweth on everyone.
Correct. So yes, the pod squad has wanted to talk about this.

Speaker 3 So, we did a bunch of research and a lot of thought, and we are going to

Speaker 3 have

Speaker 3 two

Speaker 5 parts.

Speaker 3 One,

Speaker 3 how do we even know when we should say no? Ooh, this is a big thing.

Speaker 3 Do we even want to say no?

Speaker 3 Do how do we know it's a no for us? How do we know it's a no? And then, when we know it's a no,

Speaker 3 how do we practically concretely do the no?

Speaker 4 Excellent.

Speaker 3 And we're going to go through like

Speaker 3 social, friendship, community, and workplace no's. Oof.

Speaker 4 So excited.

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 3 So this was in response to many of you wanting us to have this episode, including Jodi and Missy.

Speaker 6 My name is Jodi. My question is.

Speaker 6 Have you ever dealt with having a hard time saying no to people?

Speaker 6 And then, you know, once you do start doing that you carry around this guilt or feel like people are upset with you I've been quite a people pleaser my entire life and have been starting to say no more often when I feel like I don't have capacity and I'm just wondering how you deal with that like I said the guilt and and things that come with that This is Missy.

Speaker 7 I am calling because I need help

Speaker 7 saying no

Speaker 7 because I always feel like I need to say yes. I have a hard time saying no because I like to help people and it's hard for me to say

Speaker 7 no when I should

Speaker 7 say no.

Speaker 7 So that is my harsh thing.

Speaker 4 This apparently is a universal issue.

Speaker 3 So feel not bad, friends, if this is happening. So the way I think about this,

Speaker 3 and tell me if you have other frameworks for it, but I think it's even hard to know when

Speaker 3 to say no, because

Speaker 3 sometimes you feel like I will be happier in the end if I do this thing. I just don't feel like doing it, but I know after I go hang out with my friends

Speaker 3 or after

Speaker 3 I make out with my husband, I'm like, good idea. That was good.
But right in the moment, you don't feel like doing it, you know, things like this.

Speaker 3 And also sometimes you feel like you don't want to do it,

Speaker 3 but you want to live a life that is aligned with the kind of values that that thing represents. Like what? So maybe you don't want in this moment that you're sitting on your couch to go visit

Speaker 3 your

Speaker 3 getting older mother-in-law, but you're like, I want to be

Speaker 3 someone who

Speaker 4 my kids have a relationship with their mother-in-law and have good memories with their mother-in-law so on balance I want to have done that thing yes there's a lot of things that we want to have done like I don't ever want to write but I really do want to have written I don't want to go for a walk but I really do want to have gone for a walk so how do we know if it's one of those things yes or true no yes exactly so

Speaker 3 this is the first level of things and then the second level of things we're going to talk about like practically once you know it's a no what you do but

Speaker 3 the most important thing seems to be

Speaker 3 the thing is presented to you, whether it's your own idea or someone approaches you and asks you to do something, whether it's like want to hang out tomorrow or want to run a marathon next year or want to whatever fill in the blanket is.

Speaker 3 Could you, you know, take care of my kids this weekend? And anything.

Speaker 3 The number one thing apparently is to pause. Yes.

Speaker 3 Live to die another day. Get yourself out of that moment.
How long? That's something you do. How long do you pause? You pause as long as it's necessary to not answer in that moment.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 3 So, like, for example,

Speaker 3 thank you so much for thinking of me. Let me think about it.

Speaker 4 Yes.

Speaker 3 Like the episode we did with Puja, where she was talking about

Speaker 3 taking time, not rushing a response, because it's so much easier to

Speaker 3 start from a blank slate where you're just receiving a request than it is to, in the moment, which I do every time, try to like appease that moment in the moment.

Speaker 3 And now I'm stuck with undoing the thing that I accidentally agreed to.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it feels like this is a perfect opportunity to utilize if you are in a partnership or you do have children.

Speaker 2 When's the last time you've made a straight on decision without talking to me about it first?

Speaker 4 Oh, so you're saying it's a good strategy to, if someone asks something to say, I need to talk it over with so-and-so.

Speaker 2 Yeah, like I need to talk to Glennon. I have family.

Speaker 3 Check the family schedule. Don't know what's going on with the kids.
This is like whatever means necessary to get yourself out of the accidentally committing yourself in that moment.

Speaker 4 And I do know this is something that I'm pretty good at. One strategy I have, I have two ideas.
One is,

Speaker 4 I think sometimes

Speaker 4 we just jump into the yes

Speaker 4 because we feel like we were lucky to have been asked. Like a friend asks us, do you want to go to coffee?

Speaker 4 Somebody from work asks you something. You feel grateful that anyone thought of you and asked you to do it.
So out of immediate gratitude, you say yes. And what I have learned is that I can say,

Speaker 4 I am so grateful that you thought of me.

Speaker 4 Let me think about that. You can express gratitude because you can both be grateful and not want to do it.
Saying no does not mean you aren't grateful.

Speaker 4 So, for me, if I say the truth of the matter, which is I am grateful for this request,

Speaker 4 I need to think about it. It's an and both, right? It's like it immediately expresses the gratitude because gratitude is not enough to commit yourself to something, is what I have found.

Speaker 4 You can be grateful and also not want to say yes. So, having a thing that you say, which is true,

Speaker 4 I need time to think. I'm really grateful to have been asked.
I want to talk it over with so-and-so. I want to think about it.

Speaker 4 There's also, I think, it's helpful to have something physical. I remember hearing Brene say that every time she gets a request, she turns her ring three times

Speaker 4 because it's something like

Speaker 4 grounding and embodied,

Speaker 4 and it is a ritual that brings her back to her center.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 4 And it's a forced pause. I think when you can have something physical that you do while you're thinking, it gets you out of reaction mode and into like

Speaker 4 true response.

Speaker 3 Yes. And knowing that there's truly not a lot of things that are legitimately urgent on the planet.
So like with my kids, I remember Bobby's always like,

Speaker 3 I need to know the answer to this right now. I want to know, like, I want to do this thing next month.
And I need, please tell me right now. Please tell me yes right now.
I need to know right now.

Speaker 3 And I just always say, like, if you need to know right now, it's a no.

Speaker 3 If that's the priority is the needing to know it right now, then tragically for you, it's a no. Yep.
But I'm going to take some time to think about it. And then it might not be a no.

Speaker 3 It might still be a no, but if it's right now, it's a no. And I feel like that's a good way of like applying to a lot of things.
If it needs to be answered in this second,

Speaker 3 it's a no, unless it's a hell yes in your soul and you're like, yes, want so much, have capacity, want to do that.

Speaker 4 I think that's excellent because for me,

Speaker 4 unless someone's on fire

Speaker 4 and they need me right away to put them out, like that is urgency. But when someone comes to me with false urgency,

Speaker 4 And that to me is always a no

Speaker 4 because I feel like it's happened so many times before I learned about false urgency. But when someone comes to you with a request and it's not something that should be urgent, like no one's in peril,

Speaker 4 but they are presenting it with urgency, that means that person is flailing.

Speaker 3 Wait, what is that phrase? Your inability to plan is not my emergency or something.

Speaker 4 Yeah. And I don't even mean it in like a judgmental way.
It happens to me all the time. I fuck up and then I try to pull someone else in.

Speaker 4 But wise people do not get pulled into false urgency because when someone is drowning,

Speaker 4 they will take you down. Like you just,

Speaker 4 false urgency is always a no for me. A kind

Speaker 3 no.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 3 So this is the thing. Get yourself out of the moment.
Also realize that like there's very few things where it's needed in that moment. And you can

Speaker 3 talk about schedules.

Speaker 3 You can talk about, let me check on something, let me talk to my family, let me see if that's doable for us, let me think about it, anything that gets you out of that immediate moment.

Speaker 3 Then you have to actually make the decision, right? Now that you have gotten your time. One thing that I read about somebody doing, they were a businesswoman and they

Speaker 3 carried around a list in their pocket of their top three personal and professional goals for their year.

Speaker 3 And that's a bit extreme to carry it in your pocket, but they had written down at the beginning of the year what they wanted, what their values and goals were for the year. And that

Speaker 3 when they were in a situation where they're like, is that a yes? Is that a no? I'm confused. I don't know.
They would look at that and say,

Speaker 3 does it fit? with my goals and values for the year.

Speaker 3 Does it match this? And if not,

Speaker 3 then I I don't feel guilty because my goals and values are making the decision. It's not like a personal thing about me or a personal thing about you.

Speaker 3 And then they said that they explain it to the person. I would love to do that for you.
Listen, these are my three things that I'm really focused on this year.

Speaker 3 And I can't figure out how to make this work with that.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 I would love to talk about this next year and see if it's aligned.

Speaker 3 So I think that would be pretty cool. Cause it's like, if you don't know where you're going, anywhere we'll take you.
It's

Speaker 3 if you have that idea.

Speaker 4 Yes, very good. In that moment where you're figuring it out, one of my favorite strategies, which I've mentioned before, but I will mention again because I have to remind myself every day is

Speaker 4 if it's not a yes that I would want to do today or tomorrow.

Speaker 4 Then I say no because for so long I lived in this world in which I would say yes to something that was three months away. Number one, because it felt far enough away to not be real.
Yep.

Speaker 4 Number two, because I felt like I was going to become a different person before then.

Speaker 3 Yes. Kind of how I bring six hair products with me on vacation.
Like the vacation version of me is going to do my hair. Exactly.
Every time.

Speaker 4 Exactly. I think I'm going to wear shit I have never worn in my life.
I think I'm going to turn into a person who's going to do face masks and like put on heels.

Speaker 3 I'm always going to turn into a person who's doing face masks.

Speaker 4 Oh my, you know this, Amanda. I bring all of this crap on the road with me like

Speaker 4 serums and i don't know i'm gonna become this person who wears high heels again and like puts on these jumpers that have flowers on them and like i'm just gonna become this other person in a minute because i'm flying somewhere else but no i'm always like where are my sweats right i'm the same person okay so like if i'm not gonna want to like get on a panel for me it's like do you want to do this panel on a stage or do you want to know that makes me so sad today for sure in three months it's going to make me sad i'm not going to want to do it and it's going to bring me a sense of dread or even if it's a party if it's something that i know i'm not going to want to do tonight i pretend i say to myself glennon

Speaker 4 is this going to make you feel expansive and and warm and joyful if you had to do it tonight yeah if the answer is no i keep being the same person all the days of my life so three months from now i'm gonna be the same person no now now, no for three months ahead of time.

Speaker 2 Okay, can I ask a follow-up question to that?

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 2 Then how do you say yes?

Speaker 4 Because

Speaker 2 I would say that one of your biggest things is that you would prefer always to just stay home, be with the kids on the couch. What are the elements then that go into you

Speaker 2 actually do saying yes to one of these like invites to leave the house at night?

Speaker 4 Okay, well, I think it would be with what Amanda just said about values, vibes, values.

Speaker 4 We just went on a trip to go to a memorial service, to go to my aunt's 85th birthday party, to then go to visit Chase where he is. Do I want to do any of those things?

Speaker 4 Does my lazy self want to do anything? No.

Speaker 4 But they were so aligned with this ache that I have to make more connections in my extended family, to

Speaker 4 reach out to my kid who's an adult now. And I, you know, like, it makes me feel so warm to be

Speaker 4 that, to do that, to have done that.

Speaker 3 It's the greater want.

Speaker 4 It's the greater want.

Speaker 3 Trying to get

Speaker 3 a bigger, it's a capital W. Yes.
I lowercase don't want to leave my couch ever. Yeah.
I uppercase want to live a life

Speaker 3 that is full with these good things.

Speaker 4 But what I would say is, okay, so do I want to go to my aunt's 85th birthday party? Do I want to show up for this memorial?

Speaker 4 Do I want to do all this crap it's going to take for me to spend six hours with my kid in New York City? Like, holy shit. Okay.

Speaker 4 But if the same thing is, like, do I want to, I get this invitation to go to this party where there's all these fancy people and it feels like I should go for my work. And like, it's

Speaker 4 that is something that's lowercase.

Speaker 4 Like, it's based in scarcity. It's based in like, I should show up.
There's no deeper want beneath it. It's like a frantic surface want.

Speaker 2 I think that this is great. So we're kind of classifying capital W want with a lowercase W want.

Speaker 2 How then do we categorize these things? I know we've talked about values

Speaker 2 and that feels in my head, like what I want my life to feel like.

Speaker 2 But I do think that there is a deeper level, like a more spiritual way of deciding things here that we, I know that us three really vibe on like this warm and cold.

Speaker 2 feeling that we get from the inside. Because at the end of the day, I do think that we have to make logical choices and we have to classify and categorize things.

Speaker 2 What is it in your body that creates this list of capital W's versus lowercase W's?

Speaker 3 I think it's kind of self-fulfilling prophecy in a lot of ways, the saying no and the saying yes. Like for me, there's so many things that I don't want to do in the moment.

Speaker 3 And then after I'm like, there was a bigger yes inside of that experience once I did it. I felt that is stuff I want more of.

Speaker 3 There's plenty of stuff I say yes to and I'm in it and I'm like, this is stuff I want way less of in my life. But I think maybe

Speaker 3 you've got to give yourself a little bit of, and this is going a little bit on a tangent of like what to fill your life with, as opposed to like, you get asked by a friend to do something and you're feeling like you don't want to do it.

Speaker 3 But you've got to try enough things to know, to experience the warmth, to know at the end of the day, like this math math nets out for me.

Speaker 3 This week, my two friends asked me to go on a walk in the morning and I was like tired and thinking, I don't want to go walking. But I remembered that when we went on a walk the week before,

Speaker 3 I felt really good the whole day after the walk. Because we talked about interesting things, because we were in the sun, because I was like, I'm associating, yes, warm, good

Speaker 3 with that thing. So even though in this moment it takes me a tiny barrier to entry, I actually know on balance I want that.
I want the way that feels.

Speaker 3 This show is brought to you by Alma. I want to start with a truth I've learned the hard way.
Taking care of your mental health isn't a one-time decision. It's a daily practice.

Speaker 3 And even when you know you want support, the hardest part is often just figuring out where to start. For me, finding the right therapist changed everything.

Speaker 3 But getting there was kind of overwhelming. Endless searches, phone calls, dead ends.
It's wild that the thing that's supposed to help you can feel so hard to reach. And that's why I love Alma.

Speaker 3 Alma, A-L-M-A, takes all that chaos out of the process. It's a simple, easy-to-use platform where you can search for licensed, in-network therapists who actually feel like the right fit.

Speaker 3 You don't even need an account to browse, and you can filter by what matters most to you: their background, specialty, therapy style, and more.

Speaker 3 And here's the part that really matters: this isn't just about checking a box, it's about real connection. 97% of people who found a therapist through Alma say they felt seen and heard.

Speaker 3 And that's the heart of good therapy: someone who gets you, not just your symptoms. Better with people, better with alma.
Visit helloalma.com slash we can to schedule a free consultation today.

Speaker 3 That's hello A L M A dot com slash W E C A N. We Can Do Our Things is brought to you by Bumble, the app committed to bring people closer to love.
I went through it in my first marriage.

Speaker 3 I was desperately in love and then in a whiplash of a moment, it was gone. I felt abandoned, betrayed, crushed.

Speaker 3 A while out from the divorce, when a friend asked me whether I was ready to date again, I said, listen, I love men, but I also love hamburgers.

Speaker 3 And I just had the juiciest burger and it gave me food poisoning. And I don't even want to look at another burger for a very long time.
When I was ready to look, I was terrified.

Speaker 3 How in the world do you put yourself out there after that?

Speaker 3 I don't think there are a lot of people more courageous and cool than those folks who have been through the depths of heartbreak and are brave enough to reveal their heart again.

Speaker 3 It starts with that first step, a shaky voice inside of you that says, I want this even more than I don't want that.

Speaker 3 I want to share life and this beautiful banged up heart with another beautiful banged up heart. These days that first shaky step often happens online on a dating app.

Speaker 3 In celebration of you brave ones, we want to tell you about Bumble. What I love about what Bumble is doing is they are making that first step feel a tiny bit less scary, more possible, more human.

Speaker 3 They make you feel more safe.

Speaker 3 New Bumble users have to add multiple layers of verification like mandatory photo, phone number, and ID verification so you can feel more confident that the people you're seeing are who they say they are.

Speaker 3 Plus, profiles aren't just about photos. They highlight personality, interests, and passions so you can get a sense of whether you will actually connect with someone.

Speaker 3 You can be shaky and scared and show up anyway. You can start again.
Bumble helps people do exactly that. Start your love story today on Bumble.

Speaker 3 This show is sponsored by MIDI Health. For way too long, we've been told that we just have to power through the symptoms of menopause.

Speaker 3 That hot flashes, mood swings, sleepless nights, exhaustion are just part of the natural order of things.

Speaker 3 It's no wonder why 75% of women who do seek help for perimenopause and menopause end up getting no treatment at all. 75%,

Speaker 3 zero treatment. A friend of mine was talking about this just a few weeks ago.

Speaker 3 She'd been dealing with constant perimenopause symptoms and said just trying to find a doctor who actually understands menopause felt impossible.

Speaker 3 Researching specialists, figuring out insurance, waiting forever for an appointment, it's all too much. So I told her, skip all of that nonsense, go straight to MIDI.

Speaker 3 She went online and got an appointment the next day. With MIDI, you can meet one-on-one with a perimenopause trained clinician online from wherever you are.

Speaker 3 They'll actually listen to your whole story and build a plan around you. That could mean hormone therapy, lifestyle changes, preventive care, or all of the above.

Speaker 3 They even send prescriptions right to your local pharmacy. Ready to feel your best and write your second act script?

Speaker 3 Visit joinmittie.com today to book your personalized insurance-covered virtual visit. That's joinmittie.com.
MIDI, the care women deserve.

Speaker 3 Don't you have a thing, Glennon, with the like should? Because there's also a whole universe of I should want to do that, like whether it's a business opportunity.

Speaker 3 I should want to go hang out with those fancy people that can help my career. I should want to go hang out with those friends because they seem to be having a great time.

Speaker 3 Don't you have a thing that you do with Chase and his friends of like how to know whether it's an I should or I won't?

Speaker 4 So I think the kids are like me in terms of like, they come to me with, should I do this or should I do this? Okay, should I join this group?

Speaker 4 Like there's one of my kids wanted to decide, how do, do I join this group? And they felt like

Speaker 4 I could tell when I was listening to what they were saying is they felt they did want to join this group. Okay.

Speaker 4 They really did want to like go for it and kind of join this group, but they felt like they shouldn't want to join the group.

Speaker 4 They felt like,

Speaker 4 uh, but my value is like, uh, this, maybe this feels a little fancy or it feels a little like, like a group.

Speaker 4 Any kind of group is exclusive and like, I shouldn't want this thing, but I could just tell underneath that they did want the thing.

Speaker 4 Right. And there was a layer of, I don't know, this heady stuff of like,

Speaker 4 all the shoulds, all the shoulds.

Speaker 3 It's the opposite. That's such a good point because it isn't just, I should want this.
The idea of like, I should not want this. I should be the kind of person that's so elevated

Speaker 3 and kind of how I was never even considered like, oh, I shouldn't, I would never do any like cosmetic stuff because then I wouldn't be a feminist or whatever. You know, it's like that kind of thing.

Speaker 4 And so I remember saying to one of them, like,

Speaker 4 this is funny. I actually told the kid, I won't say which one it was, but I told the kid that I needed to tell them the secret that I use on them to figure out what they want in case I die.

Speaker 4 That I need them to know how to use this tool. Yeah, it's just my poor children are always like their mother.

Speaker 3 It's been keeping you alive for so long. So I need to tell you.

Speaker 4 It's a trick I use on you, but in case I die, like here, just have the trick. I don't know.

Speaker 4 And it was something about like this one kid is constantly shooting, you know, like all of their like desire is smushed behind this web of like, but who am I inside of culture?

Speaker 4 And should people like me want this thing? And is it okay to want this? And like, what would a better person, a perfect person want? And it's just, you know, I relate very much.

Speaker 4 And so I don't know. I wish I remembered exactly what it was, but it was something like, I'm listening for

Speaker 4 beneath all of this matrix of should, what you really want, because I feel like what you and I are talking about is whether you should want this thing or you shouldn't want this thing.

Speaker 4 But the only reason we're doing that is because underneath you really do.

Speaker 4 Or otherwise, it would be the most easy thing to dismiss at all. If you, number one, didn't think you should want this thing, and number two, you didn't even want that thing,

Speaker 4 we wouldn't be having this conversation because there was no conflict. So the conflict we're discussing is

Speaker 4 your brain is saying, I shouldn't want this thing. And your spirit is saying, but I want it anyway.
So what should I do, mom?

Speaker 4 The conflict is between

Speaker 4 the should and the does,

Speaker 4 right? So what I told my kid, because we're not talking about big moral issues here, they don't want something dangerous. They don't want something.
This is just

Speaker 4 a desire.

Speaker 4 Do you feel like you shouldn't want to be part of that group, but you do want to be part of that group?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I think think that's it.

Speaker 4 Okay, well, I'm going to tell you to go with the true want.

Speaker 4 But the should kind of gets

Speaker 4 in our way, I think.

Speaker 3 Probably like 90% of the time that we're talking about making a decision. It's probably that.

Speaker 4 Exactly. Because why would we be talking about it?

Speaker 3 Because we want

Speaker 3 the affirmation that we have made the right decision. We are gathering a consensus.

Speaker 3 We are creating a unified front of if and when this decision gets questioned as to whether it should have been a yes or whether it should have been a no. We are clear and have caucused about this.

Speaker 3 Yes. And the right answer is the right answer I'm doing.
So I'm just like gathering your permission, approval, and consensus. I'm not actually under the guise of your helping me make the decision.

Speaker 4 Exactly. So usually when you're discussing with a kid, a should, you're not discussing whether they want it or not.
They know that.

Speaker 3 It's permission. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I have a question around

Speaker 2 the idea of thinking about the person I want to become and then making decisions to support that person. I'm just trying to like understand this.
I am a people pleaser.

Speaker 2 I really struggle to say no because I want to be quote unquote the kind of person that people think I'm generous with my time and whatever

Speaker 2 i think what i'm struggling with though is

Speaker 2 aren't we all just like in our heads trying to create a person of ourselves like a personality of ourselves rather than tapping deep down into

Speaker 2 being the person that we are yes do you know what i'm saying so like sometimes these decisions the this is all like social norms that i feel in conflict with It's like, oh, I socially speaking, am not allowed to say exactly what I'm thinking.

Speaker 2 Like, no, I don't want to do that. Are you crazy? Or yes, I would love to do that.
I worry that sometimes we get so in our heads

Speaker 2 about the people we're supposed to be in our heads or the people we want to be in our heads rather than just like being and owning who we are.

Speaker 2 Like in terms of decision making, I'm really good at making decisions because I don't think I'm not like ciphering it through.

Speaker 3 Yeah, you're not future casting it for 12 generations. No,

Speaker 3 and I will do sometimes.

Speaker 2 No, I'm just like, oh, no, this is what I want now. And so this is what I'm going to say now.

Speaker 2 Now, if somebody

Speaker 2 asks me to do something, you have taught me. a tremendous amount about saying no and like how loving that can be because for a long time i put that in like the I'm not a loving person if I say no.

Speaker 2 I'm like the opposite.

Speaker 3 You also had the scarcity thing, which is a big part of this.

Speaker 3 You thought, if I get offered a business opportunity and I don't say yes to it, then I become a person who's not going to get more offers. Yes.

Speaker 3 So you're so afraid of becoming that from a business perspective that also if someone asks you to do something and you say no to that, you're not a generous person. It's like we constantly need

Speaker 3 receipts. I think it's like we want to, we have a vision of who we are.
And it's not necessarily fake. I think some people are like, I'm crafting this ideal person that I really think I should be.

Speaker 3 And so I'm living into it instead of just living

Speaker 3 and figuring out what kind of person I am.

Speaker 3 But I also think

Speaker 3 even if we are aligned with what kind of person we actually really are, and we're living into that,

Speaker 3 we think it doesn't count unless we have the constant receipts.

Speaker 3 So like, I can't just trust that I am a generous of spirit person and that because I am,

Speaker 3 people will know about it or receive that. I can't just live with knowing that I am a generous of spirit person.
I need everyone else to have incontrovertible evidence. So true.

Speaker 3 And me to be able to present the daily receipts, reinforcing

Speaker 3 that it is clear unequivocally that I am a generous of spirit person. Yes.
That doesn't seem like someone very confident in their personhood.

Speaker 4 But also, like, even the idea that I want to be a generous of spirit person.

Speaker 4 When did we decide that that was the thing? That's right. I mean, I truly wonder about that.
It's like when we don't know ourselves or we don't trust who we actually are,

Speaker 4 we default to this list of qualities that whatever our particular culture is told us we should be. And that is how we make our decisions.

Speaker 4 So I'm saying yes to this and this and this and this because I am a person who is generous of spirit, whatever the fuck that means, you know?

Speaker 3 Or I'm a person that wants to have friends. So I feel like my way of having friends is saying yes when friends ask me to do something, even if they're doing something I have a zero interest in doing.

Speaker 4 Right. And so what I have learned.

Speaker 4 Through trial and error for so long is like when you don't do the thing where you pack for your fake future self, which

Speaker 4 saying yes to a bunch of shit that you're not feeling in your body is exactly the same as packing a bunch of stuff that has nothing to do with you for your future trip self.

Speaker 4 It's like making up a person that you think you should be and responding how that person would. Okay.

Speaker 4 Maybe a bunch of people like spend a bunch of time during their day thinking, God damn, Glennon is such a generous of spirit person. I seriously doubt it.

Speaker 4 Like I doubt that anyone else is spending, like I'm not winning in other people's minds. But

Speaker 4 what about if you say, actually, I just, I freaking don't know how I'm going to feel that day.

Speaker 4 I don't, I'm, I'm like a person who can't decide what she's going to want to do until a couple of days before. I actually don't want to do that.

Speaker 4 I am so grateful that you asked me because I love being invited to things, but I probably won't come. Whatever it is,

Speaker 3 I'm sure that I stopped getting invited to some things.

Speaker 4 I'm sure that that doesn't always work in other people's minds. But the amount of times I have heard back, oh, wait, we can do that?

Speaker 4 You just, you just said no, and I'm allowed to do that.

Speaker 4 What if, okay, maybe in other people's minds, I'm not generous of spirit, but what if I'm a little bit like, oh, she gives me a little permission to say no?

Speaker 4 Like, what if there's another thing that you can be with lots of no's that is a good thing?

Speaker 4 Equally good to the quality we assign to saying yes to everything.

Speaker 3 I think it also innovates. It's like the improv yes and.
If someone's like,

Speaker 3 want to hang out and get dinner? And I'm like, ugh, just like another freaking dinner of the same shit. You can be like a yes and.
Yes, I'm so excited to hang out with you. And

Speaker 3 would you want to like go on a walk sometime instead?

Speaker 3 Yes, I am so excited. And I'm trying to like

Speaker 3 learn pickleball. Would you want to do that on Tuesdays and just mess around?

Speaker 3 There's a way that you can

Speaker 3 have that connection possibly

Speaker 3 and make it something that you want to do.

Speaker 4 Yes, based on the type of person you are.

Speaker 4 So for me, that would look like I know that it is never, ever going to be satisfying or comfortable or happy or connection making for me to go to large gatherings.

Speaker 4 But I do know that I love

Speaker 4 actually getting to know another person.

Speaker 4 I know that I don't love sitting with somebody like usually one-on-one and staring at them across a table. It makes me nervous.
I don't.

Speaker 4 So if somebody invites me to a party or somebody says, do you want to go grab coffee? I could say,

Speaker 4 I'm not a party person.

Speaker 4 I don't want to sit and have coffee. Do you want to like go for a walk with me? Let's go walk and grab a coffee and go together for a walk.
If that person hates walking, this is a helpful exercise.

Speaker 4 They're saying what they want. I'm saying what I want.
If those things do not match, we're not a match.

Speaker 3 Great. Yeah, well, hold on.
I agree with that.

Speaker 2 And I do think that there is an element of this, like knowing how to say no is one part of this equation, but also knowing how to ask is equally important. So for me, I'm sitting here thinking about

Speaker 2 the things that we do

Speaker 2 and we don't ask a lot of our friends or our people.

Speaker 3 Would you agree?

Speaker 4 I don't know what you mean yet.

Speaker 2 I'm just saying in terms of having dinner with folks, it's usually somebody asking us, hey, do you want to get some dinner? Or, you know, I have this thing. Do you want to come to it?

Speaker 4 That's true, but we don't have any dinners or things.

Speaker 3 We wouldn't have anything to invite people to.

Speaker 2 That's my point. Like, I think that part of this thing, too, is I don't think that we put ourselves in a position

Speaker 2 to ask of much.

Speaker 2 And I wonder if we can change the way we ask people things

Speaker 2 so that it gives the other party a way of saying yes and also saying no, like both things are true. For instance, with Liz Gilbert,

Speaker 2 what does she always say?

Speaker 4 Around no cherished outcomes.

Speaker 2 No cherished outcomes.

Speaker 4 And so it makes me want to say yes almost every time liz asks to be a part of anything so what abby's talking about is liz will there was this poem that we she sent me in the very beginning of our friendship that was about

Speaker 4 how she thought we should be friends but basically she was saying our contract will be through this poem she sent me our contract will be that we will never demand anything of each other that we will offer each other our hearts, but we will have no cherished outcome, which is actually quite a beautiful thing because so if Liz invites us somewhere, if she asks us for whatever, she always adds, but no cherished outcomes, which basically means I am asking you this thing because I love you and I want your presence, but your yes, I will celebrate, your no, I will celebrate equally as much.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 She doesn't have an aim that she's trying to get from us. It's an open-hearted invitation.
And what she wants is for us to do exactly what we want.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 And that's rare. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it is.

Speaker 2 Isn't it true that like, we get so much into our head when some of these asks come in and these like needs and conversations we have with ourselves? Like, well, if I say no, I feel bad.

Speaker 2 And then what are they going to think about it?

Speaker 2 So it's like, maybe that's what we need to do is create relationships that are strong enough and grounded enough that the people in your life you can say, Hey, I want to do this thing.

Speaker 2 If it's no, awesome. If it's yes, awesome.
Equally on the same par, right?

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 I see so many products out there for hair care. It's hard to know where to start or what I even need.

Speaker 3 My hair texture has changed a lot over the years, depending on what phase of life I've been in or what my hormones are currently doing.

Speaker 3 And if you're someone who is also coloring your hair, it might mean you want a product that really supports the health of your hair.

Speaker 3 I have tried tried hair masks before with none that have really stood out to me or which might leave my hair soft for like a day, then back to dry and brittle the next day.

Speaker 3 But that is why I want to tell you about the K18 Molecular Repair Hair Mask. This isn't just another temporary fix.

Speaker 3 It's patented K18 peptide goes deep all the way to the molecular level to actually repair damage from coloring, bleaching, and heat. The result?

Speaker 3 Hair that's soft, strong, bouncy, and completely renewed without feeling weighed down. Using it is simple.
Just a few minutes once a week after coloring and your hair starts to come back to life.

Speaker 3 It's like giving your hair a reset button, leaving it healthier, smoother, and more resilient than ever before. So yes, we can do hard things, but your hair doesn't have to be one of them.

Speaker 3 With K18, you can keep coloring, styling, and creating while your hair stays strong and beautiful every step of the way.

Speaker 3 Shop K18's mask at Sephora or get 10% off your first purchase with code HardThings at k18hair.com. That's codehardthings at k18hair.com.

Speaker 1 I don't know about you, but mornings in our house can feel like a marathon before 9 a.m.

Speaker 1 And I am just used to powering right on through, which always left me dragging by mid-morning. Cachava has completely changed that for me.

Speaker 1 It's a plant-based superfood meal shake that actually feels like real nourishment, not some chalky health drink.

Speaker 1 With over 85 superfoods, nutrients, and plant-based ingredients, cachava is a whole-body meal that supports your strength, energy, digestion, metabolism, cognition, and immunity.

Speaker 1 And best of all, it's the taste. They really understand that we need to be motivated by actual flavor here.

Speaker 1 I have more steady energy, fewer crashes, and I am not rummaging through the pantry at 10 a.m. for snacks.

Speaker 1 It's become this little anchor in my day, something easy and good I can do for myself, even on the most chaotic mornings.

Speaker 1 If you've seen me recently, I'm probably sipping on their new strawberry flavor. They use real freeze-dried strawberries, and you can really actually taste the difference.

Speaker 1 You've never tasted strawberry like this. Go to cachava.com and use code We Can Do Hard Things for 15% off your next order.

Speaker 1 That's cachava, k-a-c-h-a-v-a dot com, code, we can do hard things for 15% off.

Speaker 3 Every year, I tell myself I'm going to live in the moment during the holidays. And then I blink and it's over.

Speaker 3 The wrapping paper's gone, the tree is shedding, and if I want to relive any parts of it, I have to go through the photo app of my phone. That's why I love Aura Frames.

Speaker 3 They make those moments live on without adding another project to your life.

Speaker 3 I just upload photos of unwrapping gifts, cookie decorating, all of the best parts of the holiday, and now they pop up on the frame all year long. Setting it up was ridiculously easy.

Speaker 3 You just download the Aura app, connect to Wi-Fi, and add unlimited photos and videos. You can even preload pictures before it ships.
And so when someone opens it, it's already full of love.

Speaker 3 And it comes in this beautiful gift box. No wrapping, no stress.
They nailed it over there. You know what I'm talking about, right?

Speaker 3 It's like a frame that looks like it's just like got a picture in it, except all of your pictures rotate through it all year long without you even like making a fancy album.

Speaker 3 For a limited time, visit auraframes.com and get $45 off Aura's best-selling Carver Matte Frames, named number one by Wirecutter by using promo code HardThings at checkout.

Speaker 3 That's a URA frames.com promo code hard things. This exclusive Black Friday Cyber Monday deal is their best of the year.
So order now before it ends. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout.

Speaker 3 Terms and conditions apply.

Speaker 3 I think we should move to practically how to do it. So like if you know what you want,

Speaker 3 you've taken the time, you have have studied your

Speaker 3 uppercase W want and you're like, okay, this either is in line with that or not. You have

Speaker 3 decided not to should all over yourself and instead like honoring what your actual funny little desire is. And you know.

Speaker 4 And can I ask one question before we move into that? Because that's what we need to go to is the practical, but I want to just ask one thing before we move into that.

Speaker 3 How practical. Okay.

Speaker 4 I'm listening to all of us talk about yeses and no's. And,

Speaker 4 okay, is it possible that our capacity to yes or no or maybe is based a little bit in our attachment style?

Speaker 4 I'm asking that because of this.

Speaker 3 Yes. Abby

Speaker 4 struggles with saying no. Yep.

Speaker 4 I struggle with saying yes. Okay.

Speaker 4 Saying no is not a problem for me. And I don't mean that in a braggy way because I think it's equally detrimental to

Speaker 4 not know when to say yes as it is to not know when to say no. And I wonder.

Speaker 3 You're the island girl, right?

Speaker 4 Right, right. I wonder if securely attached people have an easier time with yeses and no's.

Speaker 4 And if anxiously avoidant, Abby self-identifies as an anxiously attached person, which means she is always worried when the world asks anything of her or a person asks anything of her.

Speaker 4 She is worried that if she does not say yes, she's going to lose that person. That love, that job, that moment, that reputation, whatever.
I'm scared I'm going to lose you.

Speaker 4 So I say yes.

Speaker 4 An avoidantly attached person like me, and we're both working towards secure.

Speaker 3 I feel like we're getting there. I feel like we are.

Speaker 4 Yes. But my default in moments of stress or uncertainty, which anytime someone asks something of you, that's a moment of uncertainty.

Speaker 4 In my moments of uncertainty or moments of stress, I go to avoidant behaviors, which are, I am scared if I say yes to you, I'm going to lose me.

Speaker 4 So Abby's always worried, I'm going to lose you, the other person. And I'm always worried, I'm going to lose me.
That person's request of me, whatever this is, is going to just.

Speaker 4 I don't know, just take me over and I'm going to have no self and I'm going to lose myself in this other person or this other event or this other whatever. And so it's a no.

Speaker 4 So i wonder if i just think that's important to note like if you are a person who it's hard for you to say no maybe there's a little anxious stuff going on maybe

Speaker 4 people

Speaker 4 and if you're a person who's always saying no

Speaker 4 who's listening to this and being like jesus christ will somebody teach me how to say yes which would be me

Speaker 4 maybe you're scared to lose yourself

Speaker 4 right maybe there's a balance here that people who you know these elusive securely attached people whoever the hell they are that they actually know in moments of uncertainty, this is not a moment where I'm about to lose myself or this other person.

Speaker 4 I'm just trying to figure out if this is best for both of us.

Speaker 4 If there's not a fear, scarcity, panic, overtaking moment that unconsciously guides us to either say yes or no.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 I think it probably makes a ton of sense that that's the case. I mean, it does encapsulate everything.

Speaker 3 It has to do with, are you accepted? Are you still part of the belonging? Can you be both who you are

Speaker 3 and

Speaker 3 have what you want

Speaker 3 and still be embraced by this workplace, by this friend group, by this family? Can you be held and free? Yeah.

Speaker 3 Free to say no and still held close by these people. Or is the price of

Speaker 3 being part of it mean letting go of any part of you that conflicts with that. So I think it is to the heart of the matter.

Speaker 4 And on the flip side, can I say yes to this thing and still have my freedom? So Abby's would be, can I say no to this thing and still have belonging?

Speaker 4 And if she thinks unconsciously, no, then she just, I can't have both, then she just says yes real quick.

Speaker 4 My thing would be, can I say yes to this thing and still have my freedom and still have my sovereignty and still have my individuality?

Speaker 4 And my default when I'm not thinking it through carefully is no.

Speaker 3 And what you've just said, and we're going to get to later, is a big part of the whole

Speaker 3 take it or leave it binary that we have right now in

Speaker 3 the world, where it's like, we believe that if we say yes to something, so Lady Gaga has this great quote that we're talking about when she was like going to leave music completely.

Speaker 3 And she was going to leave music after she looked at it for a long time because she hated selling fucking perfume and taking selfies all day.

Speaker 3 Which, if you think about it, is not music.

Speaker 4 But

Speaker 3 we live in a world where we do that exact same thing all the time.

Speaker 3 And it's like, it isn't a take it or leave it. You don't have to leave music because you hate selling perfume.
You can say no to selling perfume and make music.

Speaker 3 You can say no to being at the bar to 2 a.m. and say yes to friendship.
Yes.

Speaker 3 You don't have to be either or. And you don't have to throw it all away because you hate 50% of it.

Speaker 4 Well, then when you think about it, that's the binary of yes and no.

Speaker 4 If all the discussion we're having is, do I say yes or no?

Speaker 4 All that is is reactive to something someone else is presenting us with. What if it's not yes, not no, I'm creating?

Speaker 4 It's not that I'm just constantly responding yes or no to your idea, world, company, music industry, whatever, but I'm actually bringing my full self to this moment, to this situation, and saying, can we create something new?

Speaker 4 I say neither yes nor no to your idea.

Speaker 4 I feel your desire and let's create something new a third way together. Right, right.

Speaker 2 This feels complicated to me in a lot of ways because of my anxious attachment and because I

Speaker 3 really value

Speaker 2 generosity and

Speaker 2 being like the kind of person that shows up for people, like I really do value it, it makes it even harder for me to say no

Speaker 2 because I have so many of these value systems in place while also knowing I have this anxious attachment that my instinct and my fear

Speaker 2 forces me in a lot of ways to say yes.

Speaker 3 Well, do you trust, Abby, that you are a generous person?

Speaker 2 Yes, but I have to tell this.

Speaker 3 Do you trust?

Speaker 2 Yes, I do.

Speaker 3 That you show up for your people.

Speaker 2 I do.

Speaker 3 Okay, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Speaker 3 You believe strongly that you are a generous person, period. Yes.
And that you show up for people. Yes.

Speaker 3 So if then that is already done. Yes.

Speaker 4 that is who you are.

Speaker 2 It is, it is. But here's what I have: I have a problem now.

Speaker 2 Looking back in my life,

Speaker 2 I have there's something that's happening in me. We did this podcast with Tobin and Kristen on their recap show.

Speaker 2 And Tobin wanted to acknowledge my generosity on the podcast.

Speaker 2 And this other thing happened inside of me. I don't even think we really talked about it.
Maybe we talked about it a little bit.

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 2 this thing was was happening that like really floored me. That her expression, the receipt of my generosity that she was handing me, and we're talking, you know, this is like a 12, 10-year-old story.

Speaker 2 I felt really bad about it

Speaker 2 because I knew that that decision

Speaker 2 wasn't fully based in my generosity.

Speaker 2 And when she said it, I kind of got like the ick for myself.

Speaker 2 So now I'm having this beautiful awakening around decisions that I've made throughout my life that

Speaker 2 I'm able to see a lot more clearly because I'm really trying to make the decision, like true decisions that like are like full body yeses.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 2 I can see this younger version of myself who's just desperate for the love, who's desperate to really believe believe that I'm just, I am a generous person, but I was so generous that I lost myself.

Speaker 2 I was so generous that I was not generous to myself, that I was hurting myself. I was like, almost like losing myself in a way.
And so I think that that is an important thing that we can then utilize.

Speaker 2 It's like a way of determining some of these present day or future day yeses and no's.

Speaker 3 Look back

Speaker 2 on your former and your past yeses and no's and how those made you feel.

Speaker 3 I think it's what you've just said is a perfect setup for

Speaker 3 what we'll talk about going forward, the next piece of this, because

Speaker 3 if you already know who you are and you feel confident in that, then you're not doing further things

Speaker 3 to reinforce and stay secure in who you believe you are. That's right.
And then the scary truth of it, which I live in this world too, Abby, so I understand what you're saying.

Speaker 3 The scary kind of ugly underbelly

Speaker 3 of what you're doing to appear to be in line with those values that you are allegedly secure in is a transaction. Yes.

Speaker 3 You are transacting.

Speaker 3 You're showing up.

Speaker 3 You are paying with your generosity

Speaker 3 in exchange for the dopamine hit

Speaker 3 that is telling you you are good enough.

Speaker 3 You are worthy.

Speaker 3 It is a cheap consolation prize that you are paying dearly for

Speaker 3 to have security in who you are, which, by the way, is not security because you have to keep paying down that debt.

Speaker 4 Yes.

Speaker 3 and it's from shame right it's from unworthiness unworthiness unworthiness you have to keep paying the debt of your unworthiness to every day not feel unworthy of what people are saying about you who they are saying you are you have to keep reinforcing that because everyone thinks i'm amazing everything i'm generous tobin's telling me i'm generous i feel even shittier because i know i'm not really and so next time someone asks me i got to show up because i i'm already been told i am this is the transaction and the payment and it's never secure and that's why people are always saying yes at their jobs because they're they're so insecure they don't know they haven't done enough they've never done enough

Speaker 3 and it is deeply

Speaker 3 deeply insecure and it's the same reason we can't say to glenn and when we say to say to our kids you're bad you're bad you're bad we can't say you're good you're good you're good yes because then they're going to start paying that debt forever that's right it comes from all the yeses

Speaker 4 when we want to say no come from our belief that our worthiness is in what we can do for you

Speaker 4 and what you will say about us if we do that thing for you.

Speaker 4 It's not my worthiness in this relationship is just that I exist.

Speaker 4 It's all transactional. I think that, I mean, we had so many talks about like.

Speaker 4 You know, if you're the person who's constantly grabbing the bill for things,

Speaker 4 this is sort of a fake yes, right? It's like,

Speaker 4 this is a big thing that Abby and I had to like, I did that.

Speaker 4 I was like, I will not like I, if I'm going to a restaurant with a group of people, I'm not talking about the occasional generous, whatever, but like, I have to believe that I am here because they want me here.

Speaker 4 I'm not going to have a transaction at the end where it feels like,

Speaker 4 you know, and this is not, it has nothing to do with having a lot of money. Like Abby, when you had no money, would constantly pick up the check for everybody.

Speaker 4 And it was because she would say, I just want to be generous to my friends. But that is not what it was.
It was, I feel like I am not even worthy at this table unless I

Speaker 4 do something for you.

Speaker 2 There was also guilt in a lot of that for me because I was making more money than my teammates. And we'd all be at a dinner table and I'd be like, I'll just, I'll pick up the check I'm making.

Speaker 2 And I wasn't making a shit, shit ton of money. I was, you know, paying my bills, making money more than they were.

Speaker 3 So, but it's a metaphorical thing.

Speaker 4 And you did that with friends, you know, like throughout life.

Speaker 3 It's like, I apologize for being here. And also, I'm going to make an insurance policy to ensure I could be here next time.
That's exactly right.

Speaker 4 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 That's exactly right. And I lived my life a lot like that.
And so when Tobin was telling the story, I just was sitting there like, oh, I felt like.

Speaker 3 That poor kid, that poor young kid, because I don't, I'm not like that way.

Speaker 4 I mean, would you say that i'm like that still no but i think your generosity of spirit is even more visible it's amazing of all people that you would feel like you needed to prove that generosity of spirit through these transactions because you yes are such a deeply generous in spirit person and i think that shows up more when you're not doing the transactional things.

Speaker 4 Sure. But if you have a generosity of spirit person,

Speaker 4 personality and worthiness, that's like problem. No, that's the most beautiful thing in the world.

Speaker 3 Both, both, both. Got it.
Right. Got it.
And your want is so, your capital W want, Abby, of who you are, is so absurdly

Speaker 3 gigantic.

Speaker 3 I remember. Did you feel a sense of obligation or need to show receipts to show up for me in my surgery? Or was that a want? No, big want, big W.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 3 you,

Speaker 3 pod squad, Abby shows up for my surgery. She's the only one that goes back with me for my surgery.

Speaker 3 The first two nights of surgery, she decides that she doesn't trust anyone enough, including me, to administer to me my medicine. And also, she wants to

Speaker 3 not have me have to wake up to an alarm because she wants me to be able to sleep as much possible through the night. So she

Speaker 3 sleeps on a couch, sets six alarms throughout the night, and has all six of my medicines set out in front of her on the couch. So she sleeps on a different floor than me.
So her alarm can go off.

Speaker 3 So she can pick up my medicine, walk up to my room, just touch me gently on the shoulder, put the pills in my mouth, and walk down to sleep for another like hour and a half until her next alarm goes off.

Speaker 3 So I barely wake up the whole night for two nights, take all my medicine. Okay, this is the kind of showing up, generous person she is.
And the next day, she's standing in my room going,

Speaker 3 These are the best times of life.

Speaker 4 These are the best times of life.

Speaker 3 This is my favorite part of life. I love this.

Speaker 3 That is your, so, like, you don't have to do things you don't want to do when what you want to do is so ridiculous.

Speaker 4 I think that's a really important point. When you're acting like you should be a certain way, you don't have to act it because you are that thing.

Speaker 4 And so, here's something: okay,

Speaker 4 if you're going against your want,

Speaker 4 you are a person of great generosity.

Speaker 4 If you are going against a want to do something that you think is generous, that's not out of generosity.

Speaker 4 That's how you know.

Speaker 3 It's for a hit.

Speaker 4 If it's something else and you don't want to, that's against your true self. And your true self is generosity of spirit.
So

Speaker 4 that is how you know that it's from something else. It's from unworthiness.
It's from ego. Yeah.
Why would somebody want to pick up the check all the time? It's transactional, but it's also ego-based.

Speaker 4 I am important. I am, this is not an equal situation.
Maybe that's the reason to have your values listed, right? Because then you can measure it against, is this thing coming out of this value?

Speaker 4 Because sometimes things can feel or look

Speaker 4 like they are coming from a place of generosity and really be from something else. And maybe you can tell the difference by if it's a true want.
It's good.

Speaker 4 Should we end here and then move on to the next episode where we figure out actually to do these yeses and no's and maybes?

Speaker 4 Do you want to do that? Is this a big want for all of you or are you just doing this because you should?

Speaker 3 No, I think we need to do it. It's a big one.

Speaker 2 It's a big one.

Speaker 4 No, we do.

Speaker 3 We do. We need to do the practical thing.
Okay. All right.
Then we're just leaving people like, great.

Speaker 3 Great. Now I know I don't want to do it, but the hell do I do now?

Speaker 4 Okay. And what should people think about before we go into the practical one of the next episode? What's the job here? Like, what's the work of this? Before we get to

Speaker 4 yeah? Like, how do people, what should they think about in terms of what they're saying yes and no to?

Speaker 3 I think it's really powerful

Speaker 3 what Abby just talked about. That probably undergirds a lot of our doing

Speaker 3 things that

Speaker 3 we don't want to do, that we don't have capacity to do,

Speaker 3 that we don't have budget to do. Is

Speaker 3 who

Speaker 3 what am I trying so hard to

Speaker 3 prove yeah to project to yeah and is that just a fake self am I trying to prove that I love you am I trying to prove that I'm a good friend I want to do this to be a good friend no no no are you a good friend

Speaker 3 are you already a good friend

Speaker 3 Then show up in the ways that are true to you and being a good friend.

Speaker 3 You know, this kind of things. Like, do you trust that you can be that without acting against yourself, without slipping into this kind of icky transactional stuff? And it's a slippery slope.

Speaker 3 It's hard. It's a pretty gray line between like that.
But I think that's like the bigger spiritual piece of it is like.

Speaker 3 When you hear you're amazing, or when you hear you're generous, or when you hear you're such an amazing worker,

Speaker 3 does that feel like it's feeding a part of who you are? Or does that feel like it's feeding the engine that will require you to continue to say yes to things? I love that.

Speaker 4 It's like that pause.

Speaker 4 That pause. What's the point of that pause?

Speaker 3 That point of that pause is a returning.

Speaker 4 It's getting you out of the thing you, the person that you think you should be. I want to be a person who does, I want to be, I should be this person.

Speaker 4 It's getting you out of the should, the future fake self that you're trying to create and project, and returning to who you actually are.

Speaker 4 This is about a full acceptance of self. This is about saying

Speaker 4 it's like giving up on hope.

Speaker 4 It's like forgiveness is giving up on hope that your past could have been any different and sanity is giving up that your future self is going to be any different than who you are today.

Speaker 4 And who you are today is good enough.

Speaker 3 Yes. Right.
It's giving up the control of of the management of your brand. Yes.
You're just going to be yourself.

Speaker 3 You're not going to manage the perception of your brand.

Speaker 3 Like, I'm going to trust that I'm going to do a good enough job at work. I'm not going to need to show the receipts.
I'm not going to need to send the emails at two o'clock in the morning.

Speaker 3 I'm not going to need to say yes to every offer. I'm going to trust that my work is good enough.
Also, I'm going to do that in friendship. Also, I'm going to do that in my family.

Speaker 3 Also, I'm going to do, like, I don't need to keep pounding out the receipts that show that. And I don't need to control whether you think I am.
It's enough that I know I am.

Speaker 4 God, it's just so important to not to give up the idea that you can live in other people's minds, that your success, your okay-ness is contingent upon what a bunch of other brains

Speaker 4 think of you. It's a returning and realizing.

Speaker 3 Insatiable. Yeah.

Speaker 4 That's impossible. It's unsustainable and insatiable.

Speaker 3 If you are trying to do that, you are never done.

Speaker 3 Because every single time you have to do it again, because you're only as good as your last yes.

Speaker 3 That's right.

Speaker 2 That's right. It's an addiction.
Feels like addiction to me.

Speaker 4 Okay, perfect.

Speaker 3 Great.

Speaker 4 So good job.

Speaker 3 We'll wrap there.

Speaker 4 When we come back, sweet, precious pod squad, don't worry.

Speaker 4 We're going to figure out how the hell, if we figure out we're living in the should in the fake future self, who's going to wear heels and jumpers and use a face mask across the board in our life, and definitely blow dry our hair.

Speaker 4 Oh, for sure, we're definitely bringing a blow dryer, probably curling iron.

Speaker 4 If

Speaker 4 you would like to just accept who you are and make decisions from there

Speaker 4 and let go of the picture in your head of how you are supposed to be,

Speaker 4 which is the entire point of this entire podcast, we will come back and figure out how

Speaker 4 we do that.

Speaker 4 We love you, Pod Squad. Go forth and say no if you're Abby and consider saying yes if you're me.

Speaker 4 We'll see you next time. Bye.

Speaker 3 Bye.

Speaker 4 If this podcast means something to you, it would mean so much to us if you'd be willing to take 30 seconds to do these three things.

Speaker 4 First, can you please please follow or subscribe to We Can Do Hard Things? Following the pod helps you because you'll never miss an episode, and it helps us because you'll never miss an episode.

Speaker 4 To do this, just go to the We Can Do Hard Things show page on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and then just tap the plus sign in the upper right-hand corner or click on follow.

Speaker 4 This is the most important thing for the pod. While you're there, if you'd be willing to give us a five-star rating and review and share an episode you loved with a friend, we would be so grateful.

Speaker 4 We appreciate you very much.

Speaker 4 We Can Do Hard Things is created and hosted by Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Amanda Doyle in partnership with Odyssey.

Speaker 4 Our executive producer is Jenna Wise-Berman, and the show is produced by Lauren Lograsso, Allison Schott, Dina Kleiner, and Bill Schultz.