But the most important thing in this is filling your day with high priority

actions. It is so easy to say 'thank you,

but no thank you' if you are absolutely full.

Most likely you've had in your lifetimes when you felt a little

overpowered or overburdened by people's expectation,

people's demands, people's requests, people, you know,

asking you to do this and that for them, and you had difficulty saying no.

Particularly to people you put above you. You know,

if somebody you look up to, that you admire,

either because of their intellectual capacities or their business success or

achievements or their wealth or maybe their stability in relationships or social

influence or physical beauty or fitness or spiritual awareness,

anytime you minimize yourself to somebody else,

you'll tend to sacrifice altruistically your time, energy,

and resources to them, because you're minimizing you and exaggerating them.

And it's really difficult to say no to them because you don't want to have them

leave you, you don't want to lose whatever you're infatuated.

We fear the loss of that which we hold onto and infatuate with.

So anytime we put people in pedestals, it's hard to say no to them.

You want to give in. Now the people we resent and look down on,

we think ourselves as greater than, we tend to easily, or more easily,

say no to them. No, not now, I'm too busy, thank you, et cetera.

But there's an art on how to say no to people.

Not because you need to protect yourself.

I'm not going to do it from an idea of protection. It's just prioritization.

It's time to prioritize your life. Everybody has a set of priorities in life,

things are most to least important in their life.

Whenever they're doing the very highest priority thing,

their self-worth goes up. Whenever they're doing the lower priority things,

your self-worth goes down. Think about your own day at work.

If you did something and you had an agenda of high priority things that you went

out there and just knocked out and checked off as you went,

at the end of the day, you felt more on top of the world.

But if you felt like everything came in and bombarded you and you didn't get the

priorities done and you were kind of putting out fires the whole day and

everybody got in and grabbed your attention, you end up beating yourself up,

because you did lower priority things. You didn't do what was most important.

So if you don't decide and set in your mind what is really priority,

it's easy to be vulnerable to distractions from other people.

Any area of your life you're not empowering and growing your self worth in,

you're automatically being overpowered and eroding your self worth.

So it's up to you to take command of what's priority in your life.

One of the most powerful ways to most easily say no to things that are

distractions from the outside is to have a full agenda with things very,

very important to you. If you stop, think about it,

if you've got nothing on your plate,

nothing happening and somebody asks you to do something,

you got not much to say, well no, I can't do that right now.

It's harder to say no. But if you've got a whole bunch of very high priority,

very meaningful, very productive things in front of you, and you say right now,

it's easy to say, right now no, I'm on a roll.

So the wisest thing to do, to have the power of no,

not just the power of now, as you've heard,

is to fill your day with the highest priority actions each day.

If you don't decide what they are, other people are going to.

If you don't empower your life, other people are going to overpower it.

If you don't fill your day,

your energy and to spend your time doing what's most important,

it gets eroded by things that are less important.

Now everybody's projecting their values onto you and trying to get you to do

what's important to them.

So if you're not able to fill your day with high priorities and stick to the

things that are really important to you that serve people that are fulfilling,

you're automatically more vulnerable to getting distracted by people trying to

grab your attention. Now you can say 'thank you, but no thank you',

that's the easiest way to say it. 'Thank you but no thank you.

I have a very full day and I don't want to do a halfway job with what you want

me to do and it wouldn't be fair to you so thank you.

But right now I'm got a very high priority thing on my plate and maybe we can

do a rain check for another day.' If you're even remotely interested.

If you're not interested, wiser to just say thank you, but no thank you,

that just doesn't really inspire me.

That's not really in line with what I value most.

Because people are going to project onto you what they think is important to

you. And if you don't let them know what that is, that's important to you,

they're going to keep doing it probably. So it's best to say,

here's my priorities in life, da, da, da, da, here's what I love doing.

When you request me to do something that helps me fulfill what's most meaningful

to me, I'll probably say yes.

If you request something that's not as high on my values and I have higher

priorities to do, I'm probably going to say no.

And that way you can easily inform them of what's important to you and they'll

more likely be respectful of that. Whenever you're able to say no,

you're going to get more respect, not out of a, you know,

an aggressive narcissistic kind of response. You don't need to go that far.

You don't say bug off and cuss them out and get outta here.

You can just say thank you, but no thank you.

That's I found the most effective way.

Now I'm going to share an interesting story. I was, I sometimes,

well before Covid and I was doing programs by Zoom,

I was very, very much a traveler. I mean,

I've literally traveled over 20 million miles by air.

And so I've done a lot of miles and I was going zip zap all over the place in

many, many countries around the world.

And as I would sometimes come into Houston,

which is where I was born and where I still have an office,

I was sometimes I'd be a whole year not even in my office,

I'd be traveling all the time,

but sometimes I'd come there and I'd have one day, I'd fly in,

have a day and fly out.

And I noticed one time that I've got a, somebody found out that I was coming in,

they saw on my agenda that I was popping in to do a quick evening presentation.

And so they assumed I was there at my office and they contacted me by email and

they said 'Dr Demartini I'd love to take you to dinner.' Well,

about about 8 or 10 minutes later I got another email,

'Oh I heard you're in town. Can we catch a dinner?

Can we catch up for lunch or dinner?' And got bombarded by a bunch of people

that wanted to catch a quick dinner, lunch.

Now some of these people I love, I love seeing, but it just was a very tight,

narrowed window there and I didn't have the chance to just,

I couldn't meet with all of them.

And if I met with one and they knew the other ones, they would go,

why'd he meet with them and not me? And then all that drama comes about,

all that social gossip drama.

So I just wrote up a beautiful little response because it ended up being 14

people that wanted to meet. And I only had one day to do it, one evening.

And I could do it during a period, literally an hour and a half I had,

that was all I could earmark off.

And so I sent an email to all of them and I said, here's the deal,

I'm here speaking, I'm here in my office.

I've got about a window of an hour and a half for a quick dinner.

It's not that I don't want to see you, I'd love to see you,

but my schedule is not going to allow that on this trip and I don't know when

I'll be back. So here's what I can do.

If you would like to organize this,

and I'm going to send all the emails to all of you,

if you'd like to organize it, here's my favorite restaurant.

I can meet you at that restaurant at this time,

if you'd like to go we can all catch up and meet up and get a picture taken,

everything else so we can get it all done at once.

But I won't be able to do individually.

I just don't have 14 hours or 20 hours of time.

And you know, there's probably some people that thought, oh, he's busy,

who does he think he is and all that. They probably had all kind of responses.

But I realized that people who really value my time,

they're not going to come from that response. They're going to go,

I understand he's very busy. Let's work at that.

So I did that and not all of the people met, about nine of them did.

And they met for dinner.

And it was great to see everybody and it was efficient and I was able to say yes

to that which was efficient. But I was able to say,

I would've said no to every one of them because I didn't want to end up

favoritizing, if that's a word.

And I basically told them that's what it is.

And they met and they made arrangements and they came and met.

We did get a picture and we did have a quick dinner and I even in advance,

I told them that I would have to scoot out at a certain time.

So I even called in advance and made sure that the normal food that I would get

there was ready for me. And I told them that. And it worked out.

So I was able to say no, but say yes at the same time.

But I did it on the terms that were, made it functional for me,

otherwise I'm not going to see anybody. And then they'll eventually fade out.

So I worked out a, you know, a fair arrangement that was respectful for them,

respectful for me, and it worked.

So if you don't have a day that's filled with high priority actions that inspire

you and your day gets filled up with low priority distractions,

you're going to lower your self worth.

So I recommend that you take command of your calendar.

You take command of your agenda. You know,

in the Breakthrough Experience program that I teach every year,

I teach about how to determine values and how to prioritize your life and how to

delegate things and how to make sure that you are, you know,

really focusing on what's meaningful, that's productive,

that actually raises your self worth and makes a contribution.

So you're in a sense philanthropic, doing something that fulfills you.

And if you do that, it's easy to say no.

And it's easy to be able to organize things with your empowerment.

When you're empowered and you're productive,

it's easier to say no and people respect you.

But when you're doing something low on your values and buying into all those

things, your devaluation of yourself,

you're not going to be respecting yourself. They're

Because the world outside reflects you.

And you're not going to have the same power.

So you want to be able to be clear on what you want and be able to say no to

anything that's not really priority to that. I just got a request,

just three requests, in just a few minutes ago before I came on the air today.

One was do I need a software developer? You know,

you get these things in the email,

and I just forward that over to somebody in my office that's involved in that

type of thing in case they might need a resource.

But I don't respond to some of those things because they're not my priority.

I've got things delegated and I just delegate those things off to other people.

And somebody asked me if they'd wanted me to be involved in a CEO award and get

an award,

and I know that that's really a chain reaction of a bunch of things that's going

to take up time and I'd pass up the reward for that because it's going to be

time consuming. So you prioritize your life and say 'thank you,

but no thank you.' Best thing to do.

My favorite one is to use the one that it says that; if I was to take,

try to do the time, I would not be able to give it my all,

I would not be able to do a quality job on it. It's not fair to you.

Give them a benefit out of saying no. If you say no, you know,

with an abruptness, you're alienating.

But if you say no with a contribution to them,

how it will be a win to them by saying no,

they'll be more receptive to it and you don't have to worry about it.

But if it's really clear you don't really want something, just say it. Not,

that just doesn't resonate. I get people offering me opportunities regularly,

and some of them I just go, doesn't match my hierarchy of values,

doesn't match my primary mission statement. I ask how

If I don't see it immediately how it's going to help, I don't take it on.

And I find that that's very helpful. That's why in the Breakthrough Experience,

I teach people how to determine their values and how to filter reality through

those values and be able to know what is to do or not to do.

What's more advantageous, what's less advantageous to do. And I also,

in the Breakthrough Experience,

teach you how to do the Demartini Method on dissolving infatuations and

resentments. Because I assure you you're going to be,

if you're infatuated with somebody, it's easy to say yes.

You don't want to upset them. If you're resentful to them, it's easy to say no.

We're more narcissistic when we look down on people to them.

And we're more altruistic if we look up to people, to them.

So it's wise to be able to level the playing field so you can be objective,

because you're going to alienate one way or the other.

You're going to alienate you from group or you're going to alienate other group

from you if you're playing polarized. That's why in the Breakthrough Experience,

I help people go through the Demartini Method to show them how to own and

reflect the traits of people they admire and despise.

Because if they're more level, they're more objective,

they can be more affirmative and they can be more confident, more self-worth,

and more respectfully communicate their nos and their yeses.

And they're not sitting there sacrificing for others or trying to get others to

sacrifice for them, which is more sustainable and fair exchange oriented,

instead of a narcissistic or altruistic,

which is where you're exaggerating you and minimizing them or exaggerating them,

minimizing you. Neither one of those are sustainable. In fact,

every symptom is trying to teach you how to be authentic.

And the authentic you is the center. In the Breakthrough Experience

when I have the people do the Demartini Method and they get a glimpse of what

the authenticity is,

they'll find out it's a moment of congruency with what they value most.

That's why I teach the values and the Demartini Method back to back in the

program, to help people understand what authenticity really means.

And how to be able to be authentic and be able to say yes and no equally.

It's easy to say no if you're on the narcissistic side,

it's easy to say yes if it's on the altruistic side,

it's easy to say both if you're objective, and know how to be able to, you know,

diplomatically say it in a beautiful manner that's respectful.

That's why I just say thank you, but no thank you. I put the two together.

Thank you. But no, thank you <laugh>. And you know,

you could say some different maybe less wise

words, be abrupt about it, but I don't find that's the most effective, I've seen

that's just alienating.

But you can also be firm and say that doesn't appeal to me.

I have a guy that's contacting me, I'd say every three or four months,

he sends an email and he's got this opportunity and he wants me to participate

in it.

And I've met with him and I've chatted with him on early occasions and I say

no to him each time because I know that what he's involved in,

he's got a hidden agenda and the hidden agenda doesn't appeal to me,

so I just say thank you but no thank you. I'm focused,

I'm clear about my mission. That's not priority to me. But thank you.

And that's it. And he's faded and he does it occasionally now,

not as much quite as he used to,

but he's gotten the message that you better offer me something that really

matches what I'm interested in or you're going to get a no. You know,

when you're in sales there's steps in sales.

One of them is to greet and introduce somebody,

another one's to gain some sort of rapport and find similarities so you get

oxytocin and vasopressin and enkephalins and endorphins stimulated to make them

feel more trusting.

Then you end up establishing some sort of need and then confirming that need

before you ever offer a value in service.

Don't ask somebody to do something without establishing a need for what they do.

It's not respectful. Find out what they need. Ask questions, don't assume.

So when somebody presumes that you need to do something and I want you to do

this,

it's a little bit disrespectful so there's no problem giving them feedback and

letting them know how to approach you next time. I sometimes tell people,

you know, if you had approached me in this manner,

you might gotten farther along on this thing,

you've got to know primarily the way you approach me.

I don't mind giving people feedback because sometimes they may have something

that I am interested in. So I don't mind being respectful back,

giving them feedback, taking the time for that. But sometimes I just ignore it.

If I get emails in that have nothing to do with anything I'm interested at all,

I just ignore it and then they go through my gatekeeper and they try to approach

it that way and then they screen them out. If you don't have a gatekeeper,

it's great to have a gatekeeper to try to, you know,

salvage at least the majority of people that are wanting opportunistic time

consumption. But if you say no, they get the message, be firm,

be clear, be certain about what it is that you're actually trying to get across.

But the most important thing in this is filling your day with high priority

actions. It is so easy to say thank you,

but no thank you if you are absolutely full.

I got asked to go to dinner the other night and I said I will get to my

schedule. I will look, I would love to meet with you for dinner,

but I've got a pretty busy schedule this week.

Let me get my schedule and I'll get back to you.

So I got my schedule and I said,

I have tonight between 7:00 PM and 8:45

because I've got a podcast coming up at 9. 7:00 PM 8:45,

that window I've got for dinner. If we can make it that I would love to.

And I took command of that and they rearranged their schedule and they made it

where it worked out. So if you've got a high priority system and it's,

it's easier for you to attract respect and they will be more likely to

moderate their activities instead of presume that you will do it what they want

and find some sort of medium.

Now if somebody comes along and it's an incredible opportunity that is matching

your values and helping you fulfill your mission and you can immediately see how

it's linked to your highest values, you may change your schedule for theirs.

And you may say yes and no to other things that aren't as priority,

and be willing to do that too.

Saying no is also saying no to something you may have said yes to if all of a

sudden something even greater opportunity comes in.

I had a situation where I was asked to go on Larry King Live,

a TV show that was around, you know,

decade ago and that reaches a lot of people and it's a good outreach so I loved

being on that show.

And I got asked to be on that show and what's interesting is I was scheduled on

that time to be speaking somewhere. So I called the guy and I said,

look I know we've got a scheduled speaking engagement,

I know you've probably already started promoting it and everything else,

how many people you got signed up? He said, only about about 75 people so far.

And this is a few weeks in advance because Larry King asked weeks in advance.

And I said, here's the deal, if I'm going on,

I've been asked to go on Larry King Live.

Could you use that in somehow marketing to help get more people to the program?

He says, I think I could. I said, I'd like to reschedule it for this date,

and then I'd like you to go and promote that and let people know about this

show, what we're doing on Larry King. And then what I'll do is I'll come there,

now here's the deal in order to make a win at it to you,

any cost that has been occurred, and please be honest,

any cost that had been occurred, take that

and if we don't have more people to compensate for that cost,

to make it worth your while,

then we'll we'll work out a negotiation and I'll play a arrangement on that

because I'm getting what I want, I want you to get what you want.

And we renegotiated,

but what happened was we ended up with more people as a result of that and he

ended up winning.

And I ended up winning because I spoke up and I said I won't be able to do it.

So even if you said yes to something, you can also diplomatically say no,

but just make sure it's a win to people. Try to make it a win.

Care enough about another human being to try to find a fair exchange.

Those what keep the relationships in life going,

in business and even your personal relationship.

So saying yes and then turning around saying no or saying no and turning around

saying yes, they also are based on what your priorities are in life.

And if you don't fill your day with high priorities and be able to say yes and

no equally in life,

you could probably pass up opportunities and get trapped by something that's

happening and that you had committed to,

that there may be a greater opportunity that you could be taking advantage of.

So be able to say, no, I've now had to change that, this is what's happening,

in a way where they win out of it so they can understand why you said no and

give them a win out of it. And you can get, you can have the adaptability.

I don't want to get so black and white and rigid about things that it's done,

it's set and I've now trapped myself. But at the same time,

if you prioritize your life and value yourself, you'll value your time.

I mean I <laugh> I've seen people that are very, very,

very important people that are very prioritized, they demand respect.

So take command of your life and prioritize your

can say no and yes equally. And and that's why I tell people,

come to the Breakthrough Experience because the Breakthrough Experience will

help you identify what your values are, help you prioritize your life,

organize your life around it,

master the skill of doing something that's meaningful,

of purpose and mission that's actually serving people doing what you love.

So you can get up in the morning and do what you love and love what you do and

have a tap dance to work as Buffett says. Which allows you to have more income,

more inspiration to want to to work and be inspired by that.

Grow a brand instead of living vicariously through other people's brands.

And then I teach people the Demartini Method,

which is a massive tool the rest of your life.

You're going to be using it over and over again for so many hundred different

experiences in your life. So you're not infatuated or resentful and distracted.

Anything you infatuate with or look up to or anything you resent and look down

on occupy space and time in your mind,

distracts you and keeps you from having the confidence to say yes to what's

priority and no to what isn't. And so I teach people how to do that.

So if you want to grow your confidence and want to grow your self-worth,

if you want to grow your outreach and your influence,

if you want to grow as a human being,

as a leader and want to grow your space and time horizons on the vision of what

you want to accomplish, then make it to the Breakthrough Experience.

Come to the Breakthrough Experience.

I'm going to spend 25/6 hours with you doing what I can to help you become more

masterful in your life. You master your life because you mastered your mind.

In the Breakthrough Experience, I teach you how to master your mind,

how to master whatever's going on in your life and know how to negotiate,

manage and be adaptable and flexible and be able to do what it is you would love

to do in a way that serves people. So come and join me for that.

I'm certain it'll help you.

So if you've had difficulty saying no or you've had difficulty, you know,

just giving in all the time to people and then distracting yourself and then

beating yourself up because you didn't get the things done and you're afraid to

say you know what you really feel, then come to the Breakthrough Experience

so I can help you break through that because that's an easy one.

That's not that hard to deal with.

It's just knowing how to ask the right questions.

The quality of your life's based on the quality of the questions you ask.

In the Breakthrough Experience I ask and teach you some amazing questions that

can change your life. So I hope you enjoyed today. I hope you got a few notes.

I look forward to seeing you next week.

Thank you for being here with me and I'll see you at the Breakthrough

Experience. Sign up now. Just go find out on the online and sign up.

I promise you, you'll say thank you for doing it.

I've asked people at the end of that program,

week after week after week that I've done it, I've done it 1,175 times.

Every time I've done it, I ask people,

how many of you learned something this weekend you could have gone your whole

life and would not have learned if you hadn't been here?

And every hand goes up every week.

So if you're ready to learn something really amazing that's outstanding and

something that will use the rest of your life, come and join me.

You won't have a problem saying yes or no to the things that you love.