In our business it is easy to be at the beck and call of clients:
“Can you come on this date?”
Of course I can, and I quickly change what was already planned for the day.
We are conditioned to say “yes” for a variety of reasons:
In my case, if I say yes I get a paycheck.
At IBM I said yes because I wanted to look like a team player.
We may say yes because we know the work won’t get done without us.
We say yes because it is a recession.
We say yes because we are saving for a house, car, college, that once in a lifetime vacation or retirement.
In this moment, I ponder turning down a client for the first time. I am left wondering if “no” could actually be the sufficient way to go here. . .
I pull the “sufficiency” card from the Tools of Sufficiency card deck. This is a new practice for me. I haven’t used these cards often. The Sufficiency card says:
Birthright
Spirit
Generative
Community
Wonder
Freedom
Share
Open
Declaration
Source
Allowing
Movement
As I ponder the words,
As I search for my choice,
I can see that in this case saying “no” brings me freedom.
It feels like a declaration.
It allows me to generate what I could create that week I am not with a client.
I wonder what moments will be available to me and to Seven Stones in the place of this “no.”
In saying no I am saying yes to something else:
my word
my professional development
new opportunities with a new organization
new experiences, and
a new muscle ,which I declare is my sufficiency muscle.
I declined my first work engagement and look forward to being paid in ways I have yet to imagine.