Hard To Kill

First off, never mind that the title of this post is also the title of what is probably Steven Seagal’s lamest movie. I’m having an “off” day.

Aging fat guys with ponytails aside, what I really want to talk to you about today are your words. Specifically what you say “YES!” to, versus what you say “NO!” to. As artists, we are great at being “YES!” people.

We hate not pleasing people. I don’t know if that’s the performer in us, or if it’s just part of the high-grade inferiority complex that the majority of Creatives have been saddled with by nature, but whatever it is… it blows goats.

The Problem with “YES!”

“YES!” is a deceptive little shit! It’s not always what it’s cracked up to be. The problem is that “YES!” is a false positive. “YES!” always creates something to be done. Always. As such, “YES!” can screws up your plans. It can paint you in a corner. It commandeers your schedule and monopolizes your time. “YES!” makes promises it cannot keep. “YES!” allows its mouth to write checks its ass can’t cash. “YES!” wants to make everyone happy, and that’s just not a possible reality.

“NO!”, however, is making a huge comeback in my game! I’ve become acquainted with “NO!”, and I’m starting to kind of like her. ”NO!” is different from “YES!” ”NO!” kills things. Dead. Like RAID bug spray. “NO!” means what it says and says what it means. There’s no ambiguity with ”NO!”. You can’t misjudge, miscalculate, or misunderstand ”NO!”. There’s never a “maybe later” with ”NO!” because… well… ”NO!” means ”NO!”.

Kill Your Darlings

Last year, I forced myself to get up close and personal with ”NO!” when it became clear that I needed to shut down two business relationships with people who had become extremely close to me. I got a crash course in ”NO!” over a period of about three days.

Those three days sucked. They were painful, frustrating, and emotionally draining. But they were necessary. I am so much better off with those people out of my life, I can’t even emphasize how much. But it took ”NO!” to get there. I had to pull the plug.

But the feeling of instant freedom and relief that resulted in saying “No more. Enough!” to those toxic people in my life started me thinking, “Shit, man! What else can I say ”NO!” to?” I began identifying all kinds of things that needed to be shut down, 86′d, cancelled, axed, iced, killed off, and eradicated. I’m talking about relationships, habits, bills, commitments, material possessions, programs, self-imposed expectations… a whole bunch of just extra, nonessential, superfluous bullshit. I said “NO!” to a few things I was doing for Deane Ogden Creative, Inc., too. Things that weren’t really hitting on all eight cylinders. I said “NO!” to the way we were doing SCOREcast and came up with a better way to make it all work. I shut down a few things in my personal life, like the ever-ballooning mass of material possessions I owned. Now, aside from my studio set-up, I own only the things I absolutely need for business and travel. That’s it. Everything else is either handled by staff or resides “in the cloud”.

I said “NO!” to a few old dreams, too. I shut down the idea of “owning a home in Los Angeles.” I don’t think I’ll probably ever own a home anywhere, actually. Why? Well… because, I also said ”NO!” to debt last year. For the first time in my life, I ended a year completely void of any debt, and so far, I’ve kept it that way. Everything in my personal life is balanced, and business-wise we are in the black and perfectly poised for a banner year in ’12.

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So what did learn from all this? Well, it ain’t pretty… I learned that I’m a people pleaser! I like to make people happy. And the way I make people happy is by getting them what they want. And when people want what they want, they tend to prioritize those wants over my needs, and then what we have ceases to be a “friendship” and instead starts to resemble something dangerously close to a “slave/master” relationship. So, I need to start only saying “YES!” to the things that I know I want to be created and breathe life into, and start saying ”NO!” a hell of a lot more than I do to keep the weeds choked back.

What are you saying “NO!” to right now?

Better question: What could you be saying ”NO!” to right now?

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