Ghosting is weak. Here is how to say "no" and take control of your life.

Today I’m going to share how to put yourself in charge of your calendar, and earn respect along the way.

Owning your time impacts how you feel about yourself, makes you more productive, and will actually make you more respected among those who vie for your time.

Why I’ve dealt with this problem

I get a lot of inbound requests.

Part of this is a result of openly sharing my story as a founder—most of my reputation is from being open and raw about building GoWild. I’ve done this largely through my LinkedIn, industry panels and podcasts. Also, every time there is an announcement that GoWild has raised a funding round, my inbox gets flooded with inquiries. And finally, as we have picked up more investors, I often find investors want me to share our communication recipe with their other founders.

All of that, and I haven’t even mentioned that I message with thousands of GoWild members every month, many of whom have requests like “can you join my podcast for an interview?” or “can you give me advice to get my outdoor company started?” or “can I send you a product and get your feedback?”

I love it, but it’s a lot to field. And I do not have an executive assistant or virtual assistant.

Every leader has their own recipe for high volume of requests.

It can be a lot of things:

• You manage a lot of people• You’re a leader in a company with a high public profile• Your role is public or customer facing and drives inbound messages

How you handle your inbox says a lot about you. Too many people just straight up ignore their inbox because they don’t know how to respond.

So they just don’t.

It is cowardly, to an extent.

It can be impossible to reply to everyone, especially for high profile people. I can’t even imagine what the inboxes of folks like Jocko, Dave Gerhart, or Adam Grant’s look like. So let’s be clear—this advice ain’t for them. This is for your everyday leader who is in the trenches with your team.

You may not be Jocko, but you still can’t answer every inbox question. It’s a time suck. But how do you decide what to pay attention to? I have a quick process for that.

My process for replies and denies

I run through a mental version of this quadrant below. The more up and to the right somebody gets, the more likely I am to respond. My reputation is on the line for people I know—I don’t want to be know as someone who ignores their peers. If the answer is no, I’ll own it (we’ll get to how in just a second).

Images: Upper left, “Step Brothers” movie, Upper right, “Hangover” movie, lower left, Chris Farley in his famous “van by the river” SNL skit, lower right, “Pursuit of Happiness.” So many sales pitches, so little time.

If someone is down and to the left? I probably will not respond.

If you’re up and to the left? I’ll respond, for better or worse, yes or no.

Down and to the right? It depends on the request and how well it’s curated. I have not only responded to cold pitches from strangers, but become a customer. It’s rare though and take a good pitch. Maybe we’ll cover good pitches at a future date.

Anyways, this sounds super basic, right? 

It is. 

So why are so many people tainting their relationships by ignoring emails from colleagues, peers and their close network?

Because they don’t understand the second part of this blog.

My first lesson in saying no

I used to volunteer for a few years with YMCA Safeplace. It was a great cause, helping children with incarcerated parents have a shot at a life outside of prison. I was passionate about the cause, and decided to try and help raise money at the annual breakfast fundraiser.

Naturally, I just email blasted all of the rich people I knew, which was limited at that early point in my career. Most ignored me, which was hurtful at that time because this was something I really cared about. But I still remember one person who replied and told me this:

“Hey Brad, this cause sounds great and I’m proud of you for being involved. Unfortunately I just have too much on my plate at the moment and don’t have any more room for commitments. Sorry, but I cannot attend.”

OK, so he said no, right?

No, it was so much more. He took the time to reply when most people didn’t even bother.

Think about this—it was so memorable, that here I am a decade+ later talking about the impact it had on me. I was so used to getting ignored, the fact someone took the time to respond surprised me.

Regardless of how rational we think we are, we’re not. Humans are squishy, soft, emotional beings. We don’t like rejection—we’re social animals. So by simply replying to an email, you can bond, even if the answer is no.

How to say no

I’ve been following Justin Welsh for a while. He writes about being a solopreneur, which I don’t have interest in doing, but I like how he creates his content. The guy has also exploded lately, building a massive following on Twitter and LinkedIn in about two years time.

I recently saw him reply on a LinkedIn thread with how he responds to people to say no.

Justin’s template to say no:

Hi ,

Thanks for thinking of me for your . I really appreciate it and I normally love doing stuff like this.

Unfortunately, with my I’m booked solid and just can’t put anything else on my plate.

I hope you won’t take this personally. I field a lot of requests, and I realize that I need to say no if I hope to make meaningful progress on my personal projects.

Please feel free to reach out again in 90 days or so, and I might be in a better position to accept.

Again, thanks for thinking of me. Best of luck with the ,

Cheers,

This is a fantastic template that is effectively what I say to people, with a few exceptions:

• Do not invite people to reach back out unless you are truly interested in the project. I admittedly sometimes use this as a test to see if someone is really interested in my help or if it was a shoot from the hip random message. If I say to follow up, and they do, I give it my best to make good on this promise. I’m sure Justin deletes this portion when he’s not interested.

• Make sure this template is in your personal voice. Justin’s communication is very no frills and direct. My brand is more redneck casual lowbrow humor—his template voice wouldn’t work for me, for example. Write this as you would craft it to a friend, then save the template.

• I would reduce all of the custom fields in this if you’re literally going to copy and paste to reduce a whoops. Nothing would be more horrifying than accidentally pasting in a template slot and hitting send.

It’s really this simple—if you’re ghosting people, you’re building a reputation you don’t want, especially for your people in the wolfpack quadrant (that’s up and to the right, for those of you who have not seen the Hangover).

3 tips for saying no

Respond wisely—you can’t reply to everyone

Be smart with who you’re going to respond to. You can’t respond to everything, but when dealing with calls for help from people you know, it’s better to respond with Justin’s template than to ghost a peer, acquaintance or colleague. Remember, ghosting someone may require no action, but it still creates a reaction.

Use a template to be efficient and avoid indecision

Use a template to help you avoid the indecision of deciding how to decline an offer or inquiry. This helps you avoid the time suck of coming up with a long reason of why the “no” but also keeps you human to the recipient.

Invest your time in you

Remember, this is not being mean—it’s owning your calendar. Time is your most valuable asset, and it’s OK to tell people that you are investing in yourself and have nothing left in the bank right now.

What I’m reading: The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley.