In Tim Ferris’ interview of Derek Sivers, in which he says that if your answer to a question is not “Hell yeah”, it should be “no”. This got the “Hell yeah” from many listeners and some custom artwork created. But I’m not sure I agree.
Let me elaborate a bit on the concept. Derek Sivers’ argument is that if you say yes to too many things you are going to be oversubscribed and when something truly awesome comes your way, you won’t be able to say yes because you’ll be too busy, too tired or won’t even notice. He said that if it wasn’t for him constantly saying “no” to everything, he wouldn’t have started the Nownownow project.
What’s missing from this equation is the opposite. If you are too picky, if you often have better things to do, if you are not constantly bombarded by projects and opportunities, like Sivers is now, then you might become isolated. You might miss the great opportunities because you weren’t there to see them.
I think a better approach should be something along the line of “You should be taking N new opportunities per year” where N is of course, hard or impossible to define. It’s up to you but the frequency of saying yes and no should vary to have a constant N. If you are bombarded for opportunities, then yes, you need a strong filter, such as “Hell yeah or no” but if you are not, then you need to go out and find them and that means saying yes to things that are not “Hell yeah”.
For example, for the past 4 years I been hyper-focus on my company, Carousel Apps, and my productivity has been high. But also, I missed the enjoyment of helping others with startup and the opportunities of collaboration, making connections, etc. That’s why in 2016 I want to have one evening a week sitting down and having a long conversation with someone about whatever it is they are doing and trying to help them in any way I can.
