Ep 713 | Strategy Is Mostly About What You Say “No” To

Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. I want to talk about strategy today, business strategy, but just personal strategy in general. And let's start by talking about the strategy illusion, is what I'm gonna call it. Most people think strategy is about ambition. It's about more growth or more revenue, more scale. In my opinion and in my experience, that's not strategy. That's optimism, that's appetite. Strategy only really shows up when resources are constrained. When your time's constrained, energy, your capital, your attention. For most businesses and most people, those constraints are almost always present. If you never feel tension in your decisions, you're not doing strategy, you're drifting. So what am I saying? Well, let me answer that by, by defining what strategy actually is, in my opinion. And I think this is the hard truth. Every yes that you say silently creates multiple nos. You just don't see them immediately. So say yes to a new project, and then you— then, you know, that means you then said no to focus. If you say yes to a marginal client, that means you might have said no to margin. You say yes to another meeting, that means you said no to deep work. So where am I going with this? I think the strategy is not about choosing the best option, as many think. I think it's actually about protecting the few things that matter, that matter. Let me give you a business example, okay? Let's consider a, a fast-growing, uh, service business. Maybe it's a consulting firm or a brokerage or a marketing agent— marketing agency. It doesn't really matter. These companies, this fast-growing service business, let's say it starts winning and its inbound increases, its top of funnel begins to increase, opportunities begin to multiply. And so what does this company do? It begins offering custom packages. It starts to offer exceptions for the good clients. It starts testing out new verticals, you know, just to see if it could work. And as a result, revenue rises, but so does complexity. Suddenly, there's team confusion. Margins begin to compress. Delivery quality, you know, starts to slip a bit. The leadership team starts to get siloed or exhausted. Now, contrast that with the disciplined business owner, the disciplined operator. The disciplined operator, they say no to clients that are outside the scope of what they do. They say no to services that they can't systematize. They say no to revenue that introduces operational complexity or drag. So they grow slower initially, but then they pick up speed, then they pull away. Strategy that's protected is simplicity, and simplicity actually is what creates scale. So to go back to what I was— what I started off by saying today, I think that strategy is mostly about what you're saying no to more than the things that you're saying yes to. Let's think about the personal application here. Most people don't need more opportunity in their lives. What they really need is fewer distractions. In other words, most people don't need more things to, to say no to. They need to figure out the exact things they should be saying yes to and vice versa. Of all of the yeses, I've got to be saying no to most of them. High performers aren't better at doing more. I think that's a big myth. I think what high performers look like, they're ruthless about actually doing less because they protect family time and, and thinking time. They protect their morning routines. They don't really ask questions like, hey, can I fit this in? I mean, maybe sometimes, but for the most part, they're not saying, can I fit this into my schedule? They ask, you know, what's, what's complex or what gets crowded out if I have to say yes? So, I think that there's a practical strategy filter that we can all begin to deploy. And I want to challenge you to consider using this. This week and as you get into the next year. Before you say yes, I want you to run this filter. Number 1, does this directly advance my primary objective? I want you to ask that question first. Does this directly advance my primary objective? Number 2, does this create second-order complexity? What I mean by that, you know, if I do this, are there other things that then become complex as a result? And then number 3, if this succeeds, will I want more of it? If this succeeds, will I want more of it? Again, number 1, does this directly advance my primary objective? Number 2, does this create second-order complexity? Number 3, if this succeeds, will I want more of it? If any answer is no, then I think the, the decision is already made. So as we close today's episode, I'm going to give you an action step. I kind of just talked about that filter, but let me give you a more specific action step. Okay? This week, I want you to take this, this simple step. I want you to write down 3 things you're currently doing that consume time, create stress, and don't materially move the scoreboard. What are 3 things that you're currently doing in your business or personal world that consume time, create stress, and, and do not materially move the scoreboard. And then I want you to pick one of those things to eliminate or to delegate. Now, when you go through this exercise, what are you doing? I believe you're actually strategizing. Remember, remember, the thought here is that strategy is about what you say no to and not the illusion that it's you know, you coming up or you charging forward with ambition around growth and revenue and scale. That's not strategy, that's just appetite. This is what you're saying no to. So for this exercise, the 3 things that you're currently doing that consume time, create stress, and don't move the scoreboard— eliminate one or delegate one. And I think that's where you deploy some real strategy. That's all I have for you today, the No Days Off Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.