My good friend, Jason, tipped me off to this quote years ago…
Rather than “No, because…” “Yes, if…”
We liked it so much that when designing MatchBOX, he put it in one of the most prominent spots. We wanted the community of MatchBOX members to always have an attitude of saying yes to things. It’s OK to put qualifications on your yes, but your mindset is still bent towards the positive.
On my way into the office this morning I glanced at Twitter and saw this…
Why do people build up walls of excuses? “I can’t” “Nobody wants to.” “Who is going to take on my responsibilities if I’m not here?”
— Daryl Starr (@darylbstarr) September 21, 2018
My first thought is “When I get to the office I need to write a social media policy that requires the CEO’s tweets to go through an approval process so he doesn’t tweet while grouchy.” But then I remembered I’m not a partner in a big city PE fund. We think big and act small (another of our favorite quotes). So instead of writing a policy, I wrote at the whiteboard…
Daryl thanked me for the reminder and we got back to finding ways to help ourselves and others say “yes, if…”.