Scan time: 2-3 minutes / Read time: 3-5 minutes
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Hello rebel ideapreneurs 🦸♂️🦸♀️
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🙋♀️ Kate’s Saturday mornings that keep filling up
Kate is an HR manager who runs a podcast on the side, for people changing careers in their 40s.
This week, three requests landed in her inbox: a guest post, an interview on another podcast,
and a coffee chat with someone who “just has a few questions.”
None of them is exciting, but all of them sound reasonable, and turning down a reasonable request feels rude.
So she says yes to all three.
Then the Saturday morning she had set aside for recording her podcast is gone,
and next Saturday is already filling up the same way.
🧩 Her struggle:
She says yes to things she only half wants, so her week fills with work that was never worth doing.
While she’s editing an episode, a listener emails her a link to the true story of a founder
who says we all say yes too often,
and who sold his company for $22 million.
The rule he lives by is only two words long.
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💿 The man who sold everything and kept one rule
Derek Sivers, a musician, built a website to sell his own CD online, and other musicians asked if he’d sell theirs too.
That website became CD Baby.
He sold CD Baby in 2008 for $22 million.
What he’s better known for now is one sentence about how to decide anything.
“If you’re not feeling ‘Hell yeah, that would be awesome!’
about something, say no.”
That’s the whole rule.
There’s no middle setting.
Get this — here’s why he keeps the rule.
In his own words: “Say no to almost everything.”
“Then, when you find something you’re actually excited about,
you’ll have the space in your life to give it your full attention.”
Say yes to enough mildly-interesting requests, and every open slot in your week fills up.
Then a real hell-yeah offer comes along.
You have to say no to it, because every hour is already booked with things you only half wanted.
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🔥 The recipe
➡️ Hell Yeah or No
Derek says no to almost everything,
so when a hell-yeah offer comes along, he has the time to say yes.
Derek runs every request through one test with no middle setting.
Derek’s move is called Hell Yeah or No.
The test is those two words: if it isn’t a hell yeah, it’s a no.
He didn’t turn people away to seem exclusive or important.
He was keeping room for the offer he’d want to say hell yeah to.
So you stop saying yes to every guest post and coffee chat, even the ones that seem reasonable to accept.
Say no to almost everything, and there’s room left when a great one arrives.
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🛠️ Kate’s turn
Now, back to Kate, who says yes to every reasonable request,
and keeps losing the Saturday mornings she set aside for recording her podcast.
That evening, she runs the prompt at the bottom of this email,
and tells it about the three requests she said yes to this week.
Her AI sidekick doesn’t waste words:
None of these three is a hell yeah for you, so say no to all three, and keep your Saturday for recording.
That night, she writes three short, kind notes, and says no to all three.
On Saturday morning, she records her next episode.
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🌅 Six weeks later
Kate hasn’t lost a Saturday morning since.
She has put out a new episode every week.
When a career coach she admires asked her to record an episode together,
she had a free Saturday, and she said hell yeah.
A reasonable request can still be the wrong one for you.
Say no to every request that isn’t a hell yeah.
That’s it, my fellow outliers!
Yours ‘showing you that building a business is fun, not a drain’ Vijay Peduru 🦸♂️
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🏄♀️ The prompt
The prompt below runs everything currently on your plate through the two-word test and tells you what to drop.
🧰 What you’ll need
Everything you’ve said yes to that isn’t done yet, and how you felt when each was asked
- However small. Type it, or say it out loud with a voice tool.
- e.g. a podcast interview (flattered), a guest post (obliged), two coffee chats (neither exciting), a résumé to check (guilty), a webinar in March (dreading it)What you actually want this quarter
- e.g. twelve episodes out and my first paid workshop liveWhat you’re afraid happens if you say no
- e.g. that people stop asking, and that I look ungrateful
🚀 How to run it
Open your AI sidekick, ChatGPT, Claude, or whichever one you use.
Swap the three examples, the text inside the curly brackets, for your own, then run it. If your AI sidekick can already see your notes, you can run it as is.
🧪 Want to test it first? Run it without changing anything, and it will use the examples.
CONTEXT:
- Use my own material first. If you can see my calendar, inbox, notes, or task list, pull my real commitments from there instead of the examples below.
- If you know how I write, use my voice. Otherwise, write in a clear, warm, no-jargon voice — first-person, plain words, no startup-speak.
- If you know who my readers are, write for them. Otherwise assume people changing careers in their 40s.
- If I have replaced the examples, use only mine. If an example is still there, fill it in from what you already know about me, and mark it as your assumption. If you don't know anything about me yet, use the example exactly as written.
- There is no middle rating. Every item is either an obvious yes or a no. Do not offer "maybe", "later", or a ranked list.
=============== INPUTS — edit these, or just run as is ===============
Everything I have said yes to that is not done yet, and how I felt when each was asked:
{e.g. a podcast interview (flattered), a guest post (obliged), two coffee chats (neither exciting), a résumé to check (guilty), a webinar in March (dreading it)}
What I actually want this quarter:
{e.g. twelve episodes out and my first paid workshop live}
What I am afraid happens if I say no:
{e.g. that people stop asking, and that I look ungrateful}
======================== END OF INPUTS ========================
Outputs:
1. The verdict — every item marked HELL YEAH or NO, with one line of reasoning each. No middle rating.
2. What the noes cost me — the honest downside of each no, stated plainly rather than waved away.
3. The sentence to send — one short, warm, non-apologetic line for backing out of each, written to a person.
4. What the space is for — what goes in the hours that come back, named specifically.
5. The rule for next time — the one question to ask before I answer anything, in my own words.
Then tell me which single yes on that list I gave for approval rather than interest.