Growing up, I was raised to be a "Yes Man." I was raised to understand that my opinion had no weight and my voice had no value. I learned to shrink myself to fit into the spaces others left for me, placing everyone else before myself.
What does this have to do with being a CEO?
When a brand tries to be everything to everyone, it becomes nothing to no one. In my personal life, my compliance was the price of admission for the comfort of others. Love was in fact conditional, and the condition was obedience. To say "no" too often came at cost.
Life, would be consistent dismissal of my voice and choice. Silence was the peaceful option. The safest one. Unbeknownst to me, that it would be a difficult decision to undo in adulthood.
Later in life, I was in an incredibly vulnerable state. I travelled to Southeast Asia alone and experienced first hand how my inability to say "no" and stand on it would quickly become a financial and mental liability. If a vendor asked me three times, my nervous system would shut down. I would remember all the times I said 'no' and it backfired. I would black out and simply comply. If somehow I did surpass that, I'd be hit with a guilt trip. "This money is to pay my mothers spinal surgery" or " This money is nothing to you but can cover my childs school fees". That would be it for me. I knew first hand what it meant to struggle so of course, naturally, I was now buying another pair of linen pants that I neither wanted, nor needed.
I went to SEA with a substantial amount of savings and returned from that trip with £0 because I hadn't mastered the most important metric of all: self-preservation. I wasn't being robbed by the vendors; I was being robbed by my own internal dialogue which was the voice that said a lack of compliance equalled unsafety.
When you cannot enforce a boundary, you lose your operating capital. You give away your time, your money, and your peace to people who haven't earned it.
Things reached a breaking point and I realised I needed to be selective about who has access to me in order to grow.
I started the agonizing process of cutting off anyone who made me feel small or forced me to walk on eggshells. I removed anyone who made me fight to have a voice over even the smallest of things. It was lonely, but it was necessary. You cannot build or expect to move up in your life while surrounded by people who drain your battery.
By setting a boundary on who had access to my mental space, I finally had the room to breathe. Within a year, I landed my dream job and launched my business. I realized that "No" isn't a rejection of others; it is a reclamation of myself.
I started practicing "No" everywhere. I pitched to CEOs and stopped fearing their "No," because I finally respected my own. My mind became clearer, and my ideas began to flourish because they weren't being smothered by the "noise" of other people’s expectations.
I am still growing. I still stumble. But I have reached a point where I would much rather regret a decision I made for myself than live with the resentment of a decision someone else forced upon me.
The goal of a CEO isn't to be liked by everyone; it’s to be respected by the right people. And respect always starts with a boundary. As a business owner, your greatest tool isn't your laptop, it's yourself.
Signed - K
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