When I was climbing the advertising ranks, I didn’t lead what anyone would call a “balanced” life. I woke up, went to work, worked late, went home, went to bed, and went back for more on the weekends.
Even when I wasn’t at work, I was thinking about work.
When I was at the pool, I was reading Made To Stick or Good To Great and when I was drinking wine with my girlfriends, I was grilling them about what was in their pantry and why they bought it. They thought it was silly (“Oh here she goes again!”), and I thought it was helpful. Everybody was a winner.
I liked my life back then. I took pride in being a hard worker, and my over-punched time card helped me advance quickly through the ranks of responsibility.
However, I was stopped in my tracks one day when a client asked me what I did for fun. It was the only question he had asked all day that I couldn’t answer.
Since “sleep” seemed like a lame response, I giggled and quickly changed the subject. It bothered me that I couldn’t answer his question. But it didn’t bother me for long. I went back to work and forgot about it.
But then I conceived, grew, and birthed a life outside of work: my daughter, Layla.
It was official. I had a new, non-work life, and I wanted to protect it. But I didn’t know how. I didn’t know how to say no. Truth be told, I’d never really done it.
Want me to work all weekend? Yep. Want me to jump on a plane and fly to NYC tomorrow at 6:00 am? Sure. Want me to work 19-hour days, three days in a row? You betcha.
I knew how to say yes in a million different ways, but I’d never uttered the word no.
When I came back from maternity leave with a new purpose (and new fears), I asked my business partner, Brad Armstrong, for advice. How do I say no while helping to lead the biggest account in the agency’s history?
His advice was provocative and profound. And it changed my life.
“When it comes to saying no, just think of your job as a teenage boy trying to make out with you. This job is going to take everything you’ll give it and still want more,” he explained. “And it’s up to you to draw boundaries regarding what you are, and are not, willing to do. It’s imperative to determine and declare your boundaries (not working weekends, being home in time for dinner, etc.) before the heat of the moment. Because if you wait until the heat of the moment, they’ll start begging (“But, Katherine, we neeeed you in this meeting that’s in LA tomorrow”) and you’ll start caving.”
Holy macaroni.
In the 27 seconds it took for him to share his advice, I could feel my life changing. It was the perfect analogy. Was it because I made out with too many boys in high school, or because it was profoundly simple?
Who cares. It worked.
And since most of the people I worked with at the time were men, I had fun with it—for years.
When they asked me to do something that would jeopardize the boundaries I’d set, I’d simply say (in my mind), “Nope. I am not making out with you right now.” Then I’d giggle and say, “No.”
It worked. Like magic. Every time.
Who knew being a prude was so much fun?
