The Importance Of Being Someone Who Can Say “NO!” At Will

Written by: Ruminator

Say No To Saying Yes.

Yes Men are essentially people who are willing to agree to just about any request they have been asked to fulfill as long as it makes the person asking for a favor happy.

Ironically people are never happy so they keep asking for more and more. This means that the authority figure can basically go unquestioned as well as unopposed which is an invitation for further exploitation.

The reason Yes Men are not ideally suited to some challenging leadership roles is that sometimes negative feedback is necessary. It is impossible for a human being to be correct 100% of the time and not secretly be ‘Earth’ from the trilogy Hitch Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy.

Without criticism, the person in charge will not grow as an individual and learn from his or her mistakes. Nonetheless even in the case of responding to criticism it is advisable to only take heed if it is good constructive criticism. If a Yes Man were to keep changing every time someone spoke out against him, he would be little more than a Ditto from Pokemon.

With that being said, let us take a glance at Elie Wiesel’s words.

The people taking advantage of the said Yes Men can be described using adjectives I am not currently at the liberty to use. To put it in a civil way, they are opportunists who spot people that are willing to look past their obvious faults and try to discern something good out of their characters.

Fortunately for me my mum once said, “The best trait of person X’s character is that he has no character to start with.”

These are people who will tell you what you want to hear instead of what they believe is best for you.

To effectively address this situation, you will have to learn how to say NO.

If you have a hard time saying no, I suggest you learn the ways of Grumpy Cat.

You may need expert negotiating skills, however, as Grumpy Cat says “NO” to taking on any pupils.

To conclude, the movie Yes Man is a good example of how saying Yes to new activities can introduce some fun change to life, yet at the same time, it also displays how saying Yes all the time can lead to unnecessary problems.