Not Every Opportunity Deserves a Yes
The Founder’s Note | By Elize Fisher, Founder of WorkingMama®
When you’re building something, especially in the beginning, you become very good at saying yes.
Yes to the meeting. Yes to the collaboration. Yes to trying something new. Yes to the person who wants to “pick your brain”. Yes to the opportunity that isn’t quite right, but might lead somewhere.
I understand why.
When you are building from the ground up, you don’t always know which conversation, introduction or opportunity will become important.
But one of the hardest things I’m learning as a founder is this:
Not every opportunity deserves a yes.
There comes a point in building a business when the question can no longer simply be:
“Is this a good opportunity?”
It has to become:
“Is this the right opportunity for where I am taking the business?”
There is a difference.
Every yes costs something
We tend to evaluate opportunities according to what they could give us.
Exposure. Revenue. A new relationship. Access to a particular audience. A seat at a table we have been trying to enter. What we don’t always calculate is what the opportunity will require from us.
Every yes costs something.
Sometimes it is money. More often, it is time, attention, energy and focus.
And those are resources too. An opportunity can look fantastic on paper and still pull you away from the work that matters most.
That has been an uncomfortable lesson for me because I am naturally curious. I like learning. I see possibilities quickly. As a founder, that can be an advantage.
But it can also become a distraction.
Not everything that could become something needs to become something.
Growth requires a different kind of discipline
In the early stages of building, growth often requires courage.
You have to put yourself forward. Make the call. Send the email. Walk into rooms where nobody knows your name. Try things before you know whether they will work.
But as the business grows, I’m discovering that growth starts requiring another skill:
Discernment.
You have to become more selective about where your time goes.
That can feel uncomfortable because saying no to something good can feel ungrateful, arrogant or even foolish.
What if this was the opportunity?
What if this person could have opened a door?
What if saying no means they never ask again?
Those questions can make founders hold onto opportunities long after they stop making strategic sense.
But there is another question worth asking:
What am I saying no to every time I say yes to this?
Because there is always something.
Perhaps it is time you could have spent developing your core business.
Perhaps it is attention your existing clients deserved.
Perhaps it is the project you keep postponing because something more urgent keeps appearing.
Or perhaps it is simply the mental space required to think properly about where you are going next.
Busy and building are not the same thing
This is probably the part I am having to confront most.
A full diary can make you feel as though the business is moving.
Meetings. Calls. Collaborations. Events. Emails. New ideas.
You can be incredibly busy and still not be moving the business forward.
That is why I’m becoming less interested in how many opportunities are in front of me and more interested in whether they align with what I am actually trying to build.
Does this strengthen the business?
Does it serve the people we exist to serve?
Does it move us towards where we have decided to go?
And perhaps most importantly:
Does this deserve my attention right now?
Not someday.
Not because it sounds exciting.
Right now.
I don’t think good leadership means having the capacity to carry everything that comes your way.
Sometimes leadership is knowing what not to carry.
So I’m learning to pause before the automatic yes. Not because I want fewer opportunities.
Because I want to become more intentional about the ones I choose.
Not every opportunity deserves a yes. And knowing the difference might be one of the most important things we learn as founders.
Founder’s Note: Growth isn’t only about recognising opportunities. It’s also about recognising which ones you can afford to leave behind.
Comments