68. Why "Always Say Yes" is Terrible Career Advice
Something I have heard a lot throughout my career and something I am seeing a lot right now across social media is the advice to never say no to an opportunity. It’s the idea that you should always say yes to any opportunity that comes your way, regardless of what it is and how you feel about it.
The intent of this advice is to encourage and empower people to say yes to new experiences and potential opportunities. It’s to help you go after something, instead of holding yourself back with insecurity, fear, and doubt. And if you truly do want an opportunity that comes your way but are nervous about saying yes, this advice might help. But if you truly do not want to say yes to something, this advice is not helpful. In fact, it’s a big problem.
In this episode, I’m expanding on some of the reasons I have an issue with the advice to “always say yes” in your career and life, and how the only person who knows what you should say yes to is you. Find out why giving yourself permission to say no is one of the most powerful tools and skills you can have, and how it can help you create the life you want, go after and achieve goals, and be truly authentic to who you are.
If you want to take this work deeper and learn the tools and skills to feel better, all while having my support and guidance each step of the way, I invite you to set up a time to chat with me. Click here to grab a spot on my calendar and I can’t wait to speak to you!
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What You Will Discover:
Why saying “no” can actually open doors for you as well.
How people socialized as women are constantly told they don’t know what they want.
The problem with following advice to always say yes.
How listening to yourself and trusting yourself is a skill, and how to develop it.
Why you are the only person who gets to decide what’s right for you.
What I want the common advice to be instead of this terrible career advice.
Resources:
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Full Episode Transcript:
Hey, you all, I’m Marissa McKool, and you’re listening to the Redefining Rest Podcast for public health professionals. Here we believe rest is your right. You don’t have to earn it, you just have to learn how to take it and I’m going to teach you. Ready? Come along.
Well, hello. How is it going? You all, can you believe it’s the middle of August? What happened? I can’t believe it. But I do want to say this, I think because of the way in the US the school system is. You grow up for I don’t know how many years where you think of the year in academic years, fall starting and May ending. I find that still happens to me is summer, when it gets towards the end of the summer it feels like the end of the year and oh no, there’s no more time left. And of course, fall feels short because of the holidays and all that.
But just a reminder, I think it’s still five months left or something, there’s still a lot of time left in the year even if mentally it doesn’t feel that way because our brain’s still clocked out on academic school kind of calendar, even if you’re not aware of it. So, there’s still time left to go after your goals or to go on that trip you want to go on or to take, you know, do whatever you want to do, just a friendly reminder. And I might be reminding myself too.
So, today’s episode might be controversial, but I feel really strongly about it. And as always you get to decide what you feel, what you think, and what you want to believe, you can totally disagree with me. But I do want to share my perspective on this, you can take it or leave it as always. Something I heard a lot early in my career and honestly right now I’m seeing this all over on LinkedIn, on social media, on a number of places is this advice to never say no to an opportunity. To always say yes to any opportunity that comes along.
And this does happen to be said to a lot of folks who are early in their career, or even students to, you never know what could happen, you should never pass an opportunity up. But I actually do think you’re told this at any stage if you’re mid-career or further along and you’re in middle management and middle upper management. You might hear this around new leadership opportunities or salary you’re moving up. If you are a parent part-time or stay at home parent, not part, everyone’s a full-time parent, do not mix that up.
I meant part-time working and a parent or full-time at home, you might hear this about potential job opportunities or other things and so on. And I get the intent, people want to help you. They want to help you move past any insecurities or self-doubt. They want to help you advance in your career. They recognize that there are times where we all hold ourselves back because we are scared or don’t think we can do something.
So, the intent of the advice is really to encourage and empower people to say yes to new experiences and potential opportunities and not say no just because you’re scared. And here’s the thing, if you truly do want an opportunity that comes your way but you’re nervous about saying yes and know the keyword is want, truly want this advice might help you. If you want it and you’re feeling nervous or hesitant this advice might help you say yes even though you’re scared. And it might have helped you in the past.
And that’s great, I’m not here to take that away. But the advice is not helpful if you truly do not want to say yes to something because this advice implies that you should always say yes and never say no. Let’s compare this to dating for a second. This might sound jarring, but I think it’s helpful.
If your friend, or sibling, or parent, or even dating coach or therapist said to you, “You should always say yes to every person who asks you out.” If you are looking to meet a partner and get in a relationship and you told people that and they said, “You should always say yes, never turn someone down, never say no to someone who asks for your number, you never know.” They might be the one even if you met them here or even if they said this, or even if you didn’t like this.”
If they said that to you what would you think? Would you be down for that advice? I don’t think so, not for me. And yeah, we do have some socialization especially if you’re socialized as a woman. But let’s just compare that, this idea of you should always say yes because you just never know. They might be the one. You might lose this chance. The intent in the dating example, those friends, those family, their intent is to help you achieve your goal, but the impact isn’t really helpful.
And it’s the same with this career advice. And here is why I have a problem with this advice. It implies that you do not know what you want, that you could not possibly know what you want. It implies that you can’t trust yourself or shouldn’t. It implies that you should always want to say yes, that there’s never a good reason to want to say no. The impact conveys that people should or cannot trust themselves, that they should always defer externally, that they couldn’t possibly know what is right or best for them.
And you all, I think that’s some bullshit. We are already told enough by the world around us that we cannot possibly know what we want. We’re already told so much that we have to outsource to other people, to other authority. We’re already told over and over we don’t have the authority to decide. And we get those messages from everywhere, family, religion, school, media, and based on your identity or lived experience you might get those messages further from white supremacy, or the patriarchy, or fat phobia, or ableism, or any other kind of system of oppression.
People socialized as women are constantly being told directly and indirectly that they can’t possibly know what they want, that their role is to show up, and serve others, and put themselves last. And if they do the opposite they’re selfish. And it also implies that you only lose opportunities if you say no, and you only open doors if you say yes. That is also not true. When you say yes you do lose opportunities as well. When you say no you do open doors as well. It goes both ways.
And sometimes what you want is behind the door that opens when you say no. Sometimes you actually want to let go of the opportunity that would come with saying yes. There is and always will be a lot of things you are going to want to say no to in your career and in your life, a lot. And that is normal. But the only person who knows that is you. You’re the only person who knows what you want to say yes to and what you want to say no to.
But when you hear the advice and listen to the advice, and believe it’s the truth sent from above or the universe, that you have to always say yes and never say no, you end up losing touch with your inner knowing of what’s the right decision for you of what you want. You distance yourself from listening to yourself. Listening to yourself and trusting yourself is a skill. When you practice listening to yourself and trusting yourself, then you can access what you want. And there’s no right or wrong in wanting. We’re told there is.
We’re told all the time that you should only want x and never want y. Or you shouldn’t ever want a, but you should want b, always from all over. And then you internalize that, and you have a little voice in your head that goes, well, you shouldn’t ask for a raise, they’re already spending more money on you than your colleagues because of your disability accommodations. Or it will say things like, I know you want to quit your job and go travel, that’s something you really want but that would be irresponsible. You shouldn’t do that.
Or maybe your brain’s saying, you should say yes, you should say yes to leading that LGBTQ+ committee at work even though I know you’ve experienced a lot of microaggressions by the leaders who are homophobic, you should really say yes to leading this committee. All those little voices in your head telling you what you should or shouldn’t do, that’s not necessarily true either. Those can be internalized messages from the world telling you who you should be, what you should believe, what you should want and what you shouldn’t.
There is no right or wrong, there’s only right for you and who gets to decide what’s right for you? Only you. Something you want to say yes to, someone else would want to say no to. Something you want to say no to, someone else would want to say yes to. And when you honor, when we all honor the truth of what we want then it becomes a beautiful thing because when we walk away from something we don’t want, someone else who does want it then can walk towards it and vice versa.
All of these other messages communicate that we don’t or can’t know what we want and that we have to rely on external determination to make decisions about our desires and our wants. And that results in us feeling completely disempowered and can lead you to spending your time, and energy, and effort in ways you truly do not want to. Giving yourself permission to say no is one of the most powerful tools and skills you can have. It will help you create the life you want, go after, and achieve goals, be authentic to who you are.
When you follow the advice to always say yes you do not build the skill or muscle of saying no. And then you miss out on the opportunities that come from saying no, not just the opportunity to build the skill of saying no, but what come with it, protecting your time, dedicating your energy to something you want, committing to what you want, sticking to a goal and so many other things. Building integrity with yourself, trust with yourself. Now, listen, this is not telling you to then always say no.
Telling you always say no is just as problematic as telling you to always say yes. This is about you deciding what is right for you. It’s about the work you have to do to listen to yourself, to trust yourself, to have your own back in order to make confident decisions, not second guess yourself, and be kind to yourself. Giving yourself permission to say no opens the door to all of that which I know can feel really scary and uncomfortable.
But what happens when you walk through that door, when you work on trusting yourself and making confident decisions, and having your back, and being kind to yourself, what happens? You move towards the life you want to live, your truest desires. Not ever saying no keeps that door closed. You get to decide what’s right for you in your career and anywhere else. It doesn’t matter your age, how many degrees you have, how far along in your career you are, whether you’ve started a second career. It doesn’t matter.
Those things don’t determine your ability, your worthiness to decide what’s right for you. If you are 21 and graduating undergrad you know what’s right for you. If you are 40 and just switched careers, you know what’s right for you and anywhere in between. Now, it doesn’t mean you’ll always perfect, it doesn’t mean you’ll never have a thought in the future of I wonder if I would have done it this way. It’s not about that. It’s about the fact that you know where you are right now and what you want.
And maybe there are some areas in your life you’re still figuring out and that’s fine. But it’s not about exporting the decision to someone else, deferring externally and not trusting yourself. You get to decide what’s right for you. You don’t have to justify it. You don’t have to prove it. You just have to decide for yourself. And next week we’re talking more about saying no, how you can feel more empowered to say no when you want to, key, key, key, that’s the key.
But today I want you to walk away with knowing it is never about always saying yes or always saying no. It is about listening to what you want, deciding what you want. And that, practicing that and living into that, and building that skill definitely can feel scary. It can feel uncomfortable because we are told over, and over, and over that we shouldn’t know what we want. Sometimes you get the kind of response from society of audacity of you. Sometimes we get reactions from other people or society when we do say what we want that is very negative.
So of course, it can feel scary to be like, “I’m going to really go for what I want. I’m not going to listen to other people.” That’s okay, we can do scary things. We can move towards that uncomfortableness. When you listen to what you want, there’ll be some things that you say yes to and some things you say no to. And when you give your answer based on what you actually want it truly does feel better, even if there’s some uncomfortableness, even if there’s some anxiety because you are living in integrity with yourself, in alignment with yourself.
And then you can work towards a place where you can say, “Fuck no,” instead of, “Well, I’m saying yes because I think I shouldn’t say no.” Or you can move towards a place where you can say, “Fuck yes,” instead of, “Well, I really want to say no but I don’t believe I can.” And when you give the answer you want it opens up the doors you want open, the doors you want open, or would need, or would benefit from, or would help you grow. Doors open whether you say yes or no.
The question is what doors do you want to open for you and not for anyone else? And when you give the answer you want it also shuts other doors, doors on things you don’t want, you don’t need, that aren’t serving you. Now I know that was straight to the point and that’s because I want you all to walk away and really think about this. It’s not about always saying yes, it’s not about always saying no. It’s about getting in touch with what you want and trusting yourself, which is a process. And ultimately I think the whole work, this is why I love the work of talking about rest.
Because what the practice of rest really is, is the practice of building a relationship with ourselves. Relationships take time, they take effort, they take intention, they’re not perfect. Same with the relationship with ourself, putting time into ourself, working to be in alignment with ourself, trusting ourself, knowing and working towards being kind to ourself, whether or not we get it ‘right’ or ‘wrong.’ That’s what this is about.
And when you follow the advice or the common advice is always say yes, that’s what you get disconnected from and that’s why I’m so passionate that that advice is crap advice. I would rather everyone tell everyone, “Hey, you know what’s right for you, even if you’re not sure, even if your brain’s telling you, you don’t know. I champion you. I cheerlead you. I support you in figuring out what’s right for you and making the decision for you and not for anyone else. That’s what I want the common advice to be.
So, before we go I want to say a huge, huge, huge thank you to those of you who have rated or reviewed the podcast. I’m thanking you of course from the bottom of my heart from me because it means so much to me to hear that you’re listening and hear how it’s impacting you. I’m sitting here in front of a mic talking to my computer basically. I know you’re listening, and I love that. I feel so connected to you.
But when I get to hear back from you through a lot of avenues, some of you message me or email me, but through the rating and reviews and reading your reviews, it means so much. It really means so much. But more than that I really want to thank you on behalf of the new listeners and the future listeners that find the show and start listening, get the help that they want and need because of you. Because they read your review because they read it and said, “I want that.” Or, “That sounds like me.” Or, “That could be me.”
The way podcast works, I’ve talked about this before, if someone’s searching key terms like rest, or burnout, or stress, or even public health, the platform really brings up in order of popularity, through a number of measures, one of which is rating and reviews. And we know how the human brain works. We can only take in so much, that’s why Netflix, I kind of avoid Netflix and other streaming platforms that have too many options because I just get overwhelmed by choice.
The same with podcasts, people look at the top eight maybe and then decide or move on. So, the more the podcast gets ratings and reviews the more likely it can show up sooner, higher up so that folks searching in public health can see it and have an easier time finding it and reading your review and thinking, maybe this can help me. So, if you have the capacity, if you haven’t yet, and you have the time to rate and review wherever you listen it would really mean so much.
And it doesn’t have to take you longer than three to five minutes. And I just want you to think about, there is a person out there, a colleague who you don’t even know who’s doing work in public health, who is stressed, and overwhelmed, and overworked and not getting rest. Maybe they are where you were last week, or last month, or three months ago. And when they read what you write they’re going to come listen to the podcast and feel better, start seeing the changes you’ve started to see. And that will be because of you, because of what you wrote.
I am thanking you ahead of time on their behalf and I would so appreciate if you share this podcast and rate and review if you can. Alright, heading out, see you all next week.
If you found this episode helpful then you have to check out my coaching program where I provide you individualized support to create a life centered around rest. Head on over to mckoolcoaching.com, that’s M-C-K-O-O-L coaching.com to learn more.
Well, hello. How is it going? You all, can you believe it’s the middle of August? What happened? I can’t believe it. But I do want to say this, I think because of the way in the US the school system is. You grow up for I don’t know how many years where you think of the year in academic years, fall starting and May ending. I find that still happens to me is summer, when it gets towards the end of the summer it feels like the end of the year and oh no, there’s no more time left. And of course, fall feels short because of the holidays and all that.
But just a reminder, I think it’s still five months left or something, there’s still a lot of time left in the year even if mentally it doesn’t feel that way because our brain’s still clocked out on academic school kind of calendar, even if you’re not aware of it. So, there’s still time left to go after your goals or to go on that trip you want to go on or to take, you know, do whatever you want to do, just a friendly reminder. And I might be reminding myself too.
So, today’s episode might be controversial, but I feel really strongly about it. And as always you get to decide what you feel, what you think, and what you want to believe, you can totally disagree with me. But I do want to share my perspective on this, you can take it or leave it as always. Something I heard a lot early in my career and honestly right now I’m seeing this all over on LinkedIn, on social media, on a number of places is this advice to never say no to an opportunity. To always say yes to any opportunity that comes along.
And this does happen to be said to a lot of folks who are early in their career, or even students to, you never know what could happen, you should never pass an opportunity up. But I actually do think you’re told this at any stage if you’re mid-career or further along and you’re in middle management and middle upper management. You might hear this around new leadership opportunities or salary you’re moving up. If you are a parent part-time or stay at home parent, not part, everyone’s a full-time parent, do not mix that up.
I meant part-time working and a parent or full-time at home, you might hear this about potential job opportunities or other things and so on. And I get the intent, people want to help you. They want to help you move past any insecurities or self-doubt. They want to help you advance in your career. They recognize that there are times where we all hold ourselves back because we are scared or don’t think we can do something.
So, the intent of the advice is really to encourage and empower people to say yes to new experiences and potential opportunities and not say no just because you’re scared. And here’s the thing, if you truly do want an opportunity that comes your way but you’re nervous about saying yes and know the keyword is want, truly want this advice might help you. If you want it and you’re feeling nervous or hesitant this advice might help you say yes even though you’re scared. And it might have helped you in the past.
And that’s great, I’m not here to take that away. But the advice is not helpful if you truly do not want to say yes to something because this advice implies that you should always say yes and never say no. Let’s compare this to dating for a second. This might sound jarring, but I think it’s helpful.
If your friend, or sibling, or parent, or even dating coach or therapist said to you, “You should always say yes to every person who asks you out.” If you are looking to meet a partner and get in a relationship and you told people that and they said, “You should always say yes, never turn someone down, never say no to someone who asks for your number, you never know.” They might be the one even if you met them here or even if they said this, or even if you didn’t like this.”
If they said that to you what would you think? Would you be down for that advice? I don’t think so, not for me. And yeah, we do have some socialization especially if you’re socialized as a woman. But let’s just compare that, this idea of you should always say yes because you just never know. They might be the one. You might lose this chance. The intent in the dating example, those friends, those family, their intent is to help you achieve your goal, but the impact isn’t really helpful.
And it’s the same with this career advice. And here is why I have a problem with this advice. It implies that you do not know what you want, that you could not possibly know what you want. It implies that you can’t trust yourself or shouldn’t. It implies that you should always want to say yes, that there’s never a good reason to want to say no. The impact conveys that people should or cannot trust themselves, that they should always defer externally, that they couldn’t possibly know what is right or best for them.
And you all, I think that’s some bullshit. We are already told enough by the world around us that we cannot possibly know what we want. We’re already told so much that we have to outsource to other people, to other authority. We’re already told over and over we don’t have the authority to decide. And we get those messages from everywhere, family, religion, school, media, and based on your identity or lived experience you might get those messages further from white supremacy, or the patriarchy, or fat phobia, or ableism, or any other kind of system of oppression.
People socialized as women are constantly being told directly and indirectly that they can’t possibly know what they want, that their role is to show up, and serve others, and put themselves last. And if they do the opposite they’re selfish. And it also implies that you only lose opportunities if you say no, and you only open doors if you say yes. That is also not true. When you say yes you do lose opportunities as well. When you say no you do open doors as well. It goes both ways.
And sometimes what you want is behind the door that opens when you say no. Sometimes you actually want to let go of the opportunity that would come with saying yes. There is and always will be a lot of things you are going to want to say no to in your career and in your life, a lot. And that is normal. But the only person who knows that is you. You’re the only person who knows what you want to say yes to and what you want to say no to.
But when you hear the advice and listen to the advice, and believe it’s the truth sent from above or the universe, that you have to always say yes and never say no, you end up losing touch with your inner knowing of what’s the right decision for you of what you want. You distance yourself from listening to yourself. Listening to yourself and trusting yourself is a skill. When you practice listening to yourself and trusting yourself, then you can access what you want. And there’s no right or wrong in wanting. We’re told there is.
We’re told all the time that you should only want x and never want y. Or you shouldn’t ever want a, but you should want b, always from all over. And then you internalize that, and you have a little voice in your head that goes, well, you shouldn’t ask for a raise, they’re already spending more money on you than your colleagues because of your disability accommodations. Or it will say things like, I know you want to quit your job and go travel, that’s something you really want but that would be irresponsible. You shouldn’t do that.
Or maybe your brain’s saying, you should say yes, you should say yes to leading that LGBTQ+ committee at work even though I know you’ve experienced a lot of microaggressions by the leaders who are homophobic, you should really say yes to leading this committee. All those little voices in your head telling you what you should or shouldn’t do, that’s not necessarily true either. Those can be internalized messages from the world telling you who you should be, what you should believe, what you should want and what you shouldn’t.
There is no right or wrong, there’s only right for you and who gets to decide what’s right for you? Only you. Something you want to say yes to, someone else would want to say no to. Something you want to say no to, someone else would want to say yes to. And when you honor, when we all honor the truth of what we want then it becomes a beautiful thing because when we walk away from something we don’t want, someone else who does want it then can walk towards it and vice versa.
All of these other messages communicate that we don’t or can’t know what we want and that we have to rely on external determination to make decisions about our desires and our wants. And that results in us feeling completely disempowered and can lead you to spending your time, and energy, and effort in ways you truly do not want to. Giving yourself permission to say no is one of the most powerful tools and skills you can have. It will help you create the life you want, go after, and achieve goals, be authentic to who you are.
When you follow the advice to always say yes you do not build the skill or muscle of saying no. And then you miss out on the opportunities that come from saying no, not just the opportunity to build the skill of saying no, but what come with it, protecting your time, dedicating your energy to something you want, committing to what you want, sticking to a goal and so many other things. Building integrity with yourself, trust with yourself. Now, listen, this is not telling you to then always say no.
Telling you always say no is just as problematic as telling you to always say yes. This is about you deciding what is right for you. It’s about the work you have to do to listen to yourself, to trust yourself, to have your own back in order to make confident decisions, not second guess yourself, and be kind to yourself. Giving yourself permission to say no opens the door to all of that which I know can feel really scary and uncomfortable.
But what happens when you walk through that door, when you work on trusting yourself and making confident decisions, and having your back, and being kind to yourself, what happens? You move towards the life you want to live, your truest desires. Not ever saying no keeps that door closed. You get to decide what’s right for you in your career and anywhere else. It doesn’t matter your age, how many degrees you have, how far along in your career you are, whether you’ve started a second career. It doesn’t matter.
Those things don’t determine your ability, your worthiness to decide what’s right for you. If you are 21 and graduating undergrad you know what’s right for you. If you are 40 and just switched careers, you know what’s right for you and anywhere in between. Now, it doesn’t mean you’ll always perfect, it doesn’t mean you’ll never have a thought in the future of I wonder if I would have done it this way. It’s not about that. It’s about the fact that you know where you are right now and what you want.
And maybe there are some areas in your life you’re still figuring out and that’s fine. But it’s not about exporting the decision to someone else, deferring externally and not trusting yourself. You get to decide what’s right for you. You don’t have to justify it. You don’t have to prove it. You just have to decide for yourself. And next week we’re talking more about saying no, how you can feel more empowered to say no when you want to, key, key, key, that’s the key.
But today I want you to walk away with knowing it is never about always saying yes or always saying no. It is about listening to what you want, deciding what you want. And that, practicing that and living into that, and building that skill definitely can feel scary. It can feel uncomfortable because we are told over, and over, and over that we shouldn’t know what we want. Sometimes you get the kind of response from society of audacity of you. Sometimes we get reactions from other people or society when we do say what we want that is very negative.
So of course, it can feel scary to be like, “I’m going to really go for what I want. I’m not going to listen to other people.” That’s okay, we can do scary things. We can move towards that uncomfortableness. When you listen to what you want, there’ll be some things that you say yes to and some things you say no to. And when you give your answer based on what you actually want it truly does feel better, even if there’s some uncomfortableness, even if there’s some anxiety because you are living in integrity with yourself, in alignment with yourself.
And then you can work towards a place where you can say, “Fuck no,” instead of, “Well, I’m saying yes because I think I shouldn’t say no.” Or you can move towards a place where you can say, “Fuck yes,” instead of, “Well, I really want to say no but I don’t believe I can.” And when you give the answer you want it opens up the doors you want open, the doors you want open, or would need, or would benefit from, or would help you grow. Doors open whether you say yes or no.
The question is what doors do you want to open for you and not for anyone else? And when you give the answer you want it also shuts other doors, doors on things you don’t want, you don’t need, that aren’t serving you. Now I know that was straight to the point and that’s because I want you all to walk away and really think about this. It’s not about always saying yes, it’s not about always saying no. It’s about getting in touch with what you want and trusting yourself, which is a process. And ultimately I think the whole work, this is why I love the work of talking about rest.
Because what the practice of rest really is, is the practice of building a relationship with ourselves. Relationships take time, they take effort, they take intention, they’re not perfect. Same with the relationship with ourself, putting time into ourself, working to be in alignment with ourself, trusting ourself, knowing and working towards being kind to ourself, whether or not we get it ‘right’ or ‘wrong.’ That’s what this is about.
And when you follow the advice or the common advice is always say yes, that’s what you get disconnected from and that’s why I’m so passionate that that advice is crap advice. I would rather everyone tell everyone, “Hey, you know what’s right for you, even if you’re not sure, even if your brain’s telling you, you don’t know. I champion you. I cheerlead you. I support you in figuring out what’s right for you and making the decision for you and not for anyone else. That’s what I want the common advice to be.
So, before we go I want to say a huge, huge, huge thank you to those of you who have rated or reviewed the podcast. I’m thanking you of course from the bottom of my heart from me because it means so much to me to hear that you’re listening and hear how it’s impacting you. I’m sitting here in front of a mic talking to my computer basically. I know you’re listening, and I love that. I feel so connected to you.
But when I get to hear back from you through a lot of avenues, some of you message me or email me, but through the rating and reviews and reading your reviews, it means so much. It really means so much. But more than that I really want to thank you on behalf of the new listeners and the future listeners that find the show and start listening, get the help that they want and need because of you. Because they read your review because they read it and said, “I want that.” Or, “That sounds like me.” Or, “That could be me.”
The way podcast works, I’ve talked about this before, if someone’s searching key terms like rest, or burnout, or stress, or even public health, the platform really brings up in order of popularity, through a number of measures, one of which is rating and reviews. And we know how the human brain works. We can only take in so much, that’s why Netflix, I kind of avoid Netflix and other streaming platforms that have too many options because I just get overwhelmed by choice.
The same with podcasts, people look at the top eight maybe and then decide or move on. So, the more the podcast gets ratings and reviews the more likely it can show up sooner, higher up so that folks searching in public health can see it and have an easier time finding it and reading your review and thinking, maybe this can help me. So, if you have the capacity, if you haven’t yet, and you have the time to rate and review wherever you listen it would really mean so much.
And it doesn’t have to take you longer than three to five minutes. And I just want you to think about, there is a person out there, a colleague who you don’t even know who’s doing work in public health, who is stressed, and overwhelmed, and overworked and not getting rest. Maybe they are where you were last week, or last month, or three months ago. And when they read what you write they’re going to come listen to the podcast and feel better, start seeing the changes you’ve started to see. And that will be because of you, because of what you wrote.
I am thanking you ahead of time on their behalf and I would so appreciate if you share this podcast and rate and review if you can. Alright, heading out, see you all next week.
If you found this episode helpful then you have to check out my coaching program where I provide you individualized support to create a life centered around rest. Head on over to mckoolcoaching.com, that’s M-C-K-O-O-L coaching.com to learn more.
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