Starting a business at any point in your life cycle can feel terrifying — especially when you’ve stitched your identity into the product itself. It’s confusing, because the world tells you to “brand yourself,” “use your face,” “share your story,” and “show up online.”
Putting yourself out there in any capacity takes courage.
So if you’ve made it this far — congratulations. Truly.
In the beginning, most of us fall into the trap of “just wanting the customer.” We say yes to things we never imagined saying yes to, and while those decisions don’t always grow the financial column, they certainly grow the boundary column.
Every business has its first difficult customer — the one that was hard to close and even harder to service. You push forward anyway, because you need the sale, the testimonial, the experience, or even just the validation that someone chose you.
But at some point, you learn a different skill: the art of qualifying a lead.
After enough conversations — and enough mistakes — you start to see patterns.
The customers who close quickly.
The customers who pay without making you beg.
The customers who genuinely value what you create.
And then the customers who never will.
Year five of my business was the year I finally understood this.
Five full years of bending over backwards for everyone — employees, customers, vendors, strangers — anyone who needed something, I could fix it. I didn’t just say yes; I was addicted to the yes. I was addicted to the fixing.
Leaving toxic relationships taught me something business never could: boundaries change everything.
For most of my life, I believed I had to be better to make things better. If I could just work harder, try harder, love harder — my relationships would improve, my business would improve, my life would improve.
But there was a fundamental flaw in that belief:
I was doing the work.
The people around me weren’t.
Not the emotional work.
Not the hard work.
Not the work that actually transforms relationships.
And here’s the part that took the longest to swallow:
You cannot make someone want more for themselves, even if you clear the path and remove every obstacle.
Once that truth settled, the ability to say no took on an entirely new meaning.
Life stopped being about proving myself as worthy.
It stopped being about earning respect, acceptance, or understanding.
It became about curating what belonged in my life — and what didn’t.
It didn’t need to make sense to the old version of me.
It didn’t need to fit the chapters I had lived.
It just needed to align with the story I was writing now — and that is always uncomfortable when you’re exiting toxicity.
I remember the first client I declined.
I said:
“I understand what you’re looking for, but I’m not the best designer for this project.”
I knew I could’ve lowered my price, taken the job, and done a damn good job. But that didn’t matter. That was the old narrative — discounting myself, over-providing, over-accessibility, and reshaping myself to fit someone else’s expectations.
When someone else is clear about what they want — and it doesn’t align with your business model, your energy, or your capacity — it is not your job to rewrite yourself to make it easier for them.
Here’s the part no one tells you:
Saying yes when it doesn’t align is far more expensive than saying no.
It doesn’t just cost profit.
It costs morale.
It costs clarity.
It costs confidence.
It costs your team.
It costs the business long-term — because you can’t sustainably pay your people, insure your company properly, offer raises, or provide bonuses if you’re constantly undercutting your worth.
So how do you actually get to “no”?
Here’s what helped me:
1. Untie your identity from your business.
You are not your business.
You are a tool within your business — and tools must be replaceable, interchangeable, and adjustable in order to scale.
2. Get crystal clear on what deserves a yes.
Write terms and boundaries. They’ll start as a few lines and evolve into a full page. They’re not for your customers — they’re for you.
3. Practice rejection without panic.
Even with detachment, the first 90 seconds after a no can trigger old patterns — fixing, saving, discounting, people-pleasing.
Buy yourself space. Say:
“Let me re-run numbers and email you.”
Give your emotions time to settle. Negotiate from logic, not fear.
4. Release closure.
After you say no, you must also accept theirs.
Sometimes they’ll return and say, “Let’s do it anyway.”
Sometimes they’ll disappear.
You don’t need closure to make a correct decision.
When you’ve practiced this enough, something shifts:
The no gets easier.
Your terms become second nature.
You carry yourself differently in rooms, in meetings, in negotiations.
It’s not ego.
It’s not entitlement.
It’s not arrogance.
It’s respect — for yourself, for your team, and for the business you’re building.
Never forget your humble beginnings — but don’t disrespect them either. Undercharging yourself is not honoring your story.
The right people will recognize that you’re it.
And they’ll pay accordingly.
