A recurring theme I emphasis in many of my leadership development events is learning to recognize resource constraints—and more importantly, learning how to prioritize around them. In short, get comfortable saying “no” to good ideas, or find innovative ways to reduce the impact of limited time, people, or funding. While I’ve made tough calls like this many times throughout my professional life, I recently realized just how much I applied that lesson to my personal life as well.
Right now, I’m launching a true passion project: a blog (and soon, a podcast) called Vini Bellum—The Grapes of Wrath: Warfare and Wine. As I moved the site from staging to production, I wrote a quick intro post to serve as both a concept teaser and a “coming soon” announcement. What struck me during that moment of reflection was this: the idea for Vini Bellum had been floating in my mind for nearly 20 years.
From the beginning, I was energized by the concept. But I also knew I didn’t have the bandwidth to do it justice. Researching, writing, designing, and sustaining something with the level of quality I expect from myself simply wasn’t possible at the time. Sure, I could’ve written a few posts and cobbled together a basic site. But my vision was more ambitious—I wanted to create something that could support at least 100 posts over the span of years, not a short-term burst of activity. So, I said no. At that stage of life, my priorities were my job, my family, and preserving the downtime I needed to be effective in both. (Self-care, by the way, is another frequent topic in my leadership training.)
Today, things have changed. I’m retired from federal service. My kids are grown and thriving. And now, I do have the bandwidth to say “yes”—yes to long-held ideas with staying power, and yes to new creative opportunities that lie ahead.
Circumstances change. Resources shift. But the discipline of saying “no” remains a timeless and essential leadership skill—one that, ironically, makes it possible to say “yes” when the time is right.
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