I had an experience that I’m not happy to talk about – I thought I was going to reunite with someone I always thought of in a caring special way. However, I keep remembering why me and her keep falling out and the reason is this lady like to tell me “no” when I ask to build up our relationship in a quality manner. She never said “no” outright, it was just a constant stream of pushbacks, excuses, stalling and more but in the end – it was a “no” because it damn sure wasn’t a “yes” as the answer I wanted. I decided to cut her off for good and permanent. Because when all is said and done, she just not around when I need/want her around and that’s just not good enough.

I wasn’t happy about cutting her out of my life; in fact, I was very sad I had to make this call but here is the bottom line: she had no business or purpose being in my life if she was going to use the word “no” to me. And that is where I draw the line with anybody. No one has a right to be in my life, in my circle, in my zone if they use the word “no” if I request an ask from them. Now keep in mind, she would ask me all day long and I would never tell her “no” – I think most of you guys who follow Dream and Hustle know who the hell I’m talking about - yeah, her.

You also need to adopt this discipline as well as you make your moves around the world – never keep the company of anybody who will tell you “no” and you should never accept “no” as an answer for anything, from anybody. You are a go-getter, the only thing you need to hear is “yes” when you make an ask from anybody you got around you. If you look at any boss movie, when the boss makes a request to lower ranks to handle something, that lower rank does not question or refuse because they know the cost. Their response will always be “I’m on it, boss” and they go do what is requested.

Think about a landlord – if the landlord requests the rent and the tenant says no, what do you expect the next course of action will be? The next course of action will be an eviction process to remove that tenant from the premise. That is exactly how you live your life as well – if they say no, you begin the eviction process to get them out of your life and space as well.

As I grew up, I learned there were people around me who were holding me back and there was two type of people. The first type was the people who would verbalize the “no” to me as a way to deny me access, deny me permission to pass the gatekeeper, deny me the ability to showcase myself to an audience or deny me my voice. I learned to move around these people or just deal with their ass for being in my way, I’m not playing with people out here.

But there was a second type of people around me who was about that “no” and these are people who didn’t verbalized it. These were the people close to me such as family, friends, fraternity members, co-workers, cats online peeping my game and I can go on. They never said “no” – they operated by never saying “yes” to me. They withhold praise, they would remain silent while others applauded and they would maintain a state of silence and have me walk alone in my success moment to make me feel their absence. I learned to cut them off as well, except I never verbalized cutting their ass out of my life – they just don’t receive phone calls or birthday wishes anymore from me and I keep the non-verbal stuff a mutual action between me and them. They don’t care about me and I don’t give a damn about them.

Keep in mind – my company and my startup tech venture and platform I talked about here on Dream and Hustle, a lot of people in the black community was gearing up and waiting to tell me “no” so they can attempt to discourage me or say I flopped. That’s how our folks operate when it comes to black moguls who trying to do something big and they didn’t have to kiss any rings and they walked around the gatekeeper to get somewhere. But here is what you do to avoid people plotting their “no” against you when you launch your empire as a black mogul.

Let me go back to the lady you guys know who I’m talking about – see, she was typical black women I run into a lot where they want to act funny towards a good brotha and think they can put a brotha on blast and her and her girlfriends think they can plot on a brotha and make his life miserable. But there is a problem with that – a good brotha in this world has global options with the ladies and those options are available to him on demand. Meaning, I got plenty of ladies around this world who are fine as hell and they will always say “yes” to a brotha if he asks.  

I have women in Europe and Asia right now if I ask for something, they will never say “no” they will always say “yes” or they will be polite and say “I would love to but I have this coming up. Can we do this tomorrow or later?” making it a deferred “yes” but it will still be a yes at the end of the day. Have women from India with the same body shape and curve proportion as my American sistas where these Indian sistas will over-accommodate me if I make an ask. Know and understand -  this brotha ain’t worried about any sista in America with an opinion or trying to tell me “no” because I got plenty of “yes” around this world at my disposal.

Back to my empire - the Black community can act funny or gearing up to say "no" all they want; if they look closer at my data, they would discover my biggest visible support came organically from Southeast Asia, Latin America and Europe, not the American Black community that is chasing status quo symbols and cute inspirational stories. So I already got a global base of customers who ready to say "yes" when I launch and those are the ones I'm keeping close as a result outside of my Early Adopter base.

I’m not trying to brag, what I’m showing you is an example of boss/mogul power you need to understand – you always have around you people who you can count on that will say “yes” and you have no room for anybody that will tell you “no” when you need to make moves and get things done. Some people will say you are just having a bunch of “yes men” who will tell you what you want to hear – that’s not accurate or relevant to what is being describe here. The “yes” people you have around you are people that can come through and deliver when you have an ask, plain and simple.

If you want to build a solid team as a boss or mogul in this global economy, you need a squad of hitters that will deliver you the “yes” you need on demand, on request. You do not tolerate anybody who is comfortable telling you “no” or quietly telling you “no” by not telling you “yes” and start trying to create doubt and tell you to be careful or question what you ask for – you get them out the picture real fast. The only thing you looking for are winners who make wins – never settle for or make room for losers who want losses and telling you “no” – there is no room for any of that.

There is a rule I follow – if they say no, then let them go.