Armed with the belief that I could do anything, I decided to risk almost everything on the concept of meaningful money. It was an insane risk to say the least.

I made tons of mistakes. I lost a lot of money, and got hurt along the way. But, I wouldn’t change a thing. Not - One - Thing.   

You see, through the trials and tribulations of following my purpose to find success, I discovered my worth.

Although the power of "YES" was at the heart of my dream, I quickly discovered there is a downside to yes. When we say yes to everything, we take too much risk. When we say yes to everyone, we end up assuming more than our share of the responsibility. When we say yes to the world, we sometimes forget to say yes to ourselves.

Over the last few years as we transformed our portfolio of companies into Share On Purpose, and relaunched Succeed On Purpose into a coaching and virtual training business, I found myself reflecting on the course of events leading up to this. How was it that I could risk so much on this purposeful dream?

Simple. The little girl inside did not want to hear no again. Growing up the way I did, I despised the word no. When you're poor, "no" means you can't have what everyone else has. When I left home at 17, I decided that I could have whatever I was willing to work for, and taught myself the power of yes.

And the truth is, because I became so good at yes, I never learned how to say no. In fact, it never occurred to me to say no because I was having so much success living a yes-filled life.

In our early stages of business incubation, I looked at every product and could ONLY see a way to make it work. I looked at every entrepreneur and saw ONLY their potential. I hired associates and tended to make excuses for their weaknesses rather than challenging them to improve.

Boundaries went out the window in my quest for purpose and meaning. And just like that, I had given too many yeses, and unnecessarily put everyone and everything before myself.

I now know that there IS power in no. Much like I had to learn how to say yes to find my power, I also had to learn how to say no to find my worth. 

No doesn't mean that I can't do something. A healthy no means that I CHOOSE not to do something. No doesn't mean that I don't care, it just means that I care equally about myself, and I don't have the bandwidth to help. No doesn't mean that I don't want to, it just means that I have other priorities. And no doesn't mean that I don't value what you're offering, it just means that I value my own journey as well.

It's important not to judge those who say no. At the same time, we must inspire people to live yes-filled lives, because the truth is, when you get good at saying no to what you do not want, it becomes easier to say yes to what God wants.