Shane Parrish

You know, it's really hard to say no to people.

It's a lot easier to say no to people on email.

It's a lot harder to say no to people in person.

So I was at Daniel Kahneman's penthouse in New York, and this came up with me.

And Daniel Kahneman is a Nobel laureate.

He studied cognitive biases for 65 years.

He is the godfather of cognitive biases.

And he picked up the phone when we were having a conversation because he had to answer this call.

And towards the end of the call, he said, you know, my rule is I don't say yes on the phone.

And then he sort of like hung up.

You know, he's like, I'll get back to you tomorrow.

And I was like, whoa, pause.

What did you just say there?

And he said, well, my rule is I don't say yes on the phone.

And I said, well, what do you mean?

He's like, well, I want people to like me.

So I tend to say yes in situations that I don't want to.

So I end up doing all these things that I don't really want to do.

And so he's like, I created a rule.

And he's like, I noticed that, you know, I don't argue with my own rule and nobody else argues with my rule.