I do what she says and watch her closely. I imitate the things she does.

One day she told me she said no to a huge newspaper. Just like that. They offered her an assignment and she said no.

They offered her another assignment and she said no.

And again and again and again.

I was pretty astonished. She told me that saying no is the best thing you can do for your career. I didn’t believe her. As an up-and-coming writer, I thought I should say yes and yes and yes. So I said yes to assignments that were painful to write, to editors who actually changed facts in my stories to make it better. I said yes to things I’m embarrassed to link to and things that felt like my soul was being sucked out of my nose.

I said yes to free work and work that promised payment and never came through.

Gradually, I transition out of being a full-time freelance writer and into an instructor and consultant. I didn’t pitch as much to editors and instead worked with companies. Still saying yes to everything.

As that transition happened, I became a single mom and money became tight. I thought I had to say yes to everything. If I didn’t, I’d be screwed financially. And my ego would be bruised because I wasn’t as busy as everyone else claimed to be.

Believe me, I live in Portland. People here love to talk about how busy they are. I think people here might be telling fibs about how busy they always are, but that’s neither here nor there.

Recently a new work opportunity presented itself and I was fully qualified to do the work. It was work I’d done for years. But I looked at my work story. The one about my work now that I revised into the story about the work I want to be doing. I looked and it didn’t match. Yes, I’d done the work before. Yes it would be easy money. But it wasn’t right.

So I said no.

I was honest. I said I wasn’t the right person to do it, though on paper, I was.

It was scary saying no like that, but I did it.

And about thirty seconds later an email arrived asking for an estimate on work I really want to be doing. I gave the estimate and just like that I got an assignment for the same amount of money but doing the work I want to be doing.

My friend and mentor said, “One of the most powerful things is saying no when the work is wrong. The universe loves this and sends you a big wet kiss.”

So say no to something today that isn’t right. Something that’s not part of the story you want to have. My mentor also says, “The universe abhors a vacuum.” What will arrive in its place?