Stop Saying "NO" and Start Saying "Not Right Now"

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:00:24

Welcome to Blank Pages, the podcast. A podcast for people who appreciate the new beginnings of a clean slate, but strive for the courage, willingness, curiosity, and creativity available only on the blank pages of new possibilities. It's the potential to move beyond and move forward where people are willing to make new decisions from fresh perspectives and are ready to write in a much better way. The world is waiting, and nothing listens better than a blank piece of paper. So hello and welcome to the show. I'm so glad that you're here. This is episode number 25. So moving right along, episode 25.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:01:08

I am back in my office, a home office studio that I have a little temporary setup that I have when I first started shooting the video. So this is where I am and enjoying some time away from the office. And so I have a great topic I'm going to talk about today, and it all is inspired from my grandson. So I just want to first say, before I get going into anything else, thank you for listening and subscribing to the show. And if you have not done so, would you hop on over to Apple podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify. The show is blank pages. It's very simple if you search for it in the search bar. I did this on purpose, but go in Apple Music or Apple podcasts.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:01:55

Sorry, Amazon music or in Spotify. And here's what you do. You type in the letter b, the letter l, space, the letter n, the letter K. Right. And then space. And then as you start doing it, it should pull up blank pages, spelled like that. It's spelled, I have it. Yes.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:02:15

Now I feel like I'm correcting myself. Yeah. Bl NK and then space, then P G E S. So if you spell it out like that, it's gonna pull up there. But that's a way for you to definitely know that it is the podcast. And it's spelled that way also on the thumbnail now. So that's how you can find me on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Apple Music, also on Substack. If you're a substack person, I may be doing more on there in the future.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:02:41

I'm not really sure. I just have to figure out if I am or I'm not. But Substack is a cool little place. I may put some journal writing, some cool little things in there as I go along. But before also I get going any further, I would like to just say thank you to those who have subscribed to the newsletter as well. And if you can, or if you have not already and you would like to, please do so go over to my Instagram account and just impeccararo. And if you go into the bio link there, you will click on there. Click on my bio link.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:03:16

You will be able to see that I have a newsletter you can sign up for. You can get to the podcast as well. I have free resources that are there. Also, you could get a copy of the book flit learns to fly. It's doing really well. It's a children's book. I'm so excited about just having that out into the world as well. So without any further delay or any further ado, let's get into this topic, okay, that I want to talk about today, which is basically around this thing that I was inspired by my.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:03:49

My grandson. So he got to spend the night with us the other night. So I'm Poppy and Amy is Nani. So Poppy and Nani, he comes in, he stays with us, and little Israel's with us. And he's just so funny. And he's at that age where he's just fun, right? And he's just. He's moving around, you know, he's just walking around and he's talking, he's pointing, he's laughing. And I love when he comes toward me and he just wants to snuggle or hug.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:04:15

And, I mean, it's the best. There's so many things that I could go on for days about, but one of the things that I love at that age, and it's because I love people in general, and I love watching kids develop and just people, I love seeing people just when they're curious. I like to. When people want to discover and learn and just see something new, right. And just what is that? Right. I'll never forget. I can't remember where I heard it from, but, like, I'm looking at this iPhone right now in my hand, and someone was talking about that. If you hand this, it might have been someone like Seth Godin.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:04:47

But if you give this to a kid, if you give an iPhone to a little, little kid, you know, and you give one to an adult, like an old person, like an older person who's never seen one before, right? Just say neither have you seen it before. You give it to the adult, this grown up, they would look at it and they'd be like, you know, what is it? And if you give it to a kid, the first thing they're going to want to know is, what does it do? Right? And so that's that curiosity, right? And that's the thing I feel as adults, we're looking for a, well, what value is it? What's the purpose? What's the point? All this? And instead of getting to what can I do with this thing? What does it do? What can I create? Like, that's that curiosity. Like, they're ready to investigate and explore. And so having, you know, my grandson walk around in a central place now, I'm an audiophile. I love music. I love creating it and making it. I have gear sitting right beside me, a whole pedal board of gear that I just reassembled for some stuff, because I like making music. I'm a musician at heart, and I'm an artist.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:05:49

I like to draw. I like to illustrate. I like to write. I like to write songs. I mean, just anything creative, I love that stuff. And I like to put it in story, and I like to help people solve problems by being more picturesque with their solutions. So he's in the house and in the middle of the living room here in the middle of the family space that I have a reel to reel, which I'm old school. I like the old tape machines.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:06:13

And this was even when I was a kid. This is the same tape machine from when I was a kid that my stepfather had, and he passed away, and then it was given to me. And so I have an old turntable from back then. Like, I'm talking pioneer old school, okay? This is old, old stuff. And, like, old tube receiver. Like, good stuff. Just good. I mean, the quality is great.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:06:35

So he knows I put records on all the time, and he sees me all the time threading up the reel to reel. Whenever he's over here, okay, he's little, he's young, but anytime he's here, I'm always trying to play music. And whenever he stays with us, I make it a point to play music. So because music is important to me. It means so much to me. I love it. Music is a part of my everyday. I believe music helps to set the tone and the mood for so many things.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:07:00

And I'm very big into atmosphere. I believe in creating that which. That's a whole separate world, right, that I could get into. But I have music playing. I had the records going, and he's walking over and he was pointing and he kept pointing. Then he would reach for something, and then I would see him touching. I'm like, okay, because I don't want him to, you know, it's, you know, this is old stuff. Want him to flip things.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:07:25

He can knock the needle. He could do. I mean, it's just stuff, right? It's stuff. He's obviously more important than the stuff, but still, I want. You know, I got into trouble messing with gear. Some of the stuff that I'm playing and using to play this music on was stuff that I took apart as a kid and got in trouble for. Cause I was so curious. That's why I'm in so much audio gear.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:07:43

And I like recording. I like making stuff and mixing and all that stuff. Just. I love it. It's exciting to me. And then I got my grandson, and what does he want to do? He wants to. He wants to. He wants that stuff.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:07:56

And so, you know, watching him, I didn't want to say no. And the reason I didn't want to say no, which leads me this is. It's all going in where I want it to, in the direction I wanted to go. I don't want to say no, is because I learned something from my. My daughter in law, Ellie. She's so awesome. Because one of the things that I think she said was, and I thought about this, we say no all the time. Kids hear no a lot.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:08:16

Little kids. No. Don't do that. No, stop. No. At least I heard no. I don't know about you. Did you hear no a lot? No, no, stop.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:08:24

Don't know. Or you just say. You're just silent. You don't answer, which is still no. No. No. Right? So one of the things I observed with. With her one time, I think it was, we were over at their house when.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:08:38

And they were. Gabe and Allie were doing something, whatever. And then Israel was reaching for something, and then. And then she said no or not. She didn't say no. I'm sorry. She said no. She said no.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:08:52

She said, not right now. We're not doing that. Let's do something else. Not right now. And I thought, wow, that's interesting. She said, not right now. Which, you know, you heard sometimes if you're in sales or whatever, and they'll say, well, sometimes it's just. It's not.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:09:07

No, it's just not right now. You know, that you can get into some slippery territory there because, you know. You know. Cause no should mean no, and yes should mean yes. So let's not forget that. Let's not mean. Let's not adjust some things. Okay? So I am.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:09:21

Not at all, when I say not right now is better than no. I really. I want to put it in this light that I want to put it in. Not in any other way. Not in some other way. That means you ignore no. If someone says no, no means no. It doesn't mean she come up with an alternative, okay? Especially if they say no.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:09:41

But I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the situation here. Like, I'm sitting with my grandson who's about to reach over for the real to reel that has the tape on it, and he may want to stick his finger in there, maybe pull it down or pull it off or whatever he could do. And I just want to say, we're not doing that right now. Not right now. And not instead of just saying no. So why does that even matter? Because, you know, I think so much. And let's just get to the basics.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:10:09

When you say yes, yes means to be yes. No means to be no. Don't let yes be maybes and all these other things, you know? And when you say maybe, just know. People walk away thinking maybe means so many things. Maybe means no, maybe means yes. And then you play that game until you don't want to play a game no more. And somebody, when you say maybe, someone takes that as, in a way you don't want it to. That's why I think it's very important for us to get back to what we mean.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:10:36

What we say yes needs to be yes, no needs to be no. Okay. But also understand that in the yes and in the no, right, there's. There's reasons. When I say yes to things, it's because I really want to say yes to those things because they're important to me. But if I say yes to something, that means there's a possibility I'm saying no to something else. Okay. Especially if it's something that would compete against it.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:10:59

Right. So you have to know what those things are. You have to know what would compete or take away something that would cut out your standards, values, whatever. You have to know what you say yes and you say no to. This is all good stuff, but I want you to know your yes plus your no. Right. And I want you to know them for obviously, you know the reasons why you say them, because when you do that, it's going to keep you in alignment with your core values and beliefs. It's going to keep you on track.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:11:29

Right. Day to day. Right. So. And I. And I know I'm talking about my grandson here, and I'm going to get back to that, but I want you to understand, it's like when you hear no, it's important to hear no. No. We hear no a lot in life.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:11:41

No. No. Did I get the job? No. Did you get this? No. Some people say, I hear yes all the time. That's awesome. I hope you can handle it. When you hear no, or some people say, I don't take no for an answer.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:11:53

I'm not sure that's healthy either. So I am talking about getting down to understanding your yes and your no. The reasons behind it are they aligned with your core values and beliefs? And do you understand that? When you do understand them and you know why you say yes and no. That'll keep you on track in your day to day, every day. It won't be a question as to what you're going to do and why you're doing it. It's going to help you prioritize things that are important as well. When you get to the point where you understand what you say yes to and what you say no to, it's going to help you prioritize stuff in life. It's going to.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:12:30

And what's important. And then it also is going to communicate your agreement and disagreement with a person or situation. Your yes and no. When you say yes, whether you agree or no, you disagree. You're communicating. You get to communicate with a person or situation where you stand. And that's really good to know. But what am I looking at? Like, for today? When you're listening, I want you to understand the no, I just want you to hear this one as it relates to just something different.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:13:07

Okay. Just something different. So again, watching my grandson, Israel, with music and equipment, learning what I learned from Ellie, you know, my daughter in law, like, we're not doing that right now. Let's do this. It made me to start. I started thinking, it's so hard for us to hear no. Now I can hear no. I can get over no.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:13:28

I've heard, no. I can handle it. A point in my. There was a time in my life I couldn't take no. I'm very curious. Why not? When I. When you said no, I wanted to know why not if you said yes. Most people, if you hear yes, how often you go, why did you tell me yes? I mean, if it's the thing that you want, when's the last time someone said yes to you? And you go, oh, please tell me why you said yes to me.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:13:49

I mean, it's very rare, but we want to know why. No. It's so tied to something so deep. Because there's an. There's something in there. There's an. There's a yearning, something inside. We feel it's being denied.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:14:05

And so I started thinking about, not right now. This way. So I. I distracted my grandson. I continued playing the record. I might have been playing. I don't even know. I might have been playing Bob Marley.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:14:16

I think I was playing. Yeah, Buffalo soldier, something like that. Just playing. I played different types of music, whatever, and have fun with him, but it was. It was really cool. And so I distracted him, and we got into some blocks or something else, but. And so I started thinking, what are the reasons we say no? And it goes against things. I mean, we say it for protection.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:14:36

We say it for, obviously, safety, to keep people safe. We say it for health reasons. Right? We say no to stuff for our health. We say no for our well being. We say no because we're not interested. We say no because we just don't want to. We could say no because we're difficult. There's all the reasons we can say no.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:14:57

And so I get that part, too. But it's still getting back to, instead of saying, no, not right now, is better than no when it comes to certain things or relationships. And so here's what I noticed with my grandson, and I love this because my boys are musical. You know, my daughter's musical. You know, we. We are so blessed with our children. They're so talented and so gifted, and so the things they saw us do, they want to do the things they saw me do, they do. And not all of them, but some of them.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:15:33

And so I've noticed with. With. Like I noticed with my oldest son, but like, I see my. And my grandson, like my oldest son, but he sees me and what? He wants to be where I am. And that's the thing that stood out. He wants to be where I am. And then because he wants to be where I am, he wants to do what I do, and I know he wants to be where I am because the way when he comes in the door and we put him down and he sees me and he smiles and he comes to me, now that he's walking, too, and his arms are open and. And he falls right into my arms.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:16:07

So he wants to be where I am. He wants to do what I want to do. He wants to touch what I want to touch. He wants to eat what I want to eat. He wants to drink what I want to drink. Why? Because it's the memetic nature. He's learning. But not only is he learning, but because of the proximity and doing and the sharing.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:16:25

And because we eat together, that's community. Because we talk, that's fellowship. Because we snuggle, that's nurture. Because we wrestle. That's combat and sport. Because of all these things, we bond and then we're doing that, right? And so because of that, it's only natural for him to want to go. And if I go somewhere and close the door, he wants to go there. Why? Because that's where I am.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:16:50

That's where he calls. That's where his poppy is. He wants to do what his poppy's doing. So in building any truly bonded relationship you can count on, there's going to be times when it's a not right now situation. So my. My grandson sees me loving the music. He wants to listen to it, too. He wants to put a record on, too.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:17:14

He wants to spool up the thread to the reel to reel, too. But of course, I'm thinking he's. He doesn't know how to yet. So how do I say not right now, we're not doing that. Still play the music, still keep them closer. Because there's a day coming that I don't want to say no so much that he no longer asks me or could I be the one that nudges him a little further away from something that he's genuinely curious and interested in? How often does that happen to people that when we say no, we nudge and we push people away that they're genuinely curious about? Because maybe we're impatient, we don't want to deal with it. We're impatient, we're. We don't want it to break, which we understand, but we don't recognize its stuff.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:17:58

The bond is bigger than the stuff. The bond is better than the stuff. The stuff, if it breaks, it breaks. But the bond and the relationship, that is the thing that does not need to suffer loss and does not need to try to find a remedy to fix it. So you can always count on any relationship, like with my grandson, that it's new, it's a new relay. It's going to take time. It's so over time. So every spend the night a little bit more, he gets a little older.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:18:31

Of course, his fingers got to work and all this stuff. I mean, he's lit, right? But that's the whole part. But we bond and we still do things and we get a whole lot of not right now moments instead of just no, because I don't turn them off of things. So in new relationships, they take time and they're going to take your time. So they need you to be patient. If you want to help yourself with patience, know you're going to come back to something and learn to say, not right now. Because that means you gonna, you're gonna come back to this. You know, you need to engage and not everyone is ready when you are, and vice versa.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:19:05

You're not ready when they are. But if you just say no, you're going to shut down hope and optimism. People could just get into building a muscle of I'm going to hear no. And then also, you know, when you just say no, right. We would rather do not right now because when you just say no, it's, it's when they hear no without, without any further future communication or any hope for it or any opportunity to understand, right? And if they, if they hear no without opportunity to understand, no communication, there doesn't seem any, any promise or possibility or any prospect for possibility, they start to think, am I not important? Hmm. It will. Is it communicating that, that they're not valuable because you don't want to share what's important to you with them? Or is it, I don't trust you like, so right now, my grandson, he's little, of course I'm not going to let him take vinyl and try to stick it all on there and move a needle around. I mean, he just doesn't know how.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:20:09

He doesn't, he doesn't have the skills yet. But once he is, let's just say he's ten, he's eleven. And I've taken no time. And then I'm constantly on him and mad at him and I'm mad at him because I don't feel like he places anything on the record, right? But I never take the time. All's I say is no, I never take the time. Then I never did the, not right now. And I never took the time. And all he wants to do is connect with me.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:20:31

Because music is the bond. That's the thing. Instead of me, instead I just want to go, well, yeah, music could be our bond, but you just can't touch my records, right? What kind of relationship is that? Don't touch my records, right? That's how people are doing. Relationship. Just don't touch my records. You're not that important now. In even, and I believe in redemption, I believe in healing, I believe in fixing things. I believe in restoration, I believe in second chances and 10th chances and 100th chances.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:21:10

And when you're fixing relationships, we do need more of not right now. Instead of no. When you want to mend a relationship, you still may be wounded, you still may not trust, you still may be hurt or whatever, but instead of just saying no, I mean, if there's a genuine desire to fix things on both parts, it's okay to just say, not right now. You don't have to just say no. It can be understood that you say no. I mean, you say no because you need to. You do what you need to do. But if you want to heal eventually, if you want to restore, you can't heal what you don't reveal, which means you can't say no anymore.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:21:49

You're going to have to reveal whatever the thing is that you keep saying no about. And eventually it needs to come out. You have to reveal it so it can heal if you want the relationship. So put more not right now in it. Give it some time instead a date and come back to it. So some final thoughts. You know, I want you to think about what you're saying no to and why. And I want you to think about whatever the message is that you send.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:22:26

What message do you send when you're just saying no? Like with my grandson, who just wants to listen to the music because his poppy does. He wants to touch it and turn the knob because his poppy does and he notices it makes that music that he and poppy dance to. It makes it louder and we laugh and more, and it's fun and he wants to do more of that. But if I say, no, no, no. What's the message? Okay, bring that into your world. What's the message when you say no instead of not right now? And I want you to think about. There's the two levels, okay? And this is when you're in these final thoughts, and as you're thinking about what you say no to and what you say yes to, I want you to think about the head and the heart. I want you to think about on these levels when I'm saying no or if I'm saying not right now, the heart is.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:23:23

It's. I'm thinking for the good of the relationship and for its emotional safety. So I want to make sure that I don't just say no and I'm harming the relationship and the emotional safety because I can make a person feel when I say no and they feel that rejection, it can take away some emotional safety equally. So there's the head part of it. It's that mindset. It's the mindset that says that I can go to this person and talk or share or whatever, or I can. I can ask, I can be curious and I can be. My mindset is going to be in the positive and I feel psychologically safe.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:24:00

I have psychological safety. So, I mean, get around a little kid and realize they're just curious and every little thing, you should think about it. I mean, I've been saying this for a lot of podcast, a lot of my episodes, but words, we need to get better. Knowing words have this weight to them and we just need to pick words better. We need to stop trying to come up with new words and new ways of saying the same thing and go back to some of the words that actually mean what we need to say. And they mean, they say it and it's in a way that it works and it makes sense and it doesn't shame anyone with some level of because of it's a $20 word versus a 50 cent word. I can say no, I don't need a paragraph. I can say yes, I don't need a paragraph.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:24:55

I don't need a bigger word. We need those things to mean something. But in order to do that, we have to understand what they mean to ourselves and learn what they mean to others and come together and find the value to do relationships in life better. So I hope this is helpful for you. I hope it makes sense. I hope you can use it and put it to work. I want to give a shout out to anyone who would be just willing to just take the challenge to just say, not right now. And because you're going to take the time and the effort to.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:25:41

To really grow in the thing. If it's to fix a broken thing, you're going to be a party or a part of that to make it better and do healthy things, to get it where it needs to be, right? That's what you're going to do. And if it's new relationship, it's the growing and the building of the relationship. You're just going to take the time to do that as well. You're just going to. You're going to work with it and you're going to remember that you may be ready and they're not. They may be ready and you're not. It's all right.

Tim Pecoraro [: 00:26:08

It's all okay. So not right now is better than no. And that's what I believe. That's what I truly feel. So start working on that. And until next time, I hope you do well and we'll talk soon.