Tell Me What You Say Yes to, and I’ll Tell You Who You Are
Published in
4 min readMar 29, 2018
“The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say no to almost everything.” — Warren Buffett
According to Aristotle, “We are what we repeatedly do.” More directly, we are what we say yes to.
Every second of every day, you’re saying yes to something. Every time you do something, you say yes to that thing.
- Every time you hop on Facebook and begin scrolling, you’re saying yes.
- Every piece of food you put in your body, you’re saying yes.
- Right now, as you read this article, you’re saying yes.
When you say yes to anything, you say no to almost everything else. Every choice has embedded opportunity cost. Every choice is very costly. Saying yes isn’t free.
Self-Signaling: The Science of Identity
According to research by Dr. Ronit Bodner and Dr. Drazen Prelec, “Actions provide a signal to ourselves, that is, actions are self-signaling.” In other words, your actions provide a signal to you of the type of person you are.
