I’m returning from my vacation in Italy, where I spent two weeks with my family and our friends.

During this stay I bought a new kindle book by James Altucher and Claudia Azula Altucher “The power of NO”. The book starts with a special section called Your NO Bill of Rights where the authors list twelve reasons (Rights) to say NO to various things in life. They argue that by saying NO to things that are annoying, disturbing or harmful to us we can say YES to the right things in life much often and live a happier and more fulfilling life.

Anyone who took vacation with just one other person, not to mention the vacation with another family, knows that in such circumstances people are very often challenged to say NO (in order to spend time on their own terms) yet in many instances they prefer to go with a YES in order not to offend or displease other group members.

During this stay I also noticed one interesting pattern. Our friends had a tendency to avoid asking others for things because they’d assume people would turn down their request. In some instances they prefered to execute on their desired action without asking just in case asking would ruin their chances for successful execution.

Basically they’d tell themselves the answer will be NO before they even had the chance to hear any answer at all.

They’d advise us against consulting people. They’d tell us it’s better to simply proceed with what we wanted to do.

The interesting thing about YES and NO answers is that we (the ones who are about to ask) tend to tell ourselves that the answer will be NO, while the person who is about to be asked tends to have difficult time saying NO and thus often says YES.

There is a reason why books like Altucher’s “The power of NO” get written. People need someone who’d tell them how to say NO more often and stop saying YES by default. They need someone who’d tell them they have the right to say NO, that NO is OK as an answer.

NO is very often considered a negative (even bad) word, a word that would antagonize people, so people prefer to use YES instead as a response to your question — even if doing so means that they put your intrest or need first.

Every time I heard from them I should go without asking I felt I needed to say NO to it. And I said NO which meant I consulted people.

I consulted a man at a parking lot when I wanted to park in an unusual but still safe space. He refused but immediately and by himself found me a very good space outside the main parking lot for which I did not have to pay anything.

I consulted the homeowner from whom we had our apartament when I wanted to use his vacum cleaner to clean our car after he had given me exact directions where to go in town if I wanted to wash the car and clean the inside of the car. I told him that I asked at the rental agency and they told me I didn’t have to wash the car, so I would only need a vacum cleaner for 5 miutes. No problem — he agreed. Prior to that my friends told me I should not ask but simply use it.

I consulted my son when I wanted to plan a trip for the next day. I told him it would be fair if he could agree to go because we agreed to his plan that day. He agreed.

I’m sure I could recall a few more examples from this vacation alone when I consulted people and managed to get satisfying results.

After dealing with various people in various settings I find consultation to be one of the most powerful tools in achieving goals. And to the contrary — the lack of it to be one of the main reasons for people taking offence or even for their outrage. If counsulted properly they feel greater urge to let us have it our way — they suddenly become so “powerful” as to allow us things. That’s compelling.

Funnily the same friends who advised against consulting others, consulted us sometimes during this vacation and I don’t know about my wife but I had a difficult time saying NO and I often said YES. Sometimes my YES was almost like a default answer coming out automatically.