Welcome to the broad experience, the show about women, the workplace, and success.

I'm Ashley Mountaint.

This time, you know all those requests you get that, strictly speaking, aren't part of the job?

Ask yourself if you have to do it and what you

might lose if you say no. Does your job or livelihood hinge on your saying yes?

Much of the time it doesn't. We end up doing it anyway and it eats our time. But there are

alternatives. Try and say no in a positive fashion.

It will make you feel a lot less guilty.

Coming up, setting boundaries without alienating your colleagues.

I've always thought of this show as covering some of the themes that run beneath women's lives.

Stuff that isn't always obvious on the surface, but that makes our experiences at work quite different from men's.

One of those little differences is that many women find it harder than men to set boundaries, to say no to the many requests that come our way.

Women so often feel bad saying no, partly because we want to be helpful, partly because everyone expects us to be.

Recently, a friend told me about a book on this topic.

I like the title so much, I borrowed it for this show.

My answer is no, if that's okay with you. The author is psychiatrist Nanette Gartrell.

She's been on the faculty at Harvard Medical School and the University of California in addition to running a therapy practice.

I've been a clinician seeing mostly women in a psychotherapy practice for more than 40 years.

And the struggles that my clients experienced around setting limits in their lives was really the bulk of the work that I did.

I take care of what I call

worried well, healthy, high-functioning individuals who are struggling with relationships or job

problems or career issues and so on. So I found myself over these four decades plus inventing and developing new

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