This is ICT. Over the years, I've compiled thousands of inspiring and thought-provoking quotes and now I'm passing that knowledge on to you and my new daily podcasts.

ICT's Daily Game. In less than five minutes, I'll break down why these words matter and reveal personal stories that show them in action in my life.

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Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeart Radio.

Good morning. This is Laura.

Welcome to the Before Breakfast Podcast.

Today's tip is to say yes when you can.

We say no to a lot of things.

Saying yes when you can buys a lot of goodwill and creates an environment where people are willing to take risks and explore.

In any large organization, the default answer to anything new can quickly become no.

Managers become worried about how things will be perceived or about setting a precedent.

Before COVID, for example, a great many requests to work from home or work flexibly were automatically turned down because, well, what if everyone wanted to work?

We now know that that would most likely be fine.

In many organizations, everyone worked from home for a year and things kept chugging along.

If folks have some level of self-awareness, hopefully this realization spawns some hard thinking about those automatic nose.

Namely, the catastrophizing doesn't serve anyone.

We can say no when we have to.

But yes, is an option as well.

Indeed, I once heard the advice that a real leader's job is to say yes as much as possible.

The idea is that leadership isn't just about what you do.

It's also about what you allow and the environment you create.

When you have staff or volunteers who bring you ideas about things they want to make happen, and you generally say yes to these things, then people want to bring you more ideas.

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