There used to be a guy named Yogi that sold tires out of a gas station near our house, and everyone loved him. If you had an issue with a tire on your car, Yogi was the guy to talk to. Yogi has since moved away, which is sad, because he often did something amazing.
He said “no”.
If you brought in a tire with a problem, he’d fix it — often for free. There were a few times when he could have easily sold me a new tire because I didn’t know better, but he didn’t.
That meant that when he said that someone did need to buy a new tire, there was no hesitation. If Yogi said you needed to skip the repair and just get a new tire, you could be confident he was telling the truth.
I’ve said before that if you don’t say no, your yes is meaningless. Yogi said “no” often enough that his “yes” carried a ton of weight.
