The Ross Simmonds Show RSS 35: The Power of Saying No: Focus to Scale
Jan 9, 2026
Discover the power of saying no and how it can sharpen your focus and drive growth. Learn why overcommitting can dilute your efforts and hinder progress. Ross shares a practical three-question framework to evaluate opportunities based on priorities and potential growth. He reveals how AI can be a game-changer in filtering distractions, plus effective ways to decline requests without damaging relationships. Finally, embrace saying no as a strategy to protect what truly matters and enable more impactful yeses down the line.
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Transcript
Episode notes
Focus Trumps Doing More
- Saying yes to everything pulls you away from what actually matters and dilutes focus.
- The most successful companies win by doing less with concentrated effort on high-value tasks.
How Niching Accelerated Foundation
- Ross recounts Foundation's early broad targeting that spoke to everyone and attracted anyone.
- Niching to B2B then software allowed them to land larger clients and build repeatable systems faster.
Three Questions To Filter Opportunities
- Use three questions to filter opportunities: alignment, scalability, and whether you'd do it if no one knew.
- If an opportunity doesn't help hit current priorities, say no and protect your capacity.