 So what if someone wants to collaborate with you, like maybe do some kind of joint venture or they want to interview you or swap interviews, some kind of online collab, as I call it, because it's supposed to be helpful for both of your businesses or whatever. And you don't wanna collaborate with that person. What do you say? I have had so many of these situations over the years as my audience and sort of my, yeah, my reputation has grown in my industry, more and more people want to, I mean, there's like two levels of it, okay? So like one level is literally spam. I mean, so it's like somebody who doesn't know, whom you don't know, or let's talk about that level first, someone who you don't know contacting you. I just had an email this morning and says, we'd like to collaborate with you. And, you know, I can usually tell it's spam because there's like nothing customized in the email, right? Or the message, it's just they're sending that same message out to 500 people, 5,000 people, who knows how many? And those are really easy just to ignore. I mean, of course, just spam. But sometimes even, let's talk, that's level one. Level two is like, it's still kind of spam. I don't know who they are, but they write like a nice paragraph or two saying, George, I really like the stuff I'm seeing on your Instagram or whatever. I love to collaborate with you. Maybe we could swap interviews or maybe you could, sometimes, you know, level 1.5, I might say, people who say, George, I love your stuff. I'd like for you to interview me on your podcast. All right, thank you for liking my stuff and interviewing you in any way is a cost me time and cost me my audience, right? So I only interview people if I swap interviews with them and we have a similar sized audience, then it'd be fair. Otherwise, why am I interviewing you? Just because you emailed me about it, seriously? Like, and no matter how well-spoken you are and how brilliant you are, you want me to just interview you? Unless there's some kind of equal trade, why? Because then everyone under the sun could email me and I would say, yes, every well-spoken, charismatic, brilliant person, heart bet face person under the sun. Why wouldn't I interview everybody, right? So that's level 1.5. Level 2, like I said, is thoughtful messaging. I don't know who they are and they want to swap interviews. They're very nice. I go to their page, nice heart-based person, but it's not an equal audience size. So my audience size might be 10 times their audience. It's just not fair. It's not fair. And so the way I write back says, thank you so much for, again, they wrote a nice message. And it's like a potential future collaborator, maybe even a potential future client or referral source because they actually genuinely follow my stuff like my stuff. So at that point I'd say, hey, you know what? Thank you. I really appreciate your invitation and certainly in the future it might be the case. And I'll just say that there's a lot of my play right now. Can't do it, but if I think of other opportunities or others that you might connect with, I'll let you know. And I will because if I think of someone else who's a similar audience, et cetera. Now let's talk about level three and how to say a graceful no. I mean, level three would be someone you know and well, you could say level three could be someone you know but it wouldn't be an equal trade. And I would send a similar message essentially. Thank you. I so appreciate your work as well. Lots on my plate. I'll think of someone who might be a great fit for you as well and I'll let you know. And that's a graceful no. Level four, you might say is somebody who you know might be more or less an equal trade but for whatever reason you don't want to collaborate with them. Maybe you don't trust their ethics or you don't trust their reliability or whatever reason it's just, we don't want to at this time. And so at that point I would just say, you can always say, there's a lot on my plate. I mean, there's always the option. I just wanna, there's always the option of not responding. I think a lot of us who are watching this need to take that option more often because we're all so nice here. And we feel like not responding is somehow an affront to somebody and yes, it is. It's a slight to not respond. Well, you could of course, someone could say, well, maybe they didn't receive the email or maybe they just don't clear all their emails but if they message you in other ways, you don't respond that is considered a slight and guess what? It's okay to slight people. People? It is. Like you can keep boundaries and not respond. Really can. And, you know, but just know that not responding is basically sending a signal that you'd like to distance the relationship and it's perfectly okay to send the signal that way. Now in the perfect world, if you had all the time and energy in the world, you'll spend an hour crafting a breakup email or whatever, you know, but who has the time? Who has the energy when there's so much we already have on our plate? So I think not responding is, yeah, I can say it's ghosting is a fine response for someone you wanna distance yourself from. So think about that. And then, you know, if you wanna respond quickly and briefly, I just say, hey, thanks for the suggestion. I'll keep it in mind. There's a lot going on on my plate right now but I'll let you know if it's the right fit. And you will because maybe they reveal themselves to be later in the future to be more ethical than you thought or more reliable than whatever it is. So I hope this is helpful. And please feel free, comment below if you have any suggestions on how to respond. You know, I'll tell you another story. I had somebody who, this is the most uncomfortable one that I can remember recently. I had somebody who was new to me. I mean, they were following my content just for a little bit. I mean, it's not like they had been liking and commenting for a long time but they just started following my content. I think they had commented once or something like that. And then they direct message me, private message me on social media. And they said, hey, I know you're really into collapse. When can we talk just for 15 or 30 minutes? And, you know, in the past when I was less busy I was really open to just getting on the call with somebody, yeah, you know? And they, when I go to their profile they seem like they have their, you know they seem like a thoughtful professional basically, right? Like someone I might typically possibly collaborate with but just the energy of pushiness. Like please everyone do not ask anyone for a phone call before there is a sense that they want a phone call or a meeting with you. It's like, where did you all get this idea? Like networking means the old traditional networking training. You get someone on the phone as soon as you possibly can it's the means to an end. I don't care how you get them on the phone get them on a damn phone or the zoom or whatever, you know? And it's like, so the first thing message was like hey, when can we talk for 15, 30 minutes? It's so uncomfortable for me to say how do you know I wanna talk with you? Yeah, I like your profile everything but how do I, how can you just assume that I have time to talk with you, you know? And so I didn't say that but I said, hey, there's a lot, you know, my line by now. So if you get that line from me, you gotta be careful. There's a lot of my play, that's my slight to you, okay? There's a lot of my play right now and I'll let you know. And then what's worse was they wrote back and said I just need 15 minutes, 30 minutes of your time. I said, hey, you know, I don't usually do calls. I just prefer, so you know what I said? This is my second message, my second slight, okay? If I say this to you, I said, hey, let's just keep it on messaging for now. If you have anything you wanna run by me, just go ahead and message me back. I'd like to see what you have. It's my signal to you that I don't wanna talk to you. I don't, I don't have time for you. Can't make the time of day for you, okay? Got it? And maybe in the future, if the person does have a thoughtful idea, thoughtful opportunity, something that I feel is a equal trade. And I say equal trade, by the way, I'm not always a tit for tat, I for I kind of person. When I build a relationship with someone, when there is a true relationship, a heart-based connection for some time, I bend over backwards sometimes for my friends, of course. Like friends like, you know, Pat Hargrave or like Mark Silver or like Mark Walsh or whoever, like people and, you know, people here at Master Art, like I'll do whatever I can, you know, to support you. Because I know we have a trust between each other, we have respect for each other's time and energy. But when there's no trust and respect like that yet, even though there might be in the future, it's rude to ask them one for a phone call or a meeting, you know what I mean? So that's my take on it. And I want to thank Angie for giving a different take on this. I really appreciate it. She said, no thanks is a complete sentence. Yeah, it is. And Angie also mentioned that, you know, giving the excuse of I have too much on my plate, might send a signal that you don't have openings for clients right now. And so someone who might not be the best fit client, you tell them I've got too much on my plate, they might have a friend who's the perfect client for you and they might tell their friend, oh yeah, she's really busy right now. So that's a good point, you know, that's a good point. So thank you for bringing that forward. So let's see here. Yeah, another chat here. People who need the hints the most don't know how to take a hint. You know, it's a really good point. That's a really good point because it's like, it's like there's a certain amount of social graces that I guess I assume, but it's not, it probably shouldn't be assumed for 20% of the population perhaps that they can't read between the lines. And so yes, that's true. And I should say that it's not, you know, it's well known these days that it's, you know, we should accept people with neurodiversity, right? So it's like not everybody, you know, I actually used to think, and I might still, I'm a little Asperger-y, you know, or I certainly used to be, honestly, I feel like I was Asperger-y or just underdeveloped socially for like much of my life. I never was very good socially all the way through school. I feel like I just became a little bit more socially savvy like last week or something like that. Like it's pretty recent. And maybe you still might disagree with me. But yeah, so it is, I think, you know, even though I was kind of blunt just earlier in this video, like I think it is good to be gentle with people, to be compassionate, knowing that they can't, some of us can't read between the lines yet and may never be able to just given our hardware. So be gentle, but also have good boundaries. And if someone keeps pressing and pressing, you can always, it's okay to block them, not block them. Yeah, maybe block them if it's like, if it's really rude or whatever, but to not respond and to, sorry, this is the word I'm looking for, mute the conversation, right? Like on any kind of direct messaging on social media, you can click the three dots and mute the conversation. So you're not constantly notified that person's trying to talk to you again. On email as well, like on Gmail, I know you can mute an email thread if the person just keeps on doing that and you don't wanna block them in a way that they can't find your profile anymore if that doesn't feel compassionate in that situation.