# Handling difficult conversations Today I had to have a gut wrenching conversation with somebody who I care about deeply and hated feeling like I was letting down. In the past I would try to figure out ways to either sugarcoat or rethink and somehow figure out how to not have to have it. But today, I led with it. It sucked. Completely. However, I held my head high and volunteered to make sure the handoff went smoothly. The other person handled it with dignity and grace, luckily, so it made the conversation a bit less sucky and I think everyone left feeling okay. Survival. I got lucky today, thankfully. Not all of the hard convos go like this. In my experience, the sooner the better. The more quickly you do the damage the faster it can heal. But damn I hate those. Yet, I put myself in that situation because I didn't say no when it was easy to say it early on in the process. I waited until it would hurt because of reasons which aren't good enough. I wasn't being honest with myself, I didn't properly manage my emotions to understand how I felt early enough to make it as not painful as possible, and I dug in beforehand because I always love people deeply and optimize for building relationships. I allowed myself to stray too far outside of my lane. I am a communicator, writer, podcaster, interviewer, author, content creator, relationship builder, salesman, deal maker, advisor, thinker. Anything outside of that has so far ended in heartbreak for me, and them. Focusing on my craft and [[Gracefully saying no|saying no]] to everything else would have prevented me from ending up in this situation...again... From now on I will not allow it to happen. Regardless of how tasty the rewards may seem in the moment, I will not succumb. The power of saying no upfront prevents the pain of having to say it later.