Dr. Sunita Sah on How To Say ‘No’
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From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Mina Kim. Coming up on Forum, why is it so hard for us to say no? Whether it's declining an invitation, disagreeing with your boss or colleague, questioning your doctor. Cornell organizational psychologist Sunita Sa draws on behavioral science to look at why we feel such pressure to comply. The personal, social, and even political costs of it

And she challenges us to reframe saying no as an expression of our values. Saw's new book is Defy: The Power of No in a World that Demands Yes. If you struggle to say no, tell us why on Forum. Welcome to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. How often do you go along with something because you don't quite know how to say no? Many of us struggle to say no to things, even when we feel what's being asked of us is wrong.

And let's face it, the consequences of saying no are not the same for all of us. Dr. Sunita Sa, a physician-turned-organizational psychologist, finds our constant focus on the impact of saying no has stopped us from recognizing that there are also consequences to always saying yes on ourselves and our society. Her new book is called Defy, and she joins me now. Dr. Sa, welcome to Forum.

So you say in your book, Dr. Sa, that it's a culmination of a journey from being a good girl and always complying to someone who learned to defy when needed. So tell me, what were you like as a kid? As a child, I was actually known for being a very obedient daughter and student. And I remember asking my father at one point, what does my name, Sunita, mean? And he said, in Sanskrit, Sunita actually means good.

And mostly I lived up to that. So I did what I was told. I...

went to school on time, I did my homework as expected, and I even had my hair cut the way that my parents insisted. And these were the messages I received, not just from parents, but also from teachers and the community. And they were to be good, fit in, obey, don't question authority. And we often give children these messages. We're often expected to comply. And I

I became fascinated by people who were able to defy a lot more easily than me, it seemed. Because I was so socialized to comply or what I call wired to comply, we start equating being compliant with being good and defiant with being bad.

And that's why it can be so difficult to get out of that mindset. Yeah. You get at two really important things about the pressure to comply. One being that there are a lot of forces and influences all around us from a very young age sort of defining that being compliant is a good thing. And then also that we do see saying no as negative, right? Yeah.

We do. We equate defiance with being bad. It's got such a negative connotation. When you talk about a defiant child, it's not in a good way most of these times. This really ends up causing serious problems because when I delved into this a little bit more, I found that one survey, for example, revealed that nine out of 10 healthcare workers, most of them nurses,

did not feel comfortable speaking up when they saw their peer or a physician making an error. And that's not just in healthcare, it's across many different industries. So findings from another survey of over 1,700 crew members on commercial airlines, about 50% of them were uncomfortable to speak up when they saw a mistake.

And these could be life or death consequences, right? So I started to wonder what if it's sometimes bad to be so good? What do we sacrifice by always trying to be so compliant?

And really, I mean, how many times have you wanted to object to something, disagree or opt out of something, but you just end up swallowing your words, shaking your head and going along with it. And that really left me quite drained and muted when I had that feeling. And that inspired a lot of my work and research. You found that a very powerful feature of our inability to say no is something called insinuation anxiety. What is that?

Insinuation anxiety is a distinct type of anxiety that came up in my research again and again. So let me describe one of my earliest memories of specifically noting how this could be a big problem.

So my first career was in medicine. I ended up working as a doctor in the UK, mainly because of expectations. You have the grades. Why wouldn't you want to do that? Medicine is the best thing you can do. So I was working in my first job at the Western General Hospital in Scotland, and I received an email to meet with a financial advisor for free at work.

And I was doing what we call a one in two at that point, which is you start work at eight o'clock, you work all day, work all evening, all night. You work all over the next day till 5 p.m., go home, get some sleep and then do the same thing again. So I was extremely sleep deprived and tired. And I thought, why not? I'll go and go along to this meeting. It sounds like something to do while I'm at work. And I met with Dan, the financial advisor.

And this meeting took place in a room that I didn't even know existed in the hospital. It was in the posh meeting room. Well, as posh as you can get on the UK's National Health Service. And Dan, when he arrived, he was very tall, big smile, fashionable suit. And he spent about an hour with me talking about my extremely limited disposable income at the time. And he built up this fantastic rapport.

At the end of the hour, he recommended I invest in a couple of funds and that he would write a report for me about my finances. And he would deliver it within a few days. And all of this was for free. So I was quite impressed. And I had to ask him, what's in it for you? And he said, well, there's no such thing as a free lunch. And I will receive some commission if you invest in the funds that I'm recommending.

So he disclosed this conflict of interest and that disclosure did change the dynamics of the situation. I certainly felt less trust in his advice, which is arguably the intended purpose of the disclosure. But at the same time, I did not want to signal that distrust to Dan. I did not want him to know that now the whole relationship had been corrupted. I didn't want to imply that he could be biased in his recommendation or that he lacked integrity.

And that feeling is insinuation anxiety. When we start to worry about our noncompliance with another person's wishes is going to be interpreted as a signal of distress. So it really insinuates the person is not whom they appear to be or should be.

And I've seen this rise again and again. It could be even in small stakes situations, such as when you're sitting at the hairdresser and they're cutting your hair all wrong. And you're like, they're like, oh, this will look really great on you. And you're like thinking, no, no, no. But it's very hard to say, no, stop. You've done this wrong. You probably just leave and tip them. At least I do. And people who suffer from insinuation anxiety do. Yeah.

Oh, wow. Well, let me invite listeners to join the conversation. Why and when do you struggle to say no? And do you have questions about how to get better at saying no? We're talking with Dr. Sunita Saha about this. You can call us at 866-733-6786. You can email forum at kqed.org. You can post on our social channels at KQED Forum. You described the financial advisor, the hairstylist.

But I imagine that earlier you described nurses and doctors and crew members and pilots, and I can imagine that power dynamics really exacerbate insinuation anxiety as well. Yeah, it really arises when you believe that

Somebody has your best interests at heart. Like, so, for example, a doctor, if they tell you something and, for example, you should enter this clinical trial, but then they disclose the receipt of a referral fee if you enter the trial. That was one of my surveys that I conducted. We see that

People are less likely to want to take the advice, but they feel more pressure to take it. And so those two forces really determine whether you take it or not. They feel more insinuation anxiety because they don't want to insinuate that the person is not acting in the way that they believe. So it can come from these small stake hairdresser situations, but also really large stakes of medical advice, you know, co-pilots not speaking up to their pilots. It's

So it's such an aversive emotional state where we become concerned with offending the other person. And I find it even actually in one-off situations with strangers. So even though it's more likely with people with authority and power, it still happens sometimes with our friends, with strangers. People have felt it in all different types of situations. So it really is this powerful force that can keep us silent. You also write that

In our world, some people are, quote, allowed to be defiant while others are not so much. What do you mean by this? Well, there is a defiance hierarchy in that often there's a privilege to be able to defy because there's two things that happen. One is that some people are expected to be more compliant than other people.

And we can imagine like the furthest away you get from sort of the dominant male, white male stereotype, the more likely you're expected to comply.

And what's worrying is that at the same time, the people who are expected to comply more often, often face more consequences for defying. So there's more costs, there's more backlash. And so being able to be defiant is really a privilege. I mean, we need to be aware of who is allowed to defy and who is not.

This user on Discord writes, I have a hard time saying no, but it isn't because of pressure or guilt or expectations, but because I love doing things for individuals and organizations. I want to do all the things. There just aren't enough hours in the day, and I find myself constantly spread too thin and over committed. What do you think about this?

That's certainly a problem because if you want to do all these things to please other people, that's quite different. It's if you're getting some joy or satisfaction or utility out of something.

And I want to really take a step back in a second and talk about the difference between compliance and consent here. But if you are over committing yourself to the point where you cannot deliver the things that you want to deliver, that's when you need to think about what...

Like it could actually be harmful to you, to the other people that you've promised and think about what it is that you really want to do and are able to do. So sort of defining and protecting the time to do the things that you say yes to with high quality. Yeah. And I feel like it's touching on another thing that you say is a common social pressure is that we're all often

pressured or conditioned to put the needs and interests of others above our own, not saying that this is specifically that of the listeners, but that it just is reminding me of that as another social pressure that contributes to our tendency to comply.

Absolutely. And sometimes like, you know, some of the feelings that we have about not harming other people or not wanting to signal distress, they're there for a reason in that we do want to have harmonious relationships. We do live in society with other people, at least most of us do. And so those feelings are often there for a reason. It's when it doesn't serve us that we need to think about that a little bit more or when it can cause harm to ourselves or even to other people. Yeah.

Yeah. So definitely we're coming up on a break. And after the break, I want to talk with you about the difference between consent and compliance, but also a new definition for defiance. So we'll have that after the break. Listeners, stay with us. I'm Mina Kim. Hey, have you heard of On Air Fest? It's a premier festival for sound and storytelling taking place in Brooklyn from February 19th through 21st.

I'm Morgan Sung, host of KQED's new tech and culture show, Close All Taps, and I'll be there at the fest to give a sneak preview of the show, along with an IRL deep dive all about how to sniff out AI. You'll also hear from podcast icons like Radiolab's Jad Abumrad, and a sale from Death, Sex, and Money, and over 200 more storytellers. So come level up your own craft or connect with other audio creatives. Grab your tickets now at onairfest.com.

You're listening to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. We're talking this hour about why it's so hard to say no, why we feel pressure to comply.

even when we feel what's being asked of us is wrong. Dr. Sunita Saw is an author, a physician turned organizational psychologist at Cornell University. And her new book is Defy, The Power of No in a World That Demands Yes. And listeners share why and when you struggle to say no, questions you have about how to get better at saying no. And if you want, when you've been defiant because of what

of what was being asked of you, that it went against your values maybe, or what strategies do you have for being able to say no. You can email forum at kqed.org. You can find us on our social channels, Blue Sky X, Facebook, Instagram threads. We're at KQED Forum. And you can call us at 866-733-6786, 866-733-6786.

So yes, Dr. Saul, talk about the definition between, the difference between compliance and consent and the definitions of each. Sure. Well,

Compliance is simply going along with someone else, usually external forces. So it could be another person. It could be expectations from family, co-workers, bosses or even society. So it's basically going along with something else due to some external force.

Consent is not compliance, even though the two are often conflated with each other. So I take informed consent in medicine and I apply it to other decisions that we make in our lives. And informed consent requires five elements to be consent and not just simply compliance. So it requires, first of all, capacity. So when doctors are assessing patients, you want to know that they have the mental capacity to make a decision. They're not

suffering from an illness that's affecting their capacity or under the influence of drugs or alcohol. So capacity is the first one. Hopefully we all have that. And then the next one is knowledge, that we need information on the decision. We need to be informed. The third one is actually understanding that information. So we can't just be given the information. We need to understand truly the risks, the benefits, what the alternatives could be.

And then the fourth one is the freedom to say no. So if we don't have the freedom to say no, you can't have consent. It's essentially compliance. So that freedom to say no is very important. If those four elements are there, capacity, knowledge, understanding, freedom to say no, then you can get to the fifth element, which is your authorization. So if you want to go ahead with all those elements,

and they're present, then you give your true yes, your informed consent. If you want to say no, it's your informed refusal, that's your defiance. And so consent and defiance are actually two sides of the same coin. They're both a thoroughly considered authorisation that is an active expression of deeply held values. This is what your true yes is and what your true no is.

So this is our David on Discord writes, I'm a people pleaser who will stuff my anger while going along with something, say agreeing to do a task at work that is not in my job description simply because I was asked to. Part of the reason I don't say no is I don't trust myself to speak up for myself responsibly. That is, after stuffing this anger repeatedly, when I do say no, it often comes out a bit charged and I feel more embarrassed for that than I care what they think.

Oh, there are so many aspects of David's point here that I would love to dissect with you. But one of them is we've talked about the consequences of not complying. And in some cases, like with doctors and nurses, the consequences can be our health or something deadly, like with pilots and crew members and things. But can you also talk about just the personal effect it has on us physically, mentally, emotionally as well, the effects of complying physically?

Often we are doing it to avoid discomfort, but actually we may be putting a lot of stress on ourselves, right? Absolutely. And those feelings that feeling angry about something or having emotions about it is quite common. Like if we are going against our expectations, if we're going against our values so often, then

We often feel quite drained and it's exhausting. And so it does affect us. You know, people who cannot express themselves and what they truly value in the workplace are

often feel greater dissatisfaction and more likely to lead to burnout. And so there are really important costs that we need to consider when we comply with people, because often people do think about the costs of defiance. So I'm going to lose a job if I say something or I'm fearful about what might happen. I'm going to hurt someone or damage the relationship. And

Those costs are important. Yes, you need to consider them, but you also need to consider the costs of being continuously compliant and disregarding your values day in, day out. Now, I described how I often felt drained and muted by following other people's expectations, and it really can be soul-destroying in that it's

If you can't be authentic, if you can't live by your values, it is going to affect you sort of psychologically. You're going to have those emotions that come out inappropriately if they're not managed. And it's spiritually and physically in the end, it's going to affect you. So really thinking about the cost of living

bowing your head to other people all the time is very important. Yeah, we often comply to avoid feeling uncomfortable and then we feel worse about following someone's instructions. Exactly, yeah.

Against our better judgment. Yeah. And well, Ken on Blue Sky writes, it's being able to say no that makes saying yes so powerful. So I wonder if you could talk about how you are reframing how we think about no or how we think about defiance. You offer a new way to think about it. What is that? Yeah. So now having spent decades studying influence, advice and authority, what I've found that is crucial is

and substantially changed how I think, is that we've misunderstood what it means to defy. So if we were always equating compliance with being good, being a good daughter, being a good student, being a good employee, and we think of defiance as being bad, it really creates problems. And I came to this revelation that we need a new definition for defiance.

So the old definition in the Oxford English Dictionary is to challenge the power of another person, to resist boldly and openly. That's how the Oxford English Dictionary defines defiance. And I'm not one usually to disagree with the Oxford English Dictionary.

I grew up in the UK after all, but I think that definition is too narrow. And my definition of defiance is that to defy is to act in accordance with your true values when there is pressure to do otherwise.

So it's really living up to that aspect of both consent and dissent, your true yes and your true no when it's required. So we basically reframe defiance now from this negative connotation to a proactive positive force in society. Because if you think about it, all our individual acts of consent and dissent every single day, they live up, they build and they create negative

the society that we live in. So it affects our workplaces, our communities, our lives. And that's why it's really powerful to think about both consent and defiance in that way.

Yeah, you really want to draw attention to the fact that defiance does not have to be a loud and public gesture. Do you think some of the examples that we have held up as sort of honorable defiance can almost deter us from understanding what it is and even doing it because we think that it has to be in those kinds of situations that those are the only kinds of situations that really demand it?

When we think about defiance, we might have this myth that it has to be violent, angry or aggressive or that it's heroic or superhuman, like the image of the tank man standing, you know, in front of a line of tanks. But it doesn't have to be that way. You don't actually have to be a superhero or have a strong personality or be larger than life to incorporate defiance in your life. So, yeah.

I always say it's not only for the brave or the extraordinary, it's actually available and necessary for all of us. So we can learn how to be defiant in our own unique way with far less angst. So we don't get to that point where we're acting in a knee-jerk way and just acting with emotion. Sometimes defiance can be emotional, but it's not based on emotion. So for example, if you take Rosa Parks'

Her famous no is often spoken about as something that was spontaneous on the day and that it changed the civil rights movement.

Even the New York Times, I think, had described her as the accidental matriarch of the civil rights movement. And the L.A. Times said that she was tired all over that day. But she actually says, no, she wasn't tired. Well, no more tired than usual. But she was tired of giving in. And what really fascinates me about Rosa Parks is

was everything that led up to that event. She had been practicing for defiance all that time. She had seen her own mother be defiant when she was a child and refused to move on the bus. She had thought about it, practiced it, connected with her values, and then assessed the situation that day of whether it was safe for her to say no and whether it would be effective. And it wasn't violent or loud or aggressive. It was just, no, I'm not going to move.

And so we really do need to think about defiance in what's helpful to us. How many times had Rosa Parks been compliant with segregation laws before that moment? Even if we see ourselves as compliant, and I certainly had a self-concept of seeing myself as very compliant, there are ways that we can practice for defiance because it's not a personality, it's a skill set, and we can choose to use it or not.

Let me go to caller Alan in Castro Valley. Hi, Alan. You're on. Good morning. I just wanted to say to anybody with a chronic health condition in particular to learn to say no. I had migraines for years and woke up one morning, had been invited to a wedding, had a terrible migraine and couldn't go. So then my wife said she couldn't go. So now I'm suffering guilt and

in addition to my migraine, and knowing that if I show up with my long face, I'm going to really put a pall on the party. So you have to learn to say no to protect yourself, and that's about all I've got to say. I appreciate that.

Yeah, well, thank you for sharing that, Alan. And the truth of the fact that it is a struggle, and you do have such a complex mix of feelings. And I definitely want to get into, you've really dissected those feelings too, Dr. Saw, so I do want to get into that too. But also, Alan, reminding me to re-ask listeners, when have you said no? When have you been defiant? And were there consequences to that? And what has helped you in terms of strategies, saying no effectively? Yeah.

Why and when do you think you struggle to say no? And what questions do you have about how to get better at doing that? We're learning how we can reframe saying no as an expression of our values and why that's important with Dr. Sunita Saha, author of Defy, The Power of No in a World That Demands Yes. And this listener says,

Right. Let's get to the heart of the matter. Why can't we say no to Donald Trump? I do give praise to Mike Pence, who stood up during the insurrection by of nothing but disrespect for all the supplicants surrounding Mr. Trump. Do you want to talk about some of your observations in the political arena, Dr. Saw? Sure. I mean, so what do we do when the world often feels unrecognizable, right? So

There was an article in the New York Times a few days ago about defiance being out and deference being in. And that really caught my eye. In fact, it made my stomach drop a little bit when I was reading that article in that. Why are we feeling now so resigned? And we feel that resistance seems futile, right? We feel powerless. A lot of people are unsure how to act or whether action is even worth it.

But this week during the inaugural prayer, Bishop Buddy offered an answer to us in that she stood before one of the most powerful men in the world, the new president, and she delivered a quiet but courageous plea.

She wasn't shouting or railing against authority, but she called for mercy and humanity and spoke directly to the fear that many people have about undocumented workers, mass deportations. And that was really powerful. And it also offers us an example of how we can respond when our values are tested. What do we do now?

In these times when we don't feel that our voices are being heard, how do we still align our actions with our values? And there's a number of things here. Really knowing your values, who you are and what you stand for. And when I ask my executive students and I teach MBAs and executive MBAs to think about their values and what's important to them and why, why are they important to you?

And I do that for a very important reason, because if we can write out and explain why our values are important, the behaviors, our intended behaviors are more likely to follow. Because for many of us, the distance between who we think we are and what we actually do, how we actually behave is quite large. And the values that they give year after year come down to some very simple words. And it's usually one word, integrity, compassion, kindness.

empathy, benevolence, equality. They're the sorts of values that I hear again and again from my students. But what's difficult is how to enact them every day. How do we act in a way where we can really behave in the way that we view ourselves or aspire to be? And if people are telling us to do something different or our values are being tested or

We can really look to these moments where people have defied with this of quiet resilience and spoken out.

when everybody else seems to be sort of kneeling down or trying to curry favour. And in this climate of deference, I think Buddha's Prayer stands out as really a profound act of defiance and one that we can all learn from. So we need to be aware of our values. We need to connect with our responsibilities and we need to practice how we can be defiant in those situations. Again, she thought that through beforehand. It wasn't spontaneous. It was genuine.

very thoughtful. And we can look at these examples to really discover how can we enact our values during these times. Yeah. You've also said we should be aware of false defiance. What is false defiance? False defiance. When people say, well, what if my child is being defiant? What do I do then? So when you think about sort of children being defiant or, you know, I have a teenager now and I'm

Some of the things that we struggle with is that they sometimes do the exact opposite of what you ask them to do. So my child has this phrase that I've heard over and over again, that kind of started in middle school, I think was, if he's playing on his Xbox or he's playing a computer game and I sort of ask him, when are you going to do your homework? He will say, well, I was going to do it, but now that you've told me to do it, I'm not going to do it.

So what does that really show us? Is that being defiant or not? Now, if you come to my definition of defiant is to act in accordance with your true values when there's pressure to do otherwise.

What he's telling me is that he's actually not going to do the thing that he was going to do because I mentioned something. So it's externally driven. He's actually very intently listening to me and what I'm saying and then doing the opposite. So what he does is actually very dependent on me. It's not coming from within. This is what I call false defiance, is that if you're relying on others

an external force to tell you what your values are. If you're relying on your parents or your family or an affiliation with a political party or with a religion, then

Is it really coming from within? Is it your true values? So those things can guide you for sure. But to really be independent and think about what really matters to you. So when we come back to integrity, benevolence, all those values, when it comes back to that, how can we act every day in alignment with those values rather than just following the crowd? Yeah.

Katie writes, I have a hard time saying no because of guilt and still growing up in a traditional Chinese household similar to the guest's upbringing. During my teen years, I became more deviant when I saw that I was treated unequally as a daughter to my brother. So as an adult, when I see unjust or unfair behaviors, I would be more vocal. I still have a hard time saying no, but draw the line at inequality and independence. More after the break. I'm Mina Kim. Welcome back to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. We're talking this hour with Dr. Sunita Saha.

An author, a physician who turned organizational psychologist at Cornell University. Her new book is Defy the Power of No in a World that Demands Yes. And we're talking about why it is so hard to say no, why we do feel the pressure to comply, but why there are costs associated with that as well that we often don't think about.

Listeners, when do you struggle to say no and what questions do you have about how to do it better? When have you been defiant and how has that worked out for you? The email address is forum at kqed.org. Our phone number is 866-733-6786. And we're on social channels like Blue Sky Facebook and Instagram at KQED Forum. Let me go to caller Ronnie in San Francisco. Hi, Ronnie, you're on.

Hi there! Good to meet you. I'm calling from the perspective that I've been a nurse for about 25 years, mostly in OB. There's a lot of high stakes and pressure in this.

I'm somebody who comes from a tradition of a lot of questioning, and I've always been very outspoken. But I get a lot of... I've gotten a lot of flack from it. And, like, maybe...

self-criticism around about doing it well or not doing it well. But I've always known it was important, but it's over the years that I am learning how to do it in a better way. And what I want to say is that the context and your placement in all of this stuff is really...

important. So like taking a pause and not being reactive and understanding like, okay, I have a feeling I need to say no and address this, but like, what is this? What is the real thing here? And I think it took me many years to understand, like you have to come from like a bottom line of like true self-respect and

And when you come from a place of self-respect and not being a victim or a pawn, you can also come from a place of mutual respect. Whether the other side is coming from that or not, when you come from that, you really can't lose. And that, like, knowing what the purpose of...

of the no or the negotiation is and the place and the timing and, um, and what your perceived limitations and position are is all really important in, in doing it better. Well, Ronnie, thanks for sharing the things you've learned through speaking out and the act of defying when the situation has called for it. Um, Dr. Saw, you,

you know, in terms of your thoughts about what Ronnie is saying, but I also appreciate that Ronnie brought up the pause because I think it's one of the key things you say you do differently now. Yes, it is. Absolutely. And I think that's wonderful because it does take practice for defiance and we have to prepare for it long before those moments of crisis. One way in the moment that we can deal with defiance

some of the feelings that we have, the pressure to go along with other people. And I certainly had this with Dan, the financial advisor, like just when he told me to sign on the dotted line and things were getting too uncomfortable and the silence was too long, I was actually saved by my beeper going off and I had to deal with a medical emergency, which I was like, okay, I'm going to have to go. And he was like, oh, no worries. I'll send you everything in the post. And

And that pause actually, when I got sent the information, made it so much easier for me to say no. So if you can take a pause, if you're feeling pressure from another person, you don't want to answer them face to face. It's very difficult. So you want to take a pause as much as you can to get out of that situation. So some physical distance is great. If it's not possible to have physical distance,

You can try and create some psychological distance. One way that we can do that, that research shows is quite powerful, is to really talk to yourself in your head in a third person. So it would be, for example, Sunita, do you really want to do this? And perhaps if you have a minute just to close your eyes and ask yourself that, you can do it.

you can see the situation a little bit more objectively. So you're trying to remove that emotional reaction that you have and see it. What would you recommend your friend to do? What would you recommend a loved one do?

And in those situations, you're really trying to manage that tension, which is what I call the first stage of defiance. You're trying to manage that in the moment. What does this mean? Not disregard it or dissipate it because it's actually a very important warning signal for us that something could be wrong. And for all the people that are talking about the guilt or what I found is that if you actually go along with it, that tension doesn't really dissipate. It grows even stronger because you regret

going along with something that you know wasn't quite right.

And so we really want to deal with that. So use the power, what I call the power of the pause to decrease that social pressure. And you say there are basically five stages that you are likely to feel when you may need to defy, especially defy in alignment with your values. And you say the very first indicator is that you're going to feel tension in that moment, right? What are some of the other stages that people should anticipate and not worry about so much?

So, yes, the first stage is tension that you feel, this kind of being stuck between two forces, between what you think is the right thing to do. So perhaps not going to the wedding because you're ill and what you think other people expect of you, which is powerful. So, first of all, you'd feel this tension and you shouldn't try to dissipate it. If your boss is asking you to do something that you think is

is really incompetent, then feel the tension. Don't say, oh, the other person knows better or, you know, try to sweep it away or that your doubt isn't worth it. Think about it. So really think about what that tension means. So acknowledging it to yourself is the second stage because a lot of people just try to disregard it. So that acknowledgement is really important. You need to move to that stage too.

And then the critical stage is stage three of defiance, where you can articulate that tension to someone else. And that can be in a number of ways.

It doesn't have to be confrontational. I always say curiosity, not confrontation. And here is where you can start asking questions. So you can immediately articulate that you feel uncomfortable with that, like what's being asked of you. You know, I'm not quite sure about that. I feel a bit uncomfortable. Or what do you mean by that? This clarifying question. I found that's very important.

A very powerful one. If somebody is saying to you something that's even inappropriate or they're talking about someone in a way that you don't think is right, you can just ask them, what do you mean by that? Because often that question makes them think a little bit harder. So what do you mean by that? Can you clarify that?

Have you considered this way? So in this situation, at this stage, you're still in a subservient position. You're not saying no. You're just clarifying. Before you get to stage four, when you do give like what could be perceived as a threat of noncompliance, like I don't think I can do that. You know, I don't think I'm going to comply with that.

And then the final stage is that act of defiance. So understanding those stages, you might not go through step by step. You might miss some stages. You might go back and forth. But it's a really useful roadmap to think about what we're feeling and how we can really prop the environment a little bit to see whether this is something you really do want to defy.

You say there are times that will call for compliance for whatever reason, safety reasons and so on. You say, though, that this does not have to be necessarily seen as a done deal. Like there is such a thing as conscious compliance. I'm wondering if you can describe what conscious compliance is and why that doesn't necessarily mean that's the end of the situation.

Yeah, so conscious compliance is actually a great strategy to use in the short term sometimes. So conscious compliance is when you have all the five elements for consent. So you have the capacity, the knowledge, the understanding, the freedom to say no. And yet, even though you might want to say no, the consequences might be too great in this moment. So, yeah,

You mentioned safety. So it might be unsafe or it might not be effective. And so in this moment, you want to delay or defer defiance to another day. And so you consciously comply in that moment until you can get to a time when it's safer and more effective to say your no. You don't always have to do it in the moment. And there's sometimes moments where the costs are going to be too great for you to defy.

So Catherine writes,

Another listener, Jan, writes, I'm struggling with a lot of my kids being very uncomfortable breaking rules and encouraging them to question authority and break dumb rules. Why is that? Both my wife and I are not teaching our kids to be compliant. My son even asks if we're allowed to park where I parked or in another example, he did not want me to dispute the customs officer who falsely confiscated food we brought into the country. We're also getting other questions from listeners about parenting and how

You know, I have to say one example when my first child was three that I remember wondering how do I raise a child who I want to be defined in the moment. One of the things that happened at that time was in 2014 and it was the sinking of the Sewol ferry in South Korea. I don't know if you remember that story, Dr. Sa, but hundreds of high school students listened to the captains and officials' orders as that ferry was sinking to stay put in their rooms.

And the few who defy the order survived. And I kept wondering to myself, how do I raise a child who would be one of the kids to defy the order?

Yeah, such an important question because we often get so trained for compliance. We don't know or recognize the situations where we have to defy and that socialization is really important, especially if, you know, similarly, I want to raise my son to say and do something if he notices something is wrong.

I don't want him to be compliant for compliance sake. And this is why sort of parenting makes such a difference. When I've spoken to people about their relationship with compliance and with defiance, they often talk about something that happened with their parents. And I have...

um, I have experienced something with my own parents that stayed with me. So even though I had this masterclass in compliance and I was a very compliant student, I remember one day when I was walking back from the grocery store with my mom, I was about seven or eight years old and we were walking back in Yorkshire in the North of England. And it was quite a long route back home. My mom was pulling a rickety shopping cart. It's just like, um,

like wheeled luggage, two wheels, we had our produce inside. And we decided to take a shortcut through what you call a snicket in Yorkshire, which is a narrow alleyway. And in that alleyway, we were confronted with some teenage boys and they blocked our path and started shouting out some obnoxious things and telling us to go back home.

My mum, she's quite petite, 4'10 at most, and she was wearing her blue sari and she had her hair in a nice single plait at the back. And I always saw her as very compliant. If you think about compliance and defiance as binary, I'd very neatly put her in a compliant box. And she did all the cooking, the cleaning, the grocery shopping. She looked after everybody else's needs. She was not loud. And

I never expected her to react the way that she did that day. So what happened was when the boys blocked our path, my reaction was instant. I grabbed her arm. I wanted to look away from the boys and maneuver as quickly as possible through them to get home. But my mom stopped and she looked at the boys and she said, what do you mean?

So that's that stage three of defiance, like asking the question, what do you mean? And it wasn't done aggressively or shouting. She just looked at them and said, what do you mean? And I felt my heart racing at this point. And I grabbed her arm even tighter and I looked up at her and I said, come on, Maa.

And she said no to me and she shook off my arm and she put the shopping cart up right, vertical, and she put one hand on her hip and she looked back at the boys and she said, no, what do you mean? And she asked again, a little bit louder this time. And the boys didn't say anything at all. And so then she said, oh, you think you're so strong? You think you're big, clever boys? Yes.

And she started telling them off and they really did not know what to do. So they just looked at each other and one of them said to the other, let's go. And they just dispersed. And what that really showed me is a couple of things. First of all, defiance is not a personality, it's a practice. So I had not seen my mom act that way, but she probably had encountered those boys before.

And maybe because I was present, she decided to do something. She tested the environment. She knew that it was safe. And so even if compliance is our default, it is not our destiny.

And when we think about parenting, that moment really stayed with me because even though I found that defiance transforms you when you're defiant, a lot of that tension dissipates that we have. But it also affects the people around you who observe it. So it has this ripple effect, this what I call the defiance domino effect. It only takes one person to start a reaction that makes a great difference because her reaction

decision that day to speak up to the boys certainly had its impact on me. And when I talk about

Consent and defiance. Society is built on these smaller moments because if we are to build a society where we're raising our children to be what I call moral mavericks, then in my ideal world, one of the other teens would have spoken up against his peers to tell them to stop. So my immigrant mother wouldn't have to. Yeah.

No, modeling is powerful. It really does stay your children notice, but also if you're in any position of authority in a workplace and so on, what you model and how you model it is something that really does, I think, seem to stay with people forever.

Getting a couple of people just responding to just hearing this segment alone, these nudges have had a big effect. Rebecca writes, this has been an extraordinarily timely segment for me that is providing a path for a complex issue that I had no idea how to approach. Thank you. And Deborah writes, I was asked to write a blurb for a book and am so overwhelmed right now that I really didn't want to. But I didn't want to offend the author with whom I have a cordial relationship. Hearing the show encouraged me to send off a polite email just a minute ago.

Thank you. Let me go to Daniel in San Francisco really quick. Hi, Daniel. Let me see if I can squeeze you in. What's your question?

Well, I feel that our culture has become so sensitive in a direction that I have a hard time dealing with. So before I say no, I have to constantly consider that somebody may be on the other side that immediately will shut me off or just do really... And I've only experienced that in the last 10 years of my life.

that people basically sort of cancel me, you know, like because I'm born in Germany and my mother was very direct. And I come from a region in Germany that's even inside of Germany is known to be very direct. Daniel, you bring up, do you feel like that soon too, that maybe we also have increased our sensitivity to being told no, especially in the last several years? Yeah.

So I think that this is the thing that people worry about, about offending the other person. And certainly the way the no is delivered is very important. If people can understand why something, why are you giving your true no in that moment? Because it's not about rejecting the other person, it's about

following your values, if we can communicate that in a way that resonates, and there might be cultural differences here from what's being said, like some cultures are more direct than other cultures. And so understanding that context and how to deliver the no makes a difference. Yeah. Well, Sunita, I really appreciate you coming on to talk about this.

Oh, it's been wonderful to be here. Thank you for inviting me. Dr. Sunita Sa of Cornell University, the book is Defy the Power of No in a World that Demands Yes. Thank you, listeners, for sharing your experiences, your stories, your questions as well. Really adds so much to the conversation. And Mark Nieto produced today's segment. My thanks to Mark. You've been listening to Forum. I'm Mina Kim.

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