This is the advice I gave my son at his swim meet when he was asked at the last minute to fill in for a teammate who could not compete. The only problem was that he knew he was not going to do very well in the event.

Last week, I was re-counting the story to a friend about the year that I gave up “no” for Lent and she suggested that I share it more broadly, so here it goes...Not knowing what to give up for Lent one year, I decided that I would give up the word “no” at work and see what happened.

Businesses are designed to take as much as you will give them, and then to ask for more. It is up to you to set and then manage those boundaries.

I know you may think I’m crazy, but as a leader, I love that, once a year (twice if you are lucky enough to work for an organization that does mid-year reviews as well) I am given the explicit permission to not talk about the business at hand, but instead to set aside time to talk about my teammate.