Dan Deacon Quotes

Very successful people say no to almost everything.

The hardest thing when you think about focusing. You think focusing is about saying "Yes." No. Focusing is about saying "No." And when you say "No," you piss off people.

Right when I started getting solid was when I was offered a lot of writing work. And when The Ben Stiller Show was picked up, I realized there was no way for me to do stand-up three or four nights a week and run this television show with Ben. So that was the moment when I had to make a choice.

Learn to say no, with an eye to saying yes to something else.

Balancing my film career and my music will be something I'm just going to have to deal with, as it happens. I think I can balance it out; the choices will probably be pretty clear. If there's a movie I just have to do, I will work the music around it.

Don't say yes to something just because it's an opportunity.

Half of the troubles of this life can be traced to saying yes too quickly and not saying no soon enough.

I have to prioritize and learn how to sometimes say 'no,' even when there might be a good opportunity. That means turning down a check or a potential relationship, or sometimes letting someone down who you are close with.

At the beginning of my career, fresh out of college, I did everything that I could do. And now I'm a little bit more selective. I think that's sort of a natural process.

I am fortunate to have a very helpful team that enables me to spend time doing things that are important but not necessarily urgent. People who have no such team need to also make these larger decisions so that they can cheerfully say No to that which is urgent but not important.

When you really want to say no, say no. You can't do everything - or at least not well.

The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.

Saying no to loud people gives you the resources to say yes to important opportunities.

People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I'm actually as proud of the things we haven't done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things.

I think people involved with institutions find it harder to know the time to go than the time to come.

Day-to-day scheduling is always a conflict. You go, "Oh, I want to go to that awards show because when am I ever going to do that again?" But then you go, "Yeah...except this other thing is more important." It's more the micro day-to-day stuff that becomes a daily task as opposed to worrying too much about the career.

You’ve gotta keep control of your time, and you can’t unless you say no. You can’t let people set your agenda in life.

We all have many opportunities, but limited capacity to pursue them. Make choices, focus your time and energy, so that you can submit your share of masterpieces to the greater good.

If you don't pursue what you think will be most meaningful, you will regret it. Life is long. There is always time for Plan B. But don't begin with it.

Choice means saying no to one thing so you can say yes to another.

There's a rule, I think. You get what you want in life, but not your second choice too.

I am driven by what you are able to accomplish and how you are able to help some people. I go about it each and every day, sometimes I think I say yes too much and I am too busy in my life.

Money is very difficult to think about. So, we think about money as the opportunity cost of money. So, we at some point went to a Toyota dealership and we asked people, what will you not be able to do in the future if you bought this Toyota? Now, you would expect people to have an answer. But people were kind of shocked by the question. They never thought about it before. So, the most we got was people said, "Well, if I can't buy this Toyota, if I buy this Toyota, I can't buy a Honda." What is this thing? What is this value of price? Very hard to think about it.

There's always a project around, but you have to pick and choose.

We think about time as something not to waste, not as something to invest.