I realize there is a well-known book by Eckhart Tolle called The Power of Now. I didn’t forget the “w” in the title of this article, and it wasn’t intended to be called “The Power Of Now.”

This article isn’t even about the importance of being in the now, the present — although I do believe in its importance. This is, instead, about one of the timeless secrets I have discovered in interviews with more than 4,000 of the world’s top leaders. After all, this is one of the most common questions I get these days:

“What are the secrets you’ve discovered after so many interviews with influential leaders?”

I get this question so often, in fact, that I wrote the book on it. Well, sort of. Where everyone seems to want to know what the top leaders do differently, my new book reveals the key things I’ve discovered during these interviews.

Here, though, I will focus on one of the key things I have seen these influential leaders do very well, and it’s something that others struggle with. It may indeed be one of the biggest difference makers in the number of lives an influencer impacts and the results they achieve.

It’s important to note, before I go into full detail about this secret, that many of us say “yes” to everyone and then try to figure out how to do it all later. This is how I spent the first half of my life. I was in fact raised to believe you should never say “no” to anyone. That it was impolite to say “no.”

You can imagine my surprise when I discovered that the world’s top achievers do just the opposite. One of their biggest secrets is that they say “no” to almost everything so that they can say “yes” to the few things that will truly bring them closer to their purpose or will move the needle the most. In fact, many top achievers even have multiple staff members hired just to say “no” for them.