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Back in 1974, the late, great Dolly Parton came across an opportunity that nearly any singer-songwriter in their right mind would've taken.
Elvis Presley wanted to record one of Dolly's biggest hits, “I Will Always Love You,” and naturally, Dolly was thrilled. This was The King, and he had come calling for a song she had always wanted to hear him sing. But before the deal could get done, Elvis’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker, explained how things worked when you did deals with Elvis. He wouldn't record a song unless he also got half of the publishing rights to it.
Dolly said no.
Many years later, in an interview, she admitted she cried all night over the decision, but in the end, she simply wasn’t willing to give away half of the publishing to make the deal happen.
Twenty years later, Dolly ends up looking like a genius because Whitney Houston recorded “I Will Always Love You” for The Bodyguard and made it one of the biggest songs in the world. And Dolly makes a fortune because she still owned 100% of the publishing.
It's a tidy ending to a story about making a tough call. But it makes the decision look a lot easier than it was.
At the time, all Dolly knew was that Elvis Presley, one of the most famous singers in the world, wanted her song. But to hear him sing it, she had to give him half the ownership of something she had written and loved.
Most of us find ourselves in situations where we're making tough decisions like this one, just not usually with famous singers involved. Our decisions are certainly more ordinary, but the tension can feel similar. Something new and exciting shows up and asks you to give up something you care about in return.
Your company dangles a promotion in front of you, but they ask you to move your family to a place you don't want to live. Or you build the perfect lifestyle business because you want more free time, and then someone presents a partnership opportunity that could take that time away.
Those are hard decisions to make.
Of course, the good parts of those deals are easy to understand. You get the better job, or the sexier title. You make more money, and your business becomes more stable. It's easy to envision that dream future in your mind, and explain exactly why saying yes makes sense.
What you’re being asked to give up can be a lot harder to measure. You know what the new title is and exactly how much more money you’ll make. But how do you measure the value of living where you want or having control of your own time?
Dolly knew that song mattered. She called it her “most important copyright at that time.” She just didn't know whether protecting it was worth missing out on an Elvis recording.
That's what makes these decisions so difficult. The bigger the opportunity looks, the easier it is to start talking yourself out of the things you already said mattered.
“I know we don't want to move there, but this job is a VP title…”
“Yeah, I wanted more free time, but imagine how much money…”
I've found that most people, myself included, are remarkably good at making nearly any deal sound reasonable if the opportunity feels big enough. And sometimes saying yes is the right choice. Sometimes the deal really is worth making.
But any good-looking opportunity that asks for something valuable of yours in return deserves a lot of scrutiny. Be careful convincing yourself that the thing you worked so hard to protect suddenly isn’t worth as much as you thought.
When a deal like that shows up, you don’t get to look into the future and see how saying no will turn out. You have to make the decision before you know what your time will be worth later or how valuable the thing you’re protecting might become.
The only thing you can do is look carefully at what you’re getting and what you’re giving up. Then you have to decide just how much conviction you have in the thing you’re being asked to give away.
Dolly wanted Elvis to record that song badly. But it was her baby. A song she had written and loved. She wasn't willing to give half of it away.
Sure, keeping all of the publishing eventually made Dolly a fortune. But she had no proof of that when she turned Elvis down.
The song was hers.
She wasn’t willing to make half of it his.
