Wedding Business Solutions

Sam Silverstein - No Excuses for a Day

• Alan Berg, CSP, FPSA, Global Speaking Fellow

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 35:41

Can you really go a full day without making a single excuse? What new perspective could you gain by trying? What would your clients and team notice if you owned every mistake instead of explaining it away? In this special guest episode, I sit down with Sam Silverstein to discuss how eliminating excuses can change your business, deepen your relationships, and unlock opportunities you didn’t even realize you were missing.

Listen to this new episode for firsthand stories, practical strategies, and the challenge that might just shift the way you lead and work.

About Sam: 
Sam is the founder of The Accountability Institute® and creator of the Fractional Chief CultureOfficer™ program. Inducted into the National Speakers Association Speaker Hall of Fame and recognized as a Global Guru in organizational culture, he is the author of 15 books of accountability, leadership, and workplace culture — including No Excuses For a Day.
Contact Sam: 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/samsilverstein/

https://www.instagram.com/samsilverstein/

https://www.facebook.com/samsilversteininc/

If you have any questions about anything in this, or any of my podcasts, or have a suggestion for a topic or guest, please reach out directly to me at Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or visit my website Podcast.AlanBerg.com 

Please be sure to subscribe to this podcast and leave a review (thanks, it really does make a difference). If you want to get notifications of new episodes and upcoming workshops and webinars, you can sign up at www.ConnectWithAlanBerg.com  

View the full transcript on Alan’s site: https://alanberg.com/blog/


Are you going to Wedding MBA? Use the promo code - Alan - to save $20 off your tickets, at www.WeddingMBA.com 

And don't worry, if you can't use your tickets this year, they're transferrable or you can hold them to use next year.

I'm Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you'd like to suggest other topics for "The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast" please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks. 

Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site: 

©2025 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com 

No Excuses for a Day. Oh, you need to listen to this one. Hey, it's Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast. I am so happy to have my friend Sam Silverstein on to talk about his new book, No Excuses for a Day. Sam, thanks for joining me.

My pleasure, Alan. It's great to be here today.

I've had a lot of our NSA friends—those of you that don't know, National Speakers Association, we're the ones that talk, not the ones that listen. I've had a lot of my friends on, I read their books and I go, "You know what? I love this message." When I read your book, No Excuses for a Day, I realized this is not just about business. This is a life lesson, right?

Absolutely. So that's what it's all about.

Life and business are so intertwined, especially for the people listening. In a lot of small businesses, the business is your life. Where did the idea come from?

This has been a long time coming. Many years ago I wrote a book, No More Excuses. While that wasn't my first book, it was what really set us off in the world of accountability and workplace culture, helping leaders around the world create high-performance cultures.

After 14 books, I had a publisher from Brazil approach me with a concept he'd used there called the "for a day" concept. He said, "You should write the book No Excuses for a Day."

I paused for a second and thought, "Oh my gosh. I've already written that book in essence."

That's where the idea came from. What we realized was it wasn't just a book—it was a challenge. In fact, it's probably more of a challenge than a book, and it's the challenge that's creating the interesting waves.

It's pretty self-explanatory. Can you go through a whole day without making excuses? But that's not easy, is it?

It's not. We've done extensive research on this. Sixty-six percent of the people we polled said they could do it, but the reality is they can't.

I had one high-performing professional send me an email saying her assistant asked her at 10:30 that morning, "Wasn't today the day you were doing the no excuses thing?"

She said yes.

The assistant replied, "Well, you just gave me an excuse."

Here's somebody who's a high performer, and by 10:30 in the morning, the first excuse had already shown up.

The idea is that we're so absorbed in speaking the way we've always spoken that we don't even realize when something is an excuse.

I think our language is like that. We pick it up from our parents and the people around us. My sons had me banish the word "evidently" because my mother said it all the time. It was like punctuation.

I didn't even realize I was saying it because I grew up hearing it.

As speakers, it's like filler words. We have to teach ourselves not to use them.

Exactly.

I've also had people tell me, "I knew I gave excuses to myself, but I didn't think I was making them to my wife."

The challenge works especially well when you have someone doing it with you. You're there to spot each other—not to point fingers, but to help each other become aware.

Whether it's a two-person business or a large corporation, it's not about calling people out. It's about having fun while learning what we're doing so we can be better.

I love that this isn't a gotcha. It's about awareness.

I had a friend who was a wonderful speaker, but she used a lot of filler words. I suggested she listen to a recording of herself.

The next day she called me and said, "Oh my freaking God. I cannot believe how many filler words I use."

That's the first step, isn't it? Just becoming aware.

Exactly.

When you're in business—whether you're a wedding professional, a plumber, or anything else—the goal is to give exceptional service.

People are trusting you. They're investing their money in you.

They don't want to hear excuses.

They want ownership. If something goes wrong, they want to see you fix it and move forward.

Nobody wants to hear a lame excuse.

I tell this story all the time.

When my son got married, the rental company called the morning of the wedding to say their truck broke down and they might not be able to come.

My son's response was, "Why are you calling me? Why aren't you calling a truck rental company?"

Exactly.

The question is: Are you looking for a way in or a way out?

That company was looking for a way out.

If they'd simply rented another truck, they wouldn't even have needed to tell the client. Or they could have said, "Our truck broke down, but we've rented another one. We'll be there."

Imagine the goodwill that would create.

Exactly. They could even say, "If you see us pull up in a Ryder truck instead of our own, don't worry—that's us."

Right.

You've also talked about doing this challenge with your own family.

Absolutely.

I've spent more than 30 years researching accountability and workplace culture, and excuses still come out of my mouth.

My wife knows to call me on it.

I also know not to call my wife on it—but that's a different issue altogether.

When you're partners in life, you're there to help each other become your best selves.

Sometimes the biggest excuses are the ones we tell ourselves.

Let's talk about that.

Things like:

"It's not the right time."

"I'm not good enough."

"I don't have enough training."

"My competitors have been doing this longer."

"I'm too young."

"I'm too old."

"I'm too short."

"I'm too tall."

The list is endless.

Usually we each have one big excuse that holds us back.

For me, it was believing I had to be perfect on stage.

That kept me from truly being myself because I was always worried about what people thought.

Once I let go of that, it was incredibly freeing.

I've talked about this before.

When I studied martial arts, my instructor told me the goal wasn't perfection.

If you're perfect, there's nowhere to improve.

The goal is simply to be better than you've ever been before.

It's also hard as a speaker to just be yourself on stage.

People want the same person they met in the hallway.

Exactly.

I think one of the biggest excuses we all tell ourselves is, "I don't have time."

Absolutely.

That's really about priorities.

Or people say, "I can't afford that."

Usually what they really mean is they've chosen to spend their money somewhere else.

That's okay.

Just own the choice instead of making an excuse.

Exactly.

I hear people say clients didn't hire them because they were too expensive.

No.

Either the value wasn't there, or the client chose to spend their money elsewhere.

That's different.

How much does a car cost?

You can spend $25,000 or $325,000.

People spend money when they believe the value is there.

Exactly.

That applies to weddings too.

People spend on what's important to them.

Another excuse is saying, "I can't do that," even though you've never tried.

How do you know you can't?

That's a limiting belief.

That's why we created the challenge and the website.

Doing it alone is difficult.

When someone helps you stay aware, you begin opening doors you never realized were there.

Sometimes not knowing what's impossible is actually an advantage.

Every product on every store shelf exists because somebody believed they could create it.

Exactly.

Action follows belief.

The question is:

What do you believe about yourself?

What do you believe about your business?

What do you believe you're worth?

If you can't make a profit charging what you're charge, you have two choices:

Get out of business or charge more.

The systems usually aren't what's holding people back.

Their beliefs are.

Those beliefs become excuses.

And excuses become anchors.

That's so true.

I remember when my son was five years old.

He refused to let me take the training wheels off because he said, "I can't ride a two-wheeler. I'm only five."

His sixth birthday came, we took them off, and he rode immediately.

Nothing had changed except his belief.

Exactly.

We're naturally drawn toward people who see possibility and opportunity.

Nobody enjoys being around someone who's constantly negative.

Negativity is often just excuse after excuse.

When we eliminate excuses, people want to work with us.

They want to recommend us.

Tell us about the challenge itself.

It's simple.

Go one full day without making excuses.

At the end of the day, ask yourself how it felt.

If you liked it, do it again tomorrow.

Most people won't make it the entire first day, and that's okay.

When you catch yourself making an excuse, simply acknowledge it, own it, and restart.

Each day your awareness grows.

Eventually the excuses begin disappearing.

What's the difference between an excuse and something that's genuinely outside your control?

For example, if there's a major accident on the highway and you're going to be late?

Well, first define "plenty of time."

Many people think they've left enough time when they really haven't.

But yes, things do happen.

The important part is ownership.

If you're late repeatedly, then it's probably not bad luck anymore.

You're simply not leaving enough time.

It's also about communication.

When I was in sales, if I was even five minutes late, I called ahead.

People appreciated that.

Exactly.

People care about honesty.

They care about ownership.

Recently I was going into Manhattan for a black-tie event.

My new bow tie arrived later than expected, which delayed me.

As soon as I realized I might be late, I texted the people I was meeting to let them know.

Exactly.

I'm completely dependent on my wife to tie my real bow ties.

My wife left me on my own with a YouTube video.

It took me half an hour.

So what does success look like with this challenge?

The opposite of accountability is avoidance.

Excuses are usually the symptom of avoidance.

Success is becoming more aware of the excuses we make and choosing ownership instead.

We're never going to be perfect.

But we can get a little better today than we were yesterday.

One last thing.

Some people think admitting mistakes makes them look weak.

I think it makes you look stronger.

What do you think?

I agree.

As long as you're not making the same mistake over and over again.

People want honesty.

They want transparency.

When I stopped pretending I had to be perfect, it made me stronger.

Owning mistakes and fixing them creates long-term success.

I agree completely.

As a leader, admitting mistakes gives your team permission to learn instead of hide.

Exactly.

If your team thinks you believe you're perfect, they'll think they have to be perfect too.

That makes people afraid to make decisions.

When they know you aren't perfect, they're free to perform at a higher level.

That's how organizations improve.

I recently read about someone at Facebook who accidentally took the entire platform down while trying to reproduce a bug.

Instead of punishing him, they realized the process itself was valuable and even named the process after him.

They celebrated what they learned instead of hiding the mistake.

Exactly.

So where can people find the challenge?

Go to noexcusesforaday.com.

You'll find the challenge, the book, a quiz that shows where you're strongest and where your biggest opportunities are.

It's available in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

The book is also available on Amazon, and the reviews have been fantastic.

My review is up there too.

Congratulations.

How many books is this now?

Fifteen.

Fantastic.

Thanks so much for joining me.

My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or you can  text, use the short form on this page, or call +1.732.422.6362, international 001 732 422 6362. I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.

Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site:

©2026 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com


Head Shot

Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

Host