[conductr]

I find people like to challenge me to do things I have no interest in doing. Sure, based on what they know about me and my abilities it may seem like a reasonable thing for me to learn. But, maybe after looking into it I can evaluate the cost (time/money) and decide "Nope, don't wanna." It's not that I couldn't. I'm finance guy. My whole career "you need an MBA, you need a CPA" or on the technical side, you need to learn "tableau or flavor of the day". Sure, it would be cool and boost my resume. But, honestly, my trajectory has yet to slow down by not having MBA or CPA. I went to biz school the first time for my undergrad. I literally had some courses where MBA students were in the same class but got different homework. All my jobs come from a network I've built. I have built a reputation and view MBA is a signal on a resume when your resume is one in the stack of resumes. I know a lot about accounting but CPA is for accountants, I work closely with accountants and can partner with them when some something unusual comes up. Tools like Tableau, I learn them when I have a use for them. I've personally never seen a use for it (I see how others could use it given another industry/business datasets/etc). I've looked at it, I know the business data my company has, and I don't have to learn the tool to know it's just going to be a shiny toy instead of impactful for business decisions. All that said, I've climbed the corp ladder from entry level analyst, manager, director, CFO in about 10 years - so again, should I have wasted 2 years on an MBA, another 1-2 years on CPA, nights and weekends on learning technology without application? Often, managers "have to say something" to push you to grow. You should be critical in deciding whether it's the best use of your time.

That's my personal story, but to address the OP question directly; change your response and turn it into a conversation. If you say "I can't/won't be able" that pretty much ends the conversation. "where can I find resources to learn X?" "I don't have a ton of time, do you know of a crash course to get started on X?" "I prefer lectures, I'll see if I can find a course on X." 1) they may know of great resources 2) conversational so you aren't just shooting down their constructive feedback 3) very easy for people to tell you what to learn, more work to tell you how to learn it successfully. If they can't tell you how to learn it, they can't blame you for "failing"