💁♂️ Life is Yes
Saying "no" creates the possibility of "yes," but discerning which to say isn't always easy. To get there, we have to explore the value of each option, and then...jump.
If life is about saying "no," can it also be about saying yes?
In a word: yes.
I've written about this before, but it's worth returning to, not only because of the import of the subject, but also because of how my thinking has evolved over the years.
The Value of Yes
Productivity-driven types love to talk about the virtue of saying no. Investor Brent Beshore summed it up nicely:
"Saying no is so powerful because it preserves the opportunity to say yes."
The operative word there is "preserves." The assumption is that we will have the confidence, wherewithal, vision, and wisdom to exclaim "yes!" when the right opportunities do come about. And saying yes, dear reader, let alone exclaiming it, can be terrifying.
I’m reminded, again, of the military doctrine of tactical patience. The wisdom of that approach is not about waiting in perpetuity, withering on the vine in hopes of some perfect condition to arise, but rather about analyzing a situation with clarity and readying yourself to respond when the moment for action arises.
No amount of preparation or preservation will do you a lick of dang good if you aren't actually ready to say yes when the moment comes.
No, Ryan. Yes, Ryan.
I thought of this yesterday as I stood on the stage providing introductory remarks for a panel on the future of higher education at The Union League Club of Chicago. Through a bizarre set of twists and turns, here I was welcoming guests to a session that included the Chancellor of the University of Illinois System, the President of Northwestern, and the President of the University of Chicago.
Without fail, I use stage time to try and (1) lighten up the mood, and (2) encourage folks to engage with the substance of the session as their authentic selves. To knock both birds off the pedestal (side note: why is that actual saying about killing birds? who is just going around looking for ways to maximize the number of birds they can kill with limited stones? I have concerns and question), I shared a personal anecdote about being rejected from U of I at 17, not anywhere confident enough to even have tried to apply to Northwestern or the University of Chicago.
The Chancellor for the Illinois system seemed like a good sport, so I figured I could take this a bit further, feigning a how-dare-you-reject-me posture for a minute, to which he responded with an embellished shrug that brought about a genuine laugh from the audience. The rest of the event went, if I may say so myself, quite well.
That college rejection was a “no” that shaped my life, though it wasn't as if I was the one with agency to have shut that door. Sometimes you get to slam the door; other times, it's slammed for you.
But what followed was a “yes” where I did have agency. Staff Sergeant Salas called and said the Marine Corps wanted me. "Okay," I said. Soon enough, I was off to war.
In so many words, this is what I shared from the stage: that rejection actually was not only correct on the part of U of I, but also correct in terms of what I needed at that point in my life. Now, some 20 years later, I'm in a handful of positions of influence where I'm able to share these types of remarks and, more importantly, to allocate my time and energy on this earth towards helping people think.
The "yes," in other words, was just as important as that "no." To consider one side of the coin without the other is to deprive yourself of the three-dimensionality that literally shapes our world.
When to Say Yes
In the early stages of the pandemic, I came across an article by historian Ada Palmer that helped me level-set and make some informed choices about my own work and life during that tumultuous era. She put forth a simple framework on how to decide what to do and not to do:
“Is this more worth doing than the thing I will have to give up to do it?”
I'm a sucker for an implementable framework, and this hits the mark. If the answer to the question is no, well, don't do it. If the answer is yes, then do it.
To be sure, you could drive yourself mad weighing every component of "worth," balancing the comparative value of one possibility over another, but therein lies the nuance of actually applying this principle to one's own life. That's the messy "good stuff" that we'd do well to unpack and explore as humans.
If caught between competing possibilities for the future, if you find yourself spinning as you consider the implications of decisively opting for one path over another, consider this framework.
Because life, in a very real sense, is about saying yes and the consequences and collateral effects of doing so. Sometimes you just gotta jump in.
Yes, please,
-Rye