A “Yes” Warrior

Look­ing at life in the most sim­plis­tic way, it boils down to choic­es to which the answer is Yes or No; two mono­syl­lab­ic words decid­ing your fate. Yes to some things, No to oth­ers. But main­tain­ing bal­ance between the two does not nec­es­sar­i­ly mean a 50–50 split. Achiev­ing har­mo­ny and equi­lib­ri­um in life depends more on the qual­i­ty of Yes. It is the courage, deter­mi­na­tion, and pas­sion behind each Yes that will cre­ate the full­ness of life we all desire. Invite true pas­sion into your life. Invite suc­cess. Invite new expe­ri­ences and open new doors.  I invite you to become a Yes Warrior.

I recent­ly came across the quote: 

“If some­one offers you an amaz­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty to do some­thing and you’re not sure you can do it, say yes. Then learn how to do it later.” 

— Richard Branson

In this quote, Branson’s bold and vig­or­ous Yes man­i­fests a readi­ness to accept the unex­pect­ed and explore the unknown. Too often we hide behind a No that keeps us in our com­fort zone or is based on fear of out­come: what if we fail? Wrapped in a com­fort­able blan­ket of No’s, we can­not avail our­selves of the mirac­u­lous chances and bril­liant oppor­tu­ni­ties that may lie before us. 

Imag­ine an idea, some­thing that ignites your fire within–you see it with your heart and it gen­er­ates pas­sion. You feel you should pro­ceed, fol­low the flow, strive for the bliss; it feels good inside. But often the same idea scanned by your rea­son and a cal­cu­lat­ed brain leaves you unsure, and you find your­self set­tling with a cau­tion­ary No.   

Each day we should be learn­ing to say Yes! This should by no means define you as a “yes per­son” who agrees to do things only to please oth­ers. As Paulo Coel­ho put it suc­cinct­ly, “When you say Yes to oth­ers, make sure you are not say­ing No to your­self.” The Yes I am refer­ring to often means No to oth­ers. Do not always agree to what oth­ers expect or demand from you. Give your­self per­mis­sion to say Yes to what you want to cre­ate for your­self. This kind of Yes opens the doors of per­cep­tion; this Yes is the blank can­vas on which you will paint the wild col­ors of courage, con­fi­dence and yearn­ing to do things you want and desire. 

Here are some incen­tives to say Yes and to become a Yes War­rior:  

Yes opens the door of opportunity

Con­sid­er times when you know you need to do some­thing such as change your job, begin an exer­cise reg­i­men, look for a part­ner, a new place to live, or vis­it a dis­tant land. How­ev­er, when the oppor­tu­ni­ty sud­den­ly appears you find your­self say­ing, “No, I’m not ready” or “It’s not the right time.”

I con­tend there is no such thing as per­fect tim­ing and there will always be an obsta­cle or two. You need not wait for some­one to give you per­mis­sion, for your kids to get old­er, for more time or mon­ey, or for ___________ (you fill in the blank). You can say Yes even when you are not feel­ing ready. You can trust that there is a big­ger plan for you and that things will fall into place as you go along. 

Yes attracts Yes

A sim­ple Law of Attrac­tion: when you say Yes, you show the world “I’ve got this!” “Fake it till you make it” or, as Har­vard pro­fes­sor and best-sell­ing author Amy Cud­dy put it, “Fake it till you become it. Do it enough until you actu­al­ly become it and internalize.”

You prob­a­bly have already done this in your life. Per­haps it was your first job where you did not entire­ly know what you were doing, but you learned as you went. Maybe it was while vol­un­teer­ing in a hos­pi­tal where you were faced with a new chal­lenge of help­ing less for­tu­nate ones. Per­chance it was hav­ing chil­dren. There are no schools that teach us how to raise chil­dren, how to hold them, sooth them when they cry, or love them. You did those things because you said Yes and you learned as you went. You faked it till you made it.

Yes to a vote of confidence  

Being pre­sent­ed with a project or a chal­lenge by anoth­er means they believe in you. They trust you are able to accom­plish the task. It’s a gift of faith in your abil­i­ties, shows a con­vic­tion that you can do it, and an appre­ci­a­tion of you as one will­ing to help.

Yes strengthens your intuition

As you exam­ine any deci­sion, sit­u­a­tion, project, or chal­lenge before you, try sit­ting qui­et­ly to let your intu­ition guide you. Your inner voice is the Sage with­in you, often referred to as a “gut feel­ing.” It is instinc­tive and will guide you in know­ing what is right for you or not. Let it sit, like a seed in the ground; see if the roots take hold; become aware of how it makes you feel. When it spreads a sen­sa­tion all over your body that awak­ens your sens­es and you feel ener­gized by it, leap with all your might like a crick­et from one leaf to anoth­er, enjoy­ing the spring of a jump and not look­ing at the abyss below. 

Yes helps overcome fear of failure

With a Yes you take a risk of a fail­ure. That sce­nario, how­ev­er, should not pre­vent you from accept­ing a chal­lenge. The sto­ries of famous peo­ple most often are not devoid of fail­ure. It was their per­se­ver­ance and per­sis­tence despite the rejec­tion and failed attempts that helped them become suc­cess­ful. When­ev­er you are afraid of fail­ure, know that dri­ve and strength will car­ry you through to pur­sue your dream. Keep in mind some of the sto­ries pre­sent­ed below; let them serve as your cheer­leader and a pos­i­tive ener­gy to help you attain your goal. 

At the age of 22, Walt Dis­ney was fired from a news­pa­per for “not being cre­ative enough.” One of his ear­ly stu­dios went bank­rupt, but the cre­ator of Mick­ey Mouse went on to be nom­i­nat­ed for 59 Acad­e­my Awards and still holds the most Oscars won by an individual. 

Steve Jobs, was a col­lege dropout, quit jobs, trav­eled, and then used his expe­ri­ences to cre­ate an amaz­ing icon­ic tech­nol­o­gy company. 

When “The Bea­t­les” first audi­tioned in 1962, Dec­ca Records reject­ed them say­ing, “we don’t like their sound, and gui­tar music is on the way out.” The Bea­t­les signed with EMI and are one of the best-sell­ing groups of all time! 

Oprah’s TV show, accord­ing to CNN, became the high­est rank­ing show in Amer­i­can his­to­ry. Oprah’s first boss told her she was too emo­tion­al and not right for TV, but by 2011 she was the best paid woman in enter­tain­ment and the only black female self-made billionaire. 

There are count­less sto­ries like this; think of them when­ev­er you are afraid of failure.

Yes to one opportunity multiplies possibilities

By say­ing Yes you are unblock­ing and being open. You become a mag­net for new expe­ri­ences and learn­ing, and an untapped abun­dance of oppor­tu­ni­ty. When I first came to the US, I did not know any­body here. I stayed with Rita and her three boys ages 6, 8, 10 in Wash­ing­ton DC  assist­ing her (a sin­gle Mom) by walk­ing the kids to school, help­ing with home­work, read­ing bed­time sto­ries and per­form­ing every­day chores. Since my respon­si­bil­i­ties only took a few hours, I filled my days to the brim as I said Yes to attend­ing class­es at George­town and Amer­i­can Uni­ver­si­ties, Yes to teach­ing Eng­lish as a For­eign Lan­guage at the Lado Insti­tute, Yes to work­ing as a kinder­garten teacher, and Yes to being an inter­preter. I did not focus on obsta­cles, rather on open­ings, and each oppor­tu­ni­ty I embraced attract­ed another. 

I know those expe­ri­ences led me to where I am today. They allowed me to come in con­tact with peo­ple who lat­er offered me more pos­si­bil­i­ties to which I said Yes. Por­tals opened to new chal­lenges, projects, rela­tion­ships, and places. As the oppor­tu­ni­ties mul­ti­plied I was able to choose which ones to devel­op. Today I feel immense grat­i­tude for all those serendip­i­tous moments, all the pos­si­bil­i­ties real­ized, and all the sub­se­quent friend­ships cul­ti­vat­ed. All of this has made my life rich­er, more vibrant, a kalei­do­scope of chances with infi­nite pat­terns of beau­ty, chal­lenges and experiences. 

“Fol­low your bliss.
If you do fol­low your bliss,
you put your­self on a kind of track
that has been there all the while wait­ing for you,
and the life you ought to be living
is the one you are living.
When you can see that,
you begin to meet people
who are in the field of your bliss,
and they open the doors to you.
I say, fol­low your bliss and don’t be afraid,
and doors will open
where you did­n’t know they were going to be.
If you fol­low your bliss,
doors will open for you that would­n’t have opened for any­one else.” 

— Joseph Campbell

When I first came to this land of oppor­tu­ni­ty, I met a woman named Sal­ly. She had the most con­ta­gious laugh­ter and a com­pas­sion­ate heart. She lived with her hus­band, two sons, and cousin in a house on Stat­en Island, NY. Their home was filled with love and a nev­er-end­ing stream of inter­na­tion­al stu­dents. Sal­ly said Yes to it all, to chal­lenges, to host­ing stu­dents from Spain and Poland, to help­ing their fam­i­ly from Italy. She told her boys and her friends that they can be any­thing they desire. She encour­aged every­body to be lov­ing, kind and lim­it­less. One day a friend who recent­ly lost his young wife to can­cer asked this infec­tious­ly hap­py lady: “Why? Why did it hap­pen to me?” She replied with a gen­tle smile, “For every why, there is a why not.” At that time I did­n’t quite com­pre­hend what Sal­ly meant as she spoke to this grief strick­en man. Now I real­ize what she meant was say­ing Yes to life includes say­ing Yes to parts of life—situations, unpre­dictable dif­fi­cul­ties, sick­ness or death–that might not be things we like, that serve us sor­row, pain or loss.

This is beau­ti­ful­ly summed up in the fol­low­ing quote:   

“The warrior’s approach is to say ‘yes’ to life: say ‘yea’ to it all. Par­tic­i­pate joy­ful­ly in the sor­rows of the world. We can­not cure the world of sor­rows, but we can choose to live in joy. When we talk about set­tling the world’s prob­lems, we’re bark­ing up the wrong tree. The world is per­fect. It’s a mess. It has always been a mess. We are not going to change it. Our job is to straight­en out our own lives.”

— Joseph Camp­bell in a Joseph Camp­bell Com­pan­ion: Reflec­tions on the Art of Living

Accord­ing to Rick Han­son, Ph.D., “Your ‘yes’ means that you accept the facts as they are, that you are not resist­ing them emo­tion­al­ly, even if you are try­ing with all your might to change them. This will usu­al­ly bring some peace, and will help any actions you take to be more effective.”

Being a Yes War­rior, is say­ing Yes to life with all its chal­lenges, twists and turns, and bumpy roads.  It is an approach that embraces all and knows the unex­pect­ed is inevitable.  At the moment life is hap­pen­ing you may not know why, but know it will lead you to the unfor­get­table vis­tas, aware­ness and feel­ings that will enrich you. The advan­tages of say­ing Yes are enor­mous. Real­ize that and become a War­rior with an armor made of Yes’s. Say Yes to being alive, say Yes to your own life, to each day and each moment. Yes.