Reasons to say “Yes”

n°20 Saying yes with blind trust in where it will lead you

Hello, my lovely readers,

I’m not a planner, but I gotta say, 2023 has not looked anything like I’d expected.

While it’s not ideal, it’s teaching me essential lessons in trust and adaptability. I’m chugging along and staying open, blindly trusting that one thing will lead me in a good direction.

If I really think about it, of all the things that can occur in life, we only really get the satisfaction of affirming whether it was “good” or “bad” a fraction of the time, and even then, it’s in the short-sighted definition of what we think we need at the moment.

How many of those occurrences do we fail to recognize at the moment as opportunities?

How many of those decisions are stepping stones that catapult us in a unique direction that we couldn’t have possibly manifested without it?

If I put on the hat of radical responsibility (while also holding the undeniable societal and economic institutions accountable for creating the contextual environment that shape my available options), I can easily trace back one or two steps for *most* of what I have in my life right now. Some of those choices go back months, some of them go back 20 years, some of them are lifetime habits that I have not bothered to change.

I realized that everything I have in my life is a string of events that led me here because I said ”yes“, again and again.

Here, you try. I’ll walk you through it.

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First, take a look around at everything that is present in your life right now. Can you trace back to the latest decision that brought them into physical form?

• Take your current job, for example. Where did you meet the person who referred you? ____ What caused you to apply for the position in the first place? ____ What made this job more desirable than another? ____

• How about your current home? How did it make you feel to see the listing? _____ Do you remember how it felt to walk through the space and imagine yourself waking up there? Hosting a dinner? Coming home? _____ What makes you stay? _____

• And your children… well, I think you get it. ;)

So you can probably identify the last decision that brought these things into form, right?

Now, if you keep following that thread, can you trace it back even further?

Who did you decide to break up with before you met the father of your children?

Which party, had you flaked out on, would you have not met the friend that referred you to the higher paying job that enabled you to afford the new apartment you live in now?

We are making decisions all day every day, not knowing where that decision will lead us. That’s the blind trust I’ve been playing with this year.

(I played with blind trust last year, too. I’ve been meaning to tell you all what it was like to take a 6-month creative sabbatical, but now I know why I haven’t yet. More to come in a future letter.)

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Reasons to say “yes”

Here are all the signals that have influenced my Yeses.

• My favorite and leading indicator: It feels good and easy to say yes. Like it landed in my lap, and the obvious and natural decision is clear. Ideally, all my Yeses would feel like gut clarity.

• Conversely, it doesn’t feel bad to say yes. There's simply an absence of negative feelings. Maybe it’s a pain reliever. Saying yes would be a step away from what I know I don’t want. It is different, better than what I have, and what I need right now.

• Why not? After assessing the tradeoffs, I can see that there was zero risk, or at least I can tolerate it temporarily, especially if it is a two-way decision (vs. a one-way decision that couldn’t be undone)

• There is a mystical factor, a supernatural or higher purpose that I can’t deny.

• My least favorite and one that I try to avoid entirely: Social pressure or “shoulds”. Fukkkk that.

• Opportunistic level-ups or perceived upward advancement (as it pertains to money and wealth building, because that is important to me)

• Purpose-aligned or at least directionally in-the-ballpark of my personal values and mission. This one usually plays a combined factor alongside all of the above strategies.

I think all of these strategies are valid considerations to a decision. I can see how I’ve leaned on some other strategies over others, and how some are old and ready to retire.

There are all kinds of reasons to say yes — what are your reasons?

I like this ecological triangulation that my partner learned from his business mentor:

In the context of business, ask yourself,

• Is this decision good for customers?

• Is it good for employees?

• Is it good for business?

Then it’s a Yes.

Comment below: What are some of your reasons for saying yes, when you don’t know where it will lead you?

In light,

Milan