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5 Lessons From Shonda Rhimes’ New Book ‘Year of Yes’
“You never say yes to anything.”
Who would think that statement would apply to Shonda Rhimes? She’s ABC’s queen of television owning everyone’s Thursday nights with her three hit shows:Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder. Still, those six life-altering words were used to describe Rhimes by the person who knows her best: her older sister Delores.
The conversation happened during Thanksgiving about 18 months ago when Rhimes was telling Delores about all of the amazing invitations Rhimes was getting. Delores basically replied, Who cares? You’re just going to say ‘no,’ anyway.
The words stung Rhimes because they were true. Her debilitating social anxiety and her unhappiness with her weight caused her to say ‘no’ to many amazing opportunities outside of her comfort zone—which was basically any place where the characters were real people and she wasn’t writing the script.
Though, in many ways, her life was beyond her wildest dreams–with her successful TV shows and her 3 daughters–it was also making her miserable.
Enter the Year of Yes. Her first book (out now from Simon & Schuster) details how her entire life changed when she committed to saying “yes” to everything for one year.
That may sound really easy to do when you’re a mega-millionaire and the things you’re saying ‘yes’ to are sharing a box at the Kennedy Center Honors with President Obama and the First Lady, posing for magazine covers and getting a book deal to write about it all. Who wouldn’t say yes to that?
Rhimes will be the first to tell you that money, power and accolades do not equal self-love and acceptance. Her reason behind saying ‘no’ to things that scared her is what makes her funny, witty, sometimes heartbreaking memoir incredibly human and relatable, irrespective of your stature in life. She simply didn’t know she was worthy of yes.
She separates herself from her achievements and learns to show love and compassion to herself simply for who she is as a person. Before, her “yes year”, she was just successful. Now, she is flourishing.
In her memoir, Rhimes lives up to her promise to show the world “How to Dance It Out, Stand in the Sun and Be Your Own Person.”
Top 5 lessons from Rhimes’ Year of Yes
1) Say ‘Yes’ to Using Your Voice
Rhimes confesses to hiding her voice in her Grey’s Anatomy character Cristina Yang, allowing Yang to say all the things she wasn’t brave enough to say in the real world. But when Rhimes accepted that the real world could benefit from hearing her actual voice — that she could stand up and speak out on important issues and actually affect change — she swallowed her fears, wiped off her sweaty palms and began to speak.
Being Rhimes-level successful isn’t a prerequisite for using your voice. The single qualifier is that you’re a person on earth. You inherently matter and so does your experience. Whether it’s on a stage or through your Twitter feed, you have the power to impact your corner of the world for the better by swallowing your fear, standing up for what’s right and speaking out in love. You never know how your voice can change a person’s life.