…at a high table dinner at Trinity College in Dublin
…taking a shower in the VIP dressing room at Red Rocks
…standing at the mountain command control center for a wildfire
…interviewing a Tribal police officer on a deck overlooking Tulalip Bay…

and all I could think was, “How did I get here?”

I’ll tell you how.

By saying yes to opportunities as they showed up, no matter how outlandish or ludicrous or out-of-character for me they may have seemed. I said yes to the Irish guy I met at a bar when he asked me to come visit. I said yes to the backstage offer (and then got a beer dumped on my head). I said yes to becoming the mayor of a small mountain town. And I said yes when a talented, hard-working group of Creatives asked me to join them in a late-career adventure. 

Saying yes unleashes potential adventures we cannot even conceive of when we’re considering the question. For me, it’s the only approach to creative and strategy that’s ever really paid off. People like to talk about innovation this and bleeding-edge that, but whether it’s selling technology, convincing people that they can make good decisions when it comes to their personal health, or fostering connection among youth so they have way more of a fighting chance at full lives, it’s saying yes that makes all the difference.

And it’s not that every crazy idea is worth pursuing. That’s absolutely not the case. But every crazy idea has within it at least one germ of a different crazy idea that will work. That is aligned with a solid strategy. That will speak to people’s hearts and move whatever needle it is that needs to be moved. Sometimes those needles are blade servers and quite honestly, that’s all good. But sometimes those needles do actually save lives, and that’s when the risk of saying yes pays off in much more than after-dinner cigars and fluffy purple VIP dressing room towels.