"Yes, and let's..."

     Often our first reaction to new situations, people, and concepts is a big knee-jerk, "No!"  In the drama portion of my graduate course, David Young taught us a very useful life tool. My goal is to practice this in my daily life and especially in my profession.  The idea is to train yourself to automatically respond with a yes to anything life hands you, and then simply adjust to it by adding the and let's so that it works in your life. For example, my teacher said to me, "Why, don't you drive us in L.A.?"  I responded, "Yes, and let's make sure I have a really good co-pilot!"  I mean, I can still say no anytime I wish, but how fantastic to respond first with a genuine openness and willingness to hop out of our comfort zone and just go for it, whatever it is!