In this brief motivational segment titled “Moment of Yes” recorded on April 5, the speaker reflects on his participation in a school career fair conducted via Zoom. He recounts delivering three talks to different student groups and uses the preparation moment to tally the over forty distinct jobs, internships, freelance gigs, and volunteer roles he has held since college. The central claim is that every experience—whether paid, unpaid, enjoyable, or not—carries intrinsic value, often teaching us what we don’t want and clarifying what we do want. He urges listeners to pause, recognize the worth in their current personal or professional situations, and extract a positive lesson, framing this reflection as their own “Moment of Yes.” The talk concludes with a friendly sign‑off.
Chapters
Good morning, everyone. Here is your Moment of Yes for Monday, April 5th. We are back on schedule. We are back on the Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule. So here we go. Your Moment of Yes for today is inspired by— on Friday, I was a part of the career fair for the school that Trinity goes to, the boarding school in St. Louis that Trinity goes to. And Some of the people were in person. Obviously, I was in St.— I was not in St. Louis, so, so I Zoomed in the career fair. So I did 3 different talks to 3 different groups of students, about 20 minutes each, and just to kind of share the work that I'm up to and, and just the journey and things like that, because it's probably, you know, a little unconventional compared to some other people's paths. And I think most of us have had unconventional paths. But so I was just kind of sharing and wanting to share some ideas that might be helpful, or, or at least a different perspective for the students. And as I was sitting down preparing what I wanted to say, I was thinking about like, how many different jobs have I had since college? And so that criteria, I'm counting full-time jobs, part-time jobs, freelance work, And volunteer opportunities, volunteer work—not just say I volunteered to go pick up trash, but like volunteer work. And when it was all said and done, it's funny—I've even thought of more since then. It's been like forty plus different kinds of jobs or opportunities from unpaid work again, from unpaid work to volunteer work to part-time work, freelance work, and full-time work. And when I say like forty plus, I don't mean like oh, like as Livia Sand. I spoke to this company and then that company, that's 2. So, that's not— I'm not talking about clients that I've worked with, but just different kinds of opportunities, which is crazy as I think about it. But the thing that I take from that more than anything is that everything has value. Every experience we go through has value, even if we don't like the experience. That experience has value. And so, maybe we— and sometimes experiences teach us more of what we don't want So that we learn and are more clear on what we do want. And so even right now, some of us are going through experiences or having to do things that maybe we're not necessarily enjoying or inspired by, but there is still value in that experience. And so my question for you today is your moment of yes, is to just reflect on what you're going through right now. Excuse me. Whether it's work, whether it's something personal, something professional, whatever it is, and just instead of wanting to move past the experience, appreciating that there is value in every experience. And so what value can you take from the experience that you're having today? That's your moment of yes. Hopefully there's some helpful there. Helpful. Oh, here's Mako. Have a great day, everybody.
