In this motivational monologue, the host introduces the “Yes, And Challenge” for the week of February 15th, using an anecdote about Brené Brown’s preparation to meet Oprah. Brown’s publicist warned her she wasn’t fully present, prompting her to realize she was observing life behind an emotional guard. While writing a permission slip for her daughter’s field trip, she recognized she needed a personal permission slip to allow herself to be present, vulnerable, and joyful during the Oprah interview. Since then, Brown and her team write permission slips before meetings to grant themselves permission to be fully engaged. The host translates this practice into a weekly challenge: each day participants write a permission slip granting themselves permission to feel fear, excitement, uncertainty, or any emotion, encouraging authentic presence instead of self‑protection. Listeners are asked to try the practice, share feedback, and have an “awesome Yes, And” week.
Chapters
Hello everyone. Here is your Yes And Challenge for the week of February 15th, midway through the month of February. It is cooking along as always. And so this past week, I got the opportunity to sort of sit in on a live event interview with Brené Brown. And if you haven't had a chance to read any of Brené's books, see her videos, she's got a great special on Netflix. I highly recommend it. And she's really kind of one of the top speakers in the world of leadership and authenticity and vulnerability and courage. And everything that she shares is really powerful. And she was sharing an example during this interview that she was talking about before she was getting ready to meet Oprah for the first time and be interviewed by Oprah. You can imagine this is kind of a big seminal moment for somebody. She was talking to her publicist and her publicist said, hey, something's wrong right now. You don't feel like you're really here and I need you to be here. You're meeting with Oprah tomorrow. You need to be in this present moment. She did some self-reflection and realized that she just wasn't feeling very present in her life at that moment. She felt like she was observing everything but not really present with it. Kind of as an armor, a guard, she was protecting herself From being fully present, which again makes us fully vulnerable. We talked about that last week. And so she shared that her daughter was asking her, hey, Mom, you need to sign a permission slip for me for a field trip. And so, you know, she was trying to do this and Oprah's tomorrow. And as she was writing this permission slip, it hit her. A permission slip. I need to write myself a permission slip to be present and just enjoy This moment, enjoy this experience of being with Oprah. And so she sat down and wrote herself a permission slip to be vulnerable, to be silly, to be in awe, to feel joy of this accomplishment, right? Instead of being guarded against it. So often we guard ourselves against great things because the vulnerability is too much to deal with. And so ever since that experience, she, with her team, now writes permission slips Each meeting, they give themselves permission to be fully engaged, be fully vulnerable and present in the meeting so that they can be vulnerable and get to some deeper things. So that is your yes and challenge for this week is each day I want you to write yourself a permission slip, a permission slip to feel afraid, a permission slip to be excited, a permission slip to feel Unsure. I want you to give yourself permission this week to be truly present in your experience, whether that's vulnerability, excitement, fear. But give yourself permission instead of trying to protect ourselves or distract ourselves away from what we're actually feeling. So give that a shot this week. Give me any feedback. See how it goes. And have an awesome Yes, And week, everyone.
