Year of the Proactive Yes
[Music]
[Applause]
yes
say it with me yes
how does that feel empowering
uncomfortable does it feel strange to
say yes when you’re not sure what you’re
saying yes to
a year ago i had this distinct feeling
that i should be saying yes
more as emil said
i’m a performer i’m a teacher i’ve had a
long career
and a successful career i’ve said yes a
lot
but last year at this time i was getting
a lot of
those questions you probably know the
ones
have you ever thought about directing
have you considered composing
don’t you think you’d be pretty good at
writing would you ever think about
starting your own company yes of course
i had thought
about directing composing writing
starting my own company
but i hadn’t pursued them but now i’m
getting all of these questions and it’s
making me wonder
so i decide the next 12 months
are going to be my year of the proactive
yes
why proactive well i wasn’t just going
to say yes
to opportunities if they presented
themselves i was actually going to
seek out and invite the invitations i
was actually
daring the universe to challenge me
not to be reckless but to be brave
of course i thought that those
challenges would come within my field
two weeks later my year of the proactive
yes was off and
running i had already said yes to
directing a show
it was mounting in four months so no
time to lose
auditions band cast crew
design dramaturgy schedule rehearsals on
and on and on
so many new yeses it was
empowering and uncomfortable
but this was my year of the proactive
yes a couple months
in i needed an emotive alexa voice for
the show and i couldn’t find anybody to
do the coding for me so a friend said
well you’re smart you could figure out
how to code that couldn’t you
okay i have never actually had a
computer class in my entire life so
did i think i could code uh no
did i code yes
three days later somehow i had figured
out
how to create this voice it was amazing
i thought this is surely what my year is
all about this project is a huge
bundle of yes
one week before opening covet hit
my university shut down and so did the
show
so did my theater industry so did my
church services
places where i had sung every week for
years were no longer meeting okay no no
no
no no no this is not the way this is
supposed to go right this is my year of
the proactive yes
these were my avenues for yes what am i
gonna do now
like most people i was pretty defeated
feeling a little discouraged
well with all my students at home
i shifted my teaching to online as we
all did
probably many of us hadn’t done it
before but we had to learn right
yes i missed singing in church
so i started singing hymns on facebook i
called it the pandemic hymn sing
i would arrange my own tunes and
somebody said to me i didn’t know you
composed
oh yes
this was my new track i kept it up
until may 26th
i woke up to the news of george floyd
and my neighborhood
imploded i live in minneapolis
on lake street three blocks from the
third police precinct
above an aldi i watched the protests
and then the riots looting and fires
surround my building i did not sleep for
three days
but i was not going to leave so
i stopped streaming songs and i started
streaming
the unrest
one more yes by the wayside
friday may 29th i get a call from mother
jones magazine
we’ve seen your videos online could you
do an interview
yes
the next day in order to save our
building from looting
one of my neighbors has the idea to go
downstairs and paint positive messages
on the plywood covering our aldi windows
he says can you get the word out i say
yes i hop onto social media i say come
join us painting for peace i grab my art
supplies and run downstairs
people are already stopping to watch can
i paint
yes grab a brush can i paint yes
come on in a third a fourth a fifth yes
yes yes people were coming
we were getting everyone to paint i was
stopping the bicyclists
i can get anyone to paint
i get a phone call from mother jones
magazine
we loved your interview can we publish
it as a national article
yes back to painting
more people come more people come i’d
love to bring my sister will you be out
here tomorrow
yes no
the day we started they shut us down
we thought we had permission they
thought we didn’t
one more yes pulled off the rails
the next day i find out that one of my
neighbors has this idea to raise some
funds to bring a food truck into the
neighborhood
and i say well i’ve got some contacts in
that industry
he says oh do you want to handle that
yes
so the following morning on monday i’m
downstairs looking for a place in our
parking lot
for the food truck and i happened to
meet david wellington
of wellington management who built
and owns aldi foods and the entire
surrounding highlake shopping center
he’s seen the art on the aldi windows he
loves it
i say yeah we got shut down
he says
you tell whoever shut you down that you
have my permission to paint on
any of the plywood on this entire city
block
and if he has a problem with it he can
talk to me
yes i thank david
and i tell him about the food truck
we’ve got coming in he says well maybe
wellington can partner with you
uh yes meanwhile i have two emails
waiting for me upstairs
one from a stranger who has seen paint
our piece on facebook
she says could you use any volunteers
yes the second from the editor of
inspire magazine
a local quarterly could you write an
article for our fall issue
about your neighborhood and your
initiatives
yes next
day my church says should we do a
donation drive for highlake initiatives
yes another church calls me the same day
from florida
to say we watched your pandemic him sing
and we kept following your other streams
would you be willing
to record a song for us in florida as a
prayer for peace
for our nation we’d love you to sing let
there be peace on earth and let it begin
with me oh yes
i recorded the song outside in front of
the burned out high lake shopping center
with blackhawks flying overhead and the
paint our piece murals behind me
it was very cool when i came in that
night my neighbors said was that you we
heard singing outside
yes the next day was our food truck
initiative
so we made signs we pulled people off
the street we had music we danced we
said
anybody who can please pay it forward
those of you who can’t please come
enjoy a meal on us
150 people showed up to eat
can we really have this for free
yes people talked
people shared they grieved they
processed
they laughed they thanked us
in those three hours people shared more
than a meal they shared community
it was beautiful
so we still have money in the kitty
should we do another one
yes two days later i get a call
from the owner of a building a half mile
away the coliseum it has also burned
she has seen paint our piece and wonders
would i facilitate a paint
on their plywood yes
while we’re out painting these days
other business
owners come up and say would you paint
on our plywood
yes great do you have a website
june 10th we have three facebook pages
high lake initiatives common table south
and paint our peace by the end of the
month
800 community members of all ages
and skin colors have painted over 5
000 square feet of art with five written
languages
39 volunteers have offered their time
two truckloads of supplies
have been dropped off three professional
photographers have documented the art
and our facebook and instagram pages
have a lot of likes yes
meanwhile the food truck initiative is
still going on
i’m bringing in about a truck a week and
every week people ask will you be out
here again next week
if we can get the donations yes
service organizations say can we set up
on site with you
yes what if we got peace coffee here as
the weather gets colder
yes to date
common table south has hosted 23 lunches
served 2 500 pesos meals
and driven 25 000 of revenue
to a diverse variety of our small
local businesses and when i’m asked if
we’ll keep going into the winter my
answer is if i have
anything to say about it yes
and remember inspire magazine
they published my article along with a
four-page
full-color photo spread and
they asked me to write again for their
spring issue
note cards and face masks are being
printed
with our art to raise money to roll back
into the community
we have 75 boards in storage
ready for future display or auction and
as many boards are still
up on those buildings reminding people
every day
that when there was destruction our
neighborhood came together
to build each other up and when we were
in despair
we came together to give each other hope
and since i’ve been asked high lake
initiatives is looking into becoming
a non-profit as we continue to partner
with new organizations
and come up come up with new ideas
to build our community
i did say that i was willing to start a
company didn’t i
yes now
if high lake initiatives never does
anything else
if that musical never gets mounted if i
never sing another hymn
if none of that art gets seen this year
has been an incredible success
because it has been
a lot of yes
and that was my year
that was my challenge that was my
word whether it was empowering or
uncomfortable i stuck with it
because i chose it
so my question to you is
what word will you choose
and whatever that is stick with it
commit to your chosen challenge find out
what’s on the far
end it may surprise you
for me 11 months
into my year i got an email asking if i
would be a speaker
at a tedx conference at minnetonka high
school
on the anniversary of choosing my word
my answer
thank you