Shonda Rhimes

And I realized that I would have missed out on this sort of once in a lifetime, insanely amazing event because I was too scared to say yes to stuff.

It really struck me as I am harming myself.

What's the very first yes you said yes to?

The very first yes I said yes to was speaking at our alma mater.

They called me and asked me to give a commencement speech at Dartmouth College.

And you're a 90, I'm a 91.

And I said, yes, I would do it.

And I only said yes because I had just made this rule for myself.

And tell the person listening, what is the rule?

The rule was, is that I was going to say yes to everything that scared me for one year.

And that seemed very terrifying, but it was also six months away.

So I could say yes to it and sort of put it in a closet and say, I said yes to something.

And then I'm starting, they start to ask me other things like,

Jimmy Kimmel wanted me to do a live tape, a live episode with them.

And I just, that sounded insane to me.

There's no reason I should be on television for any reason.

I was really traumatized by the idea that I would do this, but I finally said yes.

And they did it.

They taped it.

So it was not live, live.