The three letter word that will dramatically improve your day

If you are a listener and you have a question on your mind, I would love to hear from you. I'm going to be doing a few shows where I'm experimenting with a new format where I will be answering listener questions, so email them over to me at Amantha at inventium dot com. Do are you and my email is always in the show notes as well. I would love to hear from you and what is on your mind.

And as always, if you're enjoying How I Work, and if you enjoy this episode, I would love it if you could share it with someone that would also get something valuable from it. And thank you to everyone that has done that. It's one of the reasons that the show has grown in the way that it has, so thank you all right on with today's show. So a couple of weekends ago, I celebrated in inverted commerce my

birthday in Stage four lockdown in Melbourne. I had barely given my birthday any thought this year, because really, the options for what us Melburnians can do right now are a little bit limited. However, I did spend a small amount of time thinking about what I could do to make an ISO birthday suck just a little bit less. So my six and a half year old daughter, Frankie, was with me for the weekend, so we had a

chat about it. On Birthday Eve. I suggested to Frankie that she might like to be my slave for the day, which is very politically incorrect, I know, but not a completely unreasonable idea given that the reverse plays out every other day now. Frankie pointed out some flaws to this idea, such as she doesn't know how to cook, load the dishwasher,

make coffee, and so on, so we kept thinking. So. One of the things that can make parenting, especially single parenting, exhausting is the amount of times you have to say no during the day. Can I play on my iPad. Mum, No, can I ride my bike? We're in your jumper that happens to be really expensive and made out of a very delicate cotton silk mix. No can I play with this entire pack of blue tack and get it all

over the carpet and my hair? No? Every no comes with a feeling of frustration and annoyance for both of us. So I thought to myself, what if my birthday became the day of yes? What if for any request Frankie asked of me, I simply said yes, I ran this by, and she reacted as excitedly as if it were her birthday tomorrow, not mine. I pointed out that this rule should probably cut both ways. Any request I made of her would also have to result in yes. We pinky

promised on this plan. I think Frankie, to be honest, was more excited about it being the day of yes, but an at home birthday celebration day when she went to sleep that night. The day started smoothly enough, with Frankie presenting me with the home made birthday present of a tiny felt purse that had been stapled together, completely non functional, but obviously one of the best presents I've ever received. I also received a jar of fairy dust, but I'm yet to verify whether it actually works. We

then went downstairs to have breakfast. Can I use the iPad? Mum? We have very strict screen time rules in my household. Normally, if she's lucky, Frankie will get twenty minutes of iPad time on the weekend. But being the day of yeah, yes, I of course said yes. Frankie decided she needed a lockable notebook, so she googled how to make one on YouTube.

Then she asked, Mom, can we make this? Yes? I replied, thinking this might be the first YouTube craft project I've completed with my daughter in her six years on this planet. I asked Frankie to collect all the materials, to which she helpfully did because the answer was always yes. We then made a notebook that was lockable with some pipe

cleaner and actually looked pretty cool. At eleven AM, after Frankie had been playing with Lego and was being relatively self entertaining, she asked me whether it was TV time. One of the rules in my house is that no TV happens before four pm, so I replied not yet. Then Frankie remembered the rules of the day and phrased the question in a different way. Mum, can I watch TV? Yes, I said, as a part of me died inside. The

day progressed smooth and conflict free. Yes, more TV was watched than normal, but Frankie self regulated her behavior to avoid turning into a catch potato. During the day of Yes, we danced, we built lots of lego creations, and baked muffins. It was an awesome day. Having said that, when Frankie was up an hour past her usual bedtime constructing a highly complex fort in her bedroom to sleep in, I

deeply wished for the day of Yes to end. The next morning, Frankie asked me, yesterday also a day of Yes? I sadly informed her that it was not, But it did get me thinking about how much better our lives could be if every day became a day of yes. It actually reminded me of an interview I did for How I Work with Paul Migliarini, who at the time headed up Amazon Web Services for Australia and New Zealand.

Paul explained to me that what they think at Amazon, particularly for people leaders, is that they tried to think of their role as a way to find an answer that is yes. So essentially to find a way to say yes. Many managers go into a lot of meetings and think that it's their job to say no. But what Paul said is that his job is, if someone's given him a proposal, is to try to work out

how to get it to yes. So we're so used to saying no right now, and if you're in Melbourne, you're probably used to the government saying no to everything too. But perhaps where you do have some control, see if you can find a way to say yes. I guarantee you'll create a very different type of day for yourself and those around you. And finally, as a special little treat, I spoke to Frankie about the Day of Yes a mini interview if you like. So let's hear a quick

bit from Frankie about the Day of Yes. Okay, so, Frankie, can you tell me what this podcast episode is about.

Or no, yes, what was What was the best thing about the day of yet?

my face. There are some lovely reviews that people have written, so thank you so much if you've done that, or if you plan to do so today. So that is it for today and I will see you next time.