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The YES Framework: How Children's Fearlessness Can Transform Your Decision Making

Turning childlike curiosity into adult success

Author

Parves Shahid
December 07, 2024

A child says YES 100 times before an adult says it once.

This isn't just about being young - it's about a decision-making superpower we've lost.

If you look under the hood, most successful innovators share a trait: they’re all in or all out. They dabble, experiment, or learn just enough to give a strong yes or an equally strong no.

But what’s sure is that they won’t say no because of fear.

Bezos: "If you double the number of experiments, you double your inventiveness"

Musk: "If things are not failing, you're not innovating"

Branson: "If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity and you're not sure you can do it, say yes"

It seems like these guys have rediscovered the child's YES mentality.

Or they never lost it in the first place.

This is what I think a YES Matrix looks like:

 The YES Matrix:

  1. Child's YES (Pure/Uninformed)

  2. Adult's NO (Experience/Fear)

  3. Innovator's YES (Informed/Brave)

This isn't just theory. Let's see how this plays out in real life:

Sara Blakely had no business experience, retail knowledge, or clothing background when she had the idea for Spanx. But instead of letting that stop her, she embraced the Innovator's YES. She taught herself how to design through YouTube videos at night.

When manufacturers said NO, she kept showing up until one said YES.

Ed Sheeran took a different path: he built his YES Portfolio one small step at a time. At 16, he moved to London with no backup plan. Said YES to playing 12 shows a night, most unpaid. YES to sleeping on the Circle Line train between gigs. YES to every open mic night.

Each small YES built momentum toward his bigger goal.

Both started with the fearlessness of a child's YES and faced the adult's NO (from others and themselves), but they found their way to the innovator's YES through different paths.

So, how do you get back the YES advantage? Here are options that work for me and that I think will also work for you.

  1. The 24-Hour YES Rule

    • Say YES first

    • Give yourself 24 hours to figure out how

    • Only then decide if you should say NO

  2. The Downside Calculation

    • Is the worst case truly terrible?

    • Is the potential upside worth the risk?

    • Can you recover if things go wrong?

  3. The YES Portfolio

    • Say YES to 10 small things monthly

    • Track which YES's led to opportunities

    • Build your YES confidence

People who master the YES mentality find opportunities others miss. They build broader skill sets through pure repetition, accelerating their learning and creating serendipity. It’s not a surprise they get “lucky” when an opportunity comes around.

What you should try this week:

  1. Say YES to one thing you'd normally decline

  2. Write down your fear (and does it matter?)

  3. Document what happens

This will give you superb insights into what’s holding you back

Because sometimes the biggest risks aren't in saying YES - they're in defaulting to NO.

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