Are You Infected With "Yeah-But"
Every year, millions of creative people encounter others (creative or not) afflicted with "Yeah, but." It's a virus that spreads from person to person. It's infected corporate environments. It's infected creative environments. It's even infected mommies and daddies at home. Yeah-but. Your best protection from acquiring yeah-but-edness is to distance yourself from those infected; family, friends, co-workers.
Be careful! People with Yeah-But will sometimes hide behind the mask of being realists (as if that's any better.) It's another limiting facade; so limiting, in fact, that it will sometimes kill the initial spark of your creative genius; an abortion of your ideas before those ideas have had the chance to come to full term and flourish.
At other times, you might be approached by Yeah-But people looking for advice. Looking for the answer to what ails them. Don't fall for it. Mid-sentence or, if you're lucky, mid-presentation, you will begin to hear the telltale signs of their affliction, "Yeah, but..."
No one goes to a concert and yells, "Yeah!!!!! Buuuuuut!!!"
Stop it! Try to notice if you've been infected. Listen for the words "Yeah, but" coming out of your mouth. Then take action to eliminate that phrase from your vocabulary. It will make for a much better performance! Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
-Anthony
P.S. The picture is of a Mariachi band playing "La Bamba" at my daughter's school for a Hispanic Heritage Month assembly. I'm sure that when Ritchie Valens wanted to record "La Bamba" he had to overcome "Yeah, but it's in Spanish" (or some other form of "yeah, but." I'm glad he did.)
