High on “yes,”’ Rhimes commits to slaying her fiercest demon: Her weight. “I feel no remorse dumping my purse and coat on the floor just as I’m walking out the door to head to the office when I hear those two magic words - wanna play?” Canon” - to always say “yes” when any of her children asked her to play. She makes a rule - “more than a rule, a law. She says yes to Jimmy Kimmel and to Mindy Kaling. A mere mortal with the stay-at-home blues might push herself to invite a friend over to watch TV Rhimes pushes herself to appear on TV. “I would look ahead, take a deep breath and … believe that there was more.” Rhimes did indeed have a lot: three hit shows, three daughters - a single mother, she adopted the first two and had the third via gestational surrogacy - and an $8.8-million 8,000-square-foot gated estate in Hancock Park. Because … this could not possibly be what having it all was supposed to feel like.” “The Year of Yes was … a binding contract between me and my greatest competitor and judge - me,” she writes. Rhimes’ self-help prescription? She’d spend the next year saying yes to everything that scared her. When the dust settles and everything is clear, I am left with one thought rattling through my head.

Yes.All of this changed on Thanksgiving Day 2013, when Rhimes’ sister commented, “You never say yes to anything.” The book chronicles her life after her Year of Yes had begun-when Shonda forced herself out of the house and onto the stage when she learned to explore, empower, applaud, and love her truest self. This poignant, intimate, and hilarious memoir explores Shonda’s life before her Year of Yes-from her nerdy, book-loving childhood to her devotion to creating television characters who reflected the world she saw around her.

Shonda knew she had to embrace the challenge: for one year, she would say YES to everything that scared her. And then, over Thanksgiving dinner, her sister muttered something that was both a wake up and a call to arms: You never say yes to anything. With three children at home and three hit television shows, it was easy for Shonda to say she was simply too busy. So who would suspect that Shonda Rhimes is an introvert? That she hired a publicist so she could avoid public appearances? That she suffered panic attacks before media interviews? Her iconic characters live boldly and speak their minds. She’s the creator and producer of some of the most groundbreaking and audacious shows on television today.

Year of yes by shonda rhimes