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Yes to Success: How to Redefine Yourself and Your Future

What we can learn from one of the most successful women in the world

Hoang Samuelson
5 min readJul 23, 2021
Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

I just finished reading Shonda Rhimes’s book called Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun, and Be Your Own Person, and I have to say, it’s a really funny book. Which is surprising because Rhimes is not a comedian. She’s the creator of serious, award-winning TV dramas like Grey’s Anatomy (one of my favorites), Scandal, How to Get Away With Murder, and most recently, Bridgerton on Netflix. She’s a powerhouse in the entertainment industry, and with a recent deal with Netflix, she’s only going to get bigger.

It’s an honest, poignant book about redefining success that I highly recommend. One of my favorite parts in the book is the chapter where she talks about how she perceived her own success. Years ago, she attended a dinner celebrating women in TV hosted by Elle magazine. Sitting around a room full of successful, badass women (as she calls them) listening to their achievements as well as her own, she noticed that ALL of the women did one of the following things when their name and achievements were highlighted.

  1. Shook her head and looked away, waving off words as inconsequential.
  2. Ducked her head, with an embarrassed look on her face.

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Hoang Samuelson
Hoang Samuelson

Written by Hoang Samuelson

Features Editor @ Chowhound. Former lead editor @BooknBrunch.com. Writer of food, family and fiction. Based in Portland, OR. More at hoangsamuelson.com

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