When to say 'yes'

I was a second-semester junior in college, a philosophy major whose paper had been accepted for an international undergraduate philosophy conference, and I had never been to a single Philosophy Club meeting.

“Professor, how come the philosophy department faculty never talk about Philosophy Club? I don’t even know where or when they meet.”

“Well,” he strained,  “the philosophy department doesn’t have a great relationship with Philosophy Club.”

Enigmatic, no?

I asked around and eventually found a friend in the political science department who, for some reason, regularly attended Philosophy Club meetings. That week I tagged along at his invitation.

We walked as far across campus as was possible and entered a darkened basement of a building I barely recognized. Down the corridor I could see one small conference room with a light on. It was exciting.

Down the rabbit hole

What began as a curiosity in high school morphed into an obsession. My high school history teacher offered a philosophy elective for upperclassmen. It was there he uttered the phrase that would change my life:

Philosophy is not about answering questions. It is about questioning answers.

In that moment before entering the conference room, I was just weeks away from winning the aforementioned international conference’s most prestigious award, a feat I would duplicate the following year, becoming the first student in the conference’s history to win it two years in-a-row, and throwing me into the deep-end of an academic pool that I would spend the next year learning to navigate, on route to a PhD.

I pushed the heavy, squeaky door open with anticipation to discover a bunch of homely-looking students laying on the floor and hanging off of the conference table, gorging themselves on cheap, greasy pizza and chips, guzzling soda out of red solo cups, and talking about how drunk they were going to get that weekend.

Not exactly the Agora.

The meeting began and it didn’t get much better. As I introduced myself to others and they to me it became clear I was the only philosophy major in the room. In that moment I understood why the philosophy faculty had distanced themselves from their own department’s official club:

It had been co-opted by lazy students from other departments who leveraged the club’s budget for free snacks and contributed nothing to philosophy.

Opportunity amidst chaos

Just before I tuned out completely the door opened again and a latecomer entered. I know him, I thought. He was a senior about to graduate and, more importantly, he was a philosophy major. A particularly bright one, at that.

“Hey Brian,” he said during a break from nothing in particular. “I didn’t expect to see you here. It’s not often we get actual philosophy majors.”

“I thought I’d check it out. Is this it?”

“Yeah,” he sighed. “Unfortunately this club really went to hell. A few years back when I was a freshman it was amazing. But there’s been a lack of serious philosophy students for a few years, until your class.”

It was true. My class, just by pure chance, had probably a dozen seriously brilliant philosophy majors.

“We need someone to take back this club. Let’s get out of here and talk.”

Outside under shadowy street lamps, he made his case.

“You should run for president of Philosophy Club.”

“What?” I was startled. “You can’t be serious. I’ve only barely attended one meeting. I don’t know anything about this club or how to run it.”

“You don’t have to,” he said. “They’re not running it either. I’ve seen you around the department. Professors are talking about you. Whatever you do will be better than that.”

“Who’s going to vote for me? They don’t know me, and they seem really happy doing whatever they’re doing.”

“Ah, but that’s the thing. They’re lazy. The current president -” he made air quotes at ‘president’ – “is graduating in a few weeks. Club bylaws state a new president must be elected by vote in order to secure funding and keep their status as a club. But no one else in that room is going to run, because they don’t care enough. Just show up at the meeting and, when they come to the vote, announce your candidacy, give a 1-min speech about what you’re going to do as president, and then I’ll vote for you. Even if no one else does, it won’t matter. Because no one else is running.”

And that’s exactly what we did.

Making enemies

Fresh off the heels of my decisive 1-vote victory as president, I got to work. We had precious three meetings left before the end of the semester. Technically I wouldn’t really be president until the start of the fall semester, but, again, nobody else was doing it.

I feverishly typed up a proposed meeting agenda and emailed it out to the board and existing members.

When I arrived at that week’s meeting, I was met with confusion.

“Um, Brian… we don’t really know anything about any of this. What’s metaphysics?”

“Did you read the excerpts I sent you?”

“Well, no. I mean, I was busy. I looked at it, but, like, it looked hard. I thought philosophy was just hanging out and talking about stuff?”

And there it was.

“No, it’s not. Philosophy is a wonderful and very exciting field,” I explained. “We’re going to do real philosophy in this club from now on. Who wants to read the first excerpt aloud? Then we’ll discuss.”

I lost half the group at our first break. That week I received angry emails from many long-time club members, telling me I’d ruined their organization. When I arrived at the following meeting, I found only a small handful of students.

At first I was disappointed. Where did I go wrong? This is real philosophy. That’s what this club should be about.

And then it happened. I realized the students in the room weren’t faces I usually saw. They were mostly philosophy majors, and some who were considering switching into philosophy, or picking it up as a minor.

That night we had a detailed group discussion that lasted hours. It was engaging, energizing, and all-around spectacular. After summer break the word spread and the group grew.

Philosophy department faculty began attending our meetings, and promoting the club to intro students.

The answer is always ‘yes’

Too many kids are taught to avoid failure. Far worse than failing at the finish is failing to start.

There’s always going to be one more thing you need to learn, one more book to read, one more course to take, one more TED talk to watch, and then you’ll finally be ready.

But you won’t be. You’ll never be truly ready to do something extraordinary.

The only difference between those who make change and those who do not is the courage to say ‘yes’ first, and figure it out later. Obviously if you’re going to jump out of a plane, you should take a safety class and wear a parachute. But then?

Jump.

Life rewards those who take risks. Not risks to our health and safety (wear a mask), but emotional risks. Artistic risks. Conversational risks. Business risks.

You’ll fail far more often than you’ll succeed, but the math is on your side. For the person who succeeds only 1 out of 100 times is infinitely more successful than the person who fails 0 out of 0 times. Literally.

When I applied for PhD programs my mentor and undergraduate thesis advisor wrote me a recommendation I’ll cherish for the rest of my life. He said many wonderful, kind things. But one of the passages I’m proud of the most is this:

“[Brian] is President of the Philosophy Club and, since becoming president in September of this year, has worked to make the club the most active it has been in a number of years.”

It was but a single sentence and hardly the most effusive in a glowing 1800 word letter of recommendation that concluded,

“Although I have advised and written letters of recommendation for students who have gone on to successfully complete Ph.D. programs in Philosophy and other fields, and have had students go on to complete Law degrees at excellent law schools, I cannot think of a student who better represents the college with his unique combination of academic excellence, a diverse set of non-academic activities, and personal character. It is an honor to have been asked to write this letter for such an exceptional student. I recommend his admission to your graduate program enthusiastically and without qualification.”

And yet I know the only reason I earned that final paragraph is a lifetime of saying ‘yes’ to the question. Which question?

Any question.

P.S.

For what it’s worth, 7 of the 8 grad schools I applied to rejected my application, with a 4.0 GPA, two international awards for original work in philosophy, literally dozens of departmental and campus-wide awards for academic achievement, and that letter of recommendation (plus others).

The one grad school that accepted me only did so on the grounds that I shifted my focus from philosophy of language to traditional metaphysics, of which I had no interest.

So I said ‘yes’ to myself and pursued a full-time career as a self-employed magician, figuring it all out as I went. That led to my viral TEDx talk which launched my career as a human connection specialist, which eventually landed me on global stages giving keynote presentations ahead of PhDs, who would often approach privately and admit they were nervous to follow me.

Me, a former magician with a bachelors degree and no qualifications.

Funny how life works out when you take risks.