Know When To Just Say Yes

“We don’t want the long story.”

This past week I was at a play in New York City and the man next to me struck up a conversation. He was talking about how excited he was for the play. One thing led to another and I soon found out he was a screenwriter in Los Angeles.

A screenwriter! My heart jumped. I always hope to meet interesting people in random situations. And a screenwriter! Well, here’s someone that could help me.

One of the most viable streams of income for a musician can be licensing music to TV shows, commercials, and movies. While this man isn’t a music supervisor (he also wrote the book for an upcoming Broadway musical), he has access to music supervisors.

So I mention I play in a band and give him my card. He asks if he can listen to my band’s music on our website. Instead of simply saying yes, I went into a song and dance about my band’s ups and downs and eventually landed on “yes you can.”

After I finished, the man kindly said to me, “I’m going to give you a very simple life lesson: the next time someone asks you this, just say yes. We don’t want the long story.”

Whether or not anything comes of meeting this man, I don’t care. His simple life lesson has done more than enough already.