Saying “Yes” Instead of “No”: My Never Stand Still Conversation with Howie Mandel

Some of our most rewarding experiences in life come from raising our hands, or saying yes, to an opportunity. For comedian Howie Mandel, he’s experienced almost everything the entertainment industry has to offer by never shying away from something new. He’s a comedian, a game show host, an actor, screenwriter, producer, director, voiceover artist, America’s Got Talent judge, and more. Through it all, he’s stayed true to his comedic roots.??

I recently had the opportunity to speak with Howie on my Never Stand Still podcast, and I learned a lot in just 40 minutes about the benefits that can come from being open to anything that comes our way. Howie and I spoke about how he’s mastered making pivots in his career by trusting his instincts and taking risks, and the importance of speaking openly about mental health. I had a really fun time recording this episode, and I shared my top takeaways from our conversation below.??

With risk comes reward?

At the beginning of our conversation, Howie told me that if you dare him to do anything, he will do it. Public speaking is consistently rated as one of people’s biggest fears, and yet Howie started standup comedy on a dare when he was at a comedy club with his friend. “The host got up and said, ‘Hey, if you aspire to do anything like this, amateurs can come up from midnight on Monday. And somebody at the table went, ‘You should go.’ And that was the last thought I had of it,” Howie told me. That night at the comedy club kicked off his career.??

Since that night, he’s continued to take risks. “I don’t set a trail or blaze a trail for myself,” he said. “I just follow this weird path, even what I’m doing right now, being on your show…The only reason I’m not on everything is because I don’t have time for everything.” Taking a risk and performing a stand-up comedy act became a bridge to other opportunities, from acting roles on TV shows to eventually becoming the host of Deal or No Deal – a career-defining opportunity for him, and one in which he didn’t do comedy. In the first week of filming Deal or No Deal, he decided to trust his gut and approach the show as a human-being, rather than a comedian, after he noticed his jokes were resulting in contestants losing out on money. “I thought…I don’t want to be responsible for [the contestant] not focusing and making a good decision. So in that moment, I threw away all the comedy…And I said, ‘I cannot be responsible for [the contestant] not leaving here in a better place than she came.’” Howie admitted he was afraid his pivot would fall flat with audiences when the show premiered – in fact, he left the country when the show premiered. But his risk paid off, and Deal or No Deal premiered with rave reviews.??

My Krav Maga instructor once told me that we are all born with black belt bodies, but when we start thinking, that gets in the way. Like Howie, I’ve found that the best way to pivot in real time is to trust my instincts and training.??

It’s important to be open about our struggles?

One of the most pivotal moments of Howie’s personal journey came when he was caught on a hot mic on Howard Stern’s show saying that he struggled with his mental health. “I thought I had humiliated my family, humiliated myself, put an end to my career to talk about that,” he said. “I contemplated running out into the traffic there in New York City. And just as I was standing on the street, somebody came up in my periphery…and he says, ‘Are you Howie Mandel? Were you just on Howard Stern?’…And he leaned in close to me…And he went, ‘Me too…I have issues too. So cool to hear you talk about it.’” Within weeks of the episode airing, Howie started to hear from listeners all over the world thanking him for sharing his story.??

Mental health is now one of Howie’s top priorities. “I believe that mental health is equivalent to…our physical health. And I always say, I wish we…took care of our mental health the way we take care of our dental health,” Howie said. “It’s the answer to everything…Your mental health coincides with your physical health and coincides with your productivity.” While there’s still stigma around openly discussing our mental health, Howie is working hard to normalize these conversations. Having grown up in an era where people didn’t talk about mental health struggles – often making it even more difficult to deal with the unavoidable struggles in our lives, like grief – I couldn’t agree more with Howie’s thoughts on mental and physical health. We’ve come a long way in our understanding of mental health in recent years, and part of that is from actually talking about it.??

Saying “yes” can be rewarding?

One of the things I appreciated most about my conversation with Howie was hearing how being open to new things helped him make a name for himself. “I will do anything,” he said. “Consistently, I kind of attribute my success to just always saying ‘yes.’ I’m always afraid to say ‘no’. I’m afraid I’ll miss out on something.” One of our most common refrains in life is thinking about what could have been, and Howie lives by the mantra that, “It’s easy to say no, but if you look at ‘no’, ‘N’, ‘O’ are the first two letters of nothing, so ‘nothing’ starts with ‘no’.” He admitted that he has said “yes” to many things that have turned out to be failures, but he’s learned to be okay with that. He said, “Is it really safer to not live your life…or to not reach for your dreams?”??

There’s nothing safe about not following your dreams, and, more often than not, saying “yes” can lead to greater possibilities. I remember my dad came to visit my office when I was the president of the consumer group at AT&T, and he said, “This is so amazing. You’re going to be here for the rest of your life.” And when I left a year later for a small internet startup, he thought it was the craziest idea. But saying “yes” to that job, and all of the jobs I said “yes” to after, gave me the right experience and background to become the CEO of PayPal, a role I couldn’t be more thrilled to be in.??

You can listen to our full conversation below. Did you have a favorite moment from the episode? Leave a comment to let me know!?