For one year, I would say yes to all the things that scared me.

Anything that made me nervous, took me out of my comfort zone,

I forced myself to say yes to.

Did I want to speak in public?

No, but yes.

Did I want to be on live TV?

No, but yes.

Did I want to try acting?

No, no, no, but yes, yes, yes.

And a crazy thing happened:

the very act of doing the thing that scared me

undid the fear,

made it not scary.

My fear of public speaking, my social anxiety, poof, gone.

It's amazing, the power of one word.

"Yes" changed my life.

"Yes" changed me.

But there was one particular yes

that affected my life in the most profound way,

in a way I never imagined,

and it started with a question from my toddler.

I have these three amazing daughters, Harper, Beckett and Emerson,

and Emerson is a toddler who inexplicably refers to everyone as "honey."

as though she's a Southern waitress.

(Laughter)

"Honey, I'm gonna need some milk for my sippy cup."

(Laughter)

The Southern waitress asked me to play with her one evening

when I was on my way somewhere, and I said, "Yes."

And that yes was the beginning of a new way of life for my family.

I made a vow that from now on,

every time one of my children asks me to play,

no matter what I'm doing or where I'm going,

I say yes, every single time.

Almost. I'm not perfect at it, but I try hard to practice it.

And it's had a magical effect on me,

on my children, on our family.

But it's also had a stunning side effect,

and it wasn't until recently that I fully understood it,

that I understood that saying yes to playing with my children

likely saved my career.

See, I have what most people would call a dream job.

I'm a writer. I imagine. I make stuff up for a living.

Dream job.

No.

I'm a titan.

Dream job.

I create television. I executive produce television.

I make television, a great deal of television.

In one way or another, this TV season,

I'm responsible for bringing about 70 hours of programming to the world.

Four television programs, 70 hours of TV --

(Applause)

Three shows in production at a time, sometimes four.

Each show creates hundreds of jobs that didn't exist before.

The budget for one episode of network television

can be anywhere from three to six million dollars.

Let's just say five.

A new episode made every nine days times four shows,

so every nine days that's 20 million dollars worth of television,

four television programs, 70 hours of TV,

three shows in production at a time, sometimes four,

16 episodes going on at all times:

24 episodes of "Grey's," 21 episodes of "Scandal,"

15 episodes of "How To Get Away With Murder,"

10 episodes of "The Catch," that's 70 hours of TV,

that's 350 million dollars for a season.

In America, my television shows

are back to back to back on Thursday night.

Around the world, my shows air in 256 territories in 67 languages

for an audience of 30 million people.

My brain is global,

and 45 hours of that 70 hours of TV are shows I personally created

and not just produced, so on top of everything else,

I need to find time, real quiet, creative time,

to gather my fans around the campfire

and tell my stories.

Four television programs, 70 hours of TV,

three shows in production at a time,

sometimes four, 350 million dollars, campfires burning all over the world.

You know who else is doing that?

Nobody, so like I said, I'm a titan.

Dream job.

(Applause)

Now, I don't tell you this to impress you.

I tell you this because I know what you think of when you hear the word "writer."

I tell you this so that all of you out there who work so hard,

whether you run a company or a country or a classroom

or a store or a home,

take me seriously when I talk about working,

so you'll get that I don't peck at a computer and imagine all day,

so you'll hear me when I say

that I understand that a dream job is not about dreaming.

It's all job, all work, all reality, all blood, all sweat, no tears.

I work a lot, very hard, and I love it.

When I'm hard at work, when I'm deep in it,

there is no other feeling.

For me, my work is at all times building a nation out of thin air.

It is manning the troops. It is painting a canvas.

It is hitting every high note. It is running a marathon.

It is being Beyoncé.

And it is all of those things at the same time.

I love working.

It is creative and mechanical and exhausting and exhilarating

and hilarious and disturbing and clinical and maternal

and cruel and judicious,

and what makes it all so good is the hum.

There is some kind of shift inside me when the work gets good.

A hum begins in my brain,

and it grows and it grows and that hum sounds like the open road,

and I could drive it forever.

And a lot of people, when I try to explain the hum,

they assume that I'm talking about the writing,

that my writing brings me joy.

And don't get me wrong, it does.

But the hum --

it wasn't until I started making television

that I started working, working and making

and building and creating and collaborating,

that I discovered this thing, this buzz, this rush, this hum.

The hum is more than writing.

The hum is action and activity. The hum is a drug.

The hum is music. The hum is light and air.

The hum is God's whisper right in my ear.

And when you have a hum like that,

you can't help but strive for greatness.

That feeling, you can't help but strive for greatness at any cost.

That's called the hum.

Or, maybe it's called being a workaholic.

(Laughter)

Maybe it's called genius.

Maybe it's called ego.

Maybe it's just fear of failure.

I don't know.

I just know that I'm not built for failure,

and I just know that I love the hum.

I just know that I want to tell you I'm a titan,

and I know that I don't want to question it.

But here's the thing:

the more successful I become,

the more shows, the more episodes, the more barriers broken,

the more work there is to do,

the more balls in the air,

the more eyes on me, the more history stares,

the more expectations there are.

The more I work to be successful,

the more I need to work.

And what did I say about work?

I love working, right?

The nation I'm building, the marathon I'm running,

the troops, the canvas, the high note, the hum,

the hum, the hum.

I like that hum. I love that hum.

I need that hum. I am that hum.

Am I nothing but that hum?

And then the hum stopped.

Overworked, overused,

overdone, burned out.

The hum stopped.

Now, my three daughters are used to the truth

that their mother is a single working titan.

Harper tells people,

"My mom won't be there, but you can text my nanny."

And Emerson says, "Honey, I'm wanting to go to ShondaLand."

They're children of a titan.

They're baby titans.

They were 12, 3, and 1 when the hum stopped.

The hum of the engine died.

I stopped loving work. I couldn't restart the engine.

The hum would not come back.

My hum was broken.

I was doing the same things I always did, all the same titan work,

15-hour days, working straight through the weekends,

no regrets, never surrender, a titan never sleeps, a titan never quits,

full hearts, clear eyes, yada, whatever.

But there was no hum.

Inside me was silence.

Four television programs, 70 hours of TV, three shows in production at a time,

sometimes four.

Four television programs, 70 hours of TV, three shows in production at a time ...

I was the perfect titan.

I was a titan you could take home to your mother.

All the colors were the same, and I was no longer having any fun.

And it was my life.

It was all I did.

I was the hum, and the hum was me.

So what do you do when the thing you do,

the work you love, starts to taste like dust?

Now, I know somebody's out there thinking,

"Cry me a river, stupid writer titan lady."

(Laughter)

But you know, you do,

if you make, if you work, if you love what you do,

being a teacher, being a banker, being a mother, being a painter,

being Bill Gates,

if you simply love another person and that gives you the hum,

if you know the hum,

if you know what the hum feels like, if you have been to the hum,

when the hum stops, who are you?

What are you?

What am I?

Am I still a titan?

If the song of my heart ceases to play, can I survive in the silence?

And then my Southern waitress toddler asks me a question.

I'm on my way out the door, I'm late, and she says,

"Momma, wanna play?"

And I'm just about to say no, when I realize two things.

One, I'm supposed to say yes to everything,

and two, my Southern waitress didn't call me "honey."

She's not calling everyone "honey" anymore.

When did that happen?

I'm missing it, being a titan and mourning my hum,

and here she is changing right before my eyes.

And so she says, "Momma, wanna play?"

And I say, "Yes."

There's nothing special about it.

We play, and we're joined by her sisters,

and there's a lot of laughing,

and I give a dramatic reading from the book Everybody Poops.

Nothing out of the ordinary.

(Laughter)

And yet, it is extraordinary,

because in my pain and my panic,

in the homelessness of my humlessness,

I have nothing to do but pay attention.

I focus.

I am still.

The nation I'm building, the marathon I'm running,

the troops, the canvas, the high note does not exist.

All that exists are sticky fingers

and gooey kisses and tiny voices and crayons

and that song about letting go

of whatever it is that Frozen girl needs to let go of.

(Laughter)

It's all peace and simplicity.

The air is so rare in this place for me that I can barely breathe.

I can barely believe I'm breathing.

Play is the opposite of work.

And I am happy.

Something in me loosens.

A door in my brain swings open,

and a rush of energy comes.

And it's not instantaneous, but it happens, it does happen.

I feel it.

A hum creeps back.

Not at full volume, barely there,

it's quiet, and I have to stay very still to hear it, but it is there.

Not the hum, but a hum.

And now I feel like I know a very magical secret.

Well, let's not get carried away.