SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Every week, a guest draws a card from NPR's Wild Card deck and answers a big question about their life. Shonda Rhimes has created some of the most successful TV shows of the 21st century, including "Scandal" and "Grey's Anatomy." But she says there was always a disconnect between her and her characters.
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SHONDA RHIMES: My characters had really big, glorious lives. And I was doing nothing except for writing those lives. So I was very shy, incredibly introverted. Like, I don't think I was going to - I was doing nothing.
DETROW: Her memoir, "Year Of Yes," is about her attempt to embrace new experiences. A 10th anniversary edition is out now. She talked to Wild Card host Rachel Martin.
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RACHEL MARTIN: How much do you rely on the validation of others?
RHIMES: I don't, I don't. I mean, it's never been important to me what other people think.
MARTIN: Really?
RHIMES: Yeah. I mean, I say never, but to degrees. And I think I reached a place in the last five years - maybe it's turning 50 or something - that made me just go like, I really don't care. Life's too short. I can't waste my time and energy caring about other people's validation.
MARTIN: Yeah.
RHIMES: Because then when they...
MARTIN: Even professionally? With the stuff you make, you need people to like it. It's like this fine line.
RHIMES: I do need people to like it. But I don't do my job so that people will like it. You know what I mean? Like, I don't write the shows thinking people are going to like this. It is a wonderful by-product, a wonderful by-product of my shows. But I can't live like that. And also, when you believe the good things people say about you, you also then are obligated to believe the bad things.
MARTIN: Oh, that is a powerful idea, isn't it?
RHIMES: Yeah. And to me, that's not a way to be creative, pursue creativity. It's not a way to do business. The goal is to make a great show that I'm proud of.
MARTIN: How'd you come out that way? Was it your family, your parents?
RHIMES: I was raised by very amazing parents...
MARTIN: Yeah.
RHIMES: ...Who really - you know, my father was a guy who was always saying the only limit to your success is your own imagination. And my mother was a woman who I used to say, like, she was my secret advance man.
MARTIN: (Laughter).
RHIMES: You know, moving through the world knocking obstacles out of my path that I didn't even know existed. You know, she was...
MARTIN: Yeah.
RHIMES: You know, like, any racism in the '70s, I did not - I was not totally aware of it because my mother had already taken care of it ahead of time. People like the woman who said I shouldn't be going to Dartmouth, my guidance counselor, you know, that you're not Ivy League material.
MARTIN: Oh, right, when you were applying to college.
RHIMES: Yeah.
MARTIN: You are not Ivy League material.
RHIMES: And my mom, like, came in and took care of that and was like, apply anywhere you want to. So there's a lot of that. And a lot of that really had to do with us understanding our worth and my parents making sure that we understood our worth in the world.
MARTIN: And it shapes your parenting, no doubt.
RHIMES: It does, it does. I want my girls to know that they're powerful people.
MARTIN: Yeah.
RHIMES: And, you know, I want them to be great people. I don't want them to be, you know, cruel or mean. I want them to be kind. But I also don't want them to be stepped on.
MARTIN: Yeah. I know this, too. I have a...
RHIMES: Yeah.
MARTIN: ...11-year-old and a 13-year-old. Boys. But...
RHIMES: Oh, I have an 11- and 13-year-old girls.
MARTIN: Oh, yeah.
RHIMES: Yeah.
MARTIN: So we're right in it.
RHIMES: Yeah.
MARTIN: And that age in particular, it's a hard thing to teach a kid that age that you are enough. And if people can't see it right now, then tell them to go pound sand and live your life.
RHIMES: My daughter, Beckett, calls it fitting out.
MARTIN: Ah.
RHIMES: She's always like, I'm fitting out. As she's gotten older, fitting out has become a thing that is very comfortable for her. Yeah.
MARTIN: I love it.
DETROW: You can watch a longer conversation with Shonda Rhimes by searching for @nprwildcard on YouTube. The 10th anniversary of her memoir, "Year Of Yes," is out now.
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