Quinta Brunson, the creative genius behind the critical and popular hit show Abbott Elementary, was interviewed by Doreen St. Felix on a recent episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour.  St. Felix asked her the most interesting question: Did you ever experience an impactful no? You wanted something, you did not get it, the no caused major disappointment at the time, but in the end the no prompted something positive that would not otherwise have happened.
Brunson responded that she once went to a television producer with an idea for a network
television show she believed in. The plot of the proposed show was that she and a male friend, both in their 20s, who had a good platonic relationship, slept together once, as a result of which she got pregnant. The show would be about how these two friends co-parent their child—a fact pattern that she said happens all the time. The television producer said no, which stung at the time. But in retrospect, that no helped give birth to Abbott Elementary.
In class we consider this concept of impactful no through two different lenses.