In 1957, the famous surrealist artist Salvador Dalí appeared on the American TV game show What’s My Line?
The premise of the show was simple. A panel asked Yes or No questions to guess a guest’s profession. Usually, it took minutes. Jobs were tidy back then. You were a lawyer, a doctor, a writer and an actor.
Dalí broke the game almost immediately.
Blindfolded panellists asked if he was an artist. Yes.
A writer. Yes.
A performer. Yes.
Someone whose work was published. Yes.
A leading man. Yes, apparently.
The panel grew increasingly confused, and the audience increasingly delighted. Dalí wasn’t being difficult for the sake of it. He was refusing to reduce himself to a single definition.
Yes, he worked across painting, sculpture, jewellery, film set design, writing and performance.
So, when asked what he “did”, the only honest answer was yes.
Eventually, the host had to intervene to keep the game moving. Dalí was revealed, moustache and all. But the real disruption had already happened.
The game assumed identity was singular. For Dalí, it wasn’t.
69 years later, we are still playing the same game
What struck me when I rewatched that clip wasn’t Dalí’s eccentricity. It was how familiar the tension still feels.
I get it every Christmas gathering, where my dad tries to explain to family friends what I actually do.
“Well, she studied to be a journalist, but then she went into PR for a property developer, but the GFC hit and she upskilled in community engagement and marketing, so she didn’t lose her job like everyone else in property.
“Now she helps growers, cattle producers, CEOs and she gets really excited (almost like obsessive nerd like) about the work her and her team are doing for inventors in science.”
Yeah, sometimes when I meet people I just say I’m a teacher.
The problem is we are still obsessed with neat definitions and how it defines us.
What do you do?
What’s your background?
What did you study?
As if the answer you gave at 21 should still describe you at 41.
We leave university with a desired title and, for many people, unconsciously treat it like a permanent label. Journalist. Lawyer. Marketer. Designer. Communications professional. It becomes an identity rather than a starting point.
I’m not suggesting you should change jobs every two years or abandon depth. Expertise matters. Staying power matters. There is real value in commitment and mastery.
But rigidity doesn’t.
The world requires it. Problems are messier. Roles blend into one another. The professionals who thrive are rarely the ones who stayed inside the narrowest interpretation of their job description.
They are the ones who kept expanding and kept investing in knowledge and upskilling.
They asked “yes, and”
As the panel kept questioning Dalí, the joke wasn’t just that he kept answering yes. It was that he genuinely meant it.
Each question tried to narrow him down into a single category, but each answer widened the frame. Dalí wasn’t trying to win the game. He was refusing to define himself to help the show meet its 30-minute time slot – minus commercials.
That moment feels like a perfect metaphor for how many careers actually unfold, whether we acknowledge it or not.
In improv theatre, there’s a foundational rule: “Yes, and.”
You don’t shut an idea down. You accept what’s offered, then build on it. Yes, and here’s what happens next.
I think that’s a useful way to think about modern careers, particularly those in the creative industries.
By asking ‘yes and’ and continuing to evolve, you become a creative problem solver.
Adding “and” doesn’t dilute your credibility. It deepens it.
The professionals who stay relevant over time aren’t the ones who cling hardest to a single label. They’re the ones who keep saying yes to learning, yes to adjacent disciplines, yes to stretching how they think about their role.
Not because they can do everything, but because they understand that curiosity compounds.
