It All Starts With a Question
It All Starts With a Question
"I don't know what to do. Tell me what to do."
"Okay. Here's what you do."
"Why are you telling me what to do?"
That's the opening of the episode, and Jana and I were doing it as a bit. It's also a pretty accurate transcript of me during one stretch of my life.
Meh
Jana has a friend going through what's usually called middle-age malaise. We're not naming her. She'll know who she is if she reads this.
If you've had it, you know. Nothing's wrong, exactly. Life is good on paper. But the color's gone out of it. You get up, get to the day, get through the day, instead of getting anything from it.
Then somebody tells you to plan something to look forward to, so you do, and it turns into one more obligation. Christmas starts to feel like a chore. A party invitation lands and your first thought is "I should go to that," which is not how you talk about something you want to do.
Jana and I have both been there. Not at the same time, which I think saved us.
We're coaches, not doctors. If "meh" has turned into something heavier, go talk to a doctor. That's not a lifeline to turn down.
Throw me a lifeline
When I was in it, I remember thinking, somebody please throw me a lifeline.
And somebody would. And I'd look at it and think, well, I don't want that one.
Underneath that was one belief, and it was running the whole show: I'm smart enough to figure this out myself.
There's an old story preachers and speakers like to tell. A man is stranded out in the ocean, praying for God to save him.
A guy in a rowboat comes by and says, "You look like you're struggling. Can I help?"
"No thanks. God's got me."
A tanker comes by. Same offer.
"I'm good. God's got me."
A helicopter comes over and drops a ladder.
"Don't worry about it. God's got me."
So he drowns. When he gets to heaven he asks God what happened, and God says, "I sent you a rowboat, a tanker, and a helicopter."
There's a kind of comfort in being stuck. It's a quiet kind, easy to miss, and it lets you rest right where you are. Or sink a little further.
Touch something hot and you move. You don't think about it. Malaise never gets hot enough to make you move.
And I'd felt joy before. I knew what it was like to be excited about my life. So some part of me wanted to find my way back to it myself, not get towed there. That part wasn't wrong. It was just slow.
Same words, different mouth
Here's how that plays out at our house.
Jana will tell me something. I'll hear it. It won't register. Then a few weeks later somebody else says the exact same thing, and suddenly it's the smartest thing I've ever heard.
We get in the car afterward and she says, "I told you that."
She did.
It goes the other way too. For years I told Jana she should write a book and speak to a million people. Then somebody else told her that, and she lit up.
We weren't being stubborn so much as hearing each other through everything we've been through together. When it comes from the person who loves you, it comes with all the history attached. When it comes from somebody else, it's just information, so you can finally hear it.
That's the bind Jana's in with her friend. She wants to help. And the one person her friend least wants advice from right now is Jana.
Your level of uncertainty
When I think about why a good life goes gray, I keep landing on something that sounds backwards.
We spend a lot of energy making life predictable. Fewer surprises. Less friction. Same schedule. And then it works, and every day looks like the one before it, and that turns out to be the most boring life you could build.
We want uncertainty. We just want our level of it. And we want the surprises to be good ones.
Surprise me with a billion dollars. Surprise me with a trip. Surprise me with something I didn't know I wanted.
Don't surprise me with a flat tire.
People say when you're not growing, you're dying. I'd put it more gently. When you're not growing, you're bored, and bored is how it starts.
Start with what you want
So what do you actually do with a friend who wants to be held and heard, not helped?
I swear by the Luck Activation Formula. I'll take that to my grave. And the first question is the one that matters here: What do I want to experience?
If you start there, at least you know what you're looking for. Most people in the fog can tell you everything they don't want. Very few can answer that question on the first try.
Jana and I had to answer it once, together. It's the Saturday a few years back when she asked me why we got married in the first place. It sounded harsh. She didn't mean it that way. She was curious. The answer was that we'd been two extraordinary people who thought we could build an extraordinary life together.
Then she asked whether we were doing that. We weren't. We were acting very average.
So we asked what we wanted to experience, and the answer was extraordinary again. Starting in the small moments, because that's all you've got on a Saturday.
Jana's friend isn't there yet, and that's allowed. Sometimes we wrap ourselves in what we're going through like a blanket, because as long as we're in it, we don't have to move.
For somebody still in the blanket, "What do I want to experience?" can be too big a question. There's a smaller one that comes first: What can work, for now?
Think of the needle on a fuel gauge. What thought, feeling, or action moves the needle a little bit in a better direction right now? It doesn't have to be the answer. It just has to point the right way.
Once you're pointed the right way and inching forward, you've got more to work with. More energy, more options, more room to course correct. You pick up speed as you go.
If you want to.
And it has to be her asking it, not Jana. From Jana it sounds like a sermon. When she asks it herself, it's just a question.
That's a lot of why we make the journals. People email us about conversations they've had in their own houses because of one question in there. They didn't need anybody to tell them what to do. They needed a question they could sit with.
Frequently asked questions
What is middle-age malaise?
A slow, flat feeling that sets in when life is stable and comfortable but no longer exciting. Nothing's wrong exactly, but celebrations start to feel like chores and days blur together. If it feels heavier than "meh," talk to a doctor.
Why do I push away help when I asked for it?
Usually because some part of you believes you should be able to figure it out yourself. And being stuck has its own quiet comfort, which makes staying put easier than it should be.
Why is advice easier to hear from a stranger than from my spouse?
Advice from someone close comes with history attached. The same words from someone outside the relationship arrive as plain information, which is easier to take in.
How do I help a friend who doesn't want advice?
Listen first. If they want to be heard, let that be enough for now. When they're ready, a small question they can ask themselves, like "What can work, for now?", will do more than any answer you give them.
Why does a comfortable life start to feel boring?
People need some uncertainty to feel alive. When everything is predictable, there's nothing left to be curious about. The fix is adding the kind of surprise you'd choose, not creating chaos.
What is a primary question?
It's the question you ask yourself most often, usually without noticing, like "Why is this so hard?" or "What's possible?" Tony Robbins popularized the idea. Whatever the question is, it shapes what you pay attention to.
The question under the question
Tony Robbins talks about something he calls your primary question. It's the question that runs in the background of your mind most of the time, whether you chose it or not.
Mine is "What is possible?" I think Jana's is too.
Some people's is "Why am I not enough?" Some people's is "Why is life so hard?" If that one's running on a loop all day, it's going to find plenty of evidence. You walk into every day looking for what's hard, and there's always something.
You can swap it. It won't happen in one morning, but the question you see over and over tends to stick. That's why every one of our journals puts a different, better question in front of you. And it's why How Lucky Am I? ends both of our formulas. It's a primary question on purpose.
Better questions come back with better answers.
| The question running in the background | What it keeps finding | Try running this one |
|---|---|---|
| Why is life so hard? | Every delay, every problem, every bad break | What's possible today? |
| Why am I not enough? | Every criticism, every miss | What did I do well? |
| Why does this always happen to me? | The pattern, over and over | What might this be teaching me? |
| What's going to go wrong? | Every risk, none of the upside | How Lucky Am I? |
While we were recording, I stopped myself before I made up a word, because we'd just done a whole episode about me making up words. Jana pointed out that I made up "enthusimatism," and that you can look it up.
For the record, that one's not mine. My grandfather, Rooster, used to wake up every morning saying, "Boy, do I have enthusimatism!" I just kept it.
Which was his primary question, if you think about it.
The Living Lucky® Practice
Exercise: For one day, catch the question you ask yourself most. Write it down every time it shows up.
Reflection question: What lifeline have I been turning down because I'd rather figure it out myself?
Journal prompt: What can work, for now? Name one thought, feeling, or action that moves the needle a little in a better direction today.
Action: Write down the primary question you want running instead, and put it somewhere you'll see it ten times tomorrow.
My Primary Question
Catch the one that's running. Choose the one you want running.
I guess you're right
Near the end of the episode, Jana said, "Okay, I guess you're right," and then immediately tried to keep talking.
I stopped her. You don't blow past "I guess you're right." Not in a marriage. You stop and let it sit there a minute.
She'd like everyone to know she was right about the car.
We went deeper on this on the Living Lucky® Podcast, Season 11, Episode 40.
We Create Our Luck™.
