Are You Putting the FU in Fun?
Jana opened the episode by asking if you're putting the F U in life. Then she fixed it: in fun.
Say it slowly. F. U. in Fun.
We'll get to who that's aimed at.
Just be you
On Jana's first day of kindergarten, her mom told her, "Just be you, Jana."
Five-year-old Jana thought, who else would I be?
Fair question. Did we pack costumes? Is there a backup Jana in the backpack?
Then she walked into the classroom and, like everybody else, started adjusting. A little here. A little there. By the time most of us are adults, we've gotten so good at it we couldn't find the original with a flashlight.
That's when the little voice shows up. Are they judging me? Do they think I'm crazy? Do they think I'm out there?
Jana is out there. She's quirky. She'll tell you that herself, and she'll tell you it's a good thing.
On the air, I contributed to this conversation by quoting an old Adam Sandler bit: "They're all gonna laugh at you." That was my whole contribution to the field of psychology that morning.
We asked a robot
The morning we recorded, Jana showed ChatGPT one of our blooper reels. We'd posted it on YouTube the day before.
It said we're better when we're not trying so hard.
Then it got specific, which nobody asked it to do. It said I try too hard to be professorial. It said Jana tries too hard to be inspirational.
Jana hates the word "inspirational." She hates it the way some people hate the word "moist." So that one landed.
Mine landed harder, because it's true. I explain things. I explain things that have already been explained. On the episode, my response was to call myself a mansplainer, and then explain that I do it because my wife doesn't understand. If you're keeping score, that's me doing it again while confessing to it.
What the robot liked was the part where we're leaning over laughing and messing up. It said there's chemistry there.
I don't know how a computer knows what chemistry looks like. I've decided not to ask, because it would probably explain it.
A couple of minutes later
And this part is on tape.
A couple of minutes after a machine told me I get too professorial, I started explaining why rigid formulas are bad for people who are natural explorers. Following the path versus creating the path. The joy of exploration. I had momentum.
Then I caught myself and said, out loud, to myself, by name: "I'm jumping back into metaphor, Jason, because that's what I do."
Jana said, "Explain it to me, Jason."
I said, "Let me explain this to you."
That's us. That's the whole relationship. She sets it up on the tee, and I swing at it with my entire body.
Where the F U goes
Being yourself in public is hard. We put ourselves out there for a living, and that comes with judgment. Some of it is feedback. Some of it is, as I put it on the episode, from the crap side. It comes in all forms.
The safe move is to get more polished. More professional. Sand the edges off until there's nothing left for anybody to grab.
That's how you end up with a podcast where one guy is professoring, one woman is inspiring, and nobody's having any fun.
So here's who the F U is for. Never a person. It goes to the judgment, and to the idea that you have to be sanded down to fit in and be taken seriously.
Norms are for normal people anyway, not for extraordinary people.
The rule
About two years ago, Jana and I made a rule: the minute this stops being fun, we stop doing it.
It isn't even our rule. When Jana was a kid and didn't want to play softball anymore, her dad told her, "If it's not fun, let's don't do it."
We've been using it ever since. He hasn't asked for royalties.
Five hundred-something episodes in, it's the only reason we're still at it. We still have fun doing it.
The first question in our Luck Activation Formula is "What do I want to experience?" We've asked it more times than I can count. More often than we'd admit, the answer is just: fun.
That's allowed.
The Living Lucky® Practice
Pick one place this week where you've been performing. A meeting, a dinner, a post you've rewritten four times. Do it the way you'd do it if nobody were grading you.
Then ask yourself, "How Lucky Am I?" and see whether the answer got bigger.
If you want to make a game of it, there's a bingo card below. Play it on yourself, or on the person you live with. We play it on each other, and I lose every time.
Be You Bingo
Play it on yourself. Or on the person you live with. Three in a row and you're officially fun.
| Made up a word with total confidence | Explained something nobody asked about | Laughed so hard you lost your place |
| Said the weird thing instead of the safe thing | FREE SPACE How Lucky Am I? |
Got corrected by your spouse and enjoyed it |
| Posted it without rewriting it four times | Did something just because it was fun | Messed up in public and kept going |
Frequently asked questions
What does "putting the FU in fun" mean?
Being yourself without apologizing for it. It's never aimed at a person. It's aimed at the judgment, and at the pressure to fit whatever's normal.
What does "be your authentic self" actually mean?
Probably just: edit yourself less. You already know who you are. You've just gotten very good at hiding it in meetings.
Why is it so hard to be yourself as an adult?
Because fitting in works, at first. You get rewarded for it starting in kindergarten, and by the time it stops working, you've forgotten you were doing it.
What did ChatGPT say about your podcast?
That we're better when we're not trying so hard, that Jason gets professorial, and that Jana tries too hard to be inspirational. It also said we have chemistry when we're laughing. We've chosen to believe that part completely.
What is the "if it's not fun, don't do it" rule?
If something stops being fun, change how you're doing it or stop. Some things you have to do anyway. Most of them have a more fun version than the one you're doing.
Where can I see the blooper reel?
On our YouTube channel. Fair warning: it explains a lot about this article.
The back end
Near the end of the episode, I said life is short, and you don't realize how short until you start getting toward the back end of it.
Jana asked if we're on the back end.
I said no.
She said she's 51 and thinks she might be.
I said I didn't think so.
She did the math out loud, decided she probably isn't living to 102, and announced she's on the butt side of life.
I said, "You're living the ass life."
Then I said, "Well, I guess that makes me an ass man."
We didn't cut it. By any professional standard, that was the moment to stop recording.
It was also the most fun we had all day.
We went deeper on this, and lower, on the Living Lucky® Podcast, Season 11, Episode 41.
Keep Living Lucky®, and have fun doing it.
We Create Our Luck®.
