Is the number 13... just a number?

Photo by Possessed Photography on Unsplash

Would you park in a spot labeled 13? Stay on the 13th floor? This is my 13th post since I rebooted this blog, and it got me thinking. In the U.S., we consider 13 an unlucky number. So much so that as ​many as 85% of tall buildings​ go straight from floor 12 to 14. But, I’ve lived around the world and found that 13 is not a universally unlucky number. The Chinese take great pains to avoid 4, because it sounds similar to the word for death. In Japan, it’s 9, in Italy, it’s 17. And so on. So is 13 really bad?

But what does this have to do with getting unstuck? So much of life is made up of the stories we tell ourselves and the meaning we create. Often we’re stuck because our stories contradict what we want to do or try, hamstringing us with false narratives. (“I always make hard decisions in a painful manner.” “I can’t do it (whatever you want to do but aren’t starting).” “Working at (or founding) a startup is too risky for someone with a family.” Etc.)

We get paralyzed between the possibility and the doubt.

I’m reminded of a parable of two boys who were raised by an abusive father. They both grew to adulthood and had kids of their own. The first boy was abusive to his kids. When he was asked why, he replied: “With a father like mine, I had no other choice.” The second boy was gentle and kind with his kids. When he was asked why, his reply was the same: “With a father like mine, I had no other choice.”

Life is so much what we decide it is.

When you’re stuck, you can tell yourself you’re never going to get unstuck, or the problem ahead is just too hard. When you’re in the liminal zone between an ending and a beginning, you can tell yourself it’s a space to be rushed through, that life is only good when certainty abounds. Or you can consider it a time to be cherished and savored. When you’re facing a hard decision, you can tell yourself there is no good choice, or you can think you’re lucky to have such great choices and any one will lead you somewhere beautiful.

But it’s not just a story: What you think and what you tell yourself will impact what happens.

Recent scientific studies are revealing that our minds control so much more of our experiences and our health than we’ve historically recognized. In describing some of the ​research into this phenomenon​, Ellen Langer and Peter Aungle noted: “[Our] expectations, which structure how [we] feel, what [we] think and what [we] do, shape what happens next… People can think themselves sick when they could otherwise be healthy and that they can also think themselves well.”

This story from Ellen Langer’s early research lodged in my brain from the moment I heard about it:

“The first test of this concept was the counterclockwise experiment, which [Langer] designed and ran in 1979. In that study, elderly men lived in a retreat that was retrofitted to appear as if it had existed 20 years earlier and had vintage furniture, appliances and magazines. We asked the men to live as their younger self. They discussed past events in the present tense as if they were currently unfolding. The results were astonishing. Without any medical intervention, their hearing, vision, memory and strength improved. They also were perceived to look noticeably younger in photographs by the end of the week.” (Emphasis my own)

Whoa.

So if our expectations really do shape our reality, the questions become: How the heck do we do that? How do we reset our expectations to be more audacious? And how do we straddle the line between positive expectations and false hope?

Like so much of life, it's about consistency. Commit to believing it, even when you can't see it. We'll see it when we believe it.

As for me, I’m going to celebrate this 13th blog post. I have a feeling it’s going to be my lucky one. It will mark a new inflection point that will help many more people get unstuck, bring more of us together in community, and help my business prosper. Because if our expectations shape what happens next, I’m darn well going to shape that next into something I’m excited about! Here’s to lucky 13.

If you like what you read, please consider sharing this email with a friend (and help make it lucky 13 ;)