How much is your "scramble" costing you?

You’re running yourself into the ground, chasing after something you already have.

Welcome back to the Primal Question Newsletter.

My name is Mike Foster. If you’re new around here, I’m an Executive Coach who works with all sorts of world changers, from Navy SEALs to reality stars to nonprofit founders to executives of billion-dollar companies.

If this is your first time reading, check out this video for an overview of The Seven Primal Questions.

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Friend, you’re running yourself into the ground, chasing after something you already have.

Here’s what I mean.

Imagine you wake up tomorrow morning convinced you’re running out of oxygen.

This isn’t just a passing worry. This feels REAL to you. You’re genuinely concerned that you might not have enough oxygen to survive. And since oxygen isn’t a want—it’s a need—you cancel all your plans, skip work, and start figuring out how to solve this problem.

You rack your brain, “Where can I get more oxygen?”

“From an oxygen tank!”

You drive an hour to the nearest scuba shop and buy a bunch of tanks. You stack them in your bedroom, your car, and your office, just in case. You’re spending thousands of dollars, but at least you’ll always have oxygen nearby, right?

But then you start to worry about what happens when they run out.

You come up with ANOTHER strategy.

You remember from seventh-grade science class that plants produce oxygen, so you go to the plant store. You fill your house with ferns and fiddle leaf figs. You become a plant person overnight. Not because you love plants, but because you’re trying to solve your oxygen problem.

Or maybe you get super technical about it.

You research electrolysis—the process where you run electricity through water to create oxygen. You buy the equipment. You set up a whole system in your garage. You feel some relief because now you know you’re always going to be able to turn water into oxygen. But still, you’re trying to think of other strategies in case this one fails.

Here’s the thing: None of these strategies are necessarily wrong. They might even work. The problem is, they’re wildly, incredibly, exhaustingly inefficient.

They’re a HUGE waste of time, energy, and resources.

Why?

Because there’s already plenty of oxygen in the universe.

It’s everywhere. You’re breathing it right now as you read this. You don’t need scuba tanks or a jungle of houseplants or electrolysis equipment.

You could have avoided all that effort.

All you need to do is take a deep breath.

This might sound like a silly example, but here’s my point…

This is exactly what you’re doing with your Apex Emotional Need.

Stay with me here, because this is where it gets interesting.

Each of us has what I call a Primal Question. It’s the command center of our lives. It’s the question underneath all our other questions. The thing that drives almost everything we do. There are seven of them:

• Am I safe?

• Am I secure?

• Am I loved?

• Am I wanted?

• Am I successful?

• Am I good enough?

• Do I have a purpose?

One of these is YOUR Primal Question. It’s not all seven. It’s one. The big one. Your apex emotional need. This need is like oxygen. It’s not a want. It’s a NEED. You can’t survive, much less thrive, without it being met.

When this need feels threatened, you go into what I call the scramble.

The scramble is all the strategies, coping mechanisms, unhealthy behaviors, etc. that you do to try to meet your need and force the answer to your question back to “yes.”

It’s your version of stacking scuba tanks in every room.

Let me show you what this looks like in real life.

What the scramble looks like in my life.

My Primal Question is “Am I safe?”

My scramble looks like hypervigilance. I’m constantly scanning for threats. I need to know what could go wrong so I can prepare for it. I try to control everything because if I can control it, maybe I can keep myself safe.

In my scramble, I become a risk management expert. I pay attention to every detail because everything matters when my safety is at stake. I live in my head, always thinking, always planning, always trying to predict the next bad thing.

It’s exhausting.

The worst part is I do all of this even though I’m already safe.

I’m over 6 ft. tall, weigh over 200 lbs, and live in the suburbs of San Diego. I have resources. I have people who love me. I’m not the scared, small child I was when this question got imprinted on me.

But that wounded kid inside me is still trying to solve the problem.

Still stacking scuba tanks. Still convinced that if I just control enough, plan enough, prepare enough, THEN I’ll finally be safe.

Your scramble probably looks different than mine.

• If your question is “Am I loved?”, your scramble might look like people-pleasing. Over-giving. Abandoning yourself to take care of everyone else. Accepting whatever scraps of affection come your way because you’re terrified of being alone.

• If your question is “Am I successful?”, your scramble might look like workaholism. Never resting. Measuring your worth by your output. Constantly moving the goalpost because no achievement ever feels like enough.

• If your question is “Am I good enough?”, your scramble might look like perfectionism. Performing. Defending yourself against any criticism. Exhausting yourself trying to prove your value to people who already see it.

See the pattern here?

By the way, I’m not judging you. When I see the scramble, I don’t see a broken person or a bad person. I see a brilliant strategist who has figured out complex ways to get their need met.

What I’m trying to get you to see is simply that you’re wasting your time, energy, and money by meeting that need in inefficient ways.

Just like with oxygen, there’s already plenty of what you need available to you.

Who would you be if you believed that?

That’s the invitation I want to give you this week.

I just want you to imagine who you would be without the scramble. What are all the strategies you use to meet your need? Who would you be if you already knew you had a lifetime supply of your greatest need? What kind of time and energy, and resources would that save you, and what could you do with them?

• Who would you be if you already knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that you’re loved?

• Who would you be if you already knew deep in your soul that you’re good enough and don’t have to strive?

• Who would you be if you already knew your life has purpose, no matter what you do today?

Whatever the answer is, that’s what your scramble is costing you.

It’s not just costing you time and resource. It’s costing the calm, confident, courageous YOU. Take a minute with that. Really sit with it. The scramble has been running your life for a long time. But every time you catch it and choose to live in the truth, you’re taking your power back.

Stop wasting your life savings on scuba tanks.

There’s plenty of oxygen, friend.

You just need to breathe.

Warmly,

Mike Foster

P.S. If you want to go deeper on understanding your Primal Question and breaking free from your scramble, I wrote an entire book about this called The Seven Primal Questions.

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