How am I Doing? "Never Better"

Why I Say “Never Better”

If I asked you how you were doing, would your first response be, “Never Better”?

Now here’s the puzzler: should it be?

I started saying it over twenty years ago; doing so has been a grand experiment.

What does it even mean?

It means I’ve never been better than I am at the moment you asked me. Simple.

At least that’s what it means when I say it.

There’s also a sarcastic variant, used when it’s quite obvious that things are unwell. I avoid the sarcastic variant.

What (who) got me started?

I used to work for a guy named Pete. Every time I greeted Pete with a “How’s your day?” type of phrase, Pete responded, “Never Better.”

After about a month of these exchanges, my younger, more cynical self challenged Pete, “You’re full of it, how can that be continuously true?”

Rather than answer outright or explain it, Pete suggested I simply try a small experiment: give that answer for 1-2 weeks, then come back and let’s talk about it.

What I found in those first two weeks

I said it for about two weeks and at first I felt like a fool. The phrase felt unnatural, not mine, not practiced. I also felt a bit of an imposter: was I really Never Better? Really?

I began to notice responses from others across a range. At the positive end of the range, someone might say, “I love that!” or, “That’s fantastic!” On the negative end of the range, I’d get a sneering eye roll. Occasionally there’s silence, nothing (I had this response today). And all points in between.

Wow, this is interesting. This simple phrase immediately evokes a response, a window into how someone’s feeling in their moment. People are so unused to hearing the phrase genuinely presented that it almost always triggers a response of some kind.

Then I noticed something else in my own response, an unavoidable optimism. It becomes hard to say, “Never Better” without meaning it. Even when not feeling it, the phrase can be restorative in the moment. If already in a good mood, it can strengthen that feeling. It’s a “feedback loop”, a loop that occurs when a change in something ultimately comes back to cause a further change in the same thing. If the further change is in the same direction it's a positive or reinforcing loop.

That small experiment led to a habit that’s with me to this day

Obviously I never stopped. “Never Better” comes out of me every day, easily and without hesitation. Two words both convey and reveal a lot in topical conversation.

If that interests you, then I encourage you to take Pete’s challenge: give the answer for 1-2 weeks, then come back and let’s talk about it.