Read time: 5 minutes.

At a glance:

• Quote:

• Picture

• What I’ve Learned

You never grasp how serious problems can be until you provide lunch to an orthodontic practice. 

You order the food, gather everyone in the break room, and plug in your slide deck.

That is, until you hear knocking on the door.

You look through the outdoor glass and see an assistant—but the doctor says his entire team is accounted for.

You ask if she’s new or lost, and she says she’s the “real” Jenny.

But the Jenny in the breakroom is just as confused as you are.

When you tell the identical-looking Jenny outside, she starts banging on the door louder, begging you to let her in, screaming that the Jenny in the breakroom is a fake!

Meanwhile, the Jenny in the breakroom starts crying, pleading with you to keep the door shut because she’s the ‘real’ Jenny, and this lookalike has been stalking her for weeks.

The entire team is now confused.

Some think this is a prank, but most are getting scared, and they start yelling at you and the doctor to do something!

The orthodontist suddenly yells to move quickly to the consult room—

You then hear a scream.

You start dialing 911.

Suddenly, the breakroom lights flicker on and off.

Everyone squeezes into the consult room.

And that’s when you notice—

 —Both Jenny’s have disappeared.

This is a serious problem.

But I once hit the same level of panic when one employee grabbed another employee’s Panera chicken salad sandwich.

Two assistants flipped out—

And the doctor yelled for the team to calm down. We moved the fight to the consult room. Then he asked me to go back and grab another box lunch to “avoid chaos.”

 I thought of this story on my drive.

Like the story above, I’m guilty of taking minor problems and acting like they’re the end of the world.

One of my favorite authors, Sahil Bloom, gave his audience three questions to spark thinking and to help, “Put their problems in perspective.”

Because in an industry centered on creating smiles—

Problems can get way out of whack!

1. If you repeated your current typical day for one hundred days, would your life be better or worse?

Think about all the problems and challenges you commonly face. 

This question forces you to take a step back. 

How are the typical actions from your day compounding in your life? What are you worried about?

2. If someone observed your actions for a week, what would they say your priorities are?

There are two priorities in life, according to Sahil Bloom:

1. The priorities you say you have.

2. The priorities your actions show you have.

For many of us, there is a significant gap between 1 and 2.

3. If you were the main character in a movie about your life, what would the audience be screaming at you to do right now?

You’ve done this. Yelled at the character on screen to “not go into that room.”  “Break up with the boyfriend.”

ie. “Do NOT let Jenny inside!”  

What’s the audience screaming at you with your life? 

What are they saying you should eliminate, avoid,… or pursue? 

I encourage you to take a few minutes and ponder these questions.

You can’t avoid problems, but you can choose how you see them.

For if we threw all our life problems onto a pile, and saw everyone else’s..….we’d want ours back.

^{Reference and Quotes (and Book Recommendation) comes from: Sahil Bloom. The Five Types of Wealth. 2025}