Dan John’s success formula—“show up; ask questions; don’t quit”—has stuck with me for a long time. What’s changed recently, however, is which of the three aspects I consider the most difficult.

Showing up per day and not quitting on the order of years and decades used to flip-flop as the MVPs. But I’m now convinced that asking questions is the hardest thing, the most difficult thing to maintain over time.

Showing up and not quitting can be habitualised, can be scaffolded with lifestyle and sociocultural supports. But asking questions requires a positive equivalent of Mad Eye Moody’s “constant vigilance”. You have to always create a meaningful differentiation between the world as it is and the world your imagination and nerve can compose.

The intellectual cost of that never gets near zero. The social cost of that—especially asking about the most potent compositions—never approaches zero either.

In fact, “On a long enough timeline the question rate for everyone drops to zero.” So congratulations on asking even one question today.