[Cold open - the phone call that doesn't happen] Think of the last time something went sideways. Could have been anything — a flat tire at night, a phone call from the doctor that scared you, a morning when the whole thing just felt too heavy to carry alone. When that moment hit you, did you know exactly who to call? Not the right person. Not the smart person. Just the one person you'd reach for without thinking — the one who would answer, who would actually show up, who you trusted with the real, messy, unpolished version of the problem. If a name just dropped into your head, hold onto it. That person is what we call a center. And if the question left you staring at your phone, unsure who to call, that feeling has a name too — and you're not alone in it. This show is about both of those people: the one who has a center, and the one who doesn't yet. Because the good news — and it is good news — is that a center is not a personality type. It's not something you're born with. It's a position, and anybody can offer to stand in it.
[What a center actually is] Let's get clear on what we mean by a center, because it's simpler than it sounds. A center is the person a group quietly orbits around — not because they're in charge, not because they're the smartest one in the room, but because they're the one who shows up. They answer. They remember. When something lands sideways on you, they're who you think of first. Every real group has one, or had one. Maybe it's the grandma who held the family together. The neighbor everyone defaulted to for thirty years. The coworker who got things going in the morning and somehow kept things going all afternoon. Not by being in charge. Just by being present and willing. Now here's the part people get wrong about centers. We think they're born that way. We think being a center is some combination of natural warmth and time and maybe luck — something that happens to certain people. But when you watch how centers actually form, what you see is almost always the same quiet thing: somebody offered first. They said, in some form or another, 'if you need something, I'm your person.' And after that offer, the thing started to build. The center isn't born, it's offered. And that changes everything about what this week asks of you.
[How the first offer works - Rosa and Marcus] Let me show you how this actually goes. Rosa is new at her job. She's not the most senior person. She's not running anything. But on her third week, she notices that one of her coworkers — Marcus — is visibly struggling with something. She doesn't know him well enough to know the details. So she does a simple thing. She stops by after a meeting and says: 'Hey, I don't know what's going on, but if this week gets hard, you can call me.' That's it. That's the whole offer. Marcus kind of nods and says thanks, and Rosa isn't sure he'll ever use it. But here's what happens. Three weeks later, Marcus gets some bad news, and the first name that comes to him is Rosa — not because she fixed anything, not because she's been working quietly to earn her place, but because she's the only one who ever said 'call me.' She already put herself in the middle. She was already the center before she needed to be. A year goes by, and Marcus mentions Rosa's name to a new hire who's struggling. Then that new hire mentions her to someone else. Rosa never set out to be a hub. She made one offer, and the center built itself around her. That's how fast it starts — one offer, one person, one week.
[The honest pushback - 'what if nobody calls?'] Now let me take the doubt seriously, because it's a real one. The most common thing I hear when someone considers making this offer is this: what if I say 'call me first' and nobody does? What if I put myself out there and the person nods politely and I never hear from them again, and I end up feeling ridiculous? Let me be straight with you: that might happen. It genuinely might. Not everyone calls. Some people hear your offer and file it under 'nice, but not necessary.' And I won't tell you that doesn't sting a little, because it can. But here's what I want you to separate out carefully. There's a difference between 'nobody called this week' and 'the offer didn't work.' The offer did something the moment you made it — it changed how that person sees you. Even if they don't call this week, they now have a name for who to call. That is not nothing. That is, in fact, everything, because centers aren't built on crises. They're built on the quiet fact that a person knows your name is available. Most of the time, the jar fills slowly. A first drop doesn't fill it. But without that first drop, it stays empty forever. The question isn't 'will everyone call.' The question is: does one person now know they can?
[What we know about who people call] Let me bring in something real here, because it's worth knowing. When you study who people actually turn to in a tough moment — not who they think they should call, but who they reach for when it's three in the morning and something's wrong — you find the same pattern over and over. They reach for the person who already told them it was okay to call. Not the most capable person they know. Not the one with all the answers. The one who made the offer. This has been noticed in workplaces, in neighborhoods, in families — people who say 'call me first' are the ones who get called first, not because they're the best or the closest, but because they removed the question. When you're in a hard moment, you don't have energy to figure out who would be willing. You just call the person you already know said yes. And here's the part that matters for this week. Most of us assume that other people already have someone like that — a center, a go-to, a person who told them it's okay to call. But when you actually check, a lot of people don't. A lot of people would genuinely stare at that phone and not know. The offer you might make this week might be the first time anyone ever said that to someone in your orbit. That's not a small thing.
[The other side - what it feels like to not have a center] Let's sit for a second on what it actually feels like when you don't have one. Because this is the side that nobody talks about directly. You're an adult. You're fine. Things are mostly okay. And then something goes wrong — not catastrophic, just hard — and you open your contacts and you scroll and you feel the strange, uncomfortable thing: there's nobody here I'd call for this. You might have a hundred people in that list. You might be surrounded by people who care about you in the general, arms-length sense. But in the specific, honest, real sense — who would you call right now with the actual messy truth of what's happening? That gap is more common than people say, because it's embarrassing to admit. So people carry it quietly and call nobody, or call someone they half-trust and trim the truth down to something manageable. Now here's what I want you to notice: that gap is not about being unliked or isolated or failing at friendship. It's almost always about the same thing. Nobody offered. Nobody ever said — to that person, plainly — 'I'm your person, call me first.' Not in a dramatic way. Not in a way that costs anything. Just somebody looking at them and meaning it and saying it. That's the gap you can close this week, for one person, with one sentence.
[The aha-turn - the center is the give] Here's where the whole idea turns, and I want you to feel this shift. Everything we've talked about so far — finding someone to call, being the person people reach for — might sound like it's about you getting something. About filling a need you have, or solving a problem you have. But look at it from the other side for a second. The person you're thinking of making the offer to — whoever showed up in your head just now. What would it mean to them to hear someone say 'call me first'? Think about it seriously. They've probably had weeks where they carried something alone that they didn't have to carry alone. They've probably trimmed a truth down to fit a conversation that didn't feel quite safe enough for the real version. They've probably done the scrolling-contacts thing and quietly put the phone down. And then you say — plainly, without making a big deal of it — 'hey, this week, if something comes up, call me.' You are not offering advice. You're not promising to fix anything. You are offering to be the person they don't have to trim the truth for. That is a gift. Not a gift to yourself — a gift to them. Being a center isn't self-improvement. It's a give. It's the give. And that's why this week's practice lives in a show called Give First. The center is the give.
[What the offer is not] Before we get to the week's practice, I want to be clear about what this offer is not — because there's a version of this that goes wrong, and I'd rather name it straight than have you walk into it. The offer is not a test. You're not saying 'call me first' to see what the person does with it, to check whether they're worth your time, to measure whether they reciprocate on schedule. The second you make the offer a test, it stops being a give and becomes a transaction, and you will read every non-call as a rejection and every call as a data point. That's exhausting for you and it's unfair to them. The offer is also not a way to fill your own calendar with being needed. There's a shape of over-giving that looks like generosity from the outside but is really about the giver's need to feel necessary — and that shape tends to make the people you're giving to feel managed rather than cared for. The offer has to be genuinely without strings. Call me if you need to. And if you don't, great, I hope the week is easy. That's it. A real center doesn't keep score. A real center doesn't withdraw the offer when it goes unused. It just stays available, quietly, the way a jar on a desk stays available — whether anyone drops anything in today or not.
[Bring it to yourself - the aha-turn inward] Now let's bring this all the way to you, because it stops being useful the second it stays abstract. I want you to actually stop for a second and do this with me. Think about the people in your life right now — not your whole social world, just the people you've seen or talked to in the last couple of weeks. Is there one person you can picture who's carrying something? They don't have to be in crisis. They might just seem a little thinner than usual, a little quieter, a little more together-on-the-outside. That's the one. Now here's the second part, and this is the one that's harder. Is there something you've been carrying that you haven't said to anyone? Not because you're fine, but because you're not sure who it's safe to say it to? Because this practice runs both ways. Being a center means being available for others, yes — but it also means being willing to be someone's jar. Letting yourself be the person who can say 'yeah, actually, this week was hard.' If that feels uncomfortable, I want to say something quietly: you probably have at least one person in your life who would show up for you if you let them know it was okay to. They just haven't been asked. You haven't been the one to say 'if something comes up, call me' — and neither have they. The practice this week closes both of those gaps at once. One person, one offer, both directions.
[This week - be one person's go-to] So here's what week one is. And I want to say it plainly, because the whole show is built on the idea that small is the point. Pick one person. Not a group, not a general announcement, not a text to five people at once. One specific person — a friend who's had a stretch, a neighbor you barely know but keep meaning to actually know, a coworker who just started and doesn't know anybody yet, a sibling you haven't really talked to in a while. Pick one. And then tell them, in plain words, in whatever way feels natural for the two of you: 'Hey — this week, if something comes up, call me first.' That's the practice. That's the whole week. You're not promising to solve their problems. You're not signing up to be on call around the clock. You're just making yourself the name in their head — the answer to 'who would I call.' And then the only follow-through is this: if they do reach out, you show up. You answer. You're present for whatever they bring, in whatever amount of time you actually have to give. Don't make a crisis to prove you meant it. Don't follow up and ask if they needed anything. Just hold the offer open and be reachable. If the week goes easy and they don't call, that's a good week — the jar is still there, lid still off, waiting. And you're already someone's center, whether they needed it this week or not.
[Outro] That's week one. One person who now has a name for who to call — yours. And that is not a small thing. A center doesn't get built in a single week, and it doesn't need to be. It gets built one offer at a time, quietly, the way everything real gets built. The whole of what we're doing in these five books comes down to one move, repeated: giving in a shape that keeps going, that keeps coming back around, that makes sure nobody — including you — ever has to carry the hard things alone. Week two, we go a little deeper — we'll look at what happens when the offer is made and actually taken, and what the shape of that give teaches you about the whole thing. For now, go find your one person. And if you need a little more of the long version of why this matters so much, it's all in the first book. Watched over, as always, by Daisy. I'll see you in week two.