🏢WorkLife Wednesday: Problem Solving for Leaders

Good morning. Today I’m going to solve all of your problems. Yes, actually all of them. By the end of this newsletter you’ll be a better problem solver than 99% of the world; guaranteed or your money back (jk, this is a free newsletter).

Everyone has problems, and that’s not to say the severity of your problems aren’t worse than others. Some people’s biggest problem is not having enough cash to buy this season’s Louis Vuitton bag, while others don’t have clean drinking water. Of course there’s levels to the severity of our problems, but the most successful people in the world view them in a totally different way.

Story time. There was a time in high school baseball when I was competing for playing-time with an upperclassman. Coach gave me less opportunities to prove myself because of seniority, so I had to perform every chance I got. There was a lot of pressure from people rooting for me as family and friends attended games. Stepping to the plate once or twice a game scared me. Every at-bat had a political feel to it. I wasn’t going to the plate to help my team win, instead focusing on improving my own stats to play more. It was a selfish mindset. Exactly the opposite lesson sports are supposed to teach.

After the first couple games, my batting average hovered around .225 (the MLB league average is .250). I knew that wouldn’t earn more playing time and the reason for my low batting average was obvious. Something changed in my mentality that was preventing confidence at the plate. I was putting in the work, going to optional practices, training individually, and focusing on technique. I had the preparation but my confidence wasn’t where it needed to be. I thought back to a better me, when I was having fun playing the sport, when I didn’t care about all the external crap. I needed to care less.

I decided the best way to care less was to eliminate the politics in baseball by acting like I was already awarded the starting job. I started to approach the plate with more swagger. I held my head a little higher, my chest puffed a little more, and my swing was more pure than it had ever been. I learned to block out the politics of the sport by acting like the person I wanted to be. My batting average rose to .500. This was a pivotal moment in my life, where I learned that half of my capability was mental and the other half was preparation, and I was in full control of both.

Neuroplasticity. I began to study this mental phenomenon that statistically improved my performance on the baseball field. Why did this simple change of mindset have lasting impacts on my skills? The truth is a scientific gift that everyone is born with.

Neuroplasticity is the ability to change neural networks in the brain through growth and reorganization. OK, I don’t want to lose you here, because this is really simple stuff with fancy-pants words. Picture the anatomy of your brain for a second. There’s a few parts that dictate the way you process information and your emotions. The parts of your brain that coordinates your responses to your environment are the amygdala and hypothalamus, which play a huge role is processing anxiety, fear, anger, happiness, confidence, and a thousand other emotions. You send neurons to these parts of the brain when you feel an emotion, making those electric connections stronger and stronger every time. This explains why it’s easy to get into bad habits, and why it’s so hard to break them. The good news is you’re in control of these neurons. By thinking about your problems in positive way, you can change your perspective by redirecting your neurons to different parts of the brain, making those connections stronger as you repeat these thoughts.

An example is if you’ve hit rock bottom in your financials and you have $5 in your bank account. We’ve all been there. A broke mindset is to stress about it, wondering where you went wrong and how the world is unfair. You can feel the negativity just reading those words so do you really want to feel that way about your problems? When you stress and sulk, you fog the image of your problem when you need clarity of it. A rich mindset is knowing it’s only up from here. Seriously, you’re surviving on $5 which is amazing but it also means there’s a world of possibilities for improving your quality of life. You get paid this week and will eat PB&Js until then. You’ll start budgeting, move to an apartment with cheaper rent, cancel that subscription you don’t use, and soon that $5 will turn in to $5,000 in savings. When we change the mindset about our problems and think positively, we can find real solutions for them.

Neuroplasticity is like muscle memory. Practice swinging a bat, throwing a ball, jumping, writing, typing, etc. You’re going to get better the more you practice.

You’re in control.

The 1,000 Rule. The first time I scored a touchdown, I jumped up and down in celebration, hooting and hollering. I ran to my coach expecting the same energy. “You got a flag for celebrating, act like you’ve been somewhere before.” He explained. Wow. Not what I was expecting.

Although this was in celebration, I reflect on this moment when there’s a problem. How can I better handle problems on the fly? We don’t always have the opportunity to reflect on a problem because our boss needs the answer right away. “Act like you’ve been somewhere before,” that angel on my shoulder says when I have a problem.

A solid trick to manipulating your neuroplasticity is to use The 1,000 Rule. Imagining that you’ve solved a problem 1,000 times before gives you confidence and redirects neurons to confidence controlling parts of the brain. You empower yourself to find solutions if you’ve done it before so tell yourself you have. This is not advice to lie to your employer and tell them you’ve fixed 1,000 supply chains across the greater Americas but instead confidence boosting trick.

Perspective. The hard truth is everyone has problems. Whether you’re rich or poor, employed or unemployed, single or married, everyone has the same amount of problems (albeit some more severe than others). Our primitive instincts encourage us to identify areas for improvement in our living situation regardless of the quality of life. We’re engineered that way.

A mentor of mine once told me, “don’t get rid of your problems for the sake of not having any, because there’s always more that follow.” A good rule of thumb when you identify a problem is take a moment to consider if it will matter to you 5 years from now and if it won’t, then don’t spend 5 minutes worrying about it. He took it a step further and said if something won’t matter to you 500,000 years from now, don’t spend 5 minutes worrying about it. You may be thinking, “but nothing will matter to me 500,00 years from now,” and that’s the point, it doesn’t really matter so stop stressing about it.

Let’s get existential. What’s something traumatic that happened to you? Think about a moment that had a seriously negative impact on your life. Do your parents have traumatic experiences? Maybe you can name one or two of theirs. Do your grandparents? Great grandparents? Most people probably can’t tell one significant story about their great grandparents, or maybe even their name. I say that to make this point: if your most traumatic experience won’t even be remembered in two generations, why are you stressing about it so much right now? Reorganizing your perspective of your problems gives you the clarity you need to find solutions.

We aren’t limited to our past experiences, or genetic makeup, to determine a solution to our problems. You’re in complete control of how you perceive the issues in your life, in turn giving you the best chances at success.

_{Written by Bailey Hepler}

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