Episode Transcript
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S1 (00:00):
Welcome to business and the podcast for people making it
all happen. Running a successful business completely takes over your life,
but I'm a believer that there is still room for
some ands like health, wealth, beauty, and maybe even some fashion.
On this podcast, I'll share with you what's working for
scaling my nine figure business while keeping you up to
date on the latest trends, news and fun finds. This
(00:23):
is a place for business and let's dive in!
S2 (00:26):
Welcome back to business and let's talk about problems. I
love talking about problems. In fact, Brian and I just
this morning had a nice 45 minute chat before going
into work about the problems that we have and how
we choose the problems that we have. And to be
honest with you, if I step out of the problems
that I have today, like I love these problems, I'm
(00:46):
really excited and energized by the problems, but they still
feel like problems. And the reason I'm able to have
such big problems to solve today is I've gained momentum
in success, in solving little problems. So the problems that
I used to have a year ago or three years ago,
or five years ago, or even ten years ago seemed
like their silly little problems because I've been able to
learn the skills to navigate my way out of those problems.
(01:09):
But today I feel like I have huge problems. However,
in ten years from now, these problems are going to
seem like they're nothing. And so this process of how
do you identify the right problems to solve, what is
the framework that you use is something that I think
about often. I talk about constantly, and I'm obsessed with,
as most people are, my problems. So this is my framework.
I hope you enjoy. Let's dive in. Strategy number one
(01:29):
to solve any problem is what I call the source scan.
Before I dive into solving any problem, whether it's personal
or professional, I understand who is bringing this problem to me.
You have to identify the source and understand if you
trust that source, or if you don't trust that source,
if you just hop into solving other people's problems and
they aren't actually trustworthy and they aren't somebody who has
(01:51):
control of their environment, they aren't somebody that you even
think knows how to solve great problems. Why would you
put yourself in a position where you are taking on
their problem to help solve it? They aren't going to
take that advice. You're wasting your time and a lot
of your energy can be spent in better places. So
before I just accept anybody's problem, I really look at
what are the stats of that individual? Does that person
have a consistent track record of creating more problems? So
(02:14):
get this you can help somebody, but by helping them
actually find yourself getting stuck in more of their problems.
I do not want problems where I can't actually help
impact the solution. If I already know that that person
cannot execute, the right solution might have identified the problem incorrectly.
To begin with. I'm not going to trust that I
should be spending my time to help solve this problem.
I'm just going to go to a different set of problems,
(02:34):
and one of my biggest mindset hacks is I get
to choose my problems. Somebody can't just emotionally dump all
of their problems onto me and have me think that
I'm just going to take them on. That's how unsuccessful
people view problems. They think that problems happen to them,
and they have to take on these problems and solve them.
And they are stuck in their myriad of all of
their problems. That's not how I look at it. I
look at who is giving me this problem. Am I
(02:56):
giving me this problem? Am I getting this problem because
somebody that I trust is giving me a big problem
to solve, or somebody who I don't trust is giving
me this problem? If it's the first two, I'm gonna
get excited to solve the problem because life is filled
with interesting, exciting problems. And the only problem with problems
is when they're the same problems or they're not important
problems that you have to keep solving over and over again.
(03:17):
But when you have bigger problems, it's exciting. It's fun
to solve. There are bigger problems lead to more money,
more career advancement, more opportunity. So problems are actually a
really good thing, but they are never a good thing.
If you don't properly assess the source from the start.
If the person is credible, then listen to the problem.
And if the person is an emotional off loader, you
(03:38):
should definitely redirect. You do not want to waste time
solving problems from people who cannot own them. The source
can is invaluable when you are running a business or
leading a team. Because if you don't know who you
can trust in your business to give you the right
problems and the right assessment of your problems, you're gonna
have a really hard time making great decisions. I have
(03:58):
hundreds of team members who report up to me, and
in order to catch this problem early, you can figure
it out in the interview process. And I have a
tried and true interview process that I use for every
single team member, and that I've rolled out with thousands
of clients across different businesses, different sectors. Because if you
can nail the source scan in the interview process, you're
setting yourself up for success in your business when those
team members are actually on board. If you want my
(04:20):
tried and true interview process, open up Instagram, find me
at DM me interview and I'll send it over your way.
S3 (04:27):
The second strategy is the options dump. The biggest trap I.
S2 (04:30):
See business owners get stuck in is thinking that they
are the professional problem solver, and they train their team
to do this. They allow their team to come into
their office, put some massive problem on their desk, and
then the team member walks away. When the business owner
now has to solve it. And imagine multiplying that by
ten people or 12 people, depending on how many direct
reports the person has. This is not the way to
(04:50):
set up a scalable business. If you have a problem,
you have to train your team members to give you
options for how they would solve that problem, so that
then you can get transparency into their thinking to understand
if they're thinking about it the right way, the wrong way,
what coaching needs to happen in order for the best
decision to be made. But no team member is just
allowed to walk in your office, give you a bunch
of problems and walk away and have it be your
(05:11):
job to solve the problems. It is their job to
solve the problems. I train everyone in my life not
to just give me a problem. So what? I don't
allow somebody to just pick up a phone and give
me a massive problem. They have to follow the rule
of three, and the rule of three is you have
to give me your three best solutions to this problem.
What does this help me do? It helps me get
transparency into the person's thinking. So the rule of three
(05:32):
helps in all areas of life. I don't care if
it's with your kids, with your significant other, or with
your team members. Have people give you actual options that
you can work through, instead of just expecting that they
can just dump their problem onto your plate and have
you be responsible for solving it. Now, as a woman
in business, this can be particularly difficult because oftentimes people's
(05:53):
problems really bother them, and we feel like we have
to nurture them and to console them through the problem
solving process. But what this really does is just gives
us more problems. If your team member is trained to
just constantly dump their problems on you, you are going
to feel overwhelmed by other people's problems. And your biggest
problem is actually that you aren't solving problems that are
important to you. You're solving other people's problems. So I
(06:15):
don't do this. And the rule of three helps me
create a framework to help my team members and the
people in my life communicate with me about what's important
to them. If they don't have potential solutions, I can't
help because they haven't thought through what their problems are.
My talk track for this is what are your three solutions?
Super easy to ask that question when somebody dumps some
problem on you. Oh, I don't know what to do.
My husband and I are fighting. Okay, what are the
(06:37):
three solutions that you see for this problem? Well, I
could spend more time with him. I could quit my job.
We could be together forever. Or I could break up
with him. Okay, well, I don't think you want to
break up with him. That would be a little bit painful.
And quitting your job probably isn't the right thing either. Right.
Like you're going through the actual options so that you're
giving your team members a framework to be able to
understand what the possible solutions are. You can coach them
(06:58):
through the solution, but it's them figuring out what makes
most sense to them while you're getting transparency into how
they think. The bonus point is when they think exactly
how you think, and you're able to duplicate yourself through
this person because they're in alignment with the way that
you want to do things inside your organization or across
your team. If someone brings you clear and strategic problems,
you can evaluate their thinking and help them make the decision.
(07:19):
That's you being a really great coach. But if they
are venting to you about the problem and they aren't
solutions oriented, then send them back to think about what
their three solutions are. There is nothing worse than somebody
just venting their problems on you, but you are actually
the problem because you've created that. That's what they expect.
They can just come in, dump all over you, and
then walk away without any real solution. Don't let people
(07:42):
in your life do this. The third strategy is decisions,
without doubt, because indecision is just a sign that you
don't trust yourself. Yet I find that people who can't
make a decision really just struggle with their own self-confidence.
They don't trust themselves to make a good decision because
maybe in the past they've made bad decisions and they
let the bad decision go on way too long and
(08:02):
they didn't fix it or correct it. So they didn't
trust themselves, and they ended up losing confidence in their
ability to make great decisions. See, if you're waffling, you
have to go back to why don't I trust myself.
Here's the cool thing about trusting yourself you can do
things instantly that increase trust in yourself to make a
good decision. So right now, what are you doing? Is
it something that is getting you closer to your goals?
(08:24):
This is how I've learned to trust myself. I make
good decisions every single day, whether that's working out, eating right,
answering back, responding to people, doing follow ups, making progress
on a presentation, making the phone call that I don't
want to make. You can instantly get trust credits with
yourself to make good decisions, and the better you are
at making good decisions, and the more you trust yourself
(08:44):
with those decisions, you're going to have an easier time
making more decisions because you're not going to get stuck
in this indecision trap. I can always tell when somebody
doesn't trust themselves by the length of time it takes
for them to make a decision, even something as simple
as at a restaurant. How quickly can you choose what
you want to order off the menu? If you take
five minutes to make that decision? I know that in
your business, you are making slow decisions because you're weighing
(09:06):
all the options and you're using so much mental capacity
in order to make a very simple decision because you
don't trust yourself. Well, does it really matter if you
get the pasta or the fish? not really make the
decision so that you can move on to more important things.
Back in the day, I used to take forever to
make a good decision, and I never trusted that it
actually was a good decision. I was debating between two
(09:26):
different logos, and it took me two months in order
to decide between one of the logos. Today, I would
make a logo decision in a matter of seconds to
just move off of that and see if it works,
because I know the faster I'm able to make decisions,
the faster I'm able to see what the feedback is
to double down on if that was the right decision,
or to change courses because it was the wrong decision.
Momentum always beats perfection, which is why it is so
(09:49):
important to move and make decisions quickly. That brings us
to the last strategy, the follow up. In order to
know if you made a good decision, you have to
follow up on what the results of that decision were.
Without follow up, you're going to be uncertain of whether
or not it was right or wrong, because high performers
make fast decisions and make lots of decisions. They have
(10:09):
to know if those decisions are working out because they
want to increase the volume of great decisions that they're making.
So if you're not following up on the consequences or
the results of the decisions that you're making, you're going
to be left continuing to feel uncertain and not confident
in your decision making ability. To be successful. You need
to be confident in your ability to make a great
decision so you don't just randomly make decisions based off
(10:32):
of whatever your gut instinct is, and just go through
life making decision after decision without actually looking at if
it was the right or wrong decision. You should make
the best decision based off of the information that you
have and make decisions very quickly. But you then also
have to build in a mechanism to follow up to
see what was the end result of that decision, did
it work or did it not work? And the shorter
the time frame that you can measure the decision, the
(10:54):
faster you can make a better decision by either doubling
down on it or saying, I need to make a
total pivot because this didn't end up working out. I
recently worked with a business owner who was so fixated
on the direction that he wanted to take his brand,
he had this vision, he was clear about his vision,
and he launched the product and the product flopped. But
he wasn't willing to go back to say maybe this
(11:16):
was the wrong decision. He doubled down on the wrong decision,
and he kept spending more money on more launches that
continued to fail. Instead of saying, I trusted my first decision,
we did some market research. Turned out nobody was interested
in this product. Therefore, I'm going to pivot the product
to make a better decision based off of the new
information that I have. That would be the right way
to handle the situation. But instead, he kept chasing the
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bad decision, and he's continuing to double down on the
fact that he thinks it's the right thing, even though
it's not. So with your decisions, you have to actually
look at their results, and the faster you get results,
the faster you're going to know. I can trust myself.
I'm going to keep moving on and making great decisions,
or I have reason to believe that I can't trust myself.
But I have this opportunity to make a better decision
because I'm not going to circle the drain. Doubling down
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on something that isn't working. It's important to not let
your emotions drive your decision making. You can clearly look
to see if you're making the right decisions based off
of your ability to achieve your goals. Do you have
the type of people that you want in your life?
If you don't, you're probably not making the right decisions
about who you're hanging out with. Do you have a
product and a brand that people love and are coming
back to? Then yes, you're making a good decision about
your brand positioning and the people that you're working with.
(12:19):
Do you feel healthy and strong every day instead of
tired and exhausted? If you're feeling tired and exhausted, you're
probably not making the best decisions as it relates to
your health. You see, these are all indicators and the
indicators of your life. Demonstrate if you are making great
decisions or if you're making sucky ones, but don't use
your feelings to solve your problems. Let the results decide.
In life and in business, remember that it is so
(12:41):
important to understand the how and the why behind how
you make decisions.
S1 (12:46):
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(13:06):
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