In this episode, we discuss the importance of having five-minute problems and how to do so.
Full Transcript
Hi Everyone, welcome to the You’re Daily Cup of Joe Podcast, where my goal is to give you quick lessons on how to grow yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually so you can have better careers, better relationships, and better personal finances.
I’m also the author of the book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to Get Better Every Day”. In this book, I wrote down over 30 tips to help you grow in those four cornerstones.
In today’s episode, we’re going to talk about the need to have five-minute problems. I got this concept from the book, the subtle art of not giving a fuck by Mark Manson, Jocko Wilkins Jeif Balbins book extreme ownership, and from Hal Elrod. Hal Elrod made me realize that I need to strive to make problems last five minutes and Mark Manson make realize that everyone has a problem, but some problems you want more than others.
So Hal Elrod wrote this great book called the Miracle Morning which a book that is in my Top 100 list, but Hal Elrod was a Cutco salesman and broke a lot of records while he was with them. When you’re in sales, there are going to be a lot of problems that you have to deal with, mostly with customers and helping them with their problems, which then become your problems. In a podcast he talked about if something went wrong, he could only have five minutes on dwelling on a problem or mistake, then he had to forget it and then get back to work on something productive. I used to be a big dweller and think about the things I did wrong at work like not following through on something and dropping the ball. Then I would avoid that person because I didn’t want to deal with it and I would just keep thinking about it and I couldn’t relax. But I’ve gotten better at it by addressing it. First I would take extreme ownership of the issue by saying it was my fault, then I would offer a solution to fix it, and most of the time they accept my apology and then I would just work hard on not making the same mistake again by improving my process or giving myself more time to accomplish something. Usually, if I couldn’t accomplish something, I would call the person up and tell them I needed more time and they were fine with it. Just don’t wait until the last minute to tell them.
So just accept ownership of the situation and come up with a solution to fix the problem. This is what Jock and Jeif talk about in the book extreme ownership. One of the surest ways to make a problem last longer than five minutes is to not take ownership of a problem. Sometimes you just need to take ownership and go first to address the problem. Try to explain your side and how things can be fixed. If the other side doesn’t want to listen, then all you can do is move on and said you did your best. Another thing you should do is document the issue and how you tried to solve the issue and how the client responded. Just in case the other person wants to come back and said you didn’t do anything. Most people don’t document what happens and if you have your notes and they are dated at the right time, that should help out your case more. This will definitely make things a five-minute problem. There is nothing worse than having to remember what happened and you have no documentation on what happened. So you want to cover your bases and make sure things are documented. We live in a very litigious society and people can sue for some petty stuff.
Another way to have five minute problems is just to have enough resources to handle problems. In Mark Manson’s book, he talks about how everybody has a problem. Warren Buffet has money problems and the single mom making minimum wage also has money problems. The key thing is that some problems are better to have than others. Warren Buffet has the ability to handle a lot of stuff by hiring somebody else to solve the problem for him while the single mom on minimum wage doesn’t and has to deal with a lot more stress. So by having resources, you can turn those problems into five-minute problems. So make sure you have a job that can give you the income that you need to handle life and that your spending is not out of control and piling up a lot of debt. Also the proper amount of insurance should be in place to deal with those low probability but huge impact items like getting in a car accident. This can also be as simple have a spare tire that actually has air in it. It’s your insurance policy for that low probability event of getting a flat tire. If you ride around without car insurance and get into an accident than that can be a huge problem to come back from. So think about those low probability events that can have a huge impact on your life.
The last way to have five-minute problems is not to take over the problem of others. When you take over the problems of others you’re just enabling bad behavior. One is that the other person doesn’t learn how to handle problems and you just gave yourself more work. Sometimes the best solution is to let people struggle a little bit. I feel this is good because it builds discipline and humility. Things should be challenging in life and dealing with problems is part of the solution. It tests yourself to see what you really are capable of. Plus it can make you stronger as a person so you can handle a larger problem down the road. If somebody comes to me with a problem, I can give guidance but I’m not going to do everything for the person unless I’m paid properly. I see it with parents who always come in and save their kid who messes up. They learn nothing and then end up messing up again. This then just causes more problems for parents because they didn’t know when to sit on the sidelines and let their kid figure it out. Same thing with two friends. One friend is having a problem and the other friend then goes on a rampage where do they’re doing all these things to solve the problem and the other person isn’t ready to change yet and doesn’t implement any of the solutions from the friend. Now that friend is upset that they did all this work and wasted their time. But I think it’s the friend that did all the work that is in the wrong because they took over somebody else’s problem. If someone keeps complaining about a problem but they are not going to do anything about it, then I think a good rule to implement is that they are only allowed to complain about something five times and then they are never allowed to talk about it again. I can’t stand negativity myself and someone that isn’t going to take action and just stay miserable is someone I don’t want to hang around. This goes back to being comfortable with conflict and with conflict, it’s like taking a cold shower. At first, it sucks but then you get to enjoy a lot of the benefits from a cold shower. So overall, don’t take over somebody else’s problems.
To summarize today’s episode, to have five minute problems in life, have resources, take ownership of a problem and think of solutions, don’t dwell on your problems, learn from them and discard them as fast as possible, and don’t take over other people’s problems.
Thanks for listening today’s episode.
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