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What's going on, pursuers? My name is Thomas Carney, and this is a Pursuit of Calling podcast.

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In today's episode, we're talking about something that I feel like is an extreme problem in

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today's society, and that is the lack of problem solving. None of the people really want to

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work on this skill, and don't see it as a priority in their lives. Get out your notebook

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and guys, don't forget to give this podcast a five star review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts,

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and wherever you listen to your podcasts. You might even want to do that right now.

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I mean, you could just, you know, give it a five star review while you're listening

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to the podcast. So go ahead and do that.

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So in this episode, the main concept is all around fruits and roots. So also, if you haven't

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noticed, if you're watching this on YouTube, you may very well be seeing a video of my

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face right now. That's something, that's something new. Possibly. We'll see if it works out.

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If not, forget what I said. But we're talking about fruits and roots in a concept that maybe

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you haven't thought about before. It's really, I'm really talking about problem solving.

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And I'm like, you're probably like, that is not where I thought you were going. Yeah,

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I know. So nobody wants to solve problems anymore, right? Like, you know, imagine a,

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I want you to imagine something. Imagine a tree that is withered, is planted in bad soil,

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and has grown some bad fruit. Someone comes along and removes all the bad fruit and attaches

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superficially good looking fruit. Think, you know, the fake wax fruit that people sometimes

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put out for decoration. You know, this came to me as I was thinking about how so many

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people are trying to fix problems in their lives and in the lives of others without actually

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diving into the root of the issue. I get it. Like sometimes you want that quick fix. You

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want the, you know, that dopamine hit the instant gratification, you know, just a little

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bit later though, you're going to end up in the right back where you started. You're going

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to be just going to have more, have that bad fruit again. And it might even be worse if

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next time as you're pursuing your calling, you have to continuously look back on where

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you have fallen short and think about the core issues that caused that to happen. Mistakes

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are going to happen. Problems are going to show up. And the best way to make sure that

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they don't happen again, or even better, make sure that they don't happen again, or when

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they, when problems do arise. So, you know, how, how to better solve them in the future.

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You have to investigate the root of the issue. Now, now you see what I'm doing, where I'm

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going. So three reasons this is important to me. If you can solve your own problems,

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you have a, you honestly have a one-up on everybody else because if you can solve your

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own problems, like that's a pretty huge thing. And I'm not saying do everything yourself,

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but I am saying that if you want to successfully pursue your calling, you need to understand

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the problem. So that problem solving is the skill to master. And now I'm just going to

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mention two other things real quick. Then we're going to go back. This pro this podcast,

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you know, is about pursuing your calling and doing it well. And then finally, we're going

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to talk about doing what is easy instead of doing what needs done. Like how that seems

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to be have become commonplace in today's society. So back to if you can solve your own problems,

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you have a one-up on everyone who can't. I'm not again, you know, I said already, I'm not

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saying that you can have to do everything yourself. That's obviously not what I'm saying.

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I am saying that if you want to successfully pursue your calling, I already said this.

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You need to understand the problem solving is the skill to master guys. How do you do

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that? So I went through and actually did some research on this from Max from Maxwell leadership.

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You've heard me talk about a lot and you're going to find links to the articles I mentioned

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in the show notes. So one of the big things that they point out is that you want to evaluate

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the problem. You see it for what it is. No more, no less. A lot of people tend to look

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at the look at a problem and think it's too big. Maybe it's too big to handle on handle

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by yourself. So in that case, you need to put the right people around you in order to

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solve the problem. A while ago, I was stressing about almost losing $4,000 to a coaching program

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that I no longer wanted to be a part of. And I was losing sleep over this guy's like I

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didn't. I didn't understand how to handle this situation. I went, you know, I didn't

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understand how to handle it. So I went to my mentors. I went to pastor Ed, who's had

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been on the podcast, went to Pound Williams, who was on the podcast when it was previously

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called technically short. And I asked them for their advice, because I knew that they

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had the wisdom that I do not have. I did not have. Now I have it. And like, they walked

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me through the steps that I needed to follow in order to make sure I didn't lose that $4,000.

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And I'm actually feeling like I want to make a whole episode on this next month. So get

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subscribed so that you don't miss this one because I actually want to go a deep dive

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into that whole situation. So like, this is a perfect example of that, where I was sorry.

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This is a perfect example of a problem that was not as big as I thought in finding the

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right people to help me understand that was crucial. So this is going to be an exact quote

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from the Maxwell leadership article called problem solving and effective leadership.

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Appreciating a problem is counter intuitive for many people. Most people see a problem

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as well a problem. It's a nuisance to be avoided. However, if we have the right attitude and

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appreciate the problem, not only will we work harder to solve it, but we will also learn

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and grow from it. Problems always bring opportunities and opportunities always bring problems. Essentially,

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he's saying they go they go hand in hand. There's problems are always going to happen.

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There's no getting around it. So being able to handle these problems effectively is extremely

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crucial to living this successful life and pursuing your calling well. And the article

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five ways to build your creative problem solving skills. Again, from Maxwell leadership, step

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one is in their remove creativity killers. You know, problems problems can be solved

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in a number of ways. There isn't one right way or one size fits all solutions. Don't

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put yourself in a box by trying to be that be logical or practical or or worry about

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what someone else might think. I personally I'm a very logical thinker, right? I really

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do tend if we're being if I'm being honest, I do tend to err on the side of of logic of

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facts and creativity doesn't really come to me naturally. Thinking about problems as

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something to be solved it like he's like, whoever wrote the article didn't say it didn't

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say who wrote the article just in Maxwell leadership. But they said that a lot of people

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just try to avoid problems in in reality you can't like in me being a very logical thinker

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and knowing that I'm like, okay, well, if I come to a problem logical thing for the

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biological thing when you come to a problem is to avoid the problem in my mind that makes

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sense. But then the next logical step if you go a little bit further down the road, like

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that makes sense in the moment. If you go a little bit further down the road, you're

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realizing whenever you're avoiding the problems, really you're shoving them under the rug

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through a venue so you can avoid them anymore. And that kind of went on a tangent a little

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bit about like about that. But I really wanted to kind of drive that home that you can't

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avoid problems. I just wanted to drive that in. And if you want to read again, I'm going

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to mention again if you want to read more because that was only only really mentioned

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step one about removing creativity killers. Like if you want to read the rest of the five

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steps you can that link the link is in the show notes you can read the rest of that.

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So you know, the second thing I brought up about why this is important to me and why

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I wanted to bring it up is that this podcast is about pursuing your calling and doing it

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well. When I first decided I wanted to have my own business, I started with freelance

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web development. And pretty quickly I realized that's not what I wanted to do, right? I realized

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I kept burning myself out. You're going to see that that's kind of a trend with me. I

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kept burning myself out. And I eventually though I found that I really enjoyed philosophy

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and understanding why people think the way that they think. And you've probably heard

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me talk about this before if you've listened to previous episodes of the podcast. But if

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you haven't, essentially I was watching a PewDiePie video that where he was reviewing

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Nick Kipkean ethics and it really sparked my interest. And that was really the beginning

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of my trajectory to becoming wanting to become a life coach. Now, of course, there's a bunch

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of meat in the middle of that. But that's essentially it was that's where it started.

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And now I'm here with this podcast wanting to use this as a platform to launch me to

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to be able to reach more people and to be able to eventually coach people to live the

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life that they've been called to live. Man, I love this. I love this podcast so much.

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So you know, though, let me find that in my notes. Sorry, guys. Sorry, pursuers. Eventually

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found that I enjoyed learning about how people think yet. If you've heard me tell the story

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before. Okay. You know, sorry, I'm gonna say if you're watching the video, this might not

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be cut out. But here is the audio might be cut out. We'll find out. I guess, you know,

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okay, we're gonna go a little bit further. You know, I've just got back from an amazing

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conference called Funnel Hacking Live. You might think I'm jumping around. This is a

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little bit after I decided to want to be a life coach and my interest got sparked and

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I was like kind of diving into the business world a bit. So I just got back from this

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amazing conference, Funnel Hacking Live 2021. You know, I was on fire and ready to be a

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life coach without any real experience. Tony Robbins was the final speaker of the event

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and it was insane. So I decided to hire my own coach. You know, pretty logical. I know

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a great idea in retrospect. I hired one of Tony Robbins life coaches for six months.

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I thought I'd made it and I started making progress. But coach was coaching, essentially

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my coach was coaching me on how to be a coach. Now, the reason I'm bringing this up is because

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I'm not a coach at all. And you might be wondering like, okay, where is he going? Why is he giving

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me a story about himself? We were just talking about problem solving. Now he's talking about

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now, he's talking about like his life and we're not even think talking about a problem.

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I'm going to get to that. Give me a second. Give me a second. I promise I'm going to get

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I'm going to get to it. I'm going to get to it. Like for six months, so for six months,

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I was on the grind saying no to outings with friends and family so I could work on the

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things that I thought were going to bring bring me towards success. There was one big

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problem though. I again, I kept burning out working nonstop and spending eventually no

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time with others. You know, that's a recipe for disaster. You know, I wasn't pursuing

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my calling well. I decided to take a sabbatical quote unquote from coaching from my coaching

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pursuit and started spending more time with friends, family and mentors again. At the

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same time, I still had the love for personal growth and development that you know that

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never left me and I want to go back on it. I want to thank my friend Andrew who kept

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over and over again asking me to come in and come to a Bible study to hang the be with

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people and to just spend more time with others because if he didn't do that, like I don't

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know if I would have realized the problem. I don't know if I would have realized the

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problem that I had and I knew I had a problem, but I didn't really realize it was I was

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spending time with people until I eventually decided that I needed to spend time with people.

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That was the potential of the problem. So the problem is that I kept burning out in

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all reality. The root of the issue, you know, I thought that when you pursue your calling,

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you have to do it yourself. Hmm. I thought that if I put my head down for a year or two,

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I would be able to come out on the other side with something amazing. I'd be able to say,

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look at me, look at what I've done. You're calling, you know, I've said it before. Your

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calling goes way further than you. If your calling is just about you, then you're not

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actually living your calling. You're not actually pursuing your calling. You're pursuing something

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else. You're pursuing some perverted version perverse perverted. I don't know if perverted

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is the right word. Sorry about that. Perverse version of your calling. So, you know, I like

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the solution that I found was that I needed to keep in contact with family, friends and

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mentors who want to see me succeed. I wanted to share with them what I'm working on and

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why I'm working on it, what I'm working towards. You know, it helped me build a stronger why

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around being a life coach, building a stronger foundation rather than trying to build something

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big on top of shaky ground. You know, I was writing my notes. I was essentially, I was,

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I kind of popped in my head that I essentially was a pillar. I was a pillar that kind of

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was standing by itself, holding up a building by itself. And eventually that building fell

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over and I would try to rebuild the building, put it back on, put it back on top, put it

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back on top, hold this weight by myself and it would fall over again. I would burn out

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and gathering these people around me, putting myself in situations where other people are

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lifting me up, lifting me up and coming alongside me to hold this building up to, to come alongside

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me and say like, Thomas, you got this or just to like be interested in what I'm doing and

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wanting me to succeed or in giving me advice. People I can go to for people I can go to

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for advice, people I can go to confide in whenever I feel like I'm going insane because

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I think like we all kind of feel like that sometimes. Like, like these people are so

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necessary and having these people around me was like having these pillars or pillars,

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helping me build a solid foundation, actually solid foundation that now I can build on top

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of. Does that make sense? You know how crucial it is to have people around you? Okay. I might

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have actually went off on a tangent there. You know, that never happens on this podcast.

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That never happens. But there's, but the reason I wanted to bring this up is because I obviously

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never, I was always pursuing my calling well. And when it comes to solving problems, like,

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like this whole thing was about this whole reason that that even made me think about

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that was the core of the issue that I'm talking on is that like doing what is easy instead

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of what is needed seems to be pretty commonplace. And for me, what was easy was not talking

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to people. I have these, I am more introverted than extroverted. It was easy for me not to

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talk to people and not tell people what I was going through because if I didn't have

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to explain it, then people that I didn't have to worry about what people were thinking of

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me and I didn't have to worry about people telling me that I was doing the wrong thing.

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Now I see a lot. I see, I see this a lot in the everyday life of others. You know, I,

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I'm not calling anybody out in particular. I just wanted to say that if your solution

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to a lot of problems is to either push it off by saying, I'll do it tomorrow or even

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worse that that's not my problem. I think it's time to reevaluate your, but your priorities

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if you're like me and you're kind of just avoiding the problem by avoiding or ignoring

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it because sometimes you're living in the problem. Like for me, I was living in the

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problem of burning out continuously over and over and over again. And I didn't really see

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that as the problem. I saw the pro for me. I saw the problem as, oh, I just don't, I

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just need to keep learning. I just need to keep, I just need to keep going at this because

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eventually then on the other side of this, I'll be able to live this life that I have

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this vision of I'll be able to have more time and spend time with friends. I just can't

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spend the time with people right now. That was my mindset. And so like, if you're just

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avoiding the problem and you know, you are, I feel like a part of whenever you're avoiding

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a problem, typically you know that you're doing it. It's time to reevaluate. I definitely

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recommend reading the articles that are linked in the show notes. So people tend to ignore

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the problem right in front of them until they're so big that they can't be ignored. And you

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know, and if you're like that, that needs to stop right now. They need to stop today

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because you have a calling on your life. There is something you've been called towards something

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you're called to pursue. And whether that's one particular thing or many things, because

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you're like, we've talked about many times on this podcast, you're calling goes everywhere

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with you. It doesn't matter what it doesn't necessarily matter what you're doing. You're

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calling is calling on your life is so important that you need that doing it well is paramount

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to living a success to living a successful life. And I'm not talking a life of money.

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I'm not talking a life of riches. I'm talking a life of fulfillment. Living this God given

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calling is extremely important and don't let it go and doing it well is important. I already

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went over it. So guys, if you like this episode of the pursuit of calling podcast, give it

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a five star review on Spotify, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to your podcast and

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you can share it out on Instagram, Facebook x wherever you peruse the social medias. All

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right, guys, I'll see you next time.