What's going on, pursuers? My name is Thomas Carney, and this is a Pursuit of Calling podcast.
In today's episode, we're talking about something that I feel like is an extreme problem in
today's society, and that is the lack of problem solving. None of the people really want to
work on this skill, and don't see it as a priority in their lives. Get out your notebook
and guys, don't forget to give this podcast a five star review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts,
and wherever you listen to your podcasts. You might even want to do that right now.
I mean, you could just, you know, give it a five star review while you're listening
to the podcast. So go ahead and do that.
So in this episode, the main concept is all around fruits and roots. So also, if you haven't
noticed, if you're watching this on YouTube, you may very well be seeing a video of my
face right now. That's something, that's something new. Possibly. We'll see if it works out.
If not, forget what I said. But we're talking about fruits and roots in a concept that maybe
you haven't thought about before. It's really, I'm really talking about problem solving.
And I'm like, you're probably like, that is not where I thought you were going. Yeah,
I know. So nobody wants to solve problems anymore, right? Like, you know, imagine a,
I want you to imagine something. Imagine a tree that is withered, is planted in bad soil,
and has grown some bad fruit. Someone comes along and removes all the bad fruit and attaches
superficially good looking fruit. Think, you know, the fake wax fruit that people sometimes
put out for decoration. You know, this came to me as I was thinking about how so many
people are trying to fix problems in their lives and in the lives of others without actually
diving into the root of the issue. I get it. Like sometimes you want that quick fix. You
want the, you know, that dopamine hit the instant gratification, you know, just a little
bit later though, you're going to end up in the right back where you started. You're going
to be just going to have more, have that bad fruit again. And it might even be worse if
next time as you're pursuing your calling, you have to continuously look back on where
you have fallen short and think about the core issues that caused that to happen. Mistakes
are going to happen. Problems are going to show up. And the best way to make sure that
they don't happen again, or even better, make sure that they don't happen again, or when
they, when problems do arise. So, you know, how, how to better solve them in the future.
You have to investigate the root of the issue. Now, now you see what I'm doing, where I'm
going. So three reasons this is important to me. If you can solve your own problems,
you have a, you honestly have a one-up on everybody else because if you can solve your
own problems, like that's a pretty huge thing. And I'm not saying do everything yourself,
but I am saying that if you want to successfully pursue your calling, you need to understand
the problem. So that problem solving is the skill to master. And now I'm just going to
mention two other things real quick. Then we're going to go back. This pro this podcast,
you know, is about pursuing your calling and doing it well. And then finally, we're going
to talk about doing what is easy instead of doing what needs done. Like how that seems
to be have become commonplace in today's society. So back to if you can solve your own problems,
you have a one-up on everyone who can't. I'm not again, you know, I said already, I'm not
saying that you can have to do everything yourself. That's obviously not what I'm saying.
I am saying that if you want to successfully pursue your calling, I already said this.
You need to understand the problem solving is the skill to master guys. How do you do
that? So I went through and actually did some research on this from Max from Maxwell leadership.
You've heard me talk about a lot and you're going to find links to the articles I mentioned
in the show notes. So one of the big things that they point out is that you want to evaluate
the problem. You see it for what it is. No more, no less. A lot of people tend to look
at the look at a problem and think it's too big. Maybe it's too big to handle on handle
by yourself. So in that case, you need to put the right people around you in order to
solve the problem. A while ago, I was stressing about almost losing $4,000 to a coaching program
that I no longer wanted to be a part of. And I was losing sleep over this guy's like I
didn't. I didn't understand how to handle this situation. I went, you know, I didn't
understand how to handle it. So I went to my mentors. I went to pastor Ed, who's had
been on the podcast, went to Pound Williams, who was on the podcast when it was previously
called technically short. And I asked them for their advice, because I knew that they
had the wisdom that I do not have. I did not have. Now I have it. And like, they walked
me through the steps that I needed to follow in order to make sure I didn't lose that $4,000.
And I'm actually feeling like I want to make a whole episode on this next month. So get
subscribed so that you don't miss this one because I actually want to go a deep dive
into that whole situation. So like, this is a perfect example of that, where I was sorry.
This is a perfect example of a problem that was not as big as I thought in finding the
right people to help me understand that was crucial. So this is going to be an exact quote
from the Maxwell leadership article called problem solving and effective leadership.
Appreciating a problem is counter intuitive for many people. Most people see a problem
as well a problem. It's a nuisance to be avoided. However, if we have the right attitude and
appreciate the problem, not only will we work harder to solve it, but we will also learn
and grow from it. Problems always bring opportunities and opportunities always bring problems. Essentially,
he's saying they go they go hand in hand. There's problems are always going to happen.
There's no getting around it. So being able to handle these problems effectively is extremely
crucial to living this successful life and pursuing your calling well. And the article
five ways to build your creative problem solving skills. Again, from Maxwell leadership, step
one is in their remove creativity killers. You know, problems problems can be solved
in a number of ways. There isn't one right way or one size fits all solutions. Don't
put yourself in a box by trying to be that be logical or practical or or worry about
what someone else might think. I personally I'm a very logical thinker, right? I really
do tend if we're being if I'm being honest, I do tend to err on the side of of logic of
facts and creativity doesn't really come to me naturally. Thinking about problems as
something to be solved it like he's like, whoever wrote the article didn't say it didn't
say who wrote the article just in Maxwell leadership. But they said that a lot of people
just try to avoid problems in in reality you can't like in me being a very logical thinker
and knowing that I'm like, okay, well, if I come to a problem logical thing for the
biological thing when you come to a problem is to avoid the problem in my mind that makes
sense. But then the next logical step if you go a little bit further down the road, like
that makes sense in the moment. If you go a little bit further down the road, you're
realizing whenever you're avoiding the problems, really you're shoving them under the rug
through a venue so you can avoid them anymore. And that kind of went on a tangent a little
bit about like about that. But I really wanted to kind of drive that home that you can't
avoid problems. I just wanted to drive that in. And if you want to read again, I'm going
to mention again if you want to read more because that was only only really mentioned
step one about removing creativity killers. Like if you want to read the rest of the five
steps you can that link the link is in the show notes you can read the rest of that.
So you know, the second thing I brought up about why this is important to me and why
I wanted to bring it up is that this podcast is about pursuing your calling and doing it
well. When I first decided I wanted to have my own business, I started with freelance
web development. And pretty quickly I realized that's not what I wanted to do, right? I realized
I kept burning myself out. You're going to see that that's kind of a trend with me. I
kept burning myself out. And I eventually though I found that I really enjoyed philosophy
and understanding why people think the way that they think. And you've probably heard
me talk about this before if you've listened to previous episodes of the podcast. But if
you haven't, essentially I was watching a PewDiePie video that where he was reviewing
Nick Kipkean ethics and it really sparked my interest. And that was really the beginning
of my trajectory to becoming wanting to become a life coach. Now, of course, there's a bunch
of meat in the middle of that. But that's essentially it was that's where it started.
And now I'm here with this podcast wanting to use this as a platform to launch me to
to be able to reach more people and to be able to eventually coach people to live the
life that they've been called to live. Man, I love this. I love this podcast so much.
So you know, though, let me find that in my notes. Sorry, guys. Sorry, pursuers. Eventually
found that I enjoyed learning about how people think yet. If you've heard me tell the story
before. Okay. You know, sorry, I'm gonna say if you're watching the video, this might not
be cut out. But here is the audio might be cut out. We'll find out. I guess, you know,
okay, we're gonna go a little bit further. You know, I've just got back from an amazing
conference called Funnel Hacking Live. You might think I'm jumping around. This is a
little bit after I decided to want to be a life coach and my interest got sparked and
I was like kind of diving into the business world a bit. So I just got back from this
amazing conference, Funnel Hacking Live 2021. You know, I was on fire and ready to be a
life coach without any real experience. Tony Robbins was the final speaker of the event
and it was insane. So I decided to hire my own coach. You know, pretty logical. I know
a great idea in retrospect. I hired one of Tony Robbins life coaches for six months.
I thought I'd made it and I started making progress. But coach was coaching, essentially
my coach was coaching me on how to be a coach. Now, the reason I'm bringing this up is because
I'm not a coach at all. And you might be wondering like, okay, where is he going? Why is he giving
me a story about himself? We were just talking about problem solving. Now he's talking about
now, he's talking about like his life and we're not even think talking about a problem.
I'm going to get to that. Give me a second. Give me a second. I promise I'm going to get
I'm going to get to it. I'm going to get to it. Like for six months, so for six months,
I was on the grind saying no to outings with friends and family so I could work on the
things that I thought were going to bring bring me towards success. There was one big
problem though. I again, I kept burning out working nonstop and spending eventually no
time with others. You know, that's a recipe for disaster. You know, I wasn't pursuing
my calling well. I decided to take a sabbatical quote unquote from coaching from my coaching
pursuit and started spending more time with friends, family and mentors again. At the
same time, I still had the love for personal growth and development that you know that
never left me and I want to go back on it. I want to thank my friend Andrew who kept
over and over again asking me to come in and come to a Bible study to hang the be with
people and to just spend more time with others because if he didn't do that, like I don't
know if I would have realized the problem. I don't know if I would have realized the
problem that I had and I knew I had a problem, but I didn't really realize it was I was
spending time with people until I eventually decided that I needed to spend time with people.
That was the potential of the problem. So the problem is that I kept burning out in
all reality. The root of the issue, you know, I thought that when you pursue your calling,
you have to do it yourself. Hmm. I thought that if I put my head down for a year or two,
I would be able to come out on the other side with something amazing. I'd be able to say,
look at me, look at what I've done. You're calling, you know, I've said it before. Your
calling goes way further than you. If your calling is just about you, then you're not
actually living your calling. You're not actually pursuing your calling. You're pursuing something
else. You're pursuing some perverted version perverse perverted. I don't know if perverted
is the right word. Sorry about that. Perverse version of your calling. So, you know, I like
the solution that I found was that I needed to keep in contact with family, friends and
mentors who want to see me succeed. I wanted to share with them what I'm working on and
why I'm working on it, what I'm working towards. You know, it helped me build a stronger why
around being a life coach, building a stronger foundation rather than trying to build something
big on top of shaky ground. You know, I was writing my notes. I was essentially, I was,
I kind of popped in my head that I essentially was a pillar. I was a pillar that kind of
was standing by itself, holding up a building by itself. And eventually that building fell
over and I would try to rebuild the building, put it back on, put it back on top, put it
back on top, hold this weight by myself and it would fall over again. I would burn out
and gathering these people around me, putting myself in situations where other people are
lifting me up, lifting me up and coming alongside me to hold this building up to, to come alongside
me and say like, Thomas, you got this or just to like be interested in what I'm doing and
wanting me to succeed or in giving me advice. People I can go to for people I can go to
for advice, people I can go to confide in whenever I feel like I'm going insane because
I think like we all kind of feel like that sometimes. Like, like these people are so
necessary and having these people around me was like having these pillars or pillars,
helping me build a solid foundation, actually solid foundation that now I can build on top
of. Does that make sense? You know how crucial it is to have people around you? Okay. I might
have actually went off on a tangent there. You know, that never happens on this podcast.
That never happens. But there's, but the reason I wanted to bring this up is because I obviously
never, I was always pursuing my calling well. And when it comes to solving problems, like,
like this whole thing was about this whole reason that that even made me think about
that was the core of the issue that I'm talking on is that like doing what is easy instead
of what is needed seems to be pretty commonplace. And for me, what was easy was not talking
to people. I have these, I am more introverted than extroverted. It was easy for me not to
talk to people and not tell people what I was going through because if I didn't have
to explain it, then people that I didn't have to worry about what people were thinking of
me and I didn't have to worry about people telling me that I was doing the wrong thing.
Now I see a lot. I see, I see this a lot in the everyday life of others. You know, I,
I'm not calling anybody out in particular. I just wanted to say that if your solution
to a lot of problems is to either push it off by saying, I'll do it tomorrow or even
worse that that's not my problem. I think it's time to reevaluate your, but your priorities
if you're like me and you're kind of just avoiding the problem by avoiding or ignoring
it because sometimes you're living in the problem. Like for me, I was living in the
problem of burning out continuously over and over and over again. And I didn't really see
that as the problem. I saw the pro for me. I saw the problem as, oh, I just don't, I
just need to keep learning. I just need to keep, I just need to keep going at this because
eventually then on the other side of this, I'll be able to live this life that I have
this vision of I'll be able to have more time and spend time with friends. I just can't
spend the time with people right now. That was my mindset. And so like, if you're just
avoiding the problem and you know, you are, I feel like a part of whenever you're avoiding
a problem, typically you know that you're doing it. It's time to reevaluate. I definitely
recommend reading the articles that are linked in the show notes. So people tend to ignore
the problem right in front of them until they're so big that they can't be ignored. And you
know, and if you're like that, that needs to stop right now. They need to stop today
because you have a calling on your life. There is something you've been called towards something
you're called to pursue. And whether that's one particular thing or many things, because
you're like, we've talked about many times on this podcast, you're calling goes everywhere
with you. It doesn't matter what it doesn't necessarily matter what you're doing. You're
calling is calling on your life is so important that you need that doing it well is paramount
to living a success to living a successful life. And I'm not talking a life of money.
I'm not talking a life of riches. I'm talking a life of fulfillment. Living this God given
calling is extremely important and don't let it go and doing it well is important. I already
went over it. So guys, if you like this episode of the pursuit of calling podcast, give it
a five star review on Spotify, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to your podcast and
you can share it out on Instagram, Facebook x wherever you peruse the social medias. All
right, guys, I'll see you next time.