Problems, they're going to happen. I think we need to bone up on our problem-solving
skills. You ready for that? That's today at Live On Purpose TV.
Problem solving skills.
You're going to have problems, right? They show up all of the time. How are we
going to solve these problems? Step number one, turn your brain on. Your brain is
always on but there's different parts of your brain that are responsible for
different things. Did you know for example, do you know what part of your
brain is in charge of vision eyesight? It's the back,
it's the occipital lobe or the visual cortex which is located in the back of
your head. That blew me away when I first learned it because you'd think that it
would be the part up here by your eyes but it's not. All the visual information
gets routed through the back of your brain. There's a little strip up on top,
it's about the size of your thumb, just off to the side, you got one on the right,
got one on the left called the motor cortex. This is the part of your brain
that controls movement, your arms and legs moving around, all of the muscular
activity that happens up there in the motor cortex. Frontal cortex, the
prefrontal area of your brain, that is in charge of logic problem-solving, okay.
Problem-solving happens up here in this part of the brain. There's another part
that's located down toward the center and in the brainstem and up above that
kind of in the primitive part of your brain, it's called the limbic system.
Family of structures that's responsible for keeping you alive,
the fight-or-flight response. This is important because your brain loves you,
doesn't want you to be eaten for lunch, for example. So if a big old bear comes
after you, want to take you down and have you for breakfast,
that part of your brain is going to kick in with what we call the fight-or-flight
response. That's a really quick overview of neurophysiology, maybe more than you
expected to get this morning but just take a look at these different parts of
your brain for a minute, they're all responsible for different things. The
part of your brain that you're going to need for problem solving is that
prefrontal area, the frontal cortex up here behind your forehead,
that's in charge of the logic and the reason and their rational thought so
when I say turn your brain on, that's the part that I mean. When we're in the
fight-or-flight mode, we've actually got brain scan studies
that prove this. There's a decrease in blood flow to the front part. Oh, what
does that mean you're not doing? Thinking. At least not clearly, rationally in a way
that you can solve problems. We got to get that part of the brain engaged so
here's the first tip, an effective problem-solving, turn your brain on, don't
respond until the adrenaline is gone. We have to calm that fight-or-flight
response to get the blood flow redirected up front so what that means
is, if you're upset about something, now's not the best time to try to solve
that problem because your brain is trying to get you to do one of two
things either fight or get the heck out of there and for most problems that
we're encountering, either one of those is going to make it worse. Think about a
problem you're having in your marriage or in your family, for example. What if
you were to fight? What if you were to just put up dukes and just go for it.
Yeah, it's going to make it worse, right? Okay, what if you just run away? What if you
just bail? What if you just abandon ship? That's going to make it worse too. So we
really need a different part of our brain to be active right now so that we
can solve the problem, that's what I'm talking about.
Get yourself calm down, take a walk, do some focus breathing, try some
progressive relaxation or some meditation or some yoga or some exercise,
do something to get the brain chemistry turned back around so that you have
access to the full resources you're going to need to get into this
problem-solving mode. Now once you got your brain turned on, there's a whole lot
of things that we can do to solve the problem. First of all, you're in the part
of your brain that's going to support it. Think of it kind of like the drop-down
windows, you know on a Windows menu here on your computer, you click on that item
and it gives you a little drop-down menu of what you can select, right? When you're
in that limbic system fight or flight response, you're only getting two options,
fight or run away. Pick one of those. We already know either one of those is
gonna make it worse. What if we could get to a different menu where we click on
that item and boom, you got like 12 options, things that you can do to solve
the problem. Now we're cooking, okay. We're going to turn on that part of your
brain. Now that we got that part of your brain turned on, what are we going to do
with it? I'll suggest a four-part process. Now I put an acronym to this, POCS, it
doesn't even mean anything but it'll help you to remember it. The P stands for
problem. Let's identify as clearly as we can, what is the problem and in this step,
it's very helpful to get clear that we're focusing on the problems, not the
people. We are always going to value people over problems so if you think a
person is the problem, you need to do a little more thinking. Get past the person
and see if you can clearly identify what is the problem. So instead of saying, "Well
my spouse is an idiot." Okay, no. Think a little bit more, get out of
fight-or-flight, what is the problem? Alright, the problem is that nobody's
doing the dishes and I expect my spouse to do the dishes and the dishes aren't
getting done, that's the problem. Okay, I know that's a silly example but just
take that as an example of what is the problem and remember, it's not a person
it's a problem, we're going to put people before problems. Okay, what is the problem?
That's P. Once we've clearly identified the problem, oh and incidentally, I'd have
to think for a minute to come up with the exact quote but I remember Albert
Einstein saying something about how if he has a problem to solve, he's going to
spend, for example, 59 minutes out of an hour trying to clearly identify and
articulate what that problem is and the last minute, he'll come up with a
solution to it. The effort and I'm making those numbers up but you get where we're
going with that. The effort that is required to actually think about and
define the problem clearly will put you in a position to start seeing the
solutions. Now let's move to O. Remember P-O-C-S
is the pattern that we'll follow. O stands for options. What are my options?
You want to come up with at least three options. Why three? Because usually, when
we think about a problem, we want to solve it with either this or that. Let's
say that the problem is not getting paid enough at your job, okay,
maybe that's the problem you're trying to solve. You get yourself out of
fight-or-flight mode, you get into thinking mode, you identify the problem,
I'm not getting paid enough of my job, I want to have more money. You go to the
options. Okay, I can either quit my job and look for a different job or I can
just keep working there. You see how that's an either or? That artificially
restricts your options, you want to come up with at least three. What if I were to
say, okay, those two options need to have a third or how about this one.. The two
favorite options that I've picked aren't currently available to me. See, this is a
way to invite your mind to expand that and to start thinking about other
options. What's a third option? Once you come up with a third option, you can
probably come up with a fourth or a fifth. Once you get a little list that
has three or four options on it, then you can do this other strategy where you
take your top, two the top two that seem the most feasible to you, take those out
off the equation and say, if these two were not available to me, what might I
try? So this starts to open up those options. So let's go back to the job
example from it, I can quit my job or I can just keep working at it. Alright,
instead of just quit my job and keep working at it, what else could I do?
Well, I could have a conversation with my boss about a raise, I could consider doing
some kind of side job on the side or look into some kind of an investment
opportunity or get into real estate or multi-level marketing or so that the
options start to come up a little bit better. I could budget my money a little
bit better. Okay, of all of those, what are your top two? Well I really liked the
idea of talking to my boss about a raise and maybe doing a little something
aside to raise some extra money. Okay, what if those two weren't available to
you then what would you do? Oh hmm well, maybe I would join a group
that would help me to brainstorm new entrepreneurial ideas. You see, it's just
opening up the options. Get at least three and then try to expand it from
there. That's all. Alright, now let's move to C. Every choice has a
consequence. The better my choices, the better my consequences, that's a good
general rule to remember. Every choice has a consequence. So for the options
that you came up with in the previous step, now we're going to anticipate or
predict or try to identify what are the consequences associated with each of
those options. Take them separately, look at them individually. If I were to choose
to do this what would be the consequences? So if I choose to talk to
my boss about getting a raise, what would be the consequences to that choice? Oh, if
I talk to my boss he might say no. Well yeah, that's a potential consequence,
would you be any worse off than you are? No because you still don't have a raise
right now. So thinking through the consequences helps you to not only
better assess what your options are but it helps you to start to dissipate
some of the fears that come up about potential consequences and a lot of
times, they're not as bad as we think they are. I'm remembering a scene from
the movie Facing The Giants and in this scene, a father was talking to his son
about trying out for the football team and the son was saying, "Oh, I don't I
don't think I'm going to try out." Why not? Because I just might not make it and
this father said, "David, you're already not on the team, you can't be any more
not on the team than you are right now." And it kind of opened up this possible,
oh okay, well I guess the consequence of not making the team is something that I
can handle since I'm already doing that. This process just helps to wrap your
head around what those options are and what the potential impact could be
on your life. After you've had a chance to assess the C, consequences, then you
get to move on to the S part of this equation. S is simply the solution. The
solution will be the option that in your estimation, in your evaluation of this
through this process presents the most favorable consequences for you. It's
simply a math problem at that point. What are my best options? Well, the ones that
give me the best consequences. Then it's a lot easier to select a solution from
among those. So problem solving skills, quick recap, turn your brain on, get out
of fight-or-flight mode, don't respond until the adrenaline is gone. Once your
brain is on, let's apply a POCS formula, starting with problem, identify the
problem as clearly as you can. O, options. Brainstorm some options and come up with
at least three, at least three. From the options, we move on to consequences where
we get to study the situation and figure out, try to predict or anticipate or
define what those consequences would be for each of the options and that leads
us naturally to that solution. Simple, simple and easy aren't the same thing.
But as you practice this, you'll get better at it. I think when we handle it
correctly, we can take on any problem. Not everybody believes that. Maybe you know
someone who would really benefit from this episode, I hope you share it with them.