The Martian
As we walked in to see The Martian, I wasn’t sure what to expect. As we walked out – it had become one of my top favorite movies of all time. I won’t spoil it for you – but I do think you should go see it. One of the messages behind it is all about problem solving.
The main character in the movie never gives up because he can’t. His life is at stake.
And it made me think – “what if we treated our businesses that way?” What if every obstacle or problem that came up was a problem to be solved? Instead of procrastinating or worrying – we just started to solve it – immediately.
One of the reasons my business and the businesses of my clients have grown is because we problem solve. To look at every action as an experiment and to ask, “what’s next?” when that experiment doesn’t work.
Many entrepreneurs think that someday the problems will stop coming. If you just make enough money. If you just hire enough team. If you just create more free time.
The truth is that the bigger your business gets – the more situations arise that require problem solving. In fact, solving problems becomes a large part of what you do. Most long-time entrepreneurs get so good at problem solving that we stop calling them problems and we start looking at them as opportunities, messages and day-to-day business life.
Pema Chodron has a lovely quote, “In the beginning the waves of life keep knocking you down. But then you get to the point where the waves seem to get smaller and they stop knocking you down. The waves don’t actually get smaller they just seem smaller. And they definitely don’t get more infrequent. You just get stronger.”
When I didn’t have enough clients in my first company, I’d literally pick a neighborhood and walk the streets, looking for businesses I could collaborate with. I’d set up free speaking events at the locations until I met someone that could become a client.
When a major sponsorship (that I had paid $22,000 for) didn’t quite pan out – I launched a program to make sure that I could still pay all the upcoming bills.
We once did a livestream where no one could find the buy button on the screen. So nobody bought. We lost more than $8,000 of business. I ended up doing TONS of sales conversations to fill the program.
After a day of video shooting, we got on a plane. We had shot 20 videos that day. We lost the hard disk on the plane with all of our film. Three of the videos were part of a major launch happening in 4 days. We found old videos, did some voice-overs and some new shots and created some pretty amazing new videos.
In all of these circumstances, I could have quit. Quitting looks like not taking any more actions. But it also looks like worrying, regrets and procrastination (while pretending that you are working). But I kept going.
I encourage you to do the same. Success means that you are willing to let the waves hit you and keep standing. Trust me, it does get easier over time. But they never stop coming.
When is the last time that you had something major come up that you had to problem solve for? How did it go? Leave me a comment below and let me know how you handled it.
