“Invert, always invert” How Billionaires Achieve Things (Charlie Munger)
We are not designed to solve problems the way we usually do.
As humans, we are programmed to prioritize survival and plan for the future rather than solely focusing on enjoying the present moment.
That’s why our brain always tries to find solutions to problems that we either haven’t faced yet or don’t know about.
... that is the difficult approach to problem solving.
What if we uncovered the problems first?
I heard this on one of Hormozi’s podcasts, and I found it very relevant to what I write about—so here you are reading this.
Find the Problem Before Looking for a Solution
Even though our brain is designed to find solutions, it’s much better at solving problems.
Why not use this to our advantage?
I’m sure we all here can relate to being good at finding problems—it might even be a problem for some (because you are too good at this).
Here’s how to turn your "problem" into a problem-solving technique:
1st Step: What would you have to do to 100% fail?
Please make a list out of it.
What would you have to do if you had to fail at living? Name all those things, whatever they are: maybe it’s procrastination? Maybe it’s gambling?
If you want to lose weight, for instance:
- Eat a bunch of fast-food
- Don’t exercise
- Drink sodas
- Etc.
Now that you have a list of things, you have a clear map of behaviors you will want to avoid.
2nd Step: Convert failures into successes
Now that you have the list of things to avoid, your path to success becomes a lot easier: you simply have to do the opposite.
For example, if you listed "eating junk food," you should eat healthy foods.
That’s one of your solutions now.
And now, using this method, you can turn each negative aspect you listed earlier into a positive counterpart, which will become your list of solutions.
3rd Step: Prioritize
Now that we have a list of all the problems (and thankfully, a list of solutions to all of them), we will prioritize them.
Since we listed ALL the problems, some of them are surely insignificant.
Turn on your filters.
The way I do this is to list out all the necessary and mandatory problems. I then start solving them in order of the time they take.
I solve the ones that don’t take much time first because then I have more time to worry about the ones that do take a long time.
Works great for me.
Here’s How You Can Use This in Your Life
Hopefully, I explained the idea well enough for you to understand. Now, I will go over a few practical uses (just to give you an idea):
1. Personal Development
We can all become better, obviously.
And in turn, we can all list a few problems to solve about ourselves; and then find the solutions to those.
We know ourselves; this won’t take you long.
Although it is very effective, no matter how easy it is, if you know what’s wrong, you can solve it. Don’t live in ignorance.
2. Business
Being an entrepreneur is about constantly solving problems. Anyone who has ever had the experience understands this to be true.
There is always a new problem; they derive as roots from each other.
Methodologies for problem-solving tend to speed up the problem-solving process for businesses a great deal—I told you about the most practical one.
3. Relationships
Same thing here. You can list out the problems that you have in your relationships, whoever they might be with.
To make this even more effective, you can do it collaboratively.
An extremely effective way to solve some personal problems that we all have—I personally like to do this a lot.
I sit down and start listening; then (if we get to that) I start solving.
4. Anything else
If you noticed, it’s just a pattern.
Everything in our lives inevitably has problems in it, which means that we can solve anything in our lives.
That’s kind of the point and the fun of it — there is always a problem that needs solving (aka it never gets boring :) )
I hope you learned something new this time, or maybe I just gave you a good old reminder.
Remember to invert it next time, haha!
I write on Medium to help you, follow me :)
Thanks a lot for reading!
-Vladimir
