Hopefully I didn’t trigger you with that subject line.

Or hopefully I did, hence why you’re reading.

But it’s great question when asked with intention.

Whether it’s about your business or your personal life, I’m learning that it’s not enough to attack and try to solve all the problems I face day in and day out…

I also have to find the problems worth solving.

Example:

A potential client just reached out. Their website, a travel booking platform, is a mess.

A thousand cards on any page, no clear visual hierarchy, no idea what the value proposition is and a hundred different ways to find information – all crammed together.

They just acquired it and are now faced with this challenge of knowing where to start to increase conversions.

They’d be happy to pay the $30k-50k if they knew they’d get a return on that investment, but that’s the issue… how can they know?

It comes down to identifying the right problems to solve first.

So what I proposed is to run a quick website audit + user testing so we can narrow down our areas for improvement – fast.

I could have charged them the $30k+ but that would have just gotten me a big project and no idea where to start from.

Think about it.

Are you solving the right problem at any given moment?

Patrick Bet-David in his book Your Next Five Moves calls it “solving for X”:

“Think about X as the unknown variable. In math, once you figure out what X is, you solve the problem. In business and in life, if you identify X, you also solve the problem. Though X is an unknown, it’s not unknowable. Your job is to figure out exactly what you’re solving for.”

Most of the challenges you’re facing and the variables you can influence to overcome them, might be unknown… but are not unknowable.

How can you pinpoint the right ones?

Maybe it’s asking better questions…

Or asking more questions…

Or asking the right people.

No matter what that is for you, there’s likely a better problem worth solving right now.

It’s just a matter of interrupting the auto-pilot we’re constantly on.

Personally, one of the problems I’m focusing on lately, is how to deal with the overwhelming amount of information and hype around AI and ChatGPT.

For us writers it can be crippling.

Do you use it for client projects? How? Where do you start (especially when you’re already busy)?

But I still believe it’s one of those good problems to work out.

Unless you don’t want to be left behind.

Luckily there are a lot of smart people around who can help.

If you want to join the conversation, follow me on Twitter. There’s a lot of good insightful chatting on there.

Quote and reflection of the day:

“Impatience with actions, patience with results.”

• The Almanack of Naval Ravikant

Develop a bias for action. That voice in your head that is clear enough to see what you have to do to get the job done, but is not attached to the outcome.