182: Short-Term Fixes vs. Long-Term Solutions

Hello again, everyone, and welcome to today's show. If you're one of the 130 million people that are dealing with Sirs Lyme disease, autoimmune disease, or other conditions that are impacted by mold on a daily basis, and you need to learn how to eliminate that exposure, then you're in the right place. My name is Brian Carr, and you're listening to Mold Finders Radio.

Hey, everyone. So. So today's episode is. Is another shorter one, and it's around a specific idea.

That came up in a call that I had the other day. So I was. I was reviewing an inspection project with someone, and we're talking about their shower, and we were talking about kind of how it was constructed and how I thought the way that the. That the shower was constructed might be resulting in a mold problem that's kind of under the flooring and some things that are going on. And, you know, this particular client, they were concerned for their kid. It was their kid's room, right? So that was kind of the driver for this thing. And the immediate response when I started kind of going through this is like, well, how do we. What do we do right now? What do we do right now? Right? And I understand that, and I get, I get it, right? Like, we're trying to figure out, especially if it's your kid that's involved, like, what do I do right now to fix the problem? Want the problem fixed right now? Fix it right now. It's like, yes, I understand.

So, you know, unpacking it a little bit, I think what they were trying to get at was like, well, how do I just clean this so. So regularly? So it's just not a thing, right? And you can do that. Right? And that's fine. But I wanted to make sure that I communicated like, the. The real purpose of what we were doing and kind of balancing out, like short term interventions as opposed to long term fixes. And I think those are two very different things. Right. I think a lot of time as we're getting into this process, we want things to happen quickly, mostly because we're sick. Right. That's usually why we're coming down this road. You're probably not listening to the show if you're not impacted by mold. I don't think random people are just like, hey, let me listen to a mold show. Right? So, you know, we're all kind of in a similar boat, probably. And so the. It's under. I can understand why the immediate response is, how do I just fix this right now? And what if we just do this, and I can just do this, right? And.

What I want to make sure that we're thinking is, you know, there's surface and then there's kind of root cause of problem, and there's. Even if you kind of do some surface intervention, the problem still exists, you know. And so it's. It's really trying to re. Kind of relook at what our true goal is of why we're having a conversation. I think this happens a lot when we're doing reviews of what we're finding in inspections and things like that. A lot of times, because we're showing things then. Then the individual, you know, the, the homeowner or whoever's in the house and whoever we're working with, the client, they're looking at what we're seeing and all. And. And it becomes more focused on the individual things that we're seeing as opposed to why we're doing this. And it's really important to separate those two, because if we don't remember the why we're starting the process, then we can start getting really tied into the very specific individual things and start making decisions on those individual things that don't serve the why, right? And it's a really easy thing to get into. So, for example, let's say there's a shower, and let's say your kid is not feeling well and they have mold issues. And you're like, okay, I see this issue with kind of this drainage thing in the shower. And like, okay, well, can I just clean the shower floor every day or once a week or whatever it is, and then we'll get rid of it and it won't be there, Right? Let's do that. I'm going to set this up, and I'm going to set up a process in my house where I do that every day, or I have somebody help me do that every day. And you just like, go down that road and you're like, okay, so there's nothing wrong with. With cleaning, right? We're not bashing cleaning, right? There's nothing wrong with cleaning. But the problem in that case, and it's sort of what I explained. I was like, so what we need to do is kind of understand what we're doing at that point though, right? We're allowing the problem to happen, and then we're trying to clean the result of the problem, and then we're allowing it to happen, and then we're trying to clean up this. The. The. The result of the problem, right? So you have this problem you keep letting the problem happen and then you keep trying to basically fix the problem, like with a band aid, over and over and over again, as opposed to. The alternative is stop the problem from happening in the first place. Then you'll never have to clean it. Right. And the reason you think of it that way, and I've talked about this a lot, but you know, mold isn't just a surface thing. Most times it's not. Most times it's a behind the surface thing. Think of an iceberg. And I've used this analogy. So if you've heard it, it's about 30 seconds. So sorry about that. But it's like, you know, the, the, the Titanic didn't sink from the tip of the iceberg. It actually saw the tip of the iceberg and it drove around the tip of the iceberg. It made it. What it didn't see was the gigantic glacier under the water. And that's what hit the Titanic and made it sink. And that's what mold is like. You have the tip and you have the big glacier that's down underneath. And if you're only looking at the tip, which is surface cleaning, the glacier is still there and we are still going to hit that glacier, right? That glacier is still going to hit us. We're just not going to see it the same way Titanic didn't see it. Right? Now we don't start leaking out of our side and sink and drown in the water immediately. So you don't see the effect as it light as immediate, but it does still have the effect on our body. Still happens, right? You might not see the tip of the iceberg, but that glacier behind underwater is still there. And for the human impact, it's still impacting us. And in our body, it's like we're hitting that glacier over and over again. And so surface cleaning and coming back and surface cleaning come back, allowing the problem to persist, but then just trying to kind of surface clean it doesn't solve the problem and doesn't really serve you based on what your goal is, right? And so then when we go back, we're like, well, hey, what's the goal of us even going through this process? And it's like, oh, well, my child is not feeling well and this is their room. And like, okay, so it's not on me to tell you what to do, right? It's on me to give you recommendations and to talk through consideration points, options, things like that. Right now, if the option is it's not possible for me to remove the shower Financially, your spouse isn't on board, like whatever it happens, right. Then you have to then make the next best decision that you can make. And maybe that is very regular cleaning. And then maybe you're implementing other things in the space to also help counteract the problem that will keep occurring, which is air filtration, really thorough cleaning processes, air dilution, things like that. Right. So maybe that's just what you need to do and that's okay. I'm not here to tell you that you can't do that and that you, you know, shame on you for doing that. That's not what I'm saying. But if that's the decision that's being made, I just want it to be being made because. Because there's a specific reason. While we are still considering our overall reason for going through the process, I think that's the really important part here. Right. So as you guys. And again, this isn't just a mold thing, this isn't anything thing, you know, can happen in any aspect of your life. You have a goal, you have a reason that you're going in to do something and then all of a sudden you get in the day to day of it or like the nitty gritty of it and you kind of forget perspective on the why. And then you start making decisions that, that are isolated in like tunnel vision for that specific thing and you're not anchoring it back to like why you're doing it. You're not re, you know, kind of revisiting that, that core why of why you're doing whatever you're doing. And it can make the decisions that you make not in alignment with your true desire of what you want to happen. So as long as you stay true to your true desire of what you're trying to do, and you keep that as the forefront consideration while you're then making individual decisions, then you're going to make the best decisions for yourself. And I think that's the big key here, right? It's not so much you have to do this, you have to do that, you have to do this. What I want to help kind of coach you on and share with you is how to enable yourself to make the best decisions in a situation where there's a lot going on and that it's very easy to get lost, right? And so by always kind of keeping your North Star the reason that you're doing whatever you're doing in your view, while you're also considering your decisions under that, think of that as the sun, right? Your North Star, like the reason you're doing it, this is the sun. And the sun is shining down on you at all times. And then you're walking around outside and you're looking and you got the plants out here and you got this over here and you're looking down at all the things that are going on. But remember that the sun is the reason that you're looking at those things. And just take a minute to like, let the sun hit you, right? Say, oh, okay, so, yeah, I see this plant over here and I get it, but that's not really why I'm here, right? And, or I can address this in a different way that aligns with what I'm trying to do. And as long as all of your decision making processes, you can, you can justify to yourself how they are in service of your overall goal and your overall why, then in anything in life, you're going to make the right decision for you. And I think that's the really big, important piece here. It's not that there's a right decision. There's a right decision for you. And I just want to make sure that you have the ability to make those decisions and to identify when maybe you're unknowingly kind of blocking your ability to make the right decision for you. So that's, that's what the purpose of this short little episode is here. So I hope that you guys find this helpful. If you do, leave a comment down below. And please be sure to subscribe and rate the podcast too. It's very helpful. Let's people see it. Um, when I look at the podcast at night and I see there's more ratings, it makes me happy. So I, like, get a little smile. I'm like, oh, did they leave a comment? I read every single comment that's in there and it's a nice little thing for me to, for, for me selfishly to look at. And it lets me know that what I'm doing is resonating with you guys. Because honestly, guys, I'm sitting here, I'm staring at a camera, I'm just talking, right? And so.

You know, it's nice to know I'm connecting. Anyways, have a good one. We'll talk to you later.

So that's it for today's show, everyone.

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