A Quick Word About Figuring Things Out

Welcome to the A Quick Word version of the Get a 6-Figure Job You Love podcast. So A Quick Word is just going to be a quick podcast that I record every week with some unfiltered thoughts that I either coached somebody recently on or came to me and I really just had to share. So enjoy. And if you want to listen to longer form content, check out the Monday episodes where I go deeper. And if you like the short ones, join me on Fridays, sometimes other days, but normally on Fridays for a quick word about something. Stay tuned. Hello and welcome to A Quick Word. Today I want to talk about a quick word on figuring things out. So a lot of the times people have, and you might have, A misconstrued belief that you have to have done something before in order to be able to be valuable to somebody. Being like, well, I haven't done this before, so therefore they're going to want somebody who's done it before. Therefore, I'm not going to be as valuable as the person who's done it before. And I want to challenge that belief and say that that is not the case. And I mean, Maybe sometimes, but it's not the most important thing. And the reason is because we can't have possibly done everything before all the time. There's just never a point in your life where you get to the point where you like, I've done everything and I have experience with everything, and therefore I'm like, I've reached my peak value because I've done everything. There's never a situation or never a time when that happens. You're always going to have something else to learn. They're always going to have to have something new to figure out unless you're in the same job doing the same thing day after day, which is not the people who listen to my podcast, or at least that's not where you want to stay if you are following me. So I want to challenge that by saying that your ability to figure something out is actually more valuable than having done something before. And this came up when I asked my assistant to figure something out that was kind of a complex technical task, and she's very valuable to me in that she's willing to just jump in and figure things out, even if she doesn't know how to do them. And so this particular task, she had never done it before. She had no idea where to start. And she's like, yeah, I don't, I haven't done that before. And I'm like, yeah, that's okay. And I had no qualms about her being able to figure it out. And I was there to help her. I was like, you know what, if here's some, here's some instructions, here's some videos, here's what I want to do. Let me know if you have questions. Anyway, so she, She put it together and then she tested it and she was like, it's not finished yet. And I was like, yeah, but you've put so much thought process into having it figured out to this point. That in itself is incredibly valuable. And the thought process that went into that was her willingness to jump in having no idea, even just reading the first article or Looking at the first video and absorbing what it was saying and then applying that to what I needed done so that she could work through and start putting the task together in her head. Like, that is valuable, right? And that is a skill because the more that you jump in and do things you've never done before, the more you build your skill of being able to figure things out, right? And the more you build your mental muscle as somebody who jumps in and figures things out, right? And the flawed line of thinking, I haven't done it before, therefore, and fill in that blank. I haven't done it before, therefore, fill in whatever that blank is for you. For some people, it's like, therefore, I'm not going to be good at it. Therefore, I don't know how. Therefore, I'm not as valuable. Therefore, they're going to want someone who has. Therefore, I can't. It's a very flawed line of thinking because you notice that anything you put in there is going to block you from figuring it out. I'm challenging it by saying, I haven't done that before, therefore I always figure it out, right? Or I don't know if I actually make sense, but it's like, I haven't done it before and that's okay. I haven't done it before and that means it's a new challenge. I haven't done it before and I'm really good at figuring things out I've never done before, right? And so the thought process of figuring something out is, is so much more valuable than people give credit for, right? Because Just before I sign off, if you go into a new job and you haven't done some of the things before, you have such an opportunity there to figure a lot of things out. So there's an opportunity for growth. There's an opportunity for your, your brain to be stimulated. There's an opportunity for you to build your belief in figuring things out, like more and more complex things. There's always resources that you can pull on to help you figure things out. So there's always going to be people that you can ask at work. If you're in a supportive culture, which you definitely deserve to be, there's always going to be resources online. The learning resources that we have online free and for relatively inexpensive is huge. If you have to learn something in a software or something to be able to apply to do a task for your employer, there's no doubt that you could figure out how to do that. So there's just unlimited ways to figure things out. And that skill is so much more important and so much more valuable than being able to say, I have done this already, right? And yes, there's people who have done things already, and so they might be more resourceful in figuring new things out in that area, but it doesn't necessarily mean that they're more valuable than someone who hasn't. They're not more valuable than someone who has the ability to figure things out quickly, right? And the more that you figure things out quickly, or the more that you just dive in and start figuring things out that you never did before, the more valuable you become to anybody who hires you, to yourself, because it just means that you're going to be able to figure out your own problems in your own life for yourself a lot faster and more efficiently. And it's just, it's an attitude. It's an attitude of, I figure things out. I always have. I always will. There's never any concern that I wouldn't. I just do, right? And that attitude is not something that everybody has. Right? A lot of people without even knowing will just be like, yeah, I don't know how. Right? And that right there is going to leave that person stuck. So I will figure it out is what I want to leave you with. So repeat after me, I will figure this out. No matter what your circumstance, there's always a way. If you need help, I can help you. And I, and here's, people ask me a lot of the time, they're like, well, have you worked with people in this tech field? Or have you worked with lawyers before? Or have you worked with data scientists before? And the answer is yes. To all those now, but in the past I'm like, well, no. Say no, I have not worked with— say I hadn't worked with a lawyer or a data scientist or business analyst, and I'm like, no, I haven't. But that is not my job. My job is not to become an expert in data science or business analysis or to go become a lawyer or to go become a doctor so that I can help these people in these professions. My job is to mine your genius from your brain because you are the one who knows, right? You have all the answers. You know how to do this. You know how to figure it Out, my job is to bring that out in you so that you feel super empowered to go and do that, and then you blow your own mind. And that is way more meaningful and way more valuable than me going and becoming an expert in all these things to then tell you what to do. That actually makes no sense, and it would be not a good use of my time, right? So that's essentially what I do, and I'm like, I do not have to have everything figured out before I start. I don't have to. And this was the one thought I used actually. I talked about this on one of the workshops inside my program recently was. when I've had my first client and I'm like, I've gotten a 6-figure job before. I've made big career jumps before, but I've never helped anyone do it before. And that thought, I've never helped anyone do it before, that was a blocking thought. And so I had to unwind that thought and have a more useful thought, which was, I will figure it out. I will figure out how to help somebody no matter what, right? I will figure that out. And that thought is what got me to take the action to make the offers to get my first client. And who's on my podcast, Michael Gunn, he was my first client. And yeah, he trusted me to figure it out. And so I did, right? But that is the attitude. If I had just said, oh well, I've never done that before and left it at that and kept thinking that without knowing that that was stopping me, then I would've never taken the action to get to the point where now I've helped hundreds of people, right? Hundreds and hundreds of people have been helped by the tools, the information, the way that I say things, the mindset shifts that I've facilitated, the questions that I've asked. Like all that has happened because of a single thought that changed from, I don't know, 'cause I've never done it before, versus I will figure it out. I am figuring it out. I did figure it out. I can figure things out. And you can too. I promise you. So if you want help with that, you know where to find me. And thanks for listening to another episode of The Quick Word on the Get a Six-Figure Job You Love podcast.