Why Good Problems Are Still A Problem In Your Business

TRANSCRIPT AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED [00:00:00] Hey. Hey. So this week I was having a conversation with 1 of my biz besties, and I found myself saying, I feel like I have so many things happening. I feel really overwhelmed by all of them, but they're all really good options, and I'm really excited by all of them. And she in turn was overwhelmed by some things going on in her business that were the traditional firefighting issues and challenges that we see in small businesses. And it occurred to me that we tend to think of overwhelm in her context. We try to solve for overwhelm when we feel overwhelmed by bad things all difficult things or challenging things or annoying things. But it's just as much of an issue for us to be overwhelmed by good things. You know another client said to me this week, in a similar situation to me, that it was a good problem to have. But the problem with good problems is there's still a problem. There's still something you have to solve. I don't know about you but I feel like overwhelm is almost this like constant little companion on the entrepreneurial journey. Sometimes it's good overwhelm. Sometimes it's bad overwhelm. Sometimes it's all the things overwhelm. And that's kind of unsurprising. If you think about the environment we Operadin. We're already probably decision fatigued because we're making so many of those in our normal life and then in our business then we add all the things that are happening externally, social media, the news, life stuff, and think about how much of our brain is already being occupied by that. And now we add in a new idea, or we add in a new fire that we have to fight, it and we just don't have the capacity to deal with it. So we get this overwhelm feeling but we also get stuck in it. Because you can't decide your way out of it. Right, you don't have the the brain space to go, okay, logically, what do I do to get out of it? And so now we're in this kind of overwhelmed, slightly crisis y feeling, and our little reptilian brain [00:02:00] goes, Oh my gosh. Danger. Danger. And it goes into full fight or flight because it doesn't understand that you're about to be eaten by a lion. You just don't know which idea to pick to implement next in your business. And so now we're adding stress to the situation. So we've become this kind of hot mess of overwhelm, even though it could be good overwhelm. Everything can add to overwhelm. Good problems and not so good problems. So this is resonating for you or you know that you can get into this stage. I want you to just remember 1 thing. And that 1 thing is what is 1 thing you can do. Don't try to solve the overwhelm problem. Your overwhelm is this David Webb actually it's probably more of a not of complicated things that are just exhausting your brain. I want you to think about 1 thing. Not even 1 element of the overwhelm, 1 action, 1 decision, and it doesn't have to be big. Actually small is probably better. For me sometimes I find myself in this situation and I don't even look for that 1 thing in my business. I look for that 1 thing in my apartment. Cause that's often a much easier solve. If I can see dirty dishes, I can wash the dirty dishes, and that's 1 teeny tiny piece of brain space I've cleared. It's an easy decision, but it's probably somewhere jumbled in my brain. Don't forget you need to do those dishes. Oh my god. I can't believe Haven't done those dishes. You should really do those dishes. Now if I can quiet that voice, I can think, Okay, what is 1 more thing that I can do? And before you know it, you've started to like piece by piece unravel that knot of overwhelm. We think that we're gonna get out of overwhelm by making a big decision. And if you have capacity to do that, great. But most of the time we're in overwhelm because we've lost the capacity to make a decision. Right? Have you ever had 1 of those moments where you go, I just need [00:04:00] someone to tell me what to do. Ding, ding, ding, overwhelm. You can't make that decision, so you want someone to make it for you. So you have to like buy back some of your decision making ability, which means you have to make some teeny tiny decisions so that you can free up your brain and you can start moving in those directions. And because I know that you are operating with this business partner of overwhelm next to you, ready to like take all your attention at any given moment. I wanna find a way that even when you're in that overwhelm, even when things feel like you can't possibly add 1 more thought into your brain, you're still able to have a moment where you are strategic, where you maybe stop worrying about all the fires that you're fighting for just a short little breather, and you think in a different way about your business. So on the first of March we are changing how we do things here at Coffee and Converse. We're gonna break down strategy into this teeny tiny little building blocks, so that you can take a break from the overwhelm of all the things, center yourself in strategic thinking for the day, and then continue on with running your business. It's gonna allow you a moment each day where you've been strategic, where you've been the CEO of your business. Where no matter what's happening around you, no matter how much overwhelm there is, you're still thinking about how to move your business forward in some way… So each episode is gonna be a strategic question about your business that you can think about, that you can noodle on, that you can think about, does it apply to my business at all? If it does, how do I apply it to my business? In these tiny little increments that over time make strategy that over time make strategy second nature to you. And what you're gonna see happen is that when the overwhelm comes you'll be able to switch into that strategic mode because you're so used to doing it. Pick the right thing and make a move. Life is [00:06:00] busy. Your business is busy. Your team are busy. Me. Your partner is busy. Overwhelm is a consequence of how we live our lives these days and how we do business. What we can change is how you operate in those moments of overwhelm. And we do that by building our strategy skills and making it a daily practice so that it becomes second nature. Her so that in those moments where you need to call on it, it doesn't require as much effort, it just comes to you naturally. And that's what's gonna move you through overwhelm. Whether it's overwhelm or firefighting and things going wrong or the overwhelm of so many options and so many exciting ways to grow your business.