# 223: Solving the Actual Problem, With Ian Byrd ![[Assets/df6b6816441ca9d44670c626a6ce1e83_MD5.jpg]] ## Metadata - Author: [[Focused]] - Full Title: 223: Solving the Actual Problem, With Ian Byrd - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/54f85d87-8528-4035-aa76-b0d3ca0484e1 ## Highlights - **Solve Problems, Not Just Inform** - Focus on solving people's problems rather than just providing information. - Content that takes work off someone's plate tends to be more popular. Transcript: Ian Byrd Yeah. And a lot of times it is, for me, it's taking some kind of work off of somebody's plate. I think i've i've learned a lot that i used to do a lot of like giving information and now i try to like solve people's problems um so those those are the things i see as are the most popular Are the things that actually solve a problem rather than just explaining information to people. ([Time 0:17:40](https://share.snipd.com/snip/266554e5-ca37-4085-bb19-afee0640ce02)) - **Things to Not Do** - During personal retreats, consider what you will *continue* to not do. - Reaffirming things you won't do prevents you from drifting back to them. Transcript: Ian Byrd Right. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. I do those three questions, but I also do what will I continue to not do? So like things in the past that I've decided not to do. Some of those I want to, some of those I might start or pick up at some point. But I also like to like reaffirm that I'm not going to do any more speaking or I'm like, I'm not going to write a book in the next three months or start a book. Uh, cause those are things where I, I will start to drift and start thinking about, Oh, maybe I should write a book or maybe I should do one conference talk. So I like, I like the continuing to not do also. Mike Schmitz That's a great idea. I may have to add that to mine. I tend to view my personal retreats as just a retrospective on the last quarter and then planning for the next quarter. ([Time 0:50:00](https://share.snipd.com/snip/da59da62-8954-446e-b9d8-195ee56a5196)) - **Create Margin** - Stop doing some things to create margins. - This creates space for new, interesting projects. Transcript: Ian Byrd Yeah. To me, the big part of the retreat, out of those questions that I ask that what do I stop doing especially when I first started the retreats like that list should be much longer than the List of what am I going to start doing or even like continue doing but yeah a lot of it is for me it was like realizing that there are things that I have to stop doing in order to make space for Mike Schmitz The other stuff do you have any sort of like wheel of life style exercise that you do to kind of locate yourself and how things are currently going or what's your process for that I don't Know what I don't know what a wheel of life is okay sorry um it's it's basically like uh i guess the the name is a polar area graph if you if you've seen one of those circles sure and it's cut Up into the little slices and then um i've gone through this exercise a bunch of different times and then i kind of modified it made it my own but you uh fill in the little slices of the pie For, you know, this slice represents family and you rate your current happiness on a scale from zero to 10. So you shade in that section and then you go to the next piece. You probably have a visual for what this would look like now. And they've been used a bunch of different places for many, many years. And it's kind of just an exercise to get people to realize, you know, where they're at with things. Yeah. Ian Byrd Now, I don't do anything quite that, like, systematized. I do, I have the two questions of what's giving me life and what's draining life, which I got from somebody else. But I find that those are really kick off how I'm ([Time 0:52:02](https://share.snipd.com/snip/8b81d1a8-a39c-417f-97fc-550200806b27))