#3792: Obvious Symptoms Vs Deeper Signals

0:00Sometimes, the problem isn't that you don't know enough. The problem is you're too close to your own situation. You've been looking at the same numbers, the same people, the same strategy, and the same problem for so long that you can't see what somebody from the outside world would see immediately. That's what the game session is for. Bring me one real problem in your business or life. I'll ask you the questions, identify what I see, and help you determine your next move. Many three people are in each session, so everybody gets direct coaching. Your investment is $97. Go to workonyourgame.com slash game. That's workonyourgame.com slash game. If you're looking for shortcuts, hacks, or inspiration that wears off by lunchtime, this is not for you. But if you want practical ideas to help you think better, read better, and execute more consistently, hit my free galley game email. One message every day, right to your inbox, at workonmygame.com.

1:02That's workonmygame.com. The people who consistently solve difficult problems are the ones who stop reacting to the symptoms and they start interpreting what is the signal that causes the symptom. That's where the money's at. They all lay the problem. Workon your game. Workon your game. Workon your game. This is Dre Baldwin, and workon your game is the system that turns discipline into dominance. Today's topic is, do not treat symptoms like problems. Most of the time, and we talked about this a couple episodes back, people will react to what is visibly in front of them, and instead of trying to understand the most meaningful part of what's happening, what's may not even be in front of them, may not be something that they can see. And the underlying issue, the thing that needs to be addressed, goes ignored because

2:06it's often not obvious. It's not right there in front of people's faces, but the symptoms are always in front of people's faces and people will go plugging the damn with their fingers metaphorically speaking, addressing symptoms rather than trying to figure out what the underlying problem is. For a couple of reasons, number one, addressing symptoms is easier. It's simpler, doesn't require much deep thought because they're right there in front of you, and there's often a simple solution to a symptom in front of you because symptoms are something that happens to everybody so there usually have been solutions created for them. For example, your nose is running, we have tissues. Now the underlying issue on the other hand requires a little bit deeper work. It may require, once you identify what it is and what's causing it, it may require you making some lifestyle changes, some fundamental changes that you may not be too comfortable making. And those solutions do exist as well. The issue is they require fundamental changes from you, whereas grabbing a different type of tissue doesn't require fundamental change. I gave you this example a couple of days ago. When I realized that the histamine overload with the food that I was choosing to eat was causing the issue.

3:07It wasn't about how well I was born on my nose. And then you get better at born on my nose and you get better at choosing the food I was putting in my body. When I realized that, that forced, I didn't force it, but it suggested a fundamental change in my approach. And to what I was deciding to put in my body, I was willing to make that fundamental change. But sometimes with different subjects, maybe with food, some people are unwilling to make fundamental changes so they end up stuck in the same spot. And this is what I mean when I say most people will react to what's visible and said understanding was meaningful. So they'll confuse a symptom with a signal. Those are two different things. Symptoms like you notice something is wrong, but a signal tells you where to look and know what button to press, what screw needs to be tightened. When you know the difference, this will separate you from a person who solves problems from a person who manages problems, and those are two different things. Do you want to be a problem manager or do you want to be a problem solver?

4:08Again, two different jobs, two different pay rates as well. Point number one, today's topic once again is don't treat symptoms like problems. Number one, symptoms demand attention. This is a good thing about a symptom is that they do get your attention and they force you to say, hey, what the hell is going on here? Are your back is hurting randomly one day? Okay, what was I doing the previous two days and made my back hurt? For example, I used myself as an example again here. A couple of days ago, I woke up, I'm recording this on a Wednesday. I woke up on Monday of this week and I was having, I had pain in my tailbone, right at the base of the spine. I'm like, where the hell did this come from? Because I didn't fall. There was no hard impact or anything that happened in that area of my body. So why am I having this pain and my tailbone? I didn't understand what it was. As I thought about what I had spent the weekend doing, that was on Monday. When I thought about how I spent the weekend, I realized it was only one thing that could possibly have led to this is one thing I really did differently the weekend. I was sitting on the couch and I was spending a lot of time on the couch leaning over a

5:10coffee table and dealing with my son and building these Lego construction. So he's just getting to these Legos. He likes building Legos and I was helping him build shit with these Legos. He is every time he goes to the store with mommy, he's getting these Legos, he comes back with a new Legos set. So he has all these Legos in the house and I'm sitting there building with him and I'm leaning and I'm tall. So I'm leaning over. I'm either returning to the side or leaning in front of me reaching on the table and grabbing all these pieces of building these Lego pieces. And I must have been maneuvering my body in such a way that was disturbing my, you know, spinal alignment. And that's the reason why my tailbone was hurting on Monday. Now it's Wednesday and that tailbone pain is completely gone. The point being the symptom that tailbone pain got my attention immediately. As soon as I got out of bed, I was like, what the hell is this? Why is there pain there in my back? Why is my back hurting? I couldn't understand it. But then when I thought about it, it was only one thing I did differently than what I would normally do at any other time. So the symptom demanded attention. But I had to figure out what is the signal that actually causes?

6:12What caused this to happen? So I don't think I'm done helping my son build things with Legos is that to figure out a different way of aligning myself ergonomically so that issue doesn't happen again. So in business of your company's sales are falling or you're deadlines are getting this or you're having a whole lot of employees turn over. All of those are symptoms that you can see right there in front of you, but they may not be the actual issues. Not that people just don't want to work for your company. It might be something that your company is doing and causing people to leave. Let's figure out what that is because that requires deeper digging and a more honest look at what's happening. If everybody is missing deadlines, that requires again, it's not that people just all of a sudden decide I'm not going to do things on time. I don't think that's what happened. If your sales are falling is not because people don't want to buy whatever you're selling, it might be users not getting in front of the right people the right way with the right off or at the right time. So we got to figure out what's going on or if you're constantly gaining weight and you're not trying to gain weight, well, let's figure out what's causing this. Is it something biologically with your body that you are not directly controlling and can't

7:16see? Is it something that you are consciously doing? Let's figure it out. So all of these things become symptoms. The symptoms get your attention, but they are probably knocked the underlying issue. So you have to ask yourself, why is this happening? And then when you get beyond this surface level answers, usually we have some good surface level answers at the first why. Again, as I talked about a couple of days ago, you keep asking why I'm in, so you get to some real stuff that you got to address. The symptoms are just evidence that there is something else happening, but the symptom is not the conclusion. The symptom is not the proof is the evidence. And what has caused it, that's the proof. You need to get to that. This is just pointing towards something happened, but that's not the conclusion of what is causing that thing. Evidence is just a byproduct of the thing, like the ground being wet is a byproduct of the rain. So the rain is all we got to look at, not the ground. You know, you don't put blankets on the ground so it doesn't get dry. But you figure out, well, what's causing the rain? Not that we can stop the rain, just using it as a metaphor here.

8:17Point number two, today's topic once again is don't treat symptoms like problems. Number two. The first explanation is usually an incomplete explanation of not the wrong explanation. Challenge with this is many people often take their first explanation as the conclusion. That's a mistake. When you treat the first explanation as a conclusion, then you're going to end up with an incomplete addressing of the issue, if any addressing of the issue. You may feel like you addressed the issue, but you really didn't. Because you came up with an explanation for the symptom, but you didn't find an underlying problem. When my nose would burn, I would say, well, I must have allergies. That was a convenient answer, but it was an incomplete answer. Once I had a resource to where I could ask better questions about it, I got more information and that information turned out to be right because once I stopped doing the things that were leading to the problem, then the problem stopped. I didn't need to get better at adjusting the problem. I needed to fix the underlying signal that was causing the problem.

9:18Had I stuck with the first explanation, which I did for a long time, then I would have to keep putting out the same fire over and over again, which becomes for some people can be annoying, for some it can be overwhelming, it can be taxing, it can be, it's just a consistent inconvenience that you don't really need to begin with. That's really what it becomes. You don't need to deal with the inconvenience. There's no need to do so. People naturally blame the most obvious thing they can see because the most obvious thing they can see is generally visible. Effective leaders, operators and problem solvers resist that urge. Another thing you gotta keep in mind is sometimes people want to point to the most obvious thing that can be seen because they don't want you to discover something that goes deeper. They don't want you to find out the real issue that's causing the situation. There's a real issue that causes the situation may expose somebody who doesn't want to be exposed. So you gotta be careful with that as well. When someone comes to you and they seem to have already figured out the answer and they only want to address the thing that you said but they don't want to address anything else. They might be just not wanting to deal with something that you would eventually discover

10:21if you keep asking questions. Again, those of you who have that type of personality who you're willing to keep asking questions and you're willing to keep digging, you know you're the person who could finally get to the real root cause of an issue. Some people made out what to deal with you because they know your reputation. They don't want you to get to the root cause. They just want you to help them address the surface of the whole thing. This happens a lot. This happens a whole lot in the consulting industry. And if you've done any consulting, you know exactly what I'm talking about. There are companies out there who have root issues that need to be addressed but they don't want you genius to come in there addressing the root issue. They want you to help them with the surface level issue and they're willing to pay you for it. To help us address the surface level issue, don't go down to the root level issue because if you go down to the root level, you're going to make some people uncomfortable. You might call some heads to roll. You might get some people fired. And before any of that happens, we'll fire you, Mr. Consultant. Then I'll go and let you get that far. So you got to be careful who you're talking to. You got to learn to read the room as I said. We're dealing with other people, individuals and companies that you don't want to solve

11:22the wrong problem for the wrong person at the wrong time. There is always a root issue to everything but again, keep in mind, humans are human. And sometimes solving the root issue may create more problems than it actually solves on a political career level, not an issue level, an issue level, adjusting the root problem solves everything or at least every symptom that is the result of the root problem. Let me say that more accurately. Adjusting the root issue solves every symptom of the root issue. But addressing the root issue might also expose other root issues that had previously been covered up ignored and papered over because the root issue was drawing all the attention or the symptoms of the root issue was drawing all the attention. We're drawing all the attention. So again, in bureaucratic environments, be careful what you uncover, be careful what you discovered, be careful what you solved. You might be causing more problems organizationally than you're actually solving even though you think you're doing a perfect right thing.

12:23Remember not everybody wants all their problem solved. Some people are comfortable with certain problems and they rather those problems exist because that distracts them from dealing with anything else they got to deal with. Humans are going to human. Effective leaders, operators and problem solvers resist the urge to accept the first answer that is told to them. Anybody who's ever worked as a therapist or a coach, you ever worked with anybody on anything they had to do with the way they think. And most of the time when you're helping people with anything, the way they think is usually a big part of how they ended up in the challenging situation for which they called you. Almost all the time. Anybody who's ever worked with people on that level, you understand or you should understand. And if you don't understand it, I'll give this one to you for free. Never accept the first answer. The first answer is never the actual issue. Even a person who is quote unquote harder on themselves or quote unquote their own biggest critic, their first answer is not the root issue either. It sounds good, but that ain't the root issue. First answer is never ever ever the real issue.

13:26It may point towards the real issue, but ain't the real issue. This is always something deeper. Even being by the time we get to about eight years old, we're pretty good at telling ourselves surface level lies, not completely destructive lies, but we're good at manipulating our words in such a way that we know we are deceiving ourselves and others. Actually, I got a child who's three years old and he learned how to lie like eight months ago. So eight years old might be stretching it. They might learn much earlier than that, depending on their development. Effective leaders resist the urge to accept the first obvious answer. They investigate until they find the real signal that is pointing to the root issue. Again, at your own peril, I will let you all leaders and operators know at your own peril, you get to the root issue. Again to the root issue might cause you to step on some things that you didn't know you were stepping on. So be careful. What questions you ask and who you ask them of. And this is a professional piece of advice.

14:28Some people recalibrate before things drift. Others wait for feedback. They can't undo. Power presence calibration exists for the first group. It is not designed to be welcoming. The location is listed below in the description. Point number three. Today's topic once again is don't treat symptoms like problems number three. When you solve the signal, the symptoms disappear. When you solve the signal, the symptoms disappear. When I stop eating bacon cheeseburgers and too much process, sweets. All in one day or in back to back days, the sinus slash histamine issue disappeared. Because I solved the main signal, the thing that was causing all the problems, I no longer had a symptom problem. Sometimes you just got to go to the main thing. The main thing usually takes more effort to fix than fixing the symptom. More effort. Sometimes the effort is to stop doing something.

15:28Sometimes it's harder to stop doing something. It is to start doing something. Can we agree? But when you address that, giving a larger amount of effort one time relieves you from having to give a bunch of smaller efforts over and over and over and over again in perpetuity. That's why it's better. When you fix symptoms, you get temporary relief and it feels good. But when you correct the underlying signal, you change the entirety of the system that produced the symptoms in the first place. Now you are in position to go and deal with higher level issues. This is how a sentient occurs, everybody. You want to ascend in your life, in your career, your business, in your relationships, and anything that you do. You have to address the root issues that are causing the current symptoms. When you address those root issues, now everything can move forward. You will run into different root issues, but you'll have higher level problems. So in life, you don't want to have no problems at all. Having no problems means you're dead.

16:28Not only humans that have no problems are dead people. Everybody who's alive has problems. Users want higher level problems. Higher level root issues that need to be addressed, which require higher level thinking and higher level addressings. And sometimes that just means eliminating things, not always adding things, always keep that in mind. Most of the time, this is elimination. I say more than half the time. When you correct the underlying signals, you eliminate the symptoms. Sustainable improvement always starts way beneath the surface. Don't accept what you come up with on the surface. It feels good. It sounds good, but it ain't the truth. Recaven today's class, which is don't treat symptoms like problems. Number one, visible problems are rarely the real problems. The stuff that you can see is rarely the real problem. We've our words advanced enough that we know how to solve visible symptoms. But visible symptoms keep popping up, which means you ain't solved the real problem. Number two, investigation beats assumption. Asking questions. And again, you start asking questions that is going to come. Conversation is going to get uncomfortable at some point. You have to be willing to sit there in that discomfort.

17:29A lot of people are not willing to do that. And number three, lasting solutions come from fixing causes, not managing effects. Fixing causes, not managing effects. Again, do you want to be a problem solver or a problem manager? Those are two different things. Final thought, everybody. Every symptom is trying to tell you something. The people who consistently solve difficult problems are the ones who stop reacting to the symptoms and they start interpreting what is the signal that causes the symptom. That's where the money's at. Work on your game. Drey, all day. High performers don't need more information. They need tighter execution. ERI, that's the execution for liability index. Measures, how often do you actually follow through when it matters? If you're serious about results, go to workonyourgame.com slash ERI. That's workonyourgame.com slash ERI.