I Won't Steal Your Problems
This might come as a shock. Me fixing your problems for you may actually be harming you.
Go ahead. I’m here. What’s on your mind?
This might come as a shock. Me fixing your problems for you may actually be harming you.
Chances are, you have some problems. Just like I do. That makes sense. If you come and talk to me, I’ll help you figure out how to solve them. But I’m not going to solve them for you. Advisors, consultants, business gurus do this without realizing it: they take the problem away, solve it themselves, and hand back an answer that you don’t own. It’s a compulsion that’s seductive for both parties. I feel useful, you feel relieved. We both get that dopamine hit. Yet neither of us grows.
The self-satisfaction of getting ready-made answers feels right in the short-term. But it’s short term. There’s no tomorrow. There’s just now. You and I incur an emotional cost in this pursuit that’s indistinguishable from anxiety and misery. You’re asking for your problems to be stolen, and I oblige. The next problem arrives, and you’re just as paralyzed.
Solving your problems by removing the opportunity to solve them yourself, takes away your ability to solve problems. And there will always be problems to solve.
The voice of reason in your head is probably bursting through the doors right now wanting to know, “Well then, what’s the alternative? What are you actually doing for me?”
Chances are, you have some problems. If you come and talk to me, I’ll help you figure out how to solve them. But I’m not going to solve them for you. You own the problem, we solve it together, and you experience the answers for yourself. You have no choice but to change.
It’s terrifying in the moment. It requires courage to follow through. Yet you own it because you said it to yourself, not because I told you. You feel confident, I feel purposeful. Both of us grow.
Go ahead. I’m here. What’s on your mind?
