Introduction

Finally!

I’m in Queenstown, New Zealand, taking in an amazing view on my day off. Obviously, the logical thing to do would be to write a blog post. I’ve been meaning to start one of these for a while. I’ve always enjoyed writing, plus, it will help fill the insane amount of downtime we have when I start traveling for the season. Anyway, I won’t be on any sort of schedule; I’d like this to be more of a stream of consciousness thing. Thoughts about racing, traveling, training, riding bikes, not riding bikes, being a pro, what I’m studying, what I’m doing, projects I’m working on, how I’m feeling, ramblings, complaining. Just whatever is going on in my head at that moment. I always find it interesting that my mindset, thoughts, goals and attitudes change so much throughout the season. I think it will be pretty insightful to be able to look back on some of my past ideas and convictions for no other reason than to get some perspective.

Most of this blog is likely to be me (over) analyzing different parts of the world. I feel like I have been on a roll lately, solving some pretty important and challenging problems in my life and I want to bottle that up somehow, so why not start with that! Oh, and if you didn’t know already I’m kind of a nerd, so references to statistics, programming, and those weird things called books will be common place. Gasp.

Problem Solving

One of the biggest mistakes we make on a day-to-day basis is trying to solve the wrong problem. You would think this would be a really simple and easy to thing to do, figure out which problem to solve, but it’s actually incredibly difficult.

I’ll give you an example:

A guy rents a new car for his vacation. He sets off on his drive and, after a while, he realizes he is low on fuel. He pulls into the gas station and begins to look for the release button for the fuel cover, after about 5 minutes of searching he realizes a woman has pulled up with the same car as his. Frustrated, he goes over to her and says “Excuse me, I just rented this car, and I have no idea where the button to open the gas cover is. I must be overlooking it. Can you tell me where it is?” She turns to him, amused, and tells him, “There is no button, you just open the door from outside the car.”

This is the definition of trying to solve the wrong problem, and we do this every day!! With everything! We end up tunnel visioning down these paths without any recourse. Instead of trying to address the issue of opening the gas cover, he is trying to solve the problem of finding the release for the cover. He is projecting his bias of how he thinks the car should work on the problem he is seeking to answer.

I find this fascinating! As humans, we love patterns and rules. So much so that we are willing to impose them on situations that don’t even have or need them! To open a gas cover, I have to hit a button. To be smart, I have to go to school. To get a job, I have to send in a resume. To be a professional racer, I have to do well in races. To get an attractive partner, I need to be good-looking. To get what I want, I need money.

Well, sure, those are all solutions to those problems, but they are one of many many many solutions: Or I could just walk over and open it. Or I could define ‘smart’ and use the infinite amount of free resources on the internet. Or I could network and talk to the HR Manager/CEO directly. Or I could put up a few viral videos and convince a company to take me to the races to create content. Or I could find an attractive person who doesn’t value looks and instead focuses on internal beauty (lol). Or I could find someone who is willing to trade me for a skill, insight or object they value, that I have.

Defining the Problem

So how do we find alternate solutions? First, we need to figure out what we want. We need to define our problem. Let’s take “I want to be a World Cup racer.” Ok, why do you want that? I would like to travel and get paid to ride my bike. In that case, you don’t need to be a racer, you could be a freerider, slopestyle rider, lifestyle athlete, etc. but let’s assume you also love competition and the atmosphere of the World Cups. So we have travel, racing World Cups and getting paid to do it. Unfortunately, that’s not even close to enough information. Do you want to make it a career? Do you just want to go to the races? Do you care about how well you do? How much do you want to get paid? Do you want to travel everywhere? What are you willing to give up to get there? Can your lifestyle change? Once we have asked ourselves these questions, and so many more, and have gone through the why’s of each one, we come up with: I want to race the full World Cup season for one year and have all of my expenses covered. I want to have working equipment and qualify for each one. I want to have my same lifestyle and not commit everything to doing this. Great!

Social Pressure

One of the most important things to do at this point is separate what I actually want and what I should want. What I should want is a big salary on a big team. What I should want is for people to want my autograph. What I should want is a to be a successful millionaire in a big house overlooking the ocean. The social pressure of goals (which is a blog post unto itself) is undeniably high. Notice none of these things were in our original statement. If we’ve done our job right and have thought deeply about the most meaningful goal we can achieve and what we really want, then these statements would have been included, and if they were, we would have to make an entirely different plan to reach them. It’s incredibly easy to fall victim to these social fallacies. I should want this because society (my friends, co-workers, family, the internet) says I should. Think back to different times in your life and what was most important to you. Most likely the people around you had a huge influence on what they were. It’s one of the reasons that having conviction and a concrete goal is so vital

Solving the Problem

To get back to our World Cup racer. Now that he has a definition of his goal, he can go about solving the problem of achieving them. Again, we have to be extra careful not to fall into the trap of addressing these things the ‘conventional’ or ‘right’ way. We want the bare minimum solution. The easiest route to the finish. There’s absolutely no reason to do more work than we need to. If we feel like we need to do some extra credit, it might be good to revisit our definitions. So just like we asked questions to define our goals. We need to ask questions to solve them. Let’s take a look at that first sentence and break it down a bit:

I want to race the full World Cup season for one year.

That’s awesome. Ok, so what would be a typical line of questioning for this sentence? Well, I would start with something like this:

How much money do I need to do the full season? Can I put together a budget for that? Do I know how to put together a budget for that? No, but I can find out, and there’s plenty of public info for me out there. Alright, I’ve done my research and thought of every expense possible and come up with $x. Now that I’ve got a base, what are my biggest expenses and how can I get them down? Flights are a big one. Hmm, I’m only doing this for one year. Can I sign up for some frequent flier credit cards that offer first-year bonuses? Would it be cheaper to ship my bike? If I have to buy parts, should I just buy them over there? I wonder what the internet says about cutting flight costs? I don’t want to change my lifestyle so I can’t cut down on the number of flights because I need to come home. What about accommodation? Well, am I down to camp? If so I could probably buy a van and just drive that around. If I’m smart about it, I could purchase a van each trip and sell it when I leave with a profit. That could take some time so it would probably be good to get the buyer and seller lined up well in advance and have some contingencies in place too. But, I’m definitely not down to camp, so maybe there are some other privateers doing the same thing as me. There are, and a lot of them stay together! I could talk to all of them and see if they have room, floor space is probably the cheapest, and since I didn’t say that I wanted to get great results in my definitions, I don’t really mind not having a bed. I could always get a blow-up mattress. After looking at it, I’ve cut my costs by 2/3rd. I think it’s also important since I’m only doing this for one year to get advice. It’s not in my best interest to try to re-invent the wheel because 1. I won’t use that experience and 2. I’m optimizing for a one year career. Who can I talk to that’s done what I am trying to do? Who’s the best privateer out there? How did they make it work? What are the pitfalls? Etc., etc., etc., etc.

Here we looked into the travel aspect of our goal, but you get the idea. You just have to keep pulling the string. Keep asking why? So what? How? Instead of finding evidence to support your conclusion, search for the evidence that disproves it. When you can’t think of anything, ask someone else, look on the internet, read books. One of the reasons problems are so difficult is that we come at them from one point of view: Our own.

One of the most powerful sayings I’ve ever heard is to “have strong beliefs, weakly held.” Meaning: be confident but have humility. Be undeniably focused but be open to everything. At the core, it’s saying do everything you possibly can to form the correct opinion, but know that in the end, having the correct opinion is an unachievable goal because there is always new information to be gained.

Hopefully, you found this topic as interesting as I do. I had to consciously make sure this didn’t end up being five times as long! I love psychology and all of the traps the brain sets for us. It’s one of the things that makes us human!

I’m looking forward to sharing more of my thoughts soon!

Eliot