The 3 most important things to develop if you want to solve a big problem
Our generation is filled with people who care about so many different problems in the world. People that are passionate, curious, driven, ambitious and eager to help.
I’m surrounded by people solving problems, people who are in training to solve those problems in the future and people just starting their journey.
That is my life and my incredible community.
What I’ve realized from being around these people 25/8 and watching them go from training to real-world solving problems is that there are key things about all of them.
#1 FIO (Figure It Out) 🧠
The first thing they all have in common is a #FIO (figure it out) mindset. They don’t rely on other people for all the answers.
This includes simple questions and hard ones. They think critically. They put in the effort, they ask the good questions to the right people, they form new judgements and come to a conclusion.
One of my mentors once said to me “don’t ask for the answer, ask for guidance”. It really stuck with me.
With an FIO mindset, you don’t ask “what is the answer?” but instead they say “here is how I’m thinking of approaching this, can I get your feedback”.
The reason this is so important is that there is an enormous difference between number 0 and number 1.
The difference between the two is that 1 can fall back on 0. They can ask 0 questions and rely on them. But 0, has nobody to rely on. They have to answer their own questions and figure stuff out on their own.
If you want to be the one solving the problems directly you need to be able to figure out the answers for yourself. You want to be number 0.
#2 Network 🤝
Well becoming number 0 is important so you don’t need to rely on people for things, having a network is also important.
Everyone has their own unique experiences, knowledge and opinions. To solve problems, you need to understand outside perspectives.
You need smart people to give you feedback, bounce ideas off of and get their perspective.
Think about it this way. Thor without his hammer and his strength would just be another guy.
He is number 0, but his strength and hammer are the 1 and 2. Your team/network gives you those superpowers.
But, don’t make the mistake of quantity > quality! Have a good amount of really high-quality relationships. Don’t grow in size if they’re all weak relationships.
#3 Passion ❤️
The final thing I’ve noticed in all the people who are solving some of the world's biggest problems, is they care.
This isn’t always as easy as building a mindset and network. Sometimes it can be, sometimes people find it early. But other times it takes a while to find what you love (or hate and want to fix).
But, if you willingly dedicate all your time to something you don’t want to be doing, you’ll be miserable.
By doing something you’re truly passionate about you’ll make more progress faster, you’ll stay motivated, you will reduce (if not stop) making excuses, work won’t feel like work and so many more reasons.
It’s easy to convince people that working on something you love is better than doing something you don’t. But the hard part is showing people it’s worth spending time on things they don’t like in order to find the thing they do like.
One of the biggest misconceptions that come with finding your passion is that the second you read about something, you’ll fall in love with it.
Passion develops overtime. Do general research. If you are interested in it and you find that you continuously have questions, go into it. Start working on understanding it and that passion will come.
I hope this was as helpful to you as it was to me. There are definitely more things that you could add to this list but over the last few years, these were the 3 that I thought were most important.
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-Nyla 🤠
