Episode 231: Do you have a "solutions-focused" mindset?
How often are you having a solutions-focused mindset rather than staying stuck in a problem? In today's episode, Fiona talks about a solutions-focused mindset so you can really drill down and think, "Where am I going to be able to carve a path out of this situation to a better one?". Tune in!
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
"Solutions-focused" mindset
Example
Conclusion
Get in touch with My Daily Business Coach
Resources and Recommendations mentioned in this episode:
Hello and welcome to episode 231 of the My Daily Business Coach podcast. My name's Fiona Killackey. I am your host and I'm also a mom, a wife, a friend, a sister, and all sorts of things outside of my business and in the business, I am a podcast host. I'm also an award-winning author of my book. Passion Purpose Profit came out 18 months ago. And I have just heard from people all over the world that the book has really helped. So I know that's kind of blowing my own horn there, but if you like this podcast, if you've been listening for a while and you haven't got a book, definitely go and check out Passion Purpose Profit after you've listened to this episode, of course, you can find it wherever you find books, try and support a small business owner if you can, when you're buying the book.
And if you don't have the funds for the book, that's totally fine. Maybe ask in your library if they have it and you can get your hands on it that way. So before we get stuck into today's quick tip episode, I wanted to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of the beautiful land and which I live and record this podcast. I'm on North Warrandyte. And so that is the Wurrung and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation And I pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded. All right, let's get into today's quick tip episode.
So today, it is a tip tool or tactic. Probably between a tip and a tactic. And it's something that I use as much as I can. It is hard. It is an art form to really use this all the time. Believe me, but what am I talking about? I'm talking about a solutions mindset and before you're like, “Here we go. Here's some fluff.” It's really not. It can be the difference between something becoming a blowing something out of proportion and everybody getting stressed and overwhelmed in your business or even in your life as well. The difference between that or the difference between everyone just getting a little calmer, seeing a path forward, I'm always talking about clarity, equals confidence. And it's about getting clear on where are we going from here.
So just before I get kind of into it, I wanted to illustrate a point that maybe will make it clear. So years ago, maybe not years ago, it's really hard to even have a timeline during the pandemic. Don't you think it's like years ago, but it could be a couple of months ago? Not really sure. It was at least a year ago, probably more, but we live in a log cabin in North Warrandyte. We have lived here for seven years. We love our little log cabin, but when we moved in, we originally wanted to paint it white, because we were kind of like, “let's go for this kind of candy feel” and this sort of nice little cabin. And my husband had the great idea of like, “no, let's just sit with it and see” like before we make these major changes, let's just have a feel for the house.
Like let the house get to know us, let us get to know the house. And so years later we decided we would actually paint it black. So black on the outside and white on the inside. Now the logs were not like these really nice, beautiful logs. They were kind of more like scout hall logs. I don't know if anyone was in Scouts. I was one of two girls in boy Scouts, years and years ago. And they weren't nice logs. They weren't, they were okay, but they weren't sort of, they're so beautiful. And so we were thinking, should we stain them? Should we not? And we went through this whole process and we had so many people tell us, “Oh, you shouldn't be painting them. Once you paint them, you can never get them back” and all sorts of things.
And then we had other people saying, “you should just put plaster board up and not have the logs.” And it was like, “No.” So we decided we would paint the logs. And we did lots of research. That's me always doing the research and found this painter who'd been recommended by a lot of people. And so we contacted him. He was a very suave, very nice guy. And we showed him Pinterest boards. We all agreed. He was young and vivacious and very excited about it and had painted lots of things around here. We had a good portfolio. And so we went forward with it and to paint a house inside and outside is quite expensive. And so we also had to be out of the house. So we booked an Airbnb and we went on our way and we were so excited.
We were asking him, can you send us photos as you go? And so they did the inside and looked awesome. And then they did the outside and it just didn't seem to take the paint. The wood wouldn't take the paint and they tried different things and he said, “No, no, I've got it sorted. I'm going to go back to the paint guy and I'll get it sorted. Don't worry.” We got home a few days later. And we drove up our driveway and my husband and I just looked at each other like “What?” Like, it doesn't look any different. It really doesn't look any different. If anything, it kind of looks just dirtier. It definitely did not look like the Japanese black stain that we wanted. And so he was there and he knew you could tell instantly as soon as we saw him that he knew that this was not what we had asked for, not what we'd all agreed on.
And we sort of said, looks a bit different to kind of what we had agreed on. And we had just got back from holiday. We had two tired kids with us and we came in and the inside looked darker than I had thought it would look. And so I was kind of like “what, it doesn't look like the white that we wanted” and then the outside. And it was just this awful, those times when you have spent a lot of money and you're like, “I did not get what I thought I was gonna get.” And so I was like, honestly, close to tears and my husband was just kind of annoyed. He was really annoyed and we had a discussion and he went outside and talked to the painter and suddenly it kind of got quite heated. And I went outside and I was like, “look, my husband was not the one getting heated.”
The painter was kind of getting worked up and being like, “well, it's a log cabin. The logs are so dry. That's why it's soaking up the paint.” I can't get hold of his hands up. Like, I don't know, it's not my problem. And we were like, “look, we can go around in a circle.” So this was good, let's say two hours or maybe like an hour after we got home. It wasn't instant into this. And this is the thing with business. When you have this solutions mindset, sometimes it's not instant. Sometimes it takes a little while. Like I said, in the start, it is an art form to have this mindset all the time. And so we were debating back and forth, back and forth. He wasn't taking any ownership.
And then I just sort of said, “Look, we can keep going. We can keep all pointing out the problem. We all know what the problem is. The house does not look like it should look. And we've poured a lot of money into this. You have poured a lot of time.” He had four painters with him. They'd been working for weeks or for like, I think a week and a half or two weeks. And I just said, “we all know the problem.” We need to find the solution. What is the solution? And I think instantly it kind of made everyone calm down because it was like, “Okay, we're all aware of the problem.” No one needs to keep reiterating the problem over and over. We know what it is. How do we get out of this problem?
Like how do we move forward? And so he kind of calmed down and to his credit, he said, “you know what, I'm going to go and try and find something.” And in the meantime, my husband and I researched different paints and we researched differently. We went through all the design files. We went through all these different places because we are not painting experts. And so we were like, “Okay, this paint that we think it'll actually work.” And so we looked it up and it was a Japanese stain that was really good with wood. But it kind of went on like paint, but it was a stain. So you could still see the wood grain and everything else. Anyway, we told him about it. Painter agreed that he would go and investigate that, and he came back.
He said, “Yes, I think this is actually going to work.” And we all agreed. And he, again, to his credit said, “Look, we will paint. We will do all the painting for free. We will do all the labor for free. However, you can just pay for the paint and we'll make it up to you that way.” And it was a great relationship, in the end, we all got on. He was like, “Yep, I'd love testimony.” And I was like, “Yes, I'm happy to give you one because we have turned it around.” We have come up with a solution that helps everyone. We had to pay for some more paint, but they did the work for free and they did a great job, like an amazing job. It looks exactly the same way that we wanted it to look.
The paint is perfect. And so I guess that's a solution mindset. And so it's really thinking about, I guess in this tip episode, how often are you having the solutions-focused mindset rather than staying stuck in a problem? So often a problem can come up in our business or in any part of our life. And we can just ruminate. We can just sit on the problem and keep going on about the problem, looking for someone to blame, looking for external forces or whatever it is rather than going, “you know what I can go on and on and on about the problem,” I can be an expert at the problem. What needs to happen is I need to have a solutions mindset, a solutions-focused mindset so that I can really drill down and think, where am I going to be able to carve a path out of this situation to a better one?
How can I move forward? And it might be a tiny step. It might be, I'm gonna call someone and ask for some help. It could be, I'm gonna send that email off. It could be, I'm gonna hold off on some expenses for the next few months until I can get us back above the red. It could be all sorts of things. But so often we stay in the problem space rather than moving into a solutions-focused mindset. And I have to say that that painter was really good. So if you need a house painter in Melbourne, please give me a DM @mydailybusinesscoach and I can send you his details. But in the end, we got along fabulously and I have to say he had put in a huge amount of effort. He had never painted a log cabin as per most painters have never painted a log cabin.
It's not the most common of houses. The house had also never been painted in 40 or 50 years. So it was a kind of a new job for everyone. And I have to say his demeanor, his attitude was commendable. Given the situation, he could have just walked out and said, “You know what stop it, I've done my part we've been painting for two weeks. I've got staff to pay. I've painted with the paint that the paint person told me was gonna work and not my problem,” but he didn't, he stuck around and we all worked on a solution together. So I guess the tip today is really thinking about when you're coming up against a problem, or maybe you have one right now in your business. Am I being solutions focused or am I just keeping myself focused in and on the problem? So that is it for today's quick tip episode. You can find the show notes for this over at mydailybusinesscoach.com/podcast/231. And if you found this useful, I would love it so much. If you might leave us a review or share it with a friend, thanks so much for listening. Bye.
Thanks for listening to the My Daily Business Coach podcast. If you wanna get in touch, you can do that at mydailybusinesscoach.com or hit me up on Instagram @mydailybusinesscoach.
