Lessons from The Arena - Whats the Problem?
Level 3: Master of the Mundane
Dear Future Guardian,
This past week on Wednesday, we had our monthly "Arena Prep Call."
On this call, our Arena1 members come with their problems, questions, challenges, and we work together to identify what their most immediate constraint is AND to help them form the best effective question for the main Arena call the following week (where we then help them figure out the next best step to solving that problem or answering that question).
If you've not been through our process, that might sound strange.
A call that's all about figuring out what to say on the next call?
You might think that the barrier to getting what you want and solving your problems is taking the action. While the action is important - obviously Engage the Field2 is a core tenant here - knowing what you are trying to solve, and then getting the right help to solve it is usually where the biggest challenge lies.
Think about it like this,
Let's say you think you know the goal you want, and you start heading towards that goal as fast as possible.
You do this for months, weeks ... maybe years, only to discover you're right back where you started.
An experience many are familiar with, which is akin to hopping in a car, in the dark, with no lights, and slamming your foot on the gas. Will you get where you want to go? Will you drive off the road? Will you run into the wall right in front of you which you can't see?
When it comes to getting HELP trying to achieve what you want, the barrier is often asking the right effective question.
It’s something we discuss pretty much every Arena call, because there's no use in anyone answering a question which isn't the right question. In fact answering the wrong question can send you down the wrong road for a long time.
This is why we put so much effort into helping our members form effective questions.
The result is when they get on The Arena call, they are much MUCH closer to knocking down their immediate constraint through guided insight and clarity from our experts.
And on our Arena call people regularly knock out huge barriers to their goals (business and personal) and move themselves forward faster than they ever thought possible.
But The Arena call isn't nearly as good, without the prep call. (Little behind the curtain - when we first built The Arena we didn’t have a prep call and we were spending so much time on the main call working through these problems, we built the prep call and that vastly improved the experience and results for everyone)
So
I thought I'd share a selection of thoughts and lessons from this weeks call, to give you a little insight into what we often uncover.
Is The Problem THE Problem?
So, the point of The Arena is to both help identify what your problems are, as well as get you moving in the next step towards knocking down those problems through taking action in a structured and strategic way.
You come to the call and you essentially say "this is what i did, this is what happened, now what do i do?"
Of course,
Getting the right answer to help you actually solve your problem kind of depends on you really understanding what your problem actually is.
(I'm going to lean into Entrepreneurial and Business references here since many of us are in that space trying to solve these kinds of problems, but this is not limited to a particular area of interest, this is life)
Let's say I'm an entrepreneur and I want to get more business - more clients. I've got social media, I've got a little email list going, etc. I decide I'm going to run a Silver Bullet Campaign3 to see if I can get some conversations going around the problems I'm trying to solve for people
That sounds like it could be a reasonable test. After all if you want more clients, more conversations will get you there.
So you run the Silver Bullet Campaign, you don't get the results you are looking for, and now you are looking at where in the Silver Bullet Campaign you messed up or could do better.
If you came to The Arena with this question --
Resource - The Silver Bullet Campaign
Action - I ran the campaign
Discovery - I didn't get any conversations
Ask - How do I know what to ask so people respond better in my campaign?
Now,
If you went down that rabbit hole of trying to resolve the problem identified with this Silver Bullet Campaign, you could end up spending quite a lot of time and energy trying to ask better questions in your Silver Bullet Campaign.
However, what if that isn't really your problem?
(PS. apparently I revisit this idea frequently)
Or rather, what if you have a different problem, with a closer solution, which can reveal new information which might actually make what you're trying to do in The Silver Bullet work better?
In our example here, you don't have clients, and you're not having conversations.
Not having conversations is your problem.
And while in our example you've identified The Silver Bullet Campaign as the solution, once you went down that road you started to identify the problems with the campaign as your problem.
Easy to get tangled.
I find it useful to step backward as far as possible, use the data that actively presents itself as well as data from my past (Rear View Mirror4) to figure out what my problem really is and if I can get closer to it.
(If that's all a little ... unspecific ... Principle usually is, until it's applied to unique individual situations)
Another separate example from my own experience working with clients on their email marketing.
More than a handful of occasions I've been brought into a business to help resolve an email marketing problem they think they have ...
Not enough opens, not enough clicks, not enough sales.
They think their email is not profitable.
And on the surface it looks like they could do a lot better because the engagement does appear lower than it could be.
Yet after digging deeper I discover that despite the problems they think they have, they actually have a positive short term ROI on new leads. They spend money on new leads and within 3 months they've gained that spend back and then some.
They think their email is not profitable except the data says it is.
Now,
That doesn't mean there isn't a problem.
It just means the problem they are having is different than the one they are trying to communicate or solve. In my experience (with email, in situations like this) often times it's a combination of a FEELINGS problem and an OPTIMIZATION problem.
IE, nothing in the system is really broken. They just desire a different overall outcome than is happening.
I give those examples because the real danger is blindly trying to solve the problem you think you have.
It's easy to get focused on A problem, just because you can see it.
Not Knowing the Problem
Sometimes ... perhaps often times ... we're not really clear on what exactly the problem is.
In The Arena we focus on trying to figure out your Most Immediate Constraint5.
![What To Focus On Next [ 1 of 3 ]](https://i.scdn.co/image/ab6765630000ba8a43c6e36df98a184b9921e15b)
That is the thing along the path towards solving your problem which is closest to you and your resources. The thing you can do with the least amount of effort which can have the most impact on moving you forward toward your desired outcome.
We focus on resources with The Most Immediate Constraint because the biggest risk toward not getting what you want ultimately is running out of those resources along the way.
We use the "kinked hose" analogy. If you imagine a garden hose turned on snaked through the garden with a dozen kinks in it. No water coming out the other end.
Watering the garden is your goal.
Now you can go anywhere along that hose and undo a kink. You might start at the end, or with the most obvious kink in the hose that you can see. That's how most people operate. But if you undo that last kink ... that's going to have no impact on the water flow into the garden. So you spend your resources resolving a problem which doesn't have any noticeable impact on the system.
On the other hand if you get as close to the nozzle as possible - where the water is originating from - and start undoing THAT kink, your effort will immediately increase the flow of water in the hose.
That's what we're going for.
We want to solve problems that return resources or create new ones so that we can keep going solving problems.
And THAT is actually often easier to solve than making sure you are solving the right problem overall. Not only can "the right problem" change as you take action and move through your process, but as mentioned you have limited resources to manage.
As best as possible, understand what your problem really is, so you can identify the simplest thing that might make the greatest impact on your situation ...
And then go do it.
Get the data. The outcome of your action Engaging the Field will let you know if that really was your most immediate constraint and will give you more information to understand whether that really is your problem.
Sometimes you make your own problem
Sometimes, the problem you are focusing on may not be your actual problem,
But believing its the problem becomes the problem.
In other words,
Sometimes you've got to just tackle the wall that's in front of you before you can move on figuring out what the actual problem is.
And that's ok.
We're all human and none of us are perfect.
We've get the uncertain vicissitudes of The Human Mindset, and no matter how "good" we get at recognizing and managing those facets of ourselves, no matter how "good" we get at choosing The Champion's Mind6, we are never perfect.
We never "arrive."
And we can always only ever do what's in front of us.
So sometimes even if it's not THE problem, the problem you need to take down is the one that's right in front of you.
If you think about it, no matter what it is, if it's stopping you from solving any other problems, then any step you can take which can topple that block is the simplest thing you can do which has the greatest impact.
Sometimes we make our own constraints ... through belief, through action.
Don't worry about what you could be doing,
Do what's in front of you.
Take action, get data, move forward.
Sometimes we make the problem much much bigger than it is
Sometimes we make problems out to be much bigger than they really are, or than they could be handled.
We can identify a "problem" as "I need more money in my business." Or "I need to lose lot more fat."
But the "I need more money in my business" problem is perhaps a dozen smaller problems that are more specific and manageable to work through. Finding a route to more consistent conversations that can lead to business. Identifying better offers. Clarifying language. Using what's in front of you more efficiently, etc.
But when it's a BIG problem, our human mindset tends to want to tackle it with a BIG solution.
I need to lose a lot of fat becomes a huge undertaking of modified diet, translating to a dozen different challenges related to managing food in the house and in the kitchen, impacts on other people if you're a part of a family, adding on workout routines and schedules, getting equipment and memberships, moving other schedules around to accommodate it all, etc.
And it's all a ton of smaller problems compiled together.
Like Oogie Boogie in Nightmare Before Christmas.
A whole sack of bugs masquerading as something you need to deal with at once.
But we can't do that.
We can't solve ALL the problems at once. No matter how elegant we think our solution is, we are just incapable of consistently solving it all without breaking something else.
This is why we Microstep7.
This is why we look to our most immediate constraint ... the smallest move we can make which has the greatest impact.
Because we can solve one tiny thing.
Instead of trying to fix all the diet and exercise and schedules ... I could start by sitting less and see what changes.
Instead of trying to build an entire system to generate clients automatically ... I could just call the person I think most likely could connect me with someone.
One step at a time.
Sometimes all you need is to be like Jack and pull on the single thread holding Oogie Boogie together.
And the whole monster problem falls apart and is much more easily squashed.
Are you avoiding that simple step?
Lastly, as you're trying to identify your most immediate constraint and figuring out what it is you want ...
Ask yourself if you really do know what your next best step is.
I've certainly found myself in this position in the past, where I know the next best thing I can be doing, and yet I've given myself a ton of other things to do instead.
And why is that?
I can point to my own fear of failure and rejection in my own situations.
You'll have to figure it out for yourself.
If you HAVE identified an immediate constraint and the simplest steps towards resolving that immediate constraint and you aren't DOING those steps, but rather perhaps giving yourself a bunch of other work to feel like you are moving forward ....
Maybe take a pause and think it through.
Are you avoiding something.
Is it really an immediate constraint.
If it IS the smallest step that could have the biggest impact and you're not doing it then you may be spending resources elsewhere inefficiently and potentially even harming yourself in the long run by increasing the likelihood you run out of resources before getting where you want to go.
It can all change
Your immediate constraint can change.
The problem you're solving can change.
It can change from one month to the next, one week to the next, and even one day to the next, as more information unfolds and new realities reveal themselves around you.
Don't try to do it all.
Take a step. Observe what happens. Rinse and repeat.
Want Live guidance through this process?
That's what we do in The Arena.
If you're ready to step in, we currently have 4 scheduled Arena Calls every month.
2 of these calls are specialized, one focusing on Laurel Portié's ads system8, and one with Dr. Jeff Spencer9. Our Arena members are welcome to join those calls and ask context specific questions from our best people. Got an ads question running a business? Working through Champions Perfect Day or trying to master your Champion's Mind?
Our other 2 calls are The Arena Prep Call, and The Arena Call. Check out a past Arena Call here:
The prep call, as I reflected on above, is about becoming better at asking better questions. Our members come on the prep call to prepare their question for The Arena, so that the following week on The Arena call, they can present their very best precise question to get the most useful help directly from Nic Peterson and others on our team in tackling their most immediate constraint.
The Arena is designed to force you into action to knock down immediate constraint after immediate constraint.
The outcome?
The inevitability of getting what you want … if you Engage the Field.
Join the waitlist here if you think you're ready.
Be Useful. Be Present. Love the Journey.
Joseph Robertson, CMO The Guardian Academy
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Ready to apply your ideas to reality? You may find our Engage the Field Handbook a useful and effective resource.
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Hey Joseph, is this substack still active? Is it on hiatus?
Love this review of the last call and the process. Brings to mind the distinction between problems and situations.