System life. How to organize life to cope with uncertainty and achieve results without burnout - Kolosov Semyon 5 стр.

For example, for a person without a car, the marginal utility of the first car purchase is higher than the second, the second is higher than the third. The tenth car may stop pleasing at all, and you will want a helicopter. Now you need to get new pleasures. Even more status, love, admiration, and so on. Its difficult to get them, we cant stop wanting them, and the modern world promises that a quick result is possible. Even they offer to learn English in 2 hours. Therefore, we are looking for our destiny to realize our super talent and potential. This is really very important. Especially when a person does not know, does not notice and does not look for his potential. Because he doesnt want to, cant, or doesnt know how

But there is no ministry of talents in heaven, where a person sits and distributes abilities. There is no such thing as putting human embryos in front of them and saying: you will be a driver, you will be a musician, you are a born manager, you are a designer, you are a CEO, and you will transfer turtles across the road in Australia. Only you wont know about it right away. You will search for your vocation for years, buy courses and marathons. All healthy people are biologically equal, but they develop differently, in different conditions, with different resources and their own solutions. Peoples values are formed over a long period of time. If you do something, then you like it. If you like something, then you do it and improve. Not for profit, but for pleasure. Time passes, and you become a pro. Other people look at you and think, this is a genius, this is a pro, I would like that. Often in such situations they talk about the 10,000 rule. It says that in any field you can become an expert in 10,000 hours of practice. Violinist students participated in this study. Those of them who spent 10,000 hours on practice, became world stars. This is how they prove that you are not born genius, but become one. But in this context, the study is not entirely appropriate. I have no doubt that a person will become a pro in any business if he spends 5 years practicing it. Only a person should have the desire to spend so much time doing it. Then there will be natural motivation and enthusiasm. Someone will say that he knows how to do something well, but he doesnt like doing it. Someone doesnt know what they like. This is totally fine, only few people know that.

We need to experiment and rely on values. For example, Im good at getting on well with people. I could be great selling bricks or vegetables on the market. But I dont like this job, I dont want to waste time on it. No matter what mountains of gold the skill of 10,000 hours spent on it promises. You need to look for a job or hobby in what you really like. Perhaps not straight away. Any related or similar activity will do. The main thing is to fulfill your desires. If your desires are fulfilled, then your values will be satisfied. And the puzzle will work out. Do not confuse it with a pretentious expression: just do what you like, and there will be success. For example, I like football in addition to music. I am young, but I will not build a football career anymore. At the age of 33, football players are already finishing their careers. How do I do what I like? I can create a football website, open a school, organize competitions, create a startup or sell sporting goods. All this is an activity that I would enjoy. I always thought I was lucky because I always knew what I wanted. But in fact, I only thought so. The desire to share knowledge in education or solve the problems of companies in consulting was a discovery for me. Moreover, I didnt like education before, and complex problems scared me. Therefore, I made a conclusion for myself. First you need to understand your values and start trying everything one by one. If you try correctly, then desires will quickly make themselves felt, even if you do not fully understand your values and first try things randomly.

The problem is that there are other peoples values that confuse us. Society demonstrates and imposes other peoples values on us. For example, the values of prestige and status. For the status, you need expensive clothes, a car and a bought place in a queue for a new iPhone, so that everyone can see what a rich person you are. But if this is the case, then why does Warren Buffett drive a cheap car and have breakfast in McDonalds, even though he is a billionaire? Something doesnt end up here. But for him, status and prestige are not his values. Watch a documentary about him and you will understand everything. You can read Mark Mansons «The Subtle Art of Indifference». This will help to start a fight with other peoples values. At least, it will reduce the weight of some familiar, but useless values. Today we live in a society where people dont want to be happy, they want to be happier than others. For everyone to watch and admire. The conveyor of show-offs works at the speed of light, and it is very difficult to stop it. In such a culture, there is no time to analyze your values or look for an emotional response in your activities. Even if you wish, it is difficult to stop and make a conscious analysis. This is how we get people who take out a loan for an iPhone for 1,800 $ instead of training, which can change their lives. Dont do that. I hope this chapter becomes a speed bump for your thoughts to slow down and analyze the basic values.

How to analyze your values?

The process is not easy. Not everyone can immediately catch the tendency for an emotional response from actions or thoughts about them. There are courses and books on the topic of finding your talents. They will help you delve into the topic and find new ways to get to the basic values and desires. Below there is a list of questions that will help you activate the necessary reasoning about your values.

The answers to these questions will not give you a ready-made list of your values. This is just the tip of the iceberg, but you can already notice repetitions and trends of what you really like. Write down the answers in any form, compare them with the list of skills «what do you like to do» and «what do you do well, according to friends». Get more intersections or add to the list. If there are no obvious leaders, then you can try the «inner child» and «billionaire» techniques. Remember your childhood. When you didnt think about success yet, but were sitting on your parents neck and doing what you like, without unnecessary thoughts. For example, in addition to football, I have always been fond of creating something. I liked to disassemble alarm clocks, tape recorders, toys and other things. From them I collected incomprehensible new mechanisms. Alarm clocks were a special buzz, they have a lot of details, and its very difficult to put them back together. My parents even had demands that I should not be given simple toys, otherwise I would be upset that they did not understand. Getting a computer in the ninth grade, I was sucked into the world of video and photo editing. Back then there was Paint and Movie Maker. I made shots with monkeys from videos, inserted the faces of classmates there and brought them to school on discs to laugh. I created maps for Counter Strike and installed everything where you can create something. In fact, nothing has changed now. I am driven by all the same processes. Only instead of alarm clocks, there is business, innovation, education and digital services. Although as a child, when asked who I wanted to be, I answered that I wanted to be a stuntman. I just really liked Jackie Chan. Remember what you could play for hours, what you did, what you dreamed about. Maybe then your desires were blocked by adults, they did not give you something to try, or there was no opportunity. Try to remember and find similar mechanics in adult activities.

If you dont want to remember how poems were told on a stool as a child, then imagine yourself being Tony Stark. Imagine that you already have everything. You bought all the iPhones, houses, cars and islands. You showed it to everyone, got millions of likes and tons of envy. What will you do next? We dismiss charity and travel; these are endless affairs. Most likely, a dead end awaits you here. It turns out that people dream, but are not ready for wealth. Most of them cant immediately answer what they will do. But if you think carefully and longer, then desires will begin to manifest. When I began to understand my desires and build my development vector around them, I began to get more pleasure from work, and it became easier for me to organize my life. I got rid of the focus and set priorities. Everything became clear.

I have devoted a lot to the topic of motivation and the definition of the path vector in this chapter, although the questions are to some extent philosophical, not practical. But it had to be done. It doesnt matter how fast youre going if youre going in the wrong direction. Dont worry if youre not sure where youre going yet. Just go through the stages of the system life and adjust the vector in time, if necessary.

Root cause analysis

You need to approach this stage when you have analyzed the current situation in terms of: spheres of life, environment, skills, motivation, values and thinking. Similarly, it is as if you gathered at the foot of the mountain with a team and analyzed the resources before climbing. We laid out all the backpacks, tools and provisions in front of us. We looked at the team, its attitude, skills, strengths and weaknesses. Since you have seen more details, everything has become even more complicated. There are not enough canteens for water, backpacks have holes, equipment is taken from a flea market, and half of the team has no idea what climbing a mountain is, and the skills to shoot stories will not help in any way in a difficult situation. It turns out theres still a lot of work to do before you start climbing. What to do? First you need to patch up all the gaps to start your journey with confidence, not at random. Why is it necessary to dig into problems at such an early stage? If it is already clear that we have, and you can start planning. But life is not a fictional example from a book. If you have health problems, then there will be no energy to do anything. If you are getting by from paycheck to paycheck, then stress will hold you back from changes. If you have a toxic environment, then you wont even be able to start thinking about new goals. You cant make a «whoosh» so that everything changes quickly by itself. In such cases, it is necessary to solve the basic problems first. Look at all the spheres in Maslows pyramid. Where are there more problems or shortcomings in it? If at the first two levels, then solve these problems first, and then proceed to improve all areas further at the levels above.

Maslows pyramid

The good news is that you are not the only one with such problems. Many people have them, and most solutions already exist. If there are live examples who have coped with similar problems, then you can too. The main thing is to get involved. When you see that you will succeed, you will believe that everything is possible. You will see a new horizon of problems, but it will not be so scary anymore. It is convenient when you place the entire analysis of the current situation on a large sheet or a Miro board. To see the full map of the current situation from above. Mark all problem areas, undesirable situations, people, qualities, and so on the map. Everything you associate with the problems you want to get rid of. Then we need to solve the problems. How to solve any problem? The algorithm is simple. Find the problem, come up with a solution and implement it. Root cause analysis helps to find the root of the problem. Often people mistake the symptoms of a problem for the problem itself and endlessly solve them. Endlessly bailing out water from a boat with a hole. It is right to solve problems so that they no longer arise and do not create new problems. This can only be done if the root problem is found and solved.

To find root problems, you can use RCA (Root Cause Analysis). This method helps to look at the problem comprehensively, see the connections and find the root cause of a specific negative situation. There are many methods for such analysis. The most famous are «Five Whys» and «Ishikawa Diagram». I suggest using the «Five Whys». It has a clear logic, and in the future, it is easy to modify for any needs. It was invented by the founder of Toyota  Sakiti Toeda. Initially, the method was intended for solving production problems. Asking the question «Why?» five times at the site of the problem, the original source of the problem was determined, and the solution was found faster. To find the root causes of problems, we will need to ask ourselves this question a lot more than five times, as well as work with cause-and-effect relationships. We are not soulless machines in production, so an important feature of the process is honesty and objectivity to ourselves because you have to admit unpleasant things to yourself.

Our task is to postpone emotions, value judgments and accusations. Even in a quote by Dostoevsky, there is no need to cling to the first word. You are not a fool. You are a brave person who is not afraid to admit inaction, mistakes, fears or ignorance. This is the only way to find the cause in cold blood and make sure that it is the root cause. I got acquainted with this method when I came to work as a project manager at red_mad_robot. Every Friday we had a meeting with the team, where we exchanged case statuses and discussed projects. At one of these meetings, I told the status that we do not have time to get the money, since the client cannot sign the documents on time due to a problem on their side. Creative Director Max Desyatykh asked me why. I replied that they had a problem with electronic document management. He asked me again why. I told him more details, and he asked again. These were my first weeks in the company, and inside I was just boiling with anger. I was thinking to myself, why are you bothering me, what are you trying to achieve. I explained to you that they have a problem, and we cant influence it. But in the real world, I admitted that I couldnt answer any further, and Max asked me to find out. The next day I went to sort it out, playing a game of whimsy with the clients manager. It turned out that the problem was with the signatory, he went on vacation. In just one call, the manager found a person with the right to sign, and the documents were signed. I could have done it right away, but I didnt ask a couple of extra «why» and didnt make any progress in solving the problem. And the client, no matter how cool he is, does not need to solve other peoples problems. Today I remember this story with a smile and I myself demand from my team to get to the root causes and find out the most complete picture. This helps to look ahead, analyze in more detail and immediately generate solutions on the spot without unnecessary steps. I have tried many root cause analysis methods for myself. With the team, we experimented with different methods in project management. But I use the «Five Why» method most often. It has acquired its own nuances, layers of detail and designations, but the essence remains the same as in the original. Be sure to adopt it in your work, so as not to be like Vasily in the parable below.