What Problem are you Trying to Solve?
Stop adding things to your life until you can answer this: What problem am I trying to solve? In Thursdayâs Two Percent episode with âauthor of the new book Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Betterâwe talked about problems. How problems arenât always bad. In fact, theyâre critical to making improvements. David pointed out that the best companies in the world solve a problem. Smartphones sucked, so Apple raised the game with the iPhone. Coolers kept stuff cold for a few hours, so Yeti made one that can hold ice for two days. If a company canât solve a problem, they fail. Heads roll. Investors lose their money. But we rarely apply that same logic to our own lives. I see this often in the wellness space: We hear of something new and flashyâtake X supplement, do Y routine, adopt Z hackâand then we try it. Adding new things feels like progress. And then ⊠nothing happens. The âresultsâ mean nothing. They waste time, money, and effort that could be used more effectively elsewhere. I went on a tangentâcall it a rant if you will. Hereâs the 2-minute clip: What I didnât say in the episode is that I learned this the hard way more than a decade ago. As a reminder, hereâs how Two Percent works: Monday posts are always free. But only Members get full access to our Wednesday and Friday posts. Become a Member to get full access to proven, no-BS tools to improve your health, mindset, and performance. In case you missed it: On Monday, a Harvard and Hopkins-trained doctor wrote about the comfort crisis in the doctorâs office. Itâs likely impacting your health. On Wednesday, we looked at a simple way of eating that created some of the leanest, most disease-free populations on earth (backed by multiple studies). Listen to Two Percent, the champagne of podcasts. Last week we ran two useful episodes: one that explains how to engineer your environment to live and work better, the other with David on constraints. Run or ruck far as hell with Janji, an independent running brand making gear built for ultra-distance pursuits. Theyâre the only brand making gear specifically for 200-plus-mile adventuresâmy favorite kind. The 7â Multi Short 2-in-1 is my go-to. Find Janji at Janji.com and at REI stores nationwide. David Protein Bars have the highest amount of protein per calorie of all protein bars. That makes them a great option for anyone who wants protein on the go without the excess sugar and fat of most bars. Visit DavidProtein.com. So ⊠back to how I learned this the hard way: I was chatting with Dr. Trevor Kashey, who I wrote about in The Comfort Crisis. I told him I was thinking about stopping eating after 6 p.m. because of a study Iâd read about fasting. âWhat problem are you trying to solve?â he asked. I hummed and hawed and eventually admitted, âI donât know, Trevorâwhat are you getting at?â âRemember my question moving forward,â Trevor said. âBefore deciding on the details of any interventionâwhether it is a health recommendation, or a new product or strategy anywhere in your lifeâyou must clearly define the problem it addresses.â Oftentimes, we donât actually have a problem. In my case, I felt good. My weight was where I wanted it to be. My health markers were solid, and I was fit enough. Iâd just been captured by some sparkly new study I read. In your case, you might think a supplement will improve your sleep. But before you buy it, ask yourself: Do you actually sleep poorly? If youâre getting between six and eight hours a night and not nodding off in the day, thereâs no problem. Youâd just be adding noise and wasting money. (Read more on how to diagnose whether your sleep is actually bad here.) Or maybe you want to build more muscle. Do you have any real evidence that youâre lacking enough for your goals? Or did you just read some random stat about muscle loss and all-cause mortality and mentally spiral? Sometimes, we will identify a real problem. From there, the next question becomes whether the intervention youâre drawn to is actually the best fix. If your sleep is off, is the supplement the right moveâor do you just need to stop watching anxiety-inducing Dateline episodes at 10pm? If your muscle is legitimately low and affecting your life, do you need to megadose creatine, or just lift weights an extra day each week and eat a little more? The supplement or the protocol might be the right answer. But you wonât know until youâve done the work of naming the problem first, then searching for the most obvious solutions. Have fun, donât die, what problem are you trying to solve? -Michael P.S., todayâs letter was a new experiment in writing slightly shorter letters to get you the âtakeawayâ quicker. Let me know in the comments if you appreciate the brevity. If yes, Iâll do this when I think diving into a bunch of research and history is unnecessary.
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