96. From chaos to clarity. How to bring more order back into the confusion with simple steps.

Hi everyone and welcome to Project Mindset, the channel for all those who know that with the right mindset, anything is possible. Wow, interestingly enough, we’re almost at our 100th podcast episode, so I find it incredibly amazing how fast time has flown by. I can still remember the first few episodes, when I really thought a lot about whether I should even start the podcast or how it would be received. Of course, by now I’ve developed a sense of what I’m good at talking about and what I’m not so good at, and I’ve already mentioned this in many podcast episodes.

This podcast isn’t meant to be a didactic podcast, because I don’t see myself as being in a position to tell other people what works and what doesn’t. Instead, I want to share my knowledge and experience—what has worked for me and what hasn’t. I’m really excited about it. So, for the 100th episode, I have a little surprise planned for you, but I’ll get back to that sometime.

A personal story before the main topic

In today’s podcast, I actually want to talk about chaos—chaos in one’s own life and how to eliminate or resolve it, and what has worked well for me, at least. Before I do that, I have a little story to tell. In earlier podcast episodes, I talked about the Law of Attraction and self-fulfilling prophecies. And the really interesting thing is, of course, you want to experience this in a positive context. That means you think about positive things, and then they manifest.

See the last podcast where I spoke with Aicha Vibes; we talked about visualization and manifestation. The interesting, or rather important, thing is that this also works in reverse. What I mean is, I play basketball every Wednesday at my local gym, and recently a good friend of mine came by for practice. He played, and then after just a few plays, he twisted his ankle—a sprain, something like that—and had to stop. He went home, and we talked about it afterward.

Thoughts after a sports injury

That’s really annoying, I had to take another long break. But the point is, I’ve been thinking about it since. Wow, what’s the thing? I’m getting into it at an older age now, I’m a bit of a senior citizen. And what if I suddenly give up? I really don’t want that. Should I somehow, I don’t know, withdraw from club activities and just play casually outdoors, mostly alone, not necessarily against others?

I had these thoughts, then I talked to my wife about it, and she said, “Hey, don’t stress about it, you don’t twist your ankle like that, it hasn’t happened in ages,” and so on and so forth. And then, a short time later, actually last week during training, I twisted my ankle again after many years, and so badly that I completely collapsed. For the very first minute, I thought, “Wow, that’s it for my leg,” but luckily it healed up after a while.

That day I actually stopped playing basketball, so to speak, and walked home feeling awful. Interestingly, I’d been thinking so much about twisting my ankle, getting injured, basketball, and all that, that’s exactly when it happened. So the Law of Attraction works both ways, in the positive and, unfortunately, in the negative. So let this be a lesson to me and to you: don’t waste too many negative thoughts on any eventuality.

From rumination on the topic of chaos

It could happen that I injure myself playing sports, and so on and so forth. It’s best not to think about it at all, maybe weigh the risks, but then push it aside and think about positive, positive things. Just a little side note. Today, as I said, it’s actually more about the chaos in life. I catch myself occasionally finding myself in absolute chaos. I have no idea what happened then.

You’re then faced with certain problems, certain things, challenges in life, whether professional or private, health-related, related to your environment, or just generally. You simply don’t know where you stand or where you want to go. That’s what I mean by chaos. For example, when you want to make a decision, but so many decisions are pending that you don’t even know where to begin, or which decision to even start with, or what’s right or wrong at any given moment.

Continued

Chaos can have many facets, or rather, there are many perspectives on the topic of chaos. And of course, there’s no magic bullet for dealing with such a chaotic situation in life. But what I find super interesting, and three things I wanted to share today—or rather, three things that work for me—I wanted to share with you. And the first one is perhaps a bit funnier, but I saw the movie Limitless a while ago.

This is a really interesting film with Bradley Cooper, the actor who, I think, was in The Hangover. Right, that’s it. And in English, the film is called Limitless. It’s a really interesting film. So, it’s about the unsuccessful writer Bradley Cooper, who can’t seem to get anything right. Everything goes wrong, his girlfriend leaves him, he has money problems, and so on and so forth. Complete chaos. And then he somehow gets his hands on some kind of performance-enhancing drug, and with this drug, he takes it and suddenly becomes much more intelligent.

And his performance improves, and he develops high emotional intelligence. So everything gets better; he becomes a super successful businessman in a very short time, becomes a politician, and so on and so forth. And it’s super interesting to watch the film. But what I find interesting about it—well, like I said, it’s just fiction, it’s just a film—is the very first thing he does after taking this performance drug, I don’t know what it’s called. But I think they called it something like a neuro-enhancer or something like that.

Tidying up as the first concrete step

The very first thing he does is go home and tidy up. He puts the dishes away, cleans everything, vacuums, mops, rearranges furniture, and so on. I found that incredibly interesting. He now has virtually unlimited potential. But before he does anything to utilize that potential, which the drug gives him, he first tidies up his home. I find that fascinating. And I sometimes catch myself doing the same thing, for example, when I’m faced with chaotic situations or problems where I don’t really know where to begin, and I start tidying up.

In some form or another, be it my desk, my home, anything at all. I then start tidying up, and I truly believe it’s a good first step. I’m not talking about vacuuming and tidying up every time you have a problem, and so on. But I think it’s a good first step to try and reduce the chaos a bit in my physical surroundings. I found that really interesting. Then we come to the second step, which I personally learned about many years ago.

Situation, Complication and Solution

I worked for a really, really, really great boss who was incredibly organized. And I think I talked about it in a podcast episode once, but it went like this: We were in a meeting and there was a problem. So I contacted my boss and said, “Hey, there’s a problem. I don’t even know what to do, and so on. Can you please help me out?” And he said, “Hey, stop, stop, stop. Please take a step back and think about the following structures, and then come back to me.”

He then said that whenever you have a problem, you should approach it using this three-part structure: situation, complication, solution. First, explain the situation. Then explain what the problem is within that situation, and then offer a potential solution. This three-part approach of situation, complication, and solution helps me in so many situations in my life because often you immediately try to formulate or describe the problem without actually knowing what the situation is.

An example from everyday life as a couple

Let me give you an example from my personal life. Imagine you’re sitting at the dinner table with your partner. You want to enjoy dinner together. You have a delicious meal in front of you, maybe you want to reflect on the day, unwind a bit, recharge a little. And then, for some reason, tension starts with your partner. And you don’t really know what it’s about. You get caught in a negative vibe and end up arguing, even though you had the chance to spend a lovely evening together.

And that, resolved into this triad of situation, complication, solution, would mean… And that’s what I would say to my partner, for example, we must be in the middle of a disagreement, and I’m kind of going into a defensive, withdrawn mode. I would say, hey, dear partner, so the situation is like this: We’re sitting together having dinner. We have delicious food in front of us, and so on and so forth. It tastes good. The atmosphere is great. The problem is, though, you start with a topic where you immediately make accusations against me, even though you might not even know what I was thinking.

Continued

That puts me in a defiant, defensive position, or whatever the solution may be. The solution would be simple. Of course, you can always address the problems with me, but perhaps you could do it in a less accusatory way, or perhaps not in a passive-aggressive manner, and so on and so forth. And that way, we can reach a solution much faster. This is, of course, in a private setting. But in a business context, in my opinion, it works even better to first describe the situation, to the other person, their boss, or whoever.

We’re currently stuck in this situation. The complication is that a problem has arisen. Clearly defining the problem is, of course, also important. And the solution could be abc. So, if you manage to, when faced with chaos, if you can then manage to explain the situation, at least to yourself, the complication—the complication, the problem—clearly formulate it, then it’s actually incredibly easy to arrive at a solution. I’m sure that everything I mentioned as potential areas of chaos—professional life, private life, perhaps health-related, environment—is possible.

Clearly describe the problems and make a decision.

I believe everything can be solved in a structured way through situation, complication, and solution. Your third point, which I find incredibly interesting regarding resolving chaos, i.e., problem-solving, is that one—or rather, I—starts in this way. Many successful people with whom I’ve had the pleasure of sitting in meetings where we worked on projects or similar things have noticed one thing: Anything is possible when working together on a project, an event, or a solution to something.

Great, I’ve noticed that successful people tackle problems immediately. There’s no such thing as putting it off until next week, or the week after, if it’s an important issue. Sure, sometimes it makes sense to strategically postpone certain decisions. But if there’s a problem, a decision that needs to be made, or whatever, then it gets tackled immediately. I’ve even been in meetings with partners, and they’ve been sending out emails or informing people during the meeting itself about how to solve the problem, what needs to be done, what the next steps are, and so on.

Distribute tasks specifically

And sometimes, even before the meeting had ended, the tasks were already clearly defined: who was responsible for what and by when it should be completed. This meant that the problem or complication would be resolved quickly. And I can truly recommend this to anyone who feels like they’re caught in some kind of chaos. You need to make decisions, or you simply don’t know where to start. Once you’ve clearly defined the problem for yourself, tackle it immediately.

Make decisions immediately, move forward immediately. I guarantee you’ll feel better right away and see a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. And I actually think that was one of the things that worked for me. The longer I postponed important decisions, for example, the more uncomfortable I felt with them. And the best thing about deciding quickly is that you can adjust quickly too. If I realize I’ve made the wrong decision because I always wanted to tackle a problem quickly, I can usually still adjust it somehow.

Make decisions and adjust them as needed.

Adapting only becomes difficult when decisions are already postponed for a long time, meaning if you waited until the last minute and then decided, then adapting is practically impossible. But if you decided early, you can still adjust. So, folks, that’s it for today’s podcast episode. Basically, I wanted to share my perspective with you, or rather, reflect how I think about the topic of chaos in life.

I think it’s perfectly normal to experience chaos here and there, whether at work, in your personal life, or wherever. And I always find it amusing to come back to the film. Tidying up is always good. I believe that tidying up can also be mental tidying. For example, if you say, “I’m going to mentally put some problems aside for now,” or “I’m going to put things away in drawers and unpack them again later.” So, tidying up is good. The other thing is situation, complication, and solution.

This is something I will also teach my children: to explain situations without going into the problem itself. Simply stating what situation I am currently in, and only then identifying the complication of the problem. Clearly stating that this is precisely the problem. After that, it’s much easier to think about the solution. And then the third and most important step: to tackle the problem quickly, not to postpone decisions, but to decide immediately in order to resolve the chaos as quickly as possible.

Continued

Great guys, I hope you enjoyed today’s podcast episode. If so, as always, I’d appreciate it if you could leave a like and share it with your friends. That’s the only way Project Mindset can continue to grow. We’ll talk again soon, and until then, remember, mindset is everything.