I don’t know when it happened, but at some point I became very confident in my ability to solve problems. Sure, I did well in school and college, but that’s not really what I’m talking about. At some point, it didn’t really matter what the problem was, but I just knew I could figure it out. That probably sounds pompous, but I really feel that way. It might take me longer than some, and less than others, but I will figure it out. Maybe it’s an engineer thing, but it applies to my personal life too (with one exception I’ll talk about in a bit). I don’t shy away from hard work either, so I’m always willing to put in the hours, blood, sweat, and tears to get it done (though software engineers don’t usually bleed from sitting at a desk typing on a keyboard).
I thrive on solving problems too. It’s not just “I can solve that”, I also get excited about it. I actively tell my wife to present things she wants me to do as problems to solve. It is a psychological trick for my brain, but it works (though she is a nurse and doesn’t really think the same way, so she usually forgets). It focuses me, though also means I stop paying attention to other things until it is solved. I become very singularly focused. If it gets left unfinished, my brain holds onto that thread. If there are enough dangling threads out there, my brain will get overloaded. Something needs to be solved and completed. Then we can move onto the next thing. I can’t context switch very well (can anyone though?).
My brain always goes into problem solving mode. Logistic issues? Problem to solve. Timing issues? Problem to solve. Productivity issues? Problem to solve. Emotional issues? Problem to…well not exactly. That’s when my default to “solve the problem” fails me. Most emotional problems won’t be solved with a “solve the problem” mindset. Shut up and listen is way more effective, and I’m really only saying that to remind myself, as most people already know that. I’m a little behind the eight ball there.
It’s not all sunshine and rainbows though. I get really mad when I can’t solve a problem. Sometimes I’ll recognize I need to walk away, other times I’ll just rage about it until I figure it out (I’ll let you figure out which one is usually more effective). I don’t know why I get so upset, it just gets to me. It doesn’t deter me (usually), and I know I will figure it out. It’s like I know I can solve it, but I can’t and I don’t know why. I struggle with not knowing a “why” whenever things are happening too, so I’m sure there is some correlation there.
As a leader, this is also a bit tough to reconcile. One of my engineers is struggling with something and I know I can solve the problem. I have to resist the “move I’ll do it” and let them learn to figure it out. Someone gave me space to figure it out, so I need to pay that forward. Knowing that doesn’t make it any easier though. I always want to help, but doing it for them can do more harm than good (and it isn’t sustainable as a leader, but that’s a completely separate blog post).
So what about that one exception? Well, I recently became a father…actually it’s been almost 6 months now, but she spent 4 months in the NICU due to birth complications and being born at 30 weeks gestational. I’ll save you that whole story, but she just came home recently. She has lots of risk factors and some chronic issues, but those are all generally just being monitored and treated. Nothing to really solve there. The problem is eating. She came home being able to eat from a bottle mostly well. She wasn’t taking the whole thing (so we had an NG tube), but we were making progress. Then all of a sudden that progress went off a cliff. She started being very upset during feeding time and wouldn’t eat at all (and didn’t even want the bottle in her mouth). We discovered it was mostly from reflux (we think). She’s made a little progress now that we are treating it, but that’s really just being less upset about the bottle in her mouth. We’ve had moments of what seemed like progress, only to eat nothing the next day. We feel like we’ve tried almost everything. My wife and I argue about it almost every day (because it’s stressful, we love each other). So that insanity? Yeah that’s happening. It’s the problem I can’t solve. Time will help, but in the mean time, I’ll just be over here going insane trying the same thing and expecting a different result.