The answer to this question may seem very simple. University lecturers (like me) should not be responsible for teaching students how to manage real problems. However, I disagree. Why?

High school does not teaching practical skills as such

While I admit there are a lot of useful ideas for reaching teenagers and getting them to cope with real life issues and problems, there is still a long way to go.  What happens is that students leave high school and then go into university then go into the workforce. Some, do trades or just get a job. Yet the process of learning is exactly the same. They go from high school to the outside world and then that’s it.

University courses are not that practical in general they are specific

Most university courses I have taught will not teach you how build great responses to problems. One of the reasons I started this blog was because I noticed people who were coming through university courses with no life skills. Yes, they could read and write (and do maths) but where were their problem solving skills? What about creative thinking skills? What about learning how to cope with relationships? If life is all about work then what do we do the rest of our time?

90% of what you do at work is NOT academic

This is hard to admit but how often do you reach for your economics book? Or wonder what Maslow would have thought about your jerky boss. It’s time for bone dry honesty… how useful is the information you get at university, high school or college (TAFE included)? Theories are wonderful… I have a lot of them. But unless something helps me to solve a problem I throw it away. What good is knowledge that doesn’t work? It’s like having a Porsche with no motor OR a Monet with a hole in the centre of it.

Once upon a time university was a place where people expanded their minds. Now, I think it’s a sausage factory. People go out to work after studying and I wonder all the time just how useful this knowledge is?  I have written papers in the past and then thought… is this even meaningful… I mean is this ever going to change our lives? I doubt it. We should be teaching people at University, high school and other places of education how to manage and cope with life. Why? I think there is a responsibility here for educators to realise that a portion of what we teach should be how to manage real life problems. If it isn’t then we are not preparing people for a life in the business world where learning curves are steep and lessons are harshly learned.

Charles Bronson was an action hero star of the Death Wish film series. In my younger more impressionable days I enjoyed the site of Bronson dealing with problems by using a gun (like the one shown above) to the extent that I was saddened when he died. Some of my favourite Bronson films include the Mechanic (probably his best), Death Wish, The Great Escape and Mr. Majestyk to name just a few. Sure, these kinds of movies probably won’t win an academy award (scratch the Great escape) but I learned a great deal from watching the old fox in action.

1. How to deal with a mess

When life throws you a mess what you do you do to handle it? It would be easier to for me to give it to you as a scenario:

Bronson is dealing with some punks who are stealing his car.

He says, ‘What’s the problem?’

They respond, ‘Hey, we are stealin’ the car… what do you care?’ Bronson then looks at them and says, ‘Well it’s my car.’

The punks made their first mistake by producing a knife and saying, ‘your going to die.’

Wasting no time on the paralysis of analysis Bronson smokes the two assailants without battering an eyelid. The mess no longer exists.  They produced a knife, Bronson produced a gun… BLAM BLAM and he has got his car back… no mess… no fuss. End of problem solving exercise.

Lesson: For every complex problem there is a higher order solution that dissolves the conditions that cause it to exist.  

2. There is power in numbers

How do you react when you are disadvantaged? How does Bronson do it?  He finds people just like him and works with them to get the job done. He might form a Dirty Dozen or be part of a Magnificent Seven or just looking to the make the Great Escape.  Bronson recognises there is power in numbers.

Lesson: Don’t take on the world yourself when there are others that can help bring change. 

3. How to deal with young disrespecting punks

No, I didn’t cover this in 1.  I am of course referring to The Mechanic.  In this movie Charles Bronson plays an ageing hitman who trains Jan Michael Vincent to follow in his footsteps.  Along the way he shows promise, if not a little rebellion and Bronson appears to suspect nothing when he suddenly finds himself in trouble towards the end of the movie (spoilers warning!).

Bronson collapses to the floor choking from the poison that Jan Michael Vincent’s character just fed him and we the viewer are horrified to see Bronson done is such a perfunctory manner.  I mean, this is the man that can solve New York’s crime problems but isn’t able to manage this young upstart.  As the young man leaves the dead Bronson to go downstairs we see him start his car … which then explodes in a ball of flame.  The young man was outfoxed by the older one.

Lesson: Youthful exuberance can’t match old wisdom.

Sure, Bronson’s movies always rely on ‘at-hand’ solutions, easy escapes, violent fantasy and ‘man’ size guns to fix problems but that doesn’t mean the underlying logic is always that bad.  I mean as a fan of 1970’s and 1980’s action films I learned a lot about how we would like to solve problems like crime through movies like the Death Wish series.  The ideal that one man can make a difference, that there is hope for a better world (on the end of the .44 Magnum?) are not really clever ideas BUT they do make you think.   Perhaps the question you need to ask yourself is why do we enjoy movies like this so much if we live in such a great world?  

“Reality is merely an illusion… albeit a persistent one.” Albert Einstien

The perspectives we form over the duration of our lives are the building blocks for the way in which we deal with life problems.  The cornerstone of anything we believe is based on a perspective or in simpler terms an illusion we have created.  Simply stated: life problems do not exist without a person there to give it meaning.  It’s true that we may inherit or have characteristics given to us that we are not responsible for, genetically speaking of course.  However, I argue strongly that most people create their own problems by the things they believe.

A very learned colleague of mine once said to me that if I had the problem of trying to change a tyre on the highway and I couldn’t get it changed, then I would have a real problem.  On the other hand, if I change the tyre and get hit by a car while I am changing that tyre does the problem still exist?  No, now that I am dead the problem no longer exists.  I am on my way to glory now, no need to worry about the tyre something new has come into my perspective.  Therefore, a perspective is the view of something you think is a problem.

Wait a minute, I hear you say, that sounds a lot like the way in which I see things determines how I will shape my world.  Yes, if you put the book down now that would be a key lesson.  However, that’s not really what a perspective is.  A perspective can be likened in the natural world to looking through a window out at something in the real world.  The world exists, sure enough, at least as far as we know it does.  There is little evidence to suggest otherwise.  In like manner the way in which you build things in the essence of your mind is directly related to what you think is likely to be problematic and what you will think is an issue to you.

For example, we are told constantly that a positive attitude is good, have a positive attitude.  My response to this is not why but how?  How can I be positive and what perspectives do I currently harbour that are related to why I now have a negative attitude?  Most people do not go beyond surface learning past the conditions they have in their minds to the substance of what they believe.  This substance is the perspective you have.  The substance of what you hold dear to you is the core part of your perspective and this shapes and builds the world which you now inhabit.  There are probably some very good reasons why I have a negative attitude.  They are not related to my outside world though because at heart I know these are those things that I believe.  What I believe in the inner part of my being are the deep substantial things that I use as the building blocks of the world around me.

A perspective is not an actual thing but it does result in actual things.  A racist is someone who holds deep down perspectives that are racist.  The way they act towards those on the outside of their own culture, is not determined by anything other than there perspective.  That is not real in the sense that a chair is real.  It is however, real in the sense that it has real observable effects on that person’s behaviour towards people of opposing cultures and ideals than their own.  That racism exists in their mind as a way of seeing things that distorts unfairly the view of those of opposite skin colour or race.  This is one of the most hideous monsters of humankind that we can do this to each other but these differences are deep rooted perspectives that are ingrained in us.

In Alfred E. Cliffe’s book Let Go and Let God, he tells the story of people who lived in a time when it was thought that tomatoes were poisonous.  Those that ate those tomatoes died.  In the same book he also tells the story of people, who under hypnosis, were told that they had horrible burns on their hands only to have blisters emerged on their hands as a result.  A perspective is substance, not necessarily the actual substance of things like humans are made from, or the substance of the air but those things that form our perceptions are indeed substance.  They are real and they affect the way in which we deal with our life problems.  The famous Stanford Experiment shows that perspectives are formed when certain conditions exist.  For those who were called ‘guards’ they took on the perspective of guards and those that were prisoners take on the perspective of prisoners.

It’s therefore important to recognise that we have perspectives about things that we think are useful to us.   A perspectives shapes our understanding of things and tells us how to interpret it.  These things are not ‘out there’ as such, although they are, they are built into us.  The way we dress, who we marry the lives we end up living are the result of our perspectives.  Some people have caught onto to this and have created things like The Secret for example that puts forward the idea that a change of perspective (to a more positive mindset) will give amazing results.  All these people are drawing on is the idea that humans recreate the things they believe in on a continual basis.   In other words, if you are looking for something positive chances are it’s already there, you can’t see it because you have been drawing from a well of negativity.  Sometimes the opposite is true – when you look at something from a purely positive point of view you will see positives and negative things can come along and you may not even be aware of them, hence cults form.
It’s important to note your own perspectives and the things you deeply believe because these frame the world you live in and give it meaning.  Others hold different opinions about the world they live in and have a different perspective.   What is it you believe about work?  Remember you are what you think you are and what you think shapes the way you relate to the outside world.  What happens when we apply our way of thinking to the world around us?

This is special preview excerpt of an up and coming FREE e-book called “Solving Life Problems: 5 Essential Life Skills you need to make it.”  The book will be released shortly. Sign up to my feed to get the latest updates.

Solving problems is a really nice ideal isn’t it? But, how often in life do you find yourself in a position where your problem cannot be solved? What do you do then? In previous articles I have spoken about ‘perspective shifting‘ and the art of solving problems by changing your mind. What I want to share with you today is how to solve problems by building a bridge and getting over it.

Taking the first step: Coming to terms with reality

Let’s just push aside the how you got there for a minute and work on solutions. Does it matter? You there now how to we navigate a way around it? You don’t. You build a bridge and get over it. The thing is we get hung up on looking for the causes so much so that we forget to think about what really matters… the solution. You don’t actually solve most problems. You rebuild the environment in your life as such so that the problem can’t occur any more. If you are up against the wall it’s because you are trying to solve a problem that probably doesn’t want to be solved. The first step is therefore looking at the problem and asking yourself, ‘what would it be like if the problem didn’t exist?’ NOT, ‘How can I solve this thing.’ For really messy problems you will not get free until you accept the fact that you need something to swallow it.

The second step: Finding a bigger picture view that removes the need for the problem to exist

I have already talked about this in my perspective shifting article. What I want to talk about here is that problems that are a mess require a new way of seeing. Finding that may be impossible and it may require hope and/or a miracle. It is however, the ideal we need to aspire to. If your problem is, ‘I don’t have any money’ then the most obvious answer is to go get some more. I would disagree. Why? Well, whatever you have been doing up to this point clearly hasn’t worked has it? If it has worked then why don’t you have enough money? A better way of expressing the problem would be to say, ‘I am not in a position to receive more money.’ You then begin to ask yourself, ‘what can I do to get into a position to earn more money.’ If you are desperate enough the answer will become apparent as you think through your options.

The second step involves you looking at your situation and finding a bigger picture or creative solution that dissolves the problem. It is only your own beliefs that tell you things can’t change. Start saying, ‘things are getting better.’ You will be surprised how the solutions will suddenly appear when you change your attitude. It’s just as easy to say ‘things are getting better’ as it is to say, ‘nothing is ever going to change’. When I was earning less than $6000 a year I began saying, ‘I am prosperous’ and quoted bible references on prosperity. This began to change my life. Over the last five years I am in a position where I am earning more than ten times what I did just five years ago. Who can tell where I will be in five years? In a much MUCH better position!

In this second step you need to stretch yourself and I think begin to use your imagination. See the problem gone and ask yourself, ‘what do I need to be in order for this thing to be gone?’ Don’t get stuck in the rut of solving the problem. That will not get you anywhere. Look for options to dissolve the problem.

The third step: acting on it by taking one step at a time

As you come to see the bigger picture view of what is going on around you, it won’t be long before you realise that there will be something small you can do to build the panel on your bridge. The first step will be there. Sure, it may be taking a new job or doing something completely controversial to your family members. The important thing to remember is that it’s one step after the other. As you take the first step, the second will become apparent. After you take the second, the third will become apparent and so on. After a while you will put yourself in a position so that that next ten steps are easy to see. This could take a few years or even decades so be patient!

The final step: Stick with it

Imagine that as you navigate your way over the problem you are laying one part of the bridge down after the other.   If you throw down the towel now you will never make it.  You will more than likely have to go back and build it again and again until you get it right.  Sometimes, it might take you years to get it right.  Still I think that’s better than living with the mess don’t you?

If you notice the picture I have included with this post it’s a bridge over a river.  If that river was your mess then you don’t build a bridge under the water do you?  You build the bridge over the water in order to bypass the trouble.  You don’t go through it either because that doesn’t make sense.  The only way to be truly rid of a mess is to gradually build a bridge over the river of the problem so it can’t bother you anymore.  That however, is a another post for another day.

As I am nearing completion of my research work I am going to spend more time faffing about with this site.  Some of these things include:

1. More ‘anchor’ content like ebooks, workbooks, seminars etc.  This will not be like most of the stuff you see out there.  It will be interactive, developmental and insert another big word here.

2. Narrowing down of my focus to problem solving for life matters.  These posts always rate well with people and I get good positive feedback from people.

3. Name change of the blog to focus on the narrowing down of content

4. More downloadable content

5. Other cool things

Remember you can register to get my feed to keep up with what I am doing on this site.   It’s what all the cool people are doing.

Thanks for reading,

Luke

Many years ago I found out about Chuck Norris humour on the web and thought… there’s a fire and forget project. Man was I wrong. I got the email today as imagine most people have at least some time in their existence. So here we go the Chuck Norris School of problem solving:

• In Pamplona, Spain, the people may be running from the bulls, but the bulls are running from Chuck Norris. (New!)
• Chuck Norris uses pepper spray to spice up his steaks. (New!)
• Chuck Norris once roundhouse kicked someone so hard that his foot broke the speed of light, went back in time, and killed Amelia Earhart while she was flying over the Pacific Ocean.
• Crop circles are Chuck Norris’ way of telling the world that sometimes corn needs to lie down.
• Chuck Norris is ten feet tall, weighs two-tons, breathes fire, and could eat a hammer and take a shotgun blast standing.
• The Great Wall of China was originally created to keep Chuck Norris out. It failed miserably.
• Contrary to popular belief, Chuck Norris, not the box jellyfish of northern Australia, is the most venomous creature on earth. Within 3 minutes of being bitten, a human being experiences the following symptoms: fever, blurred vision, beard rash, tightness of the jeans, and the feeling of being repeatedly kicked through a car windshield.
• Most people have 23 pairs of chromosomes. Chuck Norris has 72… and they’re all poisonous.
• If you ask Chuck Norris what time it is, he always says, “Two seconds ’til.” After you ask, “Two seconds ’til what?” he roundhouse kicks you in the face.
• Chuck Norris drives an ice cream truck covered in human skulls.
• When Chuck Norris sends in his taxes, he sends blank forms and includes only a picture of himself, crouched and ready to attack. Chuck Norris has not had to pay taxes, ever.
• The quickest way to a man’s heart is with Chuck Norris’ fist.
• Chuck Norris invented Kentucky Fried Chicken’s famous secret recipe, with eleven herbs and spices. But nobody ever mentions the twelfth ingredient: Fear.
• CNN was originally created as the “Chuck Norris Network” to update Americans with on-the-spot ass kicking in real-time.
• Chuck Norris can win a game of Connect Four in only three moves.
• There is no theory of evolution, just a list of creatures Chuck Norris allows to live.
• Chuck Norris once ate three 72 oz. steaks in one hour. He spent the first 45 minutes having sex with his waitress.
• What was going through the minds of all of Chuck Norris’ victims before they died? His shoe.
• Chuck Norris is the only man to ever defeat a brick wall in a game of tennis.
• Police label anyone attacking Chuck Norris as a Code 45-11…. a suicide.
• Chuck Norris doesn’t churn butter. He roundhouse kicks the cows and the butter comes straight out.
• Chuck Norris doesn’t wash his clothes, he disembowels them.
• A Handicapped parking sign does not signify that this spot is for handicapped people. It is actually in fact a warning, that the spot belongs to Chuck Norris and that you will be handicapped if you park there.
• Chuck Norris will attain statehood in 2009. His state flower will be the Magnolia.
• Someone once videotaped Chuck Norris getting pissed off. It was called Walker: Texas Chain Saw Masacre.
• If you spell Chuck Norris in Scrabble, you win. Forever.
• Chuck Norris originally appeared in the “Street Fighter II” video game, but was removed by Beta Testers because every button caused him to do a roundhouse kick. When asked bout this “glitch,” Norris replied, “That’s no glitch.”
• Fool me once, shame on you. Fool Chuck Norris once and he will roundhouse you in the face.
• The opening scene of the movie “Saving Private Ryan” is loosely based on games of dodgeball Chuck Norris played in second grade.
• Chuck Norris once shot down a German fighter plane with his finger, by yelling, “Bang!”
• Chuck Norris once bet NASA he could survive re-entry without a spacesuit. On July 19th, 1999, a naked Chuck Norris re-entered the earth’s atmosphere, streaking over 14 states and reaching a temperature of 3000 degrees. An embarrassed NASA publically claimed it was a meteor, and still owes him a beer.
• Chuck Norris has two speeds: Walk and Kill.
• Someone once tried to tell Chuck Norris that roundhouse kicks aren’t the best way to kick someone. This has been recorded by historians as the worst mistake anyone has ever made.
• Contrary to popular belief, America is not a democracy, it is a Chucktatorship.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is based on a true story: Chuck Norris once swallowed a turtle whole, and when he crapped it out, the turtle was six feet tall and had learned karate.
• Chuck Norris is not hung like a horse… horses are hung like Chuck Norris.
• Faster than a speeding bullet … more powerful than a locomotive … able to leap tall buildings in a single bound… yes, these are some of Chuck Norris’s warm-up exercises.
• Chuck Norris is the only human being to display the Heisenberg uncertainty principle — you can never know both exactly where and how quickly he will roundhouse-kick you in the face.
• In the Bible, Jesus turned water into wine. But then Chuck Norris turned that wine into beer.
• Chuck Norris can hit you so hard that he can actually alter your DNA. Decades from now your descendants will occasionally clutch their heads and yell “What The Hell was That?”
• Time waits for no man. Unless that man is Chuck Norris.
• Chuck Norris discovered a new theory of relativity involving multiple universes in which Chuck Norris is even more badass than in this one. When it was discovered by Albert Einstein and made public, Chuck Norris roundhouse-kicked him in the face. We know Albert Einstein today as Stephen Hawking.
• Chuck Norris doesn’t shower, he only takes blood baths.
• The Chuck Norris military unit was not used in the game Civilization 4, because a single Chuck Norris could defeat the entire combined nations of the world in one turn.
• In an average living room there are 1,242 objects Chuck Norris could use to kill you, including the room itself.
• According to the Encyclopedia Brittanica, the Native American “Trail of Tears” has been redefined as anywhere that Chuck Norris walks.
• Chuck Norris does not teabag the ladies. He potato-sacks them.
• Pluto is actually an orbiting group of British soldiers from the American Revolution who entered space after the Chuck gave them a roundhouse kick to the face.
• When Chuck Norris goes to donate blood, he declines the syringe, and instead requests a hand gun and a bucket.
• There are no steroids in baseball. Just players Chuck Norris has breathed on.
• Chuck Norris once challenged Lance Armstrong in a “Who has more testicles?” contest. Chuck Norris won by 5.
• Chuck Norris was the fourth wise man, who gave baby Jesus the gift of beard, which he carried with him until he died. The other three wise men were enraged by the preference that Jesus showed to Chuck’s gift, and arranged to have him written out of the bible. All three died soon after of mysterious roundhouse-kick related injuries.
• Chuck Norris sheds his skin twice a year.

In a previous post I spoke about the problems of life. I want to write briefly today about a way we can walk through problems using a dartboard approach. What is the dartboard approach? In short, the dartboard approach is where you take a best guess as what you should do and take it from there. Also remembering, to let go and just go for it. Here are some of the hallmarks to the dartboard approach.

1. When you can’t work out what to do… do something!

If you are stuck for an idea take whatever you can and just straight up go for it.  What’s the worse thing that could happen?  If it involves money take your time and consider your shot before throwing BUT don’t do nothing.  Make a plan that involves you taking some action first.

2. Make sure it’s an educated guess

When thinking through problems you have to look at what your options are and be thinking strategically.  A confident dart player does not simply shut their eyes and hurl the projectile without thought.  They are working off a ‘best guest’ scenario as to what their opponent is thinking.  In short they are sizing up their own plan of attack against what they think is the opponents next move.  There is no answer to what somebody will do next but those that make an educated guess and then take action are more likely to be right than wrong most of the time.

3. Have confidence in your choices 

I would hate to tell you this but most decisions are driven by emotions.  That means, you have a decision you make based on the emotions you have and as a consequence will often favour those.  If you are like me, you have a problem believing in yourself.  This means, most of the time you write something only to receive a criticism from somebody else who drags you down.  Remember, they are not responsible for your decisions… you are.  Listen to good counsel by all means (my next point), but do not allow yourself to be told by someone that you have no right to make choices.  You do have that right.  You should therefore be confident and say to yourself, ‘I made a choice and I am happy with it.’  Be confident and know that your choice is a good educated guess and it’s relevant to you and your situation.

4. Talk to others

When planning and taking action it’s a key thing to remember that you are not alone.  You have people around you that care deeply for you and if you ask them they will help you talk it through.   People are there to help.   If it’s a tough decision talk to them about it if you need a fresh set of eyes.   In a later post I will be speaking about how we can recognise the role emotions play in our lives.

5. Pray

Before I make a big decision I turn to God and ask him to help me.  After all, he is interested.  So I pray and ask for a feeling through my inner man that what I am about to do is right for me.  This works most of the time for me.  Sometimes I get a horrible feeling in my gut and this tells me not to do that thing I was planning.  Other times I feel comfortable or at peace with it… so this helps too.  There are times when my life seems to be going nowhere… if I stop and talk to God about it and write down what I believe he is telling me then I fair a lot better than I do otherwise.

In all of these things it’s important to recognise that life is not certain.  I was not born near a roadmap neither was I handed a list of what I am to do here.  Largely, I believe, it’s us to me what I do and how I travel.  I believe in destiny but at the same time I believe we have a free choice to make.  When I am struggling I resort to this list and it’s helped me greatly.  One time I didn’t know whether I should enrol in a course or not.  So I just enrolled.  I figured that, if I take the chance, I will probably be fine even if I get it wrong.  What happens if I do and I fail? Unless what you are planning to do is dangerous to others… so what?  I have failed at heaps of things and each one of those failures eventually led to an open door somewhere else that became a success.  Am I saying that you have to fail to succeed.  Yes.  So just think about it and throw that dart!

Thanks for reading.  Why not talk about this article in my forum? Alternatively you can leave a comment or talk to me personally about it.

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