There's one way of thinking, a mindset that has helped me deal with a lot of big problems in my life. And I didn't learn this in Ukraine, but I've clearly seen it in a lot of Ukrainians I've met along the way. And the interesting thing is it's not very complicated. It's actually quite simple. But like with a lot of other things in life that are worth your time, it's also not easy.
So, I had to learn this the hard way. Especially during a couple of periods in my life that were honestly quite difficult financially. And when everything piles up on you like that, your instinct, at least mine, is to try to deal with everything at the same time. Everything at once. But that just makes it worse. [There's somebody working in the background here.] So, what I learned instead was to take one problem at a time and focus everything on that.
I once read a book by Steve Chandler, I think it was, about how Lord Nelson would win the battles by aiming all the cannons of all his ships towards one enemy ship. And then after the first volley, that ship would sink. And the enemy would fire in every direction and maybe damage quite a few of Lord Nelson's ships, but none of them would sink. So pretty soon, Lord Nelson would be… The enemy would be outnumbered by this tactic and that idea stuck with me. Steve Chandler called it to overwhelm the problem.
So when something feels overwhelming, it's usually not because it's impossible. It's because there are too many things at once. So then when I started to get involved with Ukraine and going there, I began to notice something. I saw this way of thinking in many people I met. I don't know if it's culture or out of necessity or something else, but it's there. I've seen it in small things and in very big things.
So I'll give you an example. I met a woman who had a good working job in law in Ukraine. Nice car, good life. Everything was fine. And then her city was bombed and attacked and she lost close family and thought about leaving. But it seemed like an overwhelming challenge. See, how do you solve the problem or overwhelm the problem of taking your kids, leaving your job, their school, their friends, leaving your old friends, not knowing exactly where to go, not knowing if you can find a job or if you'll be accepted in a new community.
That can seem like an overwhelming mountain of problems. So how do you deal with that? Well, you fill up the tank in your car. You pack the most of your things - the most important things and your kids. And then you drive. And you drive for days, only sleeping in the car for as long as you have to before moving to a safe country. And then on the way, you call friends and family and make them help you find a place to stay. And then when you’ve found a place to rest, you recover your strength. And then you deal with the next problem.
Now, this mother now has a reasonable life in Denmark, a good job, she has a car, she has a place to stay, and her two kids are with her, and they are learning Danish. So, the next overwhelming problem for her now is passing her Danish exams. And she has a work ethic that has stunned me. One time I was helping her with some language and she's really tired because she said she had been working and she was sick. And so I said, "What? Why are you working when you're sick? I mean, you don't have to do that in Denmark." And she said, "Well, there was no one to take my shift." I just let that sink in for a little bit. I haven't met many Danes who would do that. Maybe there are, but that's a really strong work ethic. And it's not just what she said, but the way she said it. There was no drama, no complaint. She was just focused on what needed to be done and making sure she didn't lose that job.
And I've seen it in similar things over and over again. People working full-time, studying at night, and even having the energy to volunteer on top of that. And well, I recognize it for myself because if something I've… It's something I've had to do in my own life with big problems that seem to overwhelm me. But that's only part of the story. It's only the tip of the iceberg because at some point I realized that it goes beyond something I… or it had gone beyond something I was using to deal with problems. It had become a tool I could use at will against any problem or any project that I wanted to move forward with.
Like for example, this YouTube channel. Starting a YouTube channel is it's no small thing. How do you overwhelm these gigantic problems? Seemingly gigantic problems. If you want to create something that gains traction, you have to have a good idea. You have to have a name, a logo, maybe a website, ideas for content. The ability to create a script and videos, but also to edit and cut them. And for my channel, it also requires some knowledge of the Ukrainian language. Preferably, I must be able to communicate with Ukrainians to get interviews.
So, all that can discourage people from even starting. Not to mention hanging in there when maybe a video doesn't get as many views and likes as you'd hope. So, how did I go about this and how did I overwhelm getting this started - this channel? Well, I focused all my cannons on one ship. I started chatting with AI and close friends about my idea for the channel. I needed to be sure I had something solid.
After a week or so of pretty hard work, just focusing on the idea behind the channel, I started. I was sure I had a good idea. I started focusing on the next thing - the name for the channel. I did the same thing. And when I had a name that I was sure could be a solid name, I started focusing on the next problem, the next ship. I focused on creating a logo. I used AI and I got help from a friend because what I got from AI was pretty good idea but it wasn't good enough. So I got help from a good friend of mine who's a designer. I hired him, paid him well. He is sitting in Serbia and if you need help for your project, I can guide you to him.
But anyway, point being now the channel is live. I will focus all my cannons on the next problem - getting the next video. I mean I would even add one thing. The first video took me two weeks to make. And the next video took me two days to make. And I'm getting more and more effective in terms of time, but I'm overwhelming one problem at a time. Creating one video at a time and trying to make it a little better than the last one and also getting some momentum and getting videos out there.
So, here's another example of something in between. And when I say something in between, I mean this was partly a problem and partly just a project. I wanted a new job. I was self-employed around the time of COVID, but my income had decreased dramatically because of COVID. And so I was getting tired of all these fluctuations in in my income. Sometimes I would make a lot of money, sometimes I wouldn't make any money. And so I wanted a steady income and I started looking for a job. And right after I started looking, I saw a brand new ad for a job that I believe could be my dream job. And it was.
So I sat down and figured out how do I overwhelm the problem of getting this job because the job ad said it was a young team and I was 53. So there was a challenge there and so to get a job like this in marketing you have to stick out among the other competitors. You have to - and in this case I had to make my age an advantage instead of a disadvantage.
So I didn't want to settle for being noticed. I wanted to be the elephant in the room. Something so strong that they wouldn't even consider anyone else. Like, so how do how do you go about that? Well, nine out of 10 who apply for a job will only send the application and then wait what happened and see what happens. Nobody will do anything before and nobody will do anything after sending that application. So I knew I had three different attack vectors, so to speak. I could stand out before I sent the application. I could stand out in the application and I could stand out after sending the application.
So this job there was no contact information. Yeah, I could send them an email to ask about the job, but I wanted to talk to them because nine out of 10 won't do that. Even if there's a phone number, you will just send the application and hope for the best. So, I prepared a lot of questions, like 10 to 20 questions. I don't remember it exactly, but… and then I overwhelmed getting in contact with HR in this company and saying, "I want to apply for the job and I think I'm the right one for the job, but I have a few questions that I need to ask so that I don't waste your time or my time on this application."
And so I finally got in contact with the person responsible, the leader of the marketing team. And he said, "Yeah, we should we should definitely talk. " and "When can you talk?" And it was a bit hard to get him to talk because he was busy. It was Christmas. So I said, "Well, maybe we could talk between Christmas and New Year's Eve if you're not busy." "Sure, give me a time." he said, and I said, "Call me at 10:37 on December 28th." And he said, "Okay, I will." And at 10:37:00 the phone rang and I picked it up and I asked my questions, and I demonstrated that I was interested in the company. I had done my research. I demonstrated that I knew what I was talking about. And he said, "Yeah, it makes sense that you apply for this job." So I said, "Okay, I will send you… I will upload my application on December 31 at 10:37." And he laughed because you see, I stood out by making asking him to call at 10:37 and then saying I would send the application at 10:37 three days later.
So now I stood out among the competition before the application was sent, right? And then I started working day… from morning till I till I went to bed. The following three days I did nothing but work on this application. I did research. I wrote my application. I made videos on examples of work I'd done before. And it was… It became a really great application. And on the last night, I didn't sleep. I worked through the night and I uploaded it at 10:37. Exactly on the time I had said.
And a few hours later, I just fell asleep right after that knowing I had done every thing I could. I could simply not have done anything more. I could have worked on it another day. It wouldn't have become better. I had overwhelmed the problem. Now, a few hours later, I got a message from the leader of the team and there were six words in that message and they and they were as follows, "Epic, epic, epic, epic, epic, epic. " And of course I already knew then that I had to I had to do something very stupid to not get this job.
But still I wasn't satisfied. I had only overwhelmed two of the attack vectors and he had gotten many other applications. Maybe a few of them were good. I don't know. I didn't know. So for context, this was an email marketing job. That's my specialty. And so I started sending him daily emails demonstrating that I knew about email marketing and that I had followed their emails and already knew what I could do better. And I sent him daily emails. And I said to him, I will keep sending these daily emails till you either kill me, hire me, or tell me you hired somebody else.
And lo and behold, of course, after a few days, he called me and said, "Yeah, let's have a talk with you and me and my boss." [And it was just a dog I had to talk to. I love dogs.] Anyway, during my work with the application, I had bought a book with a 100 blank pages and I started printing out everything related to the job ad: the names of the people in the team (I found them on LinkedIn) and everything I found on their website. They had an atlas for employees and everything I could find about the company, their products, what they're selling. And, everything was glued into this printed out and glued into this book. And I had written down all my notes in this book. And on the front page that was black, I had written the name of the company in golden letters.
And so when I showed up to the fourth attack vector so to speak, the job interview, they were stunned with my book. And the owner of the company said, "What's that?" and the leader of the marketing team explained. So this is just… I am not telling you this to brag about my own achievements. I'm just telling you that I overwhelmed this problem. So the competition was completely blown away. And of course they hired me and I was there for three years. I learned a lot and I got a really good job the next time. And I did it again two years later. Same thing, same concept. And now I have another dream job, a third. I really love this job. It's not too far away from home and it's with super nice colleagues.
So I applied the same thing when I had to learn Ukrainian. Because you have to learn a new alphabet. You have to learn new sounds and you have to train more than you think because if you don't, then you will forget and you'll be discouraged and not really hang in there and learn to speak. So I painted myself in corners and booked… Last December, I booked 50 to 60 lessons with my teacher, my personal teacher. Because I was going to Ukraine and I wanted to use the language when I got there and I did. It worked.
There's something important that you have to understand about this. This tool, this way of thinking that the Ukrainians are using all the time. They use it to fight back the enemy. Now, this is not a channel about the war, but you cannot ignore the fact that they had to deal with overwhelming problems and fear and so many other things. And so, how do you know the psychological and financial and physical problems of a war? But my point here is you have to understand that this is a tool you can apply to any problem or any project in your life. But you cannot apply it to everything because it would make me crazy if I had to apply it to everything. You can only apply it once in a while to something that's really important.
So let's just talk briefly about the war. There was an overwhelming mass of problems that Zelenskyy and everyone in Ukraine faced. So he had to overwhelm one thing at a time. And how do you go about that? Well, first you summon your people and your allies. And Zelenskyy did that brilliantly by very quickly announcing that he was staying in Ukraine fighting for the people and that he did not need a ride out of Ukraine. He needed ammo.
And I think this way of showing that he was with the people - that gave everyone hope. And pretty soon the allies started sending weapons to Ukraine and the Ukrainians fought like hell. Old people started making camouflage nets. People started creating Molotov cocktails and coming up with creative ways to stop the enemy. And young men were lining up to get weapons to defend Kyiv. And it was just crazy. They summoned the will of the people.
And this war was supposed to be something that lasted three days, maybe three weeks, but it's still going on. And there's no sign that the Russians will win. I'm actually sure, as sure as I can be about anything in life, that the Ukrainians will win this war because they're doing it by overwhelming one problem at a time. Now, they have become so much more successful with the drone technology and a lot of other technologies that is turning the tide in the war.
So this is a tool that you can use and apply to anything in life. Big problems, small projects that you just want to make sure you get done. Anything. I've coached many people on this on this way of thinking and mindset and I I've seen that it's not for everyone. Not everyone gets it, but I still believe everyone can use it. And the way I think about it, it's very simple. When I face something challenging, big problems, I look at it this way. What is the one thing - one thing I can do to move this forward? And then I take inappropriate action towards losing… Towards solving this one problem and then the next and then the next. Instead of spreading your focus all over the place. That has worked for me.
I want to share a real life example of this principle in use. When I started this YouTube channel, I was full of energy and I spent two weeks on the first video and I was so excited and I wanted to upload and publish it right away. But I also wanted consistency. When this video was uploaded, I didn't want to wait too long for the next video. So I immediately threw myself after the next video. And of course I also got quicker and better at making the videos.
But still after three or four videos it became somewhat stressful that I had to think about the next video all the time right after being done. And so after six videos, I decided to stop. Well, not stop the channel, but stop uploading and publishing new videos right after I had completed them. So I spent three full weeks actually making ready three videos. I just took all the time needed without thinking about uploading again.
So this feeling of overwhelm is now gone and I'm three videos ahead and something else happened in that time. I got new content ideas. I started live streaming on Sundays which I hadn't had the energy to do before. So, it was actually really good for me to just overwhelm the problem and forget that I was anxious about not publishing anything for two or three weeks. So, now I have a longer term buffer and I'm actually planning to make it even longer. So, maybe I will have six or seven videos. So, it's possible for me to take a break from time to time if I want to. So that's just, yeah, that's a real life example of this overwhelm the problem - or overwhelm the problem that is overwhelming you.
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