Problems Only Smart People Can Solve

You know, there's a time and place when only certain types of people can solve a particular problem. It's when you call in the big guns, and today we're taking a look at some of those problems. Welcome to Alux.

First up, what and when to cut. Just like a bow, sometimes you need to pull back in order to shoot far. That works both in business and in life. People spread themselves too thin and end up being weighed down by what's around them. Maybe you got into too many projects. You got overly ambitious. You underestimated the difficulty. The point is, you start to crumble under your own weight. That's the moment when you need to find things to cut in order to keep moving forward.

The problem that most people face is they get emotionally attached to things and experiences, so they're more hesitant to take a step back. It takes a lot of emotional intelligence and maturity to see when the situation requires you to pull back, and only a few people can feel confident in making that type of call. Like the saying goes, sometimes you need to lose some battles in order to win the war.

Setting the correct priorities. Smart people know there are only two kinds of priorities they really need to care about. First, the immediate danger—that's something that threatens your business or environment. They require immediate and swift actions, and absolutely nothing matters until these things are solved and no longer an issue. It doesn't matter how pretty the boat is or if the destination is amazing; if your boat's about to hit an iceberg, then second, there's the long-term payout.

There are the educated bets that only people who can see into the future can make. By seeing into the future, we mean able to predict how things will play out if everything is executed according to plan. Everything else is just admin work, things you do to make sure you stay on track. It requires a decent amount of discipline to identify and stick to these kinds of priorities.

Small changes that result in totally different outcomes. Imagine this: a plane takes off from LA and flies in a straight line to London. If any kind of deviations to the course are made early on, the plane might not even end up in Europe anymore, let alone straight to London. The same thing happens in life. The only problem is, you don't know what those deviations are or where they're going to land you, which makes the problem a tricky one to solve.

Because you might be going totally off course without you knowing. You might believe you're doing the right thing because it looks like it on a daily basis, but on a decade-long basis, you're way off the mark. This is how people end up asking themselves, "How did I get to this?" or "I never saw this coming." Well, other people saw it coming. So think about it like this: What small thing are you doing or not doing? Even something as small as waking up one hour earlier to have a walk can completely change your life for a couple of years.

But you need to be able to see how these changes can affect the future in order to make them, and that's something only smart people are capable of.

Work once, get paid multiple times. You're probably familiar with this: Why build one house when you can create a house plan and sell that multiple times? Sure, it always sounds stupid obvious in these crystal clear examples. The problem is, though, life is not exactly crystal clear, is it? These kinds of really obvious situations don't actually occur like this out in the wild; it's a matter of scalability.

Let's look at car companies, for example. Everybody knows that any Porsche car is better than any Volkswagen car. But guess who owns Porsche? Scalability is a very difficult problem to solve because it involves a lot of moving pieces. It's also one of the problems that has one of the biggest payoffs.

Plus one systems. Everything in the world works on a plus one system. Essentially, these are a series of things that work in a particular order, which result in A plus one somewhere. For a basic business to function, making and selling must equal to at least plus one, or in other words, to achieve profitability. Pretty straightforward so far, right?

Now, here's the problem: every system starts at us 10. Because contrary to popular belief, it's impossible to make something out of nothing. You always need something to start with. Even the system of going to the gym starts on a minus. The time you spend at the gym, the time it takes you to get there, the gym clothes, the membership, the supplements, the new meal plan, the new changes in your calendar—all of these add up to a minus because you get nothing out of them for the first few months.

But unlike other things, the gym system is easy to figure out because all you need to get to plus one is time and consistency. Most people live in zero systems. They go to work, they pay the bills, they go to sleep, rinse and repeat. You see them complaining about it on Twitter all the time. Those are the people who haven't figured out how to get to plus one systems where something fits. In business, it's called market fit; in life in general, it could be called purpose.

The idea remains the same, though: figuring out where something fits the best or even if there is a spot to fill to begin with. Some people manage to find where things fit by pure luck, but most of the time they just try to squeeze squares into round holes. Smart managers figure out in what environment someone fits best so they can do their best work. Smart business people understand in which market their product has the best chances for success. Smart salespeople know which pain fits best with their sales pitch.

The reason why solving these kinds of problems is hard is because there's no guidebook on how to do it. It's just a lot of trial and error on a massive set of data. It's a hard skill to get, but it's also a skill that can make you stupid rich.

Novelty most people cannot create. They can only copy or corrupt what's already been made by someone else. It's not that they don't have the inherent ability to create; they just don't have the bandwidth required to get into that creative space. Some people believe that there are no more things left to be created, and in our history of thousands of years, we pretty much have thought of everything. But look, okay, that's not true. There are plenty of new things created every day; they just get drowned out in the sea of copies and imitations.

As soon as something new and exciting comes along, it's getting copied and redistributed in under 24 hours. That's why the internet is full of low-effort content: it's easier to repurpose than it is to create from scratch. It takes a lot of brain power to create, and we need a lot more creators inventing.

Option C: When A and B suck. When most people are faced with two shitty options, they'll default to the less shitty one. Very few will bother with a workaround because the workaround requires extra effort and a lot more brain power. Smart people have a problem accepting that nothing can be done. They believe it's either a matter of know-how or execution, and somewhere something is lacking, which means something can be improved.

It's hard to teach the skill of thinking outside the box because one must understand what their box looks like in the first place.

Distribution. There's one saying that we constantly go back to: the future is already here; it's just not evenly distributed. It's hard to believe there are doctors wearing Apple Vision Pro glasses and people dying from basic illnesses existing on the same timeline, but they do. One of the biggest problems the world is facing is not a lack of resources or technology, but a lack of distribution. That's why really smart people always look at problems from a global scale. They understand that solving something for a small niche just doesn't amount to anything in the grand scheme of things.

And finally, other people. We've yet to see a championship-winning team with no coach. Figuring out and managing other people requires a lot of finesse and understanding. Everyone can shout orders and keep people in line, but extremely few people are capable of shaping others, helping them define their style, and figuring out their own strengths. That is truly rare.

As your bonus: money. There are almost 8 billion people out there, and most of them are trying to figure out money in some way, shape, or form. Very few people succeed, and out of those, most of them are considered smart. But the real IQ test is if you get what you want from life. That's all there is to it. Smart people know what they want, and they go out there, and they get it.