I’ve met people who are incredibly occupied by problems. I call them problem lovers! They talk about their problems over and over. And more often than not they’re the same this year as they were last year – in fact, as they have been for many years. Mothers and grandmothers often have the same problems. It’s just how things have turned out in their family – it’s almost a tradition. It can be like that in some companies too…

The great thing about problems is they can be solved. When I became a young mom at 15 – uneducated and facing lots of personal challenges – I had to solve the problems to survive. So I turned every single problem into something funny. I stopped being annoyed by them and instead I began to like them whenever they emerged. Which they did. In droves. There were often what seemed like huge clumps of challenges that seemed unsolvable…

The way I dealt with the problems was to split them up – I worked through them problem by problem. That normally undid the knot. And I got a kick out of solving them.

Problems are no obstacle. I think they’re a gift. Because when problems are solved, there has also been a development – progress. You are suddenly in a new arena, with new perspectives that can open up all sorts of new opportunities!

That’s why we should both receive and welcome gifts like this. Instead of using our time to talk about them, we should instead focus on the solution. Did you know that we spend 80 % of our time talking about problems and just 20 % solving them? It should be the other way round – then the world would be a different place…