The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 289 - Muddy Puddles

Transcript:

Pete: Hey, Jen.

Jen: Hey, Peter.

Pete: So thanks to James Clear, I've recently just stumbled across this rubric for thinking about problems. And it just, when I read it, I was like, "Oh, this feels like something that Jen would appreciate. This feels like a ridiculous topic that we need to talk about."

Jen: Hmm. Okay.

Pete: And I say "ridiculous topic" only just because of the way it's framed, which is to split problems into either muddy puddles or leaky ceilings.

Jen: Well, it's raining here in New York right now, and I have had more than one leaky ceiling in this one hundred-year-old apartment. I'm ready to talk about this. This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Pete: Oh, that's funny. Yeah, so muddy puddles and leaky ceilings. So this came up in James Clear's incredible newsletter, 3-2-1, which I highly recommend everyone listening subscribe to. And he shares a bunch of ideas and quotes that you can sort of noodle on. And this, I'm just literally going to read it because I think the context of how he describes it might be helpful. Is that cool?

Jen: I can't wait.

Pete: Alright. So he says, "I split problems into two groups, muddy puddles and leaky ceilings. Some problems are like muddy puddles. The way to clear a muddy puddle is to leave it alone. The more you mess with it, the muddier it becomes. Many of the problems I dream up when I'm overthinking or worrying or ruminating fall into this category. Is life really falling apart, or am I just in a sour mood? Is this as hard as I'm making it, or do I just need to go do a workout, drink some water, go for a walk, get some sleep, go do something else, and give the puddle time to turn clear? Other problems are like leaky ceilings. Ignore a small leak, and it will always widen. Relationship tension that goes unaddressed, overspending that becomes a habit, one missed workout drifting into months of inactivity. Some problems multiply when left unattended. You need to intervene now. So are you dealing with a leak or a puddle?"

Jen: Love it.

Pete: And I just love that question at the bottom. But also, just the description of both of these things. How do you feel? What are your reactions? How do you feel about that? Also, muddy puddles is such a fun two words to say together.

Jen: Isn't it?

Pete: Muddy puddles.

Jen: Muddy puddles, muddy puddles, muddy puddles. That's a good tongue twister, too.

Pete: That is.

Jen: Just out of the gate, I love James Clear. I love the way his brain works. And in this particular instance, he is talking about something that is so important, in such a specific way with such levity that it makes it easy to process.

Pete: Exactly. I think that's why I thought that you would like it.

Jen: I love it.

Pete: Because I feel like some of our best episodes and conversations are when we create some ridiculous acronym, or Venn diagram, or made up word or phrase to describe something that's actually really hard or really important. So, I think he's done a version of that.

Jen: Yeah. Okay, so the thing that comes to mind when you say "muddy puddles"...and you'll experience this with Ollie, you know, as soon as he starts walking. That, when a kid sees a muddy puddle, their first impulse is to start jumping in it. And I don't know if we ever really lose that impulse.

Pete: So true.

Jen: So I'm thinking like, as an adult, when given the choice, "Do I want to deal with the leaky ceiling, or do I want to deal with the muddy puddle," the muddy puddle seems more attractive to deal with.

Pete: Yeah, fun. It seems kind of fun.

Jen: Right. But it's the thing that makes more sense to just leave alone or step around or go the other way.

Pete: Well, that's interesting. Like, the action of each feels like the harder part of the other side of the coin, if that makes sense.

Jen: Right.

Pete: Like it feels easier to jump in the puddle, even though we should leave it. And it feels easier to leave the ceiling, even though we should do something about it.

Jen: Right.

Pete: Huh. Oh, that's annoying.

Jen: Isn't it?

Pete: It's really annoying. It's really annoying. I can't work out which one I feel more called out about. That I could think of so many examples where I have a muddy puddle and I ruminate on what else I could do to help clean this up, to continue with the metaphor. I mean, even before we hopped on this call, I was sharing with you, I have this upcoming call with a few clients of mine, and I'm kind of in this holding pattern of waiting until we have that call to figure out what the direction is going forward. And I'm like, "Maybe I should be doing something else. What else could I be doing? What could be going wrong? Maybe I should try this. Have I tried that? What if I frame it this way? Should I prepare this?" Like, I'm ruminating on this thing before it's even happened. And I'm ruminating on it when there's no benefit in doing so. Like I know it's not a mess, in the sense that it's actually a good opportunity. But it's a puddle, in the sense that I just need to leave it.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: And wait and see, once we've assessed it in a couple days time, rather than be tempted to keep jumping in it, to feel like I'm making it better. But actually, it's not helping at all.

Jen: Right. When you jump in a muddy puddle, it just stays muddy puddle. Actually, it kicks up the mud even more.

Pete: That's the thing. It makes more mess. And unless you're wearing like really good gumboots or like solid waterproof shoes, you get wet. Is there anything worse than a wet sock? And then all of a sudden, you're like, "Oh my god, what was I thinking? I shouldn't have done that. I should have just left it alone."

Jen: Also, gumboots? What's that? Are those galoshes? Rainboots?

Pete: Rainboots, maybe? Wellies? What do you call them?

Jen: Well, I would just call them rainboots. But gumboots? Yeah.

Pete: Oh, well, so interesting. Yeah, I just googled rainboots. They're called gumboots, here in Australia.

Jen: That's cute. I like it.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: Okay. And then, the other thing is when you have a leak in the ceiling.

Pete: Mmm. Oof. How easy to ignore.

Jen: So easy to ignore. And, you also know how this is going to end.

Pete: Oh, it's so true.

Jen: Like, a leak doesn't just stop by itself.

Pete: Okay, but do you ever try and convince yourself that it will? Because I do.

Jen: Yes. Oh, yes. Absolutely.

Pete: Like, "I'll put a bucket under the leak for now, and I'll come back in a couple hours and it'll be all fixed. It'll fix itself." Which, in saying it out loud, I realize how ridiculous it sounds. But it's true in the literal sense, if I had a leak, I'd be like, "Oh, I'll just see how it goes in an hour." But in the metaphorical sense, my god, like the one that gets to me, that he mentioned, is like a relationship tension that goes unaddressed.

Jen: Right.

Pete: Like, when there's a conversation you know you need to have with someone. You kind of know you need to have it, but you avoid it because it feels hard and uncomfortable and you don't want to, and you've got to give them feedback, and you don't want to give them feedback. So, "I'll just let it go, and maybe they'll forget about it."

Jen: That's right.

Pete: And they definitely don't forget about it, because they are over there ruminating on their own.

Jen: Oh my gosh, Pete. I am giggling over here because when Mark and I lived in our previous apartment at 123 Waverly Place, in the village.

Pete: Oh, right.

Jen: We lived above our super. And she came up one day, and knocked on the door, and said, "Is your shower curtain outside of your shower? Because there is a leak in my apartment." And we were like, "No, we definitely do not have any water on the floor in the bathroom. If there's a leak in your apartment, it's a leak from underneath the tub." And she was like, "No, you're very irresponsible showerers." Well, Pete, one day, I kid you not, the entire bathtub fell through from our apartment to her apartment.

Pete: No freaking way.

Jen: Way.

Pete: Are you serious? Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god, I'm not okay. Was someone...I just have a visual of like Mark just in the bathtub having a nice bath, and all of a sudden, he's in the lounge room of the downstairs.

Jen: No, thank god, we were not in the tub. But I mean, that bathroom was out of commission for so long. We ended up joining the gym down the street from us, so that we would have a place to shower. And then in the middle of the night, Pete, during the time when they were fixing the bathroom...this is turning into such a long story...I would go downstairs to the 24-hour diner we lived next to, to use the bathroom in the middle of the night.

Pete: Oh my god, what a nightmare.

Jen: It was a nightmare.

Pete: What a nightmare. But that is such a beautiful example of what happens with a leaky ceiling...

Jen: That's what happens.

Pete: ...if we just let it go. It creates all these ridiculous problems, things that we have to deal with in the future that we couldn't have predicted. Had we not just done something about it, we would have avoided those. Ah.

Jen: Oh my gosh.

Pete: Wow. That is funny.

Jen: Wow.

Pete: That is really funny.

Jen: So was the moral of the story then, you see the leak in the ceiling, and you go, "Let me deal with that right now."

Pete: I think so. And that's why I like the question so much. Are we dealing with a leak or a puddle? Because there's two clear actions I take from this metaphor that he's brilliantly shared. Which is, one requires immediate action, and one requires, I guess, action in the sense of like you not doing anything, the action of practicing patience. Which I think we did an episode on many, many moons ago (I'll put it in the Box O' Goodies), where we talked about practicing patience is actually different than just waiting or doing nothing.

Jen: Correct.

Pete: That, I think, could be useful when thinking about muddy puddles. It's not that you're ignoring the fact that there's a muddy puddle in the middle of the lounge room or outside or, metaphorically, in your brain. It's that you recognize that the way to resolve that is to practice patience and wait for it to resolve. It's to not do anything about it. They disappear. Puddles disappear, once there's enough sunlight. So yeah, in my mind, the rubric or the question is so helpful, because it's like, "Either take action now, because you've got a leak. Or it's all good, it's a puddle. Just wait. This is going to pass." Or like, I think James mentioned in the quote I read out, "Do I just need to drink some water or go for a walk or get some sleep?" I guess it reminds me of that episode we did on H.A.L.T. recently, as well.

Jen: Mmm-hmm. Alright, there's a question that's sort of spinning around in my mind, which is, "Should I be actively looking for leaks?" That's the question I have right now. Like, am I waiting until I see the leak? And I'm like, "Oh, darn it. There's a leak." Or am I like, "What can I do to prevent a leak?"

Pete: Oh, that's interesting. Okay. My immediate reaction is, I feel like if we all walked around looking for leaks, we would be constantly finding them.

Jen: Right.

Pete: And maybe that's not a helpful use of our time, to be constantly on the search for leaks.

Jen: Mmm-hmm.

Pete: Because inevitably, we'll find one. Or we'll be like, "Is that a leak? Maybe it's a leak. It could be a leak. I'll fix it anyway. It might not be a leak anyway." So...I don't know. I don't want to spend my whole life looking for leaks. But for me, it's almost like the metaphorical leak is the thing that you know already. You've already spotted it. And yet, you've just chosen not to do anything about it. Like it's almost like that question, "What's the looming change that you're willfully ignoring?"

Jen: Oh, that question calls me out so greatly and so deeply. I hate it, but I love it.

Pete: It's such a good question. I first heard this question in the altMBA, and I just think about it all the time. Like, "What's the looming change that you're willfully ignoring?" And the thing I love about that question is, at any point in time, I feel like everyone has an answer to that question.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: That there's often a change or a thing that we are willfully ignoring, because we hope that it fixes itself or we hope that we have imagined that particular scenario. And those are the things I'm thinking about as leaky ceilings. It's like I mentioned, it's that conversation you know you need to have, but you're putting it off.

Jen: I'm having an interesting response to the looming question, in a way that I never have before. I've always reacted to the, "What is the looming change that you are willfully ignoring," question as like a change that has a built-in almost negative or hard connotation to it. And something about the idea of a beautifully plastered ceiling with no leaks in it made me think that I've not given that question it's full credit, because sometimes the looming change you're willfully ignoring is a positive one. Oh, wow.

Pete: Oh, wow. I feel like I'm having an aha moment. My brain is trying to process what you said. I, too, I mean, I interpret that question to the negative. What's the...I mean, maybe it's the word "looming". The "looming change", that's scary and dark and uncomfortable...

Jen: Right.

Pete: ...that you're ignoring, because it's hard and you don't want to go there. But actually, to your point, what if it's a beautiful change that's coming up? What if it's like the most exciting change ever, that you just haven't quite wrapped your head around?

Jen: Right? Yeah, it could be a wonderful, wonderful thing.

Pete: Like imagine having, to your point, a beautifully plastered roof with no leaks. Like, what an amazing change that I'm willfully ignoring. That would be great.

Jen: Right?

Pete: Hmm.

Jen: So I'm thinking now about, when you see a leak in the ceiling, you could go, "I just don't even want to deal with that. And I know that it's going to lead to the bathtub crashing through, but I just don't want to deal with that." Or you could go, "Wow. If I deal with that, this could be a really good thing."

Pete: Right. Yeah, all of these positive things could happen from that. So now I feel a little stuck on, how do we help ourselves and help our listeners get clear on, "Is it a puddle or is it a leaky ceiling?" Like I could think of a time where I could convince myself that a muddy puddle was actually a leaky ceiling, and so I'll go and intervene. And actually, it's like, "Oh crap, I just intervened when I didn't need to intervene." I'm wondering, for you, like can you think of characteristics of each that would be helpful? So when you're answering that question, "Am I dealing with a leak or a puddle," how do you distinguish the two?

Jen: Well, this might be tangential, Pete, but this thing is in my mind. And unless I say it, it will just stay there.

Pete: This means it's a leaky ceiling, this thought? Do something about it.

Jen: Oh my gosh, how meta. Okay, so I'm going say this. And if it's helpful, great. It's reminding me of something I heard once about gossip, which is, "Gossip is just complaining to someone who has no capacity to make it better." And it kind of feels like that's what a muddy puddle is, where it's like, "I'm intervening, but my intervention won't really matter. It won't really change things."

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: Whereas, my intervention with a leaky ceiling does have the capacity to create change.

Pete: Fascinating. Fascinating, fascinating. It feels like the tension of a muddy puddle, for many people, could be a discomfort with a lack of control, that, "I kind of want to go and get the hair dryer, and plug it in, and start trying to dry the puddle quicker than it should dry naturally, because I want to have some feeling like I'm controlling the possible outcome."

Jen: Right.

Pete: And yet, what it calls for is...actually, I feel like the reframe, to me, is the empowering feeling of, "You don't need to do anything about it. It's going to sort itself out. Like, you might just need to go and spend some energy somewhere else. And then, you'll turn around and the puddle is gone." Like, that should be empowering. And in fact, they probably go hand in hand. Where it's like, if you turn around and deal with a leaky ceiling, by the time you turn back, the muddy puddle is gone.

Jen: Right.

Pete: Hmm.

Jen: Another way to think about this, or at least a way to think about this that is attractive to me, is, "Are these resources worth spending?" Because to clean up a muddy puddle kind of problem will require energy. It might require money, creativity, all of these resources. And at the end of the day, was that a good spending of my resources? Likely not. Whereas, fixing the leaky ceiling, it's worth the relationship investment, it's worth the time investment, it's worth the energy investment, it's worth the creativity investment.

Pete: Yeah. So it feels like there's a question there of, "What's the possible benefit of me intervening?"

Jen: Right.

Pete: So if I intervene in a muddy puddle, what's the possible benefit? I can't even actually think of one, other than there's no longer a puddle. But in the process of there no longer being a puddle, there's now mud everywhere,

Jen: Right.

Pete: So it's like, you make it worse before it gets better. Whereas, the possible benefit of the leaky ceiling is there's no longer a leak. Like, you can action that fix.

Jen: Right.

Pete: The only other thing (I don't even know if this makes sense) that I was thinking about, is...maybe I'm applying the metaphor too literally. Is, a muddy puddle is passive, in that it's just sitting there.

Jen: Oh.

Pete: Nothing is causing it to be worse, unless you intervene. Whereas, a leaky ceiling is active. It's actively leaking, and it's going to get worse if you stay passive. So, I don't know. I don't even know if that makes sense. It kind of does in my brain, that one is static and one is active. And so it's almost like, if it's static, you don't need to intervene and make it worse.

Jen: Yeah. If it's static, you can be static about it. If it's active, take action.

Pete: Right. There you go. You said it way better than I did.

Jen: Wow. James Clear, we have taken this metaphor and really...we really ran through it.

Pete: We have, we have. I wonder if he realizes, when he puts these little thoughts together in his email, that we're going to just grab them and run, and turn them into entire podcasts about muddy puddles and leaky ceilings.

Jen: Well, I thoroughly enjoyed it. So thank you, James Clear. And that is The Long and The Short Of It.