Ep 11 - The 3-Step Framework for Solving Any Financial Problem (That's Actually Worth Solving)

Hello, friends. This is Tyler Gardner welcoming you to another episode of your Money Guide on the Side, where it is my job to simplify what seems complex, add nuance to what seems simple, and learn from and alongside some of the brightest minds in money, finance, and investing.
So let's get started and get you one step closer to where you need to be. This podcast is directly inspired from my guest from last week's episode, Victoria Ferguson, who began discussing the framework that she's been working on in order to solve all financial problems.
And if you haven't listened to it, I would highly encourage you to go back and listen to this episode because it was jam-packed with guidance and wisdom from a top expert in her craft. Inspired by what she was talking about, I built upon this framework to try to make it as universal and applicable to all of us and all of our problems.
This week, we'll be talking about something that is so fundamental to both your temporary and enduring success, not just in finance, but in life. And yet, something that so few of us, myself very much included, know how to do.
The ability to name a problem, prioritize that problem over the noise, and then solve that problem, hopefully once and for all. Because let's be honest, most people don't make it past step one.
And as always, I will begin each show by reminding you that you are not alone. This is a really difficult process, and there is zero shame in your and my not knowing what we don't know.
If we don't know what the problem is, how the heck can we be asked to solve it? Too frequently, we find ourselves not only lost in the fog,

but surrounded by vague anxieties and a growing to-do list that never seems to shrink. Not to mention, we exist in a world of marketing culture that is intentionally designed to make us feel this very angst, and as if we are always trying to solve for some lack, some emptiness, that, odd, we didn't know we had

until this product came on the television in the first place and can apparently solve it.

Additionally, once we do acknowledge the problem, once we can break past that first barrier,

we tend to add it to the pile of all the other problems we have, trying to fix a little bit here,

a little bit there, but ultimately leaving every problem, not only living rent-free in our minds, but continuing to be, well, a problem. And that mode of being is not sustainable, it's not enjoyable, and it's certainly something that I believe deeply we can and will solve together.
So today we're going to break this into three straightforward topics, and the goal is to provide you with a framework for problem solving that you can all, regardless of your demographic or current level of angst, use at your discretion and apply to your own personal situation, as remember, all personal finance is always and will forever be personal. So the prescriptive mindset we'll go over today is a framework, not a specific answer.
We will start by figuring out how best to name the problem, because that clarity in and of itself is far more important than you might imagine in finance, in business, and in life. I have spent decades arguing over problems that weren't even the right problems over which to argue.
And I had a mentor two years back who, thankfully, would always cut through the debates by asking us first and foremost to consider if we were even articulating the right problem. So just know the grand irony here already is that part, or perhaps all of the problem, is our inability to name the dang problem in the first place.

Now, once we achieve this clarity, once we name this financial problem , we need to prioritize that problem. Might seem simple, but here's where it will get interesting because prioritizing that problem does not mean simply adding it to our to-do list.
Your first priority, in fact, is to get rid of your to-do list. If you have multiple things on that list, you are not living into the art of prioritization.
And we cannot, despite what our little animal minds tell us, try to solve every problem at once bit by bit. It just doesn't work like that.
Finally, once we have named the problem and chosen to prioritize that problem, we need to find the right solution. And this, too, proves truly difficult in the face of endless noise and nonsense and marketing techniques all trying to capture our attention.
All you need to do is scroll through social media these days to see hundreds of self-proclaimed money experts or life experts or coaches trying to sell you their specific solution. So how do we judge what resources are valid and what resources are vapid? So I will close the episode by offering a few ideas to add to your self-imposed information filtration system.
And by the end of the show, I am to leave all of you with a prescriptive and practical framework that can be applied to anything in your lives, but particularly to your financial headaches. Step one, as mentioned, we'll be naming the problem.
Before pivoting to finance, I taught high school students for about a decade. And note, the following point is not particular only to high school students, but I did notice that age group had a fun and consistent way of framing a type of problem, if you will.
Every day, regardless of which day it was, Monday, Tuesday, or Friday, I would hear the following refrain from someone. Once I'm done with X, then I will be so happy.
Or, if only it could be next week, all of my problems would be gone. The students, without being able to necessarily articulate what was happening or why it was happening, were feeling a sense of angst, and they were attaching that angst to an external event.
Perhaps it was an exam, a 10-page history paper, or a high-pressure sporting event. Only, and I am sure some of you have picked up on where I'm going with this, once said anxiety-inducing event was over, guess what? The following week, I would hear the echoes in the hallway.
If only it were summer break, I'd be so happy. But wait a minute, student number 43.
Didn't you just tell me last week you'd be so happy this week once that exam was over? What happened to that? Obviously, I found slightly more tactful ways to hint that they were experiencing something universal. An inability on our parts to name the problem.
The problem wasn't a test. The problem wasn't the quarterfinals of basketball.
The problem was fear of failure, fear of being judged, and an ever-present insecurity about external validation to offer us a sense of intrinsic worth. And that problem, unfortunately, doesn't fade away as time passes.
We have to name it and choose to actively address it. Beyond high school students, most people feel this stress, anxiety, or discomfort, whether it's in our jobs or in our daily lives.
But so rarely do we stop to figure out what it is that's at the root of this emotional response. This is the equivalent of walking around your house with a growing headache, thinking maybe you're dehydrated, only to realize that you've been listening to the same smoke alarm chirp at you every 45 seconds, reminding you that smoke alarms might be the most annoying invention on the planet.
PSA, don't smash your fire alarms at 2am with a hammer when you can't find out how to stop the dang thing from chirping or how to silence the single scariest voice you've ever heard in your life coming from the basement. That's a bad idea, although it is a temporary solution.
And to my therapist, who I saw when I was 12 years old about being scared of the dark, this is what I'm talking about. It's scary down there.
The ability to precisely name a problem gives you an incredible amount of control over it. Vague concerns are debilitating because you can't solve what you can't define.
Clarity is and always will be power. Let's apply this directly to money.
I'm sure that you have either said or have heard someone say, I'm bad with money. Unfortunately, that's not a problem.
That's a broad, vague claim that is largely subjective. So refining the above, we might get closer to identifying an actual problem.
I don't know where my money is going each month. I don't know how much money I need to retire.
I keep making emotional investment decisions. Now we're getting somewhere.
Because we've taken the broad idea of bad, and we've taken the massive concept of money, and we've identified some subtopics within this endlessly broad financial world and pinpointed exactly what might be driving us crazy about our inability to solve for X. When you name the real problem, you create the opportunity to fix it.
We haven't obviously fixed it yet, but at the very least, we're on our way. This is one of the reasons big data, as it's known today, the world of data that companies collect about how we interact with their products or services, needs to be endlessly filtered, refined, and then interpreted as the data alone could support thousands upon thousands of hypotheses of what the problem is.
So once we collect enough data points, we need to get better and better at refining what the problem actually is. Some of the greatest breakthroughs in history were really just about finally naming the real problem.
Take the germ theory of disease. People finally naming, hey, maybe tiny invisible organisms are killing people, instead of, we need more leeches.
Or, emphasizing Warren Buffett's 25-5 rule. Buffett encouraged people to take time to write down 25 of their goals.
I guess Buffett was a big thinker because that seems like a daunting task to me in and of itself, but he encouraged people to write out 25 goals and to identify the top five goals on that list and then cross out the other 20. Even though I will push you to identify one, not five, as a priority, what I love most about the 25-5 concept is that he literally wanted you to cross out the other 20 ideas to emphasize that other goals can, and often do, cannibalize your main goals.
Meaning that time devoted to them, even though maybe moving them forward a little, can eat away and does eat away at more important goals. So by crossing out 20 ideas, we remind ourselves that we are capable, truly, of doing anything really well.
But we are not remotely capable of doing everything really well. There is a reason I continue to use flippers when I go swim laps at the pool each day, as I'm what's known as a sinker, and without my little floaty devices, I wouldn't be able to move horizontally.
I wish I could be a better swimmer, but I'm not, so I use flippers. So if you're feeling stuck, even if you don't know why, or perhaps especially if you don't know why, take some time to ask yourself, what's the actual problem here? Not the symptom, not the emotion, but the thing that, if fixed, would actually make your life better.
And don't be scared ever of asking for help with this. Some of the best people to help you identify your problems are the ones that might be able to see them from a slightly more objective standpoint, Your partner, your parents, your friends.
Don't be scared to ask for help naming a problem, unless your partner's the problem. Then I might not start there.
Step two. Once we have named something, that's not enough.
We know that. It's just not.
Now we need to prioritize that problem, aka the art of actually knowing what the word priority means. I can say with sincerity that if there is one thing that has helped move my life forward, it is the art of establishing one priority at a time and not extending myself or expending my energy until I believe I have truly moved the needle in a meaningful way for that one priority.
I would guess that most people feel particularly stuck at this point because we typically add a newly articulated problem to an already impossible list of priorities and try to tackle everything at once. I'll ruin the punchline early.
It's not going to work. Blame the former English teacher in me, but the term priority comes from the Latin

prioritas, which literally meant the first thing, not things, thing, singular. For 500 years, people

used priority correctly. And then sometime in the 1900s, businesses started using the word

priorities, plural, because they didn't understand that the entire point of a priority is that it's

singular. And you have surely heard some framing of the idea that if you have multiple priorities, or worse, competing priorities, then you have no priority.
And that's a much bigger deal than we make it out to be. Think about this as it pertains to your daily life at your current job, whether you work for someone or for yourself.
Problem X arises, or fire drill Y presents itself. You are tasked with solving X or putting out Y.
And as you know, it doesn't stop there. Now your boss or your clients present something new to you, usually because you weren't able to turn away from your dang computer and email long enough to solve X or Y, and now you magically have another item on your to-do list.
But here's where it gets interesting. What do you do first? I interact with multiple clients who struggle with this exact type of thinking, especially when these instructions are delivered top-down, because they feel an ever-increasing need to fix tons of problems and all the problems at once, and if they don't, they feel like they will have let somebody down.
The problem is that even the boss clearly didn't understand what the word priority meant. So if this happens to you at work or as a result of work, try the following language.
Hey, I received your note about doing X and I'm happy to help, but I also received your note about doing Y. So which would you like me to focus on today because I will be turning off my phone and stepping away from email to get this done with my undivided attention.
Oh, I know. I can feel your nerves on this one as it's hard to say.
It's hard to imagine saying. And most bosses aren't used to hearing this language from employees and most employees aren't used to sharing this language with their bosses.
But we need to demand that we all practice the art of prioritization. Back to finance.
What does this mean for you and your personal finance goals? It means you need to pick one thing. And usually, I ask clients to pick the first thing that is currently giving you the single biggest headache.

What is your financial equivalent of the horrific voice coming from the basement smoke alarm every 15 minutes at 2 a.m.? What's literally and metaphorically keeping you up at night? Is it your credit card debt, an underfunded retirement account, not knowing if you are underfunded because you don't talk to anybody about money? Or is it saving for a child's education and not even knowing if that education's going to be worth it? The fact is that you can't come close to solving all of these items at once, nor would I argue are they all a priority to anybody. We just conflate them for the same reason the high school students conflated exams and sports and papers with an overall feeling of fear.
We all, at day's end, want to know if we're going to be okay. And each day, there are internal and external voices that challenge that sense of security.
But if we just focus on one of these items after we have named it, we can actually take some concrete steps towards solving it. And once we solve it, then we move on to the next.
Instead of barely making progress on five things, we actually complete one. And not just any one, but one that really would give us the greatest satisfaction and the most fulfillment.
For me, personally, I try to write this item down at least one day before I plan to tackle it. Otherwise, if I leave my priority choosing to the day of, several things have already crept into my life to grab my time or attention.
I am sure you can relate. For those of you who wake up and choose to check your email or phone first thing, I am more than sure you can relate.
That's why each morning I try my best not to check my phone or open my email, aka other people's ability to add to your to-do list before you get your own priority out of the way. So ask yourself, what is the one thing I can solve first that would make the biggest impact or mitigate the biggest headache? Pick it.
And then protect it like your life depends on it because in many ways, not to overstate this, your long-term well-being does depend on it. Finally, step three.
Once we've named it and once we've chosen to prioritize it, we can't always do it on our own. And even if we can, we need to find the right solution and filter the noise.
In the words of Twain, it ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.
In other words, we need to embrace not knowing what we don't know. And we need to have the ability and confidence to state that clearly and as quickly as possible.
We don't know what we don't know. And unfortunately, with money, we all seem to think everyone else knows more than we do.
Well, as someone who interacts with many of you on a daily basis in dozens of spaces, I have a secret. None of us know what we're doing as much as the others think we do, and we're all trying to figure this out one step at a time.
So relax and know that we need help and we need guidance. Unfortunately, this ability to vet information is probably the most dangerous step because we can and often do look for quick fixes, and we're prone to making several missteps at this moment because, back to that pressing noise that is always trying to get our attention and solve the problem for us, part of the problem, ironically, is that we don't always know who or what to trust when thinking about solving the problem.
One of the primary reasons I began creating content on TikTok and Instagram is because the very first time I ever downloaded TikTok, I not only saw endless amounts of misinformation or simply poor information, but then I would turn to the comment sections and see just how many people were taking these videos as facts because there really aren't fact checkers on these platforms. In fact, sadly, the majority of misinformation often goes viral way more quickly than true information.
It is up to each of us to figure out what is and is not good information. Again, blame the teacher inside of me, but one of the first lessons we hopefully all remember about research is that we need to look for primary sources.
And no, social media is not what I would call a primary source. I know this is no surprise to any of you, but know that we do live in an era where being good at filtering information is far more important than getting the information itself.
So here are a few quick tests that I use when I'm trying to figure out if the information I'm seeing is right or at least deserves further attention. Number one, is the person giving the advice incentivized to sell me the thing that they're giving? If every piece of content ends with, buy my course, maybe take it with a grain of salt, especially if they haven't revealed anything about their own expertise, their own knowledge, or the contents of said course.
The trust me bro course is not worth your time. This is one of the oldest tricks in the book, aka grifter economy of snake oil salesmen.
Hey, I have the solution, but you gotta pay to see it. Massive red flag.
Number two, does the advice come founded or based in evidence? If someone says, do this and you'll get rich, ask yourself if they have presented any data. And no, a photoshopped bank statement doesn't add credibility.
Even an un-photoshopped bank statement doesn't add credibility. Just because someone's rich doesn't mean that what they're selling you will make you rich.
More often than not, it means what they're selling you has already made them rich. Number three, is the advice trying to be universally applicable? If someone says this investment strategy works for everyone, they're lying.
And bluntly, they're completely irresponsible. There will never, ever be a one size fits all in personal finance or for anything.
Just as we would never go to the doctor and feel confident if they were prescribing the same medications for all 50 year olds. Why on earth would I buy a course that says it's a wealth builder for all 50 yearolds? Number four, does it align with common sense? Let's go back to some of the tried and true wisdom.
If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. And you can usually rest assured, again, that that person is just employing certain tactics to produce the very angst and greed and fear, our primal emotions, to get you to feel as if you need this product.
It works. That's why they do it.
And it sucks. And number five, and this is one that is not talked about frequently, though I have seen it become more pervasive in the social media landscape, and it's very hard for me to watch.
Are they telling you that their product is the right product at the expense of another product? I see this all the time with insurance agents saying that the 401k is a scam, or with financial advisors telling you that whole life insurance is a scam. Guess what? Every single financial product or account that I have ever seen or that I know about, including both a 401k and, dare I say, whole life insurance, can absolutely work to solve a certain problem for the right person at the right time.
And anyone who tells you otherwise simply does not deserve your business because they're not offering you truth, they're not offering you nuance, and they're not offering you a full array of options that may or may not work for you. In business, this is why I would always rather have worked for a boss or have been a boss myself who always wanted the best for their employees, even if that meant the employees would grow out of their current roles and leave their current jobs.
Learn to trust people who want to help you or see you succeed, even and especially if that success involves your shifting your talents or your resources beyond their jurisdiction. Yes, it can be tough to find the right resources, but bluntly, ChatGPT and Claude and AI in general are becoming better and better for this purpose.
Ask it directly what you're thinking about doing and ask it to pose as someone who's trying to talk you out of it, or give you a list of red flags or reasons why it might not be the best information. And at least you'll have a quasi-objective ally in your search for legitimate information and guidance, an ally who is not trying to sell you something.
To recap, number one, name the problem. If you can't define it, you can't fix it.
Number two, prioritize one problem at a time. If you're trying to fix everything at once, you're not going to fix anything ever.
Number three, vet the information you consume. Learn to spot good advice from noise, and the primary litmus test is seeing if there's a conflict of interest for what they're telling you.
If you get good at these three things, you will solve more problems, you will make more progress, and you will build a life that actually moves forward instead of feeling stuck in one place. In closing, and to always be as open and vulnerable with you as possible and offer you as much insight as to how I personally apply these very principles on a daily basis to my own life and my own business, number one, my current problem right now is that I am feeling tired of producing short-form video content as it's often incomplete information and it doesn't allow for nuance.
Number two, thus I have prioritized that problem by committing more hours each day to working on and developing the podcast and trying to get as many people from the short-form video space over to the long-form audio space so we can spend more quality time getting higher quality content. Number three, and I have committed dozens of hours to studying top podcasters and being in touch with them to get feedback on what has worked for them and what hasn't, what equipment, what platforms, etc.
And I am only getting in touch and learning from genuine practitioners who have clear expertise and a wide content base of high-quality information to show for their efforts. And surprise, all of them have offered the feedback for free.
That is how I use this framework, and it works, and I would encourage all of you to adopt it for your own use at your own discretion. Until next time, keep it simple, keep it focused, and in the wise words of Socrates, the beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms.
So always start by naming the actual problem. Thanks for tuning in to your Money Guide on the Side.
If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to visit my website at tylergardner.com for even more helpful resources and insights. And if you're interested in receiving some quick and actionable guidance each week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter where each Sunday I share three actionable financial ideas to help you take control of your money and investments.

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Until next time, I'm Tyler Gardner,

your money guide on the side,

and I truly hope this episode got you one step closer

to where you need to be.