Problem Solving Quotes

“We must harness curiosity, creativity, and diverse perspectives, because today’s standard knowledge will not help us handle tomorrow’s surprises.”
― Roger Spitz, The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption: Volume II - Essential Frameworks for Disruption and Uncertainty

“The future is not simply a continuation of the past, nor should education be. To serve its purpose, education must be relevant to the future, helpful, and fulfilling.”
― Roger Spitz, The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption: Volume III - Beta Your Life: Existence in a Disruptive World

“Creativity will become even more important as the world requires new solutions to new problems.”
― Roger Spitz, The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption: Volume III - Beta Your Life: Existence in a Disruptive World

“Today, when routine cognitive tasks are digitized and automated, and multiple lifetimes worth of information are accessible at our fingertips (much of which rapidly becomes obsolete), the focus of education must shift.”
― Roger Spitz, The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption: Volume III - Beta Your Life: Existence in a Disruptive World

“I'm a Dolphin. I believe that communication can solve any problem if the parties have the will and the intelligence to learn to understand each other.”
― Rick Riordan, Daughter of the Deep

“Spaghetti thinking prevents taking action towards solutions.

If you are frustrated with a coworker, have a child who can’t seem to make a decision or have a friend who seems to have the same set of problems over and over, then they are probably in spaghetti thinking. You ask them something and they get off topic. They talk their way around the real problem. They avoid the most important problem to solve. You want them to commit to solving one problem and they throw 15 other problems in the pile. They avoid real action and real solutions and comfort themselves with venting and overthinking.

Spaghetti thinking prevents clarity, wastes time, and prevents productivity.”
― Sarah K. Ramsey, Problem Solved: Simple Habits For Complex Decisions

“Problems react differently with different emotions:
- Problem + anxiety = bigger problem
- Problem + fear = disaster
- Problem + hope = solution”
― Sukant Ratnakar, Quantraz

“If you deal with a person with a fixed perspective, an explanation will likely trigger an argument.”
― Sukant Ratnakar, Quantraz

“Einstein said, “If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about the solutions.” I don’t think this is because Einstein was afraid of solutions or was just worrying in circles and beating himself up about the problem (as many of us do). I think Einstein understood the importance of getting clear about the problem he was really trying to solve. Think about how often we need to solve the problem of finishing a report for work, but instead we think we need chips. Or we need to solve the problem of getting rest, but instead we scroll through social media. We need respect and acknowledgement from our boss, yet instead of talking to our boss we go home and pick a fight with our spouse.”
― Sarah K. Ramsey, Problem Solved: Simple Habits For Complex Decisions

“Fall in love with the problem, not the solution”
― Uri Levine, Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution: A Handbook for Entrepreneurs

“I was electrified by this theory, I could feel my footsteps dancing and I begin to laugh. I was perfectly aware that I had only added another question to all the others, but it was new, and that, in the absurd world in which I lived, and still do live, was happiness.”
― Jacqueline Harpman, I Who Have Never Known Men

“For us to solve our problems as quickly and painlessly as possible, we want to be completely clear about the real problem hidden underneath the roots. Asking “What is the real problem you are trying to solve?” sounds simple. Knowing the true problem you are trying to solve and then solving it, however, isn’t always easy. Experts in air navigation understand how important it is to stay perfectly on course. If a pilot steers a plane one degree off course, they will be 92 feet off course by the time they’ve traveled one mile. Pilots don’t get to miss the runway by 92 feet. The clearer you are about your own problem, the more likely you are to land in the right spot.”
― Sarah K. Ramsey, Problem Solved: Simple Habits For Complex Decisions

“If you’re having a conversation with someone who is stuck personally or professionally, then it’s likely they are trying to see how many problems they can shove “on their fork” at the same time. Do they realize they are piling up multiple problems like their own little pasta mountain? Probably not. Will putting several problems together as if they were one problem create a mess? Absolutely.”
― Sarah K. Ramsey, Problem Solved: Simple Habits For Complex Decisions

“You can’t hit a bullseye if you don’t know where the goal is and you can’t solve a problem if you don’t know what problem you are trying to solve. If you are leading a team, child, client or employee, then getting them out of spaghetti thinking is the hidden secret to helping them make better decisions. It will also protect your time and energy so people stop emotionally vomiting on you and wasting your time talking about problems they have no intention of doing anything about. We can still be good listeners, but the ultimate goal is to help develop powerful problem solvers. Confused employees aren’t productive employees. Confused children aren’t children capable of reaching their full success. Confused clients leave bad reviews.”
― Sarah K. Ramsey, Problem Solved: Simple Habits For Complex Decisions

“There are precious few problems a good taco won't solve.”
― Steve Multer

“Sooner or later every gardener must face the fact that certain things are going to die on him. It is a temptation to be anthropomorphic about plants, to suspect they do it to annoy. One knows, after all, that they lead lives of their own: plant the lily bulb in the center of the bed and watch it come up under a brick near the edge; pull up a sick little bush and throw it on the compost heap, and ten to one, it will obstinately revive. Usually, though, gardening failures, like airplane crashes, are the result of 'human error', of not reading the directions or paying attention.”
― Eleanor Perenyi, Green Thoughts: A Writer in the Garden

“Nothing is too saturated, you just can't find your own hue.”
― Goitsemang Mvula

“There are times in life when you would realize that no matter what problem is there, there will always be a solution to that. Just be patient, be open, have faith, and be positive.”
― Rifa Coolheart

“If you are stuck in a problem, just think of the worst possible thing that could happen if you ignore it. If you can live with it, just ignore the problem.”
― Vineet Goel

“Professionalism means incorporating character, knowledge, and understanding in solving today's problems”
― Dr. Lucas D. Shallua

“Now and then, we will have something that will put you off your comfort zone in life. A tiny problem or a major catastrophe.
Just say to yourself, This too shall pass.”
― Udayakumar DS, Life of a Sunset Kid

“Computer languages influence how you think about a problem, and how you think about communicating. Every language comes with a list of features: buzzwords such as static versus dynamic typing, early versus late binding, functional versus OO, inheritance models, mixins, macros”
― Andrew Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master

“This is not a problem. A problem is something you can fix. You can’t fix this, so it’s not your problem.”
― Aileen Weintraub

“There are three ways to solve a problem: first, try to completely change the circumstances; second, if you can't completely change the circumstances, try to improve them; and last, if you can't do either of those, change your perspective towards that problem.”
― Narendra Singh Dhami

“Treat every problem as a task and think of the reward that comes after completion.”
― Narendra Singh Dhami

“Most of the year he worked at sea on a whaling ship, and when he was home he worked as a handyman, endowed with a knack for sniffing out both the problem and a solution to virtually any constructional issue by merely setting eyes on it.”
― C J Cooke

“There is no mountain that cannot be climbed, and there is no problem that cannot be solved! All it takes is a greater mental ability than the problem you are facing!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“There are many ways to relax a problem, and we've seen 3 of the most important. The first, Constraint Relaxation, simply removes some constraints altogether and makes progress on a looser form of the problem before coming back to reality. The second, Continuous Relaxation, turns discrete or binary choices into continua: when deciding between iced tea and lemonade, first imagine a 50-50 "Arnold Palmer" blend and then round it up or down. The Third, Lagrangian Relaxation, turns impossibilities into mere penalties, teach the art of bending the rules (or breaking them and accepting the consequences). 180-181”
― Brian Christian, Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions

“Leaders solve problems while bosses create them”
― Dr. Lucas D. Shallua

“the impact of leadership is determined by the magnitude of the problems it solves”
― Dr. Lucas D. Shallua