How to Fix the Thing That's Secretly Slowing You Down
Welcome to One Thing Better. Each week, the editor in chief of Entrepreneur magazine (that's me) shares one way to achieve a breakthrough at work — and build a career or company you love.
Today's edition is sponsored by HoneyBook – the leading AI-powered business management platform for service-based businesses.
When something breaks, we know it. And hopefully fix it.
But what happens when something only sorta breaks — like when a system, process, relationship, or job still functions, even though it's become partially terrible.
The answer: We keep it. Then we make excuses for it, even as it slows us down, frustrates us, costs us money, or drains our energy. We say: Yeah, but it's not bad all the time...
But let me tell you something: There is nothing more dangerous than a thing that sorta still works.
You have something in your life like this. It might be large or small. Today, I'll help you find it — and then do something about it. And I'll start with a small, sorta-still-works thing that caused me years of pain.
My least-favorite routine
For as long as I can remember, I've hated trimming my beard. It's a lengthy, painful ordeal — which is why I often let my beard grow for weeks, until it's intolerably bushy. Then, on a morning with plenty of time, I embark upon The Process.
First, I shower to make my skin and beard soft. Then I pull out this thing:
That's my beard trimmer. I turn it on and get to work — slowly, carefully moving around my face, as the machine catches and yanks my facial hair. I've developed a little start-stop motion, hoping to lessen the discomfort.
As I was doing this last month, I started to wonder: Why is my beard so tough?
And then I thought: Wait, what if my beard is totally normal?
And then, for the first time ever, I thought: What if… the trimmer is the problem?
This might sound obvious to you, but it was not for me. Here's why:
I started dating a girl named Jen in 2008. She told me I'd look good with a beard, so I grew one for the first time, bought a beard trimmer, and then kept everything. Seventeen years later, I still have a beard, still have the same trimmer, and Jen and I are married.
As a result, I like this trimmer — and I like how long I've had it. It still works, so why would I throw it away? That's why it never occurred to me: Its blades are dull. That's what's hurting me.
The trimmer only sorta still works.
What's your sorta-still-works?
I started to think about my beard trimmer as a metaphor.
All this time, I knew I had a problem — shaving was painful! But because the trimmer sorta worked, I never considered it a problem. Instead, I assumed that my face was the problem!
And I wondered: How often do we do this to ourselves?
It's the relationship or friendship, or at least some part of it, that brings us more frustration than satisfaction. Or it's the job that's fine on a day-to-day basis, but where we will never truly grow. Or it's the thing we sell that people buy, but never return to buy again.
These are the things we overlook because they sorta work.
But that should not be enough. We deserve things that fully work — or at the very least, we deserve to know exactly how something does and does not work for us, and how to gain control of that thing, and how to get what we fully need.
And how do you do that?
Here's how: You stop doing what people hate.
That's a line I picked up from my friend Jesse Cole. Years ago, he bought a tiny baseball team in Savannah, Georgia, and then nearly went bankrupt running it. Nobody wanted to go to his games.
So out of desperation, he stepped back and asked himself: What do people hate about baseball? And what would it mean to stop doing what people hate?
He came to many answers: People hate that it's slow and boring, and that the food is expensive. So he renamed the team the Savannah Bananas, hired players to do silly dances and stunts, and offered all-you-can-eat food.
It's such great business advice. After all, nobody wants to do something that people hate. But haven't we all built systems, or made offers, or created hurdles that people hate? Haven't we all just... tolerated it, thinking that's the only way to do it?
OK, now why not turn that mandate on ourselves? Are you doing something that you hate? Stop doing that.
This isn't about quick fixes. It's about building an intolerance for problems — and an intolerance for whatever's causing those problems, even if they're things you think still have value. It's about thinking: When something is annoying, or frustrating, or outright painful, what happens if I commit to fixing it?
I'm reminded of a conversation I had with my physical therapist, Renuka Pinto, when I was recovering from ACL surgery years ago. Many clients see her after living with pain for years, she told me. They just assumed that pain was normal.
"You don't have to live with pain," she told them. "Pain is not normal."
Her patients did not know this. Their bodies only sorta still worked. They were tolerating something they did not have to tolerate.
Yes, getting rid of pain often requires some pain.
But here's the thing: Then it's over.
This is what I did.
I told my wife about my small revelation — that my nostalgic, old beard trimmer no longer worked. She said I was crazy for keeping it as long as I did. Then she bought me a new one.
I tried it. It trimmed so easily, and so not painfully, that I literally laughed out loud in the bathroom.
Not every problem is as easily solvable, of course. Some require hard conversations or hard decisions. You might leave a job or kill a product. A relationship may end, or new terms are established.
I'm not saying you must get rid of whatever only sorta still works. Maybe it's a job that still has merit, or a relationship that still brings you enough joy. But I am saying that you should solve the "sorta" part of the problem: Identify what only sorta works, and the problems caused by it, and make sure you're not just living with the pain because you think it's normal.
When something still sorta works, we tend to ignore it. So don't ignore it. Identify it. Then either fully fix it, or fully break it, or do whatever you need to do to make sure it's not sorta anything anymore. It's fully whatever you need it to be.
That's how to do one thing better.
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P.S. Are you a CPG founder struggling with a problem? My team can help — for free! On April 3, we're hosting a free "office hours" where we'll take questions about branding, marketing, sales, operations, fundraising, and more. Register here.
P.P.S. Did you see the new King Arthur story? It was written in the 1200s, stuffed into the binding of a book in the 1500s, and scientists just used multiple technologies to read the whole thing. I'm obsessed with stuff like this — because it reminds me how much hidden information is still out there, just waiting to be found, if only we develop the right ways to look.
P.P.P.S. Want to share this newsletter? I'd love if you did. You can find the web version of today's edition (and all previous editions!) right here.
P.P.P.P.S. Miss last week's newsletter? It highlights that confidence isn't about being perfect, it's about this (read here.)
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