2626: Have You Asked?

LifeBlood: When we see a big problem, what's our first instinct? Do we ask who should pay? Or do we ask who is best equipped to help solve it? This episode explores a simple but powerful question: Have you asked? Using Elon Musk as one example, not as the point, we examine a much bigger idea about how healthy societies solve problems. Money alone rarely solves problems. Leadership does. Competence does. Builders do. Want to say “Thanks!” You can buy us a cup of coffee. https://www.buymeacoffee.com/lifeblood George’s newest book is available! Get your copy of You’re Money Isn’t the Problem- You Are here: https://amzn.to/4uDYFRz Feeling busy but unfulfilled? The Meaningful Few helps you identify what truly matters, eliminate distractions, and live with intention and clarity. Learn more here: https://www.mymeaningfulfew.com/ Thanks, as always for listening! If you got some value and enjoyed the show, please leave us a review here: ​​https://ratethispodcast.com/lifebloodpodcast You can learn more about us at LifeBlood. Live http://lifeblood.live/, Twitter https://twitter.com/ourlifeblood, LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/lifebloodlive, Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lifeblood.live/, YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNQ9Gc4mMwCHZKUHjbt0-qA and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/lifebloodlive or you’d like to be a guest on the show, contact us at contact@LifeBlood. Live. Stay up to date by getting our monthly updates https://george-grombacher.aweb.page. Copyright LifeBlood 2026.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:45Speaker 01

  That more people would ask.

• 0:49Speaker 01

  It's not, who should pay for this? It's not, who should be forced to fix this? But simply, have you asked? Have you actually asked someone capable of solving the problem to help solve it? Kind of a weird question, but I think it gets at something much bigger. Let's take Elon Musk for example. Forget, just for a second, set aside whether you love him or you hate him. Forget politics, forget personalities, just look at the body of work. Electric vehicles. He created and made viable, commercially viable, in fact wildly popular and successful electric vehicles. We didn't think it was possible.

• 1:34Speaker 01

  Nobody else had been able to do it before. Reusable rockets. This dude creates rockets we send into outer space, they return to Earth, and then with a pair of chopsticks, he grabs the rocket, uses it again. Satellite internet. Bringing internet to every corner of planet Earth. It's amazing. Artificial intelligence. Neural interfaces. Robots. Oh my goodness, crazy. It's crazy how productive this dude is. Whether you agree with every decision he's made, isn't, isn't at all the point that I'm trying to make here.

• 2:15Speaker 01

  But what I'm trying to say is, and just remind everybody and point out, he's demonstrated an extraordinary ability to build organizations and to solve the most difficult of problems. To create new categories, new industries, to disrupt, whatever, deconstruct, to do all the things that we seem to really celebrate and like, but not with him. Hmm. So when people see somebody who's accumulated extraordinary, extraordinary wealth, the conversation often starts with some form of extraction. We should tax him. We should take more. He owes society. Hmm.

• 2:55Speaker 01

  Maybe, before we start talking about taking everything, have we ever asked?

• 3:03Speaker 01

  Have we clearly defined the problem?

• 3:06Speaker 01

  Have we built a thoughtful proposal? Have we invited capable people to lend their expertise? Because that's how I approach almost every, every problem.

• 3:19Speaker 01

  Think about what the problem is. Think about, you know, who I'm trying to help. Think about the best way to go about that.

• 3:28Speaker 01

  So who are the people I'm trying to serve? What is the problem they're experiencing? How do I go about solving that problem? Then you look around and you say, okay, well, who's the best equipped person to help solve that? What's the actual problem? What's the plan for doing it? There's the three questions right there that have solved far more problems than simply demanding and extracting resources, because money alone rarely ever solves problems. We're seeing this everywhere now. With going backwards and connecting the dots and saying, we put billions of dollars towards saying that we were going to solve this problem, but the problem actually got worse.

• 4:11Speaker 01

  Not only did we not solve it, the problem grew. It's worse than it was before. It's amazing. Money alone is not going to solve problems. You know what solves problems? Competence solves problems. Execution solves problems. Leadership solves problems. Money amplifies problems. It got me thinking about something much bigger. And maybe we become confused about the roles that our institutions play. You've got government, you've got private business, you've got nonprofit organizations, you've got families, you've got communities.

• 4:51Speaker 01

  Each occupies really important space in society, and each exists for a reason. Each of those have strengths, each of those have weaknesses. Government is really good at establishing rules, protecting the rights of individuals, providing national defense, theoretically speaking, building good public infrastructure, supplying certain public goods that markets alone may undersupply. Businesses, they're awesome at solving problems. People voluntarily choose to pay to solve. Competition that rewards innovation. Waste eventually gets punished. Customers decide. Hmm.

• 5:34Speaker 01

  Nonprofits, they often step into the spaces where profit isn't enough motivation. They rally generosity, purpose, and compassion, and community. None of those institutions are perfect, and none of them should be accepted, expected to solve every single problem. But maybe, one of the greatest mistakes is asking one institution to do everyone else's job. Maybe, just maybe, government shouldn't try to become a business. Maybe businesses shouldn't pretend that they're governments. Maybe nonprofits shouldn't operate without any form of accountability. Maybe families shouldn't outsource every responsibility.

• 6:16Speaker 01

  And every institution has some kind of a comparative advantage. Healthy societies recognize that. Healthy societies allow each institution to become excellent at what it's uniquely designed to do. Now let's imagine something else. Instead of assuming that successful entrepreneurs are adversaries to the rest of us, what if we invited them into the mission? Not merely as donors, but as direct contributors, as the builders that they already are. Just imagine every successful business owner serving on the board of a nonprofit, helping to improve operations, building systems, reducing rate, waste, recruiting talent,

• 6:58Speaker 01

  teaching leadership, sharing decades of hard-earned, practical, pragmatic experience. That's worth far more than just writing a check. Money that can temporarily relieve symptoms, right? But competence can permanently change outcomes. Those are just vastly different. Money can alleviate symptoms of a pain, but competence can permanently change outcomes.

• 7:32Speaker 02

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• 8:00Speaker 00

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• 8:34Speaker 01

  You look back in time, history is filled with extraordinary examples of philanthropy. There's libraries all over the country with people's names on them, hospitals, universities, scientific research, museums, scholarships. Extraordinary. Entire communities have been transformed because someone who had the ability to build decided to build something for others. And it wasn't because somebody confiscated their resources. It's because somebody inspired them. Somebody invited them. Somebody asked. Now, does government have an important role? Of course, absolutely. There are responsibilities that only the government can fulfill effectively.

• 9:16Speaker 01

  Protecting individual rights, forcing contracts, providing for the common defense, maintaining the rule of law.

• 9:24Speaker 01

  Maintaining the rule of law. You know? It's what government's supposed to do. Maintaining the rule of law. These are foundational things. But whenever we encounter a problem, maybe our first question shouldn't be, which government program or agency should handle this? Or, who can we tax to get more money to throw at this problem? Maybe a better question than earlier, maybe the first question should be, who's best equipped to solve it? Sometimes that'll be government. Sometimes it'll be a business. Sometimes it'll be a nonprofit. Sometimes it'll be your neighborhood. Sometimes it'll just be you. Builders don't begin with ideology.

• 10:09Speaker 01

  They begin with reality. They don't ask, who can we take from? They ask, who is capable of helping? And then they invite them to build. Because civilizations aren't sustained by extraction, they're sustained by people who wake up every morning asking, what can I build today? So before you demand someone else's resources, before you assume somebody owes you, before you conclude the only solution is to collect, ask one simple question. Have you asked? Have you asked them for their help? Hmm. Because builders see problems as invitations. Extractors see problems as opportunities to collect.

• 10:52Speaker 01

  Every day, we're cultivating one mindset or the other. Which one are you choosing? Where do you find yourself coming down on this? Is your impulse just to look around to see what resources are available for you to take because you believe that there's only certain, so many pieces of the pie that we're operating in some zero-sum game where you better get yours, otherwise there's not going to be anything left for you? Or are somebody, are you somebody who looks around and says, I see opportunities everywhere? I see abundance?

• 11:29Speaker 01

  I see problems that I can solve, or certainly I can figure out who can actually help me to solve these problems in a competent way.

• 11:38Speaker 01

  And that's how we continue to progress.

• 11:43Speaker 01

  We need space for all of these different ideas and all of these different parties.

• 11:50Speaker 01

  And when we get out of whack and out of balance, one way or another, that's when just things don't go right. Think about just a basic ecosystem. All of a sudden, there's too much of one thing. It's going to destroy the natural symbiosis of what the thing is supposed to be like. Something new gets introduced, stuff gets screwed up.

• 12:11Speaker 01

  Yin and yang, salt and pepper, chocolate and vanilla, night and day, up and down, left and right, conservative, progressive, all these things are required.

• 12:25Speaker 01

  All these things are of value. Let's get back to figuring out, identifying a problem, and then figuring out who can we solve or who's best suited to solve this? And asking, can we have your input?

• 12:42Speaker 01

  A lot of these people, I don't think that they are Scrooge McDuck, Ebenezer Scrooge type characters that are interested in just running over everybody else. I think that they're interested in solving big problems. And they're capable of solving big problems. And if we were to ask them for their help in solving other big problems, they'd probably gladly do that, and I bet they'd even write a check. Instead of trying to confiscate money from them, just ask, invite them.

• 13:15Speaker 01

  And I bet they'd bring all of their resources to bear, as you and I do every day. We have to make good choices, how we're allocating our resources, our time, our energy, attention, and our money.

• 13:28Speaker 01

  If every one of these parties within our society asked those same questions,

• 13:36Speaker 01

  and we were focused on building, on advancing, moving forward, I think that we would find ourselves in a good place. Sustainable success, long-term success. So for you and I, what are we talking about? We're talking about doing our part, by doing our best.

• 13:56Speaker 03

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