We grew up asking the wrong question, it shouldn’t be what do you want to be when you grow up. The question should be what problem do you want to solve.

When we were younger, we always heard the phrase “What do you want to be when you grow up?” It is a phrase that I think is still very common to this day, but one that now needs to be modified. I even remember several times during my childhood where I would talk about it and say I wanted to work for NASA, but what did that actually mean once I got there?

Well my childhood NASA ambitions didn’t quite work out but I guess I didn’t stray too far away from those goals either as I became an electrical and software engineer. The problem though was that burning question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” It doesn’t have an sense of purpose behind it.

You can say you want to work at NASA but what does that actually mean? Do you want to be an astronaut, an engineer, an accountant? Do you want to create discoveries, do you want to ensure the safety of the mission, or do you want to create new technology that’s never been seen before? This ultimately comes down to a purpose, and that purpose is what problem you are trying to solve.

I didn’t come up with this idea, and I’m not sure who did, but for the past few years it has been the way I have been living my life. I stopped thinking about what I wanted to be, whether it was an engineer, a photographer, or a film maker; and I started asking the right questions. What problem, or problems, did I want to solve; how could I use my skills to solve it; and how could that contribute to the world?

There are so many problems in this world, just walk down the street or take a trip to foreign country, you will find plenty. These problems just need someone to think outside of the box a bit to fix them. Personally I tend to always default back to building things to solve problems; that probably has something to do with the fact that I was that kid that played with the vacuum cleaner and appliances as a child rather than G.I. Joes. Hence me becoming an engineer.

But that doesn’t mean all problems have to be solved by building a physical product. Take Mantas Zvinas for instance, the creator of Surf Yoga Beer (SYB). SYB is a fitness based retreat company founded in NYC. Mantas saw that there was a problem in the fitness market, and that problem was that there were plenty of people working out, but those people were not creating bonds and friendships with the other like-minded people that were working out around them.

He identified the problem and then started SYB to add a social aspect to fitness, and it has turned into a exciting company that has contributed to creating relationships around NYC, the country and the world.

The way it started was after each workout class that Mantas led, the group would head to the bar to meet each other and socialize. This concept eventually grew into a community and was expanded to the company leading fitness retreats around the world.

As someone who has been on one of their trips, I definitely felt a special bond and noticed the problem he was solving by merging fitness with socializing, thereby allowing people to make friends and create business relationships. You can check out some of the photos from the trip attended in Sayulita here.

The SYB Sayulita group doing a morning workout then socializing in the afternoon.

Another example that comes to mind is couple local residents that started a moment to clean a beach in India. I heard about this story about a year ago now and it was amazing. There is a place called Versova Beach in India; two local residents identified this as a problem and had a dream to clean up the beach and inspired a movement to get others involved to make it happen. 1 million kilograms of garbage later, they had a clean beach to use for recreation. Check out the story here.

These stories happen around the world and we just need to inspire others to get out there, identify problems and fix them. Shown below is another group of volunteers in Mexico who are helping clean up ocean plastic and keep turtles safe while they grow inside of their eggs.

Another group of volunteers creating a turtle out of ocean plastic in Mexico, raising awareness of the problem and cleaning up the local beaches to protect the turtles.

I tell you these stories because there are multiple examples already for how problems are solved and lives are changed, but we need to do more.

The way I have implemented this idea in my own life was to start creating a piece of software that saves people time and frustration. I saw a problem where I was spending countless hours organizing all their media generated by my iPhone, drone and camera; and I set out to solve it.

Check out the announcement of Nomatyk Media Manager. However, this isn’t the only problem I want to solve, I want to start here and then tackle many more. The funny thing is I have learned a ton along the way and ended up creating a job from just by solving my own problems.

So get out there and solve problems, ask your kids what problems do they want to solve, and let’s create a positive impact on the world together.

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