The GP's Mouthwash — Why Business Owners Keep Treating the Wrong Problem

About this episode

Tom Foxley discusses how business owners often treat the wrong problems, using a personal health experience as a metaphor.

For about a month, Tom Foxley's tongue felt like it was housing a small mammal. He knew from the start he should go to the dentist. But she's expensive and her waiting room has a specific combination of clinical smell and Radio 2 that he finds miserable. So he went to his GP instead — easier, more accessible, felt like doing something. The GP prescribed medication and a mouthwash. His tongue didn't improve. His teeth started staining. He'd created a new problem by treating the original one incorrectly. When he finally booked the dentist, she physically recoiled at what he'd been prescribed. Thirty minutes later: teeth back to white, actual solution in hand. Salt water with a pinch of bicarb. Free. Thirty seconds. Perfect for the problem. All of it avoidable if he'd just gone to the right person at the start. In this episode, Tom maps that experience onto the pattern he sees most consistently in business owners — something that's been off for a year or longer, that they know is there, but instead of addressing directly they reach for the accessible option. Podcasts, books, breathwork, meditation apps. All decent things in the right context. But for the specific problem of having…

People in this episode

Host: Tom Foxley

Topics covered

• business problem solving
• mental fitness
• operating system
• business growth
• self-improvement

Keywords

• business owners
• problem solving
• mental fitness
• operating system
• self-help

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Radio 2

Products: mouthwash, medication, salt water, bicarb

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