2. The FAFO Method — Why and How to F*ck Around and Find Out in Your Business

Introducing the most powerful tool in your business toolbox: The FAFO Method. 

FAFO means "F*ck Around and Find Out," and it's the best way I've ever found to make meaningful changes in all areas of life. Any time you catch yourself asking, "What if . . . ?" or saying, "I don't know how to . . . " that's a cue to bust out the FAFO method.

FAFO Step 1: Identify the question you want to answer.
FAFO Step 2: Pick a hypothesis to test.
FAFO Step 3: Design your experiment.
FAFO Step 4: Run the experiment.
FAFO Step 5: Conclude the experiment and document the results.
FAFO Step 6: Evaluate your results and draw a conclusion.
FAFO Step 7: Repeat.

For Step 6, here are some questions to help you evaluate the results and use what you learned:

• What did you SAY you were going to do?
• What did you ACTUALLY do?
• On a scale of 1 (not at all) to 10 (completely), how closely did you follow the original plan?
• How do you feel about the difference between the original plan and reality?
• What helped you?
• What got in the way?
• How will you use what you learned in your next experiment?

FAFOing is one of the three components for my change framework: (1) commitment,  (2) non-attachment, and (3) FAFO. 

You can think of the framework for change as a tripod or a three-legged stool. 

You need all three legs or the whole thing falls over. In the context of change, that's what makes things "not stick" or "not work" — it's because we pulled a leg out. Maybe we forgot what we were committed to and bailed on the change. Maybe we got attached instead of staying curious and we got hung up in a key area. Maybe we changed the experiment so many times it stopped being FAFOing. 

But when we use the FAFO method — and partner it with commitment and non-attachment — lasting, sustainable change isn't just possible, it's inevitable. 

When the game you're playing is "f*ck around and find out," there is literally no way to lose. If you found out, you nailed it. 

FAFO away!

Thanks to Samantha Welter for the unexpectedly perfect audio clip that fit so beautifully with this episode. Shared with permission of course!

Prefer video? Watch the video version of this episode on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/BMJhLX_Ysuo

*****
I’m Kristen King, and I’ve been a business coach since before business coaching was cool — since the early 2000s after my first solo business hit six figures less than 2 years out of college. Now, I teach coaches, therapists, healers, and other brilliant service-based entrepreneurs like you how to build their own unique fuck-yeah business.

There's more to me than being a multi-certified coach for kickass entrepreneurs. I'm also a certified hypnotist and a certified mental health and wellness facilitator with an MBA, a master's in publishing, and 15+ years of multi-industry experience.

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Transcript

ep2. The FAFO Method — Why and How to F*ck Around and Find Out in Your Business

[[transcript excludes intro/outro content]

[00:00:00] Kristen King: Hello friends and welcome back to from fuck me to fuck. Yeah, I am super excited today to be talking about one of my very favorite topics, the FAFO method. The FAFO method is an approach that I teach my clients to help them design experiments in their business and in other areas of their life too, to start making quick. 

[00:00:29] Progress without getting caught up in perfectionism. So let's talk about what this is. FAFO stands for, as you may have guessed, fuck around and find out. And when we're designing experiments in our business or for anything else, fucking around and finding out is the name of the game. So before we talk about what it looks like, let's talk about what it isn't for a second. 

[00:00:50] Because I think that since There's a couple different scenarios in life where you can apply this term. People may misinterpret what we actually mean when we're [00:01:00] FAFOing in business. So what we're not doing is we're not doing stuff that's dangerous. We are not doing really dumb things just for the sake of doing dumb things. 

[00:01:12] This is not like a YOLO situation where you're like, damn the consequences. Let's just see what happens, even though I know it's not going to be good. It's not any of that. It's also not being aggressive or punitive in any way. It is literally trying something, fucking around, to see what happens, finding out, and then using that to make decisions about what to do next. 

[00:01:36] And so I have arranged this concept into six steps. And it loosely follows the scientific method, but it's a lot more fun when we call it the FAFO method. So I'm going to walk you through it and we're going to talk about what it looks like to actually put that into practice in your business. This is something I spend a lot more time on in my group program and my memberships and even with my one on one clients. 

[00:01:58] So this is a high level [00:02:00] view. So if you need to listen to the episode a couple times to feel like you really got it, no problem. We're going to move quick. But if you want to go deeper, check the show notes and hit me up and we can, we can look at what might help you. But for today's conversation, let's walk through the six steps. 

[00:02:14] So step one is to identify the question you want to answer the theory you want to test the skill you want to develop. What specifically is it? that you want to find out by fucking around. And a cue that it may be time to fafo something is when you're like, what if, or I don't know how to, or I wonder what would happen. 

[00:02:42] Those are all good signs that this is a time to fafo. So step one is we identify the question we want to answer. And it's probably the thing that, that cued you include you in. That this is the now's the time. Right? So step one is identify the question. Step two is to pick a hypothesis to [00:03:00] test. So what do you think might happen? 

[00:03:02] What are what are we trying to actually find out about if X then? Why? So if you want to FAFO about I don't know, using TikTok to promote your business, what's the hypothesis? Maybe the hypothesis is if I post on TikTok three times a day for the next 90 days, I will generate 15 sales. I have no idea. It doesn't really matter what the hypothesis is, so you pick something that's actually meaningful to you for your business and meaningful to the skill that you're trying to develop. 

[00:03:35] So we've identified the question, we've picked the hypothesis. Next, step three, which is really fun, is then we're going to design the experiment. And this is the thing that we're literally going to do in order to test out the hypothesis and see what happens. So this is really the method by which you're going to fuck around in order to determine whether your hypothesis [00:04:00] holds up. 

[00:04:01] And so that needs to include what you're going to do, how you're going to do it, under what circumstances you'll do it, And for how long and for those of you who have a background in instructional design, this will probably sound a lot like good learning objectives where we're identifying who's doing what to what degree and under what conditions, right? 

[00:04:29] It's the same concept. We just want to be specific. So we're deciding on the front end what's happening and then you can just run. your experiment without having to think about it. So if we use the example that I threw out before, if I post on TikTok for, you know, 30 days, three times a day, I'll generate 15 sales or whatever it was that I said, what we're going to do to, to actually fuck around. 

[00:04:52] So we can find out what happens is you're going to determine what that's going to be. I'm going to make. three videos a day [00:05:00] between 9 a. m. and 10 a. m. and then I'm going to post them at two hour intervals and I'm do it every day not just Monday through Friday and anytime I have extra time I'm going to get one video ahead so if something happens where I get stuck in traffic or I have a guest or whatever I can still keep going right it's just an example of like specific things that you will do in order to test this hypothesis and see what happens so just to recap Step one is identify the question. 

[00:05:29] Step two is pick the hypothesis you want to test. Step three is design your experiment. And so these are, these are the decisions that you're making on the front end that kind of define the universe that we're exploring as we FAFO here. Step four is where we put that into action. This is where you actually run the experiment. 

[00:05:49] This is where you do the things that you planned in step three for however long you decided that you're going to do it. And when you're in step four, running the experiment, your job. [00:06:00] is just to keep doing the thing that was the plan. Now one caveat to this is if you start doing the thing and you immediately get a full body, fuck no, where every part of you is screaming that this is a terrible idea. 

[00:06:15] And like, this is really, really awful. Not because you're uncomfortable 

[00:06:22] because it's new, but because it's actually a big fuck no for you, then you can, you can abandon and you can make. A new experiment, you can either pick a new hypothesis or just design a different way to test the original hypothesis. So don't, don't override your true fuck now. But if the feeling is just like, Oh, this is new. 

[00:06:37] Like we talked about in episode one, then, then you just go ahead and keep going. But it's very important that you don't. Change the experiment and start doing different things in the course of testing. Because when you do that, then you can't actually tell what created whatever results that you determine from the experiment. 

[00:06:58] And we'll talk about that in a [00:07:00] second. So if you say I'm going to post. three times a day for 30 days, and I'm going to do it this way. Don't spontaneously, you know, four days and decide that you're going to post six times a day, three days a week, right? Because then we don't actually know what works. If you have ideas like that, save them for another FAFO, but stick with this one, because otherwise we change too many things, and then we can't actually tell what contributed to whatever the outcome is. 

[00:07:26] Okay, so we run our experiment for however long you set. My recommendation is 90 days unless you get that fuck no. And the reason I suggest 90 days is that it gives you enough time to get into the habit of doing whatever the thing is so it starts to become more easeful and more automatic and you're not constantly figuring things out or trying to like cram it in because you've developed a comfort level with it. 

[00:07:52] But also because it's long enough for you to get good enough at it to determine whether or not you like it. [00:08:00] And the example that I often give my clients is like, if the first time you got on a bike, you fell over, which everybody does, pretty much 100% of humans fall over the first time they get on a bike. 

[00:08:11] If you fall over and you use that one experiment to determine that you don't like cycling, you still don't know if you. Like cycling or not, you just know that you don't like falling over, but you have to be able to get good enough at staying on the bike that you don't fall over immediately before you can actually determine whether or not you like it because you're not doing it yet. 

[00:08:31] You're just learning how to do it. So when you give yourself 90 days to do the same thing to where it becomes easeful and automatic and you develop a certain level of competence with it, then you can determine whether or not you enjoy it and how it feels once you get past that initial hump of developing the comfort level in the first place and abandoning before you get to that point because something is new and it's difficult and you're not sure is one of the most common things they see [00:09:00] that derails people and has them toss their progress and feel like nothing is working because they don't stick with it long enough to actually generate a result because they haven't gotten past the learning how to do it phase before concluding they just suck at it and it doesn't work right but we don't actually know that yet so run that experiment and really stick with the plan you created and the timeline you created unless you get a true sincere fuck now so once you have completed it You're going to conclude the experiment and document your results. 

[00:09:31] You're going to look at what you did. and what you didn't do compared to the original plan. You're going to look at what literally happened and what literally didn't happen. And my recommendation is that as you are running the experiment, you track this shit in whatever way makes sense for you and works for you. 

[00:09:51] Because if you're not tracking it as you go, it will be very difficult for you to know definitively what actually happened. Sometimes [00:10:00] we'll say, Oh my God, I haven't promoted my business all week. And our brain will be telling us that and making us wrong for not marketing enough with giant air quotes. When in reality, we've been posting every day and our brain just sort of told us a lie about it. 

[00:10:13] Right? So it's really important to document that. So when you conclude the experiment in step five, You actually have documented results that you can look at and that you can ask questions about and that you can start to answer questions about. That takes us into step six, which is to evaluate the results and use them to draw a conclusion. 

[00:10:36] So in step five. We're documenting what the results are, what happened, what didn't happen, maybe how that compares to the plan that we set forth you know, all of those details. And then in step six, we make meaning of that because until we attach meaning to it, it's just a data point. But once we attach meaning to it, it becomes information that we can then use to make decisions. 

[00:10:58] So in step six, where [00:11:00] we evaluate and draw conclusions, we're asking and answering questions like what contributed to the results? Did my hypothesis hold up? What else did I learn? What do I want to learn next? What am I going to do with what I learned this time? And then the seventh and final step in this process is to repeat the process by designing a new experiment with a new hypothesis about this question or area. 

[00:11:31] beginning at step two. And if that questioner area is completely done and laid to rest, then you just get to pick a completely new experiment and return to step one, where you're identifying the question. So let me recap the steps for you real quick, just so you have them in order. Step one is identify the question you want to answer. 

[00:11:53] Step two is to pick a hypothesis to test. Step three is to [00:12:00] design the experiment. Step four is to run the experiment, tracking it along the way. Step five is to conclude the experiment and document the results. Step six is to evaluate the results and draw conclusions. And then finally, step seven is to repeat the process, either with a new hypothesis or with a completely new experiment. 

[00:12:28] This is the FAFO method at a high level. And so if you want to play with this, I want to invite you to try that for yourself and see what happens because here's the thing. If we are not actively trying things in our business and learning what happens when we do it, we find ourselves making a lot of unfounded assumptions and they could be assumptions like that doesn't work. 

[00:12:57] I can't do that. I don't like [00:13:00] it. You know, you know, they're not like awful assumptions, but they may not be helpful to you in actually moving forward with the things that you want to do. And when we do a FAFO experiment, when we we run a FAFO, or when we're FAFOing things, however you want to say it, it gives us a chance to actually develop real concrete evidence that we believe because we were the ones who created it. 

[00:13:25] And it's really different from hypothesizing and keeping something purely hypothetical because we're actually doing it and then we have a real world outcomes and results and reality to base opinions and decisions on. So when you have FAFOD, which I definitely recommend, one of those key pieces is that evaluation piece where we look at what literally happened and what literally didn't happen. 

[00:13:55] And I want to invite you to practice evaluating everything, whether [00:14:00] it's a FAFO experiment or not, from a neutral place where we're literally just looking at what happened and then making a decision about what what we're going to do based on what happened and what didn't happen. So here are some of the questions that I offer to my clients as a stress free scorecard for evaluating when you FAFO. 

[00:14:25] The stress free scorecard, that stress free piece is really important, right? Because we're not here to bludgeon ourselves with what happened or didn't happen. We're here to learn from it. It's not like it failed if it didn't. work, there's no way to fail when the game is fuck around and find out if you found out You won, right? 

[00:14:48] That's just how this goes. So you already nailed it, and now we're just going to look at what did and didn't happen so you can use it to inform whatever you do next. So these are the questions that I offer as that stress [00:15:00] free scorecard to assess your experiments, to assess any, anything that you're doing. 

[00:15:07] So the first one is, what did I say I was going to do? What's the plan? It was, you know, three posts a day, seven days a week, record them, boom, boom, boom, between nine and 10, stagger them out through the day, you know, whatever it was that you put in your experiment design. That's the answer to that question. 

[00:15:22] What did I say I was going to do? What did I actually do? That's where you look at that tracking to see, I said, I was going to do three posts a day for 30 days in a row, seven days a week. I actually did. 24, right? Whatever it was, we just want to look at what was the real life reality performance compared to what we had originally planned, right? 

[00:15:48] And we're not placing any judgment on this, we're just documenting what happened. So then, we're not going to judge, we're just going to compare. The next question is, on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is not at all and [00:16:00] 10 is completely exactly as written, how closely did I follow the original plan? Did I do it exactly as written? 

[00:16:08] Did I? Discover that recording all three videos in one shot didn't feel good, but doing it throughout the day, did you know like how, how closely did I follow the plan and what were the variations that came in? So once you document that, then you can start to explore deeper. How do I feel about the difference? 

[00:16:30] between the original plan and the reality of how I implemented it. Do I like my implementation better? Do I feel good about it? Am I satisfied with it? Did I learn what I wanted to learn from it? Do I want to try it again and actually stick to the plan? Like really, what, what is your reaction to that and how does it feel for you? 

[00:16:49] Next question is what helped me? In running this experiment in implementing this plan in faffing on this topic. What was useful? What helped me [00:17:00] move this forward next? What got in the way? What caused hiccups, obstacles, delays, deviations, whatever, what, what happened there so you can know what are the things that really help you do what you want and what are the things that may get in the way or, or change the timeline. 

[00:17:19] So you can plan for that and incorporate that into your next experiment. And then that is the last question. How will I use what I learned? in my next experiment. Because here's the thing. Anytime you fuck around, you're gonna find out, right? Anytime you fuck around, you're running an experiment, and that's gonna generate some results. 

[00:17:38] And that's where you find out. But if you don't actually look at the results, and if you don't look at what happened to create the results, what contributed to them, it will be very difficult. To replicate that, if that's something that you want to do, if you want to do it again, you need to know how you did it in the first place. 

[00:17:58] If you don't [00:18:00] want to do it again, you also need to know how you did it in the first place, because that's what allows you to make conscious choices to create results you want and to avoid creating results you don't want. There is some mindset involved here, but this is really about putting stuff into action and actually seeing what happens and using that information as evidence to inform what you do next. 

[00:18:29] And when we put the FAFO method together and with This idea of like running the experiment for 90 days and then assessing at the end and intentionally using that to make decisions. That is what allows us to create meaningful, lasting, sustainable change in business, but really anywhere. The framework for change that I teach my clients [00:19:00] is like a, like a tripod or like a three legged stool. 

[00:19:04] There's three pieces to it. One of them. Is commitment. And this is the decision that you make about whatever it is that you want to change, whatever it is that you want to find out about the commitment is recognizing what the fuck you want and why the fuck it matters to you enough to do this. That's the first leg of this tripod or this the stool. 

[00:19:32] The second leg is non attachment. This is how you're going to go after that commitment. It's where the concept of fewer fucks, or giving no fucks, or getting your fucks back comes into play. Because this is where, instead of being attached to it looking a certain way, or deciding ahead of time what the outcome is going to be, we are non attached, and we are curious, and we are open, and we are [00:20:00] willing to just find out what happens on the way. 

[00:20:05] To wherever it is that we're going, right? So we have commitment, which is the decision to do it and clarity about why it matters to you. And that's what's going to carry you through things like running an experiment for 90 days. And then there's non attachment, the willingness to literally find out what happens instead of changing it, deciding, throwing it out because it didn't go exactly how we wanted, whatever. 

[00:20:29] And then the third. Is where the rubber meets the road. The third leg to this tripod or stool is fuck around and find out. This is what we do to make the change happen. And it's really, really fun because when you're taking committed action, because it's super important to you and you're going to find out no matter what, and you're. 

[00:20:52] actually making a plan and running the experiment and seeing how it goes and trying and [00:21:00] repeating and learning new things. And sometimes you'll make a mistake and it's hilarious. And sometimes you'll luck into something cool that you never would have imagined. It is so much fun. And when we approach it this way, it just gets to be success after success, after success, after success. 

[00:21:16] Because again, the more we fuck around. The more we find out and the more power we have to make changes anywhere we want to in our business and in the rest of our life. So to recap, the FAFO method is those seven steps of identifying the question and the hypothesis, designing and running the experiment, and then looking at what actually happened, drawing conclusions, and deciding what your next experiment is going to be. 

[00:21:46] This ties into supporting and putting into action, whatever it is that you're committed to and that you're willing to be open and curious about. And then once you tackle that, you get to use that [00:22:00] low stress scorecard to evaluate and assess. What happened? So you can then use it to keep going. If you ever feel like you're constantly starting over or constantly reinventing the wheel, I want you to stop, pause and look at where you can incorporate some of these steps, some of these concepts into what you're trying out. 

[00:22:22] So you can be constantly building on what you've done instead of doing stuff and then kind of throwing it to the side and doing something else. Right? That's not an efficient way to do things. It's a lot more efficient to use each thing you do to build toward the next thing and the next thing and the next thing than to just start from scratch every time. 

[00:22:43] So this is going to help you do that. I hope that this is useful. I would love to hear what you're going to FAFO. So check out the show notes and follow up with me. Let me know what you landed on. Let me know what you concluded. And if there's any places where you have [00:23:00] questions about this topic, questions about the FAFO method or just in general, the concept of fucking around and finding out in business, send me that too. 

[00:23:08] Cause we can address that in future episodes. Now, before I let you go, there's one other thing I want to acknowledge. And that is that in certain types of experiments for certain fuck around attempts, there is a level of privilege required to be able to do some of those things safely. Not everyone has it. 

[00:23:30] And so it's really important that you look at what it is that you want to explore, what it is that you want to find out about and why that matters to you. And then think about what is a way that you can safely play with that in whatever your situation is. And I think it's very easy to be like, well, if you want to know, just like do an experiment and find out. 

[00:23:57] And like, yeah, that's [00:24:00] true. For some people, there are a lot more considerations and play. I am a straight passing white lady who is living in the US. I own a home. I have a college degree and I am generally not subject to systemic oppression, systemic discrimination. I have, you know, things, things pretty easy because of this unearned identity and privilege that I was born into and did not do anything to deserve and can't really do anything about because it's a thing that other people decide from looking at me, right? 

[00:24:35] I can acknowledge it and I can like be aware of when it's in play for myself, but I can't really. Stop society from treating me that way. There are other people who don't have that same privilege who also can't stop society from treating them the way they have been treated, and it is really important to look at in your situation. 

[00:24:58] What is safe for you to do? [00:25:00] It is safe for me to say fuck on the Internet and let people like it or not. Not everyone has that option. It is safe for me to try things or change my business model and go a couple months without bringing in new revenue because I'm learning something new and nothing really bad is going to happen. 

[00:25:17] Not everyone has that option. So when we talk about what faffoing is It's a process for gathering data and using that data to make decisions. But like I said at the top of the call, it's not a reason to go do dumb shit. It's not a reason to put yourself into financial, physical, spiritual, emotional peril. 

[00:25:38] You have to use your smart brain and your critical thinking skills and your own filtering system to decide how you want to apply this. And I guarantee that whatever your situation is, there is a way to apply. all of these principles, but no two experiments are ever going to look alike. Even if you and I are testing the same [00:26:00] hypothesis, our experiments may not look alike. 

[00:26:02] That doesn't mean we can't both run our own experiments. So I will leave you with that. Go forth and FAFO in whatever way works for you, keeps you safe, lights you up and let me know how it goes. I'll see you guys next time. Bye.