It pays to be an optimist. However, optimism requires immense courage.

If we look at the world, the optimists usually are the ones shaping it. They’re inventing new technologies, building new companies, making better investments, and having more fulfilling personal and spiritual lives.

Optimists are not happy all the time, or wildly joyful “Cup Half Full” people. They are careful and thoughtful. They’re certainly not reckless gamblers. However, optimists tend to have a belief that if they give their time and energy to the right things on a consistent basis that over the long haul, things will work out.

Real optimism is just fortitude by another name. Fortitude in pursuit of purpose. When a person has a larger purpose, they’re able to dust themselves off and keep going in a positive direction.

Pessimists and the overtly negative people might sound smart as they point out all the reasons why something won’t work or can’t happen. Sometimes they are smart, but sometimes they’re covering up their own lack of fortitude by quitting before they’ve tried. Being an optimist requires a long-term view of the world so that emotion does not overly impact your decision making. Some examples of this:

Personal:
The optimists usually tend to make the best of the situations with their family and friends. This is a self-fulfilling feedback loop. The optimists understand not every moment of their relationships will be perfect, but CHOOSE to work hard on the relationships because the relationships are important to them. This choice to work hard and seek out the good, provides the foundation for the relationships to be better.

A pessimist’s relationship may begin to spiral because they can’t see the good, don’t want to put in the work to see the good, or unwilling to put effort into the difficulties.
So, it can all quickly become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

How many couples divorce when going through the normal, everyday challenges that marriage presents? Divorce is a permanent decision that impacts them, their children, families, and finances. Would these couples still get divorced if they slowed down and asked themselves is this just a tough temporary period, or is it a permanent situation that cannot possibly be rectified? What are the long-term consequences of our decisions? Are there no positives in our relationship and our family structure that are worth doing the hard work on?

Investing:
Historically speaking it’s paid to be an optimist over the long term. Going throughout history there have been dangers and reasons not to invest: World wars, heavy inflation, Cuban missile crisis, Desert Storm, Iraq wars, Vietnam, the rise of Communism, the assignation of JFK, pandemics, race riots, ect. Yes, there have been short term volatility during many difficult/uncertain times, but the economies and stock market have rewarded those who stayed invested during times of uncertainty. In this case, historically it has literally paid to be an optimist.

Business:
Nearly every business at one point or another faced difficulties where it looked like the business would not make it. The leaders and team members who had the persistent optimism to keep going when the outcome was uncertain.

Faith
Some cynics criticize people of faith as simple, dumb, or believing in fantasy stories. Yet, what could be more courageous than having absolutely no proof yet choosing to believe? To dedicate yourself to a life of principle. This optimism and purpose may be the ultimate act of bravery and fortitude. Statistics show that people who practice faith experience greater levels of happiness and fulfillment in their relationships and lives. The optimism that is required for faith, most likely prepares people to overcome the difficulties and challenges in their lives.

An important word to recognize is uncertainty. We seek certainty, but the future is unclear. Optimists know it is unclear, they know that there’s a chance that things might not work out, but they persevere anyways.

I believe that the vast majority of companies in the twenty-first century will be in the knowledge creation business. Many will be technology or stealth-technology companies or AI companies. Unlike widget manufacturers in the industrial age, knowledge-creating companies require something qualitatively different from their top leaders and their workforce.

This will require the ability to unlock individual creative potential in the individual and the organization.
The less the leader knows themself, the more likely it is that a rigid context will suck the creative air out of the organization and generate a stagnant culture that can produce but not create. As you might guess, the cost-benefit analysis of this context, in terms of human lives (including top leaders), is likely to result in less than optimal results.

“Anxiety is unfocused fear.”-Dr. Arthur Brooks

Many report to having anxiety. They report trouble sleeping. Feeling exhausted physically and mentally. The number of people that are on anti-anxiety medication is mind blowing. Anxiety can take over our minds and bodies leaving us depleted and incapacitated.

Yet have we ever tried to identify the real source of our anxiety? When we feel anxiety, it’s often very ambiguous. We know we’re afraid, but it is difficult to identify the real reason. The brain craves certainty above all else. So when the future and the outcome are unknown, the brain goes into panic mode.
“The brain mistakes ambiguity for danger.”- Dr. Bill Anton

When feeling anxious, a powerful tactic is first to “Focus Your Fear”.
-Identify the fear.
-Name the fear.
-What is the real fear that is causing me to feel this way?

Strategic Tip: Put your fears into words through writing or speaking. Specifically writing stimulates a part of the brain that is associated with rational thought.

Example:
I feel anxious. Why?
Because cashflow is tight in the business and I don’t know what is going to happen. (source of fear)

If cashflow is tight in the business, what are some real possible scenarios? (and then what?)
Example 1: Our Rational brain: We have some sources of liquidity we can use to get us through this tough time. We could use X, Y,Z… If none of those are good, we could do strategy A, B, C….

Example 2: Our Emotional brain: The bank is going to close on us. We’ll have to layoff all our employees. We’re going to lose our house. My wife and kids will end up homeless. I’ll ruin my kids lives. They’ll hate me. We’ll lose everything. I’ll end up divorced. I will be a big disappointment to my parents and my kids. My life will be one big, wasted failure.

As crazy as Example 2 (emotional brain) sounds, this lives inside all of us. The unknown drives our brains crazy. It turns one unknown situation into an Armageddon that is going to completely destroy our lives RIGHT NOW! Guess what? The entire future is unknown, so the brain will continue to freak out forever, if we let it.

Focusing our fear brings clarity to what is real and unreal. It will quiet our mind. We’ll see that while we cannot know the outcome with certainty, it is very unlikely that the many terrible things in our minds will not come to pass. And if the bad things do happen, it will most likely not be nearly as bad as we imagine.

Practical Takeaway: When you’re feeling anxious, focus your fear. Identify it clearly by putting it into words, verbalizing or writing. This will automatically lead to rational, strategic thought.

It’s a fact that all human beings use only a fraction of their potential.

The difference between our functional ability and innate potential can be thought of as a measure of how much of our capacity we are using to function. Aside from conditions affecting the physical functioning of our body-mind, the greatest restriction to accessing our larger potential is prior learning.

Prior learning often consists of overdevelopment of the parts of us that align with parental imperatives and transformation of the unaligned parts of ourselves in some way that makes them seem to disappear. Although the hidden parts of us can remain silent for decades, they continue to signal us, sometimes faintly, in unexpected ways, often presenting as unwelcome emotions at inconvenient times.

Eventually, and after many rehearsals, we begin to “write” a subjective narrative of who we believe ourselves to be and what we can expect from our lives. Essentially, we are told a story of who we are (often in childhood), then we repeat this story to ourselves and believe the story, until it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Much of this occurs at the subconscious level without us being aware.

Depending on the degree to which individual self-expression was encouraged in our early development, our own perspectives of who we are can range from fairly accurate to almost completely false.
We take this enduring self-definition with us everywhere, and we assess our changing surroundings by how “at home” we feel in the situation. In other words, we seek environments and experiences that validate our self-definition, and we avoid or fail to put energy into those environments that disconfirm that definition—even if it is self-limiting and false. This is how we unconsciously resist change and create self-fulfilling prophecies that prevent us from achieving more of our potential.
The paradox is that our compromises often propel us to excel in narrow ways while simultaneously restricting us from accessing our creative best.

Example : A gifted Olympic athlete who trains for sport and neglects the rest of their development, may win championships but suffer poor relationships and never explore other parts of their potential. We overdevelop the parts of us that we believe are valuable. Business leaders, will often use financial and professional success as the overdeveloped part of the self to validate their beliefs in themselves.

Since we contribute to what we see, we can choose to remain unchanged simply by pursuing those experiences and relationships that validate what we already believe. We all sense that we have more potential than we can access, and all are invited at times to either stimulate or suppress our curiosity about these unknown parts of themselves.

In most business environments, success is measured by indices such as market share, profits, and salary. But rarely is success measured by reduction of the gap between individual (and collective) potential and performance. It should be. Traditional accountability measures would still apply as outcomes, but personal and interpersonal mastery would be added as major goals and objectives.

How much creativity and energy could an organization unlock if each member of the organization was even just 10% better?

I read an article some time ago in the Harvard business that stated:

“To an extent that we ourselves are only beginning to appreciate, most people at work, even in high-performing organizations, divert considerable energy every day to a second job that no one has hired them to do: preserving their reputations, putting their best selves forward, and hiding their inadequacies from others and themselves. We believe this is the single biggest cause of wasted resources in every company today.”
This means that if each person is individually wasting a large percentage their own energy, time, and effort with this behavior, what is the impact collectively across a business? If each individual could use just an extra 10% of their potential towards focused and creative energy, how would that compound across the organization?

I couldn’t agree more!

Source: Kegan, R., Lahey, L., Fleming, A., & Miller, M. (2014, April). Making business personal: Companies that turn employees’ struggles into growth opportunities are discovering a new kind of competitive advantage. Harvard Business Review.

Business leaders are subject to the same developmental consequences that affect all of us. The impact of their early compromises, beliefs, and mental models of their own lives is undeniable to the sophisticated mind. In addition, they are also affected by their organization’s aim and the personal and work lives of those who work in their organization.

When leaders choose to ignore their duty for personal mastery through self-knowledge and their profound responsibility to those entrusted to them, they do grave damage to themselves, their loved ones, their workforce, their company, and society itself. Effectively, leaders can either improve or deteriorate environments for others, and their decision affects performance at all levels of the organization.

People tend to work for companies that reflect who they believe themselves to be.

Companies often employ a subtle operation in recruiting and selecting new hires to insure a good fit. This is done because the organization wants to preserve itself with minimum real change and disruption. Candidates who make the cut and are ready to join are frequently those whose developmental histories have molded them to experience, sometimes painfully, an “at home” feeling that supports their original but limited view of themselves and their world.

If you ever wondered why organizational change is so difficult, it may be because of the enormous inertia created by all these forces. It may be necessary for companies to recruit some “loyal dissenters” to ignite the pilot light of leadership and organizational awareness!

Like many things in life, the instrumental perspective is responsible for both individual and business accomplishment and ineffectiveness at the same time. As expressed by David Whyte in his book The Heart Aroused, “work, paradoxically, does not ask enough of us, yet exhausts the narrow parts of us we do bring to its door.”

In their attempts to address the need for innovation in the context of the instrumental paradigm, many courageous companies have learned to disrupt things in a way that allows the expression of new energy. But do not confuse this type of “disruption” with an attempt to change mental models. These companies often hire narrowly focused people and encourage them to engage in uncharacteristic and divergent ways of thinking, restricting their normal pathways of production and enabling them to create something new. Although useful to the company, the creative product born of this process is qualitatively different and distinct from creativity born of wholeness.

This energy is usually not the result of helping workers liberate themselves from self-limiting beliefs. More often it represents a cathartic expression of what has been suppressed but is still contaminated by their developmental histories, fortified by their accommodations and defenses, and designed to preserve the “integrity” of the early mental models that define who they believe themselves to be. The company benefits in the short run, but the energized contributor is likely to be left in a refractory state until he or she is recalibrated to emit another spurt of tense energy.

Genuine spiritual leaders have long recognized that a transformation must occur in people’s lives before they can become whole. Becoming whole is the process of reducing the gap between the known and unknown part of us and is the basis for liberating powerful forces for good within us. Most of these leaders say that a transition from the unexamined life to a life of inner knowing will liberate the most essential parts of us. In other words, something must occur for us to be at our creative best.

This transition often involves discovering and yielding to some previously unknown power within us. The power seems to patiently wait until our fear of our greatness is overcome by courage and we are ready to discover and be responsible for our destiny. All things change when we do; hence, the word “awakening” is often associated with this transformation.

As a psychologist, psychoanalyst, and CEO coach, I am struck by parallels between personal mastery and spiritual development. I have observed several parallel ideas related to this concept:

a. The potential for spiritual and psychological development is within you and cannot be achieved by focusing on the outside.

b. You must reflect on the beginning of your life and learn who you truly are to liberate the spirit of creation within you.

c. Growing into our greater selves involves a transformation from what was to what can be.

d. The process of transformation involves the death of the familiar and the birth of something new, though we have sensed it was there all along.

e. When this all comes together in our lives, others are drawn to us, which enlarges our purpose and continuously generates creative energy and power if our will is steadfast toward the good.

Unlike business leaders, however, spiritual leaders have long been aware of the enormous forces that must be overcome to become enlightened and stay on the mark. They also know something about the power of nurturing relationships in helping the courageous take a leap of faith when no guarantees are offered. The path to discovering the genius within us is fraught with real and imagined dangers, and spiritual transformation is not for the faint-hearted.

Business leaders are increasingly becoming aware that helping others become conscious of their own tacit mental models is part of personal mastery and is a precondition for developing meaningful beliefs. One’s ability to add value to knowledge creation when part of a group or team also depends on this level of self-knowledge. Companies are systems, and what happens to any component of a system affects the entire system. This last point is seldom obvious to business leaders because, often, the consequences of many of their decisions and actions are only experienced after some time has passed.

Both spiritual and business leaders know the value of helping members of their organizations develop in this manner, evolving their capacity and willingness to offer their best selves. Both types of leaders also know, or at least sense, that information alone is not sufficient to liberate creative energy or make a commitment to personal mastery.