The Optimists Die First…
The Optimists Die First
Entrepreneurship is hard.
Real estate development is hard.
If you’re an Eternal Optimist, you won’t last. The Optimists Die First…
On Pessimism and Optimism
Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl, and Courage Under Fire by James Stockdale are both moving and powerful books, which have had a significant impact on my life.
Viktor Frankl was a prisoner in a concentration camp during WWII and James Stockdale was a Prisoner of War during the Vietnam War.
Later, both men shared their opinion on what it took to survive and said the people who didn’t make it were the Optimists.
When Jim Collins, for his book Good to Great, asked Stockdale what sort of people didn’t make it out of the camp, Stockdale’s response was clear: “Oh, that’s easy. The optimists.”
“They were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they’d say, ‘We’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart.”
The Optimists Died First.
Frankl, in his discussion of the concentration camp would note the increase in the number of deaths shortly after Christmas…When the optimists lost hope…
You see, it wasn’t the result that mattered, it was the result relative to their expectation.
I bring this up based on a conversation I had with one of my business partners.
He was down on everything we’re dealing with. The challenges of being a real estate developer. The challenges of being an Entrepreneur.
I had to tell him, Partner, don’t be so pessimistic.
You see, the pessimists didn’t do much better than the optimists.
The optimists died first, when the brutal reality didn’t live up to their expectations.
The pessimists didn’t last much longer. They died when the brutal reality they were living held no hope.
Clearly, he had a reasonable response to my statement…Help me see why you’re so optimistic…What are you seeing differently than me?
My reply was simple, Partner, I’m not Optimistic…The optimists died first…
Brutal Optimism
Both Frankl and Stockdale contemplate a similar concept, which I’ll label brutal optimism, which is how I lead my life.
Brutal Optimism combines two features.
Brutal Reality
We recognize the reality we’re in, inclusive of the brutal facts, whatever they are.
I often write about how life is simple:
- Know what you want
- Understand what it takes
- Do the work. Day in. Day out
Let’s break that second step into its two component parts.
To understand what it takes, as Ray Dalio says, we need to understand:
- The obstacles in our way
- How we’re going to overcome them
At my last job, we often did a Brutal Facts exercise.
In my life, I’ll often do a Brutal Facts exercise.
That is, I’ll ask myself, what are the obstacles in the way of me achieving the goals I want to achieve. For example, in our business, here’s some Brutal Facts:
- Limited team size
- Limited capital available
- Long development timelines
- Reduced knowledge of our current market
- The presale market in Victoria is currently frozen
These are Brutal Facts and there are a lot more on the list.
I can lament them.
They can cause me to be pessimistic.
Or, I can take a Stoic Approach to the Problem.
The Stoics, and later Stephen Covey, contemplated the idea of Locus of Control. That is, only focus on what you can control.
Given that, I would take the complete list of brutal facts and separate them into:
- What I can control
- What I cannot control
My focus would be on what I can control.
Optimism
Optimism may be the wrong word.
It’s not about the rose coloured glasses.
It’s not we’re going to be rescued by Christmas or Easter.
It’s an unwavering faith we’re going to reach our desired endpoint.
I have an unwavering belief we’re going to be a successful real estate company in ten years.
This is what I explained to my Partner.
Every single challenge we’re facing is simply a roadblock – they’re the obstacles in our way.
Every single challenge we face. Every roadblock or obstacle can and will be overcome…That’s how we’ll succeed.
At every stage of our business, the obstacles will change. The roadblocks will be different. What won’t be different is my conviction we can overcome those roadblocks through a simple exercise:
- Identify the roadblocks (Brutal Facts Exercise)
- Align on how to overcome the roadblocks
- Do the work required to overcome
It’s that simple.
When you break it down that way, pessimism disappears.
The pessimism is fear we won’t be able to achieve our goal and that fear is there because we haven’t though through the brutal facts and ways to overcome those facts so we feel overwhelmed and devolve into pessimism.
No, my friends.
We will not be pessimistic.
Neither will we be naive optimists.
We will be Brutal Optimists or Pragmatic Optimists.
Recognizing there are obstacles in our way and knowing we will overcome those obstacles within our control.