3 Ways to Build Resilience with Optimism
Robert Creighton made history as a guest on Off the Rak last week.
“I bet you when you have the CEO of Walmart on here, you don’t get singing on your podcast,” he said. “But I'll give you a little chorus of a song if you don’t mind.”
Then he sang part of "Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams ," a song first recorded in 1931 by Bing Crosby and covered through the years by such luminaries as Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Tony Bennet, Barbara Streisand, and, yes, Robert Creighton .
Indeed, Mike Duke, a former CEO of Walmart, once was a guest on the show , and he didn’t sing. Nor has any other guest, for that matter. In more than three years of talking about leadership on my podcast, this was a first.
Robert could pull it off because he’s an accomplished actor, singer, writer, producer, and coach. He has performed often on television and Broadway, and his album Ain’t We Got Fun! features two original songs from his award-winning musical Cagney, as well as tunes from the early 1900s like "Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams."
What prompted him to break out in song? I asked him to share some advice to business leaders for developing resilience in the face of life’s inevitable setbacks.
Robert mentioned three practices that have helped him sustain optimism and belief through the ebbs and flows of a career in show business, and the first two came from the song.
1. Wrap your troubles in dreams.
When Robert was struggling to find work as an actor or settling for roles in off-Broadway productions, he never lost sight of his dream—to perform on Broadway.
“I kept my eye on the dream,” he said, “and wrapped those troubles as an opportunity to keep moving forward.”
It took 10 years after graduating from acting school, but the troubles faded and the dream became a reality.
2. Remember that sunshine follows the rain.
This line from the song reflects a belief that bad times never last and, as he writes in the tagline to his emails, “Good things happen. Just believe it.” So while he focused on the dream, he also held to the belief that good things would soon happen.
Robert never worked as a waiter in New York, he said, because he always believed another acting job would come. And every time he was about to hit ground zero, he landed his next gig.
“The more you think about good things happening,” he said, “the more they show up.”
An expectation of good things happening makes you more aware of them when they show up, he said, which makes you more grateful for them. And that leads into his next best practices, which is …
3. Practice conscious gratitude.
Robert was reading a book by fellow actor (and fellow Canadian) Michael J. Fox when he came across the line, “With gratitude, optimism becomes sustainable.” This is a great reminder that gratitude isn’t just an expression about things in our past, it also fuels hope of a better tomorrow.
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“That is the cornerstone of my journey,” Robert told me. “As things are hard or get harder, it’s always possible to find something you’re grateful for. And when you’re grateful, you can sustain the optimism that good things are coming.”
Robert’s sense of optimism and gratitude were put to the test during the pandemic. Cagney was an off-Broadway hit and winning awards, he had a steady role in the Broadway version of Frozen, and he and his wife had sold their condo and were set to buy a “beautiful house that we couldn’t quite afford” in New Jersey.
Then the world shut down.
“My income was done,” he said, “with no knowledge of when that might start up again.”
So in September 2020, his family rented a home in Buffalo, N.Y., his wife’s hometown, and he went into “practice what you preach mode.” He felt gratitude for being closer to family, for new professional opportunities when pandemic restrictions ended, for the schools his kids were attending, for the chance to help coach his son’s hockey team, and for time spent cooking with his wife.
“The thing I would say that sustains me,” he said, “is that conscious gratitude. When you feel that gratitude, it's impossible to not feel, as I said before, optimistic or hopeful that good things are coming.”
And they do come. Because when you wrap your troubles in your dreams, the sunshine always follows the rain.
(Note: Robert supports his optimism with actions, and in a future blog I’ll share his valuable insights on preparation.)
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Walt Rakowich's passion to help shape a generation of leaders who lead with honesty, humility and heart inspired him to launch Off the Rak: Conversations on Transformative Leadership. Featuring rich and raw conversations with notable leaders across different industries, Off the Rak inspires curious leaders to embrace challenges, seize opportunities and become positive influences in their world.
Learn more about Off the Rak and watch past episodes here .