Finding Radical Optimism From Simple Actions

As you’re planning for the next quarter to a year, be honest and realistic with yourself: Are you being overambitious without a viable reason for choosing the numbers you did? Or is it merely because it sounds good?

For example, perhaps you want to double your revenue. That sounds great. How many people do you have on staff? How will you service your clients?

A better approach would be iterative. For instance, keep moving forward, getting 1% better as you move toward your goal (a tip of the hat to James Clear’s “Atomic Habits”). If you remain consistent, your numbers will add up positively for a week, then 30 days. Before long, guess what? You’ve built yourself a habit!

Growth doesn’t have to be a big goal that’s reached on the horizon but a baby step forward every day that compounds into more considerable gains you can be proud of.

This sentiment drives radical optimism, one of the key dimensions of a future-ready mindstate, as defined by Frederik G. Pferdt, Google’s first Chief Innovation Evangelist and author of “What’s Next, Is Now: How To Live Future Ready”.

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What Could Go Right?

Radical optimism encourages us to look for what’s good in life and avoid negativity that might cloud our judgment. It never asks what could go wrong, but “what could go right?”?

This principle doesn’t strive for the pursuit of perfection. Instead, it constantly moves us toward better.

For example, you need to detach from your current best idea to get to the next better idea. You can’t say, “This is it. Nothing is going to be better than this!” This closes you off to receive valuable input from others, limiting the windows of new, unique opportunities.?

We’ve written several posts inspired by Stoicism and one of my favorite principles is that most of what we think will happen is imagined in our minds. To apply that to radical optimism, why don’t we imagine the good instead of the bad, not only in one version of events but many?

This is not a fruitless exercise. To arrive at a future-ready mindstate, you must be prepared for various outcomes based on what you’ve considered about the paths you will take.

As you think through these paths, align with the idea that you are not defined by one path and can envision taking many of them, depending on the conditions in play.

Beyond the numbers and customers you want as a goal, the future-ready mindstate asks you about the story you want to tell. What would that look and feel like if you were to go to that story in your mind?

What would you need to achieve, one step at a time, to reach the destination described in your story? Some call this manifesting.

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Find The Gaps To Making Change Happen

To move the story from taking place in your mind to one you’re ultimately living every day, take stock of the resources you have right now.

If there’s some adjustment to the plan that needs to occur in light of what you don’t have in-house, that’s fine. We’re more interested in making iterative changes so that we keep adjusting rather than resetting.

Ask what you need to acquire to close your gaps. Is it people? Equipment? Capital? Specialized knowledge?

All those gaps can be decided based on what to focus on now. It doesn’t mean you go out and hire people or buy equipment to close the gap. It implies a discussion among you and your leadership team is warranted so you can all be on the same page for where your gaps lie.

I’ll tell you, being the one in the room who has to rein in people and point out gaps in skill or equipment is not easy.

In one of my “past lives.” I was referred to as the cold, sober Voice Of Reason. I considered that a compliment.

I wasn’t a rain cloud or wet blanket. I always wanted to ensure we were dealing with the real world. The more in tune with our present, the more future-ready we become.

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Collect The Dots

Before you can connect the dots to move forward, you must collect them as you can draw a line with one point. So, note every action you do as you make an iterative change.

Each new input presents the opportunity to make a tiny but essential modification so you can keep changing and making one micro-choice after another. None of this is being different for the sake of it but rather to make room for serendipity to happen.

What we mean by that is sometimes the answer isn’t going to just fall into place. However, a series of small but important moves can set the table for greater synchronicity.

Here's a simple example: Let’s say you always congregate in a particular meeting room and the last few meetings haven’t been very productive. You decide to meet in a completely different room instead – one nobody would think of. Or you choose to get together in a private room at a restaurant instead.

These simple moves can shake things up and change the energy of how you think about particular problems, setting the stage for new ideas to spring forth. You may be skeptical of the same people meeting in a different place, but it works.

This is what radical optimism is all about. Making small changes, asking “what could go right” and being comfortable with being uncomfortable may be precisely what you need to think about regarding your challenges in a completely new way.

Give it a try and let me know if it helps get you closer to the future-ready mindstate needed today.?

A Fair View of the future could be a challenge to achieve independently. Especially with everything else on your plate today. If that’s the case, have a conversation with Fairview Financial Advisors about the strategic, iterative changes to consider.

It won’t cause a massive disruption to your everyday operations but will surely equip you with radical optimism and practical wisdom for the future-ready mindstate required to move that much closer to your goals.

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