Hope Is A Four Letter Word

The dictionary definition of ‘hope’ is wanting something to happen or to be true. If we are not careful hope can be dangerously close to wishful thinking. And wishful thinking does not supply any ownership for making the wished-for future happen.

There’s no doubt that hope is helpful. Research shows that belief and expectation generate endorphins and enkephalins in our bodies which mimic the effects of the pain killer morphine. Hope also generates pleasurable dopamine.

But hope as wishful thinking is a gateway to weaselling out of action. It can also set us up for disappointment. As Oliver Burkeman reminds us in his book The Antidote – Happiness For People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking:

Ceaseless optimism about the future only makes for a greater shock when things go wrong.

Fernando Flores, famous for his ‘confrontational facilitation’ style in working with senior leaders declared that:

Hope is the raw material of losers.

The risk of hope is that you are forever waiting for a future that never comes.

So what can we do about this?

It helps to mix up a positive outlook with a good dose of Stoicism: stuff will go wrong, things will be hard, life isn’t all plain sailing.

But the real trick is to move beyond hope as wishful thinking. Hope requires action: seeking out possibilities and a path to success. Critically it also means having the persistence and endurance you need to keep moving get to where you want to be.

For some people this requires some big mindset shifts.

Motivational coach Tony Robbins isn’t everyone’s cup of tea but he has this valuable perspective: don’t look at life as something that is happening to us but see life as happening for us.

The shift is for us to look behind our challenges and to seek out the possible.

Fred Kofman, who was VP of executive development at LinkedIn and then Google, calls this the difference between being a Victim and being a Player.

Hope is not a strategy. The victim doesn’t take ownership for what goes wrong. Life happens to the wishful thinking victim.

There’s a famous scene in Star Wars – The Empire Strikes Back when Yoda is mentoring Luke Skywalker. Yoda recommends a course of action and Luke says he will try.

Yoda replies:

No! Try Not!

Do. Or do not.

There is no try.

This is the language of a Player. The player takes responsibility and is committed to act.

2,500 years ago Lau Tzu said:

Hope is as hollow as fear.

I see this as meaning that with hope we can get caught up in the future rather than the present. The present is the only place we can act from.

On its own, hope is what keeps you trapped in a Deferred Life Plan. A deferred life is one where we assume that working is not living and that living is not working. We suffer the work until it’s finished and then the life we want can start.

One day we’ll have enough money to be able to start living the life we want.

Hopefully.

So what to do?

We must orient ourselves to the present. Acknowledge and accept where we are and the challenges we face. Then we can act today to start creating the bigger life that we secretly crave.

In the framework I use with clients, I prefer something greater than the dictionary definition of hope. It’s called Ambition. I don’t mean the sharp-elbowed get-out-of-my-way version of ambition.

• Ambition includes hope and optimism. These are useful sparks and the kindling that gets the fire going.
• Ambition accepts the reality that your situation is tough. It acknowledges that possibilities and paths to success are not easy. It isn’t wishful thinking.
• Ambition includes that elevating feeling we have when we see a path to a bigger future. It also acknowledges the significant barriers we will need to overcome on that path.
• Ambition says there has to be a way and I am going to find it.
• Ambition comes with grit, commitment and a visceral core energy that generates norepinephrine to mobilize your brain and body for action.

My version of Ambition is H.O.P.E.

H.O.P.E. is a Four Letter Word

Hope – the first spark of possibility: you can live a more fun, fulfilling and rewarding life than the one you have now. But hope can flicker out into resignation. It’s necessary but not sufficient.

Optimism – the on-going trust that possibilities are available: they may not be visible yet but there are many paths to a bigger life and some of them will valuable for you.

Persistence – the drive and determination to keep experimenting: your journey to a bigger life is one of discovery and you have to keep hammering away at it. Martin Seligman calls this never-yielding self-discipline.

Engagement – your transformation journey is going to be hard work. You will need to stay focused, endure setbacks and be resilient. You need to stick with it and not be discouraged.

Underpinning H.O.P.E. is the ability to live from acceptance rather than frustration, resentment or even anger. You will need to cultivate the mood of curiosity: the world is uncertain but you can wonder where it will take you.

Lean into and embrace what might emerge for you. Learn how to be a learner. Life is a place of experimentation: do one thing, see what happens, learn from it, do the next, repeat.

What difference does it make?

Over 10 years ago I was living in a world where I felt unfulfilled and resigned to the path I had taken and trapped in a future I could barely contemplate.

I was a senior executive in a challenging role and financially well rewarded. But with so much missing.

I found myself paying a small fortune for my children’s education yet missing the parent meetings. I wasn’t free to watch them perform at their school events. I paid extra for after school sports yet rarely saw my kids play in their teams.

I’d come back from a week of business travel staying in fine hotels and just want to chill out at home. I was too drained to enjoy taking my wife out for dinner.

Even trying to create ‘quality’ family time by paying for a special holiday could end up with half the trip on email because some crisis blew up at work.

Work had lost its sparkle. Implementing yet another business strategy, constantly upgrading operations, integrating more teams then ‘rightsizing’ the business all over again was just becoming tedious. I wanted something more fulfilling.

My life looked enviable but it was incomplete. It was no longer the style of life I really wanted. It was certainly not the life I craved.

I realised I was living a Deferred Life Plan.

For me, a fulfilling life looked like it was years away. Maybe deferred until after my young children were grown up.

Stuck in my job, I had a vague 'hope' that something better might come along (although I wasn't optimistic).

It was only when I moved beyond hope and into H.O.P.E.

I changed up a gear to be engaged in an active process of doing something about it. And this is where the magic began to happen.

I jettisoned my deferred life plan and began to shift towards living the more fulfilling life that I enjoy now.

There’s no question in my mind that opening myself up to be a learner about myself has been critical to my success.

I became primed for possibility. I learned adaptive resilience and developed an internal security that I can deliver even more for myself and my family (and way more than just financially).

In particular the P and E in H.O.P.E. (Persistence and Engagement) have been critical. And sure, there are always bumps in the road. But life is good.

Ask yourself:

• What bigger life do you hope for?
• What are some of the possibilities that you’d like to explore for yourself?
• What can be done?
• What can be done now?
• What will you actually do?
• When will you do it?
• What do you need to be persistent and fully engaged in your transformation?

Tell me where you need help in your H.O.P.E strategy in the comments below.

PS This article is a slightly modified version of some of the content I give away to subscribers of to After The C-Suite aimed at helping financially successful senior executives break out of their ‘deferred life plan’ and escape to live a bigger future. You can sign up for this here https://afterthecsuite.com/c-suite-escape-guide-1209/