TEDLeads #7 - DIY Reality. Believe

Belief - my favourite leadership and life quality. I'm drawn to people who act from it. And I'm challenged by them too.

Belief gives us purpose and direction.

When we believe something our brains behave as though it's true. Hence...DIY reality! If you believe something is true - for you it's also real. So choose what you believe with care.

On to Leadership Trait #7 – DIY Reality. How to lead from inside and get what you REALLY want.

Belief creates a Ripple Effect. Whatever results you get in life start and end with you.

What is Ted Lasso's core leadership quality? What internal reality does he add to his world?

Believe. (Anything IS possible.)

I find it easier to follow someone who's innately positive (OK- their values need to align too) vs someone who's excellent at simply identifying what could go wrong.

Ted remains positive no matter what happens. Because experience tells him there's always a way. Because he believes this, he behaves as if there's always a way. And, as a result, he always finds one - in any situation, no matter how challenging or stressful it is.

But - this optimism apparently caused the demise of his marriage. 'Too positive' - all the time. I've heard rumblings about him embodying toxic positivity.

Side note - What is that? “Toxic positivity?is positivity given in the wrong way, in the wrong dose, at the wrong time,” says David Kessler (a grief expert).?It means minimising painful human emotions. We can hardly accuse Ted of doing that to others, although he does suffer from personal denial to minimise his own pain.

Those who can’t accept Ted’s personal belief system or his positivity - that anything IS possible - or his accompanying affable, cheerful 'let's get on with it' attitude - seem to be unhappy people.

Is it true that belief and being positive are blind-spots if others don’t feel the same way? Perhaps. In reality, as a leader, it's impossible to cater to everyone's emotional state all the time.

When does being positive fail to pay off? When you're handling someone who's not feeling OK inside themselves and who need to externalise this onto someone else. Ted was always going to lose Nate's support because Nate’s battle was the inner leader and what drives us.

I believe Ted is a (rare) DNA-based-optimist. It’s how he’s wired - to believe.

For me, this - and his optimism and positivity - are wildly contagious. He turns difficult people and situations around. And those who set out to destroy him reverse their polarity. From the Richmond boss who set him up to fail, to the sceptical (and thankfully responsible) journalist Trent Krimm, to the wayward must-dominate-little-boy-in-a-man's-body, Jamie Tartt – Ted’s uncompromising belief and innocently positive nature spreads like a virus.

Back to belief. I know firsthand – that when you choose (yes it’s your choice) to

1. Believe in yourself
2. Believe in others (even when they don't believe in themselves)
3. Take only actions tahta are consistent with your beliefs being true
4. You will get the result you believe ares possible.

This is true belief – against any odds, ‘facts’, old stories such as ‘I can’t’, and independent of whatever the naysayers may say.

Call Ted an optimist. Call me one. Call us both toxically positive.We might agree.

Don't agree that belief matters? I'm open - share your alternative? Give me one I can choose to believe that creates a better outcome and I’ll consider it. Until then…

If you want to inspire anyone. Have courage abnd show everyone who you are, believe in yourself, in them, and in what you want. Show them your belief. Stay positive about what you can achieve together. And then go and do it - together.

In short, build your own reality.

Summary

What I love most about Ted? Belief.

We live in a time where we all need things and people to believe in. More than this Ted shows us what it means to believe in ourselves.

One last thought…

Remember - your brain works with the information you choose to feed it. If you feed it with negative stories about what’s impossible and you’ll probably create that. If you feed it with evidence and actions that will create what you want and stick with it - you'll get that.

What do you lose by believing anything’s possible and being positive? Nada.

As Anais Nin pithily wrote

“If you limit yourself only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want,

and all that is left is compromise.”

Doesn't sound like a great leadership outcome to ,