Optimism Reminder

I've noticed an uptick in optimistic talk lately.

Away from the general counter to 'doomsters and gloomsters' about matters global politik. Focused rather on us, the humble seller.

My recent post noting Grand Slam winning sportsman Rory McIlroy's predilection for optimism as a pillar of his victory mindset stays with me.

With MSM, Big Finance and those good ol' metropolitan liberal elites rushing to tell us a downturn is a-coming, the rebuff of superstar salespeople from days of yore popped into my head. One even had a makeshift sign on their desk;

"I am not participating in any recession, thank you".

Lovely.

I think it fair to say others view me as an optimist. I've always considered myself to be so. Yet seldom crossing that line into the dangers of deluded dreamland hopeium.

The grounded optimist tends to win.

Plenty of research backs this up.

Here's one such list I spy (albeit from suspiciously looking like one of the far too many self-garlanding 'coaching program gurus' we need such less of that they should pretty much all disappear);

• The University of Pennsylvania found that optimistic sales professionals outsell their pessimistic counterparts by 56% (HBR).
• Researchers from Stanford University found that optimists have higher quality and longer-lasting romantic relationships (Verywell Mind).
• Optimists are 40% more likely to get a promotion over the next year, five times less likely to burn out, and six times more likely to be highly engaged at work (HBR).
• Optimists tend to have a 15% longer lifespan and a 50% greater chance of living past 85 than pessimists (Heart&Stroke).
• Optimists save more. One study found that 90% of optimists have put money aside for a major purchase compared to just 70% of pessimists. And two-thirds of optimists have started an emergency fund, while less than half of pessimists have done the same (HBR).

I've blogged on this very topic down the years.

One of my favourite such findings comes from an instigator of a positive thinking movement and Learn Optimism author, Dr Martin Seligman.

I came across it around a quarter-century ago. A corporate sales leader told me how he was adapting his recruitment procedures. To encompass a study he at the time said was of Canadian insurance salespeople. There was an overwhelming conclusion.

The trait above all others that signals potential sales success is optimism.

I later found this was a keystone Seligman study.

The behavioural science Nudgers (Thaler & Sunstein) avidly add;

“Optimistic sales agents … significantly outsell pessimistic ones”.

There is naturally the folly of optimism bias. Yet as said before, it is those who are positive in outlook but guard against such overshoot that succeed.

And remember that, according to the original source, this winning behaviour can be learned.

Beyond ourselves though, there's also an interesting slant within those that we deal with at work.

Ask your colleagues/charges/clients. Find their own sensitivity analysis on certain issues. As individual and collective. Can we plot the upper and lower limits they see? Then spot where their line is drawn in between?

If we uncover that learned optimism, we want to be alongside them. If we don't, then have they the capacity to themselves 'learn'? And if so are we really the ones to want to help with that teaching?