I stood outside a coffee shop one day, thoroughly bugged. About what? I’m not 100% sure, but I’m confident it landed somewhere in the realm of my leadership or my church or my situation in life. Historically, I’ve found myself bugged a lot—less so these days, or at least less so about external situations.
Years back, I’d sit as a young staffer explaining how I knew all the changes that needed to be made. I’d know people’s problems before I heard them. Minor frustrations might get treated like seismic obstacles. Then would come the common clichés.
“Nothing will ever change around here,” or, “I guess I’ll have to do it myself.”
It feels good to be bugged. Like you have a purpose in life. I might be prone to think that you’re either a sunshine pumper (🤢) or you are normal and bugged. I chose bugged. Bugged felt better.
There’s a power in pessimism. As a disposition, pessimism travels quickly around others. It’s almost expected that high-performing leaders aren’t happy people because there’s always a way to change, a process to improve, or a person to fire.
There was an era where I talked a lot about wanting to quit my job and get a new one. It probably happened for years—across at least two stops. I sat in a performance eval one time and told the people leading it, “I’m not really sure you want me in this job.” I used to complain—to my boss—that “I don’t know what my job is.” I lived in a mild state of discontent. Not enough to be a huge problem, but enough that people noticed. And I liked living there because it helped me feel important.
Then I got called on it.
“I know you aren’t going to leave, but when you talk about leaving so much, it makes me less motivated to be here.”
The bugged guy in me would want to say, “Well that sounds like a you problem.” I mean, are you really going to let what I say impact how you do your job? Maybe you’re looking for an excuse to complain.
That co-worker (and friend) was right, though. The way I viewed the job, and talked about the job, had an unanticipated impact downstream from me. It created doubts in others and, thus, created drag on our team’s effectiveness.
It’s why leaders of all types need to watch how they talk about the work they do, because the tone impacts the motivations of those around them.
So let’s get back to that coffee shop. I stood outside talking with someone further down the leadership road than I was, Steve. I was bugged (because that’s what leaders are supposed to be) and Steve chimed in—not as a rebuke but as an encouragement.
“If I could encourage you in any way, I’d say don’t lose your optimism.”
Up to that point optimists annoyed me. Sometimes clouds don’t have silver linings. Sometimes days are just bad. Sometimes people really are terrible. And so now I need to abandon my feelings and be the Good Cop from Lego Movie? No, thanks.
But that sentence from Steve shifted something in me, and it changed my take on optimism. I had previously viewed optimism as telling people everything would be fine even when it wouldn’t be—almost like a way of lying to yourself or others to make everyone feel better. (That version of optimism is what Jim Collins confronts in Good to Great while talking about the Stockdale Paradox. However, in that example, the optimists are the ones who essentially fabricate why everything will be okay. They don’t see the true picture, or at least won’t believe it.)
But optimism isn’t false hope or puffery. It isn’t sunshine pumping or being the Good Cop. I’ve changed my view—optimism is an unchanging confidence that the situation, as good or as bad as it might be, will be okay.
And it can change you and those around you.
Doesn’t sound very magical, does it? Anyone could throw a dart and get close to that definition. I could’ve, too. But I couldn’t make the switch to living that way. I was in too deep to my feelings. I needed Steve’s redirect to keep me moving.
I’ve realized, for me, optimism has to be more a discipline than a disposition.
As I settled into a different approach, I noticed some specific changes—both in how I spoke and how I acted. I’ll highlight three.
First, I had to quit complaining. I don’t like calling it complaining, but that’s what it was (a parent might call it “whining”). I complained about how “things will never change.” I complained about how I knew better ways. But that habit had to die.
Second, I had to increase encouragement. If you don’t complain, what do you replace it with? This means I’d have to purposefully highlight what’s going well, what I loved, or what I saw could happen. I would chime in during meetings and 1:1 convos on the improvements, rather than just talk about problems.
Third, I had to take ownership of my responsibilities. It wasn’t my job to complain. It wasn’t my job to point out other people’s problems. It wasn’t my job to sit around bugged. Never was. I’ve found that my job has enough to manage without me emotionally managing everything else.
I’m still growing here, and I doubt people would peg me as an eternal optimist or anything of the sort. However, I know I’ve grown and know there’s more to come. And I am grateful for brief conversations outside coffee shops with Steve that show me a better way.
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