lets talk about optimism in the suck

1.5 minute read time

Today’s issue: In this one she talks about optimism, think she’s Yoda with how it’s just ‘choices’, and asks 4 questions where you’ll wonder if they are rhetorical or not.

Last Saturday my car decided to stage it’s own bonfire.

I was left standing there, watching the flames in a bizarre sense of calm. Later that night a friend said, ‘You are too optimistic, Nichole.” after telling her I wasn’t worried. It got me thinking.

So let’s talk about this ‘optimism’ thing. In the world of ‘starting a business’ things like revenue, clients, metrics are buzzwords that are supposed to make us feel optimistic, right? But when you don’t have any of those, where does optimism fit in?

No seriously. I’m asking.

Personally, Wil Schroter said it best in his article ‘Am I Lying or Being Optimistic’.

"But let's call our startup optimism what it truly is — wishful thinking for the purpose of aggregating the resources we need to make that thinking a reality. What we're really doing is distracting ourselves with the future long enough to overlook the present.”

I don’t think optimism is living in la-la land or pretending everything is okay when your world is on fire (literally, in my case).

To me life is choices and we have options — A or B.

Optimism to me is choosing the option that aligns best with what you want.

For me, the choice was to see the accident as fuel for the fire towards the life I want to live. Where I have a sustainable business.

It’s a choice.

Some are just easier than others because we’ve been battle-tested.

Here’s a brief history of me and cars in the last 4 years: Two car accidents, one flooded, one repossessed, and now one that thinks it’s in the blowup scene of some Hollywood action movie.

My ‘calm’ isn’t just optimism. Just saying.

Now that doesn’t make the challenge, the pain, and sometimes the not so great options any less crappy.

But the attention isn’t directed at the present.

Now some ‘experts’ might say ‘be realistic’ as if either of us can see the future. But if life is based on our perception of reality then why not conjure up a version where we win?

So let me ask you a semi-leading question:

What is your brand of optimism or future on hard days when you feel like you’re knee-deep in the shit?