Many years ago, one of my university professors mentioned that “windowsill” was voted the most beautiful word in the English language. Being an armchair linguist, this factoid naturally stayed with me. Words have enormous power. They can make us erupt into laughter or bring tears to our eyes. They can influence, inspire, manipulate and shock. They can build and destroy. Some words have different effects on different people. One such word is humility. It is one of those words that are seldom in neutral gear. Some, like me, love the word and all it stands for. Some almost fear it and interpret it synonymously with lack of self-confidence or timidity.

The dictionary defines humility as modesty, lacking pretence, not believing that you are superior to others. An ancillary definition includes: “Having a lowly opinion of oneself, meekness”. The word “humility” first struck me in the context of leadership when Jim Collins mentioned it in his seminal work Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t. In this book, Collins examined companies that went from good to great by sustaining 15-year cumulative stock returns at or below the general stock market, and after a transition point, cumulative returns at least three times the market over the next 15 years.

Among the many characteristics that distinguished these companies from others is that they all had a Level 5 leader. Level 5 leaders direct their ego away from themselves to the larger goal of leading their company to greatness. These leaders are a complex, paradoxical mix of intense professional will and extreme personal humility. They will create superb results but shun public adulation, and are never boastful. They are described as modest. An example of such a leader who epitomized humility is David Packard, the co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, who, in Jim Collins’ words, defined himself as a HP man first and a CEO second. He was a man of the people, practicing management by walking around. Shunning all manner of publicity, Packard is quoted as saying: “You shouldn’t gloat about anything you’ve done; you ought to keep going and find something better to do.”

Another great leader is Patrick Daniel, CEO of North American energy and pipeline company Enbridge, who espouses two leadership attributes: determination to create results and humility, shifting the focus away from himself and continually recognizing the contributions of others. “I have learned through the lives of great leaders,” he said, “that greatness comes from humility and being at times, self-effacing.”

Clearly these leaders, and many others like them, don’t espouse the meaning of humility as “meek”. On the contrary, it is a source of their strength. But the notion of being self-effacing is one that we struggle with in our competitive culture, prescribing that we take every opportunity to toot our own horn, and that we don’t dare leave the house without our dynamic elevator speech all rehearsed.

We often confuse humility with timidity. Humility is not clothing ourselves in an attitude of self-abasement or self-denigration. Humility is all about maintaining our pride about who we are, about our achievements, about our worth – but without arrogance – it is the antithesis of hubris, that excessive, arrogant pride which often leads to the derailment of some corporate heroes, as it does with the downfall of the tragic hero in Greek drama. It’s about a quiet confidence without the need for a meretricious selling of our wares. It’s about being content to let others discover the layers of our talents without having to boast about them. It’s a lack of arrogance, not a lack of aggressiveness in the pursuit of achievement.

An interesting dichotomy is that, often, the higher people rise, the more they have accomplished, the higher the humility index. Those who achieve the most brag the least, and the more secure they are in themselves, the more humble they are. “True merit, like a river, the deeper it is, the less noise it makes”. (Edward Frederick Halifax). We have all come across people like that and feel admiration for them.

There is also an understated humility of everyday people we work with who have the ability to get the job done without drawing attention to themselves. Witness the employee who is working at his computer into the late hours, purely motivated by a keen sense of duty, the executive assistant who stays after 5:30pm on a Friday night in an empty office to await a courier, or the manager who quietly cancels an important personal event to fly out of town to attend to the company’s business. This is akin to the philanthropist who gives an anonymous donation.

Humility is also a meta-virtue. It crosses into an array of principles. For example, we can safely declare that there cannot be authenticity without humility. Why? Because, there is always a time in a leader’s journey when one will be in a situation of not having all the answers. Admitting this and seeking others’ input requires some humility.

Another mark of a leader who practices humility is his or her treatment of others. Such leaders treat everyone with respect regardless of position. Years ago, I came across this reference: the sign of a gentleman is how he treats those who can be of absolutely no use to him.

Something interesting happens, too, when we approach situations from a perspective of humility: it opens us up to possibilities, as we choose open-mindedness and curiosity over protecting our point of view. We spend more time in that wonderful space of the beginner’s mind, willing to learn from what others have to offer. We move away from pushing into allowing, from insecure to secure, from seeking approval to seeking enlightenment. We forget about being perfect and we enjoy being in the moment.
Here are a few suggestions on practicing humility:

1. There are times when swallowing one’s pride is particularly difficult and any intentions of humility fly out the window, as we get engaged in a contest of perfection, each side seeking to look good. If you find yourself in such no-win situations, consider developing some strategies to ensure that the circumstances don’t lead you to lose your grace. Try this sometimes: just stop talking and allow the other person to be in the limelight. There is something very liberating in this strategy.

2. Here are three magical words that will produce more peace of mind than a week at an expensive retreat: “You are right.”

3. Catch yourself if you benignly slip into over preaching or coaching without permission – is zeal to impose your point of view overtaking discretion? Is your correction of others reflective of your own needs?

4. Seek others’ input on how you are showing up in your leadership path. Ask: “How am I doing?” It takes humility to ask such a question. And even more humility to consider the answer.

5. Encourage the practice of humility in your company through your own example: every time you share credit for successes with others, you reinforce the ethos for your constituents. Consider mentoring or coaching emerging leaders on this key attribute of leadership.

There are many benefits to practicing humility, to being in a state of non-pretence: it improves relationships across all levels, it reduces anxiety, it encourages more openness and paradoxically, it enhances one’s self-confidence. It opens a window to a higher self. For me, it replaces “windowsill” as the most beautiful word in the English language.

Copyright © 2006  by Bruna Martinuzzi. All Rights Reserved. For expanded tips on leadership and humility, see my new book, The Leader as a Mensch: Become the Kind of Person Others Want to Follow.

“Adversity introduces a man to himself.”  This anonymous quote is worth remembering in these difficult times. Most of us are, in one way or another, impacted by the current financial and economic turmoil in the world. Against this tumultuous and uncertain background, it is easy to do and say things that are not in one’s best, long-term interest. Our attitudes are on full display and even magnified in times of collective stress: it is our behaviour in difficult times – not prosperous times – that tests our character and shows the world who we are.
We cannot control rising consumer debt, lay-offs, the mortgage crisis, falling house prices or declining retail sales, but one of the things we can control is how we manage our mind. Here are two quick tips to help you maintain an even mind in these uneven times.
 

Words to Live By – Promise Yourself:

To be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.
To talk health, happiness, and prosperity to every person you meet.
To make all your friends feel that there is something worthwhile in them.
To think only of the best, to work only for the best and to expect only the best.
To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own.
To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
To give so much time to improving yourself that you have no time to criticize others.
To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.
To think well of yourself and to proclaim this fact to the world, not in loud word, but in great deeds.
To live in the faith that the whole world is on your side, so long as you are true to the best that is in you.
 

These words were written almost 100 years ago by Dr. Christian Larsen.  They have since been adopted as the Optimist Creed by the Optimist Club, an international organization which conducts positive programs for children in communities throughout the world.  It’s uplifting to give one’s time to better the community and, in the process, you will grow personally and professionally, as it will give you an opportunity to focus on and enhance your leadership skills.

 Read Bio-Adversities:

Walt Disney said: “All adversity I’ve had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me.”  Derive inspiration from biographies of those who overcame adversity such as Zig Ziglar or Phil Young, (former CIO of Amtrak).  For a list of inspirational bio-adversities, check out:
http://tinyurl.com/dysfwu

Long ago, Horace said: “Remember, when life’s path is steep to keep your mind even.”  Use what is going on around you as fuel to take yourself to a higher plane.  It will benefit not only you, but those who are influenced by your presence.  Long after the current economic problems are solved, people will remember those who rose above the din of the crowd to inspire others with their self-possession, their positivity and their noble mind.

In response to a discussion on the effect of a leader’s mood on the performance of a team, a participant in a recent leadership workshop made this heartfelt and realistic remark: “I cannot see how I am expected to be in a good mood for four quarters in a row.” The point is well taken. But can you afford, as a leader, to even entertain this thought? All of the research on employee performance points to the contrary. There is a concept in French which is called “Noblesse oblige”. It means, roughly, that wealth, power and prestige go hand-in-hand with certain social responsibilities – in other words, with privilege comes duty. It is a privilege when we have the opportunity to lead a team of people, but with it comes many responsibilities, chief of which, some leadership pundits would contend, is managing moods.

In a Harvard Business Review article called Leadership That Gets Results, Daniel Goleman cites research which shows that up to 30% of a company’s financial results (as measured by key business performance indicators such as revenue growth, return on sales, efficiency and profitability) are determined by the climate of the organization.

So what is the major factor that drives the climate of an organization? It’s the leader: in Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence, Goleman states that roughly 50-70% of how employees perceive their organization’s climate is attributable to the actions and behaviors of their leader. A leader creates the environment that determines people’s moods at the office and their mood, in turn, affects their productivity and level of engagement.

 
Afterglow or Aftermath?

Witness the number of times you may have driven home with an internal glow, reliving a positive encounter with an upbeat and supportive boss, perhaps savoring a “bon mot” about your performance that he or she left with you on a Friday afternoon. How great it made you feel, and how eager you were to get out of bed on the following Monday morning, and get back to the office to give that man or woman the very best that you had to offer. That’s the “afterglow” that lingers and gives you renewed energy to be more productive, to bring your finest talents to work.

And think about the reverse of the afterglow – the aftermath, or bitter aftertaste. This is what Susan Scott, in Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work and in Life, One Conversation at a Time, brilliantly calls “The Emotional Wake.” That’s what lingers with you after being the recipient of some acrid remarks from a leader in a negative mood. How did that affect your determination to overcome difficulties in a project, to keep your heart fully engaged in the process, to want to continue to give that person your very best game?
 

Contagion and Consequences

Leadership literature is full of studies attesting to the consequences of a leader’s mood. One such study involved 62 CEOs and their top management teams and it showed that the more upbeat, energetic and enthusiastic the executive team was, the more co-operatively they worked together, and the better the company’s business results. The study also showed that the longer a company was managed by an executive team that didn’t get along well, the poorer the company’s market returns.

Perhaps nowhere is a leader’s mood more crucial than in the service industry where employees in a bad mood can, without fail, adversely affect business. In one of a multitude of such studies involving 53 sales managers in retail outlets who led groups ranging in size from four to nine members, it was found that when managers themselves were in an upbeat, positive mood, their moods spilled over to their staff, positively affecting the staff’s performance and increasing sales. We can all take an inspiration from organizations such as Starbucks who place great value on the importance of creating a positive climate for employees which, in turn, ensures a pleasant customer experience and repeat visits. “We are always focused on our people” is an explicit statement to new recruits on the company’s career site.

When we move the curtain a bit, we can see clearly that a leader’s bad mood is a source of infection – an emotional contagion that eventually spreads across people to entire units. We can learn a thing or two from leadership in the military. Imagine the effect on troop morale and energy that an “overwhelmed”, “anxious”, “worried” or “irate” leader would have? And how about a leader who is plagued by uncertainty? “Indecision,” as HA Hopf puts it, “is contagious. It transmits itself to others.” It can become debilitating and habit-forming in an organization, as people take their cues from the leader’s state of mind.

 
Inconsistent Means Unpredictable

We could argue that the occasional bad mood, the occasional rant, on a bad “corporate hair day”, is excusable. Often, we refer to this type of behavior with statements such as: “She can’t control her temper sometimes, but she is so brilliant”. Or, “He has an amazing mind but he has a tendency to shout at people when it’s stressful.” It is as though brilliance is an excuse for bad behavior. And it may very well have to be in some environments – but the message it sends to constituents is one of inconsistency, which is an undesirable trait in any leader. We want our leaders to be predictable because there is comfort and safety in predictability. Predictability engenders trust and an unpredictable leader elicits anxiety and, in some cases, even fear, both of which negatively affect performance and productivity.

Of course, no leader steps out of the elevator in the morning with an intention to spread a bad mood around but, as sure as there is gravity, events occur during the course of some days that can derail even the best among us. To be clear, we are not advocating that leaders turn into a shrink wrapped version, complete with false smiles and fake cheerfulness. Constituents spot a non-genuine smile anyway and are very adept at noticing when a leader infantilizes them.
 

The Right Mood?

There are, of course, no easy solutions to managing emotions on an hourly basis in the often difficult circumstances in which leaders must operate and make decisions. However, we can draw some advice from another Harvard Business Review article entitled Primal Leadership: The Hidden Driver of Great Performance. First of all, it’s important to note that a leader’s mood has the greatest impact on performance when it is upbeat. But it must also be in tune with those around him.

Goleman et al call this dynamic resonance. “Good moods galvanize good performance, but it doesn’t make sense for a leader to be as chipper as a blue jay at dawn if sales are tanking or the business is going under. The most effective executives display moods and behaviors that match the situation at hand, with a healthy dose of optimism mixed in. They respect how other people are feeling – even if it is glum or defeated – but they also model what it looks like to move forward with hope and humor.” The operative threesome here is “optimism”, “hope” and “humor”. As someone once put it, leaders are dealers in hope.

 
Steps Towards Better Performance

So what are the specific recommendations? Your mood and behavior affects performance. How do you work on attaining the consistent, emotionally intelligent leadership behaviors that breed success in yourself and others? Here are a few other suggestions to consider that can improve your and your team’s performance:

Model Meeting Behavior
Take a hard look at your behavior in meetings, which are often “cauldrons of emotion.” Do you model the way by setting a positive tone right from the start? Or do you impose your own “pace” based on how you feel at the moment? Aim for a calm, relaxed mood, and a consistent, positive approach.

Look For Good In Others
Long before leadership books were in vogue, Andre Malraux, French novelist and statesman, reminded us that one of the central objectives of a leader is to make others aware of the greatness that lies in them. Be known in your organization as someone who is always on the lookout for what is right with people. It engenders good will and is good for business.

Read The Climate
Do you have a good reading of the climate of your unit or organization? Can you accurately sense what the emotional atmosphere is? Is it upbeat? Is it energized? Is it down or dejected? Do people seem slightly apprehensive and somewhat cautious in your presence? Can you ask a trusted acolyte if the atmosphere changes when you are away?

Be Pleasant and Cooperative
If you are an emergent leader, and working on having a pleasant personality is not a priority for you, consider putting some effort into cultivating this prized quality. It is almost impossible to have executive presence without it. Be cooperative, for example sharing ideas and shortcuts. This is another example of how mood affects productivity.

Be Emotionally Attractive
Along that vein, focus on being emotionally attractive. This links to the concept of resonant leadership. Resonant leaders are individuals who have the ability to manage their own emotions and those of others in a manner that drives the success of their teams and organizations. In Resonant Leadership: Renewing Yourself and Connecting with Others through Mindfulness, Hope and Compassion, Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee explain that resonant leaders create a positive emotional tone in the organization and engage and inspire people. As the title of their book indicates, these leaders possess three core qualities which are: mindfulness, hope, and compassion. Consider making these a part of your arsenal as a leader.

Manage the Emotions of Change
Be particularly mindful of how you manage emotions if your organization is undergoing change: how you handle emotions during these crucial times can help or hinder the change process. It’s a known fact that if the resistance to change is emotional, it is the hardest form of resistance to overcome. As the leader handling a change initiative, don’t avoid the emotions that accompany the change process. Set the mood and manage the emotions – or they will manage you.

If you cringe at the whole notion of emotions in the workplace, talk of empathy and compassion, intuition or discussions of emotional intelligence, I encourage you to reconsider this mindset. Hone your intuitive ability, and listen to those hunches that hint to you that something in your behavior and actions on bad days is causing a ripple effect on others. These are the whispers we try to dismiss when we elect to focus only on “rationality”. Intuition is a precious tool worth including in our kit. Einstein put it best: “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”

As the leader, you have in your hand the switch that can control the intensity of engagement of the people who do the work in your organization. It’s like being a director in a movie: “The first work of the director is to set a mood so that the actor’s work can take place” (William Friedkin, American movie and television director/producer.) A leader’s upbeat mood metaphorically oxygenates the blood of followers – it’s a transfusion into the corporate arteries. It may be one of the most potent contributions you can make as a leader.

Copyright © 2007 Bruna Martinuzzi. All Rights Reserved.  For more tips on the leader’s mood and managing high performance teams, see my book:  The Leader as a Mensch: Become the Kind of Person Others Want to Follow. 

Among the topics that young people study before they enter the workforce is calculus, the mathematics of change and motion. While training in calculus is undoubtedly valuable, I believe that training in optimism is also important. Just as it is good discipline to solve problems like the velocity of a car at a certain moment in time, it is also crucial to figure out what drives people to give us the very best that they have to offer. Ironically, Leibniz, one of the inventors of calculus, is also known for his philosophy of optimism. He was considered to be an inveterate optimist, asserting that we live “in the best of all possible worlds”. Optimism is an emotional competence that can help boost productivity, enhance employee morale, overcome conflict and have a positive impact on the bottom line.

In writing about optimism, you face the danger of being seen as advocating a “Pollyanna” or quixotic approach. The truth is, however, optimism has been proven to be a powerful tool that will pay dividends for your personal life and give you a competitive advantage professionally in your career. There is a lot to be gained, indeed, in cultivating an optimistic outlook.

Take leadership, for example. Nowhere is optimism more important than in leading organizations. Highly effective leaders have a transforming effect on their constituents: they have the gift of being able to convince others that they have the ability to achieve levels of performance beyond those they thought possible. They are able to paint an optimistic and attainable view of the future for their followers: They move others from being stuck with “how things are done around here” and help them see “how things could be done better”.  In The Leadership Advantage, an essay from the Drucker Foundation’s Leader to Leader Guide, Warren Bennis tells us that optimism is one of the key things people need from their leaders in order to achieve positive results. Every “exemplary leader that I have met,” writes Bennis, “has what seems to be an unwarranted degree of optimism – and that helps generate the energy and commitment necessary to achieve results.”

Consider, as well, the reverse: the effect that pessimistic individuals can have on an organization’s creativity and innovation. To be innovative, you need to be open to new ideas, wide open to seeing possibilities, willing to take risks and encourage others to take risks – willing to challenge the process in order to create new solutions or products or improve processes. In short, you need to have a sense of adventure and an expectation of success. Those who have a pessimistic outlook typically approach changes to the status quo with the familiar: “We tried this before”, “It won’t work”, or “It will never fly”. Such individuals often label themselves as “devil’s advocate”. How can someone who has a pessimistic outlook embrace change over the safety of the known?

There are other areas which are impacted positively by optimism. Take sales, for example: A study shows that new sales personnel at Metropolitan Life who scored high on a test on optimism sold 37 percent more life insurance in their first two years than pessimists (Seligman, 1990). In another study involving debt collectors in a large collection agency, the most successful collectors had significantly higher scores in the area of self-actualization, independence and optimism. (Bachman et al, 2000, cited by Cary Cherniss.)

Perhaps more significant are the countless studies that have shown that people with an optimistic outlook have healthier relationships, enjoy better mental and physical health and live longer. In The Wisdom of the Ego, Dr George E Vaillant, Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, writes about individuals who have “both the capacity to be bent without breaking and the capacity, once bent, to spring back”. Vaillant mentions that, in addition to external sources of resilience (such as good health or social supports), these individuals have important internal sources which include a healthy self-esteem and optimism.

These coping mechanisms are fully explored in Dr Valliant’s subsequent book: Aging Well: Surprising Guideposts to a Happier Life, a truly fascinating study that will be particularly interesting to fellow boomers. This is a compendium of three studies involving over 800 individuals, men and women, rich and poor, who were followed for more than 50 years, from adolescence to old age. In it, we discover that one of the most powerful predictors of successful aging is habitually using mature coping mechanisms or defenses, what Vaillant calls the ability to “make lemonade out of life’s lemons.” Vaillant’s study discovered five of these coping mechanisms: Altruism (doing for others what they need, not what we want to do for them); Sublimation (diverting energy to more constructive pursuits such as creativity, art, sports); Suppression (postponement of stressors, not repression); Humor and anticipation. Anticipation is realistic, hopeful planning for the future. This means not operating in a pessimistic crisis mode but preparing and adapting for whatever life brings.

So how do you recognize an optimist? Alan Loy McGinnis, author of The Power of Optimism, studied the biographies of over 1000 famous people, and isolated 12 characteristics of the optimistic personality. Among these is: “Optimists look for partial solutions”, that is, freed from the tyranny of perfectionism and from paralysis by analysis, they are open to taking small steps towards achieving success. Another characteristic of those who have an optimistic nature is: “Optimists use their imagination to rehearse success”, in other words, they play positive mental videos of preferred outcomes, much like sports figures do. Michael Jordan, for example, once stated that he never plays a game that he hasn’t first visualized. Another trait is that “Optimists think that they have great capacity for stretching” – they believe that their personal best is yet to come.

Dr Martin E Seligman, the modern scholar most often associated with studying the traits of optimists, and former president of the American Psychological Association and Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, has devoted decades to studying optimistic people and reports three traits that they have in common: They view adversity in their lives as temporary, specific and external, that is, not entirely their fault, as opposed to pessimists who view adversity as unchangeable, pervasive, and more personal. In the face of setbacks, challenges or difficult jobs, pessimist are more likely to do worse than predicted and even give up, while optimists will persevere. Optimism, therefore, is also an important component of achievement, and is especially important in times of chaos, change and turbulence. Those who have an optimistic outlook will roll with the punches, will be more proactive and persistent and will not abandon hope.

So, where does optimism come from? Is it something we are born with or is it learned? For some lucky individuals, being optimistic comes naturally. The good news is that, for those who don’t have it naturally, optimism is an attitude that can be learned and practiced. Here are some strategies you can consider in your journey to becoming more optimistic or in helping someone else who suffers from pessimism:

Avoid negative environments. If this is not realistic, make every effort to seek the company of positive individuals in your organization. Sometimes this may mean fraternizing with peers in other departments. Stay away from the professional complainer.
 

Celebrate your strengths. The key to high achievement and happiness is to play out your strengths, not correct your weaknesses. Focus on what you do well. (If you are not sure what your signature strengths are, consider reading Now Discover Your Strengths which includes a web-based questionnaire that helps you discover your own top-five inborn talents.)
 

Take care of your spiritual and emotional well being by reading inspirational material on a daily basis. This may be different for each person. Some may be inspired by daily quotations, others by reading biographies of successful people in their field and yet others may derive inspiration from reading about all the innovations that we are graced with. A useful website for this is the World Future Society, which keeps up with new inventions.
 

Manage or ignore what you cannot change. When faced with setbacks, identify what you can change and proactively try to find ways to do something about it. We have often heard this advice – it bears repeating. Be inspired by Benjamin Franklin’s words: “While we may not be able to control all that happens to us, we can control what happens inside us.”
 

Learn to reframe. This involved deliberately shifting perspective and looking for the hidden positive in a negative situation: the proverbial silver lining. Look for the gift in the adversity.  If you are serious about developing greater optimism, there is no better book than Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life by Dr Martin E Seligman. Learn Dr Seligman’s ABCDE model for disputing pessimistic thoughts. This is a very useful and powerful tool to help you change the way you explain events that trouble you from optimistic to pessimistic.

Adapt your language and outlook. Consider how a simple shift in the language you use can make a difference in your outlook: Do you frequently say: “yes, but….” in response to your constituents’ suggestions? The “but” automatically negates anything you have said in the beginning part of the sentence. A simple shift to “yes, and…” might make a positive difference. Check the emails you have sent recently. Count the proportion of negative to positive words. It could be enlightening.

Become aware of your stance in business meetings. Are you known as the “devil’s advocate”, the one who is quick to shoot down others’ ideas? Jumping in too quickly to negate an idea can derail the creative process. Often valuable ideas are the result of an initial “crazy” thought. At meetings, even when we don’t have the floor, we are under a magnifying glass. Practice being more upbeat, practice speaking last, and see what happens.

Focus outside yourself, on important people in your life, on pursuits and projects that fire you up. Bertrand Russell once said that the quickest way to make ourselves miserable is to continually focus on ourselves. It was his love of mathematics that kept him going.
 

Nurture a culture of optimism when you are in charge of other people at work. Expect people to succeed. Even when they occasionally fail to achieve what they set out to do, encourage them so that they can tackle the next challenge. A simple: “I know you’ll do better the next time” can have very positive effects.
 

Cultivate spontaneity.  Consider putting aside all your plans once in a while to take a walk with your kids, play a game or catch a show. Getting out of your comfort zone by being spontaneous helps to develop your optimistic muscle, as spontaneity essentially involves an expectation of having a pleasurable experience.
 

Consider the health benefits. If you need an extra motivation for practicing optimism, consider the statistics linking optimism to greater health. As Dr Seligman explains, there is evidence to believe that immune systems among optimistic people are stronger than among pessimists.

 
This paper would not be balanced if we did not address the benefits of pessimism. Pessimists, as Seligman explains, may be more realistic and accurate about dangers and risks. At times, when there is a risk of serious negative consequences, a cautious, risk-avoiding evaluation is appropriate and desirable. But the positive effects of being optimistic – fighting depression, aiding in professional, academic and sports achievement, and boosting mental and physical health – outweigh the benefits of being a career pessimist. The answer then is, as Seligman explains, “flexible optimism”, i.e. having the wisdom to assess situations and identify those that require a pessimistic inquisition, and those that call for optimism, for having a “can do” attitude” and taking a chance. Winston Churchill had a reason for saying: “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” Practice seeing the opportunity.

Copyright © 2006 Bruna Martinuzzi. All Rights Reserved.  For more tips on practising optimism, see my book:  The Leader as a Mensch: Become the Kind of Person Others Want to Follow.