Intersection of Optimism and Confidence
This past Sunday, my family and I were out for ice cream. In a span of 15 minutes, I saw three t-shirts that just made me stop in my tracks!
The first one said, “No pain, no profit.
The second one said, “I’m all out of money.”
The third one said, “No time.”
What the bleep did I just see? Was this an omen or a wakeup call? Or just plain weirdness? Since Sunday, confidence and optimism has come up in over and over in business news reports from Ireland, Germany, and China. In U.S. national news, there was a report about a recent Gallup poll
which identified that, although the consumer confidence index was up, most people are pessimistic that the economic recovery is sustainable. One of the rhetorical questions in the television report asked if the legendary American optimism has been replaced by pessimism. That question may not be far from the mark if you take those t-shirts into consideration.
If the general public is anxious and pessimistic, what do small business owners feel?
The National Federation of Independent Business does
of small business owners and they got some interesting findings. One finding was that hiring is going to be limited and another finding was that small business owners are expecting things to improve.
In Europe, it seems to depend on where you are. Anecdotally, entrepreneurial SME’s are expecting slow growth but growth nonetheless. On the other hand, the general public seems pessimistic. For example, in Ireland, there is talk about a huge uptick in emigration and the return to hard times. In the U.K., entrepreneurs expect things to improve according to The Independent.
One could argue that entrepreneurs are optimistic by nature. But the more interesting question is what do other small businesses expect will happen over the next year? In a recent conversation with an American small business owner, he expressed how difficult it is to manage everyday while setting the stage for the future with less people and less resources. Despite these challenges, he does expect things to get better and he believes in his ability to lead his company.
What is this intersection of optimism and confidence? It is a crucial part of how your small business functions. I’m not talking about the Law of Attraction per se but I know practitioners of this who swear that your thoughts have energy and bring back what you send out. My inner cognitive behavioralist says that if you perceive the world as hard then the world is nothing but hard.
Embedded in this intersection of optimism and confidence is:
- Mindset
- Ability to tolerate stress
- Willingness to measure and/or evaluate your performance
- Willingness to measure and/or evaluate the performance of the business
- Believe in one’s autonomy
- Connecting with a community who believes on and supports you
- Curiosity combined with continuous learning
Everything is not going to go back to some sort of normal. Blind optimism is just as bad as fatalism. It seems that hope is a piece of this. I don’t mean the kind of hope that has that flavor of desperation as in “I just hope this works.” More the kind of hope that holds the paradox that things are never going to be the same as pre-2008 and there are still opportunities. Not an easy kind of hope but quite possibly the kind of hope we need most as we create an economic recovery together.
Does hope spread or is it more like a trickle that turns into stream?
How would your rate your optimism?
What other qualities would you add to the intersection of optimism and confidence?
iStockphoto by hidesy
