Have you hugged a pessimist today? The dark side of optimism …
Aaron Orendorff
Head of Marketing at Recart. Previously Editor in Chief of Shopify Plus & VP of Marketing at Common Thread Collective.
Here’s to the curmudgeons, the dark clouds, the Eeyores … the pessimists.
Yeah, I know. That’s not what you’ve been told.
Everywhere we look, the world screams at us to “think positive.” That cry is all the more deafening if you’re an entrepreneur, innovator, or leader.
And don’t get me wrong … I’m probably one of the most relentlessly enthusiastic dudes you’ll ever meet.
But there’s a problem with all that positivity. Not one I wanted to face. More like one I just couldn’t escape.
It started in December of last year when I stumbled across two haunting lines from Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow:
“In terms of its consequences for decisions the optimistic bias may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases. Most of us view the world as more benign than it really is, our own attributes as more favorable than they truly are, and the goals we adopt as more achievable than they are likely to be.”
Those sentences stopped me in my tracks.
It’s not that optimism is without benefits. Even Kahneman calls it the “engine of capitalism.”
But the “most significant” cognitive bias? Really? What about the dominant roles fear, loss aversion, and bet hedging play in our lives? As creatures hair-triggered for fight or flight — hardwired to survive above all else — how could a sunny disposition be a liability?
Yet, for Kahneman — a man who dedicated his life and work to uncovering all the irrational and self-destructive ways our minds work — the “most significant” is quite a statement.
In January, I put pen to paper. Or rather, finger to keyboard.
I spent the next eight months walking a path that eventually led me to connect DIRECTLY with …
- Legendary angel investor, Mark Cuban
- Former Harvard professor and author of Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman
- New York Times bestseller and host of The School of Greatness, Lewis Howes
- New York Magazine writer Brad Stulberg
- Ryan Holiday, author of The Obstacle is the Way and Ego is the Enemy
- And the man himself, Dr. Daniel Kahneman
You can check out the full article on Mashable (honestly, it’s probably the BEST thing I’ll write this year) …
“The dark side of optimism: How the trait you value most could be ruining you”
Still, I’ve gotta to ask: Is optimism all it’s cracked up to be?
Maybe the better question is: Have you hugged a pessimist today?
Personal Change Authority | Speaker | Global Goodwill Ambassador (GGA)
5yInteresting counterbalance to the current mantra to just surround your self with optimists. Also the reminder about survivor bias and loss aversion impacting our view and decisions that we make. It's a glorious dynamic and complex world that we need to reflect upon, slow down and go faster.
Legal Partnerships Manager
6yWow great article Aaron Orendorff . Stopped me in my 'relentlessly enthusiastic' tracks. And this... "What I had failed to realize was that with all the optimism I was trying to create, I was actually limiting the potential for ideas from others. Instead, the more positive and animated my words became, the less people were willing to share, out of fear that their ideas might not be received with the same enthusiasm I had for my own." Guilty. But keepin it real :)
Washington State University, Vancouver.College of Arts and Sciences, Psychology (Retired, 2017)
6yCheer leading and optimism are two different things, the first worse that the last but both fall short of having a good attitude. Positive realism is something that served me well in corporate America and in Academia. Pessimists do suck.