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If you work in university maintenance, Grainger considers you an MVP because your playbook ensures your arena is always ready for tip off. And Grainger is your trusted partner, offering the products you need all in one place, from H VAC and plumbing supplies to lighting and more. And all delivered with plenty of time left on the clock. So your team always gets the win. Call 1-800-GRAINGER visit grainger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.
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You're listening to the Travis Makes Money podcast presented by gohighlevel.com for a free 30 day trial of the best all in one digital marketing software tool on the planet. Just go to gohighlevel.com travis hey everyone. So normally on these solo shows I try to keep them relatively short, sweet, to the point. But sometimes I get going and I can't stop. So this if you're listening to this message, then right now means that you are listening to part two of an episode. So if, if you are tuning into this one, you have not heard part one of this episode, then be sure to go back to the most recent solo show that we dropped and you'll find part one there. But for now, go ahead, enjoy part two of this episode. So here's some of the ways that this can actually end up failing you. Okay? Optimism is anesthesia. This is one of the failure modes of being too optimistic. It's when belief is used to avoid emotional discomfort. The person does not want to look at cash flow, conversion rates, medical systems or medical symptoms, relationship feedback, market, market evidence. They don't want to. They don't want to look at any of the actual raw data because the data threatens the story that they've been telling themselves there. That threatens that internal identity. So when optimism becomes anesthesia to allow you to forget about all of the data that should be giving you feedback, to then find an alternate path, then the person's not really believing in the future. They're numbing themselves against the facts of the present. So optimism is anesthesia is the first form of failure here, the thing that happens when we get into this danger, dangerous mode of optimism. Optimism as entitlement. This is when people believe when, when someone actually believes that the outcome should happen because they want it badly enough, the fantasy becomes a substitute for the boring work of skill, distribution, iteration, sales, all those types of things. So this is kind of what we were talking about earlier. They they believe that the outcome's going to happen because they are manifesting it so much. They, they want it so Bad that the fantasy of having achieved it actually subst putting in the work to make sure that it happens. Positive fantasies can backfire when they provide emotional satisfaction without mobilizing effort. And some psychological researchers found that positive fantasies about idealized futures can zap your energy, which is what we're talking about a little bit earlier is that you can if you, if you're only, if you're only thinking about the, the outcome that you want to achieve and you sit in that and dream about it and think about it and you have all these, these fantasies of what you're going to do when it happens actually give you some sense of emotional satisfaction. A short, small dopamine dopamine hit that it prevents you from actually mobilizing the effort that's required to get what you want. So optimism as anesthesia, optimism as entitlement. Optimism is bad math. So this is when someone just ignores the data. They underestimate timelines, they underestimate costs, they overestimate their own control over the outcome. There's planning fallacy and optimism bias. They're especially dangerous in project startups, investments, personal reinvention, because the person sees the dream vividly and the constraints vaguely. So when your optimism prevents you, it makes you turn a blind eye to all of the potential obstacles that you could probably mitigate and overcome. Then it starts again being being detrimental to you rather than helpful. Optimism as identity protection this is when the belief of, you know, I'm the kind of person who succeeds makes it hard to admit that, that the plan's not working. So instead of learning and trying to overcome the obstacles, they just protect their identity. And entrepreneurship is, is probably the place where this takes place the most right. Entrepreneurship research has repeatedly examined optimism and overconfidence as forces that can increase intention and action while also creating financial and survival risks. When excessive optimism or overconfidence distorts decisions. So it actually, it actually starts becoming this sense of like, well, I want to protect my ident as somebody who is successful rather than engaging in the work that's required to become successful itself. So the dangerous kind of optimism has a tell. It doesn't make you work harder, it makes you look away. It doesn't make you focus on the obstacles, it makes you focus on the distractions. So where are you in your life calling something a belief when it actually might be avoidance? If optimism can both can be both fuel and fog, the answer cannot just be be more optimistic or be less optimist. The answer has to be calibration. Which brings us to the calibration problem, the central practical distinction that optimism is useful in some parts of a decision and dangerous in other parts of the decision. So the question is not how optimistic you should be as a person. The question is where does optimism belong in the decision? So there's belief in the possibilities, belief in yourself, and there's belief in the current plan. So belief in the possibility is where optimism is most useful if nobody's done it yet, or if you have not done it yet. Possibility requires imagination, requires this delusional sense of optimism. This is where founders, creators, ambitious people, need that and that, that irrational belief in themselves in order just to take the first step. So belief in the possibility, belief in yourself. It's useful when it increases agency and persistence, but becomes dangerous when it blocks learning. Self efficacy research supports the idea that belief and capability matters for behavior and performance. But self belief still needs feedback and still needs skill development. So you have to believe in your capability, but your belief in yourself. Like we talked about earlier, it's more important you have the belief that you can figure it out rather than have the belief that you already know how to do it. Because then that's when you start turning a blind eye to all the data and you get into the four dangerous things that we talked about earlier. So, and then lastly we have belief in the current plan. And this is, this is obviously. Well, maybe not obviously, but this is where optimism should be. The weakest plans are just a hypothesis. Should you have them? Of course you should have them, but you can, and you can believe deeply in the mission while always being skeptical of the current strategy, of always being willing to adjust. And you have this plan, you have this strategy, and then you start working on it, and then you're a few weeks in and you have to be willing to adjust that plan and that strategy as you go, because it's ultimately like you can't get married to the plan. And if you do, then you can find yourself losing a lot of money, losing a lot of time, losing a lot of patience, and then protecting that internal sense of identity rather than trying to figure out what are we actually trying to accomplish here. So you have to have high belief in the overall mission medium belief in yourself with low attachment to the plan. The mistake is taking the optimism that belongs at the mission level and applying it to the spreadsheet. You can be wildly optimistic about the future future and still brutally honest about this month's numbers. You can do both of them at the same time, and in fact you have to do both of them at the same time. So are you applying optimism to the mission or are you applying it to the budget, to the timeline, to the evidence? It's a good question to be asking yourself right now. And then now we're going to talk a little bit about the, the optimism dial here. How to dial it up, how to dial it back. A practical model that you can use to, to decide whether or not you are being too delusionally optimistic at some point or you are maybe not believing in yourself enough. An optimism dial from 1 to 10. The dial determines how much optimism should inform the decision. One to three Use optimism only as emotional fuel. The decision has high downside, weak evidence, slow feedback, or low reversibility. So the decision that you're looking at has a really high downside, not a ton of evidence, really slow feedback, not enough time to make the decisions to alternate paths. Or it has low reversibility. It's a decision that's somewhat permanent. Then you want to use optimism only as emotional fuel. Your optimism should be dialed down on those types of decisions. So high downside, weak evidence, slow feedback, low reversibility. 1 to 3 on the optimism dial. 4 to 7. Use optimism as a controlled bet. This is where the decision has uncertainty, but feedback loops and downside protection exist. So if you can protect the downside and you can have some immediate feedback loops to decide if there's an alternate path available to you even in the face of an uncertain decision, then you want to be 4 to 7 on the optimism dialogue. Then lastly 8 to 10, let optimism lead. This is where optimism shines, where the decision is reversible. It's learning, Rich. There's a lot of feedback coming, coming back to you fairly immediately. There's low downside, there's high agency, or it's necessary for growth. That's where you should be dialing that baby all the way up to, to a 10, 8 to 10. So decision is reversible. Learning Rich. Low downside, high agency are necessary for growth. You want to dial up that, that optimism and, and use that to your advantage. So here's the questions that you want to decide whether or not it should be on that scale of 1 to 10. We talked a second about some of these. How reversible is the decision? If the decision is reversible, optimism can be much higher. If the decision's really hard to unwind, then optimism should be lower and scrutiny should be higher. So you know you're posting a new content format on your Instagram. High optimism should be allowed there. You should be just Taking as many swings as you can and have a really high optimism rate for posting a new content format, testing out a new offer with a small ad budget, you know, moderate to high optimism should be allowed for that. You should be willing to test new things and try different segments of the market and move from this thing to that thing. But you get that immediate feedback, you can reverse that decision. You can shut off ads tomorrow, you can stop with the offer tomorrow, things like that, right? But then signing a five year lease or draining your savings account on one decision, or taking on major debt like these are all long term decisions that are low reversibility and those in those instances, optimism should be used much less than the data that's required to make a really good decision. So how reversible is the decision? Number two, how fast is the feedback? Fast feedback allows optimism because reality will correct you quickly. And so you, you want to be delusionally optimistic, but then you also want to let reality decide whether or not you should continue along this path. So how fast is the feedback? Number three, how much control do you actually have? Optimism should be highest where effort, skill, iteration and relationships matter. It should be lower where outcomes are dominated by Mac conditions, other people's choices, regulation, randomness or timing. So how much control do you have in the situation? Number four, what are the base rates? Base rates are not destiny, but they are gravity. The more your plan requires you to be an exception, the more you need evidence that your behavior, resources, strategy or timing is also exceptional. Which is one valuable thing that I found in like writing a pitch deck. When I was pitching investors for software startup, I found that it was really helpful for this piece because investors would ask you these types of questions and make you think through the plan a little bit more. And, and sometimes if your plan requires you to be the ultimate exception to all of the rules, you're going to find it more difficult to not only accomplish the goal, but also to get other people to believe in the mission. And then what happens if you are wrong? Is the last one. How reversible the decision, how fast is the feedback? How much control do you have? What are the base rates? What happens if you are wrong? If the cost of being wrong is just embarrassment or learning or a small financial loss, then optimism can lead the way and frankly should lead the way. If the cost is ruin or reputational damage, broken trust, years of recovery, then optimism should be paired with the safeguards in place to help you make the best decision possible. So when you are trying to figure this out for yourself, you Know, use, use some sort of a scoring tool to figure out, like give each category, you know, 0 points, 1.2 points and then factor for each of these five things, reversibility, feedback, speed, personal control, downside, and evidence. And then is it hard to reverse? Is it partly reversible? Is it easy to reverse if it's slower, Unclear feedback, some feedback, fast feedback, mostly outside control, mixed control, high control? Is the downside severe, manageable, limited? Is the evidence mostly desire? Is there some evidence, Is there strong evidence or strong test plan? Figure out exactly how many points this decision requires and then use the optimism, the optimism dial to decide where your optimism should be for that particular, that particular thing. So the question is not whether you believe. The question is whether the decision can survive your belief being wrong. So this is, this is, this is why I think sometimes the self help world can just get a little bit too. I get. Yeah, I guess dopamine heavy is the kind of the, the phrase I'm looking for there. It's like you can, you can read about being optimism, you can me being optimistic. You can talk about belief in yourself and writing affirmations and confidence manifestation all you want, but when you actually look at the data, you'll find that there's typically a balance between these concepts. So the final thing that I'll say on this is that the antidote to fantasy is not pessimism. And because I want to be careful, I want to, I want to make sure I talk about this because I think that it's important to say that like, because I experienced this in my life where I was super optimistic and then life happened and then I became very pessimistic and I started becoming not just skeptical because I think skeptical is, being skeptical is helpful. But I started becoming more cynical and stopped believing in, in a lot of different things. And, and I, I think that that's sort of had this reverse negative effect in my life. And so now I'm sort of in this pursuit of this, you know, middle ground here, which is why I wanted to talk about it here. Because if I'm thinking about it, you guys are probably thinking about it too. So there's a better alternative than just be realistic. The practical antidote is mental contrasting implementation intentions, pre mortem thinking, like thinking, thinking about what's actually going to happen. What's the worst case scenario here? It does not have to turn into pessimism. The opposite of toxic optimism is not pessimism. It is optimistic execution. So it still requires you to do the work. Spoiler alert. You're still going to have to do the work. So see the desired future, face the obstacle, and then decide the next action. It's like a. That's why they say success is like a spiral staircase. You only got to see the next step, but if you never take the first step, the next step's never gonna present itself to you. So this is something to me that I think is really beneficial for myself recently, and I hope that it's been helpful for you. And if there's anything that we can talk about a little bit more on this topic, please shoot me an email. Please shoot me a DM avishapple on Instagram travischappel.com is my email. I'd love to talk about this a little bit more. If you guys have any thoughts, any ideas or anything that we could talk about on a future episode, please let me know. I'll be looking forward to hearing from you guys over there. But that's it for this one. Thanks for tuning tuning in and we'll catch you guys on the next episode. Peace.