More people should be operating from a place of belief. Too many of us are operating from a place of fear. If you're in a leadership position, you owe it to yourself, your team, and your company to practice believing.
Want to experience the difference? Let's do a quick exercise together.
Think of a challenging problem you have in your work life right now.
When you have one, I want you to do the following:
Think of the problem as an impossibl hardship occurring in a random universe that doesn't care about you or your evolution.
How does that feel?
Think about that same problem again.
Now think about it as a challenge posed by a universe that wants you to evolve and succeed — and knows that you can. It knows you can't fail.
How does that feel?
So, why does this mindset shift matter for leaders?
In a world of constant change, our choices as leaders (and humans) compound much faster than they did in the past.
This usually shows up in small ways: Well, we can’t do anything about that. That person will be fine in that role for a little longer. That process is fine the way it is; it got us here, didn’t it? And in much bigger ways: The competitor won’t be successful. That customer will never leave. Our business model can’t change that quickly. We know how those stories end. What if Kodak’s CEO wasn’t afraid that the digital camera, the thing they invented, would cannibalize the core business?
What's a leader to do?
1. Believe that you can do something about it.
See what I did there? Here’s why simply believing can help shift this mindset:
It's not binary: People usually operate along the spectrum of each axis (fear vs. belief), and various factors can push them in one direction (external stressors, etc.)
It's not innate: You are not born into one category or the other. Your life experiences likely push you along the spectrum in one direction. The excellent news is…
It's not fixed: Our brains are beautifully alive, and we can change how we think (i.e., neuroplasticity) to believe more and fear less.
2. Stop avoiding the truth, even if it's painful.
Most leaders think they know the truth about their teams, business, and competitors. They access millions of data points daily, leading them to believe they know what's happening. But many leaders (and anyone, really) want to avoid facing the actual truth. Why? We can look to Naval Ravikant for the answer in his definition of suffering: "the moment when you see things exactly the way they are."
Facing the truth about our businesses is painful. It means that despite all our work to get our company into a good place, there is much left to do. It means that despite our education and experience, we have much left to learn. We are tired. We are overburdened. We just want to be done.
In the documentary, Stutz, the film's namesake and subject, points out three aspects of reality that no one can avoid: Pain, Uncertainty, and More Work. Great leaders have experienced enough in their lives to understand that, and as Ram Dass so elegantly challenges us: "You can either do it like it's a great weight on you, or you can do it like it's a part of the dance." Which brings me to the next point.
When you do the work to challenge your ego (e.g., eventually, I'll know everything; eventually, work will get easier; eventually, I can control everything), you're more likely to get curious and fall in love with hard things.
The first action to take here is simple: start by acknowledging the role of your ego. Most leaders get into their position by having the right answers at the right time. This reinforces the notion that being correct will help you gain more power, status, and money. Great leaders stay humble by remembering something Epictetus says, "it is impossible to learn that which one thinks one already knows." Integrating this is much more difficult, but by simply acknowledging your ego, the work has begun.
3. Fall in love with hard things.
In the same documentary, Stutz says that "anyone can take an unpleasant experience and turn it into an opportunity." I believe great leaders face unpleasant truths, make difficult decisions, and, in doing so, evolve their organizations for the better. They do this because they are able to emotionally distance themselves (enough) from the things that feel hard or painful. This takes practice. In my last Substack on emotional regulation, I mentioned a simple truth that can change how you experience hard things: it is not happening to you but around you. Great leaders have enough life experience to recognize pain is inevitable but they get to choose how they experience those aspects of reality.
Let me know what you think in the comments.
Look ever forward,
Steph