“When applied in the right manner optimism is a key driver in achieving resilience and a simple notion to understand."
By Savvas Christou
As the rest of the western world begins to pick the pieces post COVID-19, most of Australia has been plunged back into lockdown. Only a couple of months ago Australia was largely considered the leader-in-class by virtue of managing COVID-19. Aside from the border closures, life had a sizeable chunk of normality to it - special occasions could go ahead without restrictions, domestic holidays were in full flow to the extent that supply could not meet demand. With the benefit of hindsight Australia was complacent and all it took was a single innocent individual and an accompanying array of unfortunate decisions to bring the great country to its knees. Although vaccination rates are gathering pace, we remain way off the targets set by Federal and State leaders which therefore leaves many people, including myself, with COVID fatigue. When will this mess ever end?
That question triggered a period of reflection and prompted me to recall a communication which I sent out to my team in January concerning resilience and optimism (sourced from YourCEOMentor). The points made remain very relevant to today and so I feel it is appropriate time to share a snippet of this email in the hope it can positively impact just one reader.
“When applied in the right manner optimism is a key driver in achieving resilience and a simple notion to understand. James Stockwell was a US Navy Vice-Admiral who was awarded the Medal of Honour in the Vietnam War, where he was held prisoner for seven years. Stockdale was tortured regularly, but he led the other prisoners in such a way that as many as possible survived.
After Stockdale had been released and returned home, he was asked which prisoners had the least chance of survival to which he replied, ‘the optimists.’ The optimists hoped that they would be out of prison by Christmas. It didn’t happen. Then they hoped to be out by Easter. It didn’t happen. Then Thanksgiving, then Christmas again - you see where this is going. The short-term goals never eventuated and by the end they died of a broken heart. The prisoners which did make it through had a different mindset. They knew and believed that one day they would get out but were honest enough that for now they would have to deal with the brutal reality of where they were, and they had to focus on surviving the day.
The main lesson from the Stockdale Paradox is: You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your reality. So optimism can be split into two camps, naïve optimism and pragmatic optimism. The former is the hope for unrealistic things without the grit and determination to ever get to see them and, the latter is the ability to see the world for what it is. Pragmatic optimists believe in the right outcomes and are willing to push through pain and suffering to get through to the other side.
Personally, I do believe that one day we won’t have to worry about COVID. I don’t know when that will be and I know it will continue to be painful in the meantime. This applies to every aspect of our lives – family, friends, work and much more. Have the faith that we will get there in the end.”
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