[00:00:00] Dr. Nate Salah
Hello, my friend, and welcome to this episode of A Call to Leadership. I'm Dr. Nate Salah, your host, and I am thrilled that you've joined me on this program today. We are talking about massive influence, massive ability to lead. And this context, I think we're going to talk about something today that has bearing for each of us as leaders, each of us as human beings. As we continue this series on leadership that loves, leadership that has attributes, which focus on each individual characteristic that helps followers, helps leaders find purpose, meaning, and value in everything we do, which is derived from the ancient scriptures, the book of Corinthians, the first one, chapter 13, verses 4 through 8, we've covered almost all of them, we're rounding out to the end, it started all the way on episode 201, I won't go through them all.
[00:00:55]
But I will tell you where we landed today. We've landed on an aspect of leadership that is not negotiable, and it is reflected and characterized by the antithesis of burnout, the antithesis of misery, which we face when we face hopelessness. Of course, what is the opposite of that? It is hopefulness. Leaders who love, love with hope and hope has been said that it's not a strategy. Of course, it's not a strategy. It is the anchor. which helps us to get motivated and resilient and optimistic so that we have the discipline to continue to implement the strategy. We're going to break all that down on this episode and we're going to do it together. Have you ever felt hopeless? I know I have. There have been moments in my life where maybe you'd be surprised. You say, Nate, you're so optimistic. But there have been times when, and I felt just like nothing was going to go right. You might've felt like this too. Maybe you've had rejection or financial loss or some kind of failure or just plain stuck, or you haven't been able to come up with the next breakthrough and idea for innovation.
[00:02:04]
Maybe this is all business-related. What about family? I know I've had relationship strains and I haven't been able to manage this so-called work-life balance. And if you've listened to the show, I've talked about this quite a bit, health issues, I mean, financial hardships, loss of a family member or a loved one. These are all conditions in these areas that can cause hopelessness, even just in general life, right? If we feel stagnant or, Maybe we're just feeling hopeless about societal issues and what's happening with wars and division. I mean what people talk about civil wars and all that. Maybe there's some mental health struggles and just can't seem to get past depression, anxiety, or even just a sense of purpose. You know, these are real trials that people face. You may have experienced some of them. I know I have and we have to first acknowledge the depths to which hopelessness can grip the human spirit, and it's real, and it's debilitating, and it can get us on that sideline of life, keep us from truly engaging, and that's why, as leaders, we have to reject that and find within ourselves find within our world, find within our faith and our journey, true hope, real light to dispel the darkness that we can live in.
[00:03:21]
You see, hopelessness sees things only as they are. And friend, you know, this things can be dark, they can be lonely. You can feel. Like you're on a one way road to nowhere. I've been there. I've been down that road and it's painful and it's cold and it's dark and Sometimes we feel as if there's no solution. We can't even think about next year next month and even the next day because the next hour the next minute is All we have in front of us to even survive on the other side. There's hopefulness Hopefulness sees things as surely as they can be bright, beautiful, full of purpose, full of meaning, full of opportunity. And as we get into this, we're going to uncover that there is a real choice in what to live in, which lane to live in. And in that lane. It will determine our effort, and our effort will determine our performance, then it will determine our impact, and our impact will determine our results. And in the long run, our results will impact our level of satisfaction in life.
[00:04:34]
So when we talk about hope, we need to first talk about what hope is and what it isn't, how it can help us to succeed. Consider these moments in the realm of business, family, and life, and identify how we can overcome our obstacles and why it matters. And why not only does it matter for us, but it matters for everyone else as a leader, because not everyone shares Perhaps in your resilience, in your optimism, in your ability to see what can be rather than only see what is today. And so we have to foster an environment of hope, an environment of optimism, because It can significantly boost the effort of everyone on this leadership. Now you might say, Nate, you don't know where I am. Maybe I don't have hopelessness, but I'm surrounded by pessimists. I'm surrounded by people who believe that the cup is half empty. You know, I asked my son that years ago. You've heard this question. I'm sure is the cup half full or half empty? Have a cup with water and it's even in the middle between being full or being empty. And so the idea is if someone says it's half full, then that's an optimistic, hopeful perspective. If someone says it's half empty.
[00:05:56]
Then that is a negative, pessimistic, hopeless perspective. Now, caveats aside, that doesn't necessarily determine it could be in the moment. It could be any number of facts. If I asked my son this, I thought it was a really interesting answer. He gave me, I had never gotten this answer before. He said, dad, neither it's neither half full nor half empty. Like that's interesting. That's interesting. Very interesting young man. So I've been following his footsteps, if you will, in terms of how he views the world. He could go either way. In other words, I can go with half-empty. I go with half full, but. I'm just going to say right now it's neither and he's right. And of course, the person who says it's half-empty is right. And of course, the person who says it's half full is also right. Now does that determine what you will do when you confront a high challenge situation? Well, it could and maybe it won't. At the end of the day though we have to focus on the power of positivity.
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Positivity isn't about ignoring challenges But really confronting them and it comes down to our beliefs. Do we believe that a solution exists? Think about it because when we say I can't versus I can, it's a decision we've made, we've made a decision to not. Attempt to foster hope. We have not attempted to foster this injection of the possibility because what happens when we may go into a situation where we believe that there is no solution, then we can perhaps be in a situation where We are in despair, but if we believe that a solution exists, although we may not have identified it, we move into a position of determination. You see, it comes to belief. What we believe informs our decisions and our choices. We have to believe either that a solution exists or doesn't exist. If it doesn't exist, then it's despair. If we believe that it does exist, it's determination. And that will transform how we approach not only our business lives, but our family lives in business.
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Before I even go to the family. This happens every single day. If you're an entrepreneur and you're listening, you know, I cannot have the mindset that I will not be able to overcome these challenges. You have to be able to do that because you're dead in the water. Not only that, you will also be the one who models whether or not we can achieve. And everyone's watching. Everyone's watching to see what your meter is, what your focus is. And how you move forward. Your energy is contagious as a leader, whether it's positive energy or negative energy, whether it's collective energy or whether it's single-handed energy, when you're faced with a high challenge situation, don't just force yourself to take it all in. Share it with the team. This is what we're talking about. Not only individuals in the business environment, but also in a family environment, but I'm talking about business right now, we stand shoulder to shoulder with everyone on our team. And we are united by what I really, this vision of a dream of the future to make it better than the present.
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And sometimes it's powerful. Sometimes it's fragile, but it creates a pivotal force that shapes our endeavors shapes our families. Shapes our businesses. In fact, there's a psychological framework and research, which is the hope theory, Dr Snyder described hope as this psychological strength, and what it does is it enables a person to maintain a positive outlook and approach to life's challenges with, again, that problem-solving mindset. And when you think about that, this aligns with what we experience in this unpredictable life we live. Because there's no guarantees about tomorrow, no guarantees about today. You know, there's times when our plans falter, when the market turns, it's tied against us. When we are uncertain about what's going to happen, whether it's our finances, our family, our fitness, our fortunes, all of it, that's when hope, which is defined in this way as a combination of willpower and way power becomes our anchor. You see, willpower is our thrust of energy and way power is. Our action. You know, what are we doing with this energy to galvanize and move us forward when we face massive setbacks? And I know you've had massive setbacks.
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I've had massive setbacks. The only option when we're facing a high-challenge situation is to engage is to approach it with mastery. Just recently, I had a situation where I love it when we get great reviews, but sometimes we miss it. I missed it. And I missed it in a big way. I was supposed to handle a new client's transition to the firm and I dropped the ball. There's no excuse. I just didn't send the email to get the connection going with one of my team members and we got a bad review and I was like, Oh my goodness, I can't believe I missed this. And I called the client to say, Hey, and I totally bombed on this. It's all me. And I want to do everything I can to make it right. We're not even talking about reviews. Just want to do what's right because I value these relationships. You see, if I was hopeless, I would have just said, Oh my goodness. Oh, well, I guess that's done. Move on. No. What is a way that we can mend this brokenness? What is a way that we can buffer ourselves against stress and depression?
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I get stressed out when I see stuff like that, but I have to stop and I have to promote. A light that guides us to propel us beyond this turmoil, not just to endure the moment, but to thrive in it. Think about the challenges we face in life. It is a requisite to approach them with the mastery that we will find a way to overcome. Now, does that mean that everything goes right? Perhaps this client could have said, no, you know what? We're done. We're done. Well, okay. Did I did everything I could. At that point I have to move on and learn the lesson. This particular client had massive grace and I'm so thankful for that and said, Okay. Give me another shot. And you take that. Now, maybe it's a different situation. Maybe it's not a review or something you dropped the ball in. Maybe there's an unfulfilled dream you've had. Maybe there's a venture that you totally poured your heart into and you watched it struggle and maybe you had a vision that it's far less attainable now.
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Maybe you felt the strain in your family. Maybe you've been distressing that you can't do anything about situation. The ground is just slipping beneath you. Your feet, there are a crucible of challenges. And the thing about hope is hope is not just a lens, but it is a way to move forward, to approach with new strategies that help us to navigate this path. Now you might say, you know, Nate, don't be naive with hope. Let's just be realistic. Some things don't work out. It's true. And it's not about falsely inflating the wind beneath our sails. It's really about steering our ship with resilience, through the storm. Obviously, there's realities. We're not going to obscure them. But we have to illuminate pathways forward that we might not have seen if we checked out. So really there's a difference between dreamers and doers. The thing about the dreamer is they think well maybe I could have made these work out, but the doer actually takes action. And so we have to marshal both our willpower and our waypower to truly take action.
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How do we do that? Well, I think it starts with identifying this relationship between hope and progress. Oftentimes, we believe hope is not possible because we cannot see any progress possible. And really, that's a lot of ways that we find burnout. If you're in a situation to where you're starting to burn out, whether it be in your business, your family, or life, Then you are in a state, generally speaking, that you believe there's no more progress. There's no more progress available that has meaning and value. And so if you're an employer and you want to keep team members from burning out, make sure that you infuse progress into their day, into their week, into their month. If they're running hot with too much work and you know this is a season that's heavy in work, share the hopefulness of the next season to come. For example, hey, can't wait till we've crossed the finish line with this project so that we can celebrate, take a couple steps back, and breathe before we start the next one. What is that? You're infusing hope you're infusing progress so that someone doesn't say I'm done, I'm out of here because I can't take this pace forever.
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Or maybe it's at home, maybe in our family, someone is experiencing the hopelessness of tomorrow saying. Well, this life, it's just a routine that never ends and I'm not going to ever get ahead of it. Maybe it's one of your children. Maybe it's your spouse. Maybe it's you peer into that heart, peer into that life and find the positive future that exists in there. Maybe it's one of your children and one of your children is just struggling, struggling with a sense of identity, a sense. Of security, a sense of purpose in life. And you have to not only model, but knit and weave a vision of the future that not only is better than today, but that can be identified clearly and steps can be taken meaningfully to reach that. For example, in my family, my son loves. The idea of travel. And so periodically, I share, Hey, where's a cool place we can go together? Where would you like to go? Last year we went on a wonderful trip together, and we had so much fun. And so, identifying this sense of purpose, whatever it is, it might be different, but it's up to us as leaders to foster and find that with our family members.
[00:15:24]
And then begin to not only speak it into existence, But identify how we will achieve this. That's what we do together. Now you might have someone who refutes and says, Hey, look, hope is great, but reality is harsh. What if things don't work? It's so true. Yes, hope is not a guarantee of success. It is possible to fail, even with your heart on fire with optimism. But here's the thing. Even in failure, hope is crucial. It fuels our resistance. It boosts our creativity. It provides the strength to stand up again. Think about Thomas Edison and his quest for this light bulb, right? You've heard the story, perhaps he failed again and again and again. Now there might've been moments when he felt hopeless, but he didn't allow those hopeless moments to overcome him. He didn't allow those hopeless moments to define his next steps because. He was determined to take the next step. So he did. He says, what? I haven't failed. I found 10,000 ways that won't work. His hope made him undaunted. So, eventually, that hope lit up the world. Now, you might say, over-optimism, yeah, okay. It can lead to maybe an unrealistic expectation.
[00:16:42]
I challenge that. Evaporate hope and you are left with nothing but desolation. Hope is not about being blindly optimistic or disregarding risk. We know risk is all around us. I've experienced massive risk. But it's about balancing optimism with realism, acknowledging risk, and then what? Preparing. Prepare for those contingencies. Advance with fortitude, not fear. And that mindset, that meter, that journey will take you deeper and deeper and deeper. Yes. There's highs. Yes. There's lows. I experienced them. Yes. There's successes. Yes. There's failures. Yes. There's joy. Yes. There's pain, but here's the common thread that intertwines these extremes. It is the possibility. It is hope. It is like a lighthouse. You know, there's a stormy weather every single day, but it warms us on the coldest nights. It's this invisible force that empowers us to take one more step, even when our strength is exhausted. So what do we do as leaders? We have to continue to venture forth. Carry the beacon of hope within us and our businesses and our families and our lives. It might seem intimidating, but remember darkness is necessary to appreciate the light. So let us light that candle of hope. Let us illuminate a pathway toward success, fulfillment. and happiness. Let us do that together.
[00:18:04]
And so today, I encourage you to think of the future vision of who you are five years from now and give a message to the past you. Give a message that expresses just how valuable hope was every day. To guide the pathway forward, no matter what the challenges, no matter what the obstacles and thank yourself, acknowledge for giving yourself the permission to hope big, to hope large, to hope in such a way to leave an imprint. In the fabric of your life and the lives of those around you to know that you will shine that light so bright that will illuminate the best possible future for each and every one of us. Well, my friend, I am so thrilled that you joined me on this episode of A Call to Leadership. And before you go to the next episode, especially if you're binge-listing, take a moment. I would love to get your honest review right here on your screen. Your feedback is so important. It helps the podcast. It encourages me and it helps me. It helps me to give you more and more and more value. So, I can't wait to read your review. I can't wait to be with you on the next episode. I'm Dr. Nate Salah. This is A Call to Leadership.