Depending on your political persuasion, you may find the current president’s refusal to concede defeat deeply offensive and injurious to our electoral process or simply misguided and unfortunate, a reflection of a particular style of hardball politics, as it were. As the old trader’s saying goes, this is what makes a market: differing perspectives. It’s also a reminder of the late great Stephen Covey’s principal of a psychological truth: two people can look at the same thing and see it differently, though it’s equally ‘true’ for them both. Yet, I argue, there is a difference: irrespective of one’s viewpoint, its grounding in reality matters.
For example, let’s say that, based on your research, you have a firmly held opinion about the valuation of the stock market at present. You could be right. But it’s equally true—but a more difficult reality—that your perspective may not be proven correct in a reasonable timeframe, and thus any investment decisions that you make based on it could prove suboptimal if not injurious.
I’m reminded of a friend who, some years ago, really believed that the market was overvalued … and he was right, except that the correction anticipated came years after he had to sell out his own positions because the losses were too costly. Yes, he was right, but in what timeframe? As they also say, timing matters, especially in comedy, in life and in investing, so even if you have the right market call but the wrong timing, you lose (as my friend did).
But let’s be honest: it’s hard to change our minds, especially when we ‘know’ we’re right. Yet, no matter how difficult, it behooves us to embrace reality so that we can develop reasonable plans to adapt to and thrive within it, even if this means to overcome it.
I was once challenged in this conclusion by a good friend who suggested that entrepreneurs, by definition, engage in and commit to unreality as a matter of necessity. His contention was that in order to create something new, they had to be able to envision something that didn’t yet exist, which he considered to be the very definition of subscribing successfully to the unreal (which, effectively, he viewed as the ‘not-yet-real’ or the ‘soon-to-be/become-real’).
I understand his point, but have argued against it ever since: there is a difference between being able to envision a different way to recognize patterns and/or opportunities that others don’t yet see – which, ultimately, entails the ability to take what is real and create something new with it – and believing in that which isn’t true. For example, the ability to understand how radio waves can be harnessed to produce wireless communication at scale, the insight that led to the cellular age, is different than believing that people can communicate telepathically, which, though also wireless, has yet to be proven possible on a consistent basis.
In fact, the gift of vision is the ability to conceptualize things differently—to make the pieces of the puzzle fit together differently and thereby to create something new or to recognize the gaps in the existing pieces and then to be able to create linkages between the present and a different and new future—but it’s based in a current reality to be evolved.
So, too, is leadership: isn’t that our very purpose as leaders, to help our people develop and collaborate in ways that create new and better outcomes? A friend whom I esteem and who’s also proven himself to be an exceptionally impactful leader once described it as being able to see around corners.
No, we can’t quite know what we’ll encounter until we make these metaphorical turns, but we can anticipate likely scenarios and prepare ourselves and our people for them. While we may run hypothetical scenarios in our head that are technically not (yet) real, they are hopefully based in experience, which means that they’re ultimately grounded in reality (i.e., that of our historical experience and/or study-based research and expertise). By contrast, if we invest our time in anticipating random scenarios that are also not yet real, the likelihood that we’ll develop effective preparation is greatly diminished. Why? Because our planning was grounded in fantasy (read = unreality), not knowledge and/or experience (read = reality).
Of course, it’s a lot easier for us to identify the unreality to which others subscribe, but this raises a crucial question for us all:
What realities (typically unpleasant) are you denying right now?
Suddenly things got quite real, didn’t they? Yes, it’s all theory when you’re talking about someone else, but it’s all too real when assessing one’s own situation. We’d all like to believe that we’re exclusively reality-based, but we know that we’re not. The question is how we address this most challenging reality.
My intuition is that if you embrace them, at least two things will happen: first, they’ll weigh less heavily on you; and, second, you’ll likely make some progress that’ll make it easier both for you to keep going as well as to broaden your focus and address ever more of them.
In so doing, I’ve found, you’ll live better. No, there’s no guarantee that simply by contesting them, you’ll prevail, but there is a much greater likelihood of this possibility if you do take action reasonably consistently.
One last suggestion: you don’t have to go it alone. Partner up with a spouse or friend or colleague who’ll help you stay committed, or maybe he or she is in need of support, too, so you can engage in a mutually beneficial collaboration to hold each other accountable.
It’s funny but, nonetheless, true in my experience that we’re often better at answering to others than we are to ourselves. So be it: form a partnership – or even a group (as we did at my office for the weight loss challenge last year) – and get moving. Yes, it’s virtually guaranteed to be challenging, but it’s also likely to be a far more enjoyable experience than continuing to fail.
And don’t forget to celebrate … but only a little bit and only after you lose that first 10 pounds or make the case for that raise/promotion successfully or land that new big client’s business or evolve your firm’s business model in a more sustainable way or whatever it is that you’re avoiding right now. Then, of course, keep going: just imagine how much better a life awaits you in the not-too-distant future as you learn to embrace challenging realities proactively!
Walter K. Booker is the chief operating officer of MarketCounsel, a business and regulatory compliance consultancy for investment advisors.