In my two previous columns, I discussed the need, when creating, to defer judgment and to adopt an open, curious beginner’s mind. There is another, related mindset at work, and that is positivity. Cultivating a positive outlook on life is crucial to innovation.
Half full, or half empty?
Some people look at a half-full water glass and say, “It’s half full! I still have half of it to drink!” We call them optimists. Others look at it and say, “It’s half empty. Half of it is already gone!” Those people are pessimists. And then there are those whose words say “half-full,” although their tone and body language make it clear that they think it’s “half-empty.”
Pessimists tend to see the worst in everything, and to believe that the worst will happen. They have little hope or confidence in the future. In contrast, an optimist always believes the best outcome is the one that will happen. As Winston Churchill said, “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”
Why is positivity so important for creativity and innovation?
Innovation is all about recognizing opportunities, and then acting on them. Meaningful innovation starts with a creative spark that is fanned to a flame by what is usually an arduous, lengthy process full of setbacks. For example, the US inventor Thomas Edison tested more than 10,000 prototypes before he found a workable incandescent light bulb. Can you imagine failing 10,000 times? What does it take to keep going in the face of that? Clearly, you need resilience, persistence and stubbornness. As Edison said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” But persistence alone is not enough. You also need faith in your ultimate success. This is what optimism gives you. An optimist believes in ultimate success despite repeated failure. Edison the optimist said, “Look at the bright side of everything.” How many of his innovations do you think would have come to fruition had he been a pessimist?
Positivity and optimism are also essential to the mysterious process of incubation, or subconscious ideation. Incubation is a passive cognitive process, used when conscious striving for an answer to a problem fails to find that answer. The subconscious mind keeps working on it, and after some incubation time, when you least expect it, the answer appears “as a bolt from the blue,” in a sudden flash of enlightenment and insight.
The difficulty is that in order to start incubation, we need to stop consciously striving for an answer and trust that our subconscious will succeed. The courage needed to let go of the problem, despite not knowing when, if ever, the solution will come, comes from optimism. Einstein was hiking with a friend — something he considered “play” — when the insight that led to the theory of special relativity struck him. No wonder he believed that “Play is the highest form of research.” Optimism makes this kind of eureka moment easier to wait for, and more likely to happen.
Clearly, if we’re looking for transcendent ideas or revolutionary innovations, we need to be optimists. Positivity and playfulness are essential components of the mindset of most geniuses and creative leaders — and they are key for you to realize your full creative potential. As the US science fiction writer Robert Heinlein noted: “Don’t ever become a pessimist... a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun, and neither can stop the march of events.”
Positivity doesn’t mean losing track of reality
Judgmental critics may now voice some skepticism about the benefits of positivity and highlight the virtues of negative thinking. I agree that being positive and optimistic about the future in general and a positive outcome in a particular endeavor doesn’t mean being blind to reality. In fact, psychologists have identified a number of cognitive biases that we need to consider here, such as the wishful thinking bias (i.e., forming beliefs and making decisions based on what is pleasing to imagine instead of based on evidence and rationality), the optimism bias (i.e., a tendency to be over-optimistic about the outcome of planned actions), or the positive outcome bias (i.e., overestimating the probability of good things happening to oneself).
Many genius thinkers and creative business leaders are not only optimists, but also pragmatic realists who consider evidence and plan, control and vary their actions and approaches that lead them to eventual success; for example, Walt Disney noted: “I always like to look on the optimistic side of life, but I am realistic enough to know that life is a complex matter.” Genius thinkers and creative business leaders take a healthy positive and optimistic look on life and their future success in general while countering overconfidence and over-optimism with an evidence-based systematic working and thinking process.
Conclusion: If you want to realize your full creative potential, you must maintain a positive, playful look on life like Leonardo da Vinci, who advocated to “Avoid grievous moods and keep your mind cheerful.” But what can you do to control your negativity and skepticism and cultivate a positive and playful mindset? Return to this column in two weeks from today, when I will share with you five strategies to develop the positive success mindset of a creative business leader.
© Dr. Detlef Reis 2012. This article was published in parallel in the Bangkok Post under the same title on 24 May 2012.