I used to read Asterix comics a lot. Despite being isolated, outnumbered and surrounded by Romans, there was just one thing this small community of Gauls feared – the sky falling on their heads.
‘What’s the worst that can happen’ is a question that hopefully we don’t need to ask ourselves too often. If we did we would never make it out from under our duvets.
I had the good fortune of seeing climber Will Gadd speak at the Kendal Mountain Festival in 2007. It was a lively and inspirational talk from an athlete at the top of his game. Will is an extreme athlete, achieving impressive feats that us in the world of adventure sports dream of emulating. Even those outside of this circle would be hard pushed not to find it awe inspiring, even if attached to a giant ‘why would you want to?’
For someone so driven and achieving I was particularly struck by how negative thinking played an important role in his process. I didn’t get the sense he was worried about the sky falling on his head, but he did sweat over the details of the task at hand, making sure he covered all possible eventualities. Rather than using negative thinking as a blocker Will was harnessing the positive power of negative thinking to be better prepared, to improve the chances of success.
I was reminded of this approach recently when Will wrote on his perspective of guiding. Titled ‘An open letter about some hard mountain truths’- the risks it poses and the shared responsibilities. So many takeaways for leadership and applicable to the risks and rewards inherent in many aspects of life.
More recently I came across something termed Defensive Pessimism in Richard Wisemans book Shoot for the Moon. The book examines the ‘Apollo Mindset’ and how it played an important part in helping the team to achieve the impossible.
Using ‘What if’ thinking to develop contingency plans for likely (unwelcome) scenarios the missions were more likely to succeed.
I have always thought of myself as bit of a procrastinator and pessimist, and that is all my dads fault, so it was great to see that trait could be applied to a positive outcome.
We do not need to be held prisoner to the inevitablilty of these events occurring, but we can tool up to master them if they do. It could be that the positive power of negative thinking is stronger than Magic Potion or Red Bull.