High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 625: How to Be an Optimist

Episode Date: June 16, 2024

In this episode, Dr. Kamphoff shares the 3Ps of Optimism and how you can use this concept to better your life. She also shared her tool called the Three OPP Strategy to get out of a pessimistic perspective and choose optimism.  Power Phrase this Week: “I choose optimism. I believe the best is yet to come!” Quote of the Week: "Turn your obstacles into opportunities and your problems into possibilities." - Roy T. Bennett

Hi, friends. My name is Dr. Sindra Kampoff, a national leader in the field of sport and performance psychology. Every week, I'm on the local radio sharing my top tips on exactly how to develop the mindset of the world's best so you can accomplish all your dreams. Get ready for a jammed, packed episode focused on practical tips to help you get after your goals and step out of your comfort zone. Let's go. We're checking in with Cinder Kampoff today, and today we talk a little bit about how to be an optimist. Cinder, start us off with a quote. I like this quote by Roy T. Bennett. He's an author, and he said, turn your obstacles into opportunities and your problems into possibilities.

All right. So what exactly are we talking about today? We're talking about the power of optimism and actually how we can choose optimism. And so in general, when you're optimistic, you have a general expectation that good things are going to happen. You believe the future is bright and success will continue. And you also believe that bad events and setbacks are rare and they will not continue. And why is this all important to us? Well, actually, optimism is the core pillar of building our grit. And our grit is about having passion and perseverance towards things that, you know, we really want and towards our long-term goals. And also, two researchers found that

optimism is correlated with our leadership success and our business success and our entrepreneurial success. So it is connected to what we do in our lives. And the good thing, Lisa, is that optimism can be taught. You know, you can train yourself to see difficulties and obstacles and setbacks as opportunities. And when you do, you maintain that optimism and that confidence and that grit. And we know, you know, setbacks and obstacles are a given is really how we respond to them that matters most. And so there are other benefits of optimism. Can you talk a little bit about what those are? You bet. I would say, you know, the reason we want to continue kind of

cultivating our optimism, especially as leaders, is because it really feels good. Plus, there's other really long-term benefits. For example, one longitudinal study said that our optimism is correlated with our, you know, our profits, like, especially if we're an entrepreneur. And then Marty Seligman's research has found that when we practice optimism, we actually live longer, we perform better and more consistently, we're more loyal to other people, and we experience less pressure and stress and more confidence and resilience. So those are all the reasons, you know, we want to continue to cultivate and choose optimism. Well, Cinder, in your book, Beyond Grit, you talk about the three Ps of optimism. What are they?

You bet. So Marty Seligman is kind of a leading researcher on this topic and he talks about our explanatory style is what determined if we're an optimist or pessimist and there's three parts of our explanatory style there's a three P's so the first one is permanent and so what this means is that an optimist believes that success and positive events will continue but they're not a fluke and the second is pervasiveness so an optimist believes that success and positive events will continue, that they're not a fluke. And the second is pervasiveness. So an optimist believes that good things in one area, let's say in business or relationships or sports, can impact other areas. And the last one is personalization. And this means that, you know, the person or they are the cause of good things

in their life, and they take credit for their success. They see success as a result of their hard work and they protect their confidence when they fail versus a pessimist kind of see success as a result of luck or circumstances. And so one way we can use these three Ps is to use them to choose optimism, to choose that we believe that success will continue and that success will continue and that success will, you know, continue in other areas of our lives and that we're the cause of good events in our lives. So, Cydra, are there ways that we can choose optimism beyond the three Ps that you just mentioned? Yes, there is. There's a host of other strategies, but one of the strategies I talk about in my book, Beyond Grit, is something I call the three ops strategy.

And this just helps us kind of see the glass that's half full and half empty and just continues to help us see opportunities from difficulties and setbacks and adversity. And so the three OPP or ops strategy includes two steps. First, I'd encourage everyone who's listening to think about a difficulty they're experiencing right now, you know, because we all have something that isn't perfect or lesser that can be difficult. And then the second step is to ask yourself, what are the opportunities here? And to consider at least three opportunities that could come from that difficulty. And just naming these three opportunities really pushes you to be creative. And if you're anything like, you know, the clients I work with, you know, the third opportunity that you come up with is probably the one that energizes you the most.

Something that you can focus on going forward. And the third idea is often kind of the freshest idea that you haven't considered that can give you energy and optimism to keep going. All right. Do you have a power phrase for us this week? It is this. I choose optimism. I believe the best is yet to come. And, Sindra, if people want to follow along with your work, where do we find you? You can head over to DrSindra, so D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A dot com, and all the information about what I do and my books are over there. Way to go for finishing another episode of the High Performance Mindset. I'm giving you a virtual fist pump. Holy cow, did that go by way too fast for anyone else? If you want more, remember to subscribe and you can head over to Dr. Sindra for show notes

and to join my exclusive community for high performers where you get access to videos about mindset each week. So again, you can head over to Dr. Sindra. That's D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A.com. See you next week.