John and Susan had a major sales meeting with a prestigious company yesterday — but it was a disaster.

John got stuck in traffic and was late. He also forgot his laptop and omitted key details he and Susan had prepared.

Needless to say, they didn’t secure the deal, and Susan isn’t pleased.

“It’ll all work out!” John tells her. “We’ve just got to trust the process. Tomorrow will be our best day yet!”

John thinks his message is optimistic, but to Susan, his empty words aren’t full of hope. They’re based on false positivity, laziness and delusion.

In his best-selling book The Psychology of Money, author Morgan Housel cautions against what true optimism looks like.

“Real optimists don’t believe that everything will be great. That’s complacency,” Housel writes. “Optimism is a belief that the odds of a good outcome are in your favor over time, even when there will be setbacks along the way.”

The distinction between optimism and complacency is important — and we’d be wise to understand it.

Complacency:

•Throwing out empty cliches after hardship
•Spinning dire circumstances
•Dismissing another person’s concerns
•Putting forward vague positive sentiments without any evidence

Optimism:

•Putting in the work and trusting the long-term process
•Having core beliefs and sticking to these regardless of the scoreboard
•Acknowledging that sometimes results just don’t break our way
•Not allowing setbacks to shake our larger identity

The point is that optimism isn’t about finding sunshine amidst a massive downpour.

It’s braving the elements while recognizing that the rain will eventually let up.

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