When Optimism Isn’t Enough

Watch the episode here:

• Learn why unchecked optimism can be problematic.
• Discover the importance of taking responsibility for your future.
• Understand how acknowledging reality can propel you forward.
• Hear personal insights from a high-level VIP dinner.
• Get practical advice on overcoming anxiety and depression.

Hey, what’s shakin, hey, I’m Rick Jordan. Today, we’re going all in. I was speaking at this event on Thursday nights. And this event, it’s, it’s a VIP dinner. That’s what it’s called. And it was probably about 50 entrepreneurs there. And I was on a panel. And I was on the panel with Tasha, something I can’t remember her last name, but she’s an Olympic gold medalist. And Ryan, I don’t remember his last name, but he’s the CEO of Travis, Matthew, you know, the huge golf clothing company. And there was several others that were there too. And the audience would ask a question mind you, this is a high-level event, okay? Because the people that are in the seats that come to this dinner, pay $2,500 apiece, to just be there for dinner. That’s it and just learn from people who are who are speaking and who were on the panel. It’s a great arena for just networking and forming connections, and then also getting very intimate insights into things that you normally wouldn’t. And, you know, from personal experience, I love speaking to 1000s of people from a stage which I have, and, at the same time, there are benefits to that just like there are benefits to speaking in front of 50 people, or 20 people or even 10 people at like some of the seller’s dinners that we do because they all have their own uniqueness and benefits to the dynamics. 

So the question came across because they’re asking the panel of people questions, and we would all answer. And the one that stuck out to me that I really talked about and went into heart and I kind of spoke a long time about ACTA, it’s sort of like monopolize some of the time was what is the biggest lesson that you’ve learned in the last seven days. And everybody at the division meeting in the company this morning, that they heard what I said, but I’ll elaborate on it a little bit here because they’re going down the line. And of course, some things, you know, some things kind of sound a little cliche, you know, when I was listening to them, but I’m sitting there, I’m like, You know what, the first thing and this is okay, too. It’s like my brain was not so much there. Because of that previous week, because of everything that was hitting all at once in this perfect storm. You know, I get these moments, I’m usually pretty on point. And I’m usually pretty focused, especially when I’m speaking, you know, I can go up and I can give a 30-minute keynote with just a three-minute notice when I fill in for people. I’ve done this before, several times. One specifically, I remember was with Kevin Harrington, he was sick and couldn’t be there. He’s like, Rick, can you go on for me? I’m like, Yeah, sure, no problem. 

So I went up there that was maybe only a 20-minute notice. And at the time, Ashley Kegel, who was with us there, she was like, Oh, my God, what are you going to speak about? What are you know, I’m like, I don’t know. But I know that I will get up there. And I’ll be able to do that when I get there. And it’s because I’ve been in over 5000 stages when I took account, you know, over the last 25 years of my life, I’ve been on over 5000 stages, 5000 moments, to speak, to perform to do whatever in front of people. That’s the biggest reason. It’s like, everyone’s like, Oh, you’re so good at speaking. And even afterward, Ryan, the CEO of Travis, Matthew looks at me, he’s like, you know, you speak, don’t you? And I’m like, Yeah, I do. And he’s like, Well, you can tell the ones up there who are professional speakers, and the ones that weren’t, I’m like, well, thank you, I appreciate the compliments. But that’s the reason. Literally, that’s the reason is that I’ve been on so many stages, and so many podcasts and, and performing in front of so many people so many times, that a lot of this becomes natural, and it’s just a muscle. It’s the same reason why I can go on news media, you know, nationwide media in front of over 2 million viewers for any particular segment. And they’ll give me what they want me to talk about, you know, an hour and a half before, which has happened many, many times. 

And they’ll send me an article over and say that, you know, from the Associated Press, or from Forbes, or from the Wall Street Journal, say this is what we’re basing our segment off of, like, can you give us some talking points, like, give me 10 minutes. That’s it, and I’ll review the article. And then I’ll consume the information and be like, Okay, I got it. And then I’ll send it back to him. Then I go on the air. And it sounds like I’ve been talking about this and rehearsed this thing. Probably 50 times before I did that, like I’ve done the same thing because it just sounds natural. So in this moment, though, this was quite the contrast for me, because I’m sitting up there. I had just landed, you know, maybe about an hour and a half prior, something like that. And I’m in traffic right from LAX to this dinner. And I’m just not there. My brain is not there. And I’m hearing the question, I’m like, man, what did I learn this past week? What was my biggest lesson this last week? So now I’m like, trying to come up with stuff and everything, you know, and at the moment, I’m trying to be like, how do I provide value to these people that are here because I mean, these people paid $2,500 As each Seriously, that’s a conversation that I have with myself every single time. Because it’s not about me making money or making the connections when I’m up there because that’s like a byproduct. Or that’s, that’s totally like, like an afterthought, because it’s just a natural thing that happens at some of these. And this is important to remember because anytime you’re talking with a customer, anytime you’re in a sales engagement with a prospect, anything like that, it’s like, the natural things that are supposed to happen will happen, as long as you show up right to begin with. And you’re approaching this with, I want to be able to provide as much value as possible.

 So for me, it’s like, I’ve got all these people staring at me, you know, and it’s, it’s a little different, because remember, I’ve talked about like big stages, I’ve spoken performing in front of 1000s of people at a time. Sometimes that is a lot easier. From somebody who is a professional speaker, that is a lot easier, because you don’t have to single in, you don’t feel like you’re being zeroed in by any one particular person. When you’ve got a smaller room of 50 people, it’s like, Man, I feel like all 50 sets of eyes are on me right then, you know, and you can see that as people are just looking up at you and they’re looking for you to change your life changed their lives in a moment. That’s why they’re there because they’re looking for that one little piece of information that will make tomorrow different from today. So as I think, thankfully, thankfully, that’s a word, right? Thankfully, as this was going down, I was the last person on the small panel. So I’m trying to think I’m racking my brain is like how do I provide value to these people. And then it gets to the point where it’s like the third person. And I’m like one more from that. And I’m like, You know what? Bucket? That’s all I said, I’m just going to be completely vulnerable. Instead of trying to come up with something inspirational for these people and be like, Oh, here’s the great positive lesson, everything it gets to me. And I say, my biggest lesson from the last week is that sometimes optimism doesn’t cut it. No, I also said it’s like because they introduced me in this community. 

This is one of our fan favorites of people in this because it’s David Melters community. He’s like, this is one of our fan favorites, Rick Jordan, come on up here. And it’s like, talk about the pressure. I don’t care about the pressure. It doesn’t matter. But that’s how I’m introduced at this dinner was like, it’s our fan favorite. This guy’s always inspirational, and motivational. So now I’m sitting here, at the end of this thing. I’m like, You know what? Sometimes? Sometimes it’s okay, even though I’m an extremely optimistic person. Unchecked, optimism is a problem. And although I say hey, we’re always gonna get through this, no, here’s the positive spin on something like this. I’m good at that. And I can get people through it. But at the same time, I can be direct. And in this moment, I’m direct with myself. And I say, You know what, in the past seven days, the biggest lesson that I’ve learned is to allow yourself in the moments you need to just say, Man, this sucks. What I am going through right now sucks. And then I raised my hand because a lot of these people are into self-motivation and, and self-growth, self-improvement. We, you know, which is the world of Tony Robbins. Everybody knows who Tony Robbins is. I’m like, How many of you have heard the Tony Robbins, quote, love life is not happening. And they all start repeating it like they knew where I was going with this, because of the quote, if you haven’t heard it, his life isn’t happening to you. It’s happening to you. And then you know, and everybody’s like chanting this because they knew what it was. I didn’t even have to say it, they knew it. And then at the end, when they start saying life isn’t happening to you, it’s happening for you. And I said, Well, I love Tony. That’s a bunch of bullshit. Because it is very true to me that there are some times that life happens to you. And one of the other speakers was just talking about getting diagnosed with stage four cancer. You know what, I just got off the phone with a friend of mine, who’s a private investigator, who just found out that his dad literally over this past weekend has stage four cancer. And I’m looking at this other speaker that’s there. Um, like you tell me, your first thought, when you were diagnosed and told that you got stage four cancer? It wasn’t, Oh, well, I’ve got six months to live, Yay, I’m going to do all this stuff in six months, or you know, Oh, I get to get all my affairs in order that way my kids are taken care of, it’s like, no. In that moment, you’re like, geez, this sucks. You think that when my dad died when I was 16, then I was like, Oh, fantastic. I’m gonna have so many amazing learnings from this and touch millions of people in the world because of this right here. No, I didn’t realize that until 10 years later, because it’s important to understand that in the moments, it is okay to allow yourself

to be the reality say this sucks. Because the only way you’re ever going to get to something better is if you acknowledge where you’re at right now. And there’s an important part of this too. There’s an important part of part of acknowledgement. And this is what I’m talking about my lesson, right? Because there can be blame, there can be fault. And I mentioned this in my talk too, there can be blame, there can be fault. But blame and fault are past tense, blame and fault or past tense, they only applied to what happened because when, in the spirit of Yes, things can happen to you in life, there are likely people that you can blame or things that you can blame for what has happened to you. Absolutely legitimate, blame and fault do apply. It’s okay to place blame and fault to people to things to whatever happened, because that’s the key is that it happened. It’s past tense, blame and fault apply in their past tense. But when you start to get into that mode, because you think you might be scared or something like that, it’s like no, no, that’s this is where regret keeps in, creeps into because regret is the thing that keeps you stuck on the blame. And the fault. Because the only thing that’s present tense and leading into tomorrow, it isn’t blaming fault. Blaming fault will keep you in the past, as long as you continue to focus on those things. And what did happen? Oh, blame that. So this is what happened. And this is why this is who did this, to me. This is this is what hit me unexpectedly. Now, to move forward, it’s responsibility. Responsibility is for the future responsibility is for the present. Because you can blame people, you can hold people at fault. However, for where you’re at right now, and where you’re going to the future is responsibility. If you are stuck on the blame and fault, you are not taking responsibility for what’s going to come tomorrow. So it is important. And this is the biggest lesson that I learned in the last seven days that I was talking about, it is important to say in the moments, man, this sucks. And it’s okay to say that. But then the responsibility is what moves you towards the optimism.

The responsibility is what relieves your depression, the responsibility is what relieves your anxiety. Because responsibility, it is imperative and it is completely connected with doing something meaning taking some kind of action, meaning stepping into something, and this is what I talked about, too. It’s like as a CEO, I looked right at Ryan, Mike Ryan, you’re the CEO of a company. It’s like you can relate to me with this. Because in these moments of turmoil of chaos of things, when there’s blame and faults and things can happen to you that as the leader, a lot of people look towards you for the next steps. And I’m saying vulnerably it’s like sometimes you don’t know the next steps plural, you don’t know the next five things that happen. You don’t know what the actual outcome is going to be. This is true for me as a CEO, this is true for Ryan, as a CEO of a public company. This is true in just your personal life is sometimes you just don’t know what it’s gonna look like. And there is no possible way it’s impossible if you don’t know exactly what it’s going to look like when you don’t know those steps. But what you can always figure out and this is the responsibility, well, you can always figure out and your responsibility is to take whatever step is in front of you right now, that one single next step that’s in front of you right now. And that keeps you anchored in the presence, not in the past and the blaming the fault, and not in the future where your future pacing towards like, Oh, we’re gonna get there someday, you know because that removes your responsibility from right now in this present to take that next step that you need. And those were some of the conversations this morning too. So what I talked about last week was applied today, named like we don’t even know. So it’s like, hey, you know, we need to have a follow-up meeting and three days, three days to talk about this. We have our next step is to research some of this information, and then we’ll figure out what the next steps 234567 are after that in your personal life. We will figure out what the next 234567 steps are after you take that first step because that is your responsibility. And that is what anchors you to right now and actually gives you freedom. From your depression, from your anxiety from your worry from everything else. It’s turmoil in you right now. Because when you have movements, you have release. When you are stuck, you are bound