Attitude can predict success, impact mood, and be contagious in the workplace. For these reasons, the most important thing about any individual is how they they talk to themselves, according to psychologist Bruce Christopher. Whether a person is optimistic or pessimist is a big determinant of success, Christopher shared during his education session “Leadership and Performance: It’s Hard to Lead the Charge If You Think You Look Funny on a Horse” at the 2020 International Builder Show in Las Vegas.
“Success in life is simply how you look at things,” Christopher said during his presentation. “Your answer to the question are you an optimist or a pessimist will determine your success in your profession.”
Christopher spent his sessions providing differences between optimistic and pessimistic people both in practice and in principle. Christopher shared how optimistic people tend to be better set up for success and, crucially, better set up to deal with failure than pessimistic people.
Optimists tend to leap into fear and see failure as freeing, according to Christopher. Optimists see failure as something “they can change the next time around, something to work on, [failure] is temporary,” Christopher said in the session. Pessimists, however, see failure as persuasive, personal, and persistent. Pessimism itself is often the result of the mismatched effect, Christopher said, where expectations are not met in reality. The mismatched effect is usually the result of expectations being set so high that reality will rarely, if ever, meet those expectations, Christopher said.
“The most important thing about you is not what happens to you,” Christopher said. “The most important thing about you is how you talk to yourself about what happens to you.”
While optimism and a positive attitude is not a guaranteed determinant of success, it makes individuals more likely to succeed, according to Christopher. A passionate, driven individual is more likely to excel in their profession than someone who is only interested in monetary compensation. An individual who thinks positively when “speaking with themselves” is also more likely to be fulfilled and happy in their life than negative individuals.
Additionally, a positive attitude and mood is contagious in the workplace. Negative thoughts and negative attitudes are similarly contagious. This means leaders have the ability to influence the culture and mood of the workplace simply by how they think and react to events.
“The people you work with pick up your attitude in 90 seconds,” Christopher said. “It is represented in a psychological principle: the attitude I give to you will be reflected back to me in performance. What you give someone, you will get back.”
While spending the majority of his talk discussing the correlations between optimism and success, Christopher said it is important not to make the generalization that a positive attitude makes an individual immune to failure. In reality, optimists tend to more likely encounter failure, but view it as a stepping stone towards their greater goal.
“Failure is the stepping stone to success,” Christopher said. “To be a success, you have to get a degree from ‘Failure University.’”
