Hope
I recently went to a dinner at Lake Tahoe, during which all guests took their turn in the “hot seat” and had to answer: “what is your reason for hope?”
One after the other these good people dug inside themselves and emotionally explained the source of their strength facing the future. Religious beliefs, family ties, connection with a mate, appreciation of life daily blissful moments, a desire to be useful to others… all fueled hope. A young newlywed man explained that the efficient way he resolved conflict with his wife was his source of hope. My turn in the hot seat was approaching and I felt I had to give an answer that matched the deep honesty of these people. In a scramble I had the following thoughts:
Investing is an act of hope, these nice people have just accidentally forced me to define the essence of my job.
As a young ski racer I learned not to hope for victory to come to me. Victories do not come very often. Just waiting for them is heartache, instead I found that it was much better for me to enjoy practice. So I focused on enjoying the training process, on trying to gather improve and control my own resources the best I could. The mere fact that my efforts in practice led to improvements was a joy, it did lead to some victories and they felt like a cherry on top of the cake.
Our opportunity to excel is inside of us, by focusing on the management of our capabilities with intelligence calm and analytical precision we can tilt the outcome of external factors in our favor.
If my turn to the hot seat came right now I would say that for me hope is not the expectation of a positive external event, hope is that perenial thriving process toward improvement. That process is fun, I always look forward to it and that leads to statistically better outcomes.
I wish all of you a new year full of discoveries, rich human connections and hope.
Cheers
Marc Anselme
There you are at Lake Tahoe…now you’re in the “hot seat”, what is your reason for hope?
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Originally published at anselmecapitalblog.com on January 30, 2013.
