One of the best advises you can ever get in your life is: Be positive and optimistic in your outlook towards life and everything you do. Sounds great, right? This is believed to be true for almost everything in your life. Be it education or sports, optimism is said to hold the key for your success. Optimism and enthusiasm is the confident feeling of hope and positivity for the future.
This is also backed by various medical studies. There is an immense amount of hormones called endorphins that are secreted from the brain with positive feelings and emotions. When you have that happy feeling, these hormones come from the amygdala. This part of the brain releases a hormone called serotonin which is a neurotransmitter that helps maintain your mood and emotions. Another neurotransmitter that is released when you are optimistic is dopamine , this is the euphoria feeling you get when your body is rewarding you for doing something pleasurable or satisfying. Dopamine causes a positive response to the brain, thus causing “happiness” to run throughout your body.
However, according to various independent studies and studies conducted in various universities in England, if you are an Entrepreneur, this feeling of Enthusiasm and optimism may not be as rewarding for you as it may seem.
It’s a fact that every day, entrepreneurs and business executives make difficult decisions with limited information and limited resources under stringent deadlines, sometimes with millions of dollars at stake. Yet, many a times these decisions are made not by analyzing relevant and actionable data, but through persuasive champions or unrealistic belief in a particular idea or about goals. No doubt, positive attitude and enthusiasm plays an important role in achieving the goals you set, but the idea to act upon should always be finalized after thorough market analysis and research with data to support the decisions.
Just because Cryptocurrency is a buzzword now and one “feels” that the whole idea of Block chain and Cryptocurrency is very exciting, one should never choose this as a business option. Unless you understand the concept properly, you are likely to loose time, effort and money if you make the decisions solely based on your “optimism” or “enthusiasm” about the concept.
Gene Marks, who is a Keynote speaker, Columnist and Small Business Expert and who helps business owners, executives and managers understand various trends that can affect their companies suggest that it it is always good to make business judgments based on facts and not feelings. So, if you are an entrepreneur and need to make a big decision, too much optimism may actually not be a desirable trait to have. Too much optimism may not help you take rational decisions. A rational decision maker, which an entrepreneur should be, should never be influenced by news items or buzzwords, and any decision, whether new or an ongoing business decision, should be independent of any enthusiasm generated by the happenings in the outside world.
The report from “Curb Your Enthusiasm: Optimistic Entrepreneurs Earn Less” study, which Gene highlights in his latest blog, “Business owners with “above average optimism” earned thirty percent less than those with below average optimism and substantially less than what they would’ve earned if they remained a corporate employee.”. You can read his complete blog here.
