Optimism, with Bill Burke

I'm in love, and I'm not gonna hide it. I'm in love, and the object of my love is this next hour we're about to spend together. I'm really going to love this hour, and I hope you will too. Not just hope though. I'm optimistic that you will love this hour. And probably, if you're like me, you'll go back and sometimes listen to this one again from time to time. Hey. I love my guest this week, Bill Burke, fabulous human being, and I'm really in love with our subject this week. He is too, optimism.

So buckle up for a joy ride through the blue sky boulevards of optimism only on this week's Rule Breaker Investing. It's the Rule Breaker Investing podcast with Motley Fool cofounder David Gardner. Bill Burke founded the Optimism Institute in twenty twenty two after an extensive media and sports career as an executive writer and producer.

Bill served as CEO of the Weather Channel companies after several years at Time Warner and Turner Broadcasting System, where he was the founding general manager of Turner Classic Movies before going on to become president of TBS Superstation. Additionally, whenever I think of TBS Super Station, I think of the Atlanta Braves. But speaking of baseball, for fifteen years, Bill was the co owner and chairman of the Portland, Maine Portland Sea Dogs.

That's the double a minor league baseball affiliate of the Boston Red Sox. Bill is a lifelong optimist. In his bio on his website, which is largely what I'm cribbing from, he says, yeah. I have to be a lifelong optimist because I'm a Detroit Lions fan. He launched, as I mentioned, the Optimism Institute in twenty twenty two with a mission to inspire people with an optimistic, hopeful vision of the world and its future. I also wanna mention, he's he's a fellow podcaster.

I bet you know this already. His is the Blue Sky podcast, which speaks to leaders, researchers, and thinkers whose stories and insight will remind us this is Bill's signature line that I love, will remind us that there is always blue sky above. Sometimes you just need to get your head above the clouds to see it. Bill Burke, welcome to Rule Breaker Investing. It is my great pleasure to join you today, David. Thanks for having me on. It is a delight.

Bill, what led you to create the Optimism Institute? Well, I had the luxury of my wife and I did a year long academic fellowship, and it was designed for people at my stage of career to think about what they wanna do next with an emphasis on social impact. And we did a three day sort of deep dive on global mental health, and we talked about some very tough stuff, real challenges.

But the gentleman who was leading it left us all with this incredible sense of hope and optimism that we could fix these things. And I started bouncing around in my head. I love to tell stories. I have immediate background, niche I could fill. I I feel like there's an opportunity now to help people who are really suffering from a downward spiral of doomscrolling and pessimism and negativity. It's it's force fed us by traditionally in social media, but a lot of it's on us.

And I I felt like this was a niche I could fill. And so I, put together the plan. I I launched my first podcast with a guest named David Gardner. Yes. You were episode number one So odd. Still odd. Of twenty twenty three. I've done, fifty plus episodes, one every week, and I've had incredible time. I'm I'm feeling better already, and I'm getting great feedback. And it's just been a terrific ride so far.

It really has been, Bill. And I know you're you're not mentioning the university whose leadership institute you graduated from. Are you is it because it sounds cocky to say Harvard, or are you somehow restricted from doing something? I I am not restricted. I will let you fill that gap. Like I say, there's a school at in Boston. Yeah. Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative, a l I. Yeah. And and I know, how meaningful it was for you.

And I assume we're allowed to talk about this, and it'll be edited out by my producer, Des, if we're not. But it's March Madness time of year. Did you have a classmate who is a March Madness figure for those of us who are big fans? We I did. Gus Johnson. Gus Johnson. The man was in my class. And, yes. And he continued to he was traveling the world while he while he joined us. Fantastic guy, also a native Detroiter, by the way. We bonded over, Michigan and Detroit sports.

Fabulous human being and a great sports guy. Yeah. Sounds like he's as great off the mic as he is indeed great on the mic. One of those guys you absolutely wanna root for. Love it. So, Bill, was there a moment where you switched on? Was there I don't know. The sky's part and open, and you saw blue sky above? Or or or did this really kind of come to you? I it's not even just that one year at Harvard. I mean, you are a lifelong optimist. You you are a fellow clicker of Internet things.

You also if you're like me, you're hardwired to experience the pain of loss Yes. At roughly three times the rate that the joy of gain gives us as human beings. There's lots of reasons that you're a contrarian, basically, by being an optimist today. Let's go back much earlier, your personal journey. Were you always like a happy kid? It's it's a funny question. I've thought a lot about it because because people people wonder. And I I I was definitely a happy kid. I'm the youngest of four.

I had a, you know, very privileged upbringing, you know, two two parent household. We were comfortable. My my parents were very frugal. My parents, if there's anything they imparted on me, it was a sense of gratitude for everything. And I think there is a very tight connection between gratitude and optimism. My mother in particular is a very optimistic person. If you said, boy, it's crummy weather today. She said, yeah. It's gonna be nice tomorrow. So you just was that that kind of person.

And it's funny, with my mom, my father since passed away, but my mom's still alive and we were moving her recently into assisted living and going through her stuff. And I, for whatever reason, do not have a copy of my senior yearbook from high school, But she did. So I wanna go down memory lane, and I flipped to that section where they we voted on, you know, most likely to succeed and the class clown, whatever. And then cross my heart, class optimists, myself and a young woman named Moira.

If you're out there, Moira, we were class I have no memory of that. Love it. Make sure the two of us put our thumbs up. So that I'll age myself. That was forty years ago that I was voted class optimist. So there's been something there, for a while. It it really does so often. So I'm sure it's genetic in part. I mean, I I always think of life as about half genetic and half behavioral.

But the family in which you grew up, Bill, and I'm sure the schools that you the I I'm sure the success that you had. Anybody who, at the end of high school, is is judged most likely to be successful, biggest optimist, all of those things. Generally, those are pretty predictive, by the way. I I I subscribe to this notion that life is like high school. It sounds like it may it has been for you.

I do wanna mention as you describe your mother and her reaction to the weather, I was reminded of a great chapter in the book Three Men in a Boat by Jerome k Jerome. Have you ever read this book, Phil? I have not. And you don't need to, but it's very funny. And it was written right around the year nineteen hundred. And basically, their three men are taking a trip down the Thames. And it's, this rollicking kind of who did they bump into novel. It's purely humorous.

Jerome Jerome. That was his name. His parents named The Jerome family named their son Jerome. Anyway, so they come up plot an old man, and the question is, you know, is it going to rain this afternoon? Because they're in the it's the morning. They're out in the Thames. And the author goes into his theory about this, how to answer the question. The answer is always, no. It's not going it's gonna be a beautiful afternoon.

And you already know this, and your mother clearly knows this, but just to spell it out for our listeners, if you say it's going to rain, and then it does, people always shoot the messenger. You're like the doomsayer. You but people think about you, god, angry old man who told us it's gonna rain. He was right, and you don't like that person. If he says it's gonna rain and he's wrong, then you're like, You remember that knucklehead that we encountered who told us it's gonna rain?

So and then if you're right and it's beautiful, people love you. If you're wrong and it's beautiful, they're still like, oh. I mean, what a great old that old man, that lovely old man has said it was gonna be nice. You just described what it's like to work at the weather channel. You know, I wasn't even connecting those things. But it so When? They're like You're like a ref in a in a sporting event. Nobody notices you until you're wrong. You never get credit for being right.

The weather people are people say, oh, it's the only the only place you can make a living if you're wrong half the time. It's not true. No one when it when you say it's gonna be fair in seventy five and then it is, no one says, wow. They really nailed it. They only pounce when you make a mistake. It is so true, and I wasn't brought me back. I understand. How long were you at the Weather Channel companies? I was there for two years.

And, it was a it was a formative experience because that is a it is a fascinating business and much tougher than it looks, but they are much better than they get credit for. So that's my two cents. So yeah. You ask, you or me, I'm happy. But what about other people? No. They're they're not happy. That feels like a misconception. Bill, what are some other misconcept common misconceptions around optimism?

Martin Triggs, who wrote in on Twitter in advance of his podcast knowing that you were joining with me, he said, I hope, Would Bill describe a little bit the difference discuss the difference between optimism and hope? Sure. So other misconceptions. And and you and I both also had Kevin Kelly on our show. And one of the things I bristle at is actually one of the reasons I did this work. And and the seed was planted in two thousand sixteen.

So in November of two thousand sixteen, Donald Trump was elected president. That was a great day for a lot of people. That was a very tough day for a lot of people. And I remembered and I went back to check, there were at least two major editorials at the end of two thousand sixteen that declared two thousand sixteen the worst year in American history. And I love history. And I thought to myself, really? You know? Yeah. Eighteen sixty three was kinda grim.

You know, the depression was pretty rough, and I thought we've lost perspective. So I think one of the huge misperceptions is around history. And I mentioned Kevin Kelly because in his book, excellent advice I wish I'd had when I was younger Mhmm. Is one of my favorite lines, which is roughly, if you only read the news, you'll think things have never been worse. But if you read history, you realize things have never been better. And I don't think you can sum it up any better than that.

And so I think if we had a healthy if we have a healthier understanding of history, we'll get this better. The difference between hope and optimism, it's funny because when I started this work, I did a deep dive on this. And you can get so many different opinions. The one I like the best is optimists assume that the odds are in their favor. To have hope, you usually have hope at times when the odds are probably not in your favor, but you're hanging on with hope.

So an example I like to give, and I pardon the the sports analogies. You do not have to pardon them on this podcast. On this podcast, this is a sports crowd. So okay. So my Detroit Lions, I have they are one of four franchises that never appeared in the Super Bowl without googling if your if your if your your listeners can come up with the other three, good for them. But they are one of the four. They came within seventeen points halftime lead of making it this year.

But, anyway, I am optimistic that someday, they are gonna make the Super Bowl. The odds are in my favor over time. Now if they have the ball in a specific game with one second left in their own twenty yard line and they're down by ten points, I have no optimism that they're gonna win. In fact, at that point, I don't even have hope. Okay? It's not gonna happen. It just mathematically can't happen.

However, if my Detroit Tigers are down even ten runs with instead of one second with three outs left Yeah. I'm not overly optimistic, but I still have hope. And and I actually have been thinking about this. I don't wanna get too far afield here, but I think it's one of the reasons that baseball has this sort of mythology around it. There's always hope in baseball. There's no clock. That's a good point. Even with a pitch clock, there's still until that last out, there's always hope.

And in almost every other sport, if if your basketball team's down by twelve with three point three seconds left, it's over. There's scouts left, it's never over. You always have hope. So part of what you're sharing, Bill, is that the clock, father time, as has been said, reigns over most sports. Yes. Baseball is not one of them though. Exactly. Cricket is also not one of them, but most sports I guess tennis. Tennis is not one of them. Yep.

Some of our favorite sports don't have a clock ticking down to zero. Always hope. You know, Yavuz Majoon, who's one of our fans and regular listeners of this show said, we know intuitively that optimism is good for us, but is there any scientific data? Do we have tangible proof? Yavuz went on. There's a lot of quantum theory behind some explanations about positivity and optimism, but what are Bill's thoughts on that, the science of optimism?

Yeah. So I am the farthest thing from a scientist, but I've read a lot about it. And there actually is I have I really don't know how they do this research, but I I have in front of me a Harvard Health Report, where they they measure optimism. They show that optimism and cardiac patients, you're, like, fifteen percent less likely to have cardiac issues if you maintain an optimistic outlook.

Mental health, I think it's I think it goes without saying that maintaining a positive outlook will improve your mental health. There's been research done on survival. I actually have a gentleman I'm gonna be interviewing this summer who is a five and a half year POW in Vietnam, and they have done sort of post war PTSD studies and that those POWs who maintain a sense of optimism while they were captured and after they got out had much longer rates of survival coming out.

I've seen a counter there's a story that admiral Stockdale, I think, told, and this might be in the hope optimism thing. He said that actually people who were overly optimistic as POWs, who said to themselves, well, surely we'll be out by Christmas. And then another Christmas came. And they said, well, surely we'll be out by next another Christmas came. They actually kinda cratered. And he described that as sort of unrealistic. Maybe that's toxic optimism. I don't know. But they maintain hope.

The the survivors always maintained hope. So there is actually there's very tangible there's even a study that suggests that people with an optimistic outlook live fifteen to thirty percent longer lives. Again, I don't know how you do that research, but I've seen it more than once. I think it's true. So it's in some ways, it's a selfish position to take. You're gonna feel better. You're gonna live longer. You're gonna be healthier if you're optimistic.

And neither of us is a scientist, and we're not we don't play them on television or podcast. We do sometimes have them on our podcast, and you've done wonderfully with that, Bill. In fact, let me just break out for a quick second, talk blue sky with you, and then we're gonna go back to science. But you've done fifty plus podcasts now. Present company accepted, firmly so. If I wanted to listen to Blue Sky, one or two of them that would jump out to me and be memorable or meaningful.

I know you love all your children. Every week, we love what we do. But if if I'm a listener just encountering Bill Berg for the first time, what's the Blue Sky podcast I should listen to on my next job? Well, I I think on this subject we just talked about, I interviewed a gentleman named Richard Davidson. He goes by Richie, and he is a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin. A lovely human being. I actually found him, on the ten percent happy Happier podcast.

And he is a guy who, as a neuroscientist back, I think, in the seventies, early eighties, like most neuroscientists, he was studying all the things that go wrong with the brain. Right? Depression, all these other issues, things that go wrong. Well, he travels over and he meets with the Dalai Lama, and his holiness says, why don't you treat people who have healthy brains? Why don't you help people learn from those who have healthy brains?

He turned his career around, and he has since been a studier of just that. And he embraces, as have others on my show, this idea of brain plasticity. It is a huge learning. You mentioned earlier, David, that we're probably born certain amount of optimism or pessimism. Absolutely.

But increasingly, just as you can go to the gym and make your biceps bigger, you can work on the plasticity of your brain and literally rewire your brain based on what you feed it, what you sing, do you meditate, do you not. Our brains are way more plastic and and changeable than we ever thought, and it's really revolutionized that field of medicine. So Ritchie Davidson, I think, for me, would be that one. Awesome. Ritchie Davidson, Blue Sky Podcast. Google it fellow fools. Enjoy and learn.

And so we're gonna stick on science a little bit longer even though Richie isn't with us. But what I'm thinking, Bill, is that while I can't speak to, the brain itself and how we decide, and I know there's the fast part of our brain and the slow part of our brain. I've read some of these things, but I'm not studied up. But what I what I think I've figured out, and you've helped, and let's work on this together a little bit, is I think optimism is actually causative.

It's actually determinative. Like, it is a creative force. It's not just a state of mind. Alright. It is it leads us, in some cases, to take risks in a good way. I think not a not a crazy way, I hope. But to when you believe something, it's more likely to happen.

I think these things are are fundamentally true, and therefore, while it's often referred to as a state of mind, I think the reason people you just quoted it, live longer, live happier, all of these things are because of that plasticity of our brain. I don't know if you've come across Shirzad Shamin and his work on positive intelligence. Yes. So this is also where I've encountered that, and we've had him on this podcast. And so I'm I'm very persuaded that the brain is plastic.

You're absolutely right. And therefore, if we believe, we're much more likely to get the thing that we believe in than if we don't believe. Totally. Hundred percent. I mean, at, the late, general Colin Powell said optimism is a force multiplier. He he believed it in in running his, you know, the folks who report to him. General Eisenhower said pessimism never won a battle. And our mutual friend Bert Jacobs says, I always challenge people. Show me the list of history's great pessimists.

Life is good. Bert Bert Jacobs cofounder and a CEO. It's a great line. It's just something I've worked on, David, that has been it's really been transformative for me. The nature of the work I'm doing, by definition, I am looking for this these stories, these positive stories. And so I'm now living in New York City, and you walk a lot in New York. It's an interesting thing. You just you're rarely in cars or in the subway. You're surrounded by people all the time. Right?

And, unfortunately, I think a lot of people are buried in their phones as they walk. I've made a point. I don't have I don't have pods in. I don't I I am looking around. You were the guy, the one guy without a phone and without AirPods. You're just am that guy, David. And I am I have my head on a swivel, and I am looking for goodness. And it's everywhere. Whether it's the person who dropped their grocery bag in the middle of the street and five people jumped to help.

Whether it's the stranger who says, can I pet your dog? You know, all these things. The the police officers giving directions to lost tourists. It's everywhere. And so if if you're, you know, armed with a hammer, there's a lot of just good nails out there that instead, if you're if you're looking for the worst, you're gonna find that too. But I think the vast majority of things you're gonna see are positive.

And then, therefore, in my mind, and we've talked about this, I think we agree on this, it becomes causative. Totally. I I am I am more pleasant to be around. You can ask my wife. I feel better. You know, and I was talking to someone we haven't talked about politics, but for for good reason. But I I talked to somebody the other day. We're we're just we allow ourselves to wallow in some of this negativity too.

It's like we get in instead of we we touch the burning stove and we leave our hand there. And so I was talking to a friend. Well, I won't name the politician, but did you would you did you hear what candidate x said? Can you believe what he said? I can't be I said, is what did what candidate x say yesterday, is that gonna change your behavior in November? She said, what do you mean? Is it gonna change who you voted for? No. I would never vote for him.

So why are you letting him now ruin your day? Why are you wallowing in that? You know who you're voting for. You're never gonna change your mind. Don't wallow in the ridiculousness of this person you don't like. It's a real trap and we're we're allowing it to happen to ourselves in my in my opinion. Yeah. And it's it's a reminder that who we surround ourselves with is also gonna be so determinative, so causative in our life.

I it sounds like your wife is increasingly lucky to have married you, and you you keep becoming a better and better person to be around, Bill. That's why I'm glad I'm hanging out with you this week. This is what I believe. Fight me. But I really do think, and we've talked about this many times before on Rule Breaker Investing. Keeping good company makes a huge difference.

We're all influencing each other actually out to a third concentric circle that we can't even see, and it it matters so deeply. So even if you can't, I guess, dear listener, be an optimist. By the way, nobody should force it. But even if you can't, hang out with them. Totally. No. I mean, think about it. You're you're you're invited to a dinner party and there's a sign seating. And who do you wanna sit next to for the next hour?

You wanna sit next to someone who's gonna complain about candidate x for the next hour, or do you wanna, you know let's let's do you wanna sit next to Eeyore or, I don't know, poo or piglet? Tigger might get on your nerves after now. But do you know what I mean? It's just we feed off the energy of other people. And, you know, there are some people who I think enjoy wallowing in it, but I think they're few and far between. It really is who you wanna surround yourselves by.

Speaking of surrounding ourselves with good company and learning, Bill, you earlier spoke to that habit you have of walking around New York City. By the way, is New York City an optimistic place? I I think it's way more optimistic than people realize. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. No. I I do think you you know what part of it is? New York continues to be a city of immigrants. And I will I will fall on my sword and say that immigrants are, in many ways, the ultimate optimist.

Love that. Think about where they're coming from, where they're going to. I was in the car the other day, an Uber driver, and I I always say, so where are you from originally? And he said, Korea. I said, oh, my father fought in the Korean War. He said, what a valorous thing to do. He said, this country is incredible. I love this. This is the best country in the world. I thought to myself, when was the last time you heard a native born America?

Now we can argue whether or not it's the greatest country in the world. Fine. But, boy, heck was the the positive energy coming off this guy, driving an Uber from from Korea was was incredible. So I think that has a lot to do with it in a place like New York. A superlative point about immigration and immigrants. I really appreciate that. Thank you, Bill. Be practical with us. You've already done this, but be a little bit more practical with us.

Tips, strategies for cultivating optimism in my daily life. I now know that I can take my head out of my phone and maybe not have my AirPods on and look around and look for good stuff. Are there daily things that you do or Yes. People you've interviewed strategies? Yes. Gratitude is one, and there are, yeah, there are books written about gratitude. You can do a gratitude journal. You can do these other things. Richie Davidson, back to him. He challenges people. He said, do this for a week.

Pick one meal a day. And before you eat, look at your plate and be grateful for how that food got to your plate, whether that was the checkout person at Whole Foods or the farmer who raised the chicken or the truck driver who drew the drove the corn here from Iowa. All of those take you two, three minutes. He said, I guarantee you by a week, you're gonna feel better about life if you simply do that. Very simple thing. And and on phones, it's to me, it's not just putting down the phone.

It's also who are you following, why are you following them, clean up your feeds. I made a conscious effort to do that. You vote with your likes. And just as the algorithms can spin you down and down into doom, they can spin you the other way as well. I've seen it, and it's it's it's a real thing. And so I encourage people. I also am not a big fan of news alerts. Rarely is a news alert good news. It's usually awful news, and nine times out of ten, it's nothing you can do anything about. Right?

So there's just been this tragedy across the world, and it's a terrible thing and it's sad. I don't need to know about it right now. Such a good nothing I can do about it. It's, so those those, I think, are the are the basic ones. And and then, you know, every once in a while, my wife and I will sit down. We'll start watching a movie. It's like, this isn't very pleasant. I let's there's other things we could be watching. You know, life's short.

I just think a lot of what you put in your brain is is you we're the gatekeepers. And so we can blame Facebook and Instagram and those folks, and I have some questions about their business practices, but a lot of it's on us. These are unforced errors to use another sports term. I'm not asking you to be mister optimistic all the time. I don't think that's fair to you or anybody else. I know, any optimist, I hope, is also a realist. Otherwise, it's pie in the sky Yeah.

Left behind the ears, happy go lucky. We might talk about that a little bit later, but we're about to ask you for a streaming recommendation. We're gonna go to the what's the show we should be watching. And you don't have to say the one that's the most optimistic. Anyone's gonna say Ted Lasso, so I'm not gonna say that. Don't say that. What are you gonna say, though, Bill? And it doesn't even have to be to help my optimism. Just what's a good show?

Oh, well, this is this is really hokey, but it's on the PBS app. It's free. All Creatures Great and Small. Fantastic. Did you ever read those books? I read the first one. My wife read all of them. They're fantastic. The show is delightful. It's so it's just just a total getaway. You feel great. Love it. I love documentaries. I'm about to watch the Steve Martin documentary. I've heard great things about Paul Simon. I am a huge fan of making ofs behind the scenes.

If you show me how someone created something incredible, I will, you know, and it's gone viral. Watching Paul McCartney write Get Back in Real Time from The Beatles documentary. If you haven't seen it, Google Paul McCartney writing Get Back. He's just jamming around on his guitar. Then all of a sudden, Ringo starts playing the and all of a sudden, he writes get back before your eyes as Peter Jackson. I hadn't seen that. Oh, drop everything. So those I love.

I think I the creative process makes me optimistic. When I wanna feel better about my fellow humans, I watch some great piece of art, some music. If if if you've seen Hamilton and that doesn't make you feel better about the human species, then I think there's something wrong. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, as you were, first of all, thank you for every one of those. I love it. And and you were reminding me that I'm talking to a media executive.

Most of Bill Berg's life, he was running media companies and tightly partnered with Ted Turner. Was Ted is is Ted Turner an optimist? Oh my gosh. Absolutely. And and right there with immigrants, entrepreneurs. You cannot be an entrepreneur unless you're an optimist. Think about it. You think you have this idea that's gonna make the world better. I mean, that's by definition, you're an optimist. So absolutely. And, I was lucky. I worked for him.

And then in this crazy set of circumstances, he asked me to be his ghostwriter, so I'd wrote his autobiography. So not only did I get to see him in action as my boss's boss and this incredible entrepreneur, but then getting, you know, up close and personal. I've done yoga with Ted, and let's just say his his shorts didn't fit as well as they should have. I'm gonna leave it right there. He is he is the ultimate optimist.

And when things were down, one of the things I learned from Ted was not only he's a great winner, he was an incredible loser. If you play the game enough, you're gonna lose a lot. He owned the Atlanta Braves when they were losing a hundred games a year. Right? But he stayed at it, and one of his lines was, I'm not losing. I'm just learning how to win. And, you know, when he was a racer, he was just people forget. He was the world's greatest ocean racer. He was terrible when he started.

When he was a kid, they called him turn over Ted. Ted Turner. He was capsizing all the time. But he said, I'm not losing. I'm just learning how to win. Well, you just mentioned entrepreneurs. Let's let's stick with that for a little while, Bill Burke. Leadership organizations. Discuss the role of optimism in in leadership and its impact on the culture Yeah. Of the organization. I think it's right there at the very top of attributes that leaders need to have as optimism.

I think integrity is right there, and maybe there's a connection between those two. Was it Warren Buffett says energy intelligence and integrity. And integrity is the most important because you're out of the other two can kill you. And so I think, you know, in leadership roles, and I I've read about others. There's incredible story about Eisenhower when he's addressing the troops at D Day.

And there it's you know, he knows best case, this is gonna be a terrible day, you know, and a lot of these guys aren't gonna make it. But if they see in him any doubt, any pessimism, then the mission can't be fulfilled. And so you said before, you have to be realistic, but you have to paint an optimistic, exciting future. People you're as a leader, you're trying to lead people into a future, and that has to be an optimistic future. So Especially when you remember that that's gonna be causative.

Totally. I mean, a man on the moon by the end of the century, talk about the minute that was set. It was like, woah. Okay. And it was a b e egg. It was measurable. It was all those things. Right? Yeah. So I think I think again, back to Bert Jacobs. Show me the his list of history's great pestilence. Who wants to follow a pest? And again, a lot of people will know Bert, but for those who don't, he's the founder of Life is Good. That brand, t shirts, bumper stickers.

It's it's just optima they're selling optimism. He's putting an edge to it. He he we we corresponded the other day, and, he's sending me a t shirt. He's got a new one. And my what I'm getting is an alligator and says, gather the optimists, eat the pessimists. He said, we need to give optimism a little bit more of an edge. But I will be wearing that proudly. Walking around the streets of New York. I would like to see the video. Eat the pessimist.

So we are now getting to know Bill Burke, and I have had the pleasure of knowing Bill, not every year, but for twenty plus years. And I'm just so glad to be reconnecting in this powerful way for me, really, since you started the institute a couple years ago. It just means so much to me, Bill, your work, and I've enjoyed the Blue Sky podcast. Let's keep talking. You know Ted Turner.

There are other leaders, other companies that you can think of that are examples for us of embodying optimism effectively. Who else, among let's stick with CEOs or business leaders or or or brands or companies that jump out to you. Well, you know, with Ted Turner, I'll I'll have a media bias. I mean, Walt Disney, I mean, in every which way that the man, Walt Disney, embodied that.

And when you think about the the creativity it took to envision Disneyland and then Disney World and literally creating new worlds, new environments. The first feature animated film Snow White, meaning credible. And so, there were hiccups after he passed away, and there was a lot of standing around and what would Walt do. And that's that's a challenge with a figurehead entrepreneur like that.

But I think there are so many tailwinds behind whoever is running that company that were started way back, in the DNA of of a guy like Walt Disney. So he's one that comes to mind. Bill, are you keeping up with Disney right now and some proxy wars? Do you have any dog in this fight? I do not. I am I am a passive I'm still an investor, a holder, and, I I am too. And if you're like me, you're getting spam calls. You're getting people who say you need to vote this or that way. You're getting texts.

Yeah. I just I stay out of that. The life's too short for me to get too involved in that. I I will tell you, the media business that I worked in is I barely recognize the industry now. It has changed so profoundly. It is so hard to run these companies now. I was talking to a friend the other day about the traditional box office business and how that's changed. And he was telling me that the business deal behind the the Roadhouse movie that Amazon has put out. I know you're an Amazon guy.

So Amazon, as I hear the story, they said, we wanna make Roadhouse. Director says, I want it in theaters. Director still have this thing. It's gotta be in theaters. Sell the movie. Yeah. Gotta be in theaters. Well, we want the right to just go straight to streaming. Well, I want it in theaters. He said, okay. Here's the deal. The movie has a sixty million dollar budget if we put it in theaters. Has an eighty million dollar budget if you give us the freedom to go straight to streaming.

Wow. The director said, I'll go with a higher budget. Yeah. It went straight to streaming. Okay. Now I don't know how you do the math to decide that that movie is worth eighty million dollars to Amazon straight to stream you know, you can quantify it in theaters. But I'm sure a quick math, if you you don't have to add a lot of prime subscribers with a tentpole movie to make. I don't I don't know. I'm fascinated by that math, but it's an industry I I barely recognize anymore.

But I still love it, but it's changed an awful lot. So if we're building Bill Burke's Mount Rushmore of optimists in business Oh. I I Ted Turner is obviously there. And I I think he even though you have a close personal association, you help him write his book, I still think he stands large enough. He looms large that he deserves a spot regardless of your relationship with him. And Walt Disney, I get you. Do you wanna pin two other people up there? Well, that's a good one. Boy, on the spot.

Yeah, I think Sam Walton, it's hard not to put him up there. Yeah. And, you know, we can get into we can get into discussions about personalities and lifestyles and everything else. But what Jeff Bezos has created yeah. I mean, it's just he's a huge optimist. I mean, and one business category after another. I just I just told a box office story. If you if you told me ten years ago we'd be talking about Amazon's theatrical strategy, I mean, come on. I was the guy I love books.

I first heard about Amazon because a guy on a bus had an Amazon bookmark, paper bookmark. I said, oh, what's Amazon? It's the world's largest online bookstore. Cool. I'll buy books from Amazon, but I'll never buy anything else from Amazon. I'll just buy books. Fast forward, I'm buying everything from Amazon now but books. And I'm going to my local bookstore, and I and I do I do use my Kindle. But, unbelievable what they have created. Very well done. Bill, let's let's go to the dark side briefly.

There are people listening who are saying, yeah. You know, I hear all the I've heard this stuff before, optimists. And, I'm not saying this person, by the way, is a pessimist. Yeah. We're creating a straw man with this question. So, Bill, what are three common criticisms, challenges Sure. Leveled at someone like you from people who feel like they've seen this before. Sure. You're just promoting optimism, but that's not the way the world works.

Three common criticisms. I want you to take them down. Oh, let's go. The first one is is actually personal. It's like, of course, you're an optimist. You grew up with privilege. You're living well. You've got it made. And I'm and I'm very self conscious about that. I will say I've had challenges that I don't publicize. It hasn't always been easy. My dad was really tough, you know. So so there's this but I but I get that. Of Course. It's easy for you to say. That's one.

Another is that's pie in the sky that's, passive. I actually don't like is the glass half full, half empty. I don't think that's a measure of optimism. That's some sort of weird positivity thing. I think an optimist says, yeah. It's half full. I'm gonna chug it, and I'm gonna go fill it up and have another. That's that's an optimist. As somebody holding literally a glass of kombucha in my hand as we talk Yeah. I noticed it's actually half. I'm not gonna say I was gonna say it's half.

Others say it's full. It's just half liquid, half oxygen and air. Good point. But so but that's one that is just you're sitting there that optimists are pass passive. And then I guess the the third is that optimists are naive. It's like, wake up, Bill. Look around you. The world is on fire. We have never been more divided. We have never been you know? And with that, I just try to counter with historical facts and, you know, the the the the Steven Pinker presentations.

Yeah. The other the other though, I will say, and I've I've had my moments. There are people right now who are in dire, awful situations with their own health, with the health of others, with in war torn zones. I am very sympathetic to that. Obviously, there are people in parts of the world who are struggling terribly. So so I I bet that, and that is a that is a very fair criticism. When you look at numbers on a whole, absolutely, the world is was better today than it's ever been.

And I really appreciate your point about looking at newspapers versus looking at history, that you made earlier. Yeah. I another listener question coming in this week from Craig Hawkins at craig's brain on Twitter. I'd love to hear Bill comment about being optimistic in difficult situations. So, Bill, you just shared examples. Let's take a protracted illness or mental health challenge, broken relationship, that sort of thing. How how do you be optimistic in those situations?

Yeah. It's really tough. I'll I'll get personal here. I I lost a a niece to cancer. She was twenty nine years old, very close to me, my my sister's oldest. Just an incredible human being. Mhmm. And it was leukemia. It was two bone marrow transplants. And after the second one, back to the difference between hope and optimism, the odds start spinning against you, and it's more hope, frankly, than than optimism. And it was brutal, and it was very hard to stay positive.

And, she helped a lot because she was one of those people who never you say, how you doing, Annie? And she'd say, how are you, uncle Bill? No self pity, but it was brutal. It was very hard. One thing I would say, and I had a guest on an episode I was just editing is about to come out. He said, time is a great medicine. And so I was at the depths after she passed away. It was late, twenty nineteen. But then slowly by slowly, when you get to the other side, at least in my case, things change.

I am so much more empathetic. I am so much more sympathetic to people going through cancer. I used to watch the Jimmy Fund telethon during the Red Sox game and say, enough already. Can we get back to the game? And now it's a it's a game changer for me. I have I'm a better person. I wish I didn't that didn't happen. I wish Annie was still with us. I have a better person today than I was before that happened.

So, you know, that much easier for me to say than for my sister and her husband, But that's an example. But it was it was really hard. And, again, there was probably a shift to more hope than optimism as the as the odds started to turn. But but it's a really tough thing. But to remember that, you know, it's a trite expression, but this too shall pass. Time is great medicine. And and what's the alternative?

You know, when it gets that bad, if you don't have some options, you don't have hope, why would you even get out of bed? So to me, it's it's one of the few things that can motivate you when things are at their worst. Well, Bill, at a few different points, I've mentioned some listener questions. Yes. Our tweeting friends, and we have many of them. I I enjoy following you, Bill, on Twitter. You are now this is a little hard for me. I think you're at w a burke. Is it two seven zero six?

Eight eight two zero six. It's a long Eight two zero six. My kids are like, when they're first of all, they're like, you can't have your name on there. And my name is William Andrew Birx. It's a that's it's embarrassing. But, yes, that is it. But at at opt institute works for works for Go there. Go there. Alright. Well, we have a lot of Twitter fans and friends, and a few of them wrote in. And I'm gonna share a question from Jason Moore, and I like this one a lot. So Jason actually shared a few.

We might go into a couple of these. One of them is what role does personal responsibility play in fostering optimism? Yeah. It's an interesting question. I think it plays a big role, and and I think it plays a role in, again, how we live our lives day to day. What are we attracted to? What do we read? What do we put in our brain? What do we follow online? You know, how much time are we spending on our phone? How much time are we reading history versus reading the news?

Yeah. These are all choices. They're all choices. You know, David, one of the things that happened after not that many episodes, yours included, I started seeing threads and connections between people I interviewed. And one of them was they all, in some ways, sort of describe themselves as lifelong learners. I thought, what does that have to do with optimism? And then recently, I had Kelly Corrigan on the show. She's a great writer. She's a host on PBS, a great podcast.

And I and I said that to her. She goes, what's an optimistic position to take? There's always more to learn. There's always more to know. There's always more to read. That's inherently optimistic. So in terms of our personal behavior, you're gonna pop yourself in front of the TV and watch people scream at each other on the cable news shows. Are you gonna read a book about the challenges that Irish immigrants had coming to the United States? I just finished a great book called Plentiful Country.

It's about the potato famine and ir Irish immigration in New York. You think we have it tough now? Like yeah. Just a boat ride. Yeah. Oh. I mean, such a good point. We need to have reminded. How do you spend it? How you spend your days is how you spend your life. Right? So Love it. One more Jason Moore question at Jiminy Jellickers. Jason, what key factors contribute to a flourishing society? How do we amplify those things and promote growth and well-being? This is a big question.

That's a big question. Yeah. I I didn't prepare you for this one. I I don't send my questions ahead of time to my guests. It's it's it's I I'm not polite that way. That's a great what was the handle? Twill it twill it? At Jiminy Jellickers. One of the better Twitter handles. So jealous. I that's a good one. I think we, unfortunately, have have gotten ourselves into a situation where our society thrives on tearing each other down. Who can yell the loudest?

Who can have the wittiest cut down, put down, insult, cancel, all that stuff. And it's really unhealthy. And societies aren't gonna flourish when we just assume the worst. I, I was listening to Bryan Stevenson recently. He's a personal hero of mine. Wrote Just Mercy. He's the, incredible, attorney. And he said, we're in a society where we reward people for the wit he put down.

And, he's like, we gotta get past that or we're not gonna we're not gonna force as a society, and I agree that a hundred percent. And and the ultimate playground for that is the the Internet. People hide safely in their basements and hurl insults at others. It's really not healthy. So I think that's a big one. We gotta try to pull ourselves out of that. Good goal. Bill, let's play buy, sell, or hold. Go. You you have generously agreed to play my game with me. Thank you.

Biggest mistake ever made. But let's This will only hurt a little while. Let's do this. So you know ahead of time, you don't know what what's coming. These are not stocks. But if they were if they were stocks, would you be buying, selling, or holding? And a few sentences, a thought or two as to why. You ready? Yes. Let's kick it off with meteorologists. You mentioned them earlier. Buy, sell, or hold meteorologists. Buy. Why? Technology continues to improve and advance.

AI is being brought to to weather forecasting. Weather forecasting is so much better than it's ever been. It's so much better than people give you credit for. Bye. Bye. Bye. I will. I like that point. I didn't really think about I mean, is AI eventually gonna enable us to know what the weather will be at that ZIP code at that hour in future? Well, they come pretty darn close now. Get on weather dot com and do your ZIP code. It's, I'm telling you.

No one says, gee, they really nailed it with seventy four in Fairhurst. So true. And it was gonna rain at three o'clock and start raining at three zero one. That's incredible. I I agree. It reminds me, you know this about me, I think, Bill, but I I'm a fanatical gamer and I have a lot of I'm sitting in a room right now with hundreds of tabletop board games around me, and that's why I love working in this room. And I I surround myself with games.

And what I've noticed is if there's a bad shuffle of a deck of cards, you get a comment. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Who shuffled? And it's it's me usually. I shuffled. They never say anything the other ninety nine times out of a hundred. Like, great shuffle. Shuffle never. Great shuffle. What what a shuffler you are. Right. Refs in a football game. It's not fair. Meteorologists I screw up. Card shufflers, refs in a football game. Speaking of which, let's go next. Buy, sell, or hold, Bill. Football.

American football. Buy, sell, or hold. Buy with a caveat. Do say. My caveat and they're starting to be there's there's literature on this now, breaking news. I think that allowing gambling deep into professional sports, including minor league baseball, could have some very negative ramification. And I'm already starting to see some. The law is a little fuzzy. Like, what is insider trading and gambling?

If I if I move in on the, the clubhouse attendant and, he tells me that the guy had did a little extra rehab yesterday, and I'm not sure he's gonna start on Tuesday night, and I can bet on the other team. And I think I think they I think they may be asking for more trouble than the upside is worth. You know, it is a it was always an industry even though it wasn't legal. And I always personally thought it should be legal.

I I I've placed bets on sports games just with friends since I was a kid, and I I think it's great to speculate. It's not that different from thinking about the stock market and buying a stock and trying to think see the future, except there is a very important difference. And that is well, there are several, but one of the ones through to go. But the one I wanna focus on is that sports betting is zero sum. Someone's gonna win and the other guy loses and the the house gets its cut. His win.

And so the expected return is and always will be negative. Exactly. When you bet on sports. And I know and I do it some myself just purely for fun. I would never stake anything meaningful. The stock market has a tailwind of eight to ten percent plus annualized. It makes absolutely no sense for Americans. And not just sports, but let's just go to casinos. I've never recommended the one industry I've never recommended to stock in or from is the so called gaming industry.

Even though I'm a gamer myself, I mean the gambling industry. What it calls itself, it calls itself the gaming industry. I don't want to recommend businesses that basically just make money by taking your money. And it's it's amazing to think that sixty six and a half billion dollars, I saw this headline the other day, Bill, was lost by Americans to casinos last year. Yeah. Sixty six and a half billion dollars.

I mean, these are businesses, if you really think about it, they're making it fun and attractive, and they give you free stuff, and they're welcoming you into their house literally to take your money. Yeah. You know, slot machines I I I know a guy used to work in, for a company that made slot machines. And different states, as I recall the story, have different margins essentially that the house can take. Pay out. Dial on the on the slot machine. Three percent.

Up. Dialed down to two percent because we're in this state. Up to four. And they are guaranteed that margin. What a business. But, yeah, you're signing up to lose when you do it. So I have concerns about that. Somehow, the we don't talk about concussions that much anymore about football, but that's one too I think is a long term challenge for that sport. An extra minute for football fans, many listening are not. But did you see how they've changed the kickoff for next year?

I I read something about it, and I didn't I have to see it. I don't understand it. It's gonna be weird for anybody like you and me, somewhere around the age of sixty who's watched football all their life. This is a totally different ballgame with Newton. Run it hard before they collide. Right. Is that the idea? Yeah. Because they're trying the the the worst injuries happen at high speeds with people running long distances and ramming into each other. So Right. It it's gonna be different.

Check it. We'll see. Alright. One more for you, Bill. Buy, sell, or hold the phrase, We are so divided as a nation Oh, today. Sell. Sell. Sell. But but hold on. It's so popular. Again, if this was a stock bill David. I mean, you're making money. Right? This everyone's saying this. We have never been more divided as a country. How about the civil war when we killed each other by the tens of thousands? Yeah. You have to be kidding me.

When the caning of Sumner, my favorite story, when a guy in the house of representatives was caned by a southern this guy was antislavery, and and this guy came in and caned him, almost killed him. And not only wasn't he censured, he was celebrated by his his fellow pro slavery. I mean, listen. I am very worried about this upcoming election and and how what the aftermath might be.

January sixth for me as a as America was a very sad day watching what happened, but we have been so much more divided in the past. It's it's not even close. And so I just let's sell that. Let's let's bury that, and let's let's start saying, you know, this is when the pendulum turns. We're coming back together, and, let's get our act together and and reclaim this country. Thank you for that, Bill Burke. Jonathan Hite wrote a book called The Coddling of the

American Mind. Sometimes I think we coddle ourselves. I mean, that that was more about how we're raising our kids and what universities are doing, a really important subject today. But, I mean, a lot of us are just it's the story we tell ourselves in our heads. There is no context. It's like real So but here's my question then. Let's just go one step deeper on this, Bill, because I I'm I'm actually troubled by this. So I and I'm an optimist. Yeah.

And I don't let things trouble me, but I am troubled by this. It is so common these days. I mean, I go to church on Sundays. We pray for this. Yes. It is so common to say we are so divided as a nation. How do we pull ourselves back out of like, how do you turn the tide of people saying that? Because Yeah. The more people say it, the more other people think, well, that's obviously the case. This is kind of like, I'm happy, but no one else is happy, clearly. I I interviewed a guy, Dan Ryker.

He works, for Stanford University on climate change, and he's he's started this program called uncommon dialogues where they get people together around a table who are diametrically opposed on an issue. So he's dealing with the environment. And so you've got environmentalists, you've got people who want green energy, and then you've got the fossil fuel people. I'm making this up. That's roughly the idea. Love it.

When I get around the table, the exercise is let's start listing all the things we agree on. On. And you start making that list, and it's really long. And by the time you get to the stuff you don't agree on, it's not that long a list. These are important issues, but everything changes when you start. So you get someone who's gonna vote for this candidate for president and this person to vote for this. Okay. Do you care about the future of your children? Do you want your kids to be healthy?

Do you want them to have good schools? Do I you go through this list and it's long. Yeah. You might you might fight over how do you fund good schools. You know, is our charter schools good? But we believe so many of the same things. You get in these fringe issues. And, unfortunately, think about the debates. These fringe issues of what bathrooms are kids gonna use in schools and, you know, okay. Maybe those are important issues, or are they the biggest issues of the day?

They're not I think I think that sort of establishing this huge amount of common ground Mhmm. Before we hone in on the differences, I think that would go a really long one. Thank you, Bill Burke. Any any final thoughts? Do do you have a key takeaway for your fellow rule breakers that you're joining in with this week? What do we wanna be left? Do you have a call to action?

My call to action, I would say, comes from, Chris Anderson who, was a curator of TED for many years, the TED Talks organization. He's got a book called Infectious Generosity. Highly recommend it. And what he said to me is, like, Bill, I am a technophile. I love technology. I love the Internet, and it breaks my heart to see how we brought it down to this place. It's time for us to reclaim the Internet. Let's reclaim it for goodness. Let's spread generosity. Let's not spread division.

Let's bring our our each other together. And it's a great call. And I said to him offline afterwards, I said, boy, Chris, I'd love to work with you on this. Maybe the optimism institute could be the optimism alliance, and I'll help we'll be together. And he's British and very smart, and he said, I don't hate that idea. So I think there's a possibility that we might get together on this, but that that would be it. Let's let's reclaim the Internet.

Let's stop being passive about this and and thinking well, is me and these evil social media companies are destroying my life. Let's let's leave forward, take some action, and reclaim the Internet for good. I love it. Bill Berg, thank you so much for joining with us for Rule Breaker Investing this week. His podcast is the Blue Sky podcast. I mentioned that line that he leads off with earlier, but I'll say it again. There's always blue sky actually, would you say it, Bill? Sure. Your lines.

Just remember that there is always blue sky above. Sometimes you just have to get your head above the clouds to see it. You can hear Bill every week on his Blue Sky podcast. I am inspired to help reclaim the Internet. I think in a sense, Bill, you won the Internet on this hour of this podcast this week. Keep up the great work. Thank you, friends. Same to you, David. Thanks so much.

As always, people on this program may have interest in the stocks they talk about, and The Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against. So don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. Learn more about rule breaker investing at r b I dot fool dot com.