Giving Up Naive Optimism
I choose to work with people who are ready now over people who might be ready later.
I have a confession. I've been lying to myself about people for years.
I thought everyone could change as fast as I wanted them to. I thought if I explained things clearly enough, if I was patient enough, if I believed hard enough, people would transform overnight.
I was wrong.
I spent months thinking this brilliant scientist, Lael, would acknowledge his mistakes, fix his priorities, manage his time better, and become someone I could build with.
But the day I was supposed to move to Tulsa, weeks after encouraging me to leave my job, and five days after saying 'See you in Tulsa next week,' he told me he needed a lot more time (with no ETA) before I could start working with him.
This pattern of misreading people and timelines isn't new for me. My friend Ron called it out perfectly: I misunderstand reality. I misunderstand how fast it takes to change. I jump at things too quickly when I'm hopeful about the best possible outcome, everything happening at once in a miraculous fashion.
He's right. I've been naively optimistic about people who weren't ready to change.
Instead, I need foundation. One that is sturdy, reliable, predictable, systemized, led or co-led by people with a proven track record of getting the boring stuff right.
I used to think foundation was boring. But excitement without foundation is just chaos. Charisma without character is just manipulation.
Foundation is what everything gets built on top of.
I'm done chasing potential in people who aren't ready yet. I'm done believing that someone will suddenly develop the discipline or focus they need just because I want them to.
This isn't about judging anyone's heart or faith. It's natural for people to need months or years to grow into the kind of partner you can build something solid with. That's how growth works.
But I can't wait around hoping they'll be ready tomorrow.
The working relationship I have most faith in is with someone most people would call a "boring nerd." Beyond our deep conversations about faith and shared love of God with our families, what makes this partnership work is his track record: he's built multiple successful businesses, his team has stayed with him for years, and he delivers what he promises when he promises it. It's a dream partnership hidden in plain sight because the world sees faithful, steady people as unremarkable.
It's time to build my foundation with people who already have theirs. Then maybe I'll be generous with my time and support the others as friends. But they won't be the ones I depend on for my work or my peace or my security.
Ron shared something powerful about his own growth. He had to go to therapy for executive function issues. He saw it as a disability at first. But working on his weakness made him stronger than people who never had to work at it.
The same principle applies to me in discarding my inclination to naive optimism. Acknowledging this naive optimism as a weakness is the first step toward getting better at discerning who's actually ready to build something solid.
This naive optimism is closely connected to my aphantasia—having no mind's eye or ability to visualize spatial-temporal sequences. When I can't mentally picture how long a project will actually take or visualize the steps involved, I default to wishful thinking about both timelines and people. If I can't see the complexity, everything feels like it should happen faster and easier than it will.
I thought I was doing enough to compensate for this condition. For example: I furiously take notes and maintain a detailed CRM (and try to remember names through brute force). I'm really organized in parts of my life; even known to be very organized by some. But I haven't gone far enough. I haven't fully acknowledged the consequences of the way my brain is wired.
To go further, I will automatically 10X however long a previous version of me would want something to take. This will rewire my brain toward underpromising and overdelivering instead of the opposite.
Getting comfortable with boring tasks like estimation and sequencing doesn't just help me, it puts every team I'm on in position to succeed. In any environment that needs strategic, compassionate people who aren't yes-men, being reliable about timelines makes you a force to be reckoned with.
I'm grateful for being humbled again and again.
And it's yet another opportunity for me to demonstrate that I have truly learned from my experiences, and that I have leveled up the way I operate in service of God.