Bill Burke: Crafting Optimism in a Complex World

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0:48I'm Guy Kawasaki, and this is the Remarkable People podcast. And you know very well, we're on a mission to make you remarkable. And helping me today is the remarkable Bill Burke. And Bill Burke is, shall I say, Mr. Optimism. He is the founder of the Optimism Institute and host of the Blue Sky Podcast. And the Blue Sky Podcast is called Blue Sky Podcast because once you get above the clouds, it's nothing but blue sky. So this is all about optimism. And he has a very rich background about journalism in general. but he was the CEO of the Weather Channel and president of TBS Superstation. So this is not some clown who just wants to be an influencer positioning himself as some kind of guru.

1:39This guy knows what is happening. So, Bill, let us talk about optimism. Are you ready to go? Let's go. I'm ready.

1:52So, Bill, you know, I mean, let's just cut to the chase. I got to start you off with a nice softball, easy question. OK. OK. So the question is right now, right before election, are you optimistic about the future of America? And if you are or aren't, tell me why. I am optimistic about the future of America. I think we are going through a challenging time for sure. But one of the reasons I started this work is I'm a big history buff. And it's really helpful, I think, to put anything that's going on today in the context of history. I interviewed Kevin Kelly, who you may know from Wired Magazine in the old days.

2:31And he said, 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 today, when people say, and how many times you hear it, we've never been this divided as a country, it's just not true. We fought a civil war for four years. You know, the summer of 1968, if you study it, was so divisive between Vietnam and campus protests where I take comfort. And believe me, I have my concerns. I am not blind and I'm a realist. But the ideals and ideas that we were founded on are going to support us if we stay true to them.

3:03And so I am cautiously optimistic, but generally optimistic. And as Warren Buffett said, you never make money betting against America. And I agree with that. I believe an optimist believes that tomorrow can be better than today and that they have a role in making it. And so you have to stay engaged. You have to. So if the person you're voting for does not win, you stay engaged and you keep working and you keep exposing things you think are wrong and you keep trying to hold up the ideals of America. Believe me, it is a concerning time. I understand that. But I think my concern is that when people lose hope, they become apathetic.

3:38And once that happens, it's over. And so you have to keep bringing yourself back to the founding documents of this country. I interviewed a gentleman recently who's written a terrific book, African-American guy, who talks about what it's like to know that we have documents that were written by slave owners, but understanding that once their ideas are out in the world, they don't own them anymore. And so we can believe brilliant ideas from flawed men. And I think that's what we need to hang on to. So I think, yeah, it's going to be a challenging stretch, but we got to stay engaged. Another line, and then I'll stop, that I heard recently was that action absorbs anxiety.

4:16And I really like that. And I think if we sit around and read polls all day and try to game, and if this happens and that's going to happen, it's far better if you really care about this to make phone calls, knock on doors, do something, stay active. And I really believe that. But I am not so naive to think that this isn't a challenging time, but we've always lived in challenging times. I got it. I share your anxiety. I share your optimism too. So let me ask you something. Do you believe that optimists are born or made? I get to ask this a lot and I've thought about it a lot. I think this sounds like a cop out, but I think it's true.

4:52I think it like a lot of things is a little bit of both. Athletes. I grew up with some phenomenal athletes and the ones who made it a long way had the gift, but they kept working at it. They worked at it hard. I am probably born on the optimistic side. In fact, I was embarrassed to find out recently, my sister found my high school yearbook that I did not have my senior yearbook. And when I went to the sort of class elections page, like most likely to this or most likely to succeed, we actually voted on class optimists. And it was me and Maura Quinlan. And so I guess I had that 40 years ago, but I have to work at it.

5:28And it's one of the great joys of doing this work is I look for good stories. I actively try to stay positive. I don't wallow in negative social media. It's not helpful. It's not good for my health. And if you're looking for goodness, it's everywhere. I live in New York City now. And when I walk to work, I take my AirPods out and I look around and there is so much going on, little things of goodness, the stranger petting the stranger's dog, the police officer helping someone who can't speak English find where they're going to someone dropping groceries in the crosswalk and 10 people rush to help them.

6:03People are good, but for the most part. And the more you look for that, I think the better off you'll be. Do you think that the opposite of optimistic is pessimistic or realistic? I think it's pessimistic and realistic. It's funny. I interviewed Bert Jacobs, who you may know, he founded Life is Good, the apparel company. Their whole reason for being is optimism. And he said, realists lack imagination. and I think that optimism should be balanced with realism. So guy, if you and I started a company tomorrow, a tech company, a chip company, and we said to our employees in five years, we're going to be worth more than NVIDIA.

6:40That's silly. That's optimistic, but it's not realistic and it's silly and no one's going to pay attention to that. I think it's pessimism. I think optimists can be very realistic. I, again, I'm very aware that we live in tricky times. We always have. So I think it's pessimism. I think it's okay to balance your optimism with some realism. In fact, I think it's important. The other thing I'd say too, that's related, optimism isn't toxic positivity. It's not, and it's not a belief that things are always going to be great. They're not, but just not. I've had some troughs in my life for sure. Many people listening to this podcast are probably going to it through a terrible time.

7:16It's more how you try to look at that, how you try to find the silver linings once you're on the other side. That's what it's about. if someone comes to you with a terrible cancer and you say, well, look on the bright side, you've got a great physician. It's like, well, okay, there might be a time and a place for comment like that, but that's toxic to someone who's just gotten that diagnosis. So that's an important balance, I think. So I'm interested in how you define toxic positivity. Is it these gurus that run$2 ,000 a day sessions at the Ritz Carlton and tell you, look to your right, look to your left.

7:53You're both winners. Shake your hand, stand up, change the world. You're all going to be rich. When does optimism turn toxic? Yeah. Well, that sounded pretty toxic, what you just described. I think too, and I'm trying to, now I'm forgetting the name of the book and I'm pretty sure she was on your podcast about workplace being, being real with people in the workplace. And they use toxic positivity as a negative. So when I met, this was a weakness of mine when I was a manager, when it came time for employee reviews and that sort of thing, I had trouble giving the tough feedback. I wasn't very good at it.

8:23I wanted everyone to be happy and like me and be positive. And that's toxic. If I've got someone at the workplace that's not doing a good job and I just keep telling them they're great, meanwhile, I'm building a file to terminate them, that's toxic. So I think when you asked that first question, if I said, we have nothing to worry about, this election is going to be fine, there won't be any violence, there won't be any, that's not realistic. And I think that's naive. It could happen. Do you think a pessimist is an optimist who has been disappointed? No. No, I've been disappointed. I mean, no, I think it's more of an outlook on the world.

9:00And I think it's often self-imposed. And you know this, guys. Some of the most optimistic, positive people you ever talk to have been dealt the worst hands in life. I recently interviewed, or I interviewed a while back, a podcast just came out with a guy who was a five and a half year POW in Vietnam. Yeah. And when you listen to him, he'll say, I was blessed to be in a room with three other guys. I was lucky because I wasn't married and I wasn't worried about my wife. Use the word blessed and lucky to describe being in the Hanoi Hilton in a six and a half by seven foot cell with three other guys.

9:36Right. So that was disappointing when he got shot down. That was very disappointing. But somehow he's able to find the positive. at least he didn't miss any super bowls with the detroit lions and when he was in hell you had to go there you had to go there hey listen they are turning things around i was born in detroit and we moved when i was little and i i've hung on to this team i always tell my kids it's like anything else you got to stick with them through thick and thin and now we're having a moment we'll see fingers

10:16trust one of my favorite books when i was growing up was the book called paper lion and i'm sure you know right george plimpton george plimpton quarterback for the detroit lions for a summer he was an amazing guy yeah yeah they've they've had some tough yeah that's a trivia question there are four NFL franchises that have never appeared in a Super Bowl. And we've just described one. And if any of your listeners can do the other three without Googling, they'd be among the first. I've asked that of a lot of people, but we got sidetracked by the Detroit Lions. But I have also had people on my podcast.

10:52They were in prison for 22 years. Their parents are crack addicts. They got diagnosed with ALS and they're not wallowing in the mire. They have definitely positive outlooks. Right. No, again, you asked if a pessimist is an optimist who'd been disappointed. ALS diagnosis is a huge disappointment. And somehow the people you describe are able to see their way through it. I think it's really important. Yeah. Do you think there's such a thing as being too optimistic? I think if it goes, if you stretch the definition again to being completely unrealistic, That's not helpful. If I just say, yeah, I'm making this up, but yeah, I can cross the road.

11:35That bus isn't coming so fast. I can do it. That's a stupid example. But you know what I mean. There are times when just being just foolishly, unrealistically optimistic. That's not helpful. No. But I think that's an extreme. I don't observe a whole lot of that, but I'm having trouble thinking of a real example of that. But I hear your point. And I think, yeah, that is a danger. Can you discuss the subtle differentiation that I think devil's advocacy is a good thing that somebody should be telling the emperor he or she has no clothes. So how do you straddle the fine line between being a constructive devil's advocate and a pessimistic downer?

12:21Yeah, no, I think it's funny. You're asking questions that are of a vein of a lot of what I hear, because I think people, and it's funny, I've said this many times, I wish every interview I did that my wife could sit behind and roll her eyes when I talk about how positive I am, because I have my moments too. And we all do. And that's realistic. And again, I think not telling the emperor that he or she is naked is toxic positivity. It's hiding from those tough conversations. And anyone listening, yourself included, Guy, if you ever took that deep breath and had that tough conversation with someone that you've been putting off, how great does it feel after?

12:57And how often are they appreciative? Even times I've terminated people. I've looked them in the eye, explained why. I did a huge, pretty large layoff of a division when I was at the Weather Channel and sweating it out. But when we told people, we explained why. We showed them the numbers and the financials. We gave them outplacement. I went to lunch just to clear my head and I came back and this very large guy who was part of the group that had just been terminated was walking towards me in the parking lot. And I wanted to pretend I'd forgotten my keys, but I kept walking and he threw out his arms and he hugged me.

13:31And I said, what are you doing? He said, I've been laid off other places. You guys handled it so well. I really appreciate it. You're good people. And I don't know if I'm going to answer your question, but I think taking those tough conversations on, but doing it forthrightly and honestly and helping people the best way you can. that's the best you can do. Life's going to hand you tough situations for sure. So I saw you on the today show and you had one of the greatest lines I've ever heard, which is show me a list of pessimistic, successful leaders. Yeah. I stole that most of my stuff. That was from Bert Jacobs.

14:07He says, I challenge people, bring me the list of history's great pessimists. And someone threw out some name of some obscure person. I don't know who it was, But I'm sure maybe you could come up with one. But I think it's true. Someone said to me also, you don't want to follow someone who says, hey, follow me. I'll take you someplace worse. It's not. Same idea. And guy, think about the people you have followed. Think about when you've been a leader. How did you do it? I'm sure you painted an optimistic picture that people wanted to get behind you and follow. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

14:40Absolutely. In that sense, you could make the case that Steve Jobs, for all his assholeness, was an absolute optimist. Absolutely. A dreamer and an optimist. And by the way, I know that you were around when the Think Different campaign came on. And I was fortunate enough. I worked with Ted Turner and then I was his ghostwriter for his autobiography. Here's another trivia question. That first video ad that showed all the different people, Einstein and all the others. There are two people in that ad who are still alive. And one of them, I just said his name, Ted Turner. And the other one's in somewhat similar field.

15:16Who's a fun question, isn't it? Let me think about that. Not American. Oh, I don't want to bring this podcast to a halt. I thought I might stump you. It looks like I have. Wait, I'll type it into chat, GPT. Yeah, exactly. I can save you the trouble. Okay. It's Burke GPT. Who's the answer? Richard, Richard Branson. Branson. Yeah. Yeah. And Ted are the only two from that ad who are still alive, and it's still brilliant. I get choked up every time I see Ted on there. I had the poster. The Think Different of Ted on the poster was him in a sailboat racing in the America's Cup. So anyway, I digress.

15:52That is a good digression, though. So just give us a 60-second analysis of Ted Turner since you wrote the whiteboard. Yeah. Talk about an ultimate optimist. The guy had more setbacks in his life. He was a brutal childhood, difficult father who committed suicide when Ted was in his early 20s. He lost his sister a few years before that to lupus. It's probably definitely contributed to his father's challenges. So now he did inherit a small billboard company, but he was one of the great doers of all time. I think history is going to reflect very positively on his impact on the media world. And then what people forget or aren't as aware of, he was really one of the first big mega philanthropists, making a pledge for a billion dollars to start the United Nations Foundation.

16:39A billion dollars when he was worth$3 billion. And what he's done in preservation of land, he owns 2 million acres around the world. It's all preserved. He's a real, I love the guy. I owe him a lot. He's very different and he had his assholeness on occasion. and he can be very tough, but he was a genuinely good human being who overcame all kinds of odds to do what he did. I'm a fan. Sure sounds like it. You want to give us insights into Jane Fauna too? Sure, sure. By the way, so very similar in that her mother committed suicide. And you want to talk about a way to bond with someone. So Ted read in the newspaper that she was getting divorced from Tom Hayden and he called her out of the blue.

17:25They'd never met. ah, it's Ted Turner. And she said, Ted, I just, this has just happened. I need six months. Give me a break. And so he writes in his day timer, six months later to the day, he called her back. He said, it's been six months. She understands Ted better than anyone I've ever met. She was a great interview for the book. She really, she really gets him and understands him. And there's still, it's an overused expression. They're soulmates in a very interesting way. They just couldn't live together. Ted can never be alone. Literally. He's never alone. He's got a sort of a separation anxiety thing and he can never sit still.

17:58So if you're married to him and you want to have your own life, it's very hard to do. And let's just say Jane Fonda enjoys having her own life. She's still out protesting and getting arrested. And so, yeah, she's a fascinating person. I was lucky to get to know her a little bit too. Wow. Wow. This is a tangent I didn't expect to go on. I originally brought this quote up about show me a list of pessimistic successful leaders because I'm going to try to pin you down a little bit okay oh geez you've been trying to pin me down this whole time all right so now I want you to show me a list of successful optimistic media publications like every media publication it seems to me focuses on negativity so why are Are they successful?

18:47Oh, yeah, it's brutal. Yeah, no, so that's, and I think one of the reasons I'm doing this work is probably some sort of a guilt trip, having been in that business. Although I, luckily, particularly when I was at the Weather Channel, there wasn't a lot of sensationalism or negativity. We are, as a species, we are primed to respond. Some people say to bad things, I interviewed a guy named Richie Davidson, who's a neuroscientist, who's fascinating. He says we're actually hardwired to notice difference. And I like that in this context, because his point is that bad news is the exception. It's different.

19:18It's dramatic. And so if you want to get people to watch your newscast, you don't have a reporter stand there and say, I'm standing somewhere where there hasn't been a war for 60 years. Or you don't say, I'm standing at LaGuardia Airport where a thousand planes landed successfully this last week. You go to the exceptions. And I will go to my grave believing that a lot of these negative, bad stories are life's exceptions and they grab your interests. And my concern is that nothing does it better than social media. And in ways that television, traditional television never could, it's following your likes.

19:55It's following what you forward. It understands who you're following. And I've experienced this. I cleaned up my feeds when I started this work. And just as those algorithms can pull you down into despair and doom, they can pull you up into some really great things. So there are smaller positive news outlets. A lot of people cite to me, and I haven't watched in a while, I should. The CBS Sunday Morning Show is quite positive. One of the reasons I haggled, I pushed to get on with Hoda and Jenna on the Today Show. that's an hour of positivity for the most part. There are smaller ones that I'm in this little ecosystem now of people doing similar work.

20:32One of my childhood or personal heroes, David Byrne, has started Reasons to be Cheerful, which is a five-year project. He's been at it five years. It's a newsletter about Reasons to be Cheerful, news stories you haven't heard. There's a gentleman in Australia named Angus Hervey. He's twice the last two big TED conferences he's presented. He has an organization called Fix the News, and it's all about reporting positive news. So there are people out there trying it, but they don't have the audience of CNN and MSNBC and Fox, and that's why. And I know Ted would be frustrated. CNN was started to be down the middle news, and slowly by slowly, Fox came along and MSNBC, and it is hard to play it down the middle and do positive stories.

21:13It's tough. You mentioned social media about 30 seconds ago, and I would love to hear the bill burke analysis of like how should you deal with social media and news consumption what what do you do these days yeah and i i and again my wife would be rolling her eyes because she knows i could work harder at this but i think the first thing is i'm not gonna say anything you haven't heard before but use it less choose who you follow really wisely every time you click a like or a forward, that's a vote. And it's a vote that's going to be rewarded with more of the same. I hate news alerts. I tell this story about it.

21:55We were with our daughter on a beautiful lake up in Maine and her pocket buzzes and she pulls it out and it's eight people were killed in a stampede at a concert in South Korea. Okay. It's a very sad thing. She's an empathetic person, but it made the next hour of the day. She was so bummed out about this thing that happened in South Korea that, again, is very sad. There's absolutely nothing she can do about it. And she's letting it rob her of this wonderful day she could be having. I think we fall prey to that really badly. And if someone could tell me the last time they got a news alert that was positive, I'd love to hear it.

22:29Or frankly, something you needed to act on. A weather alert is one thing. And I have a bias towards weather alerts, but they're good. If there's a tornado, get in the basement. That's a good alert. But if a famous person just died yesterday at 82, too. You're just kind of sad. And I didn't really need to know that. Not this minute, for sure. So I think that's a big part of it. But really, I say, look hard at cleaning up your feed. I was fascinated when I started doing it. I said, why do I keep seeing this nasty stuff from this person I don't even know? And I'm like, oh, my friend follows them.

22:59Because my friend follows them, somehow it's kicking over to me. I think I need to unfollow my friend. It takes discipline. I think, guy, I get frustrated because I have my issues with social media and some of the business models. But it's on us too. And I do get frustrated when people present themselves as helpless victims. The best analogy I can come up with, and it's not a great one, but if you're on the sidewalk and you're thinking about what you can have for lunch, and there's an unhealthy fast food joint and a healthy joint over here, and you go into the fast food place, don't be mad at the fast food restaurant.

23:32That's on you. Don't complain about Facebook when you can't stop. You have agency. Up next on Remarkable People. Yeah, so we talked a little bit about cleaning up your media habits. We focus on social media, but all media habits, that's a great way to do it. It's an uphill climb with a lot of people. I truly believe that understanding and reading more history really helps you understand how good we have it today.

24:03Thank you to all our regular podcast listeners. It's our pleasure and honor to make the show for you. If you find our show valuable, please do us a favor and subscribe, rate, and review it. Even better, forward it to a friend. A big mahalo to you for doing this. Welcome back to Remarkable People with Guy Kawasaki. So if we can get down really tactically, what social media platforms do you use? It's kind of a crutch, but it's true. I use it way more than I did before I started this institute. And one of the good things I'll say about social media, it gives opportunity for someone like me to promote to people that I wouldn't have otherwise.