Bill Burke: Crafting Optimism in a Complex World

Guy Kawasaki:
Listen, I'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, this guy knows what is happening. So Bill, let us talk about optimism. Are you ready to go?
Bill Burke:
Let's go, I'm ready.
Guy Kawasaki:
So Bill, I mean let's just cut to the chase. I got to start you off with a nice softball, easy question, okay?
Bill Burke:
Okay.
Guy Kawasaki:
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.
Bill Burke:
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, and 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 do you hear it, we've never been this divided as a country, well it's just not true. We fought a civil war for four years in the summer of 1968 if you study, it was so divisive between Vietnam and campus protests.
And 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. And so I am cautiously optimistic, but generally optimistic. And as Warren Buffett said, "You'd 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. 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. And 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. And I really like that. And I think if we sit around and read polls all day and try to game, and if this happens, then 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.
Guy Kawasaki:
I share your anxiety, I share your optimism too. So let me ask you something, do you believe that optimists are born or made?
Bill Burke:
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, I think like a lot of things it's 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 four years ago, but I have to work at it. And it is 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 ten people rush to help them. People are good, for the most part. And the more you look for that, I think the better off you'll be.
Guy Kawasaki:
Do you think that the opposite of optimistic is pessimistic or realistic?
Bill Burke:
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 chip company, and we said to our employees in five years we're going to be worth more than NVIDIA.
That'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. Again, I'm very aware that we live in tricky times, we always have. So I think it's pessimism and 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 it's, optimism isn't toxic positivity and it's not a belief that things are always going to be great, they're not. They're 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. It'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, "Look, on the bright side, you've got a great physician." 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.
Guy Kawasaki:
I'm interested in how you define toxic positivity. Is it these gurus that run 2,000 dollar a day sessions at the Ritz Carlton and tell you, "Look to your right, look to your left, you're both winners. Shake your hands, stand up, change the world. You're all going to be rich." When does optimism turn toxic?
Bill Burke:
Yeah, that sounded pretty toxic what you just described. Now I'm forgetting the name of the book and I'm pretty sure she was on your podcast about being real with people in the workplace and they used toxic positivity as a negative. So 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. I 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, and meanwhile I'm building a file to terminate them, that's toxic. I think when you asked that first question, if I said, "We have nothing to worry about. This election's going to be fine. There won't be any violence." That's not realistic. And I think that's naive, it could happen.
Guy Kawasaki:
Do you think a pessimist is an optimist who has been disappointed?
Bill Burke:
No. No, I've been disappointed. No, I think it's more of an outlook on the world and I think it's often self-imposed. And you know this Guy, some of the most optimistic positive people you ever talked to have been dealt the worst hands in life. I recently interviewed or interviewed a while back, the podcast just came out with a guy who was a five and a half year POW in Vietnam.
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." He used 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. So that was disappointing when he got shot down, that was very disappointing. But somehow he's able to find the positive in that.
Guy Kawasaki:
At least he didn't miss any Super Bowls with the Detroit Lions when he was in Hanoi Hilton.
Bill Burke:
Oh, there you had to go there. You had to go there. Hey listen, they're turning things around. I was born in Detroit and we moved when I was little and I've hung onto this team and 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 crossed.
Guy Kawasaki:
One of my favorite books when I was growing up was a book called Paper Lion, and I'm sure you know it.
Bill Burke:
Oh, yeah.
Guy Kawasaki:
Right?
Bill Burke:
George Plimpton.
Guy Kawasaki:
George Plimpton quarterback for the Detroit Lions for a summer.
Bill Burke:
Brilliant book. He was an amazing guy. 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.
Guy Kawasaki:
We got sidetracked by the Detroit Lions, but I've also had people on my podcast, they were in prison for twenty-two years, their parents are crack addicts. They got diagnosed with ALS and they're not wallowing in the mire, they have definitely positive outlooks.
Bill Burke:
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.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah. Do you think there's such a thing as being too optimist?
Bill Burke:
I think if you stretch the definition again to being completely unrealistic, that's not helpful. If I just say, I'm making this up, but yeah, I can cross the road, that bus isn't coming so fast, I can do it. That's a stupid example. But 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 yes, that is a danger.
Guy Kawasaki:
And 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?
Bill Burke:
Yeah, no, I think it's funny, you're asking questions that are of a vein of a lot of what I hear. And it's funny, I've said this many times, I wish every interview I did, 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? And how often are they appreciative? Even times I've terminated people, if 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 I was 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, and 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 still don't know if I 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.
Guy Kawasaki:
So I saw you on the Today Show.
Bill Burke:
Oh boy.
Guy Kawasaki:
You had one of the greatest lines I've ever heard, which is show me a list of pessimistic successful leaders.
Bill Burke:
Yeah. I stole that.
Guy Kawasaki:
I love that line.
Bill Burke:
That was from Bert Jacobs. He 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."
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.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. In that sense, you could make the case that Steve Jobs for all his asshole-ness was an absolute optimist, absolutely.
Bill Burke:
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.
Guy Kawasaki:
Who's?
Bill Burke:
It's a fun question, isn't it?
Guy Kawasaki:
Let me think about that.
Bill Burke:
He's not American. Oh, I don't want to bring this podcast to a halt, I thought I might stump you here, looks like I have.
Guy Kawasaki:
Wait, I'll type it into Channel GPT.
Bill Burke:
Yeah exactly. I could save you the trouble.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay. It's Burke GPT, who's the answer?
Bill Burke:
Richard Branson.
Guy Kawasaki:
Branson, yeah.
Bill Burke:
He 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.
Guy Kawasaki:
That is a good digression though. So just give us a sixty second analysis of Ted Turner and since you wrote the bio.
Bill Burke:
Oh gosh. 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 twenties. He lost a sister a few years before that to lupus. Which 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, granting or making a pledge for a billion dollars to start the United Nations Foundation, a billion dollars when he was worth three billion dollars.
And what he's done in preservation of land, he owns two million acres around the world, it's all preserved. I love the guy; I owe him a lot. He's very different, and he had his asshole-ness on occasion, he could 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.
Guy Kawasaki:
Sure sounds like it. You want to give us inside scoop into Jane Fonda too?
Bill Burke:
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, they'd never met “Ah, it’s Ted Turner,” and she said, "Ted, this has just happened, I need six months. Give me a break."
And so he writes in his daytime or 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 gets him and understands him. 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 sort of a separation anxiety thing and he can never sit still. So 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.
Guy Kawasaki:
Wow. This is a tangent I didn't expect to go on.
Bill Burke:
I think I started it.
Guy Kawasaki:
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?
Bill Burke:
Oh jeez. You've been trying to pin me down this whole time.
Guy Kawasaki:
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 it focuses on negativity. So why are they successful?
Bill Burke:
Oh yeah, it's brutal. Yeah, no, 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 luckily, particularly when I was at the Weather Channel, there wasn't a lot of sensationalism or negativity. As a species, we are primed to respond, some people say to bad things. I interviewed a guy named Richie Davidson who's a neuro 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, it'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 sixty 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 traditional television never could, it's following your likes, it'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, it's quite positive.
One of the reasons 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. One 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, 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 MSNBSC 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, it's tough.
Guy Kawasaki:
You mentioned social media about thirty seconds ago, and I would love to hear the Bill Burke analysis of how should you deal with social media and news consumption? What do you do these days?
Bill Burke:
Yeah, 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 going to 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'll tell this story about it. We were with our daughter, my 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. It's a very sad thing, she's an empathetic person.
But the next hour of the day, she was so bummed out about this thing that happened in South Korea, that again, it's 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. Or frankly, something you needed to act on. A weather alert is one thing, and I have a bias towards weather alerts, but there's a tornado, get in the basement, that's a good alert. But if famous person just died yesterday at eighty-two, 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 then I'm like, oh, my friend follows them because 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. 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.
That 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 a 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, that's on you. You don't complain about Facebook when you can't stop, you have agency.
Guy Kawasaki:
So if we can get down really tactically, what social media platforms do you use?
Bill Burke:
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 that gives opportunity for someone like me to promote to people that I wouldn't have otherwise. So I'm using, I could say all of them. I'm using the biggies for that. Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, a little bit of TikTok. I have no idea what's going on, on TikTok. But I don't spend a ton of time.

I've used Twitter as sort of a curated newsfeed and again, very careful about who I follow, but it serves up. Fix the news. I got another great story this morning. It's one of the ways I find guests is through social media. I love newspapers and when you ask about social media, I challenge people.
The older ones of us in this audience, when I was a kid or watching my parents, you'd read the newspaper in the morning, maybe one or two, you'd go to work, you'd work till whenever, you'd come home. Maybe you'll watch Walter Cronkite or the nightly news.
And then you'd get up and do it again at three o'clock in the afternoon. My dad wasn't getting a text about the stampede in Korea. Do you know what I mean? We've become such junkies and so much of it is not useful or actionable.
And here I'm stepping out of my expertise, I'm the farthest thing from a scientist, but I've heard others say this too, evolutionarily, we grew up caring about our family and our little village, we didn't know what was going on fifteen miles away, let alone 3,000. And so we just bomb ourselves with all this data and all this information, and all this negativity and here's the craziest thing that politicians said.
And then I'll say one more thing about politics. A friend of mine called six months ago, Donald Trump said something outrageous that day. He said, "Can you believe what he said today? He blah, blah, blah, blah, blah" And I said, "Is that going to change how you vote in November?" "Of course not, I'd never vote for that guy." Then why are you allowing him to ruin your afternoon? He's going to do it again tomorrow, it's not helpful. Okay, I'm off my soapbox. You asked for it.
Guy Kawasaki:
You think your wife would give me an interview? I would love to talk to your wife. I have done this several times.
Bill Burke:
Now you've crossed the line Guy, next question.
Guy Kawasaki:
I'll take that as a no.
Bill Burke:
I think I represent tell my wife very fairly in this. No, but she will say, and I've seen her say this, that I am more fun to be around since I started this work. There's no doubt. There's no doubt. When I read the paper, I read all the bad stuff and I'm looking for the good stuff and it's a delight, I highly recommend it.
Guy Kawasaki:
Wait, so do you actually subscribe and get a physical paper?
Bill Burke:
I know nowadays I only get the Sunday New York Times physical. I lived twenty years outside of Portland, Maine, I get the Portland paper on my iPad, but it looks like the physical paper, so I get the whole thing. So I'm pretty much New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Portland Press Herald in Maine, and I think it's helpful read the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.
That's the other thing, if you start the day with this side of center or this side of center and then you just keep hearing stuff that just blows up your balloon on either side, you end the day farther off and angrier, and that's not healthy.
Guy Kawasaki:
I've been having this running one-sided battle with the guy who runs Instagram and other people at Meta, and I'm telling them, just give me a preference that I can set so that I only see what the people I have manually followed are posting. I don't want your algorithm, just give me an algorithm with no algorithm and I would pay for that service.
Bill Burke:
Absolutely. No, it's a great point. Yeah, so you have to be on guard, not to mention the advertising stuff. And you're having a conversation with someone about a vacation in Mexico and you open up Instagram, there's three ads for vacations in Mexico. It's like, wait a second. But yeah, why are we seeing stuff we didn't want?
Guy Kawasaki:
Wait, I mean, you would think from just a marketing perspective that there could be one social media platform where the inherent selling point is we have no algorithm, the algorithm is you choose who to follow and that's who you'll see.
Bill Burke:
Right. Yeah, it's funny because you said you'd pay for that. I think one of the challenges is they're very scared to introduce subscription fees, I think that's a big part of it, it's got to be free. So if it's going to be free, the only way you're going to pay for it is really targeted, effective advertising.
And I think that they're stuck on that. But you might pay a reasonable amount of money that adds up pretty quickly, a couple bucks a month. I learned that in the cable business when you had a basic cable package, twenty-five cents a month is going to this channel, that adds up pretty quickly when a hundred million people are watching,
Guy Kawasaki:
I'll drink one less cappuccino a month, it's not a problem.
Bill Burke:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and you'll feel better.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay, so in your videos and stuff, you discover this concept of Stephen Covey about the circle of influence versus the circle of concern versus the circle of control, right?
Bill Burke:
Yeah. I love it.
Guy Kawasaki:
Just for my listeners, just explain that concept. It's a very interesting concept. And then I'm going to try to pin you down one more time.
Bill Burke:
Oh gosh, you're brutal. Okay, circle of concern is the biggest one. And so that takes in, we haven't even mentioned climate change, these big or sometimes challenging stuff and you're concerned about it, but for the most part, there's not a whole lot you can do about it. Or if you try to do something about it, you might have an impact, but it's not going to change things overnight. Circle of influence is much smaller, but you have more influence.
So that's your friends, your family, you can make your workplace better, you can make your home life better. Circle of control, and I've got to go back and see how Covey defines it, because to me, that's really tight, how much do you really control? To me, it's like the circle around me. I can't control my family, I can't control my dog. So I think that's really tight.
So I tend to focus on influence and concern. And what Covey says is the more you focus on your circle of influence, the better you're going to feel, that circle can actually grow a little bit. You start impacting the marketing team at your company and then that spills over to the finance team. And that can be really powerful. And if I spent the day looking out the window and thinking about climate change, it's not a healthy thing to do.
And even, I'll say this, Guy, I worry sometimes too, that as you focus so much on that huge circle of concern, it robs you of some of the joy that you can have. And you've probably heard this before too, but on an unseemly warm day in the Northeast, someone steps outside and says, "Oh, it's a beautiful day.' "Oh, climate change. That's why it's warmer, it's climate change."
Now, again, I'm not dismissing climate change, this is a serious thing. However, we're talking about very small increases in temperature around the globe. So if it's an unseemly warm day in April, it's an unseemly warm day in April, that's not all climate change.
And it robs us of these joys, I think, and that's not a healthy place to be. And that robbing comes from this large circle of concern valid as it is about something like climate change.
Guy Kawasaki:
But don't you think that if people took this attitude to an extreme, it would say, "I can't do anything about climate control, so I'll buy a Ford 150 and get eight miles per gallon and I'll drive it two blocks." And there are things that individuals can do.
Bill Burke:
That's an extreme. Absolutely. No, and I didn't say just abandon the circle of concern, but I think if you carry it around as baggage all day, that's really unhealthy. No, absolutely. In fact, one of the reasons I espouse optimism, I think it's the pessimists who say, "Screw it, I'm just going to drive a big SUV, because climate change, we're doomed. It's too late, we missed it. So let's just enjoy it while we can."
One of the reasons I started this work is hearing young people say, "I'm not going to have children. Because why bother? The world's going to end in thirty years because of climate change." And again, obviously not having children is a very valid choice, but if it's made because you're convinced the world's going to end in thirty years, why bother doing anything?
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah. I made a unilateral decision that kind of banned bottled water in our house, and now we only drink liquid death, Liquid Death comes in aluminum cans. Although you could make the case that we're still shipping water and burning carbon fuel, shipping water around, but still is better than bottled water.
Bill Burke:
When someone looks back on this era, bottled water. Today, if you ask someone around the world, if they look at our bottled water habit, it's bizarre. We had the greatest drinking water in the world by a lot, and yet that's a whole other subject, but I'm glad you're doing something about it, it's always troubled me.
Guy Kawasaki:
My water doesn't come from Fiji, I'm just telling you as you drink your plastic bottled water.
Bill Burke:
Yeah, this is silver. So I filled this up in the sink.
Guy Kawasaki:
Oh okay. Stand corrected.
Bill Burke:
Nice try.
Guy Kawasaki:
All right, so I have one last question for you. And this question is, let's suppose that are listening to this and say, "Man, I have seen the light. I'm not going to be filled with negativity. I'm not going to be reading all the bullshit. I'm not going to be worried about Donald Trump ending America, blah, blah, blah." So now they want to know like, okay, Mr. Burke, you are the king of optimism. How do I get started on this path towards optimism? What's the tactical and practical steps that I take?
Bill Burke:
Yeah, so we talked a little bit about cleaning up your media habits and we focused 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. And really fun, interesting history. I read a great book about, there's a Joshua Chamberlain's guy from Maine who was a civil war hero.
You read this book and they just casually mentioned the next two children died in childbirth and blah, blah, blah, blah. You look at the actual numbers of longevity and infant mortality and vaccines, and it's incredible what we have. And if you can put that in the context of history, you'll feel better about the world. And again, try to catch people being good, look for the goodness.
Mr. Rogers, Fred Rogers said that when he was looking at scary stuff on the news, his mother would say, "Always look for the helpers." So when they saw the scary fire on the nightly news, look for the helpers, the response. In the aftermath of these hurricanes, watching what people go through to save other people, it's incredible. We're an amazing species and yeah, history, clean up your media habits, those are the biggest for me. And of course, listen to the Blue Sky Podcast on a weekly basis.
Guy Kawasaki:
Seriously, talk about your podcast and talk about the Optimism Institute. I'm all about it.
Bill Burke:
Yeah, the Optimism Institute.
Guy Kawasaki:
You're talking to an evangelist here.
Bill Burke:
Yeah, exactly. We were lucky enough to do a one-year academic fellowship in 2022, and it was designed for people later in their careers trying to make a social impact in what they did next. And so we have colleagues and friends working on climate change and homelessness and really important things, and I got this idea that this is a niche I could try to fill, I really feel like it's a big problem for the society and how negative we're getting.
So I started in early 2023, theoptimisminstitute.com was available, so I grabbed it. You're talking basically to the entire institute, I have some freelancers who helped me. So the name is somewhat tongue in cheek, and as you said, I got the name “Blue Sky” from a meditation prompt that there's always blue sky above, you got to get your head above the clouds to see it.
And every week, what I've tried to do, versus some of these good news sites, quote-unquote, they're great and I love them, I read them, but it says, new bike lane in Amsterdam. That's great. Or there's this, that's great. I try to talk to people when I can who are working on the very challenges that make us pessimistic.
So a guy who's written a book about political divisions, someone who's working on homelessness, someone who's working on helping people out of prison get employment, the toughest stuff, but they come at it with a sense of hope and optimism and a solutions orientation.
That's another one, by the way, the Solutions Journalism Network, they are working on more news stories and training newsrooms around the country to do more positive news. So that's how it came about, so I just released my seventy-first or seventy-second episode. You know what it's like, it's a grind.
Guy Kawasaki:
It is a grind.
Bill Burke:
But I tell you every time I'll do an interview and then a few weeks later I'll edit it and I forgot what a great conversation it was and what amazing person this was starts feeding on itself, because people are like, oh, I heard your interview with this, you got to talk to this guy. You got to talk to this woman over here, she's doing incredible work. It's everywhere.
So it's been a real pleasure and privilege for me. And honestly, I don't know if I've had this much fun doing work as I have here. I'm my own boss, I have no one to blame but myself when I mess up.
Yeah, I've had a great time and I get to meet people like you. Truly, you start doing this work and then you realize there are all these other people out here doing things that are similar and you bring so much positivity in the world and it's ridiculous when I look at the list of people you've had on this show. Again, I think somehow I got put in the wrong pile, but it's been great to meet you and speak on this subject that I care a lot about.
Guy Kawasaki:
This is in a sense my podcast, Remarkable People, it's remarkable people, it's not remarkable pessimists.
Bill Burke:
Yeah. Again, yeah, that's another one. Go through your list and see if there's anyone you've ever interviewed for your show that you would describe.
Guy Kawasaki:
Nope. As a pessimist?
Bill Burke:
Yeah.
Guy Kawasaki:
Nope.
Bill Burke:
Would you indulge me in something, Guy?
Guy Kawasaki:
I would indulge you in almost anything.
Bill Burke:
Okay, I won't push it, but I mentioned the person stepping outside on a warm day and going into gloom about climate change. There's a man named David Von Drehle, and he writes for The Washington Post, and I use this in a high school graduation speech I gave on this subject but it's during the pandemic and I think it's something we could all relate to.
He looks out the window and there's a beautiful bright red cardinal sitting in a tree, and right when he sees it, he remembers an article he just read about how bird species are getting killed off because of climate change. And he's having this internal battle of, can I actually enjoy how beautiful this bird is? So can I just read to you what he wrote because it's better than anything I could ever do?
He says he settles on deciding that it's okay to enjoy the bird. He says, quote, "Joy is becoming counter-cultural. And fashion instead is a heavy coat of doom, anxiety and depression, or endemic psychologists tell us, and why wouldn't they be when optimism and cheerfulness are taken as signs of obtuseness. When happiness is a dead giveaway that someone either doesn't know or doesn't care how very bad things are.
Here's where that cardinal finally lands, one cannot usefully address a threat to birds if they do not delight in individual birds. One cannot meaningfully answer the climate crisis if they lack excitement about the human capacity for invention and reinvention. One cannot make progress towards equality inclusion if they don't see and love the potential of humankind, enemies included. And one cannot build the future if one fears the future."
Guy Kawasaki:
Wow.
Bill Burke:
That's it for me.
Guy Kawasaki:
That is certainly plan a good way to end this.
Bill Burke:
Thanks for indulging me.
Guy Kawasaki:
Thank you. Thank you, sir, for this great forty-six minutes and ten seconds of optimism, and I bet it's going to help people be even more remarkable, thank you so much for being on my podcast.
Bill Burke:
I hope so. It's an honor and privilege, thank you. Thanks, Guy.
Guy Kawasaki:
And all of you listeners, thank you for tuning in and Madisun, thank you for making this happen, and Tessa Nuismer did all the background research and I have two great sound designers in Jeff Sieh and Shannon Hernandez. So that's my team, and we're trying to make everybody remarkable.