Wearing rose-colored glasses isn’t about ignoring reality—it’s about choosing to see the best in it. In this episode, Jeffrey Saad takes us deep into the power of optimism, challenging the idea that viewing the world through rose-colored glasses sets you up for failure. Our conversation explores how embracing optimism can be the fuel that drives success and resilience, even when the odds seem stacked against you. We also unpack the difference between blind hope and strategic positivity, and why expecting the best—without proof—can be your greatest asset in both life and business.
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The Beauty Of Rose-Colored Glasses!
I hope you’re off to a good day, you’re finishing up a great day, or wherever it is you are in your day. I wanted to talk about optimism. By the end of this, the pessimists are going to never listen to me again. You’re going to hate me, but I beg you to be open and hear me out. The realists will be more in the middle. They’ll take it in. The optimists or those of you who want to be an optimist will be cheering and will be excited.
Passion, gratitude, and optimism have fueled the joy in my life. It has been the fuel that has powered everything good I’ve accomplished. I always think there’s this cliche that rose-colored glasses are such a negative thing, but I challenge you to think about what it means to be an optimist. To be an optimist means to expect the best without proof.
I know a lot of you out there who are pessimists, somewhere in the middle, or realists will say, “You’re setting yourself up for disappointment.” The real challenge is not that optimism is setting you up for disappointment. What’s setting you up for disappointment is your expectations or your belief that life owes you something or that it’s supposed to turn out good, and if it doesn’t, that’s a bad thing.
The real challenge is not, “Let’s be pessimistic to protect our feelings or our emotions or to protect against what bad might happen.” Instead, the incredible opportunity is to stop and say, “The world doesn’t owe me anything. It’s not about the result. It’s about the journey.” What we control is our choices, our thoughts, and our actions. If you put the focus on your thoughts, which lead to your choices, which leads to your actions, you don’t have to worry about how it turns out.
Life Is A Rollercoaster
What made me think of this conversation was two things. One, I love Scott Galloway. Anybody who listens to Scott Galloway probably loves him. I read his weekly newsletter called No Mercy /No Malice. I’m going to read a couple of things to you from his last one because it was about optimism. That’s what triggered me thinking about this. I was sitting on the beach for the holiday weekend and expecting the best. It was an overcast morning and my family was a little bummed, but I said to myself, “The sun’s coming out.” Sure enough, the sun ended up coming out. I’m not claiming to be able to control the weather. The point is I was smiling and relaxed because I was expecting the best.
There was a picture of my wife and I years ago. We were at Disneyland. It was Scary Mountain or whatever it’s called. You’re coming out of this rollercoaster. You don’t know they’re doing it, but at the end of the ride, there’s a camera and it’s taking pictures. You then get off the ride, go into the little reception area or whatever it is, and see the picture of yourself on the wall and you can buy it.
There was a picture of my wife and I. this woman is the woman of my dreams. We’re good for each other, but when it comes to this stuff, she’s more of a pessimist. Sure enough, in the picture of the steepest drop of the rollercoaster, I had my hands in the air and was like, “Let’s do this,” and she’s holding onto the bar with her eyes shut, squinting and squeezing. You can see that she’s praying that we make it out and she’s holding on for dear life.
That picture gave me this instant analogy in my head. I thought to myself, “Life is like a rollercoaster.” Let’s say when they strap you in and the bar goes down, you hear that click, and you’re locked into place. They tell you, “There are eight drops on this ride. On one of them, there’s a brick wall and you’re going to die.” There are two choices. You can go over every drop, put your hands in the air, scream, “Woo,” and make sure that every last moment you have of your life is hands-in-the-air, joyful or you can hold onto that bar and say, “She said eight drops. We’ve already done 3, so we’re probably going to die in the next 1. If not, we only have four more to go.”
I feel like so many people suffer from pre-traumatic stress syndrome because they’re already taking on and suffering and feeling the pain of something that hasn’t even happened yet. I may die a half hour after this episode ends or I may be on the back of a Smucker’s label at 110 years old 1 day going, “How’d this happen?” Either way, for the most part, I don’t control that outcome. I only control the journey.
So many people suffer from pre-traumatic stress syndrome because they're already taking on suffering and feeling the pain of something that hasn't even happened yet. Share on XFirst Restaurant
I challenge everyone to try to look through that optimistic lens. All you pessimists out there, you’ll say what I was talking about earlier, “That’s not protecting myself. I’m setting myself up for failure. If I expect the best and it doesn’t happen, I’ll be sad.” We talked about how to adjust that. The realists are right down the middle. They’re friends with everybody. They’re like, “I get both of you. It’s okay.” No offense, realist, but a realist is like a closet pessimist. At the end of the day, they’re expecting the worst but are a little more realistic about it. They’re still positive people and are smiling.
The reality is no matter what you choose to be, you are not affecting the outcome. The only thing that affects the outcome is whatever you believe in, whether that’s God, fate, or universal energy. Pick your topic. Whatever’s going to happen is going to happen. Your best chance of it going well is by showing up with the greatest attitude.
Optimism is really the portal to amazing energy and great results. When you think like an optimist, you radiate that positivity. You radiate that good things are going to happen. Who doesn’t want to be around somebody who expects good things and that makes you feel better? I’ve never done it with that intention, but I’ve been told, “I like being around your energy,” or whatever. That’s the highest compliment, but I was always like, “What do they mean? I don’t get it. I’m existing like any other human.” That positive energy does it.
I have a couple of examples for you. One of the greatest joys of my life was my first restaurant, Sweet Heat. It was gourmet Mexican and healthy Mexican food in San Francisco in 1993. I was a 25-year-old kid when I opened my first restaurant. If I had been a mature grown-up adult with a good plan and a good backup plan, I probably would’ve never opened it because nothing about it probably made sense. I winged it and I believed. I believed, “This restaurant’s going to be a hit.” It sure wasn’t based on my experience. I finished culinary school. I graduated from hotel restaurant school. I have worked in restaurants my whole life. I was a decent cook. I thought I knew what I was doing in general, but who at 24 doesn’t? The reality is you don’t know crap.
I shut the cash drawer on day one in the morning and unlocked the door. On the first day of business, there was $100 in the cash drawer. That was it. The bank was drained from building it out and from opening, so it was going to be do or die. If we didn’t do well the first three days, that was it. There was no money left. I don’t know what we would’ve done. That’s not the energy I put out. I shut that drawer and was like, “Let’s do this. Let’s make this happen. I believe.”
That’s the joy I gave my staff. If any of you Sweet Heat staff are out there somewhere, you can call me out if I’m lying or you can back me up if I’m telling the truth. I created a sense of, “We got this. It’s going to be joyful. It’s going to be fun.” We were immediately successful and the restaurant was incredible. Did I make a ton of mistakes? Absolutely, but remember. Optimism fuels success. Pessimism does not.
Anybody can sound like they’re smart. Being negative or being a realist feels better. It seems more grown-up. It seems wiser to be like, “Let’s talk about everything that could go wrong. Adriano, if you’re tuning in out there, he is one of my closest friends. I love him with all my heart and soul. He’s an exception. I find him really interesting. I wouldn’t call him a pessimist.
He said it best one time. He said, “I make a list of everything that could go wrong with each restaurant I’m opening and cross off as many as I can by figuring out how I’m going to solve them. Based on the ones that are left that I can’t solve, I decide whether the risk is worth it or not. I was like, “Considering my last restaurant failed, maybe I should take your advice.” That was logical. It made sense.
He’s super experienced. That’s how he has evolved. Like most things, if you own the way you do it, it’s probably going to work out. That’s the most important thing, to decide what your internal compass is. We’ve talked about this. Have your personal constitution, live by that, and you’re probably going to do well. In general, he’s wildly talented. He has the mightiest of restaurants. He can’t help but succeed. I don’t necessarily think that’s a plan for everybody.
Real Estate
The second great moment in my life where optimism did it for me, I swear, was real estate. You may have heard the story in past episodes. My wife and I were partners in Pasta Pomodoro. We had our ownership. Growing to 100 or 50 locations right away. I’m like, “I’m not qualified for this. We’ll keep our ownership. Let’s hire somebody who knows how to open a restaurant in a week. We’re going to move down to LA, be with my mother-in-law, and get some sunshine and a bigger house because we have kids now.”
I had no real plan. I willed it to be. I believed it to be. I expected it to be. We came down with almost no money in the bank. We had a little bit of money, enough to put down in a house. We had a house. We had a down payment. We had a little bit to live on but by no means do I think the average person would’ve said, “You’re in good shape to go move your entire young family to a new city to start a new career. That’s a great idea.” They would’ve been like, “Idiot,” but I believed.
I didn’t even know how to get to Beverly Hills, where my office was. I figured that out. With the help of my awesome real estate coach, Steve Shaw, I decided to start door-knocking in Bel-Air. There was a couple in Bel Air that owned it. They had every listing. What kind of idiot goes into 1 of the hottest cities for real estate that’s the most competitive and then picks 1 of the most competitive neighborhoods to try to build their business? A realist or pessimist would be like, “Don’t do it. Play it safe. Go to this area. Be on a team. Go where your odds are in your favor.” I didn’t want the odds in my favor. I wanted joy. I wanted to make it happen. I wanted to conquer what I was doing.
Maybe optimism is tied together with a will to do what you want to do. The two of those are the Wonder Twin Powers Activate. When you’re optimistic and you have this incredible will to make something happen, the two together are like rocket fuel. This couple owned the neighborhood, but what I said to my wife and anybody who questioned me was, “They’re leasing it. We’re going to own it.
I door-knocked. That’s a separate episode and another conversation. Long story short, we conquered.
Right as we’re starting this door-knocking and deciding that Bel-Air is going to be our farm because that’s what you call it in real estate, where you pick a farm or an area where you want to really specialize in, we bought a $1.1 million house. This is back in 2001. We were 30 years old. My wife is going to be on this show. She was bawling and saying, “How are we going to pay for this? What are you doing? What are we doing?” I gave her a very well-thought-out answer. I said, “We’ll figure it out. It’ll all work out.”
I am lucky to have her as a wife because she deserved a better answer than that. We had 2 little kids under 4 years old, starting a new career, and not much savings. For all of you people who experienced anything in the 2008 crash, it was my first realization of what was leading up to the crash because it was 2000 or 2001 and I was a brand-new realtor.
The mortgage broker said, “You’re approved for your loan. Congratulations. We’ll be going to loan docs. You’ll be signing loan docs. We’ll be closing this escrow in the next few days.” I was like, “That’s awesome,” and then I said, “I never told you how much I make.” She goes, “Don’t worry. I filled that in.” I really shouldn’t have even had that house, but it all worked out. We thrived, and we still are thriving in real estate. I’m still door-knocking occasionally in Bel-Air. We’re still grateful. We have wonderful clients and a great business. It is all from optimism and from this belief that I could make it happen and that this could be.
TV Show
There was a third epic moment in my life. I attributed all to optimism because there was no plan that made sense. A friend of ours was down from San Francisco. It’s our dear friend, Tanya. She was watching me cook and talk at our house in Bel-Air. I was making dinner and she said, “You should be on the Food Network. You’re so natural at cooking while you’re talking, the way you’re describing the food, and all this stuff.” I said, “I’ll be on the Food Network.”
To Nadia’s credit, my wife, she immediately started Googling Food Network the next day. She saw competition shows. She saw, “The next Food Network Star live auditions in Santa Monica next week.” I was like, “How is this universe lining up with all these things?” I went to this audition and realized tens of thousands of people around the country have a smile, can cook, and can entertain people, but I was like, “I’m going to be on that show.”
Long story short, through a process of elimination, I was 1 of the top 10, 12, or whatever it was. I got on the show. I ended up being runner-up. As my uncle would call it, he said, “Congratulations. You’re the first loser.” I was like, “Thanks.” There it was. I had to disappear for four months, being on lockdown. That was the pre-COVID version of lockdown. I had no phones, no wallets, and no communication with the outside world for four months. The longer you stayed meant the better you were doing. The people who were eliminated right away went home in 2 weeks, 1 month, or 2 months. Since I was in the final 2, I was there for 4 months.
I had no place to do that. Who did I think I was? I had two young kids. I had a mortgage and a still good business. We were seven years into it, doing really well, but I wasn’t rich. I wasn’t in a place to potentially have this turn into nothing, have no income, and walk away from this incredible real estate business, but I said, and you’ve read this in many episodes, “I have to die with no would’ve, should’ve, or could’ve, only I did, and I’m proud, and I loved the journey.” My last restaurant failed. The outcome is nice to have it be successful, but it’s not the key. The key is whether you love the journey.
I went on. I had a TV show. I was a runner-up on Chopped All-Stars against the unbelievable Marcus Samuelsson. It was down to him. In the end, I had a show on the cooking channel. I was doing Rachael Ray and Dr. Oz. You name it, I was doing it. It was five-plus years of the most incredible journey. Thank you, Tim Kessler, my awesome agent who still is and who I love. It all worked out without a plan and without a backup plan. It was the optimism that fueled all of that greatness.
On Optimism
There is this little excerpt from Scott Galloway’s email. He had a guy named Josh Brown write this weekly newsletter in his place. The title was Optimism. He said, “Winners and other men and women of foresight and ambition do monumental things. Pessimists, watch them from the sidelines, making a list of all the reasons things won’t work out.”
Pessimism is intellectually seductive. The arguments always sound smarter, especially when they dovetail with our own worries. It’s that confirmation bias. It’s the number one thing we’re also guilty of. We filter, scan, and look for things that support the way we think instead of saying, “What’s the other side of it?” In one of the past episodes I did, I said to always start with, “What is the other side of this? What don’t I understand? What’s the other version of this?”
In the early years of the recovery from the crash, and this was the 2008 crash, he was talking about that even four years later, in 2013, when the stock market finally made it back over the 2007 high, optimism was scarce. Warren Buffet always talks about that. Run in the opposite direction of the masses. When everyone believes the world’s coming to an end, those are the biggest opportunities.
For every negative you could have cited about the environment of 2013, and that was when wars were breaking out and stock market stuff and all those things were happening, there were plenty of reasons for optimism. As stocks reached new heights and smashed through a wall of skepticism, you had to work a little harder to find them. I love that. This was true then, and it’s true now. It will always be true.
Despite all that we’re worried about and all the unimaginable things that have befallen us since then, the stock market has been fine. During the last couple of years, the S&P 500, assuming the reinvestment of dividends, has returned over 230% or roughly 12% a year. I know a lot of friends who are richer than me and smarter than me, who sold everything and bailed during the COVID crash or the ‘08 crash. They’re still fine. They’re smart enough. They have other resources. The reality is to have stayed put and even bought more is what the optimist would’ve told you and they would’ve been.
That is my thoughts on optimism. I hope that when you stop reading this, you can go look at the world with some rose-colored glasses and see the best that there is. This doesn’t mean to run blindly and dangerously into the abyss. By no means am I recommending that. Optimism is a lens to look through, but what you’re bringing is all that experience, all that expertise, and all that knowledge.
Remember, the people who changed the world, like Apple and all these amazing entrepreneurs, didn’t do what was obvious. If it was obvious and optimistic, and only made sense, it wouldn’t have been the great thing that it was. By the time everybody’s optimistic about something, it’s too late. Remember that. Your pessimism and your realism might be holding you back. Have a beautiful day.