ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

THE IMPOSSIBLE JUST TAKES A LITTLE LONGER

There are many optimists that I need to thank. Over the years I have met with lots of entrepreneurs, writers, inventors, and passionate problem solvers. Some of those conversations led to big stories in The Intelligent Optimist (formerly Ode magazine). Some were small stories and some were just the beginnings of the next stories. But shared optimism was the thread that tied these conversations together.

On quite a number of occasions I entered such a meeting feeling the burden of running our business and not at all in my most optimistic mind, then left strengthened, freshly inspired after our conversation. That’s what optimism does, and in that sense I’m indebted to many people.

My deep special gratitude goes to the team of The Intelligent Optimist. Over the years many colleagues who have become friends have contributed to spreading our mission of optimism. “The impossible just takes a little longer,” someone once said. That’s the core of the optimistic mindset, and The Intelligent Optimist team has proven that time and again. A special thank you to Marco Visscher, who contributed much to the thinking and examples in chapter 4.

Chapters 3 and 5 are very much based on the ground-breaking work of psychologist Martin Seligman, who started the sometimes mind-blowing research on optimism many years ago.

My editor at Berrett-Koehler, Jeevan Sivasubramaniam, first jumped enthusiastically on the rough manuscript of this book—which I was happy with—and then led me masterfully to turn it into a much better work that I am now really happy with. Everything in between was a fun experience for which I owe him and his team my sincere gratitude.

Finally, whatever I learned and that I share in this book, I learned together with the woman who is the love of my life. We have been together for more than thirty years, and during that long journey we have seen many dreams come true. As you shall see, optimism has everything to do with making dreams come true. And the wonder is that whenever I stumbled she stood. Whenever I fell prey to the always-present forces of pessimism, she helped me see an opening again. Yes, that is love.

Hélène, thank you. Thank you with all my heart.

This is for you.