Qualities of Greatness Part 1: Balance Optimism with Paranoia

What is the difference between being good at what you do and being great? In this highly competitive world, it is not enough just to be prepared. Whether you are a bartender, business owner, athlete, or nine-to-fiver, you need more than just training and knowledge to be the best.

Rise to the Top

Some people tend to rise to the top of every role they take on. Regardless of their experience or strengths, they have something extra within that propels them to greatness. This special kind of leader can be put into any situation, no matter how unfamiliar, and within a short amount of time they will find a way to succeed.

One of the qualities that separates the good from the great is a sense of optimistic paranoia. Successful people are confident in themselves, but are never completely satisfied with their current position. They are constantly making sure that they are doing everything they can to be extraordinary. This baseline feeling of uneasiness drives them to constantly improve.

What Waiters Can Teach Us

If you have been out to eat much I’m sure you have noticed that there is a big difference between a good waiter and a great one. In a busy restaurant, waiters have a lot of tasks to juggle. A good one will follow the steps of service in a timely fashion and remember all of your requests. A great one will anticipate your needs before you ask and make you feel at home.

It may seem an unlikely place to find greatness, but I have found that people who excel in restaurants have the ability to excel in life. It’s the same way I feel about team sports. I have found that people with experience in team sports and restaurants tend to have a higher capacity for competency under pressure.

The seven years I spent in the service industry taught me many useful life skills that I have used ever since. The two years I spent as a waiter made me a better bartender and being a bartender has made me better in life. One of the greatest lessons that I took out of this experience was this concept of optimistic paranoia.

In my first year as a waiter, I was horrible. I forgot everything that people asked me and was so stressed out about it that I had the personality of a cinder block. My tips were justifiably awful as well and I’m not even sure how I kept my job with all the bad comment cards that people left for me. I had the paranoid part down, but pessimism was driving me into a downward spiral.

About the time I started to feel like quitting, I began to observe the best money makers in the restaurant. I was shocked at how easy they made it seem. While I was stressed out, (or “in the weeds” using restaurant speak) they actually seemed to be having fun. Somehow their care-free attitude did not slow down their performance, it actually increased it.

How to Get out of “The Weeds”

Being “in the weeds” is a restaurant term for being in over your head. It happens to waiters when they have too many requests to juggle. It can often be the beginning of a meltdown. I have seen many young waiters let the weeds spin them out of control and out the door.

I was almost one of those restaurant casualties before a wise waiter once told me:

“You can’t be in the weeds if you don’t care.”

At first this sounded extremely insensitive. Don’t care? How are you supposed to get tipped well by not caring? I started to watch this waiter even closer to get a better idea of what he meant.

He wasn’t mean to his customers. In fact, he smiled a lot and had playful conversations with them. So “not caring” meant something different than don’t care about the customers.

The thing that stood out about him was that he had a very optimistic outlook on adversity. Whenever he was faced with a crisis, he never panicked. He just smiled and took care it without over-apologizing.

Face the Storm

A restaurant is like a tumultuous storm of mini-crises happening all at once. So many things can go wrong between the kitchen, the hostess, the waiter, the bartender, the food runner, the dishwasher, the busser, and the customer. A successful dining experience is usually the result of a careful balancing act by a server who successfully tamed the beast.

A successful server knows that this is his reality and doesn’t fight it. He is optimistic that everything will work out for the best. When something goes wrong, he “doesn’t care”, meaning that he keeps his composure and just handles it with a smile. He uses a slight sense of paranoia to constantly scan his mind to find things that he can do to improve his service. His customers are having such a pleasant time that they don’t even notice how long their food is taking.

An unsuccessful server starts to panic. He is so worried about making a mistake that he can’t think about anything else. His mind is tight with frustration which limits his creativity. His customers sense his desperation and are reminded of how awful the service is.

Subtle Differences

I have learned that the difference between success and failure in life is often subtle. Inside the server’s head, it can be hard to see the difference between optimistic paranoia and pessimistic paranoia, but the difference to the customer is clear.

It is also useful to observe the other combinations of the two variables. We have already visited both optimistic and pessimistic paranoia. If the opposite of paranoia is indifference, what would optimistic and pessimistically indifferent waiters be like?

An optimistically indifferent waiter doesn’t care at all and has no sense of urgency whatsoever. This obviously makes for less than desirable service. The pessimistically indifferent waiter is the worst possible kind. A server like this has no urgency and a bad attitude to along with it. These two personality types don’t last very long in a busy restaurant.

Applying Optimistic Paranoia to Life

We have been talking a lot about the service industry, but these concepts are easily transferred to other walks of life.

Be Slightly Paranoid

To excel in life, never be comfortable where you are. Johnny Depp, one of the best actors in modern cinema, once said that the key to being a successful actor was to never be satisfied or complacent. Constantly scan your brain for ways to improve your situation. This state of slight paranoia will create enough vibration to keep you moving ahead.

But Remain Optimistic

The idea is to keep paranoia under control with a sense of optimism. It is easy to let paranoia spin out of control into worry. No matter what you do, don’t panic! Stay optimistic that things will work out for the best. Handle the curve balls that are thrown at you with the sense that you will be okay no matter what happens.

Related Articles:

• Whatever You do, Don't Panic!
• The Cost of "Runnin' on Empty"
• Dating and the Law of Attraction
• See Money Differently to Attract More
• Three Steps to Success for Creative Geniuses
• A Primitive, but Effective Time Management System
• Five Ways to Create Passive Income With Little or No Money
• Passive Income