Episode 13 - Why Founders Must Stop Solving Everything | Toby Bensimon of Grahams & Shiels Jewellers

because i think it's some of these lessons that we learn early that stay with us that make us the people who we are today and you are perhaps one of the most optimistic people i know what do you think helped shape that from an early age like the

optimism yeah Optimism is not, I mean, it's not a mood for me.

I think that it is for some people.

I often get called optimistic and it really isn't a mood.

It's more of a frame of mind and it's a reasoned opinion.

And the reason for the optimism is you know the problems are inevitable and problems have solutions and the solution is to gather and create knowledge and so I think that it's only logical it flows that optimism is the correct way forward and if you look around everyone's lives improve every year every business gets better over time we're not all of them but they can there is a point in time at which there is an infinite level of growth that you can achieve

yeah

And if you know that, and you know that every problem has a solution, then optimism is the logical solution to that.

It's the logical way of being in the world.

Whereas pessimism, it sort of suggests that you think that knowledge isn't the answer, and that there's a finite amount of knowledge and things stop growing.

And that, I think, is pessimism.

I think it's wrong.

It's actually...

Physically, in terms of physics, it's incorrect.

It's not the right answer.

And it does shape the way you think and what you think about, doesn't it? I mean, I don't think there's a phone call I ring you on that you don't say, today's the best day ever.

You genuinely get up each day thinking, that I think, don't you? Like you actually get up with how am I gonna solve some big problems or what am I gonna do? And even through some of those tougher times, you're still looking at the half glass full, not the half glass empty.

Yeah, sometimes it's a, a curse when you actually solve a good problem because you're so glad to be dealing with it and it's so enjoyable to be sitting with that problem that when you solve it, it feels like you've lost a child.

But luckily, problems have problem children.

So you can move to the next one.

And problems are inevitable.

They come thick and fast and you've got to choose which ones are worth paying attention to.

Yeah.

Yeah.