Hi, Reader,

Have you been watching the Olympics? I'm sad it's over!

I was completely obsessed with artistic swimming. It’s surreal what these women can do.

Also, gymnastics and rhythmic gymnastics. I think I said “wow” a hundred times per each routine. Maybe more.

And track. My husband Avi and I loved watching these athletes run faster than we can even imagine. We are both terrible runners (and great walkers) and we love to try and calculate how much slower we would be.

Last week, we watched and re-watched the 1,500 meter race in which the Americans Cole Hocker and Yared Nuguse came in first and third.

It was incredible! Did you see it? If not, I’m sure you can find the replay.

None of the American runners led the pack throughout the race.

But coming into the final bend of the last lap, one of the runners, Cole Hocker, began to move up. And up. And up.

Until he was the first to cross the finish line.

A giant triumph!

What made it even more remarkable was that his teammate, Yared Nuguse, began to pick up his speed as soon as Cole did. And as Cole pushed to the front of the pack, so did Yared, eventually finishing third.

In an interview afterwards, Cole said that he didn’t know how he found that one last gear. “Divine intervention, I think!” he told the interviewer.

Perhaps. It sure felt that way.

But I'm going to venture a guess for how his teammate, Yared, tapped into his last gear:

He saw Cole do it.

I wasn’t in his head, obviously.

But without a doubt, seeing his teammate do the seemingly impossible opened up the possibility in Yared’s mind that he could do it too.

He borrowed Cole’s hopefulness.

I’ve written about hopefulness before.

It’s not the same as wishful thinking or blind optimism.

Hopefulness involves action.

It means having goals you aspire to achieve, taking action to explore different pathways to realize them and believing that you can do it.

Hopefulness is a skill you can improve. And one way to increase your hopefulness is to witness other people achieve the goals you aspire to.

This is what I was seeing on the screen as the two American runners passed several others to get to the front.

Cole actually tried twice. He first tried to pass a runner by going on the inside, but the runner blocked him. (During these Olympics, I learned that longer-distance running is a contact sport! I had no idea.)

So he tried again after a few seconds, this time finding a path through.

He was hopefulness in action: Have a goal (finish first!), try different pathways to get to it, and believe you can do it.

And his hopefulness inspired his teammate Yared to up his own.

There is a beautiful lesson we can all learn here:

Hopefulness is contagious.

When your hopefulness is high, you are spreading it to everyone around you.

This is especially true if you’re a leader because everything you do is amplified 10x. It’s why hopeful leadership is such an essential skill -- and something I teach to leaders I work with.

And if you’re feeling low in hopefulness, you can borrow hope! Look for people who are doing what you want to be doing in the future. Learn about them, their journeys, how they've overcome obstacles.

Instead of feeling jealous or telling yourself some silly story about how they can do it and you can’t, let their journey inspire you.

Borrow their hopefulness.

Look for people who inspire you and make you feel like a better future is possible. If you can, spend time with them, if not, read what they write or what's written about them.

Borrow their sense of possibility.

I think this is why I love reading biographies of great humans -- writers, artists, scientists, creators. They fill me with a sense of possibility.

Last year, I went through a pretty low point of feeling stuck and low in hopefulness... like I was going sideways. I'm not an optimist, but generally have high hopefulness, so this really threw me.

It really helped to grab one of the biographies on my shelf and just read a few pages. One of my favorites is the autobiography of Niki De Saint Phalle, a French-American artist, called What is Now Known Was Once Only Imagined. (The title alone fills me with hope.)

Niki created some of the most joyful, giant, and colorful sculptures, but had to overcome seemingly insurmountable challenges to make her visions come to life -- money struggles, health issues, regulations, you name it.

Last year, I got to visit the amazing Tarot Garden sculpture park she created in Italy. Standing there, amidst her fantastical breath-taking sculptures, I had this deep feeling of gratitude that she didn't give up.

Her hopefulness was inspiring.

And I borrowed it to fuel my own.

So this is your note-to-self for this week:

Borrow hopefulness when you need it.

Share hopefulness when you have it.

With joy,

Nataly

P.S. In a few weeks, I'm announcing my new REINVENT•ABILITY Accelerator! It's a 5-week cohort to help you get clarity on what you truly want, take purposeful action to move toward it, and unlock your innate ability to grow and evolve through change.

It's grounded in the science of hopefulness -- as well as my own reinvention and the scientific methodology of invention created by my dad and his team!

I can't wait to share it with you!

But if you're really excited to learn more now, just reply and let me know. I am impatient so I get it. Actually, I love impatience!

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