How to Cultivate Hope in Hard Times

Hope has long had a bad rap, as if it’s the sandpit of the naïve. Yet in times like these, when many feel despair about the state of our democracy, climate, and future, cultivating hope may be one of the most radical acts we can take.

After all, to hope that 2025 and beyond will not usher in more suffering, division, inequality, cruelty, and setbacks on critical issues like climate change—well, that would be naïve indeed. 

The incoming 47th president has made his intentions clear. And he will have more power at his disposal than any human being ever should, most of all one driven not by public interest but self-interest.

But that does not mean it is naïve to cultivate hope. It means it is more important than ever. Joseph O’Neill observed in The New York Review of Books this weekend that “a hopeless population is more vulnerable to autocracy.” 

So, how do we develop the “radical hope” philosopher Jonathan Lear described nearly twenty years ago that we desperately need now? 

We will need to learn much about this in the months ahead, but here are a few thoughts for the moment: 

1.    Respect the fear without letting it rule you.

Fear and despair are genuine and understandable emotions, and squashing feelings or asking others to never leads to anything constructive. But let’s also provide a container for them because we have work to do.

If you run a dispirited team, give people an opportunity to have a facilitated conversation, or two or three, to talk through what they are experiencing. 

If you are running solo, connect with like-minded friends as you likely already have, and permit yourselves to talk it through until you feel an energy arising or a conviction, in the words of Michelle Obama, to “do something,” even if at the smallest of scales.  

2.    A New Kind of Maturity for a New Chapter

Like countless people worldwide, Americans have been pummeled by challenging events in recent years. But unlike people in many other nations, we seem to have a mythology that says it shouldn’t be this way. 

Many of us want to believe, as the t-shirts say, “Life is Good.” We want to believe every generation should earn more and enjoy more than the prior one. We dare believe happiness is our birthright. 

And what about those who have lived on the margins, long denied access to the American dream? Many have clung to the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Perhaps we have underestimated just how long or how circuitous that arc is.

As others have noted, America is a relatively adolescent culture, both chronologically and as a consequence of having been spared throughout most of our history from the sobering events so many other nations have experienced—such as deadly wars on our own soil.

Today’s younger generations have come of age having to reckon with climate change—and as my son told me recently, knowing no president who truly inspired him. Meanwhile, those of us who have been around longer may still cling to illusions about the specialness of America, which makes this new chapter all the more heartbreaking. 

So perhaps we, above all, need to develop a more mature perspective. One that reflects, as political philosopher Hannah Ardent made most clear, that people are capable of great darkness–some with eyes open, some with eyes closed, some bit by banal bit.  

Life is good, in other words. And life is hard. Now, it is up to us to learn how to live through a more dramatic airing of this reality, closing our eyes to neither aspect and doing our best to make things better. 

3.    Learn from History’s Resisters

On Election Night, I Googled “anti-authoritarian movements” to remind myself of the people who have resisted strongman regimes before us. 

Among the many that came up were the French Resistance, the White Rose movement, and the Italian Anti-Fascist Resistance during World War II. The Algerian National Liberation Front in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the anti-Pinochet Movement in Chile during the 1970s, the Polish Solidarity Movement of the 1980s, and the South African Anti-Apartheid Movement that culminated that same decade.

Of course, closer to home, there was also the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, which (in a time of a healthy democracy, at least for some) courageously stood against authoritarianism, racism, and the violation of civil rights. 

Ordinary Heroism in Extraordinary Times

“So what?” you may think about this. “I am shocked, angry, and sad that we are suddenly facing what appears to be a clear turn toward authoritarianism here in the United States, long considered the world’s beacon of democracy.”

“And,” you may think, “I’m especially disheartened that it is happening when we urgently need to progress on vital challenges that are in the best interest of us all—again, such as climate change.” 

To this, I say Me,Too. 

Yet here we are. And so, now we must honor each other in our responses to this new reality, learn and grow from it as we can, and stand on the shoulders of those who have kept the light of hope alive in dark times before us. 

What that looks like remains to be seen, but it will almost certainly require resilience, resistance, and wise role modeling. 

One helpful framework that grounds me is ordinary heroism in extraordinary times. This is about rejecting the roles of victim or bystander and embracing what is within reach of us all: the cultivation of courage, altruism, and integrity. 

Until recently, I considered courage and altruism the most essential of these three elements: developing the courage to face our fears and the altruism to take action for the well-being of others. 

But now, I recognize that integrity is equally important. I do not mean only the integrity to align ourselves with truth and goodness but the integrity to strive to be and do our best with whatever life serves up. 

As one of my heroes, the late Toni Morrison, said: “The grandeur of life is that attempt. It’s not about the solution. It is about being as fearless as one can be and behaving as beautifully as one can under completely impossible circumstances.” 

This essay first appeared in my Substack newsletter, Savor the World: Reigniting Our Capacity to Save It. Subscribe here.

Dominique Browning on Leading with Hope and Courage

Conversations with Courageous Leaders

While the news might make it appear otherwise, countless good people are leading with courage, integrity, and compassion in these uncertain times. Responding to complex challenges—from climate change to social division—they exemplify what courageous, mission-driven leadership looks like.

This month, in my new series Conversations with Courageous Leaders, I speak with Dominique Browning, Director and Co-founder of Moms Clean Air Force, about hope, integrity, and the power of “mobilizing love” in the fight for clean air.

From Despair to Action

Browning was an author and editor-in-chief of Conde Nast’s House & Garden before she realized she had something to contribute to climate action.

View the conversation on YouTube

Today, she is the Director and Co-Founder of Moms Clean Air Force, a community of 1.5 million parents united to protect children’s health from climate change and other air pollution. She is also Vice President of the Environmental Defense Fund.

A warm, thoughtful leader, she shared her insights about the inherent value of dedication to mission-driven work in collaboration with others. We also discussed the importance of talking about courageous leadership — and even ordinary heroism in today’s extraordinary times. 

When we spoke, Browning had recently hosted her elementary school-aged grandson for a ten-day “camp” at her home. Over that time, she came to two clear points of conviction. One was that she likely would not see the climate crisis solved in her lifetime. The other was that she would do everything she could while here.

In holding both ideas, Browning illustrates a capacity key to success for any mission-driven leader: seeing the big picture and committing to doing what one can, however incomplete that might be. 

Mobilizing Love in the Fight for Clean Air

In her words: “I think about our tiny little band at Mom's Clean Air Force—we’re at 40 people, 20 people full-time now— and it's nothing compared to what we're fighting,” she says. “But it’s also not nothing. In fact, it’s everything.”

In my decades of research into how ordinary people rise to extraordinary challenges, I have repeatedly heard neuroscientists and other experts speak about the necessity of approaching the challenges of our day with humility.

As Scott A. Huettel, a Duke University professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, once told me: We are not even wired to comprehend complex global problems such as climate change. We need to bring them down to size and, as Browning says, do what we can.

But, Browning adds, experience has also taught her that we can do more than we ever imagined.

“I used to talk a lot about starting a group of moms to change the conversation from polar bears to people. Everybody thought that was ridiculous at the time—that it didn’t sound serious, just emotional,” says Browning. “Now, here we are, and everybody’s talking about people and the impacts of climate change in very real everyday words.” 

For her, it’s been about helping more people understand what is at stake—and “mobilizing love.”  

This brought us to how her journey has affected her.

Hope as the Antidote to Despair

Like many parents and grandparents—if not most people—Browning says she had long worried about climate change, even felt despairing about it.

But that changed when she committed to do something.

“Just deciding, ‘OK, fine. I'm going to create a way [to do something] made me feel at least I was channeling my energy in a helpful way,” she says.

In short, the work became the antidote to despair, and the camaraderie of teamwork has kept her afloat and motivated.

“I’m not necessarily a hopeful or an optimistic person,” Browning explains. “But I choose to be hopeful, and I choose to be optimistic and not depressed because that is the only way to keep going.”

This brought us, finally, to the value of having a conversation about acting with courage and even ordinary heroism in extraordinary times.

Why Talking About Courage Matters

“I think it's incredibly useful to have the conversation,” Browning says, “because it shows us we're not alone. 

“It also helps fight against the tendency to say, Oh, that was nothing. Actually, no, it was something.” 

And when you can acknowledge that, we agreed, you are stronger.

This essay first appeared in my Substack newsletter, Savor the World: Reigniting Our Capacity to Save It. Subscribe here.

Why Courage Is the Key to Leading Through Uncertainty

Courage isn’t something you’re either born with or without. And believing it is can quietly hold you back—especially in uncertain times. While we still have more to learn about how the brain processes courage, science already shows it’s something we can cultivate through action and awareness.

Consider the example of Alex Honnold, the world’s most renowned free-solo climber.

In 2017, Honnold became the first person to scale Yosemite’s 2,700-foot El Capitan without ropes. The vast majority of the climb took place in what’s called the death zone. One mistake and he would have been dead in ten seconds.

Few people, other great climbers included, can imagine doing this. 

So, why could Honnold? Clearly, he has the physical skill and intellectual problem-solving capabilities that rockclimbing demands. But is he also simply more courageous than most of us?

Neuroscientist Jane Joseph persuaded Honnold to allow her to put him in an MRI tube to try to find out. While there, she and her team showed him 200 mostly disturbing photographs.

“At least in non-Alex people, these [photos] would evoke a strong response in the amygdala,” Joseph said, referring to the part of the brain that processes emotions including fear and anxiety.

But in Alex Honnold’s brain, nothing happened.

And this raised an important chicken-or-egg question: Did his courage precede his climbs, or did his climbs fuel his courage? (Dr. Rowan Hooper writes more about this in The Wall Street Journal.)

Lessons for the “Non-Alex” People Among Us 

While researchers continue to sort that out, there are some practical lessons for the “non-Alex people” among us—by which I mean those striving to lead with courage and compassion in mission-driven organizations, purpose-driven corporations, and well-meaning communities, schools, and families.

We Can Cultivate Courage. 

Deborah Finfgeld-Connett, PhD, RN, FAAN, a Professor Emerita of the Sinclair School of Nursing, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, USA, is a pioneering researcher in the cultivation of courage across the age span. 

More than 20 years ago, she studied the courage of individuals from the age of 14 to 94 and published her findings in a study that continues to be cited by the National Institutes of Health and others. 

Her conclusion: “The ability to be courageous develops over time and includes efforts to fully accept reality, problem solve based on discernment, and push beyond ongoing struggles.” 

Teaching Courage as a Leadership Skill

Among the reasons courage matters in leadership is the power it holds to strengthen adaptability, relationships, and problem-solving.

And organizations have a key role to play in activating courage in the workplace—and not only for occupations typically associated with risk, such as firefighting or law enforcement. 

The point is: While courage has long been recognized as an important trait for leaders, the extreme uncertainty and challenges of our day make it not only practical but vital that we normalize courage throughout the workplace. 

One might even suggest that workshops on courage should be as big a focus as, say, productivity or project management. And it certainly should be a growing cornerstone of leadership development programs. 

After all, as a study published in 2022 in The European Journal of Investigation in Health, Psychology and Education concluded: activating courage benefits both employers and employees. 

“In a world characterized by transitions and insecurity, in which prominent features are risk, uncertainty, frequent changes and transitions in working experience, and the instability of future perspectives,” the authors wrote, “intelligent risk management and courage can be positive resources to deal with feelings of fear and to respond effectively to demanding work (and life) contexts.”

Put simply, teaching more people what it takes to develop courage just might provide the fog lights we need to see through the current clouds of uncertainty.

This essay first appeared in my Substack newsletter, Savor the World: Reigniting Our Capacity to Save It. Subscribe here.

How to Lead (and Live) with Courage and Compassion

Leading with courage and compassion may sound like a no-brainer. Who wouldn’t want to be seen as brave and kind? Yet truly courageous leadership—whether at work, in our communities, or at home—is harder than it looks.

In this essay, we’ll explore what gets in the way of courageous, compassionate leadership and how understanding the six types of courage can help each of us strengthen our capacity to lead and live with integrity in uncertain times.

For people in leadership positions—or who aspire to have a positive influence in their corner of the world—leading with courage and compassion is critical.

Without it, there is little hope of tackling real-world challenges, whether in mission-driven organizations, purpose-driven corporations, or well-meaning communities, schools, and families. With it? Well, it’s a game-changer. 

Yet, are most of us as courageous and compassionate as we could be? 

Odds are: Not by a long shot. 

We are, after all, subject to the Dunning-Kruger effect, a cognitive bias that shows that people with limited competence in a particular domain tend to overestimate their abilities. 

The same is true, in particular, for how we tend to imagine our capacity for courage. 

What Gets in the Way

This is why anyone who wants to lead with courage and compassion in today’s uncertain world needs to understand what gets in the way. 

One clear obstacle is a narrow view of what leading with courage looks like. 

For example, who comes to mind if you picture a courageous person—or perhaps a person in a courageous profession? 

For many, it’s a firefighter entering a burning building, a man jumping onto subway tracks to save someone, or perhaps a now famous pilot who landed a plane on the Hudson River when the plane’s engines failed.

In other words, we often think of courage in physical terms—some act of physical daring taken to help another. 

But physical courage is only one of many types of courage. 

Six Types of Courage 

For example, Dr. Lisa Dungate and award-winning author Jennifer Armstrong have identified six types of courage: 

1. Physical courage

2. Emotional courage 

3. Intellectual courage

4. Social courage

5. Moral courage

6. Spiritual courage

(Psychotherapist Dragna Djukic summarizes them well here.)

Like most things, these different forms of courage are not isolated from each other. 

For example, when my youngest son worked as a wildland firefighter this summer, it took more than physical courage. Similarly, when my oldest son left the country to serve in the Peace Corps last year, it took more than a will to expand his horizons through intellectual courage. 

From Understanding to Action 

But thinking about these six expressions of courage is helpful because it helps us recognize the great variety of ways to develop the courage to lead. 

They also can help us find a place to start, as followers of Gallup StrengthFinders might suggest. Does morality motivate you? Find your courage there. Are you intellectually courageous? Use that. You get the picture. 

Six ways in. One straightforward hack for embracing the expansiveness of courage. 

It’s like looking at life through a kaleidoscope to see how much more is possible. 

This essay first appeared in my Substack newsletter, Savor the World: Reigniting Our Capacity to Save It. Subscribe here.

How Our View of Power Shapes Our Ability to Do Good

I felt his presence immediately—the man in pursuit. I had just left my friends at a festival and was cutting across a field toward home. As soon as I stepped into the dark, he was behind me.

Thankfully, this was just a dream. But it revealed something deeper: how easily we associate power with fear, domination, and harm. In the waking world, those associations may limit not only our sense of safety but also our sense of agency—our belief that we have power to do good.

That realization has stayed with me, shaping how I think about power, leadership, and what it takes to create change in the world.

People Who Use Power Badly

When I think about power, I tend to think about people who use it badly. People like the man in my dream. People, male or female, who lord it over others. People who wield it deceptively. People who use power for their own ends, other people, animals, or places be damned. The worst politicians, oil barons, instigators of hate, and the like.

And there is, of course, good reason for this. The most dramatic, consequential, and best-known applications of power have often been terrible, even tragic ones. This is true across history and the present. 

Robert Greene’s bestseller, The 48 Laws of Power, underscores this point. Random House describes Greene’s distillation of 3,000 years of the history of power as “amoral, cunning, ruthless, and instructive.”

But what does this mean for people interested in being positive changemakers—leaders who work to advance well-being, equity, the environment, or any other good cause?

It’s possible that if, as I have, changemakers have a negative—or decidedly mixed—view of power, that might undermine their ability to exert power for good.

People Who Don’t Believe They Have Power

The psychologist Philip Zimbardo is best known for his controversial Stanford Prison Experiment. In it, he recruited male students and randomly assigned them to roles as prisoners or guards in a mock prison. The goal was to study the psychological power of roles, group identity, and more.

The study was criticized for both ethical and scientific reasons. But Zimbardo would go on to write a highly acclaimed New York Times bestseller, The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil.

More relevant to this topic, he also later turned his attention to the other side of the equation—what makes people do good—and founded the Heroic Imagination Project,which trains ordinary people to help solve local and global problems.

Some years ago, after listening to a talk he gave about the idea of “ordinary heroism”—that everyday people can do extraordinary things—I spoke with him. It was a warm summer evening on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, and I wanted to ask the question that I had been asking any researcher who would talk to me:

“Why, given the seriousness of the issue, do you think more people don’t engage in climate action?”

Sporting his signature goatee, he responded without missing a beat: “Because everyone is told they can make a difference, and no one believes it.”

To my mind, that’s an overstatement. And yet, tone down the “no one,” and I think Zimbardo identified a vital truth.

Many people doubt they can make a difference regarding some of the most critical challenges of our day—from the decline of democracy to the climate crisis. There are many reasons for this. To cite just three: Knowing the great inequality of influence created by income inequality is one reason. Knowing that each of us is but one person out of 8.1 billion on the planet is another. And knowing that, in America, our political system has become increasingly corrupt is a third.

These and other factors are, to be sure, significant challenges to people who want to do good in the world. But we don’t need to voluntarily tilt the scales against us. That is to say, We don’t need to also undermine our sense of influence by believing that power is inherently bad.

People Who Use Power for Good

I once had the great privilege of reporting on one of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s visits to the United States. I was in a small group allowed to watch him descend from a plane in an airport near Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. I stood over his shoulder as he spoke with students at lunch. I was seated in the front row as he delivered a public lecture in a large cathedral. And I silently listened as he engaged in a more intimate conversation with faculty.

But the moment that seared itself in my memory is this one: Hundreds of people were lined up along a path, waiting to glimpse him as he walked across campus with the university president. I walked ten feet behind them, which gave me a vantage point for seeing the faces of the people as he passed by. I saw their faces before he approached, looking like people’s faces usually do: Some tired. Some excited. Some looked as if they had been waiting for a very long time.

Then, like a wave unfurling across a beach, their faces transformed. As they saw him come close, they suddenly looked peaceful and happy. He hadn’t said a word. They were responding to the power of his presence. To the power of his goodness.

It was an important lesson for me that real power is certainly not inherently bad (despite some inherent complications we can discuss another time). 

Reclaiming the Power to Do Good

At its essence, power is neutral, like energy. The Oxford Dictionary defines it as “the ability to do something or act in a particular way.” What makes power good or bad, then, is the end to which it is put. Like fire, power can be used to warm and sustain life or burn and destroy it.

But I’m not sure we can create positive change in the world if we don’t believe in and fully embrace the power to do good.  

P.S. There was something else I learned in that women’s self-defense course: How to drop to the ground when a person with bad intent grabs you from behind, escape (in this case) his grasp, and then use the strongest muscle group women have, our legs, to kick him clear across the floor. I must admit, that felt good.

This essay first appeared in my Substack newsletter, Savor the World: Reigniting Our Capacity to Save It. Subscribe here.