Faux skeptics.

The most unproductive people you meet in business are faux-skeptics - people who act skeptical in order to appear smarter.

 Real skepticism can be dealt with, because it is based on specifics. Either you persuade them or change your own views. Either way it is a win.

 But the ones who “act” skeptical don’t have any special information or insight. They have merely learned a manner, believing that appearing doubtful and pessimistic proves that they have seen it all and done it all.

 They couldn’t be further from the truth though. Because all business operates on optimism.

 After all, if we don’t believe better conditions of life are possible, why or how would anyone come up with products and services for a better life.

 Even fear-based businesses like insurance promise optimism - that even difficult situations can be improved.

 The only thing these faux-skeptics achieve is draining the energy of people who can see possibilities.

 So whenever I find myself in a room with such people, I remember Oscar Wilde who famously said “Some people cause happiness wherever they go; and others *whenever* they go.”

And I wait for them to go so that us dreamers can go back to building the better things we’d like to see in the world.