One of the things I’ve come to appreciate most after eight years in the United States is American encouragement. There are obvious ways living in another country changes you, but this was one change I didn’t notice happening.
Your vocabulary changes. Your tastes change. You learn new customs and eventually stop noticing things that once seemed strange.
Then there are the changes you don’t notice happening.
It took me years to realize America had changed the way I respond when someone tells me they want to do something with their life.
These days, my first instinct is usually to encourage them.
That might not sound particularly remarkable. Surely people encourage each other everywhere right?
Of course they do.
But there is a particular kind of optimism I’ve encountered in America that feels different from the culture I grew up with in Australia. It’s an optimism that seems willing to give an idea the benefit of the doubt before demanding evidence that it will work.
Someone wants to start a business.
Someone wants to go back to college in middle age.
Someone wants to make a living doing something they’ve only ever done as a hobby.
The American response I’ve heard countless times is remarkably simple.
Why not?
Optimism and Practicality Aren’t Opposites
Australians aren’t inherently pessimistic, despite what Americans might conclude after spending enough time with us.
We can, however, be very good at keeping each other grounded.
I think there is value in that.
A friend announces an ambitious plan and the questions begin. Have you thought about the money? What happens if it doesn’t work? Do you know what you’re getting yourself into?
Often those questions are an expression of care.
You don’t want someone you love making an enormous mistake, so you start looking for the holes in the plan.
I’ve done it plenty of times myself.
What I’ve found interesting about America is that many people ask those questions too. They just don’t necessarily ask them first.
First comes the encouragement.
Then comes reality.
It seems like a small distinction, but I’m increasingly convinced it isn’t.
The first response someone receives to an idea can determine whether the conversation that follows is about making it happen or explaining why it can’t.
America Has a High Tolerance for Reinvention
Maybe one reason encouragement feels so natural here is that reinvention is everywhere.
I’ve met people who have changed careers several times. People who went back to school decades after leaving it. People who moved hundreds of miles to take an opportunity. People who turned side projects into businesses.
In a country this large and mobile, starting again doesn’t always carry the sense that something has gone wrong.
Sometimes starting again is the plan.
That matters.
If you’ve grown up surrounded by stories of people changing direction, somebody announcing a new ambition doesn’t necessarily sound ridiculous. It sounds familiar.
America’s national mythology probably plays a part too.
The country’s stories are filled with reinvention, invention and improbable ambition. Some of those stories have been polished considerably in the retelling, of course. Opportunity has never been distributed equally, and wanting something badly enough certainly doesn’t guarantee you’ll get it.
Still, cultural stories matter.
A society that spends generations telling itself that people can build, move, invent, create and begin again is probably going to produce a lot of people whose instinctive response to a new idea is:
Give it a shot.
I’ve Watched This With My Own Children
Having children in America has made the difference much more noticeable to me.
When a child expresses an ambition here, adults often take it surprisingly seriously.
Not seriously in the sense that every childhood dream is treated as a future certainty.
Seriously enough to ask what the next step might be.
My daughter Georgia is ten and loves dance. She already has ideas about where that might take her years from now.
What has struck me isn’t whether those dreams eventually happen. Nobody knows that.
It’s the response from the adults around her.
The dream isn’t immediately reduced to something more “realistic.”
Instead, people help her learn.
They expose her to people further along the path.
They allow her to imagine herself doing it.
Eventually life will provide plenty of reality. There will be auditions, competition, disappointment, money, ability, timing and all the other things that determine where a dream ultimately goes.
She doesn’t need adults manufacturing those obstacles years in advance.
I’ve come to appreciate that enormously.
Encouraging a child to pursue something isn’t the same as promising she’ll achieve it.
It’s telling her the possibility is worth exploring.
The Internet Made the Difference Even More Obvious
Becoming a creator gave me another perspective on this.
Putting something you’ve made in front of strangers is an excellent way to discover just how vulnerable ambition can make you feel.
You’re effectively announcing:
I made this.
I think it’s worth your time.
I’d like to make more of it.
There are countless reasons to convince yourself not to do that.
Yet some of the most encouraging messages I’ve received since starting From Down Under to Down South have come from Americans who have absolutely no reason to care whether I succeed.
They don’t know me personally.
Many stumbled across one video by accident.
Yet they’ll leave a comment telling me to keep going, congratulate me on a milestone or tell me they hope the channel becomes much bigger.
I’ve always found that generosity fascinating.
Success can sometimes be treated as a limited resource. If someone else is doing well, there must somehow be less available for everyone else.
Encouragement operates on the opposite assumption.
Your success doesn’t diminish mine.
I can want something good to happen for you without losing anything myself.
That may be one of the healthiest ideas I’ve absorbed from living here.
Somewhere Along the Way, America Rubbed Off on Me
I only noticed the change when I began catching myself doing the same thing.
Someone tells me they’re considering a career change and my brain doesn’t immediately produce a spreadsheet of potential disasters anymore.
I want to know what they’re thinking.
Someone talks about creating something and I’m interested in how they might start.
Someone mentions an ambition that sounds a little unlikely and I don’t feel the same urge to bring it back down to earth.
There will be time for practical questions.
What I’ve lost is the assumption that practical and encouraging have to be opposites.
You can tell someone their idea will require enormous work and still hope they succeed.
You can point out a risk without making the risk the entire conversation.
You can think someone’s chances are uncertain and still help improve them.
Most importantly, you don’t have to believe someone will succeed to believe they deserve the opportunity to try.
That distinction took me a surprisingly long time to understand.
I explored this idea from a slightly different angle in this video:
Maybe Encouragement Is More Important Than We Think
There is an obvious danger in romanticizing American optimism.
“Believe in yourself” doesn’t pay the mortgage.
Not every business should be started. Not every career change is sensible. Sometimes the cautious friend asking uncomfortable questions is exactly the person you need.
But pessimism has its own cost.
Ideas can be killed long before reality ever gets the chance.
People talk themselves out of applying for jobs because they assume somebody better will get them.
They don’t create something because somebody else already does it.
They don’t return to school because they think they’re too old.
They don’t pursue an opportunity because failure would be embarrassing.
Most adults don’t suffer from a shortage of reasons to doubt themselves.
We’re remarkably good at producing those on our own.
Perhaps that’s why I’ve come to value the American instinct to add something different to the conversation.
Possibility.
Living in the United States hasn’t made me believe anything is possible.
Eight years here has taught me enough about America to know that isn’t true.
What it has changed is my willingness to decide what’s impossible before somebody has even tried.
These days, when someone tells me about the thing they’d love to do, I’m much less interested in being the first person to explain why it might fail.
There will be plenty of people available for that job.
I’d rather be the person who asks:
Why not you?
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