The Super Power Within All Of Us

Working for Roam is a reward because we get to serve a membership comprised of super heroes: men and women full of purpose and passion. They’re creating value, taking risk, influencing society, and building communities. Our members are a collective picture of what the world needs; it needs inspiration! At Roam, we are chasing our dream alongside yours; and we know exactly what it’s like to pursue a dream with everything on the line. In an ever-increasing VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) world, effectively growing a business requires special super powers.

Every worthwhile pursuit is full of adversity, sacrifice, and seeming failure. How do we not just overcome, but thrive in an environment of constant change and negative bias? The ultimate challenge is not in avoiding pain or failure (it’s inevitable), but the ultimate challenge is in our minds. Luckily for Roam, we have our members to thank, who provide us with constant encouragement through their stories of progress and victory. But we are also more intentional than that.

Roam’s special super power is a psychological weapon called positive affect, which comprises of positive emotions, positive moods, and positive attitudes. We believe it is the single most important active ingredient in Roam’s success and has a direct impact on our increasing growth. So how do we leverage positive affect? We do it through the little things on a daily basis: new-member shout-outs, birthday celebrations, employee recognition emails, letters of encouragement from our stakeholders, and much, much more.

In short, through our intention we are being constantly energized and renewed by an upward spiral of positive emotion, and it is the reason why we continue to grow in the face of so much adversity and change. As a group, we constantly flood each other with love, support, and jubilation, and THIS is our secret power. You may be thinking to yourself that this is obvious, but we live in a business world that is primarily deficit based or problem centered. If you’re like me, it almost feels natural to want to focus on “problems” and “what’s wrong.” The affect of this way of thinking is that it narrows people’s perspectives, limits creativity, causes withdrawal and avoidance, and increases stress – it’s life depleting!

Roam was created for a solution. It was created to be life giving. And, we’re proving what both faith and science says – researchers have shown that high performing organizations have a 6-1 ratio of positive (strength based and opportunity) focused dialogue to negative (deficiency focused) dialogue. Low performing organizations show a 1-3 ratio of positive to negative dialogue.

Consider the power of positive affect in other real world contexts:
Imagine the vitality of a community that excelled at elevating others through positive affect.How many more stories of dreams accomplished could we tell? What one small action can you do today to inspire your team members? How will you leverage positive affect for your company’s advantage? Together lets focus on appreciating “the best of what is,” imagine “why might be,” design “what should be,” and create “what will be.”

• The Placebo Effect: between one and two-thirds of all medical patients show marked improvement in symptoms simply by believing they were given an effective treatment, even though it was just a placebo.
• The Pygmalion Effect: Studies show that having high expectations of someone causes a greater chance for those expectations to come to fruition.
• Inner Dialogue: think of the affect that a silent prayer has your attitude and heart before you start your day.
• Positive Imagery: think of elite athletes, like Michael Phelps, who use visualization as a proactive mechanism for preparing for competition.