Week #3: Ch. 2 Symbolism and Personal Example and Ch. 3 Optimism and Reality

Reading chapter 2, I learned a lot of detailed, but very important skills to be a good leader. For example, we negotiated "The Last One" today, but during the negotiation, I never cared about my voice's volume and the choice of words, though I cared about giving internal information and summarizing which we learned in the class. But it says Shackleton "chose the right tone -calm, confident, and reassuring." In such a difficult situation and himself very responsible, how can he keep being calm and not only care about other crews, but also even how to tell to his crews? If I were in his situation, I cannot do that. I respect him alot><
And reading chapter 3, though it says optimism is not neccesarily innate, I strongly feel that it is something you have or not. I think inner dialogue is an interesting idea, and it is better to do that than nothing. But I cannot imagine myself being optimistic than now, just by taping the phrase "You can do it!" to the mirror and seeing it everyday, when I am in a really tough situation! I think the team leader mentioned in the book was successful for doing this, because of his innate characteristics. The book says it might seem to be contrieved. But I don't think it is contrieved. I just think it is not effective for a person who is very negative, like me;_;