I am not a naturally optimistic person. I’ll always find the downside I’m an SME in what could go wrong.

When I was thinking about starting Faark, I Hope It's Not Too Late, all I could think about were the what ifs. What if people hate it? What if I look stupid, given I'm dyslexic and the whole thing involves writing in public? I could sit here all day and come up with reasons why starting this was a terrible idea.

This is not unique to me. Blame the lizard brain, wired to scan for danger. Handy on the savannah, when the thing trying to eat you is an actual lion. These days what seems dangerous is probably not going to kill you. Publishing a newsletter, asking for a pay rise. These are scary but not life threatning, but our brains can’t seem to tell the difference.

Scott Galloway, professor of marketing at NYU Stern, calls himself a reluctant optimist. He lies awake listing everything that could go wrong with his businesses, then gets up and does something about each one. But he makes himself ask the other question too. What if it goes right?

This question is harder one to answer and requires that we use our imgination.

It's always easier to write a cons list than a pros list.

There's a another less obvious reason we reach for the cons, though. Pessimism can seem like intelligence. Take the down side of anything and you sound sharp, even like the grown-up in the room. People nod along, because worry is what they’re doing and it feels smart. Say a thing might actually work and you risk sounding naive.

Think back to the times you went one way when you could have gone another. Remember the film Sliding Doors? Look at your own forks. The world mostly didn't come crashing down. It carried on in whichever direction you picked. Some of those choices didn't work out, and you moved forward anyway, usually having learned something you couldn't have learned standing still. When it did go wrong, it was nearly always recoverable. You did not, in fact, get eaten by the aforementioned lion.

I've written before about the premortem. You imagine the thing has already failed and work backwards, so you can plan to avoid them. But a premortem was never meant to stop you, just prepare you.

I want you to try the opposite. Call it a pre-parade. Same effort, pointed the other way. You picture the good outcome, probably not something you’ve put as much effort in to.

Take the thing you keep not doing. The job, the race, the date, the business you've been considering for years. Set a timer for ten minutes and write the best case. It's eighteen months from now and it worked. What actually happened? Who did you become on the way? What did it open up that you can't see from here? Give it the detail your 3am brain lavishes on the worst case.

Here's what the worry reel always seems to leave out. Standing still feels like the safe option. When it’s mostly moving backwards.

We treat doing nothing as free. Often it costs as much as the leap, sometimes more. The job you didn't take. The race you didn't enter. The idea you sat on until someone else published it. That's wasted time, and time is the one thing you don't get back

So yes, run the numbers on what could go wrong. Close off the risks you can. Then do the harder, braver thing, and run the numbers on what could go right.