CHAPTER 3

Hope:
A Generative Force

Hope and a hopeful view are powerful and generative forces in the world of leadership. They are heliotropic in that organizations, leaders, and teams turn toward hope as if it were the sun shining down on possibility. Hope drives forward new ways of being and new ideas, and it sustains leaders and organizations as they move through change.

Hope is the first of the inner elements we explore in the appreciative resilience model. Although we take the inner circle of the appreciative resilience model apart to explore the elements more fully, hope, despair, and forgiveness move in an ever-changing ebb and flow for leaders. Resilient leaders move through this ebb and flow continually. They have the ability to reside with or let go of things that are not working; to reside with or let go of the emotions of despair, anger, and hurt. They forgive both themselves and others. These abilities are grounded in living with a hopeful view. In exploring, through appreciative inquiry, how to foster hope and a hopeful view, leaders can begin the journey of finding their more resilient selves and begin to use a hopeful view as an element of resilient leadership. Hope is a practice. Leaders cannot simply command it of themselves. It is something that is honed over time.

It is no surprise that hope is a powerful element of appreciative resilience, because leadership, in and of itself, is a place of hope, and those who labor in it are brokers of hope. Leaders work with people who are loved and honored, damaged and in despair, and every possible state in between. To lead is to work in the service of hope and to hold to the fierce resolve that hope is required to uplift and sustain the people within organizations.

In this chapter, we explore the nature of hope and resilience, reflect on hope and leadership, and look at hope as an intentional practice.

The Nature of Hope and Resilience

In this resilience work, we conceptualize hope and a hopeful view as the ability to recognize the reality of what is, coupled with the belief that a different future state is possible. We adhere to the view of hope put forward by extraordinary people like Viktor Frankl (1946) and Admiral Stockdale (Collins 2001). Both of these people experienced incredible deprivation and trauma as prisoners, the first during the holocaust and the second during the Vietnam War. Both men relate stories of facing incredible odds but never giving up the possibility of hope and the possibility of a future. Frankel called it tragic optimism. They practiced hope in the face of not knowing whether they would live or die. Both men found in extreme circumstances the ability to see hope within what were otherwise dire circumstances—to fan the tiniest possibility of being human and of seeing a possible future. Both of these men faced the reality of what was around them, yet within that very grim reality garnered the insight to find a hopeful view.

Most leaders will never have the experiences of these men, but many can relate to the power of holding on to hope in the most difficult of situations. This kind of hope is not about getting exactly what you are yearning for as a leader; rather, it is about seeing what positive and generative possibilities might lie within the reality of what is. Leading with a hopeful view does not mean that there will be no conflict or that people will not fail themselves and others. It means looking at what is and what might be, and then beginning to garner the force required to move toward that future or to reside with a hopeful view in the reality of what exists. It is not about being joyful or optimistic all the time; rather it is about finding the generative possibilities within leadership experiences. For example:

Joan worked for a woman who after the most amazing defeats would look at her and say, “It will be all right.” She would not do anything; she would just watch and wait. It took a long time to understand she was practicing hope. She was seeing things others were not. She was watching for the signs of hope and how she could move toward them, rather than looking at the disaster that others were seeing. She was seeing the untraveled path that we would all soon be walking but that none of us could yet see.

This leader could just as easily have moved to despair, but instead provided strength for those around her by holding a hopeful view. She did not deny reality or gloss over the enormity of what was happening in the workplace. She simply practiced finding within the current reality what hope might exist.

Hope is essential to resilience. The research of positive psychologists (Fredrickson 2009; Seligman 2011) supports the practice of appreciative inquiry in building resilience through positive emotions. Through her research, Fredrickson has found that positivity builds resources that result in becoming “stronger, wise, more resilient, and more socially integrated” (2009, 226). She also notes that unlike most “positivity that arises when you feel safe and satiated, hope is an exception. . . . Hope arises precisely within those moments when hopelessness or despair seem just as likely” (43). One of the leaders we interviewed practices hope and a hopeful view consciously with his family to generate positivity:

Part of me is forever hopeful. We have a practice in our house at dinner where we share something we’re thankful for and something we’re hopeful for. For me, that comes naturally. There is always something to be hopeful for. This isn’t natural for everybody, including my kids. We started doing this practice in a challenging time. I believe if we work at things, they can and will get better.

When we asked the same leader what he would say to other leaders about practicing hope and a hopeful view, he said:

I think it’s essential. People function better and thrive in organizations when leaders throughout organizations practice hope and a hopeful view. It energizes and inspires. It allows people to go farther faster than whipping them and constantly reminding them of all the bad things.

This particular leader considers himself an optimist. Optimists believe that in general, future outcomes will be good. Hope and optimism are related and are often included together. For example, Seligman lists hope/optimism/future-mindedness as signature strength 20, shortened to hope as one of the transcendence cluster of strengths in his Signature Strengths Test (“The VIA Survey” 2017). Seligman (2011) states, “By transcendence I mean emotional strengths that reach outside and beyond you to connect you to something larger and more permanent: to other people, to the future, to evolution, to the divine, or to the universe” (259). In leadership, it is a heady notion to think of hope as a transcendent state, yet it is exactly that. All leaders have experienced moments when those around them attach to hope: the mood changes; the ability to see the future begins; and, perhaps most important, people feel they can sustain and be resilient. A leader, in writing about both hope and despair, touched into that transcendence through wonderment:

Hope is the anticipation of tomorrow, a new day—a mantra that I repeated to myself on a daily and sometimes hourly basis when I was senior administrator in a private career college. I was battling feelings of inadequacy and despair as I navigated the daily frustrations of managing and supporting the educational systems within a private, for-profit college environment. I was often at odds, mostly with myself, trying to reconcile the needs of a private corporation with that of educational integrity. I was often profoundly distressed that many of the decisions I had to make must first be viewed through a “profit” lens. I understood the need to make a sound financial case for a new initiative or program, but this went deeper than that. I was constantly asked to remove my educator’s mantle and approach all challenges as threats . . . financial threats. This line of thinking became quite twisted over time; not only were situations viewed as “threats” but then so were faculty, staff, and students viewed as threats . . . potential enemies.

This deeply disturbed me.

As I would contemplate these feelings, I would remind myself that management is about building relationships. Although I may not have much influence over the corporation, I do have the privilege of working with a group of passionate educators. You cannot teach passion. Passion must come from your core, from that place deep inside that is almost impermeable to external forces. Passion became my hope. I believe with every fiber of my being that educators, formal or informal, are the greatest assets we have as a society. Being an educator is not about diplomas and advanced degrees; it is about “seeing” and sharing the wonderment that unfurls around us every day and striving to approach every challenge with an open and forgiving heart.

It is this belief that holds me in hopeful anticipation for every new day.

Hope as the upwelling of generative forces in the easy times and the most difficult of times is the powerhouse of resilience. To practice hope is to hold fast not just to the preferred future but to the possibilities that hope offers in the journey to a future sometimes undefined.

Hope and Leadership

Hope is a practice in leadership that comes to some easily and for others is a complex and lifelong journey. Like all practices of merit, finding hope takes courage. It seems simplistic to state that hope comes from paying attention to the hopeful path, but it is true. In all the stories in this chapter, there is a common theme of noticing and of practicing. Noticing is the ability to see and construct hope from what is present in the environment. Leaders must create the space for hope to both arise and survive. In her book The Joy of Appreciative Living, Kelm (2008) writes about creating joy as a practice of commitment. Exercising hope in leadership is similar. Leaders need to practice it every day. If they do not, they fail to see that in this moment there is always something that can be nurtured and fostered. Joan reflects:

I have experienced betrayal in my leadership work, sometimes by actions of my own making and sometimes through the actions of others. In every betrayal, I found that hope and new paths appeared by focusing on my strengths and those of others. Those paths might have been rocky, steep, and untraveled, but they always led to something amazing if I paused to see hope.

The focus on one’s strengths and those of others is part of the technique we mentioned earlier: tracking and fanning. Tracking is simply noting and seeing what you want more of in the world; fanning is the encouraging of that behavior so that it increases (Bushe 2001). The practice of hope in leadership is also like this. It is something one must track and fan within oneself every day. As one of our interviewees said about practicing hope: “Find the goodness in other people, catch them doing something right, and build on that and perceive that they are good.” This leader tracked goodness and fanned it by building on what people were doing right.

Leading is hope in action, and if one can practice hope and begin to understand how to hone a hopeful view, then leading becomes more meaningful, more powerful. Leaders who find a way to bring the element of hope to bear on their work and let it sustain them over the years have a place from which to view the next steps. As Joan says:

In a landscape littered with paths and choices, hope will walk with us if we encourage it—a tiny hand in ours leaning into an unknown future.

Hope as Practice

Hope and a hopeful view are intentional practices that can be embraced and emboldened. The practice of hope involves persistence and repetition. We recognize that the journey to the practice of hope is individual and comes from different experiences and learnings along the way. Here, we share a series of ideas about hope as practice:

• Hope is a meta-outcome of appreciative inquiry.

• Leaders are a part of something bigger than themselves.

• The practice of hope is not necessarily automatic or easy.

• Hope is not always about the here and now.

• Deciding what to focus on matters.

• Advocating for what you deeply care about is an intrinsic part of hope.

• Knowing that leadership has a rhythm of growth and loss holds one to hope.

• The practice of hope in times of change matters.

We hope that you might bring these ideas about hope as practice to your own leadership; perhaps you will also see your practice of hope reflected in the stories of other leaders.

Hope Is a Meta-Outcome of Appreciative Inquiry

Appreciative inquiry, with its being fully aware and inquiring into what might be, is a practice of finding hope within the leadership journey. By examining what is and seeking what might be, leaders can find pathways that were not obvious in the beginning. Jeanie illustrates:

I was facilitating a session on personal planning using appreciative inquiry. People came in wanting to find ways to engage their teams to actualize plans, which often were designed but not carried through. After engaging in appreciative inquiry to design their own plans, all the participants could see ways to take appreciative inquiry into planning in their work environment, but the most powerful outcome was the realization that they had been focusing on what was wrong in their organizations. They had deserted a hopeful view, and this, more than anything, was impacting their ability to actualize plans. It was inspiring to see how engaging in appreciative inquiry gave these leaders both a process for planning and, more powerfully, a practice to uplift generative positive change in their worlds. They left feeling energized and full of positive emotions. They were eager to see what the practice of hope and a hopeful view might bring to their work.

As this story illustrates, appreciative inquiry is one of the processes in the toolbox of hope and a hopeful view. AI can be used as a practice of hope in many ways, both directly and indirectly. As a planning or organization development process, AI recognizes what is working well, and in that recognition brings forward hope. In focusing on the dream of a future, appreciative inquiry brings into focus what might be. In answering what might be, people find hope. It is a meta-outcome of appreciative inquiry. The following examples continue to illustrate this appreciative inquiry stance by pulling into the foreground how leaders understand hope and how they draw on it.

Leaders Are Part of Something Bigger Than Themselves

This idea is wonderfully stated in the following snippet:

Through all the hard times, I continued to be a gardener and continued to tend to the needs of the garden. I thoughtfully walked with my vibrant and energetic dogs through lush forests, delighting in the ferns and lady slippers. I participated in the changing seasons and their splendor and realized I was part of something much bigger than myself, and there was always hope.

This recognition that one is just a part of something bigger opens the heart and mind to letting go of the idea that everything must be within one’s control. When one sees oneself as part of something bigger, it is possible to see the glimmers of hope for oneself and others.

The Practice of Hope Is Not Necessarily Automatic or Easy

Joan reflects on this idea for herself as a leader:

In my work as a leader, the practice of hope was not easy for me but over the years it became a compelling force. As an educator, I found hope through seeing students overcome and succeed. In my formal leadership roles, the practice of hope grew from believing in educational change and seeing new ideas come to life. Learning the rhythm of compromise, politics, and sitting with colleagues and deeply celebrating the work we were creating together fostered the practice as well. Unlike some people who have an intrinsically hopeful view of the world, I learned hope. I began to understand that hope was not some sort of exercise in visualizing a particular outcome; rather, it was learning to find hope in every outcome. I learned to acquire a hopeful view and profoundly see the outcomes, within and outside my control, through the lens of hope. Perhaps what I call acquired hope is the element that is the most complex and took the deepest learning and the most constant practice. As Victor Havel (in Wheatley 2004) states: “Hope is a dimension of the soul . . . an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart. It transcends the world that is immediately experienced and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons. . . . It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out” (262). This is the type of hope that I try to exhibit every day in my work. I feel that this kind of hope is enduring; can be acquired, learned; and fosters survival through the many challenges leaders face. I came to understand that what is happening right now is only a stepping-stone to a future existence. I learned that I could not always define that future, nor could I predict the outcome. And it was my practice of hope that allowed me to flourish and to exist in this ambiguity.

Hope Is Not Always about the Here and Now

Hope might be about seeing a far-off distant future. Imagine if every day, as a leader, you could practice appreciative intelligence by seeing the “inherent generative potential within the present” (Thatchenkery and Metzker 2006, 5). These are such simple and powerful words. Every time people see the possibility of the future spinning out from the present, they are practicing hope.

Joan reflects further:

I learned of the power of hope and a hopeful view in the early years as a leader working with women who wanted to study trades education at community colleges. I had grown up on a rural farm, and women did hard labor and could fix anything. I was stunned when I moved to an urban environment and found out it was unusual for women to work with their hands. As I advocated for women’s access to nontraditional work, I began to understand that it was not about change arriving immediately; rather, it was about undertaking leadership work that might make a difference at some unidentifiable future point. It was about working every day holding on to the idea that women had the right to undertake whatever work they desired, but not expecting the world to change in a day. I knew a woman who was studying to be a boilermaker, and male students harassed her, slashed her tires, and put pornography in her locker—but she never gave up.

The boilermaker in this story understood the nature of hope. It is not about the world being as one wishes it to be but about being within the world as it is, continuing along a path that will lead to change even though one might not know the outcome, be present for the change, or be able to control it.

Deciding What to Focus on Matters

We all frame or perceive people and situations in certain ways. The ability to “reperceive” people and situations is a practice of hope. It is about applying the poetic principle of AI and about reframing. Joan provides an example:

I once had a person who reported to me who was, to say the least, a handful to manage. She was innovative, creative, personable, dedicated, and very hard working. She also had an interesting relationship to policy and procedures; could be short with others when she was overworked; and could irritate other colleagues because she always pushed to the limit to get a good idea through the door. Yet all the time I worked with her, she received amazing reviews from direct reports and colleagues because they saw in her something important. In my time working with her, she excelled and brought incredible innovation to the departments she was responsible for leading. I focused on her abilities and how she used those abilities to champion what needed to get done. When she did this, I never had reason to worry about her performance because others responded to her vision and drive, and enabled positive outcomes. I did have a choice, however. I could have focused entirely on her weaknesses, and frustrated all of her attempts to undertake positive work. I consciously chose not to do this.

There are many people like this colleague inside organizations. Without the ability to reframe to see these individuals’ strengths, leaders cannot enable positive outcomes. We are not suggesting that there are not times when people need to leave organizations, nor are we positing that a hopeful view can solve personnel issues. However, what leaders focus on and foster influences the outcomes both for themselves and for those who work with them. Jeanie reflects further on this idea of the importance of what leaders focus on:

My intentional journey of hope has been built on a background of growing up with a mother who emphasized “accentuate the positive,” and so I did. It wasn’t always easy, but it was something I practiced, trying to bring a hopeful view to challenges, big or small. In all my formal and informal leadership roles, I’ve applied my hopeful view by looking for what is working that can be built on. For example, when I woke up after being in a very serious car accident, I was aware that I couldn’t talk, couldn’t move. Even in this state, I also became aware of what I could do. I reframed my challenges into my possibilities. I could smile and listen. I was alive, being cared for in a hospital surrounded by family and health care providers. Over the weeks and months of healing, I practiced hope by reframing to focus on what I could do, to focus on the possibilities, and by taking steps (literally learning to walk again) along a path forward. This personal example illustrates how I intentionally practice hope through choosing what I focus on. I carry this choosing what to focus on into my work practices as a leader.

For example, when I was leading a team of twelve department heads from diverse programs, I experienced hope as we practiced together being inclusive of our differences and choosing what to focus on. In our team meetings we used various forms of communication, as two of the department heads were deaf and one was blind. When we took a vote at our meetings, we used both visual (hands up) and auditory (yes or no) responses. Often our sign language interpreters had to remind us that they couldn’t interpret cross-talk or fast talking. Slowing down was a good thing for all of us, enabling us to listen and speak more carefully. Having to think through how we communicated deepened our understanding of how important it was to pay attention to communication with each other. We had fun at our meetings, enjoying our diversity and respecting each other’s opinions and passions. We fostered hope by choosing to focus on the joy of our diversity.

Deciding what to focus on matters in hope. This choice of focus uses the powerful leadership skill of fully residing with the multiple realities that are at play. In Jeanie’s story, one can see her determination to practice hope. She does not turn aside from the reality of the conditions around her, and she decides to focus on hope above all else. One leader summed up this idea by saying, “Make it your business to find out what gives people hope. Don’t ever forget to ask the people you are leading what gives them hope . . . what is it that rocks their boat. . . . Don’t ever assume that you know.”

Advocating for What You Deeply Care about Is an Intrinsic Part of Hope

Both of us, as authors and as leaders, have been very involved in work that fosters inclusion and equity. Along that journey, we recognized that to have a clear idea of what we deeply cared about is part of hope and a hopeful view. This caring is about holding a possible positive future in one’s mind and then driving toward that future, never giving up on the hope that the future will arrive. One leader put it this way:

I’m an optimistic and hopeful person always. . . . As much as the world is a dark and awful place, there is so much beauty, and being able to reflect on the small beauties of the world is what keeps it all alive. . . . I believe we can make change. . . . I have a sticky note on my desk that says, in caps, FIGHT. . . . I believe that this is for the greater good, and we can change the world that we live in. . . . We need to keep loving and fighting . . . the movement itself needs to nourish us. . . . If there isn’t hope, what’s the point? . . . I’m still organizing and fighting, and a lot of that is based on very deep love and hope for change.

This leader captures the very important notion that advocating for changes to the systemic issues in the world blends with hope and love. When leaders deeply care about something, the journey is bearable because the cause, the caring, the systemic shift is so important that it buoys up the hope that change will come, if not today, then possibly tomorrow.

Knowing That Leadership Has a Rhythm of Growth and Loss Holds One to Hope

The hope of the gardener described in the next story is a wonderful metaphor for the place that hope dwells—a place that enables and encourages leaders to sow the earth knowing that some things will grow and some will flounder. Leaders repeatedly begin again and resow, knowing that the wind, rain, and sun can be nurturing friends or destructive foes. Sometimes leaders retrace their steps to find things they should have understood, and other times they strike out in new directions. In the garden, there is both hope and its shadow. Hope holds in its hands the soft earth as it readies it for planting; hope is open to the possible and deeply feels the moment of beginning, not the prediction of the end state. A leader described her leadership life as a gardener this way:

I am a gardener—one who nurtures, tends, plants, cultivates, and harvests. I am a leader who inspires, creates, celebrates, encourages, and invests. Gardeners and leaders have many skills and talents and values in common. Great gardeners are full of hope. It is genuine and considered hope that is the essence of how I see myself as a gardener and a leader. This is a hope that is based in reverence for life in its deepest and most profound meaning.

Some of my earliest memories of hope involve planting radish seeds as a small girl and waiting impatiently for them to sprout. I can still feel and smell the soil and relive the joy of the first shoots. In a similar manner, I can still visualize my first formal leadership role in my Brownie pack. The possibilities of making a difference, of helping others with their badges, of teaching them the rituals, of being there for them when they forgot their tams or scarves. Hope for the future was the essence of these early experiences.

The lessons of the gardener inform me in the lessons of leadership. Sometimes, despite all the necessary prep of soil, nutrients, seed selection, etc., the seeds blow away, the plant withers, and the bugs attack or the bloom fades before it flowers. The ground is fallow for periods of time and only a few stalks blow in the wind. I prepare again, gather more information, and make selections, try different nutrients, check the weather, accept that for me roses do not do well—concentrate on daisies. This is hope. Next time, the garden will be great, it will be different, and it will grow.

My leadership is embedded in the hope of the gardener—learning to accept, to rethink, to reimagine, to redo, to undo, knowing that tomorrow is another opportunity full of possibilities and potential to discover and celebrate.

I have loved every job I have ever had—some lasted longer than others. In some positions there was more to plant, more to nurture, and more learning to be had.

I have chosen to change jobs based on my assessment of the possibilities for growth for myself and others. Much as a gardener decides their type of garden. All my life, I have been associated with some aspect of education, whether it be teaching pottery, swimming, or anthropology, or facilitating teams, or teaching others to teach and be leaders. For me, education is all about hope—for oneself, for others, and for a different world. It is the hope that sees me through to more possibilities and to uncovering the potential in others and providing me the opportunity to be a small part in realizing the possibility. Finding the seeds, nurturing their beginnings, tending the fragile shoots, staking their stems, and admiring their unique blooming beauty is the gift of hope and the reason to be. I will always be a gardener and revel in the possible, despite stormy weather, dry seasons, scattered seeds, and invasive pests. In leadership, I cherish the hope of the gardener, and this hope inspires my leadership and sees me through the tough times.

The practice of hope in all the multiple tasks of leadership is the recognition that hope can be nurtured in the early stages when the outcome is not known; in the journey along the way, where already some things have floundered and some have grown; and in the final outcome, which might be different than planned. It is undertaking leadership in all of these places with the heart of the gardener that can help sustain hope as the rhythms of growth and loss and the seasons change.

The Practice of Hope in Times of Change Matters

Change is a constant for leaders in all walks of life and is often prompted by crisis, financial or organizational. In building the practice of hope and a hopeful view, leaders need to face what is happening and yet inspire people in order to move toward a better future. This practice of hope pulls the crisis of the past into the possibility of the future. One leader we interviewed told an amazing story about hope and how at times, as leaders, we must acknowledge the past and our fears, and still inspire people for the future:

Hope should have filled the air. It was late August, always an exciting time of year as we welcome new students and faculty and kick off another academic year. I had served the college for twenty-six years in a variety of faculty and administrative roles, but this year was my first as president. I wanted nothing more than to walk in to our opening-day meeting and inspire the college community with an exciting vision for the future. But times were hard. The college was experiencing an alarming decline in enrollment and, along with it, a dramatic drop in revenue. As I thought about what I would say on that opening day, I had more questions than answers. How do I create excitement about the future in a time of tremendous difficulty? Could we survive without layoffs for the first time in the college’s history? How should we change and grow and prosper? What could I say as an old colleague and a new president to inspire hope for the future? People were depending on me for leadership, inspiration, and vision. I felt like it was our time and we needed to move, but how? One afternoon that summer, as these questions were swimming in my brain, I was enjoying a video with my children. One particular scene in this film seemed to be speaking directly to me. As I listened to the dialogue about a character who was struggling with returning home and facing the past, it struck home for me that we at the college needed to both hold to the past and face the future. Change was coming. We needed a new beginning, a way to collectively envision our future while, at the same time, addressing unprecedented challenges. In the movie, the character thought he was afraid to return to his past, but he was really afraid of his future. In the end, he embraced his future, just as our college had to embrace its future. I had dreams for what our college could become. As the new president, I knew it was vital that I convey my core belief that change is good. Out of this core belief, I came to recognize the intimate connection between change and hope, that hope is nested in change, and within hope is the fuel and energy to move us with passion toward an exciting future.

I told the story of watching the movie with my children at that opening-day meeting, and change became a hallmark of my early presidency. We came out of that financial crisis as a much stronger college focused on the success of our students. Little did I know at the time how a character in a kid’s movie would crystallize for me the importance of change and the connection between change and hope.

This leader’s story speaks to the power of story to inspire people to change in response to a crisis. The president used the story of watching the movie with his children to inspire the members of the institution and enable them to face together what needed to be faced. Hope shared is all the more powerful in its energy.

Hope and the Sand

As we end this chapter on hope, we invite you to bring the ideas in this chapter together by imagining for a moment that you are standing on the seashore when a storm is approaching. A storm can rearrange the beach in a matter of hours. Where there was sand, new rock will appear, paths and roads will be gone, and a new beach will emerge. The beach is different, the ways into the sea have changed, and sometimes more sand has appeared from some hidden depth. Yet the beach will reemerge no matter how fierce the storm. This knowing, translated to your daily leadership life, is where a deep understanding and practice of hope can reside. For leaders, storms rearrange everything, yet the practice of hope emerges like the rearranged sand. Like the rearranged beach, hope can always be present to greater and lesser degrees. As one leader put it: “[Hope] is one of the fundamental drivers of our human nature. . . . It’s a belief that there is a positive outcome in the future. It’s not like I hope I get there but that I hope that there is a possibility for us to get there.”