Ep. 207: Why Being Realistic Is Keeping Your Nonprofit Small: The Healthy Delusion™ Effect
EPISODE 207
Why Being Realistic Is Keeping Your Nonprofit Small: The Healthy Delusion™ Effect
About the Episode:
Most nonprofit leaders play it too safe. In this episode, I’m pulling back the curtain on why a little “healthy delusion™” might be the missing ingredient in your fundraising and leadership success. You’ll learn why being overly realistic can quietly cap your revenue potential, and how the right dose of ambitious, slightly unreasonable belief in your vision can get you into rooms, conversations, and opportunities you didn’t think were possible. This isn’t about ignoring reality. It’s about expanding it.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
Defining “healthy delusion™”: What it means and why it works for nonprofit leaders
Breaking free from playing small: How being “too realistic” keeps you in the same lane year after year
Why wait for evidence before acting slows your growth
Real client wins sparked by leaning into healthy delusion
How to test bigger asks, expand your network, and approach opportunities without self-disqualifying
It’s not your stories—it’s how you’re telling them. If your amazing work isn’t getting the attention (and donations) it deserves, it’s time for a messaging shift. The Brave Fundraiser’s Guide guide gives you 10 done-for-you donor prompts to make your message impossible to ignore. Get it for free here! https://christinaedwards.krtra.com/t/xKuLs6tOiPZa
Christina’s Favorite Takeaways:
“Healthy delusion is the decision to see your success as inevitable, even when the scoreboard, your inbox, your bank account, says otherwise.”
“Healthy delusion is not the same as toxic positivity.”
“Healthy delusion acknowledges the difficulty but refuses to let it dictate the action.”
“Momentum doesn't come from avoiding reality; it comes from choosing belief alongside the reality.”
“Setbacks are just the buildup for a breakthrough.”
“The disappointment isn't dangerous.”
“You can survive a ‘no’, but you can't survive the stagnation.”
“A leader without healthy delusion stops asking when the first no stings.”
“A leader with healthy delusions keeps making invitations because the belief is baked in.”
“Cultivating a growth mindset that actually helps you get towards your goals faster is essential.”
“If you're not actively practicing this growth mindset, you'll talk yourself out of brave asks before the magic even happens”
“You just need to hold the hell yes.”
“Healthy delusion is what keeps you moving, even when the results are late to the party.”
“Being realistic is the fastest way to shrink your potential.”
“Steal a little healthy delusion from people that you admire.”
“Every big breakthrough once was just somebody's delusional hunch.”
“If your belief is weak or wavering, your results will be too.”
Episode Resources:
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How to Work with Christina and Splendid Consulting:
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Christina Edwards 0:00You. Welcome back to the purpose and profit club Podcast. I'm thrilled to share today's episode. It really does couple nicely with last week's episode. So make sure, if you haven't already listened to inner grit, to go back and listen to that episode first, because this is the other half of that training and everything that we're talking about in this mini series really centers around my lived experience as a lifelong entrepreneur, working with other entrepreneurs and other nonprofit founders, leaders, social impact superstars, and noticing the difference between the ones that stall out, the ones that sputter, the ones that burn out, and the leaders and founders that have created growth for their mission that is like beyond their wildest dreams that have that both inner purpose and fulfillment and outer impact that they are dreaming of and it hinges. It really does hinge on two concepts, one, the inner grit, which we talked about last week. And two, this concept, which may be a little like and curious to you, of healthy delusion. So healthy Delusion is a concept that I've talked about in my own work. I've talked about it to my husband. I've talked about it just in our life for many, many years, and I started dipping my toe talking about it with clients, you know, in the past several years about this, because it's, it's kind of a deeper level of this work about what it looks like to actually cultivate a mindset of healthy delusion and why I actually think it's so so important. So we're going to talk about the belief before proof today. Now I want to make a quick little interjection and celebration, which is that at the time I'm recording this, I have just launched a brand new GPT that is the sprint coach inside the sprint Method program. So we have now access to my brain, my concepts, my tools, 24/7 to help you create higher converting campaigns, to create a better conversion copy for your fundraising pages. And I'm just so thrilled about this new GPT that we're having our students use so that they can actually instead of going through this back and forth process, instead of hitting that, I know that that wall that so many of us hit when they're when you're trying to write stories, when you're trying to write your fundraising campaigns, and you're like, I don't know what to call it. I don't know I'm out of ideas. I don't know you know what to say. I feel like I've said it all working with a sprint coach now is so cool. I was testing it out with some client case studies, and it came back and it was spot on with the type of coaching that we give our clients in the sprint method. So if you're curious about that, just DM me sprint and I will send you information about that program. Okay, so let's dig into healthy delusion. Healthy delusion is the decision to see your success as inevitable, even when the scoreboard, your inbox, your bank account, etc, says otherwise. Now it's not toxic positivity, so we'll get into that today. It's not pretending things aren't hard. It's knowing that, yeah, you signed up for the hard and deciding that even when it's hard, it won't stop you from moving forward. Today's episode is really all about forward momentum, so the results are often trailing behind you. They're a lagging indicator. in my own company, success for so many other organizations that I work with is like a trailing indicator. Oftentimes you're planting the seeds, sowing the seeds, watering the seeds, before they poop, sprout into beautiful, tall sunflowers, right? So that success is trailing behind you, those results are late to the party. So every non profit leader has a choice. Lean in for this one. You can be quote, unquote realistic, which is often means just doubting yourself into inaction, dimming your ask down to be safe and sterile, not to you know, ruffle any feathers, or you can choose healthy delusion. And yes, I said delusion, I know it's such a like word, but it will change your life if you let it, because every big result I've ever created started believing that it was done before there was a single shred of proof. Seriously.
Christina Edwards 4:54
So we're going to start with a definition. What does delusion even mean in the first place? So I. Looked it up before this episode, and it says, delusion is belief in something that is not true. The example was, he's under the delusion that he will be promoted this year. And I loved that example because it made me chuckle, because the default way that our brains are wired to think is to skew negative. It protected us when we were cave, men and women, it kept us safe, right? It kept us warm. It kept food on the table. Okay? And so the default belief that that people actually default, that our brains are wired to think, is not this example. He's under the delusion that he will be promoted this year. Here's the default. He's under the delusion that he won't be promoted this year. Watch your thoughts 80% I don't know the exact number, but over half of your thoughts, the majority of your thoughts, skew negative. That's normal. That's the baseline. Okay? And so most people are not under the delusion that something great isn't going to happen. They're under the delusion that something awful is going to happen. Right? We're always scanning in our brains for worst case scenarios. My brain leans anxious. I'm always scanning for, what do I need to bring? What do I What? What's my just in case? Right? I'm always doing that. That's very, very common. So the delusion that many of us are actually defaulting to is negative. So it's delusional to think you won't raise a million dollars this year, just as much as it's delusional to think you will you with me. It's delusional to think you won't hit your goal. It's delusional to think no one wants to help you. It's delusional to think no social street teamers, no peer fundraisers, no board members, no foundations are going to give right as much as it's delusional to think they are. So today we're going to talk about taking a step out from the Negative Zone and to in with intention, with purpose, step into this other zone of healthy delusion. So let's go over a core concept, which is healthy delusion is not the same as toxic positivity. So toxic positivity denies the difficulty. It's all fine, no problems here. It's very sweep under the rug energy. That is not what I'm talking about. I am not saying put on your rose colored glasses and tell yourself it's easy peasy, not hard and punish yourself into doing air quotes hard things, right? That's not it. Healthy delusion acknowledges the difficulty but refuses to let it dictate the action. Okay, so what that means is the inner dialog for it might be it might be hard. I might fail, but this is still happening. Let's go. Momentum doesn't come from avoiding the reality. It comes from choosing belief alongside the reality. So if you are $350,000 away from your goal between now and your end. That may seem significant to you. So you could choose to tell yourself, for the next four months, I'm never going to meet the goal. It's so hard, this is impossible. It wasn't realistic anyway. Or you can say it might be hard, I might not meet it, but I think it's already happening. It's as good as done. I don't know how, but I feel confident I'm gonna hit that 350 there's two different conversations you have with yourself there. So it's all about seeing and creating the belief before you have the proof. Remember that the result is a lagging indicator, that success is like trailing behind you. So healthy delusion is acting as if the outcome is inevitable, even when you don't know how it will happen. You don't know if that donor who gave 10,000 this year is going to say yes to your ask for $42,000 this year. You don't know. You don't know if those 10 peer fundraisers that just signed up to elevate your next fundraiser are each gonna raise $1,000 each you don't know yet. You may as well set it up as if they are with me. it is manifestation with muscle. You still do the work. So it's not about journaling your way into your success, right? You still have to do the work. You still have to take the action, but you start from certainty instead of hesitation, and that certainty ends up being very, very magnetic to a couple of core audiences. It's magnetic to funders, individual donors, sponsors. It's magnetic to peer fundraisers. It's magnetic to social street teamers. That confidence is Super Magnetic to your board members, okay, founders and leaders in every industry you. Launch with more vision than proof. The ones who last keep their belief alive through the setbacks. So when I think about Silicon Valley founders, those startups who go from zero to these, their first seed round, their second seed round, they become a billion dollar company. Those people have the highest level of healthy delusion I've ever seen, and you can just take a fraction of that and create so much more success than you're creating now. You don't have to have that level of healthy delusion. You know the level I'm talking about, right? You could just take a sprinkling of that and your results would change, and I want to share with you some examples of what this might look like, what it looks like to be kind of your default with where we are, most people are, and what it looks like to cultivate this mindset or purpose. So I want you to imagine you've been dealing with a chronic health issue. Maybe you're like me, and you've had a flare of plantar fasciitis that has been pretty brutal. So that's me, and you see one doctor, and that doctor kind of shrugs and says, you know, you could try this. You could try that, yeah, yeah. Um hmm, do some stretches like do some ice. Yeah, you can try it, yeah. How would you feel after that appointment? Maybe you're like me, and you'll feel like shit. This is not going to get any better, right? You don't have a high level of trust in this person to guide you to the actual outcome. You want to feel better, a better outcome, then I want you to imagine that you go to a different doctor, and that doctor is like, oh my gosh, Christina, I've got you come on in. Here's what we're gonna do every morning. I want you to do this exact series. Then I want you to get this type of shoes, and then I want you to do this other thing at night. And they have this like confidence, where even though, even though you tell them, Listen, I've been to three other doctors. I've been doing all this stuff. I've tried this and this and this. They're like, totally understand I got you. This is the protocol you need. You leave that appointment shoulders back. You might even call your husband and go, that was such a good doctor. I'm so glad I saw him. You may be super motivated to try the exercises, do, the shoes you start to embody, and imagine a few months from now, going back to waking up in the morning without feeling any pain in your foot, right? You actually start to see it as possible, like I always think of a door opening and light coming in, where you're like, Oh my God, finally relief, right? And this is a true life experience, right? I've been to so many different doctors. I've tried, I love like, I've tried the the the PT, I've tried this therapy. I've tried that therapy. Nothing was really working. I was feeling really, really frustrated, and I saw a doctor who was like, I got you girl, like, here's what you're gonna do. And within about two months, significant change, more than the eight months that preceded it, right? Those are two different
Christina Edwards 13:04
experiences. One where it took, it took a couple of different things. It took my doctor's healthy delusion to go he could have told himself, this lady's tried everything. She's been to all the doctors she's she's done all the things I would default to telling her to do instead. He was like, actually, I don't think she, she's tried it in this way. I don't think she's tried it in this sequence. Let's do it with this thing layered, right? And he had this confidence where I started to it opened the door for me, of like, this is possible, right? Versus the other doctors who were like, shruggy, shruggy energy, right? We've all seen those doctors before. It's not good. And fundraising is the same. If you lead a campaign with maybe energy donors will feel it if you bring that it's already done. Energy that confidence is contagious. I cannot iterate that like reiterate that enough. It is magnetic. There's that momentum that is baked in when you have a big, bold goal of $50,000 to raise in two weeks. And one is like, I hope we do this. Fingers crossed. Hopey, hopey energy. And the other is like, I don't know how, but it is happening. And every single day we get closer to that 50k it is done. Why not show up in that two week campaign? Every day locking in 50k you hit the 50k who would you be? Who would you call? Who would help you? Who would be so psyched? It's a completely different campaign than the one that you that you would create hoping and like white knuckling and arms crossed and teeth clenched, right about hoping you hit the 50k so the inner dialog difference here is without healthy delusion. This is what it sounds like. I've never done this before. I mean, we've never raised 50k in one campaign. I don't think it's gonna work. I mean, we'll try, we'll try. I need to be realistic. This probably won't happen. I'll wait until. I have more signs before I really push, before I really follow up.
Christina Edwards 15:11
I should be careful not to get my hopes up, or my board's hopes up. If it fails, I'll look foolish. I'll look like I'm horrible at this. Okay, that's the before. That's the default dialog with cultivating a mindset of healthy delusion. This, it is done, right? Of course, this will work. It's already mine. I just haven't collected it yet. This is our biggest fundraiser ever. Every no is just a step towards a yes that matters. My job is to keep showing up until the outside matches the inside. All I have to do is keep going forward momentum. This is already done for our organization. I'm just walking towards it. Setbacks are just the build up for a breakthrough. If you just thought that one, if that was one power thought, you can write it on a post it. Setbacks are just the build up to the breakthrough, everything would change. If you believe that setbacks were just that, everything would change. Now you might be thinking, I need to be realistic. I need to be realistic. Healthy delusion is not safe for me. It's not safe for our organization. But the truth is, being realistic often means predicting failure and acting small to avoid risk. Do you see how it's creating the loop of not hitting your funding goals, of not growing because you're stuck trying to be realistic? Healthy delusion isn't about ignoring reality. It's about refusing to make decisions from fear. You still take strategic action. you just do it with conviction. So you still take strategic action. You just do it with conviction. You might be thinking, I don't want to get my hopes up and be disappointed. And I get that. As somebody who has failed her way into the most successful version of her company that it is today, I get it. I know what it's like to feel like you fell on your face to get your hopes up and feel disappointed. The truth is, the disappointment isn't dangerous. It's not it's playing it safe. That is, it's the inaction. That is, if you water down your goal to avoid disappointment, you guarantee smaller results period. You can survive a No, but you can't survive the stagnation. That's what leads to the burnout. That's what leads to ultimately, leaving the sector, right, giving up. You might be thinking, I'm not naturally confident enough for that, right? Christina, that's not me. I'm too introverted or I'm not confident enough, right? But healthy delusion is not about personality. It's just practice. That's all it is. You can choose to lead with certainty in your words, tone, actions, even with your stomach in knots, and that's like a success secret for you. It doesn't always feel great to be like, I don't know how we're gonna do it, but let's go biggest campaign ever. Your stomach. You're gonna feel not feel nervous. Your stomach may be still in knots. The confidence comes after the decision to believe it comes after putting your reps in. It does eventually get easier. Any one of my programs that I've built have required healthy delusion. I had to believe there were people that were experiencing the funding plateaus, were experiencing the fundraising and marketing team silos, who needed the purpose and profit club, coaching program. Before I had evidence anyone would join, I had to believe there were emerging nonprofits who hadn't figured out how to effectively raise 100k, 200k a year, right? I had to believe they wanted to join the sprint method before I created it and sold it. Right? You have to have the end in mind, the right people, the right results before there's proof. No one says, I will join the program and tells you what program for you to build, you have to build it right and then offer it to them, right? And when people don't join, you still have to hold that end in sight, right? That end in sight, people will join. It doesn't mean I didn't iterate, right? So without it, launches sound like a whisper. When I decide it's going to work, it works. I know this because I've had different launches with different programs before, where they were a whisper, and then I just let them go quietly into the night, right? I gave up, versus the two programs that I have, and then my email course, which is killing it, all three are killing it right now, right? So different when I decide to it's going to work. It works if my clients stay in belief before there's proof, they create momentum, magnetism, creativity, the campaigns they create, the asks, the actions they take, are so different when they're in this space of health. Healthy delusion, the belief alone often tips them over their goal. I swear it's true.
Christina Edwards 21:07
Some of the biggest brands and founders are examples of people who personify this healthy delusion. Sarah Blakely is one of my favorites. She is the billion dollar founder of Spanx. She personified this. She had no fashion background. She started with a $5,000 nest egg to invest in her idea. She acted as if the product was destined to succeed, pitching relentlessly until it did. She had so many doors slammed in her face, so many phone calls that were like, This is a terrible idea, but she held that belief, this is going to work. And because she held that belief, it didn't matter. When somebody in North Carolina said, I'm not making this prototype for you, she was like, Cool. Find somebody who will that's it. That's the difference.
Christina Edwards 22:01
Emily Weiss is the founder of Glossier, which is a billion dollar makeup brand, okay? She betted on community first minimalist beauty when the market was dominated and already saturated by heavy corporate cosmetic brands. She was like, there's room for us. Here's how we're different. Whitney Wolfe Herd the founder of Bumble built a women first dating app in a male dominated tech space. Think about how many I'm picturing her elbowing her way through this space, reshaping the way that online dating worked. There's so many other examples of this, but these leaders personify this relentlessness. Okay, so that relentlessness, that relentless belief, it's going to work, that's the through line here. Oprah is one of my favorite examples of this as well. She spoke early in her career, authentically and shaping the culture very, very quickly, before she even had space before she even had her talk show, she was like, we're going to do this. And here's how it works. So I want you to think about why this matters in fundraising, why this matters in reaching your own organizational goals. A leader without healthy delusion stops asking. When the first no stings. Okay, when that no stings. It doesn't end up making you give up. Right when you hear the No, when you hear the ER, when you send the email you thought was going to be the one. And it doesn't result in an influx of donations. You keep going, you ask, you evaluate, you iterate, you improve. When you have this healthy delusion, a leader with healthy delusion keeps making invitations because the belief is baked in. The funding is out there, and we're going to get it. That's the thought, right? Your donors feel the energy that confidence is magnetic. Now, I spent a lot of time today talking about mindset, right? And this is why mindset isn't a nice to have. Cultivating this growth mindset, cultivating this mindset that actually helps you get towards your goals faster, is essential. It's why in my programs, the purpose and profit club and the sprint method, we don't just hand you campaign strategy. We don't just hand you a couple of templates and say, go raise some money. We coach you into the mindset that makes those campaigns work and work faster. If you're not actively practicing this mindset, this growth mindset, you'll talk yourself out of bold moves. You'll talk yourself out of brave asks before the magic even happens, period, full stop. And then that is exactly what I talked about in the beginning of this episode. That's the difference. That's the difference between the leaders, where I'm like, I see them sputter out, I see them stall. I see them get in their own way, their own way. That's all that's keeping them from their success, versus the ones who are like, let's go. You don't need to know the how. You just need to hold the HELL YES. Is you with me? Healthy delusion is what keeps you moving, even when the results are late to the party. And I want to offer anything big that you're working towards, the results are always late to the party. It is the biggest metaphor I can give you is gardening, and you're gardening with seeds, okay? And so those seeds don't sprout up overnight, right? And how many times have you planted seeds and suddenly there's a patch that sprouts up in one area and a patch that doesn't right? You have to maintain that we are planting seeds we are believing even before those little sprouts come up. Being realistic is the fastest way to shrink your potential. So let's just steal a little healthy delusion from people that you admire. You can steal them from some of the examples I shared today. You can steal them from people who you start to see it in, who are forces of nature. They have it. That's all it is. It's that inner dialog they are not listening to the default, and they're creating and thinking thoughts with purpose and on purpose, because every big breakthrough once was just somebody's delusional hunch, right? The iPhone was healthy delusion. The telephone was healthy delusion. A light bulb was healthy delusion. Because previous to all of those inventions, I'm sure there were rooms and rooms and droves of people saying you can't impossible won't work. People don't want it, right, whatever the objections were. So if your belief is weak or wavering, your results will be too decide now you can be realistic and stay where you are, or you can be delusional enough to believe in something bigger and disciplined enough to chase it, to move towards it until it's real. That's healthy delusion, and it feels a lot better. By the way, the process feels a lot better than the negative naysayer Debbie downer, default, okay. I hope this was helpful for you. I hope you got something out of it, and I know this was deep on mindset. So I'd love to hear from you. If this was resonant, send me a message. Come hang out with me on LinkedIn or Instagram and let me know that you listened to this episode, and maybe where you're shifting into some healthy delusion. I'll see you next time you.