The Value of Optimism

You hear the story about the three billionaires?

I had them on my show on FOX Business Network last night, and you know what was cool? No, not that they were billionaires. That they were optimistic. In fact, very optimistic.

Sure, if you were a billionaire, you'd be optimistic too. But you'd have to understand how these guys got to be billionaires.

They were always that way. Long before they were rich. Back when they were poor. Very poor.

T. Boone Pickens was so optimistic about oil back in the sixties that he literally bet everything he had. Got rich.

Wilbur Ross saw beaten down steel companies as diamonds in the rough, and got very rich.

And Jon Huntsman, Sr. was so convinced petrochemicals were the future, that he mortgaged everything and got very, very rich.

Their optimism defied pessimism then. Wouldn't you know they're doing it all over again now.

Because they are still upbeat.

About energy. Even if we hit a 100 bucks a barrel, Boone's convinced the economy won't go over one.

About mortgage companies going under. Wilbur Ross is so convinced the problems are overblown he's actually buying some.

Yeah, even about cancer. The dreaded c-word — no dread to three-time cancer survivor Jon Huntsman, who told me he's giving what's left of his fortune to finding a cure, and insists we will, and soon.

Naive optimism? Perhaps.

But nothing naive about each man's career. And each man's ability to see beyond the doom and gloom.

It's how they became billionaires, against the odds.

They just never saw the odds.

Watch Neil Cavuto weekdays at 4 p.m. ET on "Your World with Cavuto" and send your comments to cavuto@foxnews.com