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Optimism

What makes you optimistic? – Interview with Victor Perton (E102)

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Happiness for Cynics podcast

This week Marie interviews Victor Perton the founder of The Centre for Optimism, who asks the question, what makes you optimistic? 

Show notes

The Centre for Optimism – Victor Perton (Founder and Chief Optimism Officer)

We ask “what makes you optimistic?”

We believe the times call for realistic and infectiously optimistic leaders. We are a movement supporting realistic and infectiously optimistic leaders to be beacons in the fog of pessimism and cynicism. We believe the leader is the person in your mirror.

Transcript

M: Thanks for joining us on Happiness for Cynics. Today I’m here with Victor Person, who is the Chief Optimism Officer at the Centre for Optimism. The offspring of stateless refugees from the Baltics, Victor’s early working years were spent in the law, politics and public policy, culminating in 18 years in the Victorian Parliament. 

After politics, Victor worked as Commissioner to the Americas working across North and South America on Foreign Direct Investment and Export Promotion.  This was followed by service as Senior Advisor to the Australian G20 Presidency. 

Returning to Melbourne, Victor was surprised by the negativity around Australian leadership and increasing levels of anxiety and depression in our community.   

This led to the founding of The Australian Leadership Project and, after a eureka moment at the Global Integrity Summit 2017, the founding of its offspring, The Centre for Optimism, which has grown through COVID with 5000 members in 82 countries. 

Today Victor’s work centres on asking people the question “What makes you Optimistic? 

M: Well, I will start by saying welcome to Happiness for Cynics. Welcome to the show and it is such a pleasure to have you here. I’ve been watching from up in Sydney and wondering why all the great positive psychologists and optimist leaders and happiness leaders are all down in Melbourne. What’s going on down there, Victor?

V: It’s because people dress in black.

M: Laugh.

V: Tommy Hilfiger said ‘If only Melbourne women would put a little dash of yellow or orange on, doesn’t matter whether it’s earrings or a necklace. So, we’re so surrounded by black and whenever I go to Sydney, I’m amazed on the streets, you know, ladies wearing white suits and white dresses. And I think that’s the difference between Sydney and Melbourne, you’ve got that warmer climate, the humidity. We’ve got to find the happiness in a colder climate.

M: Mmm hmm. Well, it’s definitely working. Maybe we need a bit more black and we can borrow some of the Melbourne experts you have there. So, thank you for joining us. I’d like to start by digging a little bit into your journey if you’re willing to share and letting the snow how you became a proponent of optimism and what led you personally to this life philosophy?

V: Yeah, sure. So, it really… when I’m waxing lyrical, um, it really goes back three or four generations. So, my parents were refugees from Latvia and Lithuania.

And I’m a stereotype, if you actually have a look at all of the research, the most optimistic people in any country are the refugees and the Children of refugees.

And there was a University of Melbourne study that reported a couple of years ago that said that the kids of refugees in Australia 90% of them felt they belonged. 88% of them were confident about their future profession, compared to 55% of native-born Children.

M: Mmm hmm.

V: So, I’m that stereotype. And if I go back to that generation of my grandparents. My grandfather, he was a soldier in World War One, he had gone to Saint Petersburg in 1905, he helped to build a country. And in 1940 he was captured by the Soviets and tortured to death. My grandmother was sent to the gulag with her daughter and, you know, 12 years in the gulag, and then when you come back from the gulag, you’re black marked, people don’t like you.

M: Mmm.

V: But in 1987 she said to me, come over I’m going to the first rally of … and she said, “Look, I’m going to outlive communism.”

M: Laugh.

V: And you know this woman, a woman who’s been in the gulag. She’s in a walking frame. But she took part in the million hands across Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and in 1991 of course, she not only lived to see the end of communism but celebrated the end of communism. So, she was a great example to me, almost in some senses, that we go to [Viktor] Frankl’s, Man’s Search for Meaning.

M: Mmm.

V: You know, she’s almost the stereotype. And then my other grandparents, you know, my grandfather had gone through the Depression, had built a business [and in] 1940 everything [was] seized by the Soviets, arrives in Australia, working in a factory, but never complained.

M: No.

V: Never complained. And then my father died when I was pretty young. My mother worked three jobs. She died in October last year, teaching yoga for 51 years.

M: Wow.

V: And again, you know, always the optimist, always lifting other people. And a week before she died, she said to me, “Victor, you’ve done lots of interesting things in your life, but this asking people what makes them optimistic, you’ve never done anything more important.”

So, on this personal journey, I was in politics for 18 years, and in 2006 I could just feel Australian politics becoming ever more negative.

M: Mmm hmm.

V: And it just wasn’t filling me full of joy anymore. So, I quit. And then out of the blue, the other side of politics asked me to go to America as Trade Investment Commissioner, working across North and South America. And everywhere I went, there was this astonishing positive stereotype of Australians and Australian leadership, and our work was made easier by that one chairman of a major corporation who said to me, “Victor, you Aussies remind me of the Americans of 100 years ago. Nothing is impossible.”

M: Mmm hmm.

V: The truck driver who would hear your accent on Route 66 would say, “Oh my God, I love that Fosters of yours!”

M: Laugh.

V: And so, you know, the work was easy, you know, through that positive stereotype. And then after that, I worked on the Australian presidency of the G 20.

M: Mmm hmm.

V: And at that super elite level of Presidents, Prime Ministers, Finance Ministers, Central Bank Governors, it was exactly the same. You know, this complete trust in us as Australians and then I came back to Melbourne in 2015 and I know I had changed, you know, from living in San Francisco. Flowers and what was left in my hair –

M: Laugh.

V: – and dancing in the street as the Mamas and the Papas would recommend. But something had also changed in Australia, and I was astonished by the negativity of language. You know, you say, “How are you?” and 65% of people say not bad or not too bad. And we never say Oh my God, what’s wrong?

M: Mmm hmm.

V: It’s a sort of negative take and the news had moved from 50-50 good/bad, to 95% bad. You know, this 24 by seven assault on the brain. And then when you ask people about leadership in a country where real incomes have grown 30%, we’re a peaceful country, a healthy country, this scoffing about leadership –

M: Mmm hmm.

V: – just astonished me and I, you know, scoffing about political leadership, you do it. And even in China and North Korea, people have got jokes about politicians. But here was this deeper antipathy towards leadership.

M: Yep.

V: So, we started the Australian Leadership Project and we interviewed 2500 people on the qualities of Australian leadership and the science, and our research showed that the three qualities are:

  • Egalitarianism,
  • Self-effacing humour, and
  • No bullshit.

Plain speaking.

M: Mmm hmm.

V: Now when you and I think of our circles, we know hundreds of people like that.

M: Absolutely.

V: We could probably walk down Pitt Street, Sydney or Collins Street, Melbourne and still be hitting 50% of people with those qualities.

M: Mmm hmm.

V: So, at the end of the project, I was still left bewildered at why people were so negative. And then I was fortunate enough to be on the final panel of the Global Integrity Summit in 2017.

And my eureka moment came. It’s actually not so much the leadership, it’s the fog of pessimism.

M: Yeah.

V: Hence my pursuit. And you know, your listeners can’t see the posters behind me, but they are light houses.

I realised what we needed to foster, were beacons of optimism in the fog of pessimism.

That’s a long answer to a simple question, but I often say to people it goes back four generations of, of suffering, of resilience and coming through at the end because of it.

M: I will never, ever stop a long answer that is as engaging as what you just gave us. So, thank you and thank you for sharing your history as well as optimistic as you’ve made it. There’s a lot of hard times in there as well. So, I think there’s a lot to be said for people who’ve grown up in Australia and who haven’t had those hard times and who are still struggling for ways to be thankful and find optimism versus when we talk about post traumatic growth as well as being a good catalyst for finding happiness and optimism.

V: Marie, I did a radio interview during Covid, and the journalist said, you know, “Australian business has never had it this tough.” And I said, “Give me a break!”

M: Laugh.

V: Thinking about Australian business, people have lost their business in bushfires, people have lost their business in floods. All the refugees, you know, whether they’re Iraqi or Somali, who lost their businesses blown up.

M: Mmm hmm.

V: You know there’s lots of people and we need to tap their wisdom, tap their experience because they have then come to Australia, and they’ve built the country.

M: Mmm hmm. Absolutely.

So, is it just leaders that need this kick up the butt with optimism or is it all Australians? I know you focus on leaders but do all of us need to really take a step back?

V: This was a great debate with my mother and me for almost 30 years.

M: Laugh.

V: Because I, in all my speeches, I tell people to go and graffiti their mirror. So, everyone who is listening if you use red lipstick, it’s really ideal. If you can borrow red lipstick, it’s good, but if not a marker pen, go and write on the mirror at work in the toilet, mens/ladies, ‘The leader looks like the person in your mirror.’

So that’s my philosophy that everyone’s got to lead at some point now. Now my mother’s view was always, you know, sort of to be a good leader, you need good followers. Where, as I say, it’s everyone. And it’s one of the really interesting parts of the research. You know, when you use the word leader in Australia, it’s often a ‘them’.

M: Mmm hmm.

V: The word boss actually, is more resonant here. If you want to ask people about leadership at work, using the word leadership actually doesn’t seem to resonate in Australia as it does in the United States or Canada, you know where a lot of these books are written, leadership and self-leadership. Here, there’s a nuance of language, where leadership is them, not us. So, for me, the Centre for Optimism came out of the Australian leadership project, and someone who put it really well for me was Dominic Barton, who was then the head of McKinsey and now the Canadian ambassador to China had to negotiate the release of the Canadian hostages who were being held for the Huawei executive. And he said to me,

“Every great leader I have ever met is infectiously optimistic. But it’s not the big man or woman standing at the front of the stage. It’s the person who can unlock the optimism in the team from the youngest to the oldest from the least experienced to the most experienced.” [Dominic Barton]

V: I was actually in Sydney, I was having a coffee by circular key at six in the morning, and, you know, there’s not so much company and there was this other bloke reading the paper on the table next to me. You know, I’m a bit chatty and garrulous, so he wasn’t reading his paper three minutes later.

M: Laugh.

V: But he was from Singapore, and we got talking about the impact of optimism and he said, “Look, every Monday morning, I give my sales team a rev up speech, and by Monday afternoon it seems to have worn off”, and I said to him, “Have you ever asked them what makes them optimistic?”

M: Mmm hmm.

V: And in fact, he took it on board. And every month now, the start of the sales meeting on the first day of the month is, ‘what makes you optimistic?’ And the funny little nuance. I did an event for Saint Ives Rotary a couple of days before we recorded this on the North Shore of Sydney, and there was a scientist there who talked about his experience, and he had been a teacher, and when he left teaching, he moved into an educational institution helping salespeople. And it was that classic Seligman sorry where he was actually driven nuts by the optimistic belief of the salesman.

M: Mmm hmm.

V: But he said the more optimistic the salesman was, the more they kept confounding him by being right.

M: Laugh.

V: When they come back, having met the unrealistic sales figures they’ve given them at the beginning of the month. So, for me, it is everyone.

M: Mmm hmm.

V: But it’s complicated, and particularly in Australian language, where leadership is sort of them and oftentimes conflated with political leadership.

M: Yeah.

V: So, if you ask people, what do Australians want of their leaders? I’ve really got to give an explanation that says, well, I’m actually thinking of your boss or your manager rather than the Prime Minister.

M: Mmm hmm. You’ve touched on language differences in Australia. Are there any other differences from a cultural point of view in Australia when it comes to optimism? You know, I talk about how we’re optimistically cynical as a bunch, laugh. I won’t say that we’re necessarily not optimistic, but we are a cynical bunch, and we like to have a bit of a gripe at times. And you know, we have that tall poppy syndrome that everyone talks about as well. Is there anything that is stopping us as a country from being more optimistic?

V: Well, it’s actually going backwards, we’re actually regressing. It’s a bit like our maths results. We’re actually regressing. So, in a country that has so much so if you have measured optimism in Australia, both optimism for self and optimism for country. Twenty years ago, in 2000, Australia and our sister country, New Zealand, were the two most optimistic countries in the Western world. Today we are down around the middle. It’s actually going backwards, and there’s some really concerning statistics around. We were talking earlier about mental illness.

M: Mmm hmm.

V: The Victorian Royal Commission into Mental Health Treatment, published a statistic that showed that we have doubled the rate of medicated anxiety and depression since 2016. Now if that’s happening in Victoria, it’s happening in New South Wales as well. Now, are doctors prescribing medication for the ordinary anxieties of life. You know, grief, loss of job, the teenagers are driving me nuts, or the teenager is being driven nuts.

M: Laugh.

V:  So, are we medicating stuff? So, if we look at that that deeper Australian culture, if we look in the colonial period and you know that the settlement you know, the choice of people who came here originally were the prisoners and the political prisoners. So, what mindset did they have? Look, if there’s one thing they brought with them it was humour.

M: Mmm hmm.

V: Laconic humour, which I often refer to as self-effacing. But there’s a friend of mine runs a company called, John Cole runs Team Leadership in Washington. He says Australian humour is so dry that Americans don’t even understand you’re telling a joke.

M: Mmm hmm.

V: You know, they think you’re having a go at them or you’re having a go at yourself and “Oh, my God, what’s wrong with you that you can tell this joke against you?”

M: Laugh.

V: So Australian humour, similar to New Zealand humour, but there’s a uniqueness about it. We have not… On the verge of doing a project on Aboriginal optimism because when you think, you know, living 30,000, 40,000, however many years it was in this tough land.

M: Mmm hmm.

V: You know, tasting new foods, adapting to new foods and alike. You know, there must have been a lot of optimism in the Aboriginal community as they settled this land. And so too for the Europeans and the Asians who came here post 1788, a lot of adaption. And so, my mother describes it, you know, they came here as refugees, you know, and, you know, they were ribbed mercilessly. My father’s original surname was Petronitis, right?

M: Mmm hmm.

V: Of course, he got ribbed mercilessly about peritonitis.

M: Laugh.

V: And ultimately, you know, before I was born, changed the name to Perton.

M: Mmm hmm.

V: But again, it was an affection, you know, people actually liked it. So, you know, those Australian characteristics of egalitarianism and plain speaking and dry humour, as you call it, is very attractive to people.

M: Mmm hmm.

V: And you know. I came back and I was a bit bewildered by the negativity of language, much of which is, I think, to be blamed on the news. You know, we just get this 24 by seven assault on our well-being by being told we’re hopeless.

M: Mmm hmm. Social media is just an echo chamber for that as well, unfortunately.

I’m really keen to understand, we’ve talked about immigrants and resilient Aussies, and we do talk about resilience quite a bit as well and bonding Australians together. But do you think that maybe we’ve had it too good for the last few decades? Is that why we’re losing that self-effacing humour or that resilience? Or that… the optimism? Is that perhaps part of it? Life has become too easy.

V: Yeah, and there’s some really interesting work that’s been done by UNICEF and others and even the Dalai Lama. I was fortunate to be in an audience with him seven weeks ago. This younger generation, these teenagers may be the most resilient generation since World War II, because I’ve actually been locked up.

M: Mmm hmm.

V: They’ve actually been under threat from a disease that threatened to wipe out hundreds of thousands of people. So, those kids may in fact be the most resilient for a long time. And you know, I had someone talking to me yesterday about this problem that in Australian business and American business that from really 1990 onwards you were in constant growth.

M: Mmm hmm.

V: You could write a budget and you would always hit it.

M: Yep.

V: Because the country was getting there. What was interesting was, I’m sorry, that person was talking about America [USA], because America got hit by the GFC in 2008. But Australia didn’t.

M: Yep, we didn’t.

V: And the extraordinary thing was, you know, the Australian media talking about the GFC as if it was something terrible. But in fact, Australia never stopped growing. So yes, so we’ve had it too easy. And this notion that there’s always something wrong, there’s nothing wrong with being self-critical.

M: Mmm hmm.

V: There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be better. But when everything the government does, or everything a corporation does, is analysed for the bad news. The zeitgeist of our contemporary news services is as pessimistic and miserable.

M: Yep, yep.

V: You look at the Australian News services now, you know, if there’s a good news story, it runs once. Remember recently there was a debate about, ‘we’ve stopped flights from India because of the Covid outbreak in India’, and it was just out of control. And they interviewed the head of the Indian community in Melbourne.

M: Yep.

V: And they said, what do you think? And she said, “Well, make sense to me! –

M: Laugh.

V: – if India is going through, you know, an absolute plague of covid, and we can’t work out who’s got it. I’d stop the flights too.” Well, of course, that interview never got repeated.

M: Well, the poor journalist was like, ‘Oh, this isn’t news anymore.’ Laugh.

V: Yeah! Well, they managed to find other people who said that the government was stupid –

M: Mmm hmm.

V: – and this was racist and xenophobic, and those are the people that ran.

M: Yep.

V: Rather than the logical leader of the Indian community who said, “Makes sense to me as an Indian Australia.”

M: So, we’ve talked about all the negativity out there and how that is obviously linked to Australia’s decrease in optimism. The answer, it seems, is that we all need to bring a bit more optimism into our lives, and we all need to be asking the question and leading when it comes to optimism. But what do you say to people who are afraid of or fight against toxic positivity?

V: Every time I see an article on toxic positivity, it’s someone trying to sell the negativity industry.

M: Mmm hmm.

V: You know, it’s actually a nonsense term. The only person I think who really gets it is David Kessler, and I’ll quote him exactly.

“Toxic positivity is positivity, given in the wrong way in the wrong dose at the wrong time.” [- David Kessler]

V: So, three factors.

M: Mmm hmm.

V: Right? And, you know and so, for instance, the Centre for Optimism.

The science says, look, what really benefits your health? What really benefits your leadership? What should underpin strategy, innovation and resilience is realistic and infectiously optimistic leadership.

So, for most of the population, positive thinking does work, and that’s why we have a project on grief and optimism. But one of our members, it is a mother whose son was killed in a car crash.

M: Yeah.

V: Another member at the Centre for Optimism is a woman who has conducted hundreds of funerals as the celebrant. And so, when we do our guide to grief and optimism, we say, look, you know the optimist when they’re comforting someone listens.

M: Mmm hmm.

V: You know. And if the person says something positive, you help to reinforce it. If they say something negative, you listen to it. And there’s a brilliant book which has inspired lots of other authors in the last couple of years, and I recommend to all of your readers is Hans Rosling’s, Factfulness.

M: I haven’t read that one. It’s not on my bookshelf.

V: It’s F-a-c-t-f-u-l-n-e-s-s, and he’s really interesting. So, when he writes about journalists, he says, don’t be angry at journalists for writing negatively or pessimistically. It’s their lens. It’s their world frame, you know, they are sent out to catch a story that’s a gotcha.

M: Mmm hmm.

V: If it’s a prime minister or, you know, if it’s a drug scandal at a football club, you know it’s not the good stuff. And if I summarise his position, he says, most of us have a worldview that’s based on what our Grade four teacher taught us. So, when we think of world hunger, or we think of Ireland for instance, we did and hour of optimism on Ireland recently.

M: Mmm hmm.

V: And you know, when I think of Ireland, you know, I think of the land that sent away millions of migrants to America and Australia from the potato famine or British colonial rule. And yet you know that Ireland is now number two on the United Nations Development Index. Right?

M: Laugh.

V: But it’s this red hot, high tech, egalitarian society, you know, we’re average lifespans have increased, you know, 30 years and absolutely fantastic country. But, you know, my stereotype of Ireland is still, you know, the Irish nuns.

M: Laugh.

V: You know, who left Ireland to come to Australia to teach us and the other person who really I love on this is Steven Pinker.

M: Yep.

V: The head of Psychology at Harvard, and I don’t remember what it was in his book, Enlightenment [Now], or one of his interviews. But he said, “Anyone who remembers a wonderful past has got a really short memory.”

M: Laugh

V: You know, you go back 100 years, and you look at infant mortality rates and, you know, women dying in childbirth and people even in Melbourne and Sydney, dying of cholera and waterborne diseases. And even we did an event the other day for Central Africa. Even if you look at the advances in Central Africa, all we see on the Australian News is someone being blown up or, you know, girls or boys being kidnapped from a school. But in fact, you know there are great centres of innovation and new tech in Lagos and Nairobi and great things happening.

M: Not everything is like the Simpsons portrays it, right?

P: I’m not a big fan of the Simpsons. I’m a simpler man. I’m a more you know, Mister Ed. And you know, my favourite book is still The Magic Far Away Tree, and The Enchanted Wood by Enid Blyton and kids should be studying humour to laugh, shouldn’t they?

M: Yeah.

V: They should be studying poetry, to love beautiful poetry. But we’ve now got… Critical analysis has almost replaced the Bible as the font for education.

M: I will throw in. There is another Melbourne based group called Future Crunch that I am such a fan of who tell the happy news. And I make sure that they’re part of my news cycle on a regular basis because they pull together for those out there who don’t know them. They pull together the best news around the world, the progress that we’re making and is so heart-warming to put that against the normal news that we read and see that we are making huge strides in so many areas of human rights and the environment, and that it’s not all doom and gloom.

V: Yeah, but everyone can do that. I mean, we had a Future Crunch of great friends of ours, and we’ve had them on our show. But everyone can be a Future Crunch.

M: Mmm hmm.

V: You know, if there’s something good happening in your workplace or in your neighbourhood, you don’t need to wait for the newspaper to publish it, take a photo or do a two-minute interview of the person.

We went out to a town called Kaniva, in the West Wimmera. And it’s a town that’s got so many things running against it, you know, it’s a highway town. They’ve had the shutdowns. They’ve been stuck with South Australian refugees who can’t get across the border, the last bank branch is closing, because there was no highway traffic. The favourite cafe is closing. But you know, Marie, I went door knocking in that town, and I asked people, what makes you optimistic? And they ended up getting kids to do little videos, two-minute videos of what makes them optimistic about Kaniva.

And then we were going to have a town dinner and I was to be the guest speaker and, of course, what happened in the soviet socialist state of Victoria. We got locked down. I couldn’t go and be the guest speaker. So, I said, “Well, I trust you guys. You do it.”

M: Mmm hmm.

V: And they had 12 locals as the guest speaker, and at the end of the dinner they declared themselves to be the most optimistic town in Australia.

M: I love that story, I really do.

V: Every person out there listening, make this your homework today, so I’ll jump ahead of your last question. So, I’ll give you another hint, Marie, because you’re an expert on this. But what I would love everyone to think about is change your greeting for one day. If it works, change it for a week.

So, in Australia, you say “Hello, how are you?” Or “G’day how are you?” 65% of people will say, “not bad…” or “not too bad.”

M: Laugh.

V: And of course, we never say ‘Oh my God, what’s wrong?’

M: Mmm hmm.

V: We just ignore it, you know, it’s a wasted question. Wasted answer. So, we’ve done this in prisons. We’ve done this in all sorts of organisations. Today, I’d like you to say, “G’day, what’s been the best thing in your day?” or if it’s Friday, “What’s been the best thing in your week?” or Monday, “What was the best thing on your weekend?”

Now your language will get it right. That’s my language, but it works. The other day I was in the supermarket. I have a beautiful orange mask Marie, that says, “what makes you optimistic?” And the lady behind the checkout counter said, what do you do? And I said I run the Centre for Optimism. And I said, why don’t you try this for the day?

M: Mmm hmm.

V: Well, she looked a bit doubtful, and I said, well, let’s try it with the people behind us. So, there was a mother and a daughter about 10 or so and I said, Look, we’re just experimenting, tell us what’s the best thing in your day so far? And the girl said, I got 82 for my test and the mother lit up and the other two queues lit up and the other check out people lit up. And then the teller I said, well, what was the test?

M: Mmm hmm.

V: And in fact, I actually heard the business coach of the All Blacks in a radio interview say, “Well, I’ve been plagiarising Victor Perton for the last year.”

M: Laugh.

V: And that’s exactly what he’d been plagiarising that every one of his customers knows that when he comes in, he doesn’t want to hear a tale of woe to start with. He wants to hear a story of hope and optimism and opportunity, and Disney has got some great research on this Marie, Disney, Coke, Nike. All of the customer research they’re doing shows that people are yearning for stories of hope and optimism.

So, when we come back to who’s the leader and who’s got to change? As Gandhi said, the only person I can change is myself. So, for each and every one of your listeners, just for the rest of today or tomorrow, get rid of ‘how are you?’ and try ‘what’s the best thing in your day?’ Now, the first time you ask it, people will stare at you.

M: Laugh!

V: Because it’s so out of sync, and it’s like an Australian trying to order at McDonald’s in Louisiana. You know, you look like them, but they don’t understand what you’re saying.

M: Laugh.

V: So, you might have to repeat it. You know, ‘what was the best thing in your day’ or modified a little, but 80% of the time people will then share a little story of hope and optimism with you. And it might be ‘I had a beautiful breakfast’, or ‘my daughter made me a cup of tea’ or ‘God isn’t the sunshine beautiful.’ And the interesting thing Marie, coming back to that toxic positivity stuff is, in fact, if something’s wrong, if they say f-ing nothing, then you know there’s a question you need to ask them to help them with their well-being and for you to do the right thing.

M: Yeah.

I will if you’ll permit me, ask you one last question. Which is what has made you optimistic this week? Since it is a Friday.

V: So, this week. Yesterday I was at the University of Melbourne working with the staff of one of the Colleges.

M: Mmm hmm.

V: And going around the circle and asking each and every one of them, ‘what makes you optimistic?’ As you can imagine, there was one beautiful psychologist there who said, “Oh, this is a very difficult question.”

M: Laugh.

V: And we went through this, and it was just beautiful. And then the night before that, the Saint Ives Rotary meeting. And you know, there was one 85-year-old guy and he just lit up and he said, “Oh, Victor. You’ve made me more optimistic with the scientific evidence you’ve given me on the value of optimism. I’m 85, I now know I’ve got another at least seven years of optimistic living.

M: Laugh.

V: So, for me, it’s asking that question. What makes you optimistic? And I ask at least one person every day, whether it’s a President or a Prime Minister or women digging ditches in India.

M: Yeah.

V: And so, if your listeners want to do something that they will find quite interesting is, you know when you’re lying on the pillow tonight next to your partner or you’re at the dinner table, ask them what makes them optimistic, and they may stare at you at first, so you might have to define it for them.

M: Mmm hmm.

V: So, optimism is a belief that good things will happen and that things will work out in the end. And, of course, if your relative is a John Lennon fan, you can say John Lennon said,

“If it hasn’t worked out, it’s not the end.” [- John Lennon]

M: Mmm hmm.

V: But optimism is not, everything is rosy, everything is fantastic. Optimism is belief that things will work out in the end. And Marie, for those of you, are for your listeners who are students of history. There’s this wonderful Woman who lived through the black plague called Mother Julian of Norwich and she was an English mystic. And her book is said to be the oldest surviving book in English by a woman, called the Revelations. But in it is a famous phrase, ‘All shall be well, all shall be well, all manner of things shall be well.’

V: And that has spawned poetry and music. So, if there’s one thing people remember from this rich conversation, Marie is:

All shall be well, all shall be well, all manner of things shall be well.

M: I think that’s the perfect end to this fabulous conversation. Thank you so much for your time, Victor. 

V: Thanks, Marie.

[Happy exit music – background] 

M: Thanks for joining us today if you want to hear more, please remember to subscribe and like this podcast and remember you can find us at www.marieskelton.com, where you can also send in questions or propose a topic. 

P: And if you like our little show, we would absolutely love for you to leave a comment or rating to help us out. 

M: Until next time. 

M & P: Choose happiness. 

[Exit music fadeout] 

Please note that I get a small commission if you buy something from my site. Your support helps to keep this site going at no additional cost to you. Thanks! 

How to change your mindset with this simple Best Possible Self exercise

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What is the Best Possible Self Exercise? 

When I first started exploring the world of positive psychology, I admit I was a huge cynic. I didn’t understand the science behind the bright t-shirt slogans that yelled “Choose Happiness!” and I railed against ‘toxic positivity’ and perceived band aid solutions to deep mental health issues.  

Years later, after interviewing dozens of global experts and reading countless peer-reviewed research articles, after studying and gaining certifications, and after podcasting and writing on the topic of happiness every week, I admit there are some topics that still make me sceptical. Granted, the list is quite short now, and although these truly are scientifically proven to increase life satisfaction, when it comes to meditation, mindset exercises and positive affirmations, they’re just not for me.  

Having said that, as an author and blogger, I cannot deny the power of writing or journaling. Writing helped me to not only recover from depression and trauma. It also helped me discover the power of positive psychology and a love of life. That’s why I’m happy to be exploring the Best Possible Self exercise this week, one of the most widely used Positive Psychology Interventions – even though it really boils down to being a mindset exercise but in long-form writing. But as with all topics on this site, it is science-backed and has been proven to help people be more optimistic and achieve a happier, healthier life. So, read on! 

What’s the Science? 

Time and time again, the personality trait of optimism has been shown to increase wellbeing, leading to greater physical wellbeing and even longevity. Optimists are happy people, who look forward to the future, and believe things will work out. That’s not to say that bad things don’t happen to them or that they don’t feel the appropriate negative feelings – like sadness, frustration or anger – because that is a natural and healthy response when things go wrong. Instead, optimists have a level of resilience that allows them to work through their feelings and move forward quickly. 

“Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.” – John Lennon 

So, if optimism has so many benefits, then wouldn’t it be great if you could learn it? Well, you can. All it takes is the Best Possible Self exercise, which many researchers have studied and determined it can positively impact people’s mindset and increase optimism – leading to higher levels of mental and physical wellbeing. 

In one study, researchers asked participants to write about their best self across personal, relational, and professional dimensions for five minutes a day, over two weeks. They then measured the effects on optimism and mood after one day, one week and two weeks. The results showed that participants had significantly larger increases in optimism compared to people who simply wrote about daily activities, both after only one session and over two weeks.  

A second study, led by Sonja Lyubomirsky and colleagues, lasted four weeks and played with some factors to see what might detract from or amplify the results. Not surprisingly, the study supported previous research validating that the BPS exercise significantly boosted positive affect and flow. Additionally, they found that there was no difference in results when completing the exercise online versus in-person. However, students who read a testimonial about the benefits of BPS had the best gains in wellbeing compared to those who read neutral information or completed a control task. “The results lend legitimacy to online self-administered happiness-increasing activities and highlight the importance of participants’ beliefs in the efficacy of such activities for optimum results,” said the researchers.  

Convinced? Let’s get started! 

How to do the Best Possible Self Exercise 

Time: 10-15 mins per day for 2 weeks 

What you need: Pen and paper or journal 

This is a simple exercise that can have profound impacts. All you need to do is set aside 10-15 minutes a day for two weeks. Find somewhere quiet or peaceful to sit and write continuously about your imagined best possible future. Let all ideas come freely, don’t sensor anything… even bad grammar or spelling. Let it all out on paper. 

STEP 1: Block some time in your diary or calendar to dedicate to this activity over a 2-week period (or more). Lock it in so it happens! 

STEP 2: Decide how to organise what you want to write about. You can try social, health, academic and career, or personal, relational, and professional, or come up with your own dimensions.  

STEP 3: Sit somewhere quiet and distraction free. Set a timer for 10-15 minutes. 

STEP 4: Write on paper about your realistic best possible future self for each category. Imagine that you are happy and have all you want. You have worked hard, opportunities have presented themselves, and you have taken them. You have achieved all that you imagined possible. Think about the steps that would be needed to get there, and how you would feel making that positive progress. When painting your ideal future, be as specific as you can. Who would be there with you? What would you be doing? How would you do it? What would you see, hear, taste, smell? Be descriptive and imaginative and really put yourself into a day in the life of your best possible future self. 

STEP 5: Repeat the exercise the next day, and the next, and the next. Stick with it for at least 2 weeks.  

Before you go: Final Words of Caution 

Be realistic: You may be tempted to write about a future in which you win the lottery or marry your (already married) high-school sweetheart. Be careful to be realistic about your best possible future self. If you spend too much time wanting something that simply cannot happen, then it can often have negative mental health impacts. 

Focus on the future: Similarly, make sure you stay focused on the future. Another trap is to spend too much time worrying about what you did or didn’t do in the past that will prevent your best possible future self from being realised.   

That’s it. Happy writing! 

Want to make happiness a habit in your life? Simply subscribe to the Happiness for Cynics podcast and my email newsletter for your weekly dose of happiness!   

Want the science? Check out these studies 

King, A. (2001). The health benefits of writing about life goals. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 798-807.  

Layous, K., Nelson, S. K., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2013). What is the optimal way to deliver a positive activity intervention? The case of writing about one’s best possible selves. Journal of Happiness Studies, 14(2), 635-654.  

Meevissen, Y., Alberts H., & Peters, M. (2011). Become more optimistic by imagining a best possible self: Effects of a two-week intervention. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry. 42, 371-378 

Carrillo, A., Rubio-Aparicio, M., Molinari, G., Enrique, Á., Sánchez-Meca, J., & Baños, R. M. (2019). Effects of the Best Possible Self intervention: A systematic review and meta-analysis. PloS one, 14(9). 

Optimism Lessons From Helen Keller (E55)

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Happiness for Cynics podcast

This week Marie surprises Pete with a discussion about optimism and lessons about happiness that we could all learn from Helen Keller. 

Transcript

Show notes:

The Centre for Optimism – https://www.centreforoptimism.com/

[Happy intro music -background]

M: Welcome to happiness for cynics and thanks for joining us as we explore all the things, I wish I’d known earlier in life but didn’t.

P: This podcast is about how to live the good life. Whether we’re talking about a new study or the latest news or eastern philosophy, our show is all about discovering what makes people happy.

M: So, if you’re like me and you want more out of life, listen in and more importantly, buy in because I guarantee if you do, the science of happiness can change your life.

P: Plus, sometimes we’re kind of funny.

[Intro music fadeout]

M: All right, Pete. So today, I’m springing a topic on you.

P: Oh, I love when you do this.

M: Laugh.

P: Totally not prepared. I am an open slate for your musings.

M: Laugh. So we’re gonna have a chat. So I have a blog and we have this podcast and we write about happiness and we write specifically for cynics like I was.

P: Laugh.

M: And one of the things that there is a lot of research on, but the cynic tends to find the hardest wrap their head around, is this idea of positive thinking and how that can actually turn around your levels of happiness and your engagement with life.

P: Yes. Mmm, right.

M: It’s a real tough one for a lot of people to wrap their heads around.

P: It wasn’t for me, again straight in there.

M: Yeah.

P: Yeah.

M: You were not our primary audience.

P: No.

M: So.

P: No, no, definitely. So it will be interesting to see.

M: Laugh. So, I have also recently been reading Optimism by Helen Keller, and it blows my mind that someone who had so much stacked against her could be have such a positive outlook on life. And it makes me think about a lot of people who have less stacked against them and who have more of a negative outlook on life, more pessimism in their life.

P: Yep

M: And they look at what they’re achieving or what they’re not one of the point and what Helen Keller was able to achieve in her life. And I know it’s not all about success for people, it’s not all about achieving.

P: Yeah.

M: But I would argue, based on the way that Helen Keller writes in this, that she, she loved her life. She was happy.

P: She chose to love it.

M: Absolutely.

P: Chose to create joy.

M: So if you don’t know who Helen Keller is; Helen Keller became blind when she was 19 months old, and at that time kids were pretty much given up on. So she was blind and deaf. So she really was living in her own world. And for quite a long time she was not taught, sign language or how to form thoughts.

P: Mmm hmm.

M: And she was living in a really, very dark place. And it wasn’t until Helen’s mother read that a deaf-blind person had been educated, that her mom decided to explore that for her. And Helen Keller was the first blind and deaf person to earn a bachelor of arts degree, and she went on to become one of us celebrated women of the 20th century. And she’s written this book called Optimism, and it is just such an inspiration.

P: Oh, wow. I didn’t know that she’d written.

M: Yeah, absolutely. And I think if someone can be shut off from hearing and seeing both and find joy in life, what are the rest of us doing?

P: Laugh! Well, it’s about creating off the opportunity you have. So if you’ve been denied certain aspects, and for me, this kicks into the Buddhist principle of not coveting what you don’t have.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: It’s like you’ve been given this and so that is what you have. These are the tools with us you have to work with. So that is how you will create. So, you get a different tool box to me and this whole concept of, ‘but I want what she’s got’ that doesn’t factor into it. It’s like ‘no, look to your toolbox, to your strengths.’ And you look at what you have in your makeup that can create goodness or opportunity or happiness, success, whatever it is that you’re measuring.

M: Yeah, and there’s two things in there that we’ve talked about before, which is comparisons.

P: Mmm.

M: Which we know is so detrimental to our happiness, comparing what you have to others.

P: Yeah, definitely.

M: They’ve chosen different paths, they’ve had their own struggles and so comparing to others is never, ever a path to happiness.

P: Yep, definitely not.

M: And then the second one is being grateful for what you do have, when you start to flip your thinking, from ‘what don’t I have?’ to ‘what do I have?’

P: Mmm.

M: It’s so powerful.

P: And that’s the power of people like Helen, who are optimists. They see the advantage in every opportunity, like ‘I don’t have that, but I’ve got this!’

M: Mmm hmm.

P: I can bring this to the table, laugh.

M: Yep, and these are my strengths. Even though I’ve got a buttload of weaknesses over there, I’m going to use my strengths, to find happiness in life and to find things that bring me joy and pleasure. And for Helen, a lot of that was learning and writing.

P: Mmm.

M: She did a lot of writing in her life.

P: And it was her mother that was really the initiator of the education. She was home schooled?

M: She was taught one on one. So, her mother went out and I think found someone to teach her sign language. And they did things like grab her hand and let it run under water and then put her hand into the symbol for water so that she could then use that symbol when she wanted to drink water.

P: Gotcha, yeah.

M: So, it was before that even understanding the concept of water would have been difficult when you can’t see it or hear it, right? So she was just in a complete lightless room with no sound for years of her life.

P: Mmm.

M: And still was actually, after that, it’s just that she could form thoughts.

P: Mmm mm.

M: And that’s really what opened her mind to so much more. But she would have along the way, as she was educated, become very aware that she was different from others, I’m sure.

P: Yeah, and you know at a detriment as well, ‘I don’t have these basic abilities that so many other people have.

M: Yep.

P: It’s always the way when you read these great stories of people that have overcome adversity and great adversity to come out the other side.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: And it’s not that we don’t begrudge them their success or anything, but it is inspiring to see someone conquer their ahh, not their foibles, their… The things that they don’t have, laugh.

M: Their weaknesses.

P: Yeah

M: I’m not even going to call them anything more than a weakness because everyone has things that they’re good at and bad at. But definitely, I think there’s also something in there about overcoming trauma and real… bad, bad things that hurt people.

P: Laugh! So how does one maintain optimism in the face of adversity?

M: Well, I think that to start, to start with, it’s gratitude, definitely. You know, we’ve mentioned quite a few times just getting into the practise off being grateful. It is best if you can write it down in a journal. So spend just five minutes, less than five minutes every evening writing down what went well and retraining your brain for the positives.

P: Training your brain to identify that. Yes. It’s a winner.

M: Yeah, absolutely. And if you’re a sceptic out there and don’t believe that’s going to make any difference, then I challenge you to do it for a month and write to me.

P: Laugh! You’re going to get these ugly emails.

M: Laugh.

P: People with folded arms, ‘I don’t feel any different!’

M & P: Laughter!

M: I challenge you, I really do, write to me. I don’t know what I’m going to do once you write to me…

P: Laugh!

M: But it has been proven again and again and again. And person-  I can speak from experience personally, it’s made such a difference to me and my relationship with my husband as well, because we do it together.

P: Yeah, interesting.

M: Yep.

P: I think the other thing with optimism is that – People talk about luck people talk about are they are so lucky they get these opportunities and so forth? I don’t think I actually believe in luck. I think that part of optimism is looking for opportunity but being prepared for it when it comes along.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: So, you work on hard on things that you try to do and one of those is training your brain to be grateful and gracious and be mindful so that when an opportunity just pokes its little head up from around the corner, it doesn’t come screaming at you like a freight train just goes [whispers] ‘Hello, I’m over here in the corner. Look at me.’ Laugh.

M: Your luck is kind of creepy.

P: Laugh! But it’s being able to go ‘Ah, there’s opportunity, come over here you and let’s have a look at what you’ve got.’

M: Or I’m not so cynical to that opportunity that I’m unwilling to take a look.

P: Yes, exactly. It’s someone willing to open that door and go in.

M: And there’s a great book called The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor and he talks about how happy people are more successful. And the irony is that people who want success and get on that hedonic treadmill and chase the straight A’s and the career progression and the money etcetera.

P: Laugh.

M: If they’re putting that success first above their happiness, then they’re actually gonna be less successful because the happier you are, the more people want to be around you. The more extroverted and friendly and likeable you are the more those moments of luck or opportunity open up to you in your career and in picking a life partner and in social circles and friends, all of those things open up to you, the happier you are.

P: Mmm hmm.

M: And it’s a bit of a shame that it’s a bit of a catch 22 as well, because a lot of people are not happy because they’re lonely or because they don’t have the success.

P: Yeah.

M: And, you know, it’s hard to then tell people to think positive thoughts and be optimistic if they don’t have the things.

P: […] ‘Slap, snap out of it!’ Literally, it’s so good! It’s like come on, wake up!

M: So, if you find that you’re just rolling your eyes going ‘I work really hard at work, I’ve tried to make friends in this new city, I’ve tried to find a husband or a wife or a boyfriend or girlfriend and it’s just not working for me and all this is BS.

P: Mmm.

M: If that’s sort of where you are in life, then I’d say some really great things.

Gratefulness. Firstly, start retraining your mind to stop looking at everything is bad and a failure and negative.

P: Yes.

M: Two, to go do some volunteering.

P: Yep. Great idea.

M: Yep. Firstly, it starts to build social bonds. You don’t necessarily find your significant other by doing this or your best buddy, but you will form strong friendships. It gets you out and out of the house as well and often get you a little bit of exercise, depending on what you’re doing because you have to go somewhere. It’s just such a tick. So many boxes and his just a really good way to start getting you thinking about happiness as a by product rather than success as the only thing that matters.

P: True, yep.

It’s saying yes! Challenge yourself to say yes for a week.

M: Mmm.

P: I like that one. And I think that that is kind of where you’ve gotten with Helen, and her work is ‘Yes, I could do this, yes, I can do that.’

M: Yeah.

P: Yes, I have the opportunity. If you say yes more often, then all of a sudden, more yes’s start to come.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: It’s probably because then you might find your social calendar a little bit full because you keep saying yes to everything.

M: Laugh.

P: But it’s a roundabout way because in that saying yes, you might meet someone else that invites you somewhere else. And that can be how you meet your lifelong partner or so forth. So it has a funny way of shifting the rule book if you like.

M: Yep.

P: By just that one change of word, stop saying no, say yes and commit.

M: So I am going to read a small thing from a small excerpt from Optimism by Helen Keller and tell me you’re not inspired, okay:

It is curious to observe what different ideals of happiness people cherish, and in what singular places they look for this well-spring of their life. Many look for it in the hoarding of riches, some in the pride of power, and others in the achievements of art and literature; a few seek it in the exploration of their own minds, or in the search for knowledge.

Most people measure their happiness in terms of physical pleasure and material possession. Could they win some visible goal which they have set on the horizon, how happy they would be! Lacking this gift or that circumstance, they would be miserable. If happiness is to be so measured, I who cannot hear or see have every reason to sit in a corner with folded hands and weep. If I am happy in spite of my deprivations, if my happiness is so deep that it is a faith, so thoughtful that it becomes a philosophy of life, —if, in short, I am an optimist, my testimony to the creed of optimism is worth hearing.  As sinners stand up in meeting and testify to the goodness of God, so one who is called afflicted may rise up in gladness of conviction and testify to the goodness of life.

Once I knew the depth where no hope was, and darkness lay on the face of all things. Then love came and set my soul free.

M: I’ll stop there, I could keep going.

P: Laugh.

M Because she writes so beautifully as well, but for someone who has been through things that you and I just couldn’t even imagine.

P: No, of course not.

M: It almost makes you feel guilty for feeling so well -laugh.

P: Well, yeah. It’s a good emotional level. It reminds me, there was… I can’t remember it, a philosopher, but it’s basically ‘a miserable being, must find a more miserable being then he is happy.’

M: Mmm. Actually, in having been through mental health issues, I think I definitely when I was depressed, gravitated towards other depressed people because it’s hard to be around people who are happy when you don’t feel happy.

P: Yeah, definitely. Because then you do feel like you’re losing and you’re not, not winning.

M: Well, no, it’s just that you’re faking it the whole time. It’s exhausting. Yeah, yeah, definitely. So, look, I think optimism is something you’ve got to learn and excise like going to the gym.

P & M: Laugh.

P: It’s a training exercise.

M: Absolutely.

P: Keep at it daily, consistency is key.

M: It is. It is. And without it, you’re really doing yourself a bit of a disservice. If succeeding in life is something that motivates you, this’s that extra study or that extra work that you have to put in to do that.

So what makes you optimistic, Pete?

P: Oohh! Small pleasures. I think if I was to be challenged, if I’ve had a challenging week and I’ve had some difficult things going on, I think investing in small pleasures is my way out of it. So when things were going south there for a while, with work and with business, I went into the kitchen. And I just went right for the next 30 minutes. I’m not going to think about any of that. I’m just going to focus on cooking myself a meal. Domesticity is for me, clean something, laugh! Pick a room, do it over shifting the furniture.

M: Hmm.

P: That’s a really good one. For me. It’s distraction, but its creative distraction on it taps into that nothingness and that idleness, which is ah well, spring for creative thought and sometimes creative solutions. Problem solving.

M: I also like that, if you’re not feeling optimistic, what you’re doing actually is controlling what you can control.

P: Yes.

M: So you can control the layout of your lounge room or what you cook, mostly.

P: Yes.

M: Depending on your cooking skills.

P & M: Laughter.

M: You can mostly control what you’re doing in the kitchen. So that gives you a sense of control around that.

P: Yes, mmm.

M: Yep, definitely. For me I have to say what makes me most optimistic is a challenge.

P: Ohh.

M: lt gets me fighting.

P: Yeah, righto. Yep.

M: So, I’m generally quite optimistic. I’m more of a glass half full person, but throw challenge my way and I see it as a challenge that I will overcome and I’ll fight tooth and nail to overcome.

P: Yeah, alright.

M: If needed. So, once I’ve set my mind to it.

P: Once you’ve taken, accepted the challenge.

M: Exactly then I’m all in, all in!

P: Laugh!

M: And Francis, my husband, who will attest it’s the most infuriating thing, we could be lost in the middle of nowhere, I’m like, ‘Nope, this is it. We are going to make it home by dinner, you better believe it.

P: Laugh!

M: We don’t need a map. I don’t care that we have no reception.

P: Laugh.

M: We are going! So, the more of a challenge that is presented, the more I dig my heels in and the more I probably have poorly placed ideas off success. But so far, they’ve all lead me to the right place. Mostly I think.

P: Yeah, I think you’re in the right place.

M: Definitely.

P & M: Laughter!

M: All righty. Well, this is a pretty short one today, but I did just love that exert and the reading from Helen Keller. So I just want to talk about optimism today. And there is a great organisation [The Centre for Optimism] that I think is headquartered out of WA. That focuses on optimism, and I’ll pop it in the show notes as well. But there is so much again research and study on the topic of optimism and what a big difference it can make your life.

P: Mmm. Maybe our listeners could do that for a five-day trial. Try being try being optimistic, and l mean in all aspects.

M: I like your ‘yes’ challenge.

P: When you catch yourself being the negative nelly. Good old negative nelly.

M & P: Laugh!

P: Get some reading, pick up this book and try one action that challenges that negativity and turns it into an optimistic situation.

M: Yep. All right, on that note.

P: Good-luck.

M: Good bye.

[Happy exit music – background]

M: Thanks for joining us today if you want to hear more please remember to subscribe and like this podcast and remember you can find us at www.marieskelton.com, where you can also send in questions or propose a topic.

P: And if you like our little show we would absolutely love for you to leave a comment or rating to help us out.

M: Until next time.

M & P: Choose happiness.

[Exit music fadeout]

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