Optimism: Why It’s a Behavior, Not a Mood with Michelle Gielan
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Castbox Optimism isn't a mood you're born with, and it isn't a mindset you can summon on command. It's a set of habits you practice, especially on the hard days. That's the case Michelle Gielan makes in her new book, Resilient Optimism: The Science of Sustaining a Positive Mindset in Tough Times.
Michelle is a positive psychology researcher, a former CBS News anchor, and the bestselling author of Broadcasting Happiness. She holds a master's in applied positive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and runs GoodThink, a research and training firm, with her husband, Shawn Achor. She left the anchor desk after years of reporting recession news to study the opposite problem: how people find a path forward when things are hard.
In this conversation, we cover:
- Three minutes of bad news: Her study with Arianna Huffington found that three minutes of negative news in the morning left people 27% more likely to call their whole day negative six to eight hours later. Pairing problems with solutions made people 20% better at creative problem-solving.
- The best-moments text: A one-to-two-minute nightly practice that swaps "was today good?" for "what was good today?" and trains you to notice what's working.
- Stress and meaning: Why stress usually points at something you care about, and how asking what's behind it changes what it does to you.
- Commitment triage: Sorting your commitments into a core impact list, a secondary list, and a not-to-do list. Plus what to do when you don't control your own schedule.
- Recharging smarter: Why resilience isn't about how much you can endure, and why ten-minute daily recharges matter as much as the vacation.
This one's for anyone running a full life on a low battery. Michelle hopes none of this ever gets mistaken for a productivity hack. The point is protecting your energy so you can actually live the life you've built. Find the book and the resources that go with it at resilientoptimism.com.
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