Learned Optimism

There's grounded optimism.

There's learned optimism.

Blind optimism.

Things are going to turn out okay.

You get a lot of hope out of that.

That's good enough.

It's good enough to move forward, right? Learned optimism, this was taught by the professor Martin Seligman, wrote a book on this called Learned Optimism, is about the practice of gratitude, which reinforces what you have, which squelches what you lack, and is a critical component in a crisis, right? So learned optimism is this ongoing awareness of, Of the things that are going right in sales, we call it green shoots, right? So, so learned optimism is one's ability to focus their attention in a particular direction.

Cause here's the problem.

That's part of what Marty Seligman discovered at UPenn.

He eventually named it Learned Optimism through his research that actually began with dogs.

Of course, the flip side and maybe more popular side you've heard from Marty's research is the learned helplessness, but learned optimism is the positive side of that as well.

It started with dogs, but then he did some research with insurance agents.

He did a really famous study with MetLife in which he identified optimistic applicants.

He's got a lot of incredible books.

We're talking about his new one today, but he also wrote Learned Optimism.

He wrote Authentic Happiness, and he wrote the book Flourish.

The one that he's just put out, which came out just this month on September 8th, 2026, is called Agency, The Psychological History of Human Progress.

What comes naturally is negativity.

And what has to be learned is agency and positivity.

This goes back to one of his books he wrote, you know, 20 plus years ago called Learned Optimism.

Just the concept and idea that we can teach ourselves to be happy.

We're existing at the edges.

There's learned hopefulness and learned optimism.

Can you talk to us more about those traits?

Happy to walk through all three of them.

It reminds me of some of the work that's done by Martin Seligman at University of Pennsylvania.

So he is the father of positive applied psychology.

And he comes up with what he calls his three Ps, the three Ps of learned optimism.

So when we have a setback, which is inevitable, if you're going to lead any type of change, if you're going to try to do things, question the status quo in any way, you're going to have setbacks.

I hate when people begin something with, "Back in the '90s," but I will.

Back in the '90s, I came across the work on Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman at the University of Pennsylvania.

When our youngest daughter was born in the late '90s, relied upon his book, The Optimistic Child.

Really is a Benjamin Spock-ish resource.

Well, actually I, I can answer that by, by telling you that writing this book was not my idea.

It was suggested by my best friend, who's a psychotherapist in New York City, and he works in positive psychology.

So I learned a lot from him, and then in the late '90s, I, I did read Learned Optimism by Martin Se- Seligman, seminal book on optimism.

And when Alan suggested that he, he'd actually helped me through some difficult situations, including the passing of my wife, and he said at the end, he said, "John, of all people I've worked with, you've been just about the most resilient of all of them, and it just seems like you just have such a good, positive outlook on life.

A couple of things.

One, many, many years ago, I read a book called Learned Optimism.

Yeah, by

Martin