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How to Be Awesome at Your Job · 2025-04-21 · 33 min · 7,414 words

1051: Channeling Optimism as a Superpower with Sumit Paul-Choudhury

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People who score as more strongly optimistic seem to have better lives in many respects, longer lives, healthier lives, happier lives, and more successful lives. If you kind of take every opportunity you have to advance yourself and you take each of those individually, with an optimistic stance. That's what tends to pan out over the long term, because sure, you'll be wrong sometimes, and some things won't work out, but sometimes they do. And over time that accumulates.

Optimism is about targeting. It's not just about being relentlessly sunshiny. It's about choosing where you want to increase your ability to see that brighter future. That's Schumet Paul Chowdery. He is the former editor-in-chief of New Scientist and trained as an astrophysicist, worked as a financial journalist, and at the London Business School received a Sloan Fellowship in strategy and leadership.

His new book, The Bright Side, How Optimists Change the World and How You Can Be One, shares the power of optimism and how you can harness it. to turn your biggest setbacks into opportunities for long-term success. So you'll learn one, the case for optimism, two, how to train your brain to become an optimist, and three, how to direct your optimism to where you need it most. And if you want a quick summary write-up of these actionable takeaways, I recommend you sign up for the free gold nugget email newsletter at awesomeatyourjob.com. I'm Pete McKitis.

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