The 3 Good Podcast

In this episode, Sukh has a guest on the show - Mark Gilroy. Together, they discuss the topic of optimism. It's a longer episode than normal, coming in at just shy of 1hr and 15 mins, so tuck in, it's a deep exploration!

Sukh and Mark discuss a range of related topics to optimism:

- They explore how optimism is a psychological construct, and what it helps with for a healthy mind.

- They discuss pessimism, how it's the opposite of optimism, can offer a healthy balance to being too optimistic, and how it can be a healthy way of thinking.

- They make a clear distinction that optimism and pessimism are not related to mental health disorders, and how they are useful for healthy human functioning.

- Mark shares a really useful model to identify overly pessimistic attitudes where someone may use language where the following is evident:

• Permanence - describing things in ways that indicate there's never a positive outcome and there is no hope for their to be a positive outcome

- They discuss how optimism can be overused and may impair quality of judgements that need to be made.

- They discuss the role of data, evidence and examples and how they either support optimism or pessismism.

This was a really good deep exploration of the topic of optimism, and Mark was really generous with his insights and sharing of research that is related to the topic.

Links that Mark has shared which are useful for people to explore further:

The book by Tali Sharot - The Optimism Bias: Why we're wired to look on the bright side - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Optimism-Bias-were-wired-bright/dp/1780332637/ref=la_B004ANWOX4_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1519468999&sr=1-2

Tali Sharot's TED Talk - The Optimism Bias - https://www.ted.com/talks/tali_sharot_the_optimism_bias

The book by Dan Ariely - Predictably Irrational - The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Predictably-Irrational-Hidden-Forces-Decisions/dp/0007256531

Dan Ariely's YouTube video on Loss Aversion and The Endowment Effect - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpiGVWO-C64

Finally, you may have noticed there's no intro music to the podcast! Big thanks and love to Mark himself for producing the piece for the podcast.

You can connect with Sukh on Twitter @sukhpabial.

You can connect with Mark on Twitter @thatmarkgilroy and find out more about the work that TMSDI do at www.tmsdi.com.

In this episode Sukh discusses the importance of accepting that bad things happen in life. He talks about how we can understand bad things happening through three different lenses. One is about bad things happening which after a passage of time, we can recover from and continue with normal living. The other is about wilful violence and / or manipulation of others. He explores here how often these actions are designed to completely disrupt everything about normal life and until justice is reached or the situation resolved it's often too hard to continue with normal life. The third is how we talk about death and not because people may be facing terminal illnesses but because it enables us to be better prepared for the loss of loved ones and to be better resolved about their wishes after they've passed. Sukh acknowledges this is a heavy topic to discuss and actively encourages people to discuss and / or comment as appropriate.

You can connect with Sukh on Twitter @sukhpabial.

In this episode Sukh discusses the importance of accepting that bad things happen in life. He talks about how we can understand bad things happening through three different lenses. One is about bad things happening which after a passage of time, we can recover from and continue with normal living. The other is about wilful violence and / or manipulation of others. He explores here how often these actions are designed to completely disrupt everything about normal life and until justice is reached or the situation resolved it's often too hard to continue with normal life. The third is how we talk about death and not because people may be facing terminal illnesses but because it enables us to be better prepared for the loss of loved ones and to be better resolved about their wishes after they've passed. Sukh acknowledges this is a heavy topic to discuss and actively encourages people to discuss and / or comment as appropriate. You can connect with Sukh on Twitter @sukhpabial.

What are your strengths? How do you understand them about yourself? In knowing your strengths how are you a better person for them? Sukh explores what he believes is a distinction between being good at something and having strength in it. You can learn more about strengths and your own by completing the VIA survey here http://www.viacharacter.org/www/Character-Strengths-Survey. You can also check out more resources on the University of Pennsylvania website https://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/testcenter. Towards the end, Sukh talks about understanding your signature strength. You can connect with Sukh on Twitter @sukhpabial.

In this episode, Sukh discusses what positive psychology is and isn't. He does this by exploring positive thinking, what it can help with and its limitations. Sukh also discusses how positive psychology helps with and is focused on thinking about reality and what's not working well as well as being about building on people's strengths and helping people be their best self. The later part of the podcast is where Sukh discusses the importance of having a third place and how this is supportive for individuals. You can connect with Sukh on Twitter @sukhpabial.

In this opening episode, Sukh Pabial shares why he has chosen to start the 3 Good podcast and why he wants to talk about positive psychology, wellbeing, resilience, mental health and emotional intelligence. He references the work by Professor Martin Seligman as being a major influence for him, and encourages listeners to check out the #3goodthings hashtag on Twitter.