Presented by Brian Johnson
PhilosophersNotes | 20 minutes
Optimism is the character strength most strongly correlated with life satisfaction. Optimists enjoy better health and career success than pessimists. They are more persistent, self-confident and resilient in the face of adversity.
Martin Seligman, the founder of Positive Psychology, believes that optimism can be learned. In fact, he wrote a book about it: the 1990 psychology classic Learned Optimism. Brian Johnson produced this audio summary of Seligman’s book as part of his PhilosophersNotes series.