How Real Optimism Helps You Thrive in Uncertainty | Deepika Chopra - EP 761

What if optimism isn’t about staying positive but about facing uncertainty with courage? In this episode of Passion Struck, I sit down with clinical psychologist and optimism expert Deepika Chopra to explore what she calls real optimism—a science-backed approach to resilience that has far less to do with positive thinking and far more to do with how we relate to possibility. Drawing from her new book The Power of Real Optimism, Deepika challenges one of the biggest myths in modern self-help: that optimism means ignoring hardship or forcing good vibes. We explore why positivity can sometimes undermine mental health, how the brain acts as an anticipation machine shaping what we expect from the future, and why expectations often influence outcomes more than wishful thinking. Passion Struck is the #1 alternative health and personal growth podcast dedicated to human flourishing and the science of mattering. Full Show notes: https://passionstruck.com/the-power-of-real-optimism-deepika-chopra/Get the Companion Workbook: https://www.theignitedlife.net/p/the-science-of-real-optimism-7-10-ruleThank You to Our Sponsors Get Huel today with 15% OFF using code PASSION at huel.com/passion. New customers only. Connect with John Pre-Order The Mattering Effect: https://matteringeffect.com/Book John to Speak: https://johnrmiles.com/speaking/Keynotes, books, podcast, and resources: https://linktr.ee/John_R_MilesChildren’s Book — You Matter, Luma: https://youmatterluma.com/Substack: https://www.theignitedlife.net/Support the Movement: https://startmattering.com/. Every human deserves to feel seen, valued, and like they matter. Wear it. Live it. Show it. DisclaimerThe Passion Struck podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of Passion Struck or its affiliates. This podcast is not a substitute for professional medical or psychological advice.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00John R. Miles?

  Coming up next on Passion Struck.

• 0:02Speaker 01

  We've lived through, right now, you have lived and gotten through all of your hardest days in X amount of decades of being here on this planet. And that in itself is the fabric and makeup of what, you know, how we increase and cultivate more optimism to help us with our journey navigating through the other struggles that might come our way, or what we can expect for the hope that things will get better or go well. And optimism is so rooted in that idea of anticipation and expectation. And again, rooted in your personal historical resiliency story.

• 0:42John R. Miles?

  Welcome to Passion Struck. I'm your host, John Miles. This is the show where we explore the art of human flourishing and what it truly means to live like it matters. Each week, I sit down with changemakers, creators, scientists, and everyday heroes to decode the human experience and uncover the tools that help us lead with meaning, heal what hurts, and pursue the fullest expression of who we're capable of becoming. Whether you're designing your future, developing as a leader, or seeking deeper alignment in your life, this show is your invitation to grow with purpose and act with intention. Because the secret to a life of deep purpose, connection, and impact is choosing to live like you matter.

• 1:30John R. Miles?

  Welcome back, friends, to episode 761 of Passion Struck. I'm so glad you're here. Whether this is your first episode or your 200th, thank you for being part of this global community, committed to living intentionally, leading with purpose, and creating a world where every person feels like they matter. And today, we arrive at the final interview in our monthly Purpose by Design series, where we've been exploring a simple but profound truth. Purpose isn't something you stumble upon. It's something you design through your choices, through your identity, through your relationships, and through the stories you tell yourself about what is possible. Throughout this series, we've explored purpose through multiple dimensions. With Arthur Brooks, Harvard professor and bestselling author,

• 2:13John R. Miles?

  we explored meaning and why fulfillment is something we cultivate. With Claude Steele, Stanford social psychologist and pioneering research on stereotype threat, we looked at identity and the hidden forces that shape who we become. With Diana Hill, clinical psychologist and teacher of wise effort, we explored how directing energy toward what matters most becomes a design principle for living. And earlier this week, with Nicholas Epley, University of Chicago professor and one of the world's leading social psychologists, we explored how even small acts of connection shape belonging, happiness, and meaning. And perhaps there was only one place left to end this series, with how we design hope itself.

• 2:55John R. Miles?

  Because if purpose is shaped through meaning, identity, effort, and connection, it is also shaped through how we relate to possibility. That's why I wanted to bring Deepika Chopra onto the show. Deepika is a clinical psychologist and author of a great new book, Real Optimism: A Practical Science-Based Guide to Staying Resilient, Curious, and Open Even When Life is Hard. Deepika challenges one of the biggest myths in modern self-help, that optimism means staying positive. She shows us something much deeper. Real optimism isn't denial. It's a disciplined relationship with uncertainty. And in today's conversation, we explore why optimism is a trainable skill, why positivity can sometimes undermine resilience.

• 3:39John R. Miles?

  We go into how expectation shapes action more than wishful thinking, and why learning to face uncertainty may be one of the most important design choices we make. Because perhaps purpose isn't only designed by what we pursue or even by who we connect with, but by the possibilities we allow ourselves to believe in. Before we dive in, a quick note. If this show has ever positively impacted your life, please share it with a friend or family member. Write a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and watch the full episodes on our YouTube channels. Now, let's dive into my conversation with Deepika Chopra. Thank you for choosing Passion Struck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life that matters. Now, let that journey begin.

• 4:29John R. Miles?

  I am so excited today to welcome Dr. Deepika Chopra to Passion Struck. Deepika, it's so nice for you to be here and so nice to meet you.

• 4:37Speaker 01

  I'm so happy to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

• 4:40John R. Miles?

  Today, we are discussing your brand new book, which I'm showing here for those of you who are watching. But for those who are listening, it's titled, "The Power of Real Optimism: A Practical Science-Based Guide to Staying Resilient, Curious, and Open Even When Life Is Hard." Congratulations.

• 4:59Speaker 01

  Thank you. Thank you. It's definitely no small feat. I know you just also have a book out as well, and I'm just so passionate to get this message and these tools amplified and out there for everyone that needs them.

• 5:14John R. Miles?

  Well, I can't wait to discuss it. And you open the book with the story of one of your children's rare illnesses. And it must have been such an interesting time for you because on the one hand, you're dealing with that, but you're trying to write about optimism. In that moment, did optimism feel real to you, or did it feel like a lie?

• 5:37Speaker 01

  Honestly, it felt like cruel irony. I was a couple of months into writing the manuscript, and we, making a long story short, we went to the doctor, found something that seemed fishy, and everyone told us not to worry about it, including the doctors, of course. But I persisted, and within a couple of weeks, we were realizing that we were dealing with something very serious and actually not at all anywhere in the realm of anything we ever would have thought. And after first surgery, got handed some really awful news. And my son, who at the time was two and a half, was diagnosed with something that was just

• 6:20Speaker 01

  shattering to our family. We, for me at least, I can speak on my experience with it, which was that I personally felt the most helpless and hopeless I had ever felt. And we had a long journey ahead of us, a year and a half of treatment that just seemed insurmountainous. It seemed like a huge mountain, and we have to do it. But no, the first couple of months of it, I actually remember calling My agent, talking to the editor, being like, I don't know if I can do this. I feel like I don't have any shred of optimism within me. I don't know how I could do this. And I felt really paralyzed for a couple of months.

• 7:05Speaker 01

  And honestly, some level of paralysis throughout the entire experience. But in some other, more, a different type of irony, I think actually coming back to it and having deadlines and writing this book and having to actually live the tools and the messaging and write the language, think about the thoughts and all of that in real time. It's, it sounds cliche, but writing the book, I think, is the only thing and the only reason that I got through this and that I kept showing up every single day despite the circumstances being awful.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  And to me, the full circle with that is, I was just talking about this with somebody else a couple of days ago with a friend of mine. And I said everything about why I believe in this book from a scientist's point of view and from research, but I truly believe and understand it from a personal point of view because I have lived the tools and the pages of this book. This is the part that's important, in really imperfect conditions. And that is really important to me because I think the tools that we give people need to work in all kinds of conditions. It's not just when things feel good. And this book is not about positivity and platitudes. It's science, it's storytelling, it's memoir, and it's client stories.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  It's a whole lot of everything to really meet you where you are, especially when you are going through something tough and none of us are immune to struggle.

• 8:42John R. Miles?

  Yeah, as I was reading the book, something that I caught was that your son had to take medication and he was too small to swallow the pills. And so the pharmacist said, crush it up and mix it with food. Just don't mix it with something he likes. And to this day, there are certain foods that that people love, like pickles, that I just can't even practically look at or smell it. I was wondering, did my mom do something to me as I was growing up that jinxed me? Thank God she didn't put whatever it was in ice cream.

• 9:16Speaker 01

  Well, we tried everything. He had treatment at the hospital once a week for a year and a half, and that was really tough. It was Tuesdays for us and Tuesdays just were dreadful. But every day we had to give him medication and they were a form of, they were steroids and really high dosage. And when you're first given that task, it just seemed, okay, we've done medicine before. We've done liquid Motrin or Tylenol, but he was only two and a half. So not much experience with that. But I'd had a kid before him. And so I said, this can't be that bad. Oh, it was one of the worst parts of the whole thing, just feeling so, I remember the first

• 9:57Speaker 01

  time we tried, it was so awful. He spit it all out, which then makes you feel like, I'm not able to give him this life-saving medication. Like, I'm so anxious about it. I hid under my office desk and I cried and I remember saying, I cannot do this. Like, I couldn't do it that day and I couldn't imagine doing it every single day for over a year. And it just kicks something in you into gear. I became proficient and an advocate in things that I never would have thought about before. Number one, there were liquid forms of this, which we weren't even told about. We tried, that was pretty awful, too. We tried it in every single type of food, to the wind with the person that said, don't put it in the stuff he's gonna,

• 10:40Speaker 01

  we had to try everything. None of it worked. I even tried it. It was awful. I couldn't believe that we were in the year we were in and this type of medication, which is pretty prevalent, especially for People that need to suppress their immune system and are going through a diagnosis like my sons, I could not believe that they had nothing better on the market. But I did end up through research, finding my own research, that there was like a dissolvable pill, which was more palpable. And the crazy thing is, I, we started doing it and he was able to take it, although every day was still pretty hard. We had a whole ritual around it. He had to take it twice a day. And then we went to the doctor, one of our treatments, and we told her like, oh yeah, this, it's going better because he's able to take it.

• 11:23Speaker 01

  And she's, what is he taking? And I showed her the medication that I found. I said, the pharmacist said it was equivalent, and she had never seen it. And so there was a level in this too, that was, wow, there's so much advocacy in healthcare. And I always knew it for myself, but I really understood it, being the caretaker and advocate for my child. It really was something that there wasn't, number one, this disease is so rare, they told us two in a million and talked about luck. But even within that, even diseases that are known, I think there's just so much effort and education and advocacy that you

• 12:02Speaker 01

  have to navigate through and be willing to do in healthcare. And that, I think, is a piece of this that made something already so difficult even more difficult.

• 12:14John R. Miles?

  Thank you for sharing that. And I just wanted to make this real for the audience. So I appreciate you going into that. Deepika, you call yourself the optimism doctor, but you actually challenged one of the biggest ideas in modern self-help. And that is optimism means staying positive. In your work, though, optimism is something very different. What do you think real optimism actually means?

• 12:39Speaker 01

  So first of all, I always love to preface this with, I'm known as the optimism doctor, and this is truly what I am so passionate about, that I am not the most optimistic person myself. And I know there's a lot to unpack there. I know the tools, I know the data. I feel like this is my calling and I feel really good at what I do, especially for other people. But I am just trying to work on and work through the tools in my everyday life, just the same as everyone else. And although there is a genetic component to being optimistic, it's actually so much smaller than we ever imagined and most of it is learned.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  And so I personally was not lucky enough to be someone that I think the genetics were not necessarily in my favor, even in that small way in my microcosm of family. I'm probably one of the more pessimistic people. But the amazing thing is I have really grown and cultivated my, what I call real optimism. And so I see optimism as not a personality trait, but as a trainable psychological skill. And I see it as a muscle and something that we have the ability and power to work out. And optimism, whenever I'm speaking about it to people, I always am curious and love to just ask, oh, what's the first word that comes to mind when you think of optimism?

• 14:03Speaker 01

  And of course, it is usually a resounding positivity or being positive or the idea of seeing the glass half full or wearing rose colored glasses. And I think optimism on the whole as a notion has been really misunderstood. And so from a science-based perspective, what we see with optimism and when we talk about the idea of optimism, I'm not really, I think positivity is being positive is a cousin of optimism. They're not interchangeable. I more associate optimism with ideas like of resiliency and curiosity. And so optimism is cultivated really through persevering struggle.

• 14:47Speaker 01

  And an optimist is someone that is really keenly and mindfully aware of the roadblocks and the less than ideal situations and the setbacks that none of us are immune to. But the caveat is they see these things as temporary and something that they have the ability to overcome, even if they don't know how or when, they just know that they will likely overcome it based on their own personal historical resiliency. And a great starting point also is you don't have to feel positive or good about an outcome to be optimistic. I think you just have to be curious and you have to accept that the situation is temporary.

• 15:31Speaker 01

  And even just that curiosity of like, how will this change? I'm not sure how it will, but how will it? I know it will, but I wonder how it will change, even just sitting in that is optimistic.

• 15:42John R. Miles?

  We started this episode out talking about your son. I'm going to come now to my sister. So my sister, about five years ago, unfortunately, got the news no one would ever want to hear. She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And I remember the call she made to me right after she had gone to MD Anderson, just sobbing. But once she kind of went through the phases that you do when you get a diagnosis like that, she was actually extremely optimistic because she always had this growth mindset and she that there were things that she could possibly do, whether it was changing her

• 16:26John R. Miles?

  diet, changing her mindset, exercising, putting herself in the best possible position to be one of the lucky ones who can get Whipple surgery and survive this for the long term. It ended up not going that way. But what was interesting to me per your definition was even a person like her in the worst circumstances you could possibly imagine was optimistic and

• 16:53John R. Miles?

  She actually, after getting the diagnosis, went back to a master's program to get a degree in social work and actually fulfilled her long-term desire to help people because she thought, given what she was going through, there were other people suffering and she would be a better therapist, dealing with what she was dealing with. So I'm bringing her up because I think it shows what you're talking about, that optimism doesn't have to equate with positivity. Actually, if you look at my sister, Viktor Frankl, or others, they experienced optimism even during times of hardships. And does your research show that this is true?

• 17:37Speaker 01

  Absolutely. First of all, I'm so sorry for that. She sounds like an incredible human and I spent a majority of my sort of clinical training as a psycho-oncologist at UCLA. And so, working with oncology patients and their families and it was really there that I had already been really focused on the idea of optimism, but it was really there that it was such a big part of my foundation and really formed how I think about optimism in that, that experience there. But that's very incredible. Yes, absolutely. In fact,

• 18:14Speaker 01

  I would say optimism is truly cultivated in those moments of struggle and hardship. And the reason for that is, again, because it is so closely tied to this idea of being fully rooted and grounded in your current emotional experience. So this is not about swiping something underneath a rug or being delusional. This is hard right now, but it's not the whole story. And it's not the whole story. So optimism is, lives in that. And it's important to really preface that it doesn't skip over the hard parts. I always

• 18:55Speaker 01

  say, real optimism doesn't deny the dark, it just helps give us a way to see within it. And that's really important. And I think people, their ideas of this optimism and thinking about it, they think that only is grown from the moments where we're feeling the happiest or experiencing joy or bliss. And really, it's quite the opposite. And I think that...

• 19:19Speaker 01

  When we persevere through a struggle and we've lived through, right now, you have lived and gotten through all of your hardest days in X amount of decades of being here on this planet. And that in itself is the fabric and makeup of what, how we increase and cultivate more optimism to help us with our journey navigating through the other struggles that might come our way, or what we can expect for the hope that things will get better or go well. And optimism is so rooted in that idea of anticipation and expectation. And again, rooted in your personal historical resiliency story.

• 20:01John R. Miles?

  Before we continue, a quick note. If today's conversation is making you rethink what optimism really means, I want to invite you to go deeper. Throughout this Purpose by Design series, we've been exploring how we design meaning, belonging, resilience, and possibility into everyday life. And that's exactly what I'm exploring each week on my Substack, theignitedlife.net, through reflection tools, frameworks, and workbooks designed to help you not just understand these ideas, but live them. If you want to go deeper into building a more intentional, resilient, and ignited life, visit theignitedlife.net. Now, a quick break for our sponsors. Thank you for supporting those who support the show.

• 20:46John R. Miles?

  You're listening to Passion Struck right here on the Passion Struck Network. Now, back to my conversation with DePika Shobha.

• 20:55John R. Miles?

  One of the things you write in the book is that optimism enhances our physical health in many ways. And a study you cite found that individuals who scored high in optimism lived on average 11 to 15% longer, and those who scored lower were significantly more likely than pessimists to live to 80 or older. So it has some really strong health benefits. But one of the things I've covered a lot on the podcast is toxic positivity, which I think can do the exact opposite. And I wanted to talk about sometimes the harms that toxic positivity can cause.

• 21:35Speaker 01

  Absolutely, and I always like to start the conversation of toxic positivity with, I truly believe that when we are acting in the realm of toxic positivity, whether it's speaking to ourselves or people around us, it usually most likely always comes from a good intention. It's just the way in which we're doing it. We start with this good intention. It actually, at best, doesn't work, but at worst, could be very detrimental to either ourselves or the other people around us. And the reason I say that is for a couple of different reasons. But when someone comes to you and they are offering an openness of going through a struggle or being upset in some way, experiencing a negative emotion,

• 22:20Speaker 01

  it's human nature for us to sit across from them to either A, want to fix it for them. We don't want to see them in pain. That is something that's uncomfortable for us and we want to, as quickly as possible, bring them out of it because we truly want them to feel better. Or B, we also want them to truly get out of this as quick as possible because it's uncomfortable. We experience discomfort in presence of their discomfort because then it starts to open up. Wait, where are these avenues in my life that are similar to this? And I don't want to experience this. And so it really comes down a lot of time to, again, good intention, but us being able to sit with the feelings of discomfort.

• 23:04Speaker 01

  And toxic positivity can be really sneaky and it can be phrases that we all say that, again, come from a good intention and we don't even know we're in the realm of toxic positivity. Like when you say, "Everything happens for a reason," or "It could be worse," or "hoping that we're helping someone with a perspective shift," which sometimes can really work if we are ready for that. But oftentimes, when it's said to us or we say it, it's an immediate response or reaction to when we are just in the opening of experiencing a negative emotion, which we are not, at that moment, ready to just turn that off and shut it off. It can be like good vibes only. It can look like...

• 23:46Speaker 01

  Don't worry, be happy, things will get better right away. And so these type of phrases are forced positivity, which we know from a brain standpoint does not work, and it ignores difficulty. And I think that the hardest part of it is it vilifies us being able to experience and almost puts a shame on the whole human range of emotion, which we were actually built to experience. And I think like when people, and I don't know if you feel the same way just from your own interviewing and doing what you do, but I think the majority of the time when someone comes to us seeking support or wanting to open up and be vulnerable

• 24:31Speaker 01

  and tell us something that they're going through, the majority of the time they're not looking for a solution or to be fixed. The majority of the time, they're just looking for a safe space to feel seen and heard and validated and really related to. And so I think we pressure ourselves, and that's where the toxic positivity sometimes can come in, because we feel like, oh, my gosh, we need to fix this right now for this person. They are coming to us. We want to help. We want to fix this. And I would say one of the better ways to remedying that is to allow yourself and the other person to sit in what they're saying and try to challenge yourself to offer no solution,

• 25:15Speaker 01

  but to just offer a safe space and a place for them to be vulnerable. And you can still offer a response that's more rooted in real optimism, which acknowledges the difficulty that they're in and validates their experience and helps them and allows them to give them the space to process their emotion more honestly. And then always leaving this small room for hope, you know, not slapping a positive bumper sticker over it. You could remind someone while you're sitting with them and validating all of this that, listen, you've been through hard times before. I've been here for that. I've seen it. And I see this is a really hard time. And I totally understand why it is hard. Of course, it's hard.

• 26:00Speaker 01

  So you're not saying, and it's all going to be okay. But you are reminding them that they've been here before. And at the same time, it's okay to be here. And you're here to listen to them.

• 26:12John R. Miles?

  I can completely relate to what you're saying because a lot of the work that I do is not only for children, like my most recent children's book, but I really study the science of mattering. And I have a book coming out in October called The Mattering Effects. So I've actually interviewed over 100 leading scientists for this book. And two of the people I spoke to while researching the book were Susan Cain and Laurie Santos. And they were both talking to me about the toxic positivity that they were seeing on college campuses. In the case of Susan, it was going back to her alma mater, Princeton. And in the case

• 26:51John R. Miles?

  of Laurie, it was Yale where she teaches. And I think Laurie gave a great description in our conversation. She said, what's happening is so many of these students are experiencing duck syndrome. And what she was saying is they appear fine on the surface, but underneath, they're just paddling and paddling with their feet as fast as they can go because they're not feeling seen. They're not feeling accepted. And I have to tell you, when you lose that sense of mattering, it's compounding because to me, mattering is really the core operating system that we have. And if you don't feel like you matter, it's nearly impossible for you to make someone else feel like they matter. And so therefore, you're not going to get

• 27:34John R. Miles?

  the reciprocal mattering felt back to you. And I think for so many of us, we're in such a hurry today that we're not giving that attention to other people like we have for millennia, before the times we're living in now. Do you relate to that?

• 27:53Speaker 01

  Yes, absolutely. And I think we're taught at an early age that there is no room for negative emotions. It is either a waste of your time and energy, or it is bothering whoever it is that you're telling it to. And so we hear that enough, see it enough, feel it enough. And oftentimes, these can be silent cues in how people react. And again, sometimes they are coming from our own insecurities and inability To live in discomfort. But whatever it is, we are taught this at a young age. And so then we get to a place like college. And that makes perfect sense why there would be so much paddling in elementary school. So much paddling underneath the surface.

• 28:37Speaker 01

  Performance on the top surface and wanting to take less space and just make sure things like you're easygoing and the idea of always being in forward motion. And I think that's really important to be in forward motion, but we all, in order to truly be in forward motion, you can't discount what's happening below the surface. And the only way to change that again is to help yourself by being a model around other people and by giving other people in your own small networks. And really, this is something that you can do literally today in your own small community and network.

• 29:17Speaker 01

  It is trying to challenge yourself to allow the people around you to experience their full human range of emotions and try to sit in that discomfort and not discount or vilify that experience.

• 29:33John R. Miles?

  Thank you for sharing that. I wanted to move the discussion to the topic of expectations, manifestation and the brain. And as I was doing research on you, I realized you and I do something similar, but a little bit different when we both do public speaking. I oftentimes plant a golden ticket under one or two of the chairs in the audience and I start with an ice break about who's got the golden ticket. And the golden ticket, if they win it, is they win a copy of my book. But what they don't realize is typically if they get the golden ticket, it also means I'm likely going to bring them up on stage for an exercise. So they have to earn the book.

• 30:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 30:15John R. Miles?

  But you do an example where you ask the audience, who wants to win the lottery?

• 30:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:20John R. Miles?

  And what ends up happening? Do people raise their hands?

• 30:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's really to illustrate this idea that I think we spend a lot of time, especially when we're talking about this term manifestation, which nowadays is so mainstream. And I think most people understand the concept of it and some people define it so well, really with neuroscience in mind and a lot of other people don't. And I think there's some missing pieces from a neuro and brain standpoint that are really imperative for people to understand if they are talking about that. And one of the things that I love doing is asking people, this is really rating something that they want and putting it up against something that they really expect to occur.

• 31:06Speaker 01

  And so I will sometimes ask a large group of people, how many of you guys would want to win the lottery? Given the chance, would you want to win the lottery? And of course, everybody, most everybody raises their hand, I'd love to win the lottery. And there's always a couple that are, I don't want to win the lottery. That's very rare, but no, I'm not going to participate. But for the most of the audience, people are all raising their hands. And then I ask, if you bought a Lotto ticket this morning, keep your hands raised. And very few times are any hands still held up, but there are a couple. The majority of people's hands quickly go down and there's some chatter. And I think it just makes perfect sense. It's not a surprise.

• 31:49Speaker 01

  If your brain does not expect something to occur, and that could actually be a likely possibility, it doesn't put forth, the attentional capacity or prefrontal cortex start turning on to give you solutions, to start taking actions, to put you in a place where you're actually likely to make this one want into a reality or materialize it. And so you can want to win the lottery, but if you don't expect that you're going to win, you're most likely not going to buy a lottery ticket because it seems like a waste of energy and time. And so that makes a lot of sense. And it honestly is part of the way it's part of our brain working in the right way.

• 32:31Speaker 01

  It's an efficiency process and we have a limited attentional capacity. It cannot tend to everything. So it prioritizes things that it can actually expect to occur. And so when I work with people, I'm working a lot within that gap and closing that gap of want and expectation.

• 32:51John R. Miles?

  You say something fascinating that I've heard you say in a couple of other interviews. And that is we don't always get what we want. We get what we expect.

• 32:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 33:00John R. Miles?

  And, you know, why are expectations so powerful in shaping our behavior and outcomes?

• 33:05Speaker 01

  They're so powerful because again, your brain prioritizes putting forth all the steps and necessary attention and solution focus into the things that it deems possible to happen and likely to happen. And you can want until the cows come home, but unless you expect it to happen, your brain's not helping you out with all the different things and the pathways that you need to actually put yourself into taking an action, like buying a lottery ticket, or if you do not, you could want a relationship so badly. You can think about it. You can cut out words related to it and stick them on a piece of paper. You could really rate 10 out of 10. I want to be in a relationship.

• 33:51Speaker 01

  But then if I ask that same person, one to 10, how much do you expect or believe that this is going to happen for you? And if that's somewhere living in three or four, your brain is not putting forth the energy or the attention or the pathways to connect you to doing and taking part in the behaviors that would actually likely get you to be in a place like, for example, you most likely are not thinking or saying yes or open to the idea when someone invites you somewhere. Putting yourself in a situation where meeting somebody that could be a future partner is likely to happen. And so until you close that gap and you see it more as a possibility.

• 34:35Speaker 01

  We don't have the brain and the way it works on our side. And that is a powerful mechanism. And so I think we skip that part a lot. We skip it over on what am I truly expecting to happen? What do I really think? I know what I want, but how likely do I think that it can occur for me? And this is not magical thinking. It's literally thought, emotions and behaviors and taking action. And I think another piece that's missing in the process is most always these things take work. And there is a journey and it's not about thinking about something and then expecting that it just falls into our lap. There's a lot of process in between that. And it is a powerful process.

• 35:16Speaker 01

  We can, our thoughts are so powerful and we can think about something and change our expectations and remove and soften really concrete, negative, self-limiting beliefs. Like we can do all these things, but they take time and practice and work and they're not impossible. But it's also not a passive process.

• 35:39John R. Miles?

  Yeah, when I think about manifestation, which has become so hugely popular, I often think about the story of Matthew McConaughey and how a decade ago or so, he wrote down on a piece of paper, these things he wanted to happen in his life. And for him, they've all seemed to come true. But for a lot of people, they do vision boards, affirmations, they ask the universe for things. And so oftentimes it doesn't come true. You talk about evidence-based manifestation, which you were alluding to, and having to do the real work to make these things come true. What happens with evidence-based manifestation?

• 36:22John R. Miles?

  So people can actually put these affirmations to work in a way where it'll help their brain rather than work against it?

• 36:30Speaker 01

  And you bring up another sort of buzzword, and that's affirmations. And I think most people, the way they use affirmations are they use generic blanket statement affirmations. We've all heard many of them. I am capable, I am strong, I am lovable. Whatever those are, we have these affirmations that we're told that are really powerful. And Affirmations, because thoughts are powerful and beliefs are powerful, they do work. But there is a big caveat with it that I think we overlook. So first of all, research shows us that affirmations actually don't work for the most part for the people that really, truly need them.

• 37:14Speaker 01

  And if you're someone that believe, you know where I think blanket statement, generic affirmations do work, they work most always with children. Because kids have not yet racked up years and years of experiences and interpretations of situations that have now cemented into core beliefs. Or really hard, rigid beliefs about stuff. Like, they don't have that in them. They're so much more amiable and flexible and everything's an opening. And so I think a generic affirmation that's a positive affirmation is great for kids. And then over time, as we grow up and we have our own experiences and appraise all

• 37:59Speaker 01

  the situations that we go through and we start collecting them as evidence. I'm a big believer that the brain is constantly collecting evidence. We're like detectives. And the more we do this, first of all, we make a belief. And then from that, our brain loves to collect more evidence to make something we believe even more true. And so then that belief has become further cemented. And we just go through life because we're tuned into that radio station constantly and quickly seeking out ever more evidence to make whatever that belief is more and more true until it becomes a core belief. And this process over time just becomes automatic because again, it's part of our brain's efficiency. And sometimes that can be a good thing and a lot of times that can be a detrimental thing.

• 38:44Speaker 01

  And so when you tell someone that has collected enough evidence and has cemented a belief strongly enough over forty years, thirty years, even twenty years, that they believe something like, "I am unlovable."

• 39:00Speaker 01

  And then you tell them to just look in front of the mirror and say, I am lovable deserving, I'm a deserving of love person. I'm lovable three times before bed and three times when they wake up. That is the place where it can become not just not useful, but actually detrimental, because now your brain starts to resurface and almost a opening a file in a computer. It clicks on the file of I am unlovable. And it starts all the other files within it. And documents start populating of all the reasons why you are not lovable. And the reasons why you do believe that belief. And how silly of you to ever think that you would say this statement that is the complete opposite.

• 39:42Speaker 01

  And how not only do you further believe what you believe, but you also feel shame and guilt and a real dip in confidence for even saying that other thing out loud. And so it can be very detrimental to people that are really holding this self limiting belief that need it the most. And so I have come up with something that I call the seven tense rule. And I really believe in measurable quantitative ways to work within these constructs and these tools. I come from a cognitive behavioral background. So I love things that are measurable and I love rating things. And I would say if you 10 being you believe it the most,

• 40:27Speaker 01

  it's so true for you. Zero being you believe it the least, it's not true at all. If you can rate an affirmation, a positive affirmation, seven out of 10 in believability, then it is a affirmation, I think would be really helpful to use. And go seek out more affirmations like that. And you will, if you start repeating those, that's how the brain works. But if it is under seven out of 10, then we need to come up with different affirmations that are similar and in the same realm, in the same direction, but not that affirmation. And that you actually believe it seven out of 10, so that it can be useful to you. And once you find out what those are.

• 41:09Speaker 01

  So in that example, if the person is really wanted to use the affirmation of I am lovable, that they believe it like two, one, even zero.

• 41:18Speaker 01

  Then we want to start asking them like, what is one thing that you do like about yourself? Just one thing. And sometimes it's hard for people to come up with, but for the most part, after some probing, you can get someone to at least say one thing that they like about themselves. And maybe it's, I'm a good friend, or I really like the way that I cook, or I like that I'm reliable. You know, whatever that is, or I think I'm kind, or whatever that one thing is, they pick one thing that they like about themselves. We rate that. If that makes the cut of seven out of 10, we use that as the affirmation. And you say that enough times, the way the brain works is it seeks out more evidence and proof

• 42:02Speaker 01

  to add to that, to make it more true. And then you have this like bubble of, within a couple of weeks, maybe three to five more believable affirmations that are like that. And over time, maybe in a couple of months, you might not be able to yet say, I'm a lovable person, but you certainly have enough evidence to go against your initial belief of, I am not lovable. And I am not deserving of love from people. And so you want to slowly start softening and chipping away at the negative self-belief without doing a, driving down the highway at 150 miles per hour and asking someone to make a turn in the other direction, you'll crash and burn.

• 42:45John R. Miles?

  What you're talking about was fundamentally so sad. Honestly, how many people feel that way? And the statistics, I'm just going off on a tangent here, are pretty eye-opening. That 64% of workers feel like they don't belong in their work environment. 68% of people feel like they don't belong in the United States. And 74% of people in America don't feel like they belong in their communities. And there's something fundamentally going on.

• 43:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:16John R. Miles?

  Where so many of us. Are living in an inauthentic version of who we think we should be. And we wear all these masks to perform a different version of us. And I think that is what is leading so much to the loneliness, hopelessness, whatever you call it, that so many people are.

• 43:36Speaker 01

  Just last month, there was a survey done and a study done. And we are living in terms of our future optimism in America. It is the lowest it's been in 20 years. And I think that stat, or even just hearing it, or some of the stuff that you're bringing up, which is so true, because now we're talking a lot about this idea of not feeling connected. And we know that connection, and again, mattering is a big part of that. Connecting with others, we are social creatures, is the hallmark of well being. And the Harvard longitudinal study that came out a few years back. And we know that the single most important factor to predict happiness

• 44:18Speaker 01

  and a sense of contentment is our level of connection with other people. These numbers are staggering on people in this country not feeling like they belong and that they have space or place. And I think that this pessimism that we are in, the most pessimistic state we've been in in over 20 years, is not a surprise. I think so many of us can be like, well, have you woken up? Do you know what we're living through every day feels like a struggle? And that's why I think this work and the tools in the power of real optimism are so timely and so important and really honestly urgent. Because I truly believe that the answer to this is not to look away.

• 45:03Speaker 01

  And I think a lot of people think, well, like, we're just not, we weren't meant to be exposed to this much all at once. And that is true. We were not, our brains were not built for that. And there is an aspect of that where we need to work on boundary, like how much information and stimulation we are exposed to, of course. And that's something else that I want to talk about and the nervous system. But. The point is, I've been sharing this new stat and people are kind of just like, yeah, well, duh. And for me, that stat was not, yeah, duh. Of course, I know that's not surprising. It wasn't a stat that is, whoa, I would never have thought that. But it is a stat and some of the ones you listed too, that are astounding enough that we are like, this should make us

• 45:47Speaker 01

  want to do something. Like, we need to change. And what it tells me is that people are not looking for positivity. They are looking to be equipped with the tools to navigate through everyday life. And that is what I am passionate about and what the book is about. It is giving people the tools so that they don't look away and they're not being numbed out and paralyzed by the fact that, or desensitized, because every day feels like you just read the headlines, or you wake up and you just start your day and there's 50 things that have already happened that should be shocking to you, but you heard the same 50 things yesterday, or maybe 44 of

• 46:30Speaker 01

  them the day before, and now you're almost becoming apathetic. And because it's a survival method, we don't have, we were not, we can't carry everything the way we are carrying it. We need a new way. And so, these tools are equipping ourselves to be able to show up, stay engaged, still be deeply caring about our own lives and about the world, but have a way to carry it and walk through it without numbing out. And I think that is really important and something we don't necessarily teach. And it is important to learn these tools. We have

• 47:10Speaker 01

  it within us. They are, again, they are trainable and it is like a muscle. And if there's one thing I think we need, it is to learn these tools so that we can keep showing up and staying engaged, because that's important. We need to still be engaged with our community. We are social creatures and that's a part, we need to feel like we matter.

• 47:30John R. Miles?

  Are you familiar with Robin Dunbar?

• 47:33Speaker 01

  No.

• 47:34John R. Miles?

  Oh, so Runbar, Robin Dunbar was a British anthropologist and came up with this...

• 47:41John R. Miles?

  What's called Dunbar's number, which is that we are wired evolutionary wise to have no more than 150 connections. And I think I've done some solo podcasts on this topic. And one of the things I think that's happening is we in the world now are essentially being asked to be present for what's happening to a to seven billion people instantaneously. So negative things that are happening across the world, we're supposed to be an expert in them, or I think we're held to that standard. And evolutionary wise, there's no way

• 48:24John R. Miles?

  that we can do it. So there's just a huge mismatch between what's going on. And there's no wonder people feel so exhausted and overwhelmed.

• 48:32Speaker 01

  We are being stretched past not even what our capabilities are. We are stretched past what we were made for, built to do. And so I think that's so right. And that's true for so many different. It's true in the attention space. It's true in the emotional space. It's a really tough time. And that's why I think we need more tools that are based on reality. And so for me, it was really important to write down a collection of real optimism tools for real humans living real lives in 2026. It is important to meet people where they're actually at and what we are collectively going through.

• 49:16John R. Miles?

  When our time left, I wanted to give the audience a couple of practical tools. So since becoming a mom, you focused on helping a lot of parents raise more optimistic children. What are the most important things parents can do to cultivate resilience and optimism in their kids?

• 49:33Speaker 01

  Well, like the most important thing, and I think many of us think we have to have the perfectly curated sort of response and teaching moment when our kids are going through a struggle, or when they share something with us, we need to have this curated response that has all the lessons and the teaching moments in it. And the truth is, our kids don't necessarily learn that way. Our kids learn from modeling. And so if you yourself are open to the idea of growing, and you're working on your own real optimism, and you're doing that in your daily life, whether it's really small or have significant strides,

• 50:16Speaker 01

  your kids are watching this, and that is how they learn. They learn through watching you persevere through your struggle and your tough moments. And so number one, don't shy away from showing them that process, but focus on your own growth. And I will say something really important that I didn't say before, but this works here too, that our brains prioritize safety and survival over growth. And so we can have all the tools, we can construct the best rituals, and read all the books, and listen to the podcasts, but unless you truly feel safe and regulated, and that is from a nervous

• 50:57Speaker 01

  system standpoint, your brain can't focus on growth. And so the first and foremost step is to show your kids by working on yourself, how important it is to be regulated, and to be feeling a sense of safety, and whether that are really small. Sometimes I will be like, wow, I saw this meme the other day, and I was talking about it with a friend, but it was of like, a mom answering her child, and she answered back really perturbed and annoyed. She was like, what? And then she, you see her in her face being like, okay, I want to, that was not right. And then she does it again and she keeps trying to ground herself to say it better, but it comes out the same each time.

• 51:39Speaker 01

  Cause she is up to here and she's running on empty. And so I take that a step further where I've definitely multiple times a day been in a state like that. And I will out loud tell my kids and be like, I feel I'm running on empty. And I need to just do something for a moment that helps me, that's a tool for me. And then I'll come right, I'll be right back and it'll be 15 seconds. And I might, for me, I know I love helping people come up with their own unique toolbox. And I now know what mine are. And I think just sharing that in your daily life with everybody, you know, like, I'm like, I need to do a four, seven, eight breathing right now.

• 52:21Speaker 01

  And take that time to reset and then be like, okay, it doesn't change the circumstances. It doesn't buy you more time, but it shifts your physiology. And when you shift that, your brain is a little more open to possibility and solution. You can't really operate from empty all the time. And even if it's a short, and I think what people don't understand is the beauty of this. And the thing that makes me so optimistic are there are so many different small ways to do this that literally take 15, 30 seconds. And again, it's not magic. It doesn't change the circumstance, but it helps us navigate better throughout it. So I think modeling is probably the biggest thing.

• 53:01Speaker 01

  And the second thing I would say is really to start to shift your language. And language is really important when we're talking about real optimism. And we want to try and shift, especially when we're going through setbacks or roadblocks in our daily life. We want to shift from the automatic of saying, of course this happened, this always happens. Or this is always going to be this way. And we want to help and shift back to that explanatory style of teaching that this is temporary. And yes, this sucks, but this is temporary. Or like really making something specific and not pervasive. So shifting our language, wow, that person cut me off.

• 53:43Speaker 01

  That sucks. Like I'm allowed to say that, but not, uh, this always happens to me. It's always going to happen to me and so forth.

• 53:50John R. Miles?

  And the last thing I just wanted to briefly touch on is your chapter 10, which is really about the science of self-care. And one of the things that you had in here is I'm a huge fan of Dacher Keltner, University of California, Berkeley. And he writes a lot about awe and how do you experience in everyday life? And I love his concept of moral beauty. I've probably talked about it more than any other concept. And I actually, in my children's book, put this into life because I've created a whole platform called Pass the Ripple, where his moral beauty is all about everyday acts of kindness, or how you experience awe in the most pervasive way. And you can do it every day.

• 54:30John R. Miles?

  So I thought, what a great way to, to teach kids that they can experience awe by performing acts of kindness. And acts of kindness is something that you like to talk about as well. So I was hoping we might be able to end here. And what practices do you suggest that listeners can do to implement this more in their everyday life?

• 54:51Speaker 01

  I love awe and the studies that came out so recently on the power of awe, and actually how it's such an antidote for anxiety, and is actually more potent than even like forms of gratitude for anxiety. Gratitude is very powerful and has a lot of research behind it. But awe, I think, I was so excited to read that research when it came out. It's my favorite type of tool to weave in into my work as well. So I understand why you're so drawn to it. And I think the interesting part of that is like, we can really find awe in the most small, mundane moments, and we can be intentional about the awe. And so we can actually intentionally seek it out on purpose. And I think that's the point of all of this is,

• 55:34Speaker 01

  these can be the set of tools, and you could listen and be like, wow, uh huh, that, that makes a lot of sense. But you, we, these are not things that necessarily, from an evolutionary standpoint, we are predisposed to doing naturally. These are things that we have to intentionally make time and space for and create. And so, yes, like seeking out awe, whether it is, whatever can bring you awe. For me, It's a piece of music and if I notice myself getting lost in it and transcended, that is awe to me and I mark that down and I revisit it. Or experiencing awe comes from being present. So when you go out for a walk or you look out of your window, you're asking yourself like, what am I truly seeing right now? And you'll notice things that were always there.

• 56:19Speaker 01

  The tree that was always there outside the window, but just today, because you're asking yourself to zoom in on it and focus it, the way that it is moving in the wind against the backdrop of the sky, that can bring you this sense of awe, which is this feeling of being transcended, inspired, or feeling like you are a small part of something much bigger. And there's a lot of protective measures psychologically in awe. And yes, so much research done on small, big, all kinds of acts of kindness. Something that I always like to throw in is, acts of kindness is actually protective against depression. And so I thought that was really interesting. I talk about it a lot. When someone is going through depression,

• 57:04Speaker 01

  our intuitive response is to not burden them, of course, with anything. We'd love to help, but we're not going to burden them with asking for help when someone is experiencing that level of struggle. But really, research shows one of the best things we can do is actually ask them for help, is to help put them in an experience of doing something kind for somebody else. It is literally like a prescription. So the next time you have a friend that is struggling, obviously, it depends what type of struggle it is, but is emotionally struggling and you needed, I don't know, an airport pickup or you were going to go volunteer somewhere and you thought, oh, I'm not going to ask them because they're obviously burdened.

• 57:46Speaker 01

  Try to put yourself out there and think of it as a way of helping them and ask them to come with you and volunteer. Like you could be very well giving them the tool and the skill that they need that is really helpful to put them in a place that is protective against the pervasive inner spotlight that depression makes you feel and help you feel, help them feel connected and part of something bigger and a sense of self mastery even.

• 58:11John R. Miles?

  And lastly, for listeners who have tuned in today and want to learn more about you, your practice, and where they can get the book, which will be everywhere here in a couple of days, where's the best place to go?

• 58:23Speaker 01

  So you can always say hi to me on Instagram. I'm not great at all the socials. I pick one. That's the one I'm on. I love having conversations about all of this. I answer all the DMs. It's really me. Please reach out to me that way. You could reach out my website. I also have a deck of cards that are really great for kids and for adults called Things Are Looking Up. You can look up that website. But yes, the book, The Power of Real Optimism, is available everywhere you buy books. Please buy the book, shoot me a message, talk about it with me and share the book and the message and this movement of real optimism with everyone you know, because I truly believe

• 59:01Speaker 01

  that is the antidote to the collective experience and uncertainty and heaviness we are all feeling right now.

• 59:11John R. Miles?

  Well, it was such an honor to have you on the show today and congratulations on this fantastic book, The Power of Real Optimism.

• 59:19Speaker 01

  Thank you so much, John.

• 59:21John R. Miles?

  That brings us to the end of today's conversation with Topeka Chopra. And what stood out most to me is this. We often think optimism means believing everything will turn out exactly as we hope. But Topeka reminds us something far wiser. Real optimism isn't certainty, it's courage in uncertainty. It's the willingness to face difficulty without surrendering possibility. And maybe that's the deeper lesson of this entire Purpose by Design series. Purpose is designed through how we relate to meaning, to identity, to effort, to connection, and ultimately to possibility. Because maybe the future isn't shaped most by what we wish for, but by what we expect enough to move toward. And maybe optimism, real optimism, is one of the most courageous forms of intentional living there is.

• 1:00:07John R. Miles?

  And that insight leads us into a powerful new chapter. Next week, we begin a brand new series that I'm calling Forged in Adversity, How Struggle Shapes Meaning, Resilience, and Transformation. We open it with Kathy Giaesti in a conversation called From Fatal to Fearless: Turning Crisis into Calling. It's about what happens when adversity doesn't just test you, it transforms you, and you won't want to miss it.

• 1:00:31Speaker 02

  Fear of relapse is what survivors struggle with the most because whenever you have a certain ache or pain or things happen, your automatic instinct is to think the cancer is back. And it does happen. In multiple myeloma, we have survivors that have been out 10 years in remission and it's still relapsed. It does happen. That's why we continue to force progress on new treatments and oncology has seen unbelievable advancements, thank God.

• 1:01:01John R. Miles?

  If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who may need a new way to think about hope. Watch our podcasts at our YouTube channels and explore more insights at theignitedlife.net. Until next time, remember, purpose is not discovered all at once. It is designed through a thousand conscious choices. I'm John Miles and you've been passion struck.