In 2014, I read a book that fundamentally changed the way I understood human behaviour.
Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow is a masterclass in cognitive science. One idea lodged in my mind more deeply than the rest.
Kahneman remarked that if you could wish for any one virtue in life, it should be optimism.
At the time, that struck me as a surprisingly emotional statement from a Nobel Prize-winning psychologist renowned for studying human irrationality.
But the more I reflected, the more it made sense, not just intuitively, but in terms of what I’ve seen in my own work with clients and in emerging behavioural science research.
Recently, I was discussing this idea with a family member and they made a valid point: doesn’t optimism sometimes border on self-deception?
If someone assumes they’ll pass an exam when they haven’t done the work, isn’t that just poor judgement wrapped in hope?
And yet, this captures the heart of the tension: is optimism delusional, or is it adaptive?
When you look at people through this lens, it’s striking how differently we interpret the same situation.
Some individuals look at uncertainty and instinctively brace for impact, assuming the worst and lowering their expectations to avoid disappointment.
Others see a difficult path and assume they’ll eventually find a way through.
The difference isn’t always based on skill or preparation. It’s mindset. And that mindset has consequences.
A long-term study conducted by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in 2019 found that women who scored highest on optimism scales lived, on average, 11–15% longer and were significantly more likely to reach age 85.
This was after adjusting for health behaviours, education, and socioeconomic status.¹
So it seems that optimism correlates strongly with longevity.
But optimism doesn’t just extend your life, it improves recovery outcomes in health, boosts workplace performance, and enhances resilience in the face of failure.²
Martin Seligman, the founder of positive psychology, demonstrated that optimistic salespeople at MetLife outsold their pessimistic peers by 20%, and were far less likely to quit.³
In short, optimism isn’t fluffy. It’s pragmatic and it increases your capacity to keep going.
Here’s the hopeful part: optimism is not entirely innate.
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), gratitude journaling, and even daily reflection techniques have been shown to shift our internal narratives.
In his book Learned Optimism, Seligman argues that people can train themselves to reframe setbacks and begin developing a more resilient response to challenges.
And this matters in finance as much as it does in life.
Long-term investing, career transitions, even retirement planning—all require the assumption that tomorrow is worth preparing for.
Optimism doesn’t mean ignoring risk, it means engaging with life from a position of strength, rather than retreat.
If you assume things will go badly, you prepare for less, expect less, and—often—achieve less.
Optimists aren’t necessarily better at predicting the future.
They’re just more likely to act in a way that creates better outcomes. They are more motivated to try again, more likely to seek help, and more able to reframe failure as a step, not an endpoint.
That’s not naïve. That’s strategic. And in financial planning being strategic is essential.
Building a long-term strategy—saving for retirement, investing or starting something new—requires more than just numbers.
It requires a belief that your future is worth investing in.
And as Kahneman said: if you could wish for one virtue, let it be that.
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