How does optimism help you keep fighting after trauma?

Derrick McManus, former STAR Group officer and founder of Human Durability, speaking with podcast host Aleksandra King on The BEYOND Podcast. Derrick McManus says a thought that first sounded strange built his optimism; had he gone into pessimism, he would not have had the strength to keep fighting.

Asked what kept him going, McManus says the answer only came to him later, and largely because people kept asking questions he had to go deeper to answer. What he found was that the optimism had been doing mechanical work at the time, not emotional work.

He is precise about which strength he means, the mental kind, because with nothing to look forward to there was little reason to keep fighting. Getting back to his children, and the chance of a gold medal, gave him something better to look towards.