Synicism is not a very critical way of viewing the world.

It's not a very scientific way of viewing the world.

So when you have a blanket assumption that everybody's on the take,

you stop paying attention to the cues that could actually help you learn about the world.

All we have to do to become more hopeful is to pay closer attention.

There's this stereotype that hope is blinkered, that it's this pair of rose-colored glasses we put on.

In fact, we're all wearing, or most of us at least, are wearing mud-colored glasses right now.

Hope is a matter of taking those off and seeing the world through less of a biased

lens not more.

Okay so let's be honest it is easy to feel disillusion these days to become a cynic.

A relentless stream of negative news and topics social media feeds paints a pretty bleak picture

of humanity, kind of rife with greed,

selfishness, doom and gloom. It makes you start questioning, are people really capable of fundamental

goodness or positive change, or are people in the world just bad, not even capable of

being better? Nobody blame you for defaulting to a cynical point of view, but it turns

out there are powerful reasons not to give in to this

tendency. In fact, cynicism cannot just crush your spirit. It can damage your

relationships, your career, your health your health mental health and life. There is a powerful science backed alternative

Not just hope, but what my guest today researcher Jamilzaki calls hopeful skepticism So Jamil Zaki calls Hopeful Skepticism.

So Jamil is a psychology professor at Stanford who has spent over two decades rigorously

studying the signs of human connection empathy, cooperation, and trust.

His book, Hope for Synics,

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