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What makes me Optimistic?
A Commentary by Victor Perton
I am guided by a simple question. What makes you optimistic?
I try to live as an optimist. For me, optimism is realism. Optimism is a state of mind, not a state of the world. It is the disciplined conviction that better outcomes are possible and that we can help build them.
I believe we foster optimism by modelling it. My leadership lesson is simple. The leader looks like the person in your mirror.
I have been a lifelong optimist. Like most optimists, I have known anxiety, grief, frustration, and failure. Even so, I have kept believing that things can work out in the end.
My family history shaped that outlook deeply. My ancestors endured occupation, Soviet terror, exile, loss, and repeated brushes with death. My paternal grandfather was tortured to death. My paternal grandmother survived the Gulag. My maternal grandparents and parents were refugees who narrowly escaped death many times.
In my family, optimism grew through hardship and joy, through storytelling, contentment, humour, and a clear sense that the future is ours to shape.
My paternal grandmother, Bronislava Petronaitiene, was one of my great role models. After surviving the Gulag, she was determined to outlive communism. She took part in the civil disobedience that helped lead to Lithuania’s independence in 1991.
Her quiet strength still inspires me.
The greatest influence on my optimism was my mother, Lilia Perton. She died at 92 in 2020, still teaching yoga shortly before her death. She was vibrant, wise, and luminous.
Her stories of surviving wartime Europe, told with humour and hope, gave me a lifelong model of resilience. Through her, I learned that optimism is not a denial of reality. It is a decision to see the best possible path forward and walk it with dignity.
After my father died when I was eight, Mum drew on yoga and meditation to stay strong. Her motto became mine. Strong and calm, I manage my life.
She taught me something else too. Optimism is relational. It grows in the presence of others. It is strengthened by encouragement, by the stories we tell, by the questions we ask, and by the example we set.
Young people learn optimism from our words and from the coping they see. They watch how we meet stress, whether we seek support, stay calm, solve problems, and keep faith with the future.
A week before Mum died, she told me that asking people what makes them optimistic was the most important work I had ever done. That moment still guides me. It was her final gift, and a deep affirmation that optimism lives within us and grows between us.
My path into this work became clearer after years in international trade and senior advisory roles connected with Australia’s G20 presidency. When I returned to Melbourne, I was struck by a fog of pessimism around leadership and public life.
So I began asking one simple question. What makes you optimistic?
I asked it in boardrooms, classrooms, prisons, workshops, on the street, and online. For many people, it was the first time anyone had been asked about their optimism.
That question helped shape my first book, The Case for Optimism: The Optimists’ Voices. It continues to shape my work every day.
Through The Centre for Optimism, my speaking, workshops, writing, and podcast, I work with leaders, teams, and communities to grow realistic and infectious optimism.
I see optimism as good for people, good for leadership, good for society, and good for the world. It strengthens resilience, trust, health, courage, strategy, and innovation. It helps us face reality clearly, recognise that progress is possible, and act to make things better.
One of the deepest reasons for optimism is this. Across the world, very capable people are working seriously on our biggest challenges. Their work is not always visible. Its impact is often profound.
The habits I encourage are simple and practical. Smile more. Replace “How are you?” with “What has been the best thing in your day so far?” Ask better questions. Open meetings and conversations with questions that lift energy and deepen connection. Speak with hope and clarity. Surround yourself with optimists.
I encourage people to use appreciative inquiry as a discipline. Ask what is working. Ask what gives life. Ask what strengths we can build on. Ask what future we want to create together.
A good question can change the energy of a room. It can deepen connection, open imagination, and make courage easier.
My own daily practices are simple too. I begin with coffee and stories of optimism, hope, and joy. I love the morning colours and often share them. I walk barefoot in wet grass when I can. I wear orange and yellow as visible signs of joy, optimism, energy, and openness.
I say hello to people. I thank people often. I smile often. I laugh often. I meditate. I do yoga.
Most of all, I keep asking people what makes them optimistic. Their answers remind me again and again of the goodness in people, the strength of community, and the possibilities still ahead.
I also believe optimism is a leadership advantage and a strategic asset. Realistic and infectiously optimistic leaders help people endure hardship, hold together, and build for the future.
They face facts. They recognise risk, complexity, and uncertainty. They stay clear eyed, connected, and constructive. They widen perspective. They speak with clarity and conviction.
They help people hold two truths at once. The world faces serious challenges. Humanity has also made real progress.
The answer to life’s most pressing questions is optimism.
That principle has become a compass for me. It shapes how I think about leadership, strategy, resilience, wellbeing, innovation, and the future. It reminds me that optimism is not soft. It is disciplined. It is courageous. It is practical.
Over time, others have described this work in ways that have touched me deeply. The Australian Financial Review has described me as our optimist in chief and an optimism guru. Rita Wirtz has called me the Optimist of Optimists. Helen Mac has called me an optimism treasure.
I was deeply encouraged when entrepreneur John Foong included me among the people who have shaped his thinking and described me as someone “whose mindset I aspire to emulate.”
I take these generous words as encouragement and responsibility. They strengthen my resolve to keep helping leaders, teams, and communities grow realistic and infectious optimism.
So that is what makes me optimistic. Family history. My mother’s example. The courage of people who endure and still smile. The simple power of good questions. The goodness I keep seeing in people. The daily habits that strengthen joy, gratitude, and perspective. The leaders who choose clarity and hope. The possibility that the future can be better. And the privilege of hearing, every day, what makes others optimistic.
What makes you optimistic?
Self-Improvement • Mental Health • 47 episodes
That Optimism Man Victor Perton
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