Optimists are more successful, adaptive, creative, attractive, healthier, richer and more likely to achieve their goals. Optimists take charge of life and live it rather than allowing it to happen to them. Be savvy, have a healthy dose of doubt, self-criticism and awareness of threats. But hopelessness, cynicism and low expectations are a self-fulfilling prophecy. There is a wealth of scientific evidence to show that positive thinking and optimism are an adaptive strategy for life. Optimism is one of the core strengths of Western Civilization. Where others have been fatalistic, deterministic, passive, disempowered and unconscious, we have chosen to take charge of our destiny, and over the last 500 years this positive, optimistic thinking has transformed the lives of human beings for the better, and will continue to do so – as long as we keep faith with the amazing potential of well-motivated, well-organised and intelligent human beings.