OPTIMIST In Progress

Cameron Hughes is a professional cheer guy. He whips crowds of all sizes into a frenzy of excitement, abandoning self-consciousness to create a shared high - moments of pure elation and connection. I…

For most of us living with partners or lovers, the past year of lockdown has been testing from a relationship perspective. The intensity of existing in the same space, in such close proximity, has le…

Some people are born with a proclivity for optimism. Actor and performer Karen David is one of those fortunate individuals, but as she acknowledges, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have to work constan…

Wondering why so many of us were nurturing sourdough starter, planting seeds and signing up for an online language course this past year? Dr Drea mines the field of positive psychology and introduces…

Travel & food writer, and Los Angeles native, Krista Simmons spent her pre-COVID career exploring food cultures around the world. She talks candidly to Tom and Dr Drea about the impact of lockdown on…

We have just passed the year mark, things are beginning to open up after an extraordinary, challenging and for some, tragic twelve months.  Dr Drea Letamendi talks to Tom about ways to process the pa…

Play seems like the last thing any of us are prioritizing right now, but a conversation between Dr Drea and Tom highlights the importance of play for all of us - as a way of coping, connecting, survi…

Actor and improv artist Todd Stashwick, self confessed purveyor of all things geeky, and Tiki aficionado, firmly believes that practical optimism, or as he refers to it, intentional positivity, can s…

It can be hard to recognise when you need to stop what you're doing and take rest, especially when people are relying on you; and particularly during these times. Ours is a society which celebrates o…

Christine Adams is an actor, currently playing a lead role in CW's television series 'Black Lightning'. It's clear that working as an actor takes resilience, but it's her other life, that of a politi…

It is easy to lose sight of the progress we are making as we work towards goals, whatever they may be; to lose heart because aren’t happening as quickly or as radically as we might have hoped.  In th…

Most of us make resolutions for the year ahead, and this year many of us doubled down, only to be find that by the end of January they lay in tatters by the empty pizza boxes and bottles; meditation …

In this first episode of Optimist in Progress, host, and co-founder of Optimist Drinks, Tom Johnstone, interviews his co-host, Dr Drea Letamendi, clinical psychologist and superhero fan, about her mi…

Optimism isn’t something most of us are born with. It takes practice to truly be an optimist. We aren’t talking the rose-tinted, 'it will all be fine’ kind of optimism. True optimists are those who e…