Derek Thompson

We can't do what we can't see, what we can't imagine.

And so having those beliefs that the world could be better, that we could lead to an abundant future, it's not just about self-help tricks and tips.

It really is about the future of society.

I think the answer to that is we have to fight

the narrative that we don't have agency.

There's a study done that kind of became gospel in the psychology community.

It was called Learned Helplessness, and this was a study done by Seligman and Meyer.

Everybody knew the story of learned helplessness.

It kind of explained why generational poverty exists, that people kind of learn over time that there's no use in trying.

They kind of learn to be helpless.

Unfortunately, even though this was kind of widely known and a lot of people outside the psychology community have heard about learned helplessness, what many people don't know is that that exact research a few years ago was completely overturned.

Not only did the researchers find that the results were flawed, but that in fact, their conclusion was 180 degrees the opposite of learned helplessness.

That helplessness is our default state.

If you think about a baby is born completely helpless, a baby doesn't learn helpless.

It is helpless when it's first born.

It has to learn agency.

Exactly.

You got it.

And so I think this has profound implications because it tells us that our default state

is helplessness.