John R. Miles

And it must have been such an interesting time for you because on the one hand, you're dealing with that, but you're trying to write about optimism.

In that moment, did optimism feel real to you or did it feel like a lie?

Yeah, as I was reading the book, something that I caught was that your son had to take medication and he was too small to swallow the pills.

And so the pharmacist said, crush it up and mix it with food.

Just don't mix it with something he likes.

And to this day, there are certain foods that people love, like pickles, that I just can't

even practically look at or smell it.

I was wondering, did my mom do something to me as I was growing up that jinxed me?

Thank God she didn't put whatever it was in ice cream.

thank you for sharing that.

And I just wanted to make this real for the audience.

So I appreciate you going into that.

Deepika, you call yourself the optimism doctor, but you actually challenged one of the biggest ideas in modern self-help.

And that is optimism means staying positive.

In your work though, optimism is something very different.

What do you think real optimism actually means?

We started this episode out talking about your son.

I'm going to come now to my sister.

So my sister, about five years ago, unfortunately, got the news no one would ever want to hear.

She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.