Optimism is an art that can be learnt. It comes with the perks of making life happier and self-actualisation easier, writes Dr Meenal Sharma Jagtap

How do you respond when faced with a setback in  life? How do you cope with change and disruption around you? How do you respond to challenges? Do you live in the present or while away your time worrying about the future? Responses to the above questions determine whether or not you are poised for success in life and whether or not you possess the ‘seventh sense of optimism’. The Power of Positivity: Optimism and the Seventh Sense, a book authored by renowned academician, leader and life coach, Dr Padmakali Banerjee is not only a riveting read but also serves as a ‘tool’ to develop this coveted seventh sense. It helps in completely transforming the readers’ lives .

The book analyses different facets of optimism, providing a solid theoretical framework to measure the level of optimism in an individual’s life. It also offers a comprehensive approach that can be used to develop optimism and a positive mindset, which is a prerequisite to leading a happy and fulfilled life.  It brings us closer to the highest psychological need of  human beings —‘self -actualisation’.

The book is divided into seven interesting chapters that have catchy titles. The second chapter, titled “Knock the ‘t’ off of can’t” offers stories from the lives of people like Gautama Buddha, Rabindranath Tagore, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, and Swami Vivekananda. They evidence that the “highest level of optimism inculcates a sense of love and compassion in all human beings”. All success stories have one thing in common — an underlying sense of optimism and hope to make a massive change in whatever domain one is involved in. The author points out that there is plenty of research-backed evidence which proves that “an optimist disposition of people helps them to anticipate positive outcomes about everything.” It eventually helps in ensuring longevity of life, faster recovery from illness, better quality of sleep, high immunity levels, graceful aging and better survival rate of terminally ill patients.

The most important section of the book is where the author unveils her innovative method conceptualised for measuring the seventh sense of optimism through a robust framework called PEROMA that creates a mechanism for reviewing, measuring, enhancing and sustaining optimism as an attitude for an organisation’s or an individual’s success. The framework uses ‘Optimism Index’ (Oi 1.1) — a powerful psychometric tool and OAM model — which reveals a step-by-step process to improve self-efficacy and to predict success.

PEROMA is a framework which denotes various dimensions of optimism. It stands for Positive Emotion, Relationship network, Meaningfulness and Achievement. The test to calculate the Optimism Index includes 60 items measuring various dimensions of the PEROMA framework. Thus, besides the overall score of optimism, which ranges from (100-300), Oi computes scores on the six dimensions of the PEROMA framework.

A significant and ground-breaking contribution of the psychometric test, Optimism Index is used by the author to classify all individuals into ten categories based on the different bands of their scores. The categories given by the author are aptly based on the critical skills required for success in modern professional life. These are: Collaborator, entrepreneur, energetics, synergist, networker, analyst, innovator, go-getter, expert and most importantly, a leader. These categories are such which emphasise a particular aspect of the individual’s personality based on elements of PEROMA. For example, out of the ten categories, if a person falls under ‘Collaborator’ — he or she indicates ‘high’ levels of competence under Relationship Network of PEROMA.When an individual would receive this type of complete profiling in the test report, it would help him/her to understand behaviour and identify the core strength that can help maximise his/her potential. The required help for the process is also provided in a step-by-step guide elaborated through the OAM model. This completes the picture for someone who can identify the lacunas in one’s personality and understand its theoretical basis. It gets hand holding to significantly change the attitude and develop the seventh sense.

Human beings are the most powerful resource in the world. In today’s world full of uncertainty with technological disruptions at mind boggling pace, only those countries/organisations can succeed which continuously work towards developing the human capital. Organisations have to give that congenial environment, opportunities for training and development to their human capital through which they can strive to reach their highest potential.

This book offers the solution to organisation’s problems as they can screen the applicants on basis of the test scores to identify an individual’s positive/ negative attributes of personality. It also helps individuals as the scores would help one to identify one’s core strength so that their potential can be maximised. The OAM Model is again a pioneering method based on solid research by the author who is a trained psychologist. It has six steps which need to be followed in order to move closer towards having the seventh sense in us. The power of the model and this step-by-step approach lies in the fact that an individual can practice it on his own with some interventions by trained personnel during the initial stages. In order to illustrate this fact, the author elucidates several case studies where these interventions worked in the lives of people.

Among the many facets of OAM, Dr. Banerjee says that “Mindful meditation” is the most effective tool in reinforcing our beliefs and dealing with inner conflicts”. Her passion and belief in the supremacy of mindful meditation to bring “one’s attention to occurrences in the present moment as they occur to oneself” is evident in the book. In our struggle to be successful, we often fail to realise that the ultimate aim of life is to be ‘happy’ — now and always. Dr Banerjee’s book shakes us to the core to remind us that “Every time you are happy, you win.”

The reviewer is an Associate Professor (Economics), Amity University, Haryana