Making Hope Happen: Create the Future You Want for Yourself and Others (33 page)

Tom Rath and Jim Harter,
Wellbeing: The Five Essential Elements
. New York: Gallup Press, 2010. The research underlying Gallup’s well-being initiative, with suggestions to help you improve well-being in each of five key areas of your life.

Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein,
Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness
. New York: Penguin Books, 2009. An eye-opening analysis of how our biases drive our decisions, sometimes to our detriment, and how environmental cues can be used to help guide us toward choices that will support us in the future.

Chapter 11: Planning for Ifs: Discovering New Pathways

www.ted.com/talks/dave_eggers_makes_his_ted_prize_wish_once_upon_a_school.html
. Dave Eggers cracks up and inspires the audience with his stories about the founding of 826 Valencia, the first in a network of eight imaginative and innovative writing and mentoring centers across the country.

Chapter 12: Leading with Hope

Tom Rath and Barry Conchie,
Strengths-Based Leadership: Great Leaders, Teams, and Why People Follow.
New York: Gallup Press, 2009. Based on thousands of interviews with leaders and followers, this book identifies three keys to being an effective leader and shows how each person’s unique strengths and talents can drive their success.

Chapter 13: Teaching Hope to the Next Generation

Martin E. P. Seligman, Ph.D.,
The Optimistic Child: A Proven Program to Safeguard Children Against Depression and Build Lifelong Resilience.
Boston: Mariner Books, 2007. For anyone who has children or works with children. Seligman uses anecdotes, dialogues, cartoons, and exercises to create a practical program for teaching the positive strength of optimism, which he calls “a sunny but solid future-mindedness that can be deployed throughout life.”

Chapter 14: Networking Hope

Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo,
Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty.
New York: PublicAffairs, 2011. Meticulous research into how very poor people—the millions who exist on less than ninety-nine cents a day—make decisions about how to spend their energy and resources.

Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler,
Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives.
New York: Little, Brown, 2009. Striking evidence for our profound influence on one another’s taste, health, wealth, happiness, and even weight.

Jane McGonigal,
Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World.
New York: Penguin Press, 2011. How to use the power of cooperative games to improve real lives and fix what is wrong in the real world.

Tina Rosenberg,
Join the Club: How Peer Pressure Can Transform the World
. New York: Norton, 2012. Stories from around the globe about how social entrepreneurs have created change by tapping humanity’s most powerful and abundant resource: our connections with one another.

I
T IS NOT HARD
to find hopeful people. Each person in this book is part of my life in some small or big way, making today really good and the future even better. Some of these people I was fortunate enough to meet at school, work, or in my community. Many of them I sought out after I heard a story about how they were working to make their lives and the lives of others better. I thank them for their stories and for their hope.

C. R. Snyder taught me everything he knew about hope and how to spread it. Rick’s investment in me made my life much more meaningful. I have done my very best to honor and continue his work in
Making Hope Happen
.

The fabulous Toni Burbank taught me more about writing in one year than I had learned in the previous twenty. When she wasn’t making my thinking sharper, she was cleaning up my text. Her wisdom, grace, and style made her the perfect partner.

Neil Salkind (someone I want to be when I grow up) convinced Joy Harris that I could write a book that could spread hope. Joy then convinced Leslie Meredith and Dominick Anfuso of Free Press that readers needed such a book. Leslie, Dominick, and Suzanne Donahue then put together an amazing team of folks (Carisa Hays, Nicole Judge, Leah Johanson, Larry Hughes, Jackie Joy, Donna Loffredo) at Free Press and Atria who produced and promoted the book. This group made Lawrence, Kansas, seem like a short cab ride away from New York.

Connie Rath, Mary Reckmeyer, Jim Clifton, Tom Rath, and Geoff Brewer said “yes, whatever you need” every time I asked them for support on this project. Connie, in particular, has treated me like family.

My coach, Cheryl Beamer, convinced me that this book had to be at the top of my priority list. My Gallup friends Melissa Hinrichs, Valerie Calderon, Kristin Gregory, and Christine Sheehan never failed to ask, “How’s the book?”

My writer friends, Douglas Crawford-Parker, Wendy Paris, and Haley Rushing, gave me instrumental support every time I reached out.

Hope researchers and practitioners including Jennifer Teramoto Pedrotti, Lisa Edwards, Jeana Magyar-Moe, Susana Marques, Matt Gallagher, Jen Cheavens, Kim Pulvers, Lorie Ritschel, Rich Gilman, Shannon Suldo, Becky Reichard, Kevin Rand, James Avey, Marin Dollwet, Christian Wandeler, and Emily Kroska change lives every day. We need more people like them.

The struggles and successes of my students, clients, and research participants taught me so much. I share their stories knowing that readers will be inspired.

Finally, I want to acknowledge the people who contribute the most to my hope for the future. As the editor of my first and last drafts, Alli Rose Lopez made sure that I kept the reader in mind at all times. More important, Alli shows me how exciting
now
and
then
can be. Had she not said yes when I asked her to dance in 1988, there would be no hope book. May I be blessed to grow old with her. And Parrish Lopez, the most hopeful kid in the world, gives me frequent lessons in how to turn
next
into a verb. I look forward to meeting his future self.

Chapter 1: What the Man with No Future Taught Me About Hope

Fortunately, after a few hours
: I was trained to use cognitive therapy for depression. In cases where a client is thinking about suicide, I provide support and compassion while examining the thoughts and feelings associated with the suicidal ideation. For John, who had no history of mental illness or suicidality, his diagnosis and treatment plan threatened his autonomy. This was enough to create a downward spiral that resulted in his suicidal thinking. As I was able to help him consider how he could maintain a modicum of control over his life, he was able to think about life with a kidney ailment and dialysis. For a detailed description of cognitive therapy, see A. T. Beck et al.,
Cognitive Therapy for Depression
(New York: Guilford Press, 1987). For a layperson’s guide to the basics of cognitive therapy, see Martin Seligman,
Learned Optimism
(New York: Knopf, 1991).

Though still entertaining suicidal thoughts
: For clients with ongoing suicidal thinking the primary goal is to reduce the risk of self-harm. At the very least, means of harm are removed from the home, and friends and family provide necessary support. In some cases, clients are admitted to a psychiatric treatment unit for their own safety. John’s plan for suicide involved highly lethal means, so inpatient admission was considered. However, he became more stable over time, had a wealth of social support, and the weapons were removed from his home. John did sign a behavioral contract indicating that he would contact emergency services if he was again suicidal but he would not have been released if his wife and friends had not been available to support and monitor him.

After an hour or two
: C. R. Snyder,
The Psychology of Hope: You Can Get Here from There
(New York: Free Press, 1994). This book summarizes Rick’s thinking
about hope. I refer to it often and recommend it to readers interested in how hope theory came to be.

“Just as our ancestors did”
: Ibid, p. 6.

His GFR (glomerular filtration rate)
: Glomerular filtration rate (GFR) is a test used to check kidney functioning. Specifically, GFR estimates how much blood passes through the filters in the kidneys, called glomeruli, each minute.
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/007305.htm
.

Turns out, smart is not enough
: Y. Choi and R. Veenhoven, “IQ and happiness,” working paper, happiness research group, Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2005.

Since my experience at the VA clinic
: Over the course of the book, I will describe research conducted with my students at the University of Kansas, and with and by my colleagues at Gallup and around the world.

Through my own research and Gallup polls
: Ibid.

Recently, I began identifying
: Additional studies using Gallup data focus on the most hopeful K–12 and college students and workers, with a special emphasis on teachers. S. Marques, S. J. Lopez, A. M. Fontaine, and J. M. Mitchell, “Benefits of very high hope among adolescents” (under review).

Although some people still believe
: Hope is now widely regarded as an appropriate construct to study in social sciences, but this wasn’t always the case. As with other positive constructs such as happiness and optimism, journal editors in the 1980s needed convincing that hope could be operationalized and carefully examined. Thanks to pioneers including Rick Snyder, Ed Diener, Michael Scheier, Chuck Carver, and others for paving the way with their creativity and fortitude.

In addition, while only half
: S. J. Lopez and V. Calderon, “The Gallup Student Poll: Measuring and promoting what is right with students,” in S. I. Donaldson, M. Csikszentmihalyi, and J. Nakamura, eds.,
Applied Positive Psychology: Improving Everyday Life, Schools, Work, Health, and Society
(New York: Routledge, 2011), pp. 117–34.

Chapter 2: Looking for Hope

Sometimes I was
fantasizing:
My thoughts about future thinking have long been influenced by the work of Gabriele Oettingen. G. Oettingen and D. Mayer, “The motivating function of thinking about the future: Expectations versus fantasies,”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
83, no. 5 (2002): 1198–1212.

I called my grad school professor
: In 1993 Rick taught a social psychology course that I took in graduate school at the University of Kansas. He lectured with great passion about his new work on hope. In 1998, when I became a professor at KU, Rick served as my faculty mentor.

The first belief
: For discussion of optimism, see M. F. Scheier and C. S. Carver, “Optimism, coping, and health: Assessment and implications of generalized outcome expectancies,”
Health Psychology
4 (1985): 219–47. For additional perspective, read M. W. Gallagher, S. J. Lopez, and S. D. Pressman, “Optimism is universal: Exploring the presence and benefits of optimism in a representative sample of the world,”
Journal of Personality
(2013). For an explanation of the differences between hope and optimism, read C. R. Snyder, S. C. Sympson, S. T. Michael, and J. Cheavens, “The optimism and hope constructs: Variants on a positive expectancy theme,” in E. Chang, ed.,
Optimism and Pessimism
(Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2000), pp. 103–24.

The Gallup World Poll
: The Gallup World Poll was initiated in 2005 and annually surveys approximately 1,000 individuals from over 142 countries around the world, providing a representative sample of 95 percent of the world’s population. Information about the development, ethics, and survey procedures used for the World Poll can be obtained online at
http://www.gallup.com/consulting/worldpoll/24046/About.aspx
. Gallagher, Lopez, and Pressman, “Optimism is universal: Exploring the presence and benefits of optimism in a representative sample of the world.”

Regardless of age
: T. Sharot,
The Optimism Bias: A Tour of the Irrationally Positive Brain
(New York: Pantheon, 2011).

The second belief
: E. L. Deci and R. M. Ryan,
Intrinsic Motivation and Self-determination in Human Behavior
(New York: Plenum, 1985). See also
http://selfdeterminationtheory.org/
.

Two more core beliefs
: Snyder was the first to discuss the roles of pathways thinking as part of hope. He also acknowledged that hopeful people had a keen awareness for the obstacles in their path. Snyder,
The Psychology of Hope
.

“Today we will talk about hope”
: I have used the head, heart, holy test of hope with hundreds of audiences. Take the “test” yourself and share with others.

Fear gives us only three behavioral options
: The fight-or-flight response was first discussed by W. B. Cannon,
Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage: An Account of Recent Research into the Function of Emotional Excitement
(New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1929). A short time later this
article popularized the term: H. Selye, “A syndrome produced by diverse nocuous agents,”
Nature
138 (1936): 32. The freeze response, which may in fact come before fighting or fleeing, was described in detail by J. A. Gray,
The Psychology of Fear and Stress
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988).

It’s Aesop’s fable
: B. Sneed,
A Modern Retelling of Classic Fables
(New York: Dial, 2003). Includes beautiful and original illustrations.

Jerome Groopman, M.D.
: I enjoy reading Dr. Groopman’s books and articles. He is an excellent storyteller, as you will discover as you read his book
The Anatomy of Hope: How People Prevail in the Face of Illness
(New York: Random House, 2003).