Psychologist Susan David shares how the way we deal with our emotions shapes everything that matters: our actions, careers, relationships, health and happiness. In this talk, she challenges a culture that prizes positivity over emotional truth and discusses the powerful strategies of emotional agility. A talk to share.

What I found most interesting about this talk though is that I’ve often found there’s a perception that “being positive” means just pretending to be happy or not letting things bother you even when they should. In our organisation we’re especially persistent that people need to “be positive” and “be resilient” but what that means to me is accepting the way you feel and working out how to overcome it, not pretending it’s not how you’re feeling.

If you’re a line manager it’s really valuable to remember if somebody does tell you how they’re feeling it’s not necessarily a problem to solve or something they need to “just get over”.