How does Martin Seligman say to stop catastrophizing before a stressful meeting?

Martin Seligman told Hidden Brain that the brain catastrophizes by design, because Ice Age ancestors who expected the worst survived. His counter is a three-step drill: name the very worst outcome, then the equally unrealistic best outcome, then the most realistic one, and plan for that. In his example, a 4 p.m. summons from a manager stops meaning 'I'm fired' and becomes a likely budget cut you can prepare for.

• In the example, the worker expects a 40% budget cut and arrives with items that keep the cut to 20%.
• Seligman, almost 84, says he still wakes at 4 a.m. with pessimistic thoughts and argues against them with evidence.

▸In their words

“So you can't treat your automatic thoughts as if they were true.” Martin Seligman · at 22:28 — open in the transcript →

Source: our own transcription of the episode. The full conversation is on Hidden Brain (2026-09-28). Read the whole episode summary →

▸More from this episode