Three voices, one evening, and a quieter case for longevity: how we speak to ourselves, and who we spend our time with, may matter as much as what we eat or how we sleep.
Ben West keeps a note on his phone called "Good things that happen." There is nothing remarkable in it. His dog coming over to say hello. Children waving from the top deck of a bus. A cup of coffee that was better than it needed to be.
His work as a mental health campaigner takes him into some of the hardest conversations people ever have. The list is his counterweight, a running record that good moments keep arriving, even on days when that is difficult to believe.
It was one of several small, practical ideas shared at an event the Global Glow team attended recently, where West joined author and podcaster Case Kenny and writer Meggan Roxanne for a conversation titled Still Believing: A Real Conversation on Finding Optimism & Hope. We left thinking less about positive thinking and more about something the health conversation rarely makes room for: hope as a skill, built through language, relationships and repetition.
Case Kenny: act like the person you are waiting to become
Kenny, bestselling author and host of the podcast New Mindset, Who Dis?, called himself a "delusional optimist" on the night. His working definition is more modest than the label suggests. Optimism, for him, is simply the belief that things can change, which leaves plenty of room for things not going to plan.
His sharpest point was about tense. Listen to how people talk about their health and you hear the future everywhere: one day I'll have more energy, one day I'll feel stronger, one day I'll sort my sleep out. Each sentence sounds hopeful, yet each quietly places the better version of ourselves somewhere out of reach.
Kenny's alternative is to bring that person into the present. Rather than asking, "When will I become the person I want to be?", ask, "What would that person choose to do today?"
It is a small change of question with large consequences. Most of us approach health as a reinvention, a new regime starting on Monday. Kenny's version asks for one decision, made today, that your future self would recognise. Repeated often enough, those decisions become the foundation that every later change rests on.
Meggan Roxanne: the voice in your head was learned somewhere
Roxanne built The Good Quote into a community of millions and wrote How to Stop Breaking Your Own Heart. The story she told, though, was about her mother, who listened to her feelings, took them seriously and encouraged her to say what she felt. Roxanne assumed every child grew up that way.
She learned otherwise while working in a prison. When she offered the people there the patience and encouragement she had always taken for granted, she noticed that some of them began to see themselves differently, and to behave differently too. That experience stayed with her, and eventually became the reason she started writing.
It raises an uncomfortable question for anyone trying to change a habit: how much of the way we speak to ourselves was first spoken to us?
Consider someone who keeps abandoning an exercise routine and concludes, "I have no discipline." That is a verdict, and verdicts leave little room to move. Compare it with, "What is making this difficult to maintain?" The second question might uncover a schedule that ignores childcare, a job that runs late, or a plan designed for someone else's life. One sentence closes the door. The other opens it.
Ben West: you don't always have to fix it
West's work centres on kindness and human connection, and his point on the night was deceptively simple. When someone we care about is struggling, our instinct is to solve the problem by offering advice, suggesting a plan or finding the answer. Often what helps more is listening properly, so the person feels genuinely heard.
Not every conversation needs a solution. Sometimes the connection is the help.
Borrowing hope
That brings us to the idea we have thought about most since. Kenny suggested that optimism does not always have to come from within. When our own runs low, we can borrow some from the people around us.
Most of us know the difference instinctively. Some people meet every idea with reasons it won't work. Others ask, "What if it did?" Your circumstances are identical after either conversation, but your sense of what is possible is not.
This is not an argument for surrounding yourself with relentless positivity. Good relationships make room for frustration, sadness and disagreement. But during a stressful period, a recovery or a major life change, someone else's belief that things can improve can carry us until we are able to believe it ourselves.
The health world talks a great deal about accountability. It talks far less about encouragement, though anyone who has tried to change a long-held habit knows how much it matters.
Three things to try this week
Ask Kenny's question. Choose one area of your health you would like to improve and ask what the person you are aiming to become would do today. It might be a walk at lunchtime, a consistent bedtime, or a proper meal instead of eating between meetings.
Swap the verdict for a question. Next time a plan slips, notice what you say to yourself. Replace "I've failed" with "What made this hard?"
Start your own list. Open a note on your phone and, each evening, write down one good thing. It doesn't need to be impressive. The point is to train your attention on what is already going right.
What this has to do with longevity
At Global Glow, we talk about building foundations before chasing optimisation: sleep, nutrition, movement, metabolic regulation, nervous system stability and social connection. This conversation was a reminder that those foundations never exist in isolation from the rest of a person's life.
Someone can know exactly what they should be doing and still struggle to do it if they feel overwhelmed, unsupported or constantly at odds with themselves. Knowledge is rarely the missing piece. Capacity, context and support usually are. That is why we start with the person behind the goal: their responsibilities, their relationships and what they can realistically sustain right now.
It also sharpened a conviction we already hold. Longevity should not become an endless pursuit of self-improvement at the expense of actually experiencing life. Adding years matters, and so does asking how we want those years to feel and who we want to share them with.
Optimism cannot guarantee an outcome, and it is no substitute for appropriate medical care. But the habits of noticing what is possible, leaning on the right people and taking one manageable step at a time can shape how we live through whatever comes.
So here is a question to end on, borrowed from Case Kenny: what would the person you want to become choose to do today?
This article draws on a recent event attended by the Global Glow team, featuring Case Kenny, Meggan Roxanne and Ben West. Their reflections are shared here through the lens of Global Glow's approach to sustainable behaviour change and social connection.
