UA resident champions positive psychology

Thriving Under Pressure: What does it mean to flourish in life?

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What does it mean to flourish in life?

Laura Cooke would say it has a lot more to do with your mindset than your circumstances. Flourishing, she says, is all about making peace with the past, finding joy and contentment in the present, and confidently embracing the future.

A big proponent of positive psychology, the scientific study of how humans can live joyful and meaningful lives, Cooke believes that when individuals are flourishing, the organizations they’re a part of will also flourish.

Along with her husband, Chris, and their friend Doug Smith, Cooke established Positive Foundry, an organization dedicated to applying the principles of positive psychology in workplaces and schools to help people grow and succeed.

Before beginning Positive Foundry, Cooke attended Wittenberg University and received her MBA from the University of Michigan. She started her own multimedia publishing business, ran a $25 million business in Dublin and served as the assistant head of the Wellington School. This blend of business and education prepared her for a career in the field of positive psychology.

“In my time at the Wellington School, I had the opportunity to have amazing conversations about how to help children prepare for their futures,” says Cooke. “There is a wonderful focus on character development at Wellington and helping students know who they are and find their passions.”

She can pinpoint the time when this vision for her life started coming into focus. A few years ago, she found herself struggling with a lack of fulfillment, despite having a great job, family and life. This sparked her curiosity for the topic of positive psychology.

“When we teach people about having purpose in life, it’s about finding something you’re skilled at, that you love to do and that the world desperately needs,” says Cooke. “For me, that’s exactly what Positive Foundry is and positive psychology is.”

In my time at the Wellington School, I had the opportunity to have amazing conversations about how to help children prepare for their futures. There is a wonderful focus on character development at Wellington and helping students know who they are and find their passions

Eager to learn more, she traveled to Australia to attend the internationally acclaimed Institute for Positive Education, where her view of the U.S.’s positive education system radically changed. After seeing Australia’s emphasis on developing resilience and positivity in children as early as preschool, Cooke caught the vision and hopes to implement it in the U.S. She dreams of one day “abandoning the suicide prevention in our high schools because our students’ senses of well-being are so strong.”

Cooke also spent eight months last year traveling back and forth to Chicago to earn her certificate of applied positive psychology from the Flourishing Institute, a rigorous program on par with the University of Pennsylvania’s master of applied positive psychology. Cooke learned more during her eight months in Chicago than she had independently over several years. This valuable knowledge would better equip her to run Positive Foundry.

Now, through individual and team consulting, corporate keynote speaking, retreats, seminars and training programs, Positive Foundry is helping individuals, and the companies they work for, thrive.

Cooke has been full-time with Positive Foundry since September. Though the organization is still very young, it’s already built a solid client base. This past February, the company ran a workshop for 450 people at IGS Energy, introducing the positive psychology model and focusing specifically on purposeful relationships. More recently, Cooke has spent a lot of time developing an online element of the program to reach corporations with multiple branches.

“We had to start with corporations to get some revenue stream, but it’s very quick in our vision to give our curriculum and time to enhance well-being in public and private schools,” says Cooke. “We also envision working with families someday.”

The curriculum, developed by Smith, is backed by the science of positive psychology.

“Doug has been integral to my journey learning about positive psychology,” says Cooke. “He wrote a book called Happiness: The Art of Living with Peace, Confidence & Joy, and I met him when he was first writing it almost 10 years ago. … He has been instrumental in getting the business started.”

Last year, Cooke co-taught a club at Wellington with Smith, focusing on testing their curriculum through short lessons, group discussion and action planning. This school year, she is teaching a course on applied positive psychology.

Additionally, she and Upper Arlington teacher Sabrina Walters ran a full-day workshop in Dayton last summer, training teachers in Centerville City Schools to apply the principles of positive psychology in their classrooms.

“As we are learning and building curriculum, we’re implementing it in our home life and our kids are participating in it,” says Cooke. “Being in this field, it can sometimes be hard because knowing what to do is a lot easier than practicing it, especially with your family.”

Cooke and her husband live in Upper Arlington with their four daughters, Christine and Caroline (14), Emma (12), and Elizabeth (8). As parents, they often return to the teaching metaphor of an “emotional bank account” to guide conversations with their girls and maintain a flourishing home.

“Raising teens in the realm of technology, we talk about how important it is to listen. When I talk to you and you don’t put your phone down, you’re making a withdrawal from my emotional bank account, saying your phone is more important,” says Cooke. “This concept comes straight out of positive psychology, teaching the skill to listen, to really listen to one another.”

Cooke is grateful for her family and the close-knit Upper Arlington community for pointing her back to positivity time and time again.

“I grew up in Upper Arlington with amazing parents and siblings and a ton of love in our family, and I am so lucky that all of us still live near each other. At the core of our family is love, and that is really the core of positive psychology.”

JOURNAL OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

Personal well-being is determined by three main factors:

  • 50 percent is due to genetics
  • 10 percent is due to our circumstances
  • 40 percent is a result of the choices we make and the way we live our lives

“We have the ability to control and influence a huge part of our personal well-being – if we have the right tools and the right mindset.” -Laura Cooke

GALLUP

  • Only 33 percent of Americans are engaged at work
  • Workplace stress kills thousands of people each year
  • The U.S. makes up 5 percent of the world’s population but consumes 80 percent of the opioid supply
  • The suicide rate in the U.S. is at an all-time high
  • The number of children ages 10-14 who died because of suicide has now surpassed the number killed in car accidents

Mikayla Klein is a contributing writer. Feedback welcome at jwise@cityscenemediagroup.com.

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