Will Smith's Delusional Optimism

Mark Manson shares insights about Will Smith's personality after working with him on a book.

"Will is exactly like the Fresh Prince. I spent one day with him, went back to the hotel, called my wife and said 'he did not act on that show - they literally just put him in a room and put actors around him.' That is his personality.

He's at the extreme end of the bell curve in a few dimensions. The most obvious is his charisma - he's by far the most naturally charismatic person I've met. It can literally just be me and him sitting in a kitchen at midnight talking about cartoons - he's just so charismatic built into him.

His mind is almost delusionally positive. Psychologists call it a psychological immune system - when bad things happen we rationalize them to make ourselves feel better. His psychological immune system is so strong that negativity just bounces right off him. Any failure or setback doesn't bum him out.

He developed this as a survival mechanism from his chaotic, abusive childhood. He told me 'I developed that as a survival mechanism and it's helped me so much throughout my life and career. I'm absolutely relentless - anything goes wrong, it never bothers me, I just get up and do it again. But I'm a little bit untethered to reality sometimes.'"