It's very easy to say "Just adopt a positive attitude!" but this is something that is difficult to really do when you perceive the penalty of failure to be high

It's very easy to say "Just adopt a positive attitude!" but this is something that is difficult to really do when you perceive the penalty of failure to be high and the odds of success to be low. I never said it was easy. It's very difficult, partly because it's hard to accomplish, partly because it's esoteric and hard to even understand for many people. If you have a bad attitude, then it's hard to appreciate the importance of even trying to have a good attitude. This seems disingenuous however since you have to think about the person giving the message and ask whether their life ambition was really trying to herd unemployed people. That kind of cynicism is a trap that keeps people from breaking free of their own attitude-based limitations. Maybe the message givers just want to help people and they're performing an extraordinarily important service? Maybe the job they're doing is just a step along the way to other ambitions and heights in their careers?