Hey, this is going to be an animated book review of the book Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman. Imagine two boxes. There's a dog in each box.
These dogs get shocked randomly, but one dog can jump out of the box. The other dog is stuck in the box no matter what he does, he cannot get out of the box. Now we take the two same dogs and put them in new boxes and shock them. Do you know what happens? The dog that could get out before learned that he could jump out of the box.
The other dog, however, knows that there's nothing he can do, so he just lays down. And this is called learned helplessness. In the dog's mind, there's nothing he can do that will help him out of this situation.
And you can see this in people's lives too. When they learn that whatever they do has no outcome of the environment, they just stop trying. So let's take a look at optimists and pessimists.
Optimists generally achieve more, they have better health, they live longer, and Dr. Martin Slimming actually found that there is a reduced chance for cancer in optimists. Pessimists, on the other hand, give up more frequently, are more prone to depression, and have a mindset that they hate life. In fact, pessimists are more likely to get ill after a bad event because there are hormones that connect the mindset of the person to their immune system. And a negative mindset can cause a negative immune system.
And to find out what causes pessimism, we look at someone's explanatory style. And this is how they explain a situation when something goes wrong, when there is an adversity, when something bad happens. A pessimist would say, Oh, I'm never going to get this.
It's always my fault. I'm just stupid. I'm just bad at it.
To where an optimist would say, well, one day, eventually I'll learn how to do it. Maybe it wasn't the right time. I'll learn next time. It was definitely their fault. The thing that separates these is that pessimists rely on permanent, pervasive, and personal statements.
It is permanent because they believe that it will happen forever. It is pervasive because they believe that it is a trait. It is personal because they believe it's all their fault and the environment had nothing to do with it. An optimist, on the other hand, always keeps an open mind and says that maybe one day they'll get it.
They're not pervasive. They say, maybe it's a situation, and they're not personal. They might realize that it's the environment that's causing their failure. There's also a quote in this book that I really like. It is, people who believe themselves stupid, rather than uneducated, don't take action to improve their mind.
And that is, some cultures believe that when you're growing up, stupid is a characteristic trait that cannot be changed. A culture raising children that think something they do is from bad character, something that is permanent, won't ever try to change it. He also says that a person who believes they can change their thinking will, because changing your thinking is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you think you can, you will. Now you need to find balance.
There were a few studies that Martin Seligman found in this book that actually showed that pessimists see the world more like it is, and optimists see it as better than it is. He says that the best thing you can say about a pessimist is that his fears are founded. You should aim for balance. Let's take an accountant, for example.
What if they overlook and they say, oh, we'll have enough money for this month. They're being overly optimistic and... it may cause a lot of trouble, or gambling, for example. Dr. Seligman also found that he could predict insurance salesmen better than MetLife, the Metropolitan Life insurance company, could.
He said that there are three things that determine the success of someone. That is aptitude, motivation, and optimism. He said that MetLife only tested for aptitude and motivation. And he said that by testing optimism, he could predict successful insurance salesmen better than MetLife could. I want to say that there is actually a test you can take in this book that you answer, I think it's around 50 questions, and then you can answer them.
And then you add up your scores and Dr. Seligman rates you on an optimist and pessimism scale. And if you leave a comment below within the next 24 hours of the next animated book review that I should do, and you win, I select you, I will ship the book to your house for free. All you have to do is leave a comment below of the next animated book review that you want to see.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed watching this video and I hope you learned something. Thanks for watching. Subscribe for more!