Month: January 2018

The Life-Changing Effects of Optimism

We desire two things in the way we live our lives — to be effective and to be happy. To be effective is to have higher batting average in achieving our goals. To be happy is to be happy, no explanation needed.

Many years ago, I was surprised to learn how optimism makes a difference in attaining both. It was a quality that I had ignored because I had the impression that some people seem to be naturally optimistic and others pessimistic.

What is optimism? It is, says the dictionary, “a tendency to look on the more favorable side of events or conditions and to expect the most favorable outcome.” Its opposite is pessimism, which means “the tendency to see, anticipate, or emphasize only bad or undesirable outcomes, results, conditions, problems, etc.” (dictionary.com).

Suppose I am scheduled for a job interview. An optimist is upbeat, excited and feeling that he will impress the interviewer. The pessimist on the other will be apprehensive, thinking of the worst scenario, and already feeling a bit depressive at the thought that he will be rejected. A realist, on the other hand, will perhaps just prepare and do his best, not too excited and not so apprehensive, ready to accept whatever is the outcome of the interview.

Normally, we will say that the realist is more correct in his outlook. But after learning about the effects of optimism, I am no longer so sure that realism is necessarily the best disposition. I realize that optimists (as well as pessimists) create part of their own future due to their attitudes. Thus the optimist has certain advantages not found among the realists and much less the pessimists.

The famous psychologist, Dr. Martin Seligman, wrote in his book Learned Optimism:

“Hundreds of studies show that pessimists give up more easily and get de-pressed more often. These experiments also show that optimists do much better in school and college, at work and on the playing field . They regularly exceed the predictions of aptitude tests. When optimists run for office, they are more apt to be elected than pessimists are. Their health is unusually good. They age well, much freer than most of us from the usual physical ills of middle age. Evidence suggests they may even live longer” (p. 5).

A pessimistic person will easily give up, while an optimistic person will keep on trying even when defeat looks certain. One of the largest insurance companies in the world is Metropolitan Life. Every year it selects thousands of qualified applicants to become new salespeople to sell life insurance. The applicants had to pass exams and interviews. After they were hired, the company would spend a lot of money training these new employees. The company, however, felt very frustrated because a high percentage of these hirees would give up and resign. They consulted psychologist Martin Seligman who suggested to them that he was going to give applicants a test on optimism. He hired those who scored high in optimism even if they flunked the standard tests of Metropolitan. The results were surprising. Those who scored high in optimism stayed more years in the company, and outperformed the pessimists in sales by up to 88%.

Studies were made in other industries, such as banking, real estate, and automotive sales, and the results were the same. Author Steven Kotler wrote: “No matter their industry, the hopeful outsold the hopeless by 20 to 40%. . . . On the job, they are better at handling pressure, overcoming adversity and have a higher degree of ‘employee engagement.’”

More important, optimism leads to a happier life. Dr. Betty Phillips wrote: “Optimism and pessimism are explanatory styles of thinking about life events which predict a positive vs. negative mood and expansive vs. Inhibited behavior. People with optimistic explanations of life generally feel happier and more energized to cope with obstacles, seeing them as challenges rather than failure experiences. Optimists are more likely to analyze whether setbacks are situational, then are able to develop plans to remove obstacles to their goals. Pessimists are more likely to view life problems as personal failures, blame themselves, feel unhappy and give up trying to change.” (bettyphillipspsychology.com)

Next time, don’t reproach yourself for being pollyanish. That attitude may spell the difference.

What’s the Most Important Thing in Life?

If you only have a month to live, how would you spend that one month?

One Saturday, this question suddenly popped into my mind while I was on my way to a christening of a one-year-old boy. Later on I googled this question and found a lot of people tried to answer the question online. The bottom line is that almost all of them said that would spend the last one month with people close to them, especially with their family. None of them said that they will spend more time in their work. One said he would like to travel but with the company of his family and close friends.

On that Saturday, I was attending the christening of my grandson, after which we would go for a family lunch, and thence I had to proceed to moderate a strategic planning meeting of a foundation, and then have visitors at the house. I was also trying to write articles on that day. I had so many appointments and things-to-do, but I realized as I was walking towards the church that when the chips are down, one thing stands out as more important than all the rest: the family and loved ones.

There was an angle to this insight that was striking. I had “known” before about how important people are. I had spoken about it often in my talks. But I never saw it from this angle. Our final choice in devoting the rest of our earthly life to a small group of people speaks volumes about our philosophy of life and the meaning of our lives.

When Steve Jobs decided to seclude himself with his family when he was told he had a very short time to live, the reaction of people I know was one of approval, sympathy and agreement. They would do the same thing if they were in the same situation.

The good news is that giving importance to positive relationships has been empirically found to be the most important ingredient towards the attainment to some of the most important goals in human life: happiness, health and long life.

In 1938, Harvard University launched a ground-breaking research that is still ongoing till today, 80 years later. Called the Harvard Study of Adult Development, they studied 724 people, some of whom were sophomores from Harvard and others from the poorer areas of Boston. The research tracked their health, marriage, career, relationships, income and other personal factors with interviews every other year. Three books have been written on this study by its first Director, Dr. George Vaillant. He made the following conclusion: “Warmth of relationships throughout life has the greatest positive impact on ‘life satisfaction’ . . . Happiness is love. Full stop.”

The current director of the study, Dr. Robert Waldinger, after reviewing the tens of thousands of pages of data, expanded the conclusion: “People who are more socially connected to family, to friends, to community, are happier, they’re physically healthier, and they live longer than people who are less well connected.”

Dr. David Myers, an internationally famous author of textbooks on psychology and the author of the book The Pursuit of Happiness, wrote down what he considered as the “Ten Commandments Of Happiness.” The first one was that materials success does not necessarily make people happy. The second was that close relationships with people around you contributes a lot to happiness.

Next time that we find yourself so busy that you hardly have time for anything else, pause for twenty seconds and ask yourself what are the most important things in life. Then from deep in your heart, act accordingly.