有一天，有人问我是否对什么事情改变了看法。起初，我开始从意见或信仰的角度思考这个问题，但后来我认识到有一个更深层次的问题需要探讨。"是的，"我回答。"我改变了我的想法，从悲观到乐观。"
从我还是个小孩子的时候，我有一个故事，我告诉自己，我把它命名为 "没有什么事情是成功的"。它是基于我的一个想法：我认为我无法得到我想要的东西，无论我如何努力。当然，我想要的是配得上爱。或者，如果做不到这一点，至少要让人们发笑。
情况就有这么糟。我第一次看到保险杠贴纸上写着 "糟糕事情时时有"，我想我知道它到底是啥什么。这意味着，无论我如何努力，都不会有什么事情发生在我身上。一个富有同情心的朋友向我解释说，这只是意味着，在生活中，事情只是发生在我们身上。处理它。我想，在这种情况下，我可以说，"是的，悲观主义会发生。与它共存吧。"但是，事实上，我从未想过我是一个悲观主义者。
学会的乐观主义
In 1990, Martin Seligman, Ph.D., published Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life, in which he showed that we have a choice about how our minds work. We can learn to be optimistic, make positive choices, gain control over negative thinking, and change the ways we grew up thinking to achieve healthier and more productive psychological frameworks.
Seligman’s work focused on the dramatically different outcomes between the pessimistic mindset and the optimistic mindset. “The defining characteristics of pessimists is that they tend to believe bad events will last a long time, will undermine everything they do and are their own fault,” he wrote in Learned Optimism. “The optimists, who are confronted with the same hard knocks of this world, think about misfortune in the opposite way. They tend to believe defeat is just a temporary setback, that its causes are confined to just this one case. The optimists believe defeat is not their fault.”
塞利格曼引用了数百项研究，表明悲观主义者在生活的各个方面都有更糟糕的结果，从关系到事业到健康。对于乐观主义者来说，情况恰恰相反。他们更有可能在任何尝试中取得成功。他的工作是对这句老话的践行：乐观主义者相信这是所有可能的世界中最好的；悲观主义者知道这是最好的！
在宾夕法尼亚大学对新生的测试中，塞利格曼和他的团队对新生的悲观心态进行了评分。那些回答最悲观的学生被安排在一个对照组，或者在他们到达时被邀请参加一个学习型乐观主义讲习班。虽然研讨会只持续了16个小时，但结果是深远的。
Over the next year, 44 percent of the control group, which hadn’t taken the workshop, experienced periods of moderate to severe depression. Those who attended the workshop? Only 22 percent had incidents of depression; incidents were cut in half. Years later, in a similar test of cancer patients, those who received cognitive therapy designed to help them recognize pessimistic or negative thoughts had dramatic spikes in their natural immune system responses, while the control group had none.
换句话说，一个小小的改变——只是在一个车间里呆了几天——就能产生深刻的、改变生活的效果。
我们都有两副面孔
那么我是如何改变我的想法的呢？我是如何从认为什么都不可能的成功转变为知道我所尝试的一切几乎都会成功？好吧，我希望我可以说我参加了一个16小时的研讨会，改变了我的世界。但请记住，悲观主义者并不一定不成功，他们只是倾向于比乐观主义者更不成功。而且，不管是不是悲观主义者，我都建立了一个良好的生活和事业，成为一名作家和执行教练。正是通过我作为教练的工作，我有了一个有趣的发现。
We have two minds. One is a deeply original and authentic mind we were born with that I call the Essential Self. The other is a mind that we constructed ourselves and let others construct for us throughout our life. I call it the Synthetic Self because, although it feels completely real to us, it’s nothing more than a collection of stories we tell ourselves. In that mind, we have no idea of who we really are. We have no idea that we have this other mind, the Essential Self. And we have no idea that we have a choice. We can choose to change minds.
We have no idea that we have a choice. We can choose to change minds.
In their book, Changing Minds: A Journey to Awakening, psychologists Dr. Frank Allen and Dr. Kathleen Allen-Weber write about the idea of recognizing where your mind lies, or as they might put it, which “operating system” you’re letting run your life. And when you notice which mind you’re in, you can exercise choice in how you’re seeing the world.
你是在 "本质自我 "还是 "合成自我 "的头脑中？你是乐观的还是悲观的？只要问一下，就可以开始改变平衡。这就像任何一种练习。你一开始只是看看你能不能跑一英里，不久之后，你就跑起了马拉松。
但还有一件事你应该知道：将你的思想从悲观变为乐观的价值，不仅仅是减少一点抑郁和改善一点新陈代谢。如果做得对，其效果可以改变生活。
Changing your mind changes who you’re being. As you learn to identify which mind you’re operating from at any moment, you begin a transformation. Just noticing who you’re being—optimistic or pessimistic—changes who you’re being. And changing who you’re being changes the people around you, whether they know it or not. They experience you in a new way and that new experience of you alters how they experience themselves. It creates a virtuous circle around you. And in that circle, new people and new opportunities begin to emerge.
将乐观主义付诸实践
几年前，我有个想法，开始建立一个高管教练的圈子，这样当我有客户需要与我服务不同的东西时，我可以把他们推荐给别人。唯一的问题是，我实际上并不认识任何其他教练。
然后，一些意想不到的事情开始发生了。在一次会议上的偶遇中，我在一张桌子上坐了一个空位，与另一位顾问进行了交谈，她对我的咨询圈想法很是喜欢。
几个月后，她在一次会议上，第三位顾问——一家全球出版社的前CEO——坐上了另一个空位。他在退休后成为一名CEO教练，当她分享我们的想法时，他想加入。
在另一次会议上，我坐在一位来自哈佛大学的领导力专家旁边，他后来成为我们圈子里的一员。我帮一位来自纽约的管理学研究生教授就一本新书进行演讲活动，我们签的合同导致了我结识圈子里另一位成员。
A call to a young MBA friend to help manage a small project led to a new generation of thought leadership, and she became the head of strategy and innovation in the new company we’d formed, called Reservoir, around the idea of providing deep resources for leaders.
一次又一次，在一个又一个巧合的会议中，在一个又一个空位上，一些电光火石的事情正在发生，而所有这些是因为我选择了改变我的想法。
Yes, “stuff happens.” But what that stuff is isn’t always random. It’s related who you’re being. So be optimistic. It’s not just a better attitude, it’s a better life.
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