LEARNED CONTROL
The art of changing situations and circumstances because you can!!!
The opposite of learned helplessness is learned control. In a follow-up research, the dogs were eventually pushed to jump over the barrier and escape the shock, this had to be done 2-3 times before the dogs learned to escape the shock when placed in such environments. (You might need to read Part I to understand how we got here)
In the world of clicks and blips where everything is moving so fast, we young people often complain of depression and stress, it’s a state caused by helplessness, the feeling that we have lost control, we simply cannot figure out a way forward.
How do we regain control?
How do we unlearn helplessness?
Most people are familiar with the story of Jack Ma, the billionaire who revolutionized Chinese e-commerce. Jack Ma struggled attending college having failed the entrance exam, it took three years for him to pass the exam. He applied to Harvard Business School ten times and was rejected each time. He applied for 31 different odd jobs and was rejected every single time. "I even went to KFC when it came to my city. Twenty-four people went for the job. Twenty-three were accepted. I was the only guy rejected" Jack Ma told interviewer Charlie Rose. So how did someone with such a close long-term relationship with failure attain wild success becoming the richest man in China?
Before I answer that, let's talk about the ole Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) and its founder Colonel Sanders. At the age of sixty-five, after running a restaurant for several years, Harland Sanders found himself penniless. He retired and received his first social security check which was for one hundred and five dollars.
Harland was retired, getting older and while most people retired to their porch tending their little gardens and eating vegetables every Friday night, Harland opted to sell the world on his cool new chicken recipe. Harland traveled door to door to houses and restaurants all over his local area. He wanted to partner with someone to help promote his chicken recipe. As optimistic as that is, he was met with little enthusiasm. He started traveling by car to different restaurants and cooked his fried chicken on the spot for restaurant owners. If the owner liked the chicken, they would enter into a handshake agreement to sell his chicken. He was turned down 1009 times before his chicken was accepted once! How did such a gross history of failure turn into 600 franchises he eventually sold for $2 million in 1964?
The answer? Control.
The common theme with everyone that eventually succeeded was that they never gave up. You must actively accept that it is within your control to achieve whatever goal you have set for yourself and that failures and hardships are integral parts of the process. How can we be so sure of that? Because history has proven that it can be done. An old retired 65 year old can build one of the world’s biggest franchises. A failed Chinese man from a poor background can build the world’s largest e-commerce corporation. All that is really needed when you feel you are approaching your limits is a re-evaluation of your strategy, not the goal or the vision. Here are two of my favourite quotes about success.
"The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same." — Colin R. Davis
"Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race." —Calvin Coolidge
YOU ARE NOT HELPLESS!
YOU ARE IN CONTROL!