Transform Your Rules Into Empowerment Tools

Chris Pratt, too, for Star-Lord--his transformation was stunning. I could give you an endless list of major stars that I've crossed paths with. And the studios come to me because I know what I'm doing. They send stars to me who are serious about getting things done. They don't hire actors and actresses lightly. Not when you have $200 million riding on a film. There's a lot of pressure on you with that, so the stars take it seriously. She had sent the magazine her transcripts, recommendations, samples of her work from the school newspaper, and had a great phone interview, she told me. With great expectations, she happily took the job. A week later, she found that the type of work she was doing was boring her to death. If only she had asked for an example of the task data, the type of writing she would be editing. She could have quickly come to the conclusion that this job was not going to give her what she needed. Note there is a big difference between being told what type of work you will be doing and actually seein g the type of work you will be doing. Gather the data you need to make a choice that is in your best interest. See and feel the people data--ask to meet the people you will be working with, especially the person who will be supervising you and don't be shy about interviewing that person. Check out the physical data, space you will be working in, to see if it is to your liking. Ask for examples of potential job assignments so that you can see if the job tasks are interesting to you, an emotional job nutrient for sure. Several questions were addressed. First, do Asian Americans and European Americans differ on optimism or pessimism as measured by the LOT? Like Lee and Seligman (1997), Chang (1996) found that the two groups did not differ with respect to optimism.

However, the Asian Americans were more pessimistic than the European Americans. Second, do optimism or pessimism differentially predict adjustment among Asian Americans and European Americans? To address this question, Chang (1996) conducted a series of regression analyses to identify predictors of each adjustment measure for each ethnic group. In addition to separate optimism and pessimism scores, scores on each of the coping strategies (as well as age and sex) were also included. Results of these analyses indicated that there were indeed different predictors of adjustment in the two groups. Among Asian Americans, low scores on optimism predicted psychological and physical adjustment, whereas among European Americans, high scores on pessimism predicted psychological adjustment. Third, are there differences in the pattern of associations among the study variables between Asian Americans and European Americans? When you know your body is going to be up on a seventy-foot screen and your shirt is going to be off or whatever they have you doing, you are going to show up. You are not going to quit. You're going to give it everything you have. Your entire career depends on it. So if you're looking to lose weight or improve your fitness or simply get yourself moving again--yeah, I can help you. But first you've got to be honest with yourself. I talk to my clients about this all the time. You've got to have realistic goals. If you want to be lean and you weigh three hundred pounds, stop trying to be lean for the moment. Start by trying to lose some weight. If you lack the clout to demand this data in the formal job interview, seek it informally, like the new graduate with an MFA in fashion marketing who walked through all the major upscale department stores and, posing as a customer, initiated conversations with employees so that she could hear their thoughts and feelings about her potential work environment. This gave her valuable data to help her find the type of environment that would promote her. Evaluate your data thoughtfully.

What is most important for the purpose of helping you grow? Be honest here or suffer the consequences. Also, some nutrients take longer to have their impact on you than others. A supportive environment in the short run might do little for your growth but put you in a much better position two years down the road. You will grow. On the other hand, another environment might start you out with greater compensation with an immediate impact on your life style. Two years later, though, you feel your career going nowhere fast. Chang (1996) found that the pattern of correlations between the various study measures for Asian Americans was different from the one found for European Americans. Most striking was the difference in the direction of the associations between pessimism and two of the engagement coping strategies (problem solving and expressing emotions) for Asian Americans compared to European Americans. Specifically, pessimism was negatively associated with use of problem solving and expressing emotions for European Americans. In contrast, pessimism was found to be associated positively with use of these coping strategies for Asian Americans. So, increased active coping among Asian Americans was predicted by high pessimism scores, where decreased active coping among European Americans was predicted by high pessimism scores. Is the complex pessimism of Asians a problem, or might it be beneficial in the cultural context in which it occurs? One possibility might be that pessimism helps Asians achieve positive consequences. As Norem and Cantor (1986) and Aspinwall and Brunhart (1996) argued, optimism and pessimism are not simply what people have because they are optimists or pessimists but rather a reflection of what people do (eg, using a particular way of thinking about certain things) in relation to a specific goal. Hence, Asian Americans also might use their pessimism as a strategy to think about potential negative consequences as a means to motivate themselves toward proactive behavior (eg, problem solving) while at the same time preserving social harmony through the expression of modesty (eg, not setting themselves apart from their peers). Insofar as the link between pessimism and problem solving does result in more positive rather than negative consequences, this can help explain why elevated pessimism is maintained among Asians. If you're trying to be huge and you're built like a pencil, I have news for you: try packing on a little muscle mass at a time. You may never get that big. But start by improving where you are, and see if you can get there over time.

Rushing to get there won't get you there. Your goals need to be real, as in realistic. They need to be concise, not all over the place. There is no shortcut to get where you want to go. Let me repeat that: no shortcut. When I was eighteen years old, I was going nowhere with my life. I was hanging out with the wrong people and going in the wrong direction. Sometimes, we have to choose some nutrients at the expense of others, and the advice here is to always seek the one that helps you grow. It is a sound idea to prioritize your emotional nutrients and see how the job environment stands on providing them. The same is true for internal transfers, such as a promotion that requires a physical relocation. Look before you leap, is the evolutionary driven caution. At first glance it might look like a great opportunity, but the more you look, the less you like it. Again, taking a long look requires time. Whether you are entering the work force or seeking a new job, a new position, your choice is sure to have major consequences in your life. The message of shelter seeking here is to stay on the right path by gathering as much environmental data as possible, so you can see if you not only match up, but more importantly, if it's an environment that will encourage your growth for years to come. Every year, the college selection process becomes more prevalent in America, and every year, tens of thousands of students are ready to transfer after their first year on the grounds they made the wrong choice. If you are the parent of a college-bound student, encourage the student to shelter seek for the right college environment, one that will help the student grow. As emphasized earlier, greater research attention to mechanisms can help make sense of why culture seems to matter. We have covered a number of topics in this article, from the philosophical origins of the notions of optimism and pessimism to empirical studies of these psychological characteristics among different ethnic groups. The general theme that runs through what we have written is the idea that distinctions matter.

Optimism and pessimism are not simple opposites, and findings with respect to the one construct cannot be flipped into conclusions about the other. Furthermore, within the constructs of optimism and pessimism, there are potentially important features that should be taken into account. Most research, including our own, has not grappled fully with these distinctions, but we urge strongly that future research take them seriously, especially as cross-cultural studies of optimism and pessimism are beginning in earnest. Western investigators are translating the LOT and the ASQ and going forth to measure the optimism and pessimism of the world. Interesting findings will no doubt result, but we suspect that these might be even more interesting if researchers do not expect optimism and pessimism to work the same way in all cultures. Different cultures will emphasize different features of these psychological states, and they will likely bear different relationships to different outcomes. In that regard, it is worth briefly returning to our earlier comments on the importance of assessing expectancies with respect to positive outcomes. So my mom and my sister sat me down and we talked. I enlisted in the Marines after that. When I got to the Marines, at the rifle range during requalifying, a friend recommended I try out for STA (Surveillance and Target Acquistion) platoon and become a sniper. I was fortunate enough to be able to do that. It taught me a lot--determining who is a threat and who is not requires you to be sharp. They train you to do that--you're not born that way. And it takes years. Overseas as a Marine, I spent some time working in conjunction with the Navy SEALs, so I decided to become one. This was not easy, but it was an important part of my life. I value my military training; Before you spend a lot of time and money with a college counselor, spend the time to follow Mother Nature's advice to help your college-bound student arrive at the choice through the use of his or her own shelter-seeking instincts. First you have to help college bound students tune in to their emotional nutrients, not their SAT scores. Do this by having frequent conversations centered on their interests, their aspirations.