Kind: captions
Language: en
[Applause]
welcome to beautiful Vancouver British
Columbia this is actually where I grew
up just across that water and I remember
when I was a teenager here I wanted to
be a filmmaker and so what did I do well
I found a a film director with a strange
name who lived in Vancouver uh I saw her
on the cover of this magazine and then I
just looked up her number in the phone
book in the White Pages because that's
how you did back in the year 2000 and I
gave her a call and she said she was on
the other line but she'd call me back
and strangely enough she did call me
back and it was amazing I got to chat to
her about film making I guess what I
really wanted was for someone else to be
able to provide me with an opportunity
to get on set to get some experience in
that industry and show me what it's like
I just want to know and it's so hard
when you're on the outside to figure out
how to break in you just want to reach
out to someone who knows and say help
with this there is a psychological
phenomenon known as learned helplessness
and the experiments conducted way back
decades ago that established this
phenomenon were really quite terrible um
what they would do is take dogs and for
some of them at least they would force
them to endure a punishment for example
they would receive electric shocks and
there was nothing they could do to
prevent those shocks for other dogs
there were actually little levers or a
fence they could hop over that would
stop the shocks now later on they took
all of those those dogs and they tested
them again but in environments where
every one of those dogs had the
opportunity to avoid the shocks by
taking some action now what was found
was those dogs that had been forced to
endure the shocks and had no way of
stopping them just kind of came to
accept the shocks even when there were
actions that they could take which would
stop them so this is learned
helplessness they have learned that
there's nothing they can do to stop that
uncomfortable situation there's a
related study carried out with adults
where they were trying to complete a
task except there was this distracting
noise playing now some of the adults had
the ability to turn off that noise
whereas others did not it was not under
their control and when you look at the
performance the adults who had the
control to turn off the noise performed
better even when they didn't actually
exercise that control so they just let
the noise play but the knowledge that
they could shut it off if they wanted to
made them perform better I have worked
at many jobs now uh some very menial and
some more managerial or entrepreneurial
like I was basically running the show
and what I found is that there's kind of
this divide between employees and
managers when you're an employee and
you're assigned to do something you try
to do it as best you've been shown but
if you hit a roadblock you kind of stop
and you go to your manager or supervisor
and you say hey uh what do I do now now
I've done that before I've done it when
I was a research assistant I'd get some
result I didn't really know what was
going on and I just take it to my
supervisor super supervisor would say oh
well why don't you try this and that
suggestion that they made was always one
that I knew or you know I could have
thought of if I just spent 5 minutes on
it or if I really wanted to achieve that
goal but instead I just had this
mentality like I'm carrying out this
task and when I get stuck I'm just going
to ask someone else you know there's a
story that Tim Ferris tells he's the guy
who wrote the 4-Hour Work week which is
a book I would recommend uh but he went
and visited this University and he
challenged the students that he was
talking to he said look I will give you
$25,000 in a trip around the world for
anyone who shows that they have made
contact by some sort of signature or
email or letter or something with either
Jennifer Lopez Bill Clinton who I think
at the time was the president possibly
and uh JD Salinger who's the most
reclusive writer of all time and did
anyone do it nope not a one now the
following year he went back to the same
University and in addition to making the
challenge he told them the story from
the previous year that no one had
actually done it no one had really tried
in that year six people actually
achieved his challenge the point being
you need to find a way around the
Learned helplessness mentality the
employee mentality and find a way to
realize that things that seem impossible
can be accomplished
if you really accept that you have
control of these things that it's not
outside of your control and maybe a
question we should ask is does our
school system promote learned
helplessness do we force kids
to suffer punishment that they really
can't change time and time and time
again and then we expose them to a world
and say now you go out and and do what
you want to do I think to a certain
degree we are doing that you know school
is for a lot of kids just a weird and
unusual kind of
punishment and I guess it's no wonder
that they learn that you know there's
things beyond their control because
school is kind of about taking control
away from kids you know for the dogs how
did they get the dogs to overcome their
learned helplessness and actually get
away from the shocks they were receiving
they tried treats and encouragements but
it didn't work they had to physically
move the dogs away from the area where
they were being shocked at least twice
before they would actually learn that
they had the power to change their fate
that they didn't have to suffer that
kind of punishment again and
again but with you I feel like just
letting you know that this thing exists
might be enough to change the way you
view your life and your
opportunities let's talk briefly about
career paths I applied to acting school
three times and was rejected three times
I applied to film School twice and was
rejected twice I think what I was
looking for out of those institutions
was a Surefire way to get to the career
that I wanted I was basically doing the
same thing that I was doing when I asked
uh that director in Vancouver to help me
out to get me on set I was asking for
someone else to make this possible for
me I mean there's a small number of jobs
where the career path is clearly laid
out you want to be a doctor you have to
go to med school you want to be lawyer
you have to go to law school you want to
be a academic you have to do a PhD but I
think there's a much larger group of
careers where you really have to figure
out a way to do it yourself and that's
the whole point that is the whole
challenge you feel like you're not in
control and you want someone else to to
help you get that control or get in the
place where you need to be but no one
can really help you just like that
director couldn't really help me get
where I need to be I cannot help other
people get where they need to be you
really have it all up to you I mean you
have to demonstrate that you can do what
you want to do you know there is this
quote uh grant me the serenity to accept
the things I cannot change and the
courage to change the things I can and
the wisdom to know the difference now my
point is when you're contemplating the
things that you can and cannot change
air on the side of thinking thinking
that you can change much more than you
can because often you will be able to I
mean everything seems impossible until
it's done that's a Nelson Mandela quote
which I think is kind of appropriate in
this circumstance things look a lot more
impossible than they are and really it's
up to you to find out
[Music]
hey as you can tell books have had a
huge impact on my life and how I see the
world and when I'm traveling I like to
listen to them as audiobooks because
it's just more convenient on planes and
trains and there's actually one I wanted
to recommend to you it is called
predictably irrational by Dan O'Reilly
it's about how humans don't really
behave rationally even when we think
that's what we're doing so it provides
pretty good insight into how your brain
works and how the brains of everyone
around you work
and if you want you can download this
book for free by going to
audible.com/veritasium or you can pick
any other book of your choosing for a
one-month free trial audible is a great
audiobook website with over 180,000
titles in all areas of literature
including fiction non-fiction and
periodicals so you should definitely
check them out I want to thank Audible
for supporting me and I want to thank
you for watching