It's important for everyone to have an optimistic attitude. In the Bill and the Melinda Gates Foundation's annual letter this year, Melinda Gates once evaluated Buffett as a man with an optimistic spirit. It was not the success that makes Buffett to be optimistic, on the contrary,it was optimism that makes the success of Buffett.
Heidi Grant Halvorson, a social psychologist, believes that Buffett is a realistic optimist. In the book Different Approaches to Nine Things for Successful People,she divides optimism into two kinds, one is realistic optimist, and the other is unrealistic optimist. In order to be successful, says Heidi, you need to understand the big difference between "trust yourself to succeed" and"trust yourself to succeed easily.".
Heidi says, realistic optimists like Buffett believe they can succeed, but they also know that they need to overcome difficulties and obstacles on the road to success. Only by developing strategy, paying effort, planning in advance, and sticking to it can they obtain success as they expected. The unrealistic optimist thinks that if he is positive, success will surely come.
This realistic optimism of Buffett can also be seen from his shareholder letter over the years. Data scientist Michael Toth analyzed Buffett's shareholder letter from 1977 to 2016, and he found that Buffett keep perfectly balance between optimismand realism. Most of the shareholder's letters were optimistic, only five of which were negative, and these five had occurred during the recession in the United states.
Toth said: "even in some negative emotional states, Buffett will try to come up with solutions and find the right way forward.". When things don't work out well, he's willing to admit it.Regardless of the poor performance of Berkhire Hathaway Inc's, or the downturn of macro market , he is willing to tell others. That is to say, those who not only believe they can succeed, but also believe that success will not come easily to them will pay more effort on it as well as think of countermeasures actively before the problem arises. Moreover, they will hold on longer in the face of difficulties.
巴菲特的乐观主义有什么不同
有一个乐观的心态，对每个人来说都很重要。在今年的比尔及梅琳达·盖茨基金会的年度信中，梅琳达·盖茨就曾经这样评价股神巴菲特，她说巴菲特是一个有乐观精神的人，不是成功让巴菲特变得乐观，而是乐观造就了巴菲特的成功。
社会心理学家海蒂·格兰特·哈尔维森（Heidi Grant Halvorson）认为，巴菲特是一位“现实的乐观主义者”。她在《成功人士9件事的不同做法》这本书里，就把乐观分成两种，一种是“现实的乐观主义者”，另一种是“不现实的乐观主义者”。海蒂说，想要成功，你就要搞清楚“相信自己能成功”和“相信自己能很轻易地成功”之间的巨大差别。
海蒂表示，像巴菲特这样的现实的乐观主义者，他们相信自己可以成功，但他们同时也知道，成功需要克服前进中遇到的困难和障碍，只有制定战略、付出努力、做好规划、持之以恒，才能获得他们期望获得的成功。而不现实的乐观主义者认为，如果自己积极向上，成功就一定会到来。
巴菲特的这种现实的乐观主义，也可以从他历年的股东信看出来。数据科学家迈克尔·托特（Michael Toth）分析了1977年到2016年巴菲特的股东信，他发现巴菲特完美地在乐观主义和现实主义之间做到了平衡。其中大部分股东信中的内容都是乐观的，只有5封的内容是比较消极的，而且这五次都发生在美国的经济衰退时期。
托特说：“就算是在一些消极的情绪状态下，巴菲特也会努力想出解决方案，找到前进的正确道路。当事情发展不好的时候，他也愿意承认。不管是伯克希尔哈撒韦公司的业绩不佳，还是宏观的市场不景气，他都愿意告诉别人。”也就是说，那些不但相信自己能够成功，还相信成功不会轻易轮到自己的人，他们会付出更多的努力，在还没有出现问题之前，就去积极想对策，这样的人在面对困难的时候，也能坚持得更久。