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September 18, 2008 by Rich Whittle | 3 Comments

The Wall Street Journal:

J.K. Rowling’s book about a boy wizard was rejected by 12 publishers before a small London house picked up “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.”

Decca Records turned down a contract with the Beatles, saying “We don’t like their sound.”

Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor who said he “lacked imagination.”

Michael Jordan was cut from his high-school varsity basketball team sophomore year.

What makes some people rebound from defeats and go on to greatness while others throw in the towel? Psychologists call it “self-efficacy,” the unshakable belief some people have that they have what it takes to succeed.

First described by Stanford University psychologist Albert Bandura in the 1970s, self-efficacy has become a key concept in educational circles, and is being applied to health care, management, sports and seemingly intractable social problems like AIDS in developing countries.

It’s also a hallmark of the “positive psychology” movement now sweeping the mental-health field, which focuses on developing character strengths rather than alleviating pathologies.

Self-efficacy differs from self-esteem in that it’s a judgment of specific capabilities rather than a general feeling of self-worth. “It’s easy to have high self-esteem — just aim low,” says Prof. Bandura, who is still teaching at Stanford at age 82.

On the other hand, he notes, there are people with high self-efficacy who “drive themselves hard but have low self-esteem because their performance always falls short of their high standards.”

Read more.

Photo by allmichaeljordan.com.

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Tags: Advice, Strategy, Success