Chapter Three: Explanatory Style: Don’t P and Should Yourself

Get Copies for Your Whole Team

Like Jim's previous best-sellers, Growing @ the Speed of Change can be used in organizations around the world as part of leadership development and training programs. Take advantage of our discount schedule to provide this valuable resource to every member of your team.

Discount Schedule
Volume 1 to 4 5 to 49 50 to 199 200 to 2,499 2,500 to 4,999 5,000 to 9,999 10,000 or more	Price $19.95 $13.95 $11.97 $9.98 $8.98 $6.98 $5.95	Discount 0% 30% 40% 50% 55% 65% 70%

Volume discounts are calculated automatically online. Get copies for everyone now!

Place your order over the phone: (519) 748-1044

“Pessimists have a particularly pernicious way of construing their setbacks and frustrations. They automatically think that the cause is permanent, pervasive and personal: ‘It’s going to last forever, it’s going to undermine everything, and it’s my fault.’… Optimists, in contrast, have a strength that allows them to interpret their setbacks as surmountable,
particular to a single problem, and resulting from temporary circumstances or other people.”
Martin Seligman, Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment

It’s all too easy to listen to others tell us how we “should” feel about positive or negative events in our lives. We think and act according to our deep-rooted habits about what we think we “should” do in response. Unless we become more aware of our own thoughts, we don’t realize how automatic — and possibly destructive — they’ve become.

The “three Ps” of permanence, pervasiveness, and personalization define our explanatory style. Our explanatory style establishes the glasses or frames through which we create reality. If we build the skills or habits of using a positive or leading style, the three Ps are a stairway to ever higher effectiveness in our personal and professional lives. If we’ve habitually chosen a negative or wallowing style, we slide ever deeper into the swamp of unhappiness and despair.

The good news is that you can stop P-ing and should’ing yourself! But after years of walking around with “opticalrectumitis” — and maybe even wet pants — it’s not easy to change your crap glasses. You may need a coach, mentor, training, therapy, a support group, structured personal growth program, or other such help. This book is designed to give you the inspiration and action ideas to guide you toward a positive change of your reality optics.

Permanence
Explaining Bad Events:
Permanent (Pessimistic/Wallowing)	Temporary (Optimistic/Leading)
“I am a loser.”	“I was really off my game today.”
“My boss is a jerk.”	“My boss really messed up this time.”
“You’re always late.”	“You’ve been late three times in the past week.”
Explaining Good Events:
Temporary (Pessimistic/Wallowing)	Permanent (Optimistic/Leading)
“I caught a lucky break.”	“My luck’s holding up again.”
“Looks like they gave in on this one.”	“I am persistent.”
“My competitor messed up.”	“My service is clearly better.”
Pervasiveness
Explaining Bad Events:
Universal (Pessimistic/Wallowing)	Specific (Optimistic/Leading)
“All (managers/workers/_____) are idiots.”	He was really off the mark on this one.”
“I am a terrible parent.”	Our teenager is going through a tough phase.”
“All instructions and help programs are useless.”	“These instructions are very poorly written.”
Explaining Good Events:
Specific (Pessimistic/Wallowing)	Universal (Optimistic/Leading)
“I am good at problem-solving.”	“I am a strong leader.”
“Our team really pulled together.”	“We’re an effective team.”
“I was persuasive.”	“I am a good communicator.”
Personalization
Explaining Bad Events:
Hopeless (Wallowing)	Hopeful (Leading)
“I am just not smart enough.”	“Emotional Quotient (EQ) is much more important than Intellectual Quotient (IQ).”
“Just like a man/woman.”	“I caught him/her at a bad time.”
“With my luck, this is likely cancer.”	"The odds are in my favor and this is likely benign.”
Explaining Good Events:
Hopeless (Wallowing)	Hopeful (Leading)
“We barely made it this time.”	“We’re good.”
“I wonder what my spouse is really up to.”	“My spouse is considerate.”
“That was a lucky fluke.”	“I am lucky.”

<<Previous Next>>

To Help You Decide

Read the Introduction

Book’s Core Model/Framework (Chapter Three)

Reviews & Feedback

Complimentary Review Copies

Order now for your team!

For individual sales please click here.

Click to hear Jim outlining how Growing @ the Speed of Change is written, and priced, for broad distribution to frontline, as well as, supervisory and management staff who need to accept change, and adapt to the challenges and opportunities it brings.

Jim Clemmer: Keynote Speaker, Workshop/Retreat Leader, and Management Team Developer