I love teaching. I often see with an educator’s eyes. As a parent, my style tends toward the coach or teacher. In my career in the corporate world, I still find opportunities to teach.
I designed and ran a series of spreadsheet trainings. We had a lot of staff who didn’t have any background or experience with it. I wanted to help them. One of the first slides looked like this:
"A lot of people look at Excel, and this is what they see,” I told them. “But that’s not what Excel really looks like. It looks like this:”
“It’s a toolbox. There are a lot of nice tools you can use. There are some tools you will not learn how to use. That doesn’t really matter. Find one tool, learn to use it, and then try another.”
I was beginning my spreadsheet training with a statement about optimism. I knew some of them were pretty intimidated by the program.
I was always a learning optimist. When I sat in the stacks at Briggs Library during my college days, I could read difficult material three times, not understand it one bit, and still go back to read it again with enthusiasm. “I’m going to get this.” That’s optimism.
I was a social pessimist. If I walked into a social gathering and didn’t strike up a conversation in the first few minutes, I was ready to pack up and go home. “This isn't going to work out,” I thought.
But there’s much more to it than “I think I can.”
In graduate school I came across a book called Learned Helplessness, co-authored by the now-famous Martin Seligman. Much of the experimentation in those days centered on behaviorism, and Seligman was fascinated with extinction behavior.
A behavior that is rewarded is likely to repeat. If the behavior stops being rewarded, what happens? Eventually, it stops. It becomes extinct. Seligman pointed out that even important behaviors can become extinct.
If a dog was in a divided pen, and an electrical current ran through one side, the dog would quickly learn to run to the other side. But if the electrical current ran through both sides of the pen, the dog would eventually stop trying to escape. His helpful ‘escape’ behavior was made extinct.
Seligman (and colleagues) pointed out the parallels between this extinction behavior and the depression that people experience. If individuals experience (or think they are experiencing) repeat failure, they may simply stop trying to succeed. And that looks a lot like depression.
Seligman turned learned helplessness around in his book Learned Optimism. He was really on to something, and he knew it. His research showed that optimism could predict achievement. Importantly, he also found that people could learn optimism. He taught optimism with the three P's.
I’m going to use a basketball analogy as I describe the 3 P’s. I was both an optimist and a pessimist about basketball at different times in my life.
The first P is Permanence. Permanence is time. Is this a one-time thing or an all-time thing? If I walk onto a basketball court and my first shot swishes through the basket, I may think “That proves that I can do this.” The positive event told me something positive about the whole future: "I can do this."
After that same swish, I can also think “That was a lucky shot.” This is not an empowering thought. The positive thing told me nothing about the future.
It works in reverse, too. If my shot clangs loudly off the front of the rim, I may think “I have no talent.” This time, a negative thing told me something about the whole future. It’s going to be hard to make it through hours of shooting drills with that attitude. But if I think “Oops, I need to settle down, that one was off balance,” I’ve made that negative thing a one-time event. No problem moving on to the next one.
The second P is Pervasiveness. Pervasiveness is saturation. Is this a tiny, specific, and isolated thing? Or is it an inescapable example of everything?
I continue my basketball practice and attempt a layup. After a stutter-step and double dribble, I fling the ball up at the basket. The ball clunks off the bottom of the backboard, bouncing off my head on its way back down.
What’s my thought in the next moment? “I’m so bad at sports. I have no talent.” Wow--try to recover from that. It is so pervasive. Even if I improve at layups, I'll be bad at other things, because the layup was evidence that I'm bad at sports.
The non-pervasive reaction could have been “I was distracted,” or “Okay, I need a lot more practice,” or even “I knew I was more cut out for football.”
The final P is Personalization. Is this because of who I am? Or is it because of a situation?
Remember my disastrous layup, when the ball bounced off the backboard and then off my head? I could have externalized: “We shouldn’t be doing full speed drills on the first day” or “My friend told me to practice free throws, why didn’t he tell me to work on layups?”
I’m pretty sure I internalized: “I don’t know what I’m doing. Why do the rest of these guys have talent and I don’t?” That’s personalization.
In high school, I was a basketball pessimist. “Other players are talented and I am not. Each little screw-up proves how bad I am at sports.” My coaches did nothing to point my thinking in a better direction. It was awful.
At some point in college, I became a basketball optimist. “It’s fun to push my limits. I enjoy working on this skill. I missed that shot, but my form is improving.” Instead of working to avoid embarrassment, I worked to capitalize on the talent I did have.
We can’t control how others coach us, but we can change how we coach ourselves.
The three P’s are a great tool in an optimist’s toolbox. They help identify statements that are unnecessarily pessimistic. They can also help show us how to change our language to make it more optimistic.
Look for them in the next week as you listen to people. Are their explanations Permanent? Pervasive? Personal? And do those explanations point in an optimistic or pessimistic direction?
Most of all, pay attention as you listen to the voice in your own head. Point yourself in a more optimistic direction.
I designed and ran a series of spreadsheet trainings. We had a lot of staff who didn’t have any background or experience with it. I wanted to help them. One of the first slides looked like this:
"A lot of people look at Excel, and this is what they see,” I told them. “But that’s not what Excel really looks like. It looks like this:”
“It’s a toolbox. There are a lot of nice tools you can use. There are some tools you will not learn how to use. That doesn’t really matter. Find one tool, learn to use it, and then try another.”
I was beginning my spreadsheet training with a statement about optimism. I knew some of them were pretty intimidated by the program.
I was always a learning optimist. When I sat in the stacks at Briggs Library during my college days, I could read difficult material three times, not understand it one bit, and still go back to read it again with enthusiasm. “I’m going to get this.” That’s optimism.
I was a social pessimist. If I walked into a social gathering and didn’t strike up a conversation in the first few minutes, I was ready to pack up and go home. “This isn't going to work out,” I thought.
But there’s much more to it than “I think I can.”
In graduate school I came across a book called Learned Helplessness, co-authored by the now-famous Martin Seligman. Much of the experimentation in those days centered on behaviorism, and Seligman was fascinated with extinction behavior.
A behavior that is rewarded is likely to repeat. If the behavior stops being rewarded, what happens? Eventually, it stops. It becomes extinct. Seligman pointed out that even important behaviors can become extinct.
If a dog was in a divided pen, and an electrical current ran through one side, the dog would quickly learn to run to the other side. But if the electrical current ran through both sides of the pen, the dog would eventually stop trying to escape. His helpful ‘escape’ behavior was made extinct.
Seligman (and colleagues) pointed out the parallels between this extinction behavior and the depression that people experience. If individuals experience (or think they are experiencing) repeat failure, they may simply stop trying to succeed. And that looks a lot like depression.
Seligman turned learned helplessness around in his book Learned Optimism. He was really on to something, and he knew it. His research showed that optimism could predict achievement. Importantly, he also found that people could learn optimism. He taught optimism with the three P's.
I’m going to use a basketball analogy as I describe the 3 P’s. I was both an optimist and a pessimist about basketball at different times in my life.
The first P is Permanence. Permanence is time. Is this a one-time thing or an all-time thing? If I walk onto a basketball court and my first shot swishes through the basket, I may think “That proves that I can do this.” The positive event told me something positive about the whole future: "I can do this."
After that same swish, I can also think “That was a lucky shot.” This is not an empowering thought. The positive thing told me nothing about the future.
It works in reverse, too. If my shot clangs loudly off the front of the rim, I may think “I have no talent.” This time, a negative thing told me something about the whole future. It’s going to be hard to make it through hours of shooting drills with that attitude. But if I think “Oops, I need to settle down, that one was off balance,” I’ve made that negative thing a one-time event. No problem moving on to the next one.
The second P is Pervasiveness. Pervasiveness is saturation. Is this a tiny, specific, and isolated thing? Or is it an inescapable example of everything?
I continue my basketball practice and attempt a layup. After a stutter-step and double dribble, I fling the ball up at the basket. The ball clunks off the bottom of the backboard, bouncing off my head on its way back down.
What’s my thought in the next moment? “I’m so bad at sports. I have no talent.” Wow--try to recover from that. It is so pervasive. Even if I improve at layups, I'll be bad at other things, because the layup was evidence that I'm bad at sports.
The non-pervasive reaction could have been “I was distracted,” or “Okay, I need a lot more practice,” or even “I knew I was more cut out for football.”
The final P is Personalization. Is this because of who I am? Or is it because of a situation?
Remember my disastrous layup, when the ball bounced off the backboard and then off my head? I could have externalized: “We shouldn’t be doing full speed drills on the first day” or “My friend told me to practice free throws, why didn’t he tell me to work on layups?”
I’m pretty sure I internalized: “I don’t know what I’m doing. Why do the rest of these guys have talent and I don’t?” That’s personalization.
In high school, I was a basketball pessimist. “Other players are talented and I am not. Each little screw-up proves how bad I am at sports.” My coaches did nothing to point my thinking in a better direction. It was awful.
At some point in college, I became a basketball optimist. “It’s fun to push my limits. I enjoy working on this skill. I missed that shot, but my form is improving.” Instead of working to avoid embarrassment, I worked to capitalize on the talent I did have.
We can’t control how others coach us, but we can change how we coach ourselves.
The three P’s are a great tool in an optimist’s toolbox. They help identify statements that are unnecessarily pessimistic. They can also help show us how to change our language to make it more optimistic.
Look for them in the next week as you listen to people. Are their explanations Permanent? Pervasive? Personal? And do those explanations point in an optimistic or pessimistic direction?
Most of all, pay attention as you listen to the voice in your own head. Point yourself in a more optimistic direction.
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