Positive Psychology: Building a Resilient Workforce

Course One – Positive Psychology; Perception Creates Our World

Course Two – Positive Psychology: Transferring Your Positive Reality

Course Infographics

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Why this course, why now?

A recent survey found that 55 percent of workers were unhappy at their jobs. Depression rates today are 10x higher today than they were fifty years ago. Furthermore, the mean onset age of depression was 29.5 years old (in 1960) – Today it is at 14.5 years old.

 

The typical approach to understanding human behavior has always been to look for the average behavior and outcome, we refer to this as the “cult of average.” Conventional psychology consciously ignores the outliers because by definition they don’t fit the pattern. The opposite is true for positive psychology, instead of deleting the outliers, they study and learn from them.

 

In the early 2000’s there was a 17-to-1 negative-to-positive ratio of research in the field of psychology. In other words, for everyone one study about happiness and thriving, there were 17 studies on depression and disorders. This is telling - as a society, we understand a lot about how to survive and very little about how to thrive. You can eliminate depression without making someone happy. You can cure anxiety without teaching someone optimism. You can return someone to work without improving their job performance. If all you strive for is diminishing the bad, you’ll only attain the average and you’ll miss out entirely on the opportunity to exceed the average.

 

In business and in our lives, “average” no longer is enough. And if we study and teach the average, we will remain average.

 

Once the skills and strategies introduced in these courses are mastered, the difference will be seen and experienced in virtually every aspect of life. Employees will be more energized, more motivated, more driven and more productive. Ideas will flow that yield better results. Instead of being crippled by stress and adversity, employees will be able to turn them into opportunities for growth. And will learn how to refract their light of positivity on coworkers, clients, family members and all others around them.

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Description of each course:

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Positive Psychology – Course One (6.5 hours)

Perception Creates Our World

Before there is happiness and success, comes your perception of your world.

Part one of this course will teach how to create a positive reality that allows one to see the possibilities for a happy life. Because research tells us that the way we frame a situation is predictive of the outcome. We refer to a person who does this as a Positive Luminary – they are someone who sees solutions, possibilities and connections that are unseen by the average person.

Course Topics:

• The rise of Pollyanna

• Definition of a Positive Luminary

• Understanding our perceptions

• Recognizing alternate realities

• Pursing the most valuable realities

• Noise canceling strategies

• How to recognize the signal

• Canceling the internal noise

• The Tetris effect

• Finding value in contrast

• The 20-second rule

• Tribe

 

Positive Psychology – Course Two (6.5 hours)

Transferring Your Positive Reality 

We are constantly transmitting information to others, even if we don’t say a word.

Part two of this course will teach how to transfer your positive reality to others.

Much of our behavior is literally contagious. The vision of reality we see and share changes other people; we illuminate paths that may have never been seen or considered which can move people from paralysis to activation. Our habits, attitudes and actions spread through a complicated web of connections to infect those around us (research says, on average 1,000 people).

Course Topics:

• A shared positive reality

• The ripple effect

• Pygmalion effect

• Emotions are contagious

• 5 strategies for positive illumination

  • Franchise success

  • Rewrite the social script

  • Blaze the trail

  • Fact checking

  • Retreat without resistance

• Action plan

 

Breakdown of training:

• Each course is 6.5 hours – which includes two 15-minute breaks and a 30-minute lunch

• 45% - Lecture, 25% - Discussion, 30% - Activity (experiential learning)