Dr. Andrew Shatte’ (co-author of The Resilience Factor) and I founded Adaptiv Learning Systems in 1997 to develop and deliver resilience training programs based in part on the Learned Optimism research that Seligman, Reivich and Shatte’ conducted at the University of Pennsylvania. The book The Resilience Factor describes Adaptiv’s 7 Skills of Resilience, and I would recommend this book over Learned Optimism for anyone seriously looking to boost their personal resilience. Since inception, we have trained more than 20,000 corporate employees in these skills either in group workshops or in one-on-one coaching sessions, and The Resilience Factor content reflects much of that experience.

For readers of The Resilience Factor: When you get to the RQ Test, I invite you to go to http://www.adaptivlearning.com/rfidemo to access the Resilience Factor Inventory (RFI) – an online, self-scoring resilience assessment. The RQ Test in the book is an abridged version of the RFI and it is a bear to score by hand.

By the way, Mr. Diedrich is absolutely right about the ABC Model being the work of Albert Ellis. And I believe we credited him in The Resilience Factor.

Finally, for any of you who are really into the Explantory Style (ES) stuff, I’d like to add to the conversation. First of all, there are as many possible ES types as can be generated in a 3×3 matrix. However, Always/Everything and Not Always/Not Everything tend to cluster together, i.e., we rarely see a “Me/Always/Not Everything” or a “Not Me/Not Always/Everything” thinker, for example. It is also not true that Me’s are likely to also be Always and Everything’s. In fact, we run into a large number of Me/Not Always/Not Everything thinkers in Corporate America. If you think about it, this is a pretty resilient style. When facing a challenge, a “M/NA/NE” will see the problem as solvable and changeable by him.

In the Seligman lab in the late ’80′s and early ’90′s, it was commonly believed that it was the “Me/Not Me” dimension of ES that was the primary indicator of pessimism (Me) vs. optimism (Not Me). However, more current research has shown that in fact it is the Always and Everything dimensions that drags you down.

Further, while a Not Me/Not Always/Not Everything style may help someone keep his optimism and self esteem intact regardless of the situation, the Not Me dimension can keep that person from finding solutions to a problem that are in fact in their control.

The real trick with ES is to first understand your own style, and then to flex around it not necessarily to get to optimism, but to get to accuracy.

Finally, for the reader that commented that it would be nice if our kids could learn to be resilient in their teens, there is a powerful e-learning program for kids that has recently come available. You can learn more at http://www.adaptivlearning.com/index.php?page=e-learning-for-kids.

Sorry for the long post, but I hope it provides some value.

I’m trying to reacquiant myself with myself and develop a stronger sense of who I am and from there build confidence in knowing who I am.
I’ll echo the obvious and say this is a great post– was really looking forward to the resiliency posts and this didn’t disappoint.