Self-learning 03 // If you are facing difficulties, you should look at [Inverse Quotient]

In Adverse Quotient, author Paul Stoltz divides people into three categories: quitters, campers , and climbers . These three types of people may appear in us, and even among our friends.

Give up: Do not want to work hard, often withdraw and escape. You tell him to work hard, but he always thinks he doesn't need it, he can't face his failure.

Camper: Might make some effort to gain some status, but when it gets to that point he stops and doesn't keep trying. Many times, he will say that I have worked hard before, and it is good that I have experienced such an experience.

Climbers: They won't set a frame for their own life, and constantly break through themselves

I think the author of this book used the metaphor of adversity with a tree growing out of a stone crevice, which impressed me. He used the tree as an analogy. The leaves are our personal expression, showing who we are, whether we have the ability, what we do; the branches represent our talents and desires; the trunk is our intelligence, health and Character, if the body is not healthy and the energy is not enough, how can I work hard? And the roots below represent our genes, such as family influences and our beliefs. The metaphor of this tree also means whether we will be like the tree that grows out of a crack in the stone.

 Life is all hardships after all hardships.

In this society, we face at least three levels of adversity, which come from the society, the workplace and the individual .

Do people around you often talk to you about money, status, whether you have bought a house? Skills, or the sense of crisis that some jobs have been replaced by robots under the development of the Internet and technology; personally, is the physical condition worsening day by day, resulting in mentally affected and even sensitive.

Every morning from opening our eyes is a series of choices to see how we face it. However, in the process of moving forward, the author also mentioned four forks that will be encountered:

1. Climbers become campers. Regress from an enterprising person to a person who thinks that it is good to work hard and is unwilling to move forward.
2. Too much hope is placed on the technology of the future, and now the problem is put aside and hope that someone will solve it in the future.
3. Fight chicken blood, shout slogans. Because of the specific purpose of bringing a group of people together, suddenly emotional excitement lacks some rational judgment, and is immersed in this excited emotion, obsessed with this kind of excited state of shouting slogans.
4. Going on a cycle of helplessness and hopelessness, when you feel that it is helpless and can't be solved, so there is no hope. There is an endless loop, and there is no motivation to change the status quo.

 The theory of inverse quotient is supported by three theories: cognitive psychology, new health theory and brain science. The authors also provide us with four directions for measuring the inverse quotient, called CORE

• C (control) sense of control:

This sense of control was mentioned in the second self-study [Empowerment] book yesterday, and in this book, this sense of control is that we face

In times of adversity, ask yourself if we can control it, and what else can I do if it can. When we have control in the face of adversity, our ability to face adversity will increase, otherwise, if we have no sense of control in the face of adversity, we will fall into a victim mentality.

• O (ownership) responsibility:

When faced with adversity ask yourself what can I do? What was my role in this matter?

• R (reach) influence degree:

Indicates how serious this thing is, will this thing kill me?

• E (endurance) Sustainability:

How long will this thing last?

Let me share a recent experience of mine. I participated in two book clubs. In the original one, I would listen to one book a day. After I joined the second book club, I started to listen to two books a day, and then in the second book club community. To share my own experience and learn the ability to formulate and summarize, my goal is not high, that is to go to the community every day to share the experience of a book. It should have lasted for almost a month, and the system has been broken these two days, so I found the problem and reported it first, and now I thought that it was too bad to complete the performance of the two books today. Is the habit I cultivated due to the broken system? What if you were in such a situation? Some people will choose the camper mentality, thinking that they will wait for the system to improve before continuing, or find customer service and criticize such services with a user-paid mentality. It is indeed not good to get such an experience under the condition of payment. Yes, but who wouldn't encounter such a thing. In the end, I chose to maintain the capacity of two books a day through another book club platform. I first asked the original book order of the platform to try to find some information, and continued to maintain the habit of sharing every day in my original community. I still have the ability to take control and find what I can do through another platform, although it is not serious, but I can still continue, even in the face of system failure, I am still a climber.

 How can you improve your adversary quotient? The author provides the LEAD method:

• L (listen) listens to your own adversity reaction: The author says that you can remind yourself that adversity is coming in a funny way, and learn to detect when adversity occurs.
• E (explore) explore your own responsibility for the outcome: use your creativity to think about who is responsible for this. According to my recent example, although the failure of the system is the responsibility of the book club itself, it is not the book club's responsibility for me to learn by myself. Only I can make myself continue to improve and move forward.
• A (analyze) to analyze the evidence, you can ask yourself three questions:

1. Is this situation out of control?
2. What other aspects will this affect?
3. Will this difficulty last long?

• D(do) Do something: Use the funnel method to list the things that you can do in the face of this matter, and which one is helpful to yourself or even to society.

In fact, the CORE and LEAD methods are very close, but I think it is also a good way to check yourself all the time when analyzing what happens in your daily life.

The above mentioned control, if you will fall into a victim mentality when facing adversity is uncontrollable , the author provides us with a way not to enter the victim mentality:

1. Diversion: Block your habitual thinking, don't let yourself get stuck in a situation you can't control all the time, you can pat yourself on the table to distract yourself.
2. Minimization: Don't magnify your difficulties. You can go to see the sky, the sea, and look down from high floors. I like the feeling of looking down from high floors, because you will find that you are very small underneath. And it is precisely because we can see more different scenery from a height, and pay attention to the goals we are concerned about again. It should be said that the gains and losses of ourselves that we don’t always think about can also make us return to our original intentions. I don't know how everyone uses to get back to their original aspirations.

After learning [Adverse Quotient] today, it is even more challenging to face every dilemma. I hope that when facing any dilemma, I can always maintain the mentality of a climber and continue to make myself better than yesterday!

📚Learning today: 【Inverse quotient】

🙎‍♂️️By Paul Stoltz

⏳The proponent of inverse quotient theory is also the developer and researcher of inverse quotient assessment, inverse quotient development projects and tools.

📌Adverse quotient: refers to your ability to deal with adversity.