Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. Philippians 4:8-9
In several industries in which I worked during the economic crisis, particularly ones that were highly sales driven, I began to notice a syndrome very similar to what Martin Seligman termed learned helplessness. It is a condition in which the person adapts to the misery because they feel that there is nothing they can do about it. It is totally out of their control. Bad market or bad economy equals bad results. That is their mental map, and they act accordingly…
But I saw something else going on as well. In several of these situations, even when I saw stuckness and an adaptation to the misery as the new normal, I also observed some high performance occurring too, sometimes right down the hall. In other words, same market, same external conditions, yet a different set of behaviors and results. Why? The difference was in the brains, the mental models, of the ones who were performing versus the ones who weren’t.
First of all, those who were not stuck had a different map of the world. Some did not assume that “there are no buyers right now.” They thought instead that in the chaos, there were many, many potential customers who needed to be shepherded through the challenging environment and were being ignored. So they got even busier and contacted them. This was true in several industries that I observed, even the “deadest” ones, like real estate.
Second, their focus was different. They did not spend their time and energy focusing on all of the things that were falling apart that they could do nothing about. Instead, they thought hard and fast about what they could do. In a learned-helplessness model, the brain begins to interpret events in a negative way, thus reinforcing its belief that “all is bad.” For instance, when someone doesn’t get a sale, it means “I am a loser, the whole business is bad, and it isn’t going to change.”
These are called by Seligman and others the three P’s. Events are processed in predictable, negative ways: first, as personalized (I am a bad salesperson); second, as pervasive (everything I do, or every aspect of
the business, is bad); and third, as permanent (nothing is going to change). You can easily see why this leads to helplessness and inactivity.
But the productive people did not think in a learned-helplessness way. Their internal software was more optimistic, seeing a “non-sale” as just one more number to get past to get to the one that was going to buy and sustaining other such optimistic-thinking paradigms.”
Henry Cloud in Necessary Endings: The Employees, Businesses, and Relationships That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Move Forward (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2011) 49-50.
I am enjoying this book and will post from it for another week or so.
Then I am excited to “write” a new Lent devotional book in real time in my Daily Meditations this year for world release next year. I will share the title and theme next Tuesday as Lent starts on 18 February 2026.
Related to today’s post, I see this concept all the time in Christian workers who have partnership or fundraising responsibilities. I ask a few questions and see they are lost in a state of learned helplessness.
When fundraisers focus on results they cannot control rather than doing the faithful work of inviting people to participate in God’s work, they see no fruits the three P’s play out.
First, they personalize it thinking that they cannot raise funds like the other people. When in reality, God supplies the funds, not people. People do the work of communicating giving opportunities and doing diligent follow up.
Second, the learned helplessness becomes pervasive. It causes them to lose sight of their mission. They act as though God has abandoned them. Or they pin the blame on external factors when they have an internal issue.
Third, the toxic mindset metastasizes. It becomes permanent. The only way out of this is found in today’s Scripture. They have to focus on what is true and right and good and put it into practice. The fruit will come.
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