Reality-Based Leadership: Ditch the Drama, Restore Sanity to the Workplace, and Turn Excuses into Results

Chapter 2. If You Argue with Reality, You Lose (but Only 100 Percent of the Time): How to Heal Your Relationship with Reality

Now that you recognize how destructive the habit of arguing with reality can be, and how little it serves you, it's time to let it go. This chapter centers on a very powerful idea: stress is not caused by what happens to us; it is caused by the stories we tell ourselves about what happens to us. Often these stories have no bearing on reality, and the truth is much less unpleasant than what we have imagined in our minds. I'm going to show you how to reduce your stress by questioning your stories and learning to tell different ones.

First, let's look at Figure 2.1 for the chain of events that leads from an event to its (albeit ...