Customer Reviews

Paradoxical Thinking: How to Profit from Your Contradictions

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When I heard about this book, I did not quite know what to expect. Reading things like 'How to profit from your contradictions' and 'bringing together the paradoxical sides of yourself to achieve outstanding results', I feared it might turn out to be kind of vague and superficial. But I decided to give the book the benefit of the doubt, because I quite liked Jerry Fletcher's previous book "Patterns of High Performance".

How wrong can you be in your expectations...The book turned out to be a downright fascinating read! The book describes with great clarity a very specific step-by-step method by which you can identify seemingly contradictory characteristics of yourself (the authors call this your 'core paradox'). Both of these contradictory characteristics can be expressed either in a negative way or in a positive way.

When these contradictory characteristics are expressed in their most negative way, a nightmare-scenario can follow. When this happens, a person swings back and forth between the two (negative) sides of the paradox, leaving him or her hopeless, without energy and ineffective. However, when these contradictory characteristics are expressed in their most positive way, both (positive) sides of the paradox are simultaneously present.

Because of this, you can produce creative resolutions of dilemma's that previously seemed intractable. Using a tool called 'Fletcher's pendulum', you can figure out how to get from the negative expression of your core paradox to a positive expression. How this exactly works, you should of course read in the book. It has many examples and is packed with practical wisdom. I found it extremely valuable.

Jerry L. Fletcher and Kelley Olwyler examine how you use paradoxical thinking - contradictory ways of approaching a situation. Then, they discuss ways to use your paradoxes to your strategic advantage. You can use their "pendulum" to help you recognize the positive and negative ways you express these paradoxes - so you can apply the positive actions to difficult situations. They invite readers to analyze themselves and resolve a current problem. The book can help you devise more creative solutions to personal and work situations. However, while the system is fairly straightforward, elements do seem complicated and may be difficult to apply on your own. We [...] recommend this book as a novel approach to problem solving and a worthy way to regard goal setting without the nagging voice of consistency in your ear.

Paradoxical Thinking is a very effective step-by-step guide for really getting down to understanding the core aspects of our individual nature and how they can work together synergistically-- or cause a nightmare of inner conflict. Jerry and Kelle show us how to discover and reclaim our seemingly contradictory qualities and use them to get through apparent impasses. This book is great for self-help, for coaching, and for collaborative thinking. Recognizing my own oxymoronic nature is definitely helpful in making my way in the world. Discovering my "Nightmare Oxymoron" was a blast. I recommend it.

I have got to say I am thoroughly impressed by the process in this book. The idea that we pendulate between two types of extreme responses (go for it and depression!) to problems we can't solve is perhaps not inspired but how to actually use our personal paradoxical reactions to create new options is. At first I thought "Oh great! A whole book to learn the process" but it's actually quite simple and the majority of the rest of the book is examples of using Fletcher's pendulum in action. I am absolutely going to use this in my coaching practice and if you have problems you can't make any headway on this is definitely the book for you. One of the best personal development reads this year.

The book arrived in excellent condition and on time.

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