Pathological Positivity

Live On Purpose Radio is now Pathological Positivity: same show, new name. In this solo launch episode, Dr. Paul Jenkins explains where the name comes from. It is the title of his first book, and it came from a moment with his editor, Thomas Cantrell, when Dr. Paul mentioned he had been accused of being pathologically positive. Thomas stopped him and said that was the title. In psychology, pathological can mean disconnected from reality, and it can also mean compulsively driven, like a pathological liar who can't stop. Dr. Paul borrows that second sense on purpose: a dogged determination to choose a positive position, no matter the circumstances. He also looks back at how the show began. In 2007 he anchored a Thursday edition of a talk radio series on K Talk in the Salt Lake City market, and found out on his way to the office that his slot was gone. A friend suggested he put the show on a podcast, back before podcasting was a thing. After nearly twenty years and 726 weekly episodes, the radio name has served its purpose. The new name better reflects the contribution he wants to make: meaningful frameworks that turn knowledge into action, because it doesn't make a difference until it gets into your shoes. Dr. Paul draws a line between this and toxic positivity, the paste-on-a-smile version that dismisses real pain. Genuine positivity acknowledges reality, including the disappointments and difficulties, and then chooses how to engage with it. He notes that attitude literally means position, an aviation term for the plane's position relative to the horizon. It doesn't tell you where you are, but it tells you where you're going. He gives a quick look at the positivity model's two mental processes, evaluation and creation, and why metacognition, thinking about your thinking, puts you in a position of power. Awareness precedes choice. For this new season, he promises three things: real psychology, remarkable stories, and a radically different way to live. He invites listeners to recommend guests, and closes with a word about Positives, the platform where these ideas become daily, weekly, and monthly practices. Breakthrough learning changes what you know. Transformational learning changes who you become. There's a free sample at pathologicalpositivity.com/positives. Learn more about the show at pathologicalpositivity.com and about Dr. Paul's work at drpauljenkins.com.

In this solo episode of Live On Purpose Radio, Dr. Paul Jenkins takes on a quiet assumption many of us carry: as soon as I feel motivated, then I'll do it. We wait to feel like exercising, having the hard conversation, or changing the habit. His point is that motivation is a feeling, not a prerequisite. Feelings are not commands, and they don't have to come first. Motivation is useful when it shows up, but it is unreliable as a strategy because our energy, our circumstances, and the stories we tell about them can change on a dime. He also warns against hearing "I don't feel like it" as "I can't do this right now." When the alarm goes off, Dr. Paul suggests asking a new question. Instead of "do I feel like exercising?", ask "am I committed to my health?" He draws on Mel Robbins' five second rule. Count down from five to one, then take a physical action like sitting up or putting your feet on the floor. A countdown ends in a launch, which is why counting up doesn't work. Once you move, you have momentum, and progress is what makes us feel motivated. As he puts it, don't wait for motivation to create movement. Use movement to create motivation. He ties this back to episode 724 and the idea that action is part of the practice that strengthens a new neural pathway. To make the first step doable, Dr. Paul suggests making it ridiculously small. Don't write the book, open the document and write one paragraph, even if it says "I don't even know what to write." Don't fix the relationship, start one meaningful conversation. Don't become a positive person, catch one negative thought today and reconsider it. He adds that meaning is more powerful than motivation. Motivation asks whether you feel like doing this, while meaning asks why it matters, who benefits, and who you are becoming through the practice. When the why is strong enough, the feeling becomes optional. The episode closes with an invitation. Think of one thing you already know matters, something you have been waiting to feel motivated to do, and do five minutes of it without checking how you feel. Then notice what happens to the feeling once you get moving. You can steer a moving car, but not a parked one. Dr. Paul also mentions that the podcast is heading into a refresh and rebrand soon, and that Positives is a place for practicing these ideas rather than just consuming them. There's a free positivity power pack to sample at liveonpurposeradio.com/positives. Learn more about the show at liveonpurposeradio.com and about Dr. Paul's work at drpauljenkins.com.

In this solo episode of Live On Purpose Radio, Dr. Paul Jenkins takes on one of the most common laments he has heard in his practice: why do I do what I do when I know what I know? His answer is good news. Your brain is not malfunctioning. It is doing something it is remarkably good at, which is automating whatever you have already practiced. Neural pathways turn repeated experiences into cruise control, the same way walking, typing, or driving a car become automatic without a conscious thought. That same process runs on our thoughts. We carry practiced ways of judging our circumstances, ourselves, and the people around us, and we have rehearsed some of those patterns thousands of times over decades. So when an old thought shows up on its own, there is no reason for guilt or shame. Familiar does not mean true. It means practiced. Dr. Paul introduces metacognition, thinking about thinking, as the place to start, because it creates a little space and that space is where choice lives. He also offers a shift in language: instead of "I'm just a negative person" or "I'm just an anxious person," try "I have become very practiced at noticing things negatively." A practiced pattern can be practiced differently. To show what reprogramming takes, he describes the scrambled keyboards he brings to corporate trainings, with the keys popped off and put back in the wrong places. Most people need about forty-five seconds to type their own first name on one. Nobody would bother learning that layout without a reason, and that is the point. Two things are required to build a new neural pathway: meaning or purpose, and repetition. Meaning is essential but not enough on its own. You still have to take the keyboard home and put in the reps. He also reminds listeners not to confuse unfamiliar with unnatural, and points back to episode 721, "Now do it again tomorrow." The episode closes with a question and an invitation. What are you practicing? Notice one thought pattern today that seems to run automatically, without beating yourself up, and ask whether it is a pattern you want to keep practicing. You have thoughts, but you are not your thoughts. October's theme on Positives is the brain, "the owner's manual." Positives is built for transformational learning through daily, weekly, and monthly practices, with the daily ones starting at three minutes a day. There's a free sample at liveonpurposeradio.com/positives. Learn more about the show at liveonpurposeradio.com and about Dr. Paul's work at drpauljenkins.com.

In this solo episode of Live On Purpose Radio, Dr. Paul Jenkins takes on the question he has heard most often in three decades of clinical work: why do I do what I do when I know what I know? His answer starts with an image. Picture yourself stuck inside a box, with the instructions for getting out printed on the outside. You can't read them from where you're standing, and that has nothing to do with intelligence, motivation, or capability. It is a matter of perspective, and it is the first reason he gives for why all of us need coaches. We experience everything from inside our own minds, Dr. Paul explains, and our biggest error is believing what we think. Assumptions don't feel like assumptions. They feel like reality, which is why blind spots stay blind. He shares a moment from a retreat with his coach Jody Moore, where two dozen people each took an hour in the hot seat over three full days. When his turn came, he laid out everything going on in his business and his mind, then paused for the coaching. Jody's whole response was, "Well, that's a thought." He had believed he was describing his circumstances. She showed him he was describing his thoughts about them. A coach, he adds, does not know your life better than you do. What a coach has is the one thing you cannot give yourself: an outside perspective. The second reason is that information is not transformation. Dr. Paul returns to the difference between breakthrough learning, when the lights come on, and transformational learning, when practice slowly changes who you are, and compares it to learning the piano until his hands knew where to go without thinking. Then he adds the third piece: another human. Change happens in relationship. A promise made only to yourself usually leaves a back door cracked open, and telling a coach or accountability partner closes it. He explains the difference between real friends and deal friends, and why he felt free to make his coaching relationships entirely about his own growth. He loves the way his daughter defines commitment: doing what you said you'd do after the feeling you had when you said it has passed. The episode closes with an invitation. Maybe you don't need another book, another podcast, or another breakthrough. Maybe the instructions are already printed on the outside of your box, and you need someone standing outside it to read them to you. Dr. Paul built Positives to support both kinds of learning, with daily, weekly, and monthly practices plus private and group coaching. There's a free sample at liveonpurposeradio.com/positives. Learn more about the show at liveonpurposeradio.com and about Dr. Paul's work at drpauljenkins.com.

In this solo episode of Live On Purpose Radio, Dr. Paul Jenkins records while gathered with his Positivity Artisans group, a small circle he meets with a few times a year for deeper, in-person work on the principles of positivity. Ahead of this retreat the group read Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now together, and rereading it put the idea of presence squarely on his mind. He offers listeners two simple invitations drawn from that reading: get here, and get now. Get here means noticing that your body can occupy only one place, even when your mind has checked out somewhere else. Dr. Paul lists the familiar ways this shows up: eating dinner with the family while thinking about work, sitting in a meeting while scrolling a phone, talking with a spouse while replaying yesterday, spending time with the kids while running through tomorrow's to-do list. He returns to a principle he often teaches, that awareness precedes choice. Then he borrows a small example from Tolle: washing dishes while feeling the warmth of the water and the texture of the soap, instead of treating the task as something to get through on the way to the next thing. Get now is the second half of the invitation, built on the idea that now is the only moment in which anyone can act. Dr. Paul walks through why the past is useful for learning and the future is useful for planning, but neither one can be lived in. He calls it a kind of insanity to get pulled outside the now: regret, guilt, and shame come from dwelling in the past, while anxiety and worry come from rehearsing a future that has not happened yet. He connects this to the phrase "it is what it is," arguing that presence is not about pretending things are fine, but about facing what is true right now so you can ask, now what. That is where the present becomes a gift in the fullest sense. Not because the moment always feels good, but because it is the only place where choice and power live. He closes by tying the idea to the platform he has spent the past year building, Positives. It grows out of a distinction from a recent episode between breakthrough learning and transformational learning, since presence, like positivity, is something practiced rather than known. Learn more about the show at liveonpurposeradio.com and about Dr. Paul's work at drpauljenkins.com.