The Productive Pessimist

Hi - my name's Ash, and I'm the co-founder, Director, and lead consultant for The Productive Pessimist. (And, as you can probably tell from my 'Resting-What-Fresh-Hell-Is-This?-Face, the reason why the company is called The Productive Pessimist  in the first place!) Apologies for the face, by the way - I'm not that good-looking at the best of times, and I hate doing selfies! I also don't take very good selfies anyway, owing to significant visual impairment. (I'm registered blind, and losing what sight I have - left eye only, currently around 45% - a bit more rapidly than I'd like.) However, the terrible selfie that starts this blog post sets us up nicely for a segue into the main topic; How the heck do these rules work, anyway?! The 'rules' for succeeding at interviews, in work, when you launch a company, in the first three years of running a company, are basically the equivalent of riding a bike. Except the bike is missing three gears. And the chain

  Today is International Day of Happiness. We're The Productive Pessimist; those two things may seem to be completely at odds.   Can pessimists be happy?  Isn't pessimism essentially a guarantee of lifelong discontent? Pessimism is actually more likely to create a state of calm, enduring happiness, because pessimism prevents unrealistic expectations from being built into believable ambitions. Pessimists have dreams, like everyone else, but they are grounded in a realism that has been subjected to often quite extreme analysis. Just because a dream doesn't make it through this analysis, it doesn't mean a pessimist can't or won't indulge it; sometimes, it can be pleasant to play with a dream which we know won't go anywhere - after all, if the dream is acknowledged as impossible, we can enjoy our ideal of it, without any risk of having to encounter the downsides which come with any dream. Dreams which make it through a pessimist's analysis much more readily

This week (March 18th-24th 2024) is Neurodiversity Celebration Week. As a neurodiverse-led organisation (our Director, co-founder, and lead Trainer, Morgana, has ADHD and autism, both of which were diagnosed in adulthood, but which influenced her experience of childhood and adolescence), The Productive Pessimist are aware that 'celebration' can feel like a very loaded word, both to people who live with a particular condition or experience, and to those who work with them, educate them, and parent them. Social media, in particular, has often centred white-passing female/femme individuals, who are highly verbal, skilled at art, and with strong social skills as "neurodiversity rep", a backlash to society's frequent presentation of socially-inept, emotionally unavailable men, or hyperactive boys, often as the "accepted medical presentation" of neurodiversity. Many people would ask how someone who is non-verbal, someone who lacks awareness of their basic bodi

  We've had the UK Spring Budget 2024. We've had the media commentary on Jeremy Hunt's Budget. You may be scratching your head, wondering what you're supposed to do  with all the information about the information you have. What's the best move? Where should your business be? How screwed are you? Here at The Productive Pessimist, we're all about keeping it simple, whilst respecting that you're not stupid. So: Are You Screwed? If you earn under £32,500 a year, probably. But, then, you probably already knew that. However, the freeze on tax bands means the best advice is not  "get a better paid job".   As the government has opened up the definition of 'high net worth individual', enabling more people to qualify as 'sophisticated' investors, and thus be approved to take a chance on unproven entrepreneurs, the best thing you can do if you're not making £32,500 a year is to get together a business plan, and a series of pitch decks (we

  Have you been watching BBC One's The Apprentice over the past few weeks? (or years, for many of us?!) Here at The Productive Pessimist , our Director, Ash, has been a fan of the show from the beginning - he even got an audition for the 2011 series! (Unfortunately, he was out of work at the time, and ended up having to go to a less illustrious job interview on the same day... he didn't even get the job... the paths we didn't take, eh?) We all sort of know, the way we do with all 'reality' shows, that it's probably not as disastrous as it seems. Editing can tell a completely different story to what actually went on, and how many of us would actually tune in every week to see people being competent, capable professionals? (Our bosses tell us that's what we go to work for!) However true or constructed it may be, all we have to go on as far as the capabilities of the wannabes are concerned is what we see when we switch on. Which...isn't always that inspiri

Are you a pessimist wondering whether life coaching would actually support you?  A question many people ask us is: "Does life coaching work for people who are pessimistic?"   Many people will tell you it doesn't, that pessimists don't have the open-mindedness required to engage effectively with life coaching. At The Productive Pessimist, we firstly don't just  work with other pessimists - we actually like to work with people who have a different outlook to us, although, obviously, we have a natural connection with our fellow pessimists who are looking to become more productive. If you're wondering whether life coaching from The Productive Pessimist is for you, the following extract from our book "People Have a Problem With Your Attitude", which is available to order for just £4.99, or is sent free when you book a life coaching, business coaching, or business consultancy session with us (email us at theproductivepessimist@yahoo.com to order your copy,

  Do you love your job?  Do you love your life? What would you most love to do? What's your heart's desire for your business, yourself, your family? Other coaches talk a lot about 'love'.  Every other piece of professional advice tells you to 'find a job you love.' What do they actually mean when they use 'love' like this? Clearly, no one's suggesting you get into the same mindset around going to work Monday morning, sitting through yet another PowerPoint presentation, or organising the kids and arranging the online grocery deliveries as the thought of a hot date with someone who hits all your buttons, or a weekend spent in the company of your best mate puts you in.  And we're definitely not advocating that 'married to the job' should be a literal matter of legally-validated fact. You're not going to be serenading your office block, or sending a dozen roses to your project teams.  You're not going to be inviting your new hire out