Tom Wootton on Our Bipolar Economy
Tom Wootton has taken his personal experience with bipolar disorder and shifted the universal paradigm.
As a former accelerative learning trainer for major corporations, and the author of “The Bipolar Advantage” and “The Depression Advantage,” Wootton challenges pervasive attitudes about serious mental illness and charts a different course looking at the positive as well as negative aspects of those conditions.
Through Bipolar Advantage, a company that teaches individuals how to turn their symptoms into assets, Wootton’s mission is to “help people with mental conditions shift their thinking and behavior so that they can lead extraordinary lives.”
“We are dedicated to the concept that recovery does not have to be limited to 90% of full function; true recovery means doing the hard work that brings you to 150%! We strongly believe that we can turn our ‘condition’ into one that becomes an advantage instead of an ‘illness’ or a ‘disorder’,” says Wootton.
Through talks, workshops, videos and books, Wootton and Bipolar Advantage have helped thousands of people to realign their thinking with their realities and turn disadvantages into assets. And now he’s applying those techniques and skills to corporate America.
According to Wootton, “In recent months discussions about the boom and bust cycles of our economy going back to the Great Depression have been the focus of many news stories. During boom cycles companies experience periods of inflated feelings of power or delusions of grandeur, characterized by excessive risk taking and out of control spending. During bust cycles companies experience periods of indecisiveness, black and white thinking, loss of energy and fatigue, even feelings of worthlessness and suicidal thoughts. These reactions are classic symptoms of bipolar.”
He goes on to say “Businesses can be trained to understand how different reactions and thought processes are assets when they are acted upon with the powerful understanding of bipolar conditions. Training individuals, management groups, and CEOs to recognize ‘bipolar’ assets and how to utilize them… shifts companies from immobility to confidence and action. Bipolar Advantage teaches essential tools for weathering the current global financial changes.”
Consider the Bipolar Advantage perspective on the following questions:
Is there any evidence that a Bipolar Economy is an advantage for business?
Yes, there’s a great deal of evidence. Companies can and do prosper during times of economic turmoil. What do GE, Disney, HP and Microsoft have in common? They were all startups during steep declines in the U.S. economy. GE started during the panic of 1873, Disney started during the recession of 1923-24, HP began during the Great Depression, and Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft during the recession of 1975. All these companies realized that they had an advantage by adopting a different mindset, a different way of seeing the crisis. They saw it as an opportunity.
How can a business turn market turmoil into an advantage?
Bipolar Advantage can help by bringing in experts who can shift a business’s thinking from a reactive fear-based response to one that is creative and opportunistic. Wootton emphasizes, “With a keen understanding of how the mind functions in different states and how to best utilize those states, Bipolar Advantage can take your company way beyond the pop psychology of positive thinking.”
What is this shift in thinking?
Generally speaking, companies that not only survived but also thrived during the Great Depression were those that took advantage of their creative capital; those people who already knew how to manage the mood swings in their own personalities. Those that understand their strengths and are able to use deep introspection to explore opportunities in a crisis are the ones who excel in turbulent times.
These are compelling ideas for compelling times.
I think Tom Wootton is joining the long list of brilliant minds whose mental “illness” led to amazing accomplishment.
What are your thoughts?
