tapping the power of purpose & service
about jeff bell
Jeff Bell is a nationally recognized author, speaker, and radio news anchor. His two books, REWIND, REPLAY, REPEAT (Hazelden/2007) and WHEN IN DOUBT, MAKE BELIEF (New World Library/2009), have established Bell as a leading authority on uncertainty and motivation. Since RRR’s publication, Bell has traveled extensively across the United States, becoming a sought-after motivational speaker, while lending his support to numerous nonprofit organizations, including Mental Health America and the International OCD Foundation, for which he serves as a national spokesperson.
Bell’s inspiring personal story has attracted the attention of The Wall Street Journal, CNN, CBS, PBS, NPR, Psychology Today, DETAILS Magazine, and The New York Times, for which he was commissioned to write a feature that ran internationally in 2008. He has appeared on more than 50 television and radio programs in cities across the country, including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Denver, Washington, D.C., Seattle, and Boston.
As a speaker, Bell has keynoted national conferences, presented countless workshops and seminars, and moderated audience discussions with such notable figures as CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta, The Oprah Show’s Dr. Mehmet Oz, and Nobel Prize winner Andrew Fire.
Bell is a 20-year veteran of radio and television news and currently co-anchors the afternoon news at KCBS Radio, the CBS Network’s San Francisco flagship and one of the nation’s most respected and successful radio news operations. He is also a regular online writer for Psychology Today.
With a master’s degree in business administration, a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering, and a wealth of hard-earned experience battling with, and recovering from, the so-called “doubting disease,” Bell offers his audiences a unique, engaging, and insightful perspective on the many challenges that uncertainty presents and the “greater good” decision-making techniques that can motivate anyone to thrive amidst these challenges.
The Greater Good Perspective Shift (GGPS) is a motivation technique Jeff developed--out of necessity, really--to combat the rigors of traditional (exposure/response-prevention) OCD therapy. At its crux, the GGPS is a simple but powerful tool for motivating oneself to sit with the discomfort of uncertainty--whether battling clinical anxiety or just everyday fear-based doubt. The basic tenets are as follows:
> Extreme doubt and fear distort our decision-making, seemingly reducing our choices to but two: "right" vs. "wrong" or "good" vs. "bad."
> As seen through the distorted lens of unhealthy doubt, "good" choices are those that reduce our anxiety, while "bad" choices are those that increase our fear and introduce uncertainty.
> Because compulsive actions such as repeated reassurance-seeking, avoidance, excessive checking, and ruminating tend to (temporarily) reduce our anxiety, we often see them as "good" choices.
> A "Greater Good" framework acknowledges the perceived (though distorted) "good" of acting on such compulsive choices, but also introduces a "greater good" choice—one that, in some way, is of service to others or enhances our own sense of purpose.
> Because "purpose and service" tend to trump "fear and doubt" as human motivators, this framework shift serves to lead those gripped by doubt to far more productive decisions… including those essential to living with uncertainty.
For a more complete overview of the Greater Good Perspective Shift please see Jeff's recent "Choosing Greater Good" blog for Psychology Today.