The Temptation to Leap
"So now I know my D'," Sarah said, reviewing our work from the previous session. "I stay quiet in leadership meetings and defer to whoever spoke last. What's next — figuring out what I want instead?"
"Exactly. We need to define D — where you want to go."
"Easy." She sat forward, decisive for the first time in our conversation. "I want to be the kind of leader who walks into that room and is heard. The one the CEO turns to first. A voice that holds its ground."
I paused. "That's a beautiful aspiration. But it's not D."
Sarah looked confused. "Why not? That's what I want."
"I know. And that's exactly why it's dangerous to start there."
The Aspiration Trap
Here's where most people go wrong—and where the Perry Approach diverges sharply from conventional wisdom.
When asked "What do you want instead?", our minds leap to ideals. We imagine the finished product, the transformed self, the perfect outcome. Sarah pictures herself as the commanding voice she's admired in others her whole career. David envisions being a calm, secure leader who lets his team rise. Each of them has a vivid picture of who they want to become.
These aspirations feel motivating. They give us something to strive for.
But they're traps.
Breakthrough Principle: Your future state (D) must be the negation of your current state (D'), not your idealised vision of who you could become.
Why? Two reasons:
1. Aspirations Contain Assumptions
When Sarah says "I want to be the voice the CEO turns to first," she's already assumed she knows what success looks like. But does she? Her model of "being heard" comes from watching others — people whose internal experience she cannot know. Perhaps those leaders she admires are terrified inside. Perhaps their "presence" comes from a different source entirely than what Sarah imagines.
Starting with an aspiration means starting with assumptions about how to get what you want. The cloud process is designed to surface assumptions, not begin with them embedded invisibly in your destination.
2. Aspirations Limit Solutions
This is the most counterintuitive point, so stay with me.
When Sarah defines her goal as "being the voice the CEO turns to first," she's already constrained her solution space. She's decided what success looks like. But what if the most powerful version of Sarah isn't a commanding voice at all? What if her breakthrough is something entirely different — a quieter authority, a particular timing, a way of holding the room that doesn't look anything like the leaders she's been modelling? Something she can't currently imagine because she's been fixated on one picture of what "being heard" means.
By specifying the end state too precisely, you close doors before you know they exist.
A practitioner's aphorism: Be wary of a goal. One slip of a vowel and you end up in gaol.
The letters are the same; only the order shifts. And that's the trap — when you fix the destination too tightly, the goal stops opening doors and starts closing them. The picture of where you're heading becomes the cell you're heading into.
The Power of Negation
So if D isn't your aspiration, what is it?
D is simply NOT D'. It's the negation or reduction of your current behaviour.
Let's make this concrete:
D' (Current State) | D (Future State) |
I stay quiet in leadership meetings and defer to whoever spoke last | NOT stay quiet in leadership meetings and defer to whoever spoke last |
I take back work after setting up delegation | NOT take back work after setting up delegation |
I revise emails repeatedly before sending | NOT revise emails repeatedly before sending |
Notice what's happening here. D isn't a grand vision. It's simply NOT what you're currently doing. This might seem underwhelming compared to "commanding presence," but it's actually far more powerful.
Consider: if I ask you "What's the opposite of black?" you might say "white." But that's just one option. The opposite of black is any colour that isn't black — red, blue, green, purple, gold, silver, or colours that haven't yet been named. In the same way, the opposite of your current state isn't a single prescribed behaviour. It's an entire universe of possibilities.
Imagine driving a car with your foot on both the brake and the accelerator. Most people try to overcome a stuck pattern by pressing harder on the accelerator — more assertiveness training, more confidence building, more force. What happens? You burn out. You waste enormous energy going nowhere. The Perry Approach says: first, take your foot off the brake. That's what "NOT your current state" means.
Sarah Finds Her D
"Let me try again," Sarah said, putting aside her vision of being the voice the CEO turns to first. "My D' is that I stay quiet in leadership meetings and defer to whoever spoke last. So D would be..."
"Just negate it. NOT D'. Don't reach for something that sounds better."
"NOT stay quiet... and NOT defer to whoever spoke last?"
"Exactly."
She looked uncomfortable. "But that doesn't tell me what to do."
"Precisely. And that's the point. We don't know yet what you'll do instead. That's what the cloud process will reveal. If we decide now that D means 'speak with measured authority,' we've already assumed we know the answer."
Sarah's D: NOT stay quiet in leadership meetings and defer to whoever spoke last.
Notice: no mention of "commanding voice." No vision of being a transformational leader. No assumptions about what "speaking up" looks like in practice. Just NOT what she's currently doing.
"This feels... incomplete," Sarah admitted.
"Good. The incompleteness is the doorway. If it felt complete, you'd have closed down the possibilities before we've explored them."
David, the Other Side of the Same Step
The same trap catches David from the other direction.
When we worked his D' in Chapter 4 — I take back work after setting up delegation — and asked him to define D, he didn't reach for a commanding image. He reached for a virtuous one.
"I want to be the kind of leader who trusts his people," he said. "Who lets them rise. Who can sit with the discomfort of not controlling the outcome."
A beautiful aspiration. And the same trap.
"David, what's the assumption baked into 'trusts his people'?"
A pause. "That trust looks like not intervening."
"And what if trust looks like something else? What if your breakthrough isn't 'trust' as you currently imagine it, but a different relationship with the work entirely — one we can't picture yet?"
He sat with that for a moment. Then, slowly: "So my D is just... NOT take back work after setting up delegation?"
"That's it."
David's D: NOT take back work after setting up delegation.
Where Sarah's aspiration was about acquiring a voice she doesn't yet have, David's was about embodying a virtue he doesn't yet feel. Different textures, same trap. Both versions of D close down the discovery before it begins.
The NOT — for both of them — keeps the door open.
The Language of D
How you phrase D matters. The key principle: D is NOT D'.
Keep the NOT Explicit
D should explicitly negate D'. Don't convert it to a positive alternative.
- D': "I take back work after setting up delegation"
- D: "NOT take back work after setting up delegation"
The NOT does important work. It points away from your current behaviour without assuming you know where you'll land.
Avoid Identity Statements
D should negate a behaviour, not claim an identity.
- Wrong: "I'm a trusting leader" (identity/aspiration)
- Wrong: "I let my team complete their work" (positive alternative)
- Right: "NOT take the work back before completion" (negation of D')
Identity statements are aspirations in disguise. Positive alternatives assume you know the solution. NOT keeps the door open.
Match the Grain of D'
D should negate D' at the same level of specificity.
- D': "I revise emails repeatedly before sending"
- D: "NOT revise emails repeatedly before sending"
- D': "I delay all decisions until forced"
- D: "NOT delay all decisions until forced"
Mismatched grain creates confusion and makes the cloud harder to work with.
Avoid Overcorrection
A subtle trap: don't swing to the opposite extreme.
- D': "I work until midnight" → D: "NOT work until midnight" ✓
- D': "I work until midnight" → D: "Leave precisely at 5 PM" ✗ (overcorrection)
- D': "I stay silent in meetings" → D: "NOT stay silent in meetings" ✓
- D': "I stay silent in meetings" → D: "Speak up constantly" ✗ (overcorrection)
NOT D' is simple negation. Overcorrection is a new behaviour that swings to the opposite extreme. Stay with NOT.
Why This Feels Uncomfortable
If you're feeling frustrated that you can't define your grand vision as D, good. That frustration is data.
It means you've been carrying an image of your transformed self—a picture of who you want to become. That picture isn't wrong. It's valuable. But it doesn't belong in D.
It will reappear in A, the unified outcome we'll discover in Chapter 7. That's where your deepest aspirations live. That's where the purpose behind both D and D' reveals itself.
But we have to earn our way there. First, we need to understand what D gives you—that's B, the benefit of NOT doing your current behaviour. Then what D' gives you—that's C, the benefit of your current behaviour. Only then can we discover what both are really trying to achieve.
"But if I don't know exactly what to do instead, won't I just freeze up?"
Have you been freezing up with your current pattern? No? Then you won't freeze without it. You'll adapt. Humans are brilliant at adapting when we're not locked into rigid patterns.
The Perry Approach is a journey, not a leap.
You don't have to redesign your entire life. You're not committing to becoming a different person. You're simply committing to NOT continuing a pattern that isn't serving you. That makes change far less threatening to your identity than it first appears.
Your D Discovery Process
Let's work through finding your D. Return to the D' you identified in Chapter 4.
Step 1: Write Your D' Again
State your current behaviour clearly. This is your starting point.
Example: "I accept meeting invitations automatically without assessing their value against my priorities."
Step 2: Add NOT
Simply put NOT in front of your D'. That's it. That's your D.
Example: "NOT accept meeting invitations automatically without assessing their value against my priorities."
Step 3: Resist the Temptation to "Improve" It
You'll want to convert this to something that sounds more actionable—like "I evaluate meeting invitations against my priorities before responding."
Don't.
That positive alternative assumes you know the solution. The NOT keeps the door open for discovery.
Step 4: Check for Overcorrection
Make sure you haven't jumped to an extreme alternative.
- "NOT accept meeting invitations automatically" ✓ (simple negation)
- "Decline all meetings" ✗ (overcorrection)
Step 5: Test for Aspiration
If your D sounds like a grand vision of transformation, you've slipped into aspiration. Return to NOT D'.
- "NOT accept automatically" ✓ (negation)
- "Be disciplined about my time" ✗ (aspiration)
Final D: "NOT accept meeting invitations automatically without assessing their value against my priorities."
Common D Formulations
A few well-formed D statements for common patterns from Chapter 4:
The Over-Deliverer
- D': I take on more work than I can sustain, delivering at high quality regardless of personal cost
- D: NOT take on more work than I can sustain
The Pleaser
- D': I agree to requests and adjust my position to maintain harmony
- D: NOT agree to requests and adjust my position to maintain harmony
The Avoider
- D': I delay addressing difficult issues until they become unavoidable
- D: NOT delay addressing difficult issues until they become unavoidable
Notice how each D is simply NOT D'—no grand visions, no transformed identities, no assumptions about what you'll do instead. Just NOT what you're currently doing.
What Sarah Realised
By the end of our session, Sarah had something far more valuable than her vision of being the voice the CEO turns to first.
She had openness.
"I've been carrying this picture of the leaders I admire," she said. "But I never stopped to ask what I'm actually doing that's different from them. I just assumed I needed to become a different person."
"And now?"
"Now I see it's about NOT doing what I'm currently doing. NOT staying quiet. NOT deferring to whoever spoke last. NOT looking at my notebook when the CEO calls my name. What I actually do instead — that's what we'll discover."
"Exactly. And here's what we don't know yet," I said. "We don't know why you stay quiet and defer. We don't know what those behaviours give you. And we don't know what NOT doing them might cost you."
Her eyes widened slightly. "Cost me?"
"Every behaviour has benefits. Even the ones that leave us with three pages of unspoken concerns at the end of every meeting. That's what we explore next — in Chapter 6."
Sarah's cloud was beginning to take shape. She had her D' (where she was) and her D (NOT D'). David's was taking the same shape from his side of the room. But the real work — understanding why each of them was stuck between D' and D — was just beginning.
Chapter Reflection
You've walked through the discovery process with the meeting-invitations example. Now do the same with your own D' from Chapter 4.
Add NOT in front of it. That's your D.
Before moving on, sanity-check:
- Have you slipped into aspiration? Return to NOT D'.
- Have you overcorrected to an extreme alternative? Stay with simple negation.
- Have you tried to "improve" the NOT into a positive alternative? Resist — the NOT is doing the work.
Write your D statement:
"D': [current behaviour]. D: NOT [current behaviour]."
You don't have to do this alone. If you'd like a thinking partner who'll walk you through this step by step, RIC — the Rapid Improvement Coach — is your AI co-facilitator inside the Rising Above the Clouds course. RIC guides you through the full Perry Approach to the Evaporating Cloud, one step at a time, asking the questions that keep you honest with the method and catching the slips into aspiration or overcorrection before they take root. Bring a real conflict, or work through the cloud you're building as you read.
Looking Ahead
You now have two pieces of your cloud:
- D': Your current behaviour—specific, observable, positively phrased
- D: NOT D'—the simple negation of your current behaviour
But clouds don't dissolve just by naming endpoints. The real insight comes from understanding what each position gives you.
In Chapter 6, we'll explore the hidden benefits—first B, the benefit of D (what NOT doing your current behaviour gives you), then C, the benefit of D' (what your current behaviour gives you). This is where transformation becomes possible.
The Perry Approach reveals this: You're not stuck because you're weak or broken. You're stuck because both D' and D are serving you—and you haven't yet found a way to honour both.
What's Next
In Chapter 6, you'll discover the hidden benefits — what change would give you (B) and what your current behaviour is protecting (C). This is where transformation becomes possible. Everything you need is in the next chapter. You can work through it on your own, at your own pace.
Support for this step
Staying with NOT D' — resisting the pull toward aspiration, overcorrection, and positive alternatives — is simpler to describe than to practise. The temptation to leap to a grand vision of your transformed self is strongest at exactly this point, because D feels incomplete. That incompleteness is doing the work.
RIC — the Rapid Improvement Coach is an AI agent built specifically to support you through the process. RIC holds the NOT with you, catches aspiration when it slips in disguised as clarity, and tests your D against the traps this chapter names — overcorrection, identity statements, positive alternatives. You choose when the formulation feels right; RIC keeps the door open until you do.
The Rising Above the Clouds course includes RIC, chapter assignments that coach you through each step with your own cloud, and weekly Conflict Club sessions where the method comes alive with real conflicts and real people.
Rising Above the Clouds - The Course
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