Three years ago a friend of mine was sharing with me the book of Shirzad Chamine, a Standford lecturer, “Positive Intelligence”. As manager of a youth organisation organization, I was exploring alternatives to lead my team towards instruments and ways that might help them navigate better the complexities and challenges of the youth work.
I decided to give it a try and understand properly the concept of Positive Intelligence and how can be practically integrate it both in our daily operations and in our learning environments, in our work with young people.
What is PQ?
Positive Intelligence, or “PQ”, is potentially the best predictor of how happy you are and how well you perform relative to your potential. Mental fitness is a measure of the strength of your positive mental muscles (Sage) versus the negative (Saboteur). The goal of Positive Intelligence is to develop an alert and calm, better balanced, sensory aware, creative mindset.
According to Shirzad, your mind has two modes: positive and negative.
He identified 10 saboteurs:
- The Judge „the universal Saboteur that afflicts everyone. It is the one that beats you up repeatedly over mistakes or shortcomings, warns you obsessively about future risks, wakes you up in the middle of the night worrying, gets you fixated on what is wrong with others or your life, etc.”;
- The Avoider who is focusing on the positive and pleasant in an extreme way;
- The Controller is the master of generating you an anxiety-based need to take charge and control situations and people’s actions to one’s own will;
- The HyperAchiever makes you feel dependent on constant performance and achievement for self-respect and self-validation;
- The Hyper-rational gives you an intense and exclusive focus on the rational processing of everything, including relationships;
- The Hyper-Vigilant is responsible for continuous intense anxiety about all the dangers and what could go wrong;
- The Pleaser will indirectly try to gain acceptance and affection by helping, pleasing, rescuing, or flattering others;
- The Restless is constantly in search of greater excitement in the next activity or constant busyness.
- The Stickler is responsible for your perfectionism and the need for order and organization taken too far.
- The Victim shows emotional and temperamental as a way to gain attention and affection.
To silence your saboteurs, there are 3 key strategies to strengthen your Positive Intelligence and your score.
- Weaken Saboteurs (the Saboteurs represent your internal enemies in your mind – the “negative” mode of your mind)
- Strengthen Sage (the Sage is your wiser and deeper you – the “positive” mode of your mind)
- Strengthen Your PQ Brain (by doing PQ Reps)
If your Saboteurs represent your internal enemies, your Sage represents the deeper and wiser part of you. It is the part of you that can rise above the grey and resist getting carried away by the drama and tension of the moment or falling victim to the lies of the Saboteurs.
To strengthen the Sage you can use the 5 great powers
- Explore – to Explore with great curiosity and an open mind. When you play the role of Fascinated Anthropologist, you become a keen observer and discoverer of what is, without trying to judge, change, or control the situation.
- Empathize – to Empathize with yourself and others and bring compassion and understanding to any situation. Visualize yourself as a child in a setting where your essence is shining through.
- Innovate – to Innovate and create new perspectives and outside-the-box solutions. To play “Yes…and…” follow every new idea you have by saying ‘Yes, what I love about that idea is…and…” With this approach, every idea is appreciated rather than judged before the next one is generated in reaction to it.
- Navigate – Navigate and choose a path that best aligns with your deeper underlying values and mission. When faced with the fork in the road, imagine yourself at the end of your life looking back at the choices you are now facing. From that vantage point, what would you wish you had chosen at this juncture?
- Activate – to Activate and take decisive action without the distress, interference, or distraction of the Saboteurs. In this game, you put yourself in the shoes of your top Saboteurs and try to anticipate how they would try to sabotage your actions. You would anticipate the thoughts they would be whispering or screaming in your ears in the middle of the action and what lies they would be using to justify those thoughts.
