Written by: Barbara van Heerden, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Why Learning Positive Intelligence Can Change YOUR Life?
“How are you doing today?” Such a common greeting. How seriously do you consider this question each morning? How in touch with your own feelings are you? Or, are you similar to me? I often answer this question quite glibly with “I fine-ish” or “I am okay-ish”. How are you doing? Just for fun, some of my colleagues and I created an acronym for the word FINE which stands for Frenetic, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional. This was good for a laugh, but often closer to the truth than what we perceive the word “fine” to mean.
If you sometimes feel like this, I would love to explore the “...ish” statement with you. “Ish” for me indicates that I am kind of OK but am vaguely aware of some negative emotions that are underpinning my general mood. I generally don’t take the time to reflect on these emotions but am aware that they are robbing me of energy, motivation, peace, and joy, ever so subtly. This is not a crisis… or is it?
I embarked on a coach training programme from Stanford University and Positive Intelligence ® Inc in October last year. This experience has literally changed my life. Positive Intelligence ® Inc have created a Positive Intelligence ® operating system and their coaching programme guides us through a process of being controlled by our negative emotions, often unspoken fear, to a life where we spend more time experiencing positive emotions such as empathy, gratitude, wisdom, being guided by intuition and joy.
Here is a testimonial from a client who recently completed the 6-week foundational coaching programme.
When I signed up for the Positive Intelligence Program, I was at a very bad space personally. I reluctantly thought, oh well, let’s try it.
I never anticipated that it would provide me with the purpose and joyfulness I so craved. Yet, within 3 sessions, I did a 180-degree turnaround! My life transitioned slowly, but surely, for the better.
I opened my shell, and the universe became a magic place again! My husband, family, friends, colleagues all noticed the difference.
With Barbara’s amazing coaching, I now am in the position to be in that magic place daily.
PLUS, I know exactly how to get into my positive universe.
I have known and respected Barbara for many years as a colleague, but this year she made an enormous difference in my life and future! I would highly recommend her as a coach. Barbara is super intuitive, a great listener and very talented as a coach. She is a game-changer.
You will never look back…
Carina
The steps to make the shift from being left brain dominant to balancing out your thought life to include all the awesome qualities of your right brain can be summarised as follows:
Firstly, you need to confront the negative assumptions and beliefs, self-doubt and fear that are holding you back. Let’s call these your saboteurs.
Your saboteurs are negative thinking patterns, that formed during childhood, in your left brain also known as your survival brain. We all have these thinking patterns irrespective of the childhood we experienced.
Our saboteurs are always present. Their purpose is to protect us from perceived danger. The problem is that active saboteurs see danger in everything, and, simultaneously shut down innovation, creativity, empathy, and laser-focused action. By having us worry about many things that might never materialise we use much needed energy and time. And all this effort is in many instances completely unnecessary.
What we need to learn to do is easily switch from our saboteur brains into our sage brains.
Our sage brains are in our right brain and include 5 key powers such empathy for self and others, exploration, innovation, navigation, and laser-focused action of the Jedi Master.
To learn to switch from our left survival brains to our sage brains we need to develop our positive intelligence muscles, (PQ muscles). This can be achieved by:
Noticing our negative emotions
Labelling them and letting them go
Do some PQ reps (mini mind refocusing exercises that take approximately 2 -3 minutes)
Switch into the sage brain
Our saboteur brains include language, numeracy, rational thought, knowledge, critical thinking, and judgement and is fuelled by fear. Language, numeracy, rational thought, knowledge, critical thinking, and judgement can be obvious strengths BUT any strength over emphasised starts to become a weakness and will sabotage our good intent.
Our sage brain includes curiosity, discernment, intuition, gratitude, creativity, empathy, and wisdom and is fuelled by empathy. These are awesome qualities, we all have, but often do not know how and when to access them.
Through practicing, with your coach, shifting from saboteur to sage on an increasing trajectory, you will discover an increase in peacefulness, joy, innovation, creativity, energy, focus, empathy and laser focussed action which in turn will improve your general mood, your relationships with others and your effectiveness in whichever of life’s endeavours you are engaged.
Finally, you will learn that circumstances that we often see as challenging, or overwhelming are neutral events. We give circumstances negative or positive energy. The sage brain has two options:
Option 1 ‒ accept the circumstances we find ourselves in, or
Convert them into a gift and opportunity
As you build your PQ ® muscles you will spend more time in sage and this becomes a virtuous cycle thereby improving your general mood, your peacefulness, your innovation, your empathy, positive energy, your relationships and ultimately your general wellbeing.
This approach to leadership and life will build the positive intelligence ® and mental fitness required to effectively navigating our way through this crazy world in which we live.
It would be my privilege to journey with you as your coach for the next phase of your learning journey.
Visit my website for more info!
Barbara van Heerden, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
“Coaching is change management one person at a time”. Jenny Mc Nulty. Regarding coaching, she specialises in business leadership coaching but can work within any organisational context. Her personal passion is leadership coaching to equip leaders to effectively lead multi-cultural and cross-cultural teams. She follows a strengths-based leadership coaching model that enables leaders to harness their strengths in such a way that their weaknesses become insignificant. She successfully concluded of a PhD in Leadership Coaching Towards Intercultural Competence in 2016. Working across cultures is often seen as a problem to be solved rather than an opportunity to be explored. She is also an experienced programme and change manager. She has led large-scale programmes in corporate South Africa over the last 25 years and has worked in seven different African Countries.
Credits:
21808401.2239376-10001© 2022Positive Intelligence, LLC. All rights reserved. No reproduction, in any form, printed or electronic, is permitted without prior written permission from Positive Intelligence, LLC. POSITIVE INTELLIGENCE and PQ COACH are trademarks of Positive Intelligence, LLC.
