Positive Intelligence – self-sabotage OR self-mastery

Show Notes

• Positive Intelligence website
• Positive Intelligence book
• Mike Hagen Unstress Episode
• Paul Gilbert Unstress Episode
• Take the PQ Saboteur Assessment
• Test your PQ Quotient

Timestamps

• 00:00:00 – Introduction by Dr. Ron Ehrlich and acknowledgment of traditional custodians.
• 00:02:31 – Introduction of guests Rhonda Farrell Lloyd and Debbie Mason.
• 00:02:32 – Rhonda expresses gratitude for being on the show.
• 00:03:35 – Discussion begins on positive intelligence and personal journeys.
• 00:05:44 – Debbie shares her background and connection to positive intelligence.
• 00:07:41 – Discussion on corporate culture and workplace well-being.
• 00:10:37 – Rhonda details a personal experience illustrating positive intelligence.
• 00:14:28 – Dr. Ron discusses the importance of assessing one’s Positive Intelligence Quotient.
• 00:18:18 – Exploration of the ‘sage’ powers within positive intelligence.
• 00:23:48 – Explanation of navigating challenges using the ‘navigator’ sage power.
• 00:25:02 – Discussion on the ‘activate’ sage power and its application.
• 00:26:38 – Conversation about common and accomplice saboteurs.
• 00:37:28 – How to manage the ‘victim’ saboteur.
• 00:42:41 – PQ (Positive Quotient) reps explained as mental fitness exercises.
• 00:46:02 – Closing thoughts and the future of mental fitness in corporate settings.
• 00:50:09 – Final remarks and episode wrap-up by Dr. Ron Ehrlich.

Positive Intelligence – self-sabotage OR self-mastery

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Unstressh. My name is Doctor Ron Ehrlich. Now, before I start, I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which I am recording this podcast. The Gadigal people of the Eora nation and pay my respects to their elders, past, present and emerging. Well, today we are going to explore positive intelligence quotient. Your p q. You’ve heard of IQ. You’ve heard of IQ, emotional quotient. Well this is your positive intelligence quotient or peak. Q how much your thoughts are working for you or against you? Your mind can be your best friend or your worst enemy, and learning how to move from self-sabotage to self-mastery and fulfil your potential. This is the work of Shahzad Chamine, and he’s the author of the New York bestselling book Positive Intelligence. I’d recommend it to you. Shahzad has lectured on positive intelligence at Stanford University and has trained faculty at Stanford and Yale business schools. He’s been the CEO of one of the largest coaching training organisations in the world. He’s a pre-eminent C-suite advisor, and he’s coached hundreds of CEOs and their executive teams. His background is in psychology, B.A. in psychology, a master’s in electrical engineering, and he has an MBA from Stanford. But my guests today are working with Shahzad in the Positive Intelligence Organisation. Rhonda Farrell Lloyd. Now Rhonda is an accomplished leader and team member, positive intelligence, and she’s driven by a passion for integrating mental fitness into organisational settings. Rhonda has got a, Bachelor of Science in Psychology and a master’s in organisational management and additional certificates in workplace Mental Health, Leadership and Change leadership. Rhonda is joined by Debbie Mason, who is a dedicated positive intelligence coach, and Debbie partners with coaches including me and many organisations globally to cultivate enduring enhancement in mental fitness, well-being, performance both personally and professionally, and this so beautifully aligns with our mission and on stress health. I hope you enjoyed this conversation I had with Rhonda Farrell Lloyd and Debbie Mason. Welcome to the show, Rhonda and Debbie.

Rhonda Farrell Lloyd [00:02:32] Thank you. Thank you. Happy to be here.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:02:35] It’s most unusual for me to be talking to two people, but it’s really exciting because this is something that I’ve been very passionate about since I first got involved in it about six months ago. And, you know, the whole story of. I remember my wife saying to me, what is why are you so excited about positive intelligence? And my aunt would give me the elevator pitch because she knows I can Raven. And she and. And I said, well, it just gives a language and a structure to the noise that’s going on in my head all the time, and positive things can come from it. But I was really interested before we came on. We were just talking about our own backgrounds, and mine has been in health care for 45 years and I realise mindset and what goes on in my head is a really important part of that journey. And I’m still learning. But Rhonda, you’ve been you both had your own journeys. I wonder if maybe Rhonda, you could start and just share with us a bit of your journey that brought you to the concept of positive intelligence.

Rhonda Farrell Lloyd [00:03:37] Sure. Thank you. I worked for 30 years in disability management in the corporate world, and I worked in a leadership role and worked with a lot of health care and dealing with individuals who were injured on the job and having issues like post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic mental stress and so forth. And then I retired from that and continued. I was coaching all along the time, and I continued my coaching practice, and I got exposed to positive intelligence. And I thought, this is what we’re missing. This is what we need. Organisations need this. So I called up positive intelligence, had a conversation with them, and we agreed to have me join and help them build their business, B2B or business to business approach.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:04:28] And is your background in H.R. or people in culture or what? What is your background that had you in that disability space?

Rhonda Farrell Lloyd [00:04:35] So I actually had a certification in disability management and a master’s in organisational management. And it was just a strong interest because I wanted to give back to my community. And this helped all the people in Ontario. So I felt that I was doing something right. And then I really got a strong interest in working with people with mental health, because I have family members who have experienced significant mental health issues, and then also seeing many of the clients we worked with who had mental health issues. And I thought, this is preventable in some in some circumstances, obviously not all, but in some. And what can I do to contribute to help people be more mentally fit so that when they had the challenges that you experience in life, some that could be extremely significant. You can manage it better, that you have more resilience, that you have more strength in order to manage it. And I think building on mental fitness really helps us manage all these stressors that happen in life.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:05:36] Well, we are going to be talking about that today. But, Debbie, what’s what what’s your journey? What’s brought you to this world of positive intelligence?

Debbie Masson [00:05:46] Thanks so much for asking. So yes, I as I mentioned, I was with Ypo for well, prior prior to that it was with I did many other things, but my last sort of ten year was 17 years with Ypo, which is an executive leadership organisation.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:06:00] I stand Ypo stands for.

Debbie Masson [00:06:02] Young Presidents Organisation. Right. And it’s a it’s the leading global leadership organisation in the world. And but I also used to moonlight as, as a coach while I was at it. And through my journey obviously I got to work with alongside amazing leaders and just watch them having impact and doing some really amazing stuff. But I obviously when I was doing my cliftonstrengths on the stuff, I also qualified as a Baldwin coach and it was all about wanting to have impact and bringing change. And then I was gifted PCU. But actually my brother in law school friend and I was I did this and it was just it was transformational for me. And I realised it was time for change. And I turned to my husband in December 3rd years ago, and I said, I’m going to join Positive intelligence. And he said, oh, you’re having a midlife crisis or you’re crazy. And I it’s like, I’m doing this. And so I slid the job finder on, on LinkedIn and because it, I had obviously done a lot of work within, PCU, I had run pods and I just saw the significant change that it brings, and it was sustainable. And what it was actually doing, it worked so beautifully with what I was doing with Cliftonstrengths find it. So I saw how it kind of worked in tandem and yeah, what can I say? Rhonda let me in the door. And before I knew where I was two years later, here I am. And it’s really about creating that change being. Able to see organisations using this. It’s one of the only programs in the world that. Well, the only program in the world that addresses 17 of the 18 core EC competencies and hence why I love it.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:07:41] Yes. Gosh, that’s that’s so interesting. I mean, I want to talk about so much of what you’ve already said, but the whole, corporate world has. I mean, I’ve, I’ve said to people that this is probably the best time in history to be involved in best and worst in many ways, the best time in history to be involved in workplace well-being in HR people and culture. Because I truly believe this is where change is going to occur in the workplace. There’s a confluence of interest, not a conflict of interest. But it’s the worst time because mental health has never been supposedly worse. You know, I think the statistics speak for themselves. You. I mean, if there’s a there’s an international standard, I think, called the ISO 4503. I don’t know whether you are familiar with that at all, but it talks about creating psychological safety in the workplace. And that’s been legislated in Australia. It’s now legislated that companies and managers are liable to mitigate minimise the psychological safety of their employees. What an amazing legislation.

Rhonda Farrell Lloyd [00:08:51] That is fantastic. I think everywhere should have something like that, because one of the things that I find in the workplace, one is that when that psychological safety doesn’t exist, it now exhibits itself in an individual in ways that are negative, not just for their own wellbeing, but for the organisation as well. So it’s a huge commitment for an organisation to make it such that they will get a a really huge outcome as well. Like it balances, right? The commitment that they make to create that psychological safety in order to ensure their people are more mentally fit.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:09:29] Yeah, I know we did a program with this, senior, HR executive in one of the biggest international firms in Australia. His name is Mike Hagen, actually, globally. Bosch. Bosch. You know, the Bosch company. And he made the point that a company culture was an intersection of three things. One is the formal policies of a company. The other is the informal policies of a company like, oh, if you want something done, go and see Fred. And the third part of it was the individual in the company. And the way those three intersect is the corporate culture. And this is what I love about the potential of this, because it’s about the individual and what goes on in their head, you know. But here’s the thing. We I one of the things that I love about positive intelligence, your mind can be your best friend or your worst enemy. And who doesn’t want to hang out with your best friend? And if that’s going on in your own head, how can we change that to be more often with our best friend.

Debbie Masson [00:10:35] Rhonda, I want.

Rhonda Farrell Lloyd [00:10:37] To be sure I want to actually use, Debbie’s expression and I may not get it 100% correct. So Debbie, correct me, but this is a really good it’s about these negative thoughts that, having a picnic inside your mind, right? And you want to stop them. And the way we do that is, first of all, you need to be aware of it. You need to become self-aware. So one of the ways that we do that in positive intelligence is we have this amazing saboteur assessment that people can do free of charge if they go to the website. And when they do that assessment, they now become more self-aware of what are the lies their saboteurs are telling them. The next thing that you need to do is intercept them. So you need to say, no, I’m not listening to that lie. It’s not true. And you now have to reset the brain. So you do what we call is a PQ rep and what a PQ rep is. Just a few seconds of doing something. I’ll give you an example of one. You can take two fingers and if you want to do it with me, rub them together gently with such a tension that you can feel the fingertip ridges. And I’d like you to really focus and how those fingertip ridges feel. And you literally do that for 10s. And what you’re doing is interrupting that negative thinking that’s happening. And now you want to get into what we call a stage mindset, where you now use your sage powers and you come out with this perspective that every, problem has an opportunity or a gift. So, can I give you a quick example?

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:12:27] Absolutely.

Rhonda Farrell Lloyd [00:12:29] Okay, absolutely. I recently experienced a flood of my place in my condo. So 21 floors were flooded. And my. I’m on the 18th floor and my condo was totally flooded. I could not live in it. I had to move out of it. I had to get it redone. And I could have said, oh my gosh, this is horrible. This is the worst thing. Look what’s happened. All my things are damaged and really focus on the negative things. And I will tell you, initially I felt that way. But the thing about mental fitness is how quickly you can recover. And I was able to recover very quickly and recognise here is an opportunity for me to redo my whole place. I have always wanted a new kitchen. I’m going to have a new kitchen. I’m going to have new floors. And I got excited about the project of redoing my whole place, as opposed to focusing on or woe is me that, you know, my place is not great and this is happening, and that no, I’m focusing on the opportunity and the gift of having this happen to me. Does that make.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:13:31] Sense? Yeah. Yes it does. And I mean, I guess playing the devil’s advocate there, you know, people would say, but, you know, that’s great because you’ve got insurance, probably. And the insurance probably paid for that. It would be interesting to test your mental fitness if you weren’t insured.

Rhonda Farrell Lloyd [00:13:50] So yes, I agree with you there. And I think then what is the gift you need to look at it. So what did you learn from this particular scenario? One that insurance is important. So next time you will have and you know what. Next time might be worse than this time. So maybe it’s a good thing that this happened now so that the next time you are prepared, that’s just one example. But there’s a threat and, you know, not always. Can you right away find the gift. Sometimes it takes some time, right. And you have to work it through. Like how many times have you looked back on a situation that you didn’t feel was good years ago, and now you realise, actually that’s a good thing that that happened, right?

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:14:28] Yeah. Yes.

Debbie Masson [00:14:30] It’s very good. You want to take the journey?

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:14:32] Trusting the journey. Yeah. You’ve mentioned there but but the, the positive side of things I mean I love the saboteur assessment. And we will of course have links to all of the, all of the things because the first thing is to establish where you are now. What is your positive intelligence quotient, isn’t it? I mean, that’s also something that is assessed.

Rhonda Farrell Lloyd [00:14:58] Yes.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:15:00] And that is assessed on a scale of of 0 to 100. So you fill out this very quick questionnaire. I mean, it’s important to do it quite quickly because it wants to get a sense of your own frame of mind. And you then end up with this. So it’s about 30 questions I think, from memory. I’ve done it a few times. And you come up with a score out of 100. And that score can be quite confronting or reaffirming. But there’s a tipping point, isn’t there? I know in the program it’s a six week program. We’ll we’ll have links to that as well. But but, it’s I know in the program, Shahzad who is leading this whole who’s innovated this whole, move. And I’d love to get a bit of background on Shahzad as well. But, he, he makes the point that 75 is the tipping point. So that would be for every thought you have. Three are positive and one might be negative. So there’s four thoughts three quarters of them, or 75% of them. A positive one, 25% of them are negative. But somehow that is a tipping point. Can you talk to that at all?

Rhonda Farrell Lloyd [00:16:10] Debbie, do you want to chat?

Debbie Masson [00:16:12] I’m happy to have a stab at this one. So, you know, I often use the analogy, and it’s a very simple analogy that if you had to have a negative, if you had to have a negative engagement with me, you would need three positive engagements for me to counteract your negative. So let’s say you’re reprimanding your child and or you having an altercation with a colleague. That one negative engagement is going to take three positive engagements to counteract that negative. So why would you not be operating from a sage, stance? So the more you can embrace that ease and flow, the more you can reframe that thinking to go, what’s a better way to navigate this? What’s potentially the 10% I could use if I was using this analogy with someone earlier on two days ago? So is it all bad? And she was like, yeah. And I was like, it’s a these is the isn’t even 10% in here that she was. Yeah I could probably use 10% of that. I’m great. I’m like, well how do we leverage that. And so it’s about how do we start framing things differently and changing the lens in the way that we move forward and start to navigate life. So when we start to use those sage powers like explore, activate, innovate, how are we starting to shift that? In terms of that, that’s troubling skill, Rhonda. How is that?

Rhonda Farrell Lloyd [00:17:34] It’s very good things.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:17:36] That you’ve mentioned. One of the other things that I found really fascinating, and the analogy is that the positive, part of our brain, is it one part of our brain in this right prefrontal cortex? And the negative part, which is the survival part, is at the back of our brain, and we can develop those neural pathways to be either a dirt track or a five lane highway. And I love that analogy. It kind of really resonated with me and that that positive part of our brain. And you’ve mentioned the word sage a few times. I just want to unpack that a little bit, because I know there are five sage powers. Let’s talk about those.

Rhonda Farrell Lloyd [00:18:18] I’m going to pick the first one that I love the most, and that sage power is explore. And I love that one, because if you are in a conversation with somebody and you are not agreeing with what they’re saying, or they’re not agreeing with what you are saying, and you take an approach of getting curious and really trying to understand where they’re coming from, as opposed to judging where they’re coming from, or they’re saying that they’re wrong. They don’t know what they’re talking about. I’ll just wait till I have to talk so I could convince them as to what the right thing is. So as opposed to I wonder what I could learn from what they’re saying, I wonder what I can apply from what they’re saying to what my decision is. Can we potentially find a fair decision out of all of this? And why am I having a negative reaction to what they’re seeing, what’s triggering me on this that changes the dynamics of the conversation right away, and you’re going to have a better outcome. So that’s just an example of explore. Debbie. Oh, I love that.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:19:21] Yeah. Let’s go. Because there are five of these and I think they each deserve, you know, highlighting not just one word thing. What’s the next what’s the next stage? Power after explore.

Debbie Masson [00:19:32] Well, I’m going to go with empathy. It’s one of my favourites. And, I tend to use empathy as a moment in my professional life, but, there are times that, you know, we do get hijacked, and, it means I need to have a little bit of self-love for me and go, hey, I’m human. And or I’m sitting with someone and they, just not in a sage stance. I can see they’re just, you know, heightened up and ready to take me on, and I’ve got to go. What’s sitting on the other end of this? How do I activate this age? Why are they so rattled? And I have a huge amount of empathy for that individual to activate this age, to get them to that point, because trying to take them head on is not I’m not going to achieve that outcome. So it’s about having sage for others and having empathy for others, having empathy for myself, and just having that gift of acceptance sometimes to go, okay, we’re not going to get where we need to be, but I can have great love. And, it’s powerful. It’s powerful to have that these times that I’m a fabulous mom in these times that I’m a terrible mom. And it’s just going, I’m actually getting to do this, but I get to show up as the best version of me, and it’s having that beautiful self love for yourself.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:20:45] It’s interesting because we have done programs on compassion. We’ve done it with, the author of The Compassionate Mind, Professor Paul Gilbert, and he made the point that, self-care, it really has to start with self-compassion. If you don’t have compassion for yourself, it’s very hard to empathise with anybody else. And that you’ve mentioned it one we’ve mentioned a couple of times, and I want to bring it back. This 10%, you know, like even even if you disagree with someone vehemently, you have to you have to approach it from the point of view that at least 10% of what they’ve said, there’s something there, there’s a little grain of truth to what is there and to find that. And I love this exercise of the yes and exercise. Tell us which. Let’s just talk about that because, you know, we’ve talked about explore and now we’re open to exploring and we are going to empathise hopefully with ourselves and others, but then we can actually turn that into a wonderful game, which I’ve done a few times and it’s been quite remarkable. Share with us the yes end game show.

Rhonda Farrell Lloyd [00:21:53] I’ll do that. That’s the innovate sage power innovate.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:21:56] I’m okay. So I’m still early in this, but we want to help innovate. Innovate. But come on. The third one is innovate. So let’s let’s talk about innovate and then talk about the yes. And sorry I got that wrong.

Rhonda Farrell Lloyd [00:22:08] That’s that’s fine. So with innovate you start with a statement or an idea that you’re working with. And then you start with what I like about what you said is this. And you find that 10% that you can agree with and really focus on. So what that does is let that person know that you listened to them and you appreciated what they had to offer, so that when somebody feels listened to, they become less defensive and more open to innovate in a conversation. And then so what I like about what you said is this and not a but and and you add on to the idea and you build on it and what you find, especially if you use this in the corporate world, in the team environments, is that you get such innovative solutions that you would not have gotten had you not had a discussion like this, because it really allows you to come up with all the different ideas that potentially could be to solve the problem that you’re working on.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:23:08] Yes, I love that. And I know when we’ve done that in the, in this in a group setting. And I think it’s important to add that the ideas that you can come up with don’t have to you don’t have to justify them. You don’t have to try and work out how they might work or or whether they would or wouldn’t work. These are just your ideas. Let’s just shoot the breeze and let it happen. Let let the innovation happen.

Debbie Masson [00:23:32] Correct.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:23:33] Okay. Yeah. So we’ve got the sage with explore. We’ve got the sage with empathise. We’ve got the sage with innovate. There are five powers. Let’s move on to the last two.

Rhonda Farrell Lloyd [00:23:48] Debbie the navigator. You’ve done that.

Debbie Masson [00:23:51] Don’t do that again. So what I love about navigator, and I always use this strong visual image of literally standing with a compass in your hand. And it’s this intentional journey of self-discovery. It’s, finding and adaption of choices. And it’s it’s about contributing to a healthier way, a more fulfilling life. So you literally are doing that, you being more self aware of your surroundings and the choices that you are making. And so almost standing with that compass in your hand and going, how do I get to navigate differently? So you steering the course of where you want to be. So you choosing positive influences, you know, you’re choosing to, quieten those saboteurs in your mind. You choosing to make a journey that’s going to provide contentment and balance. That’s what I like to navigate.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:24:44] Now, it’s a nice way of looking at it. Did you want to add to that at all, Rhonda Rose?

Rhonda Farrell Lloyd [00:24:49] No, she’s got that one. Good.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:24:52] She’s got that one good. Okay, so we’ve got we’ve got the four. Explore. Empathise. Innovate. Navigate this one more.

Debbie Masson [00:25:02] Activate, activate.

Rhonda Farrell Lloyd [00:25:04] That’s when you’re being intentional. That’s when you’re going to be laser focussed, calm, clear headed and take action. And this is where you allow yourself to move forward in a way where you’re in a positive mindset. And so you’ve cleared the decks and ready to move forward, and you have gone through all the steps you need to get there to, to get you prepared and ready. Deb, do you want to add to that? Yeah.

Debbie Masson [00:25:33] Yeah. Rhonda and I, I mean, I first started working at positive, intelligent sites to talk about the power of manifestation. So, Ron, this little teases me like, come on, Dave, I need you to manifest this for me. So and that’s one of the powers that I use in activate is really, I go in and I’m like, I’m manifesting this. This is going to happen. This is intentional. And and the reality is, that’s exactly what I did with positive intelligence. I manifested that I would work for positive intelligence within three months, and I did.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:26:02] Yeah. Yeah. Now I can understand the appeal. So so here we are with the sage. We’ve we’ve kind of laying down the road, work for a five lane highway to the front of our brain to act to, to really use the sage in everyday situations. But we’ve talked about the saboteurs and and as you’ve mentioned, there is an assessment that gives you a personalised, accomplice, accomplice, saboteurs, because we all have a common saboteur. Can we talk about the common saboteur?

Rhonda Farrell Lloyd [00:26:38] Well, we all have to judge. It’s judge of yourself, judge of others and judge of circumstances. And so everybody has that. And then there’s nine accomplice saboteurs.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:26:52] Yes. Well, the judge, you know, is, is is a very powerful one, isn’t it? I mean, boy, if you when I know when I got my accomplice a saboteurs. Report. Oh, my God, I mean it. I mean, it spoke to me perfectly. It was me there. I was I was a bit. Well, I shouldn’t have been surprised at how strong so many of those compass saboteurs were. But the judge really is is a big one, isn’t it? Always judging yourself. And this comes back to self-compassion, as well. But judging others is so easy and judging situations that we’re in. And it’s interesting because I have always said that, while we may not have control, and this is before I even knew about positive intelligence, while we may not have control over, events or people in our lives, we do have control about how we think about them. And that was really a powerful thought. And I thought, yes, that’s very good way of looking at it, but how should I think about it? You know, and that’s where this positive intelligence is. So this is the language and structured to take that concept a little bit further. And so I love the judge. But tell us about some of the other accomplices. I mean my my top accomplice was restless and hyper vigilant and high achiever and you know, stickler. I mean, I’m, I’m background is dentistry. So being a stickler may not have been a bad thing, but but, you know, they were my accomplices and they spoke to me very powerfully. And so when I had that noise going on in my head, I thought, okay, there is the judge. Calm down, Ron, you’re being restless. Let the children run. There won’t die. They won’t die. It’s okay. You know, etcetera. So tell us a little bit about the other accomplice. I mentioned a few, but let’s dive into some of those accomplice saboteurs.

Debbie Masson [00:28:50] I just want to say one thing before we move forward. And I always say this when I. When we run down our delivering workshops. Is that your company? Your your saboteurs do not define you. So you are not defined by your saboteur. So you don’t say, you know, I am a, hyper achiever. And I would say if you take away nothing from, you know, hearing this, why engaging? It’s so important. So they they took us, they drove us up. They, they to kind of get in the way. And that’s the beauty of what sage does. So it gets to shift those. So, I’m going to take this opportunity to say my top one is pleaser. And I see that things are getting in the way all the time. So, I think that comes out of being of, in working in an organisation like Ypo, which is servant leadership. And, you know, you’re just constantly out there making things better and paving the way and so much Lisa can’t say no. She’s always out there wanting to, you know, kind of pave the way for everybody. So I’m always aware of my pleaser and how she shows up. But her compass is the controller because whilst she’s also, you know, doing her thing, the controller is going well. I want to mandate this outcome. I want to make sure everyone’s going to just be absolute. Come back. Y’all are having a fabulous party and you know, just having the best time. And then my happy cheetah says, no, but we’ve got it. We’ve got to get, you know, because I was in eventing for 22 years as well. So it’s like this has got to be a stellar event. We won ten out of ten. So then they all sort of coming to the party, pitching a tent, opening up Netflix and not shifting very easily. So that’s what I loved about what PCU was bringing. It allowed me to be as they sort of come into the room, I go. No, no, you don’t get to check in. You don’t get to stay. You unwelcome guests at my party. I get to check you out. So it’s about having that beautiful self-awareness about how they coming in, how they causing disruption and how I get to serve them.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:30:44] Yes. Well, Debbie, my my my wife’s top saboteur was plays it too. And I just knew it. I just knew it. But but that’s a good thing I mean. Well that’s neither a good or a bad thing. And as you, I love to. I love that it doesn’t define you. It doesn’t define you. But at least you at least, rather than all these strangers coming in and out of your head all the time, you can build a familiarity with these these voices that. Yeah, I love that. Yeah. Go on, let’s talk some more of that. You’ll watch better. But what about your saboteurs, Rhonda? What was some of the personal, if you don’t mind talking about them, of course, but. Well, talk about a person. You know.

Rhonda Farrell Lloyd [00:31:26] I’m going to talk about others only because my top ones are achiever, controller and pleaser. And Debbie’s touched this stuff. Yeah.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:31:33] Yeah. Okay. Is that what you’ve got to do to work at Positive Intelligence? You’ve got to be those. Is that is that part of the, the, you know, the interview process? Now we’re only taking places controllers and hyper achievers now going just.

Debbie Masson [00:31:46] Like two peas in a pod.

Rhonda Farrell Lloyd [00:31:48] Well, I like things though, so let me tell you a bit about that hyper rationality, because I have, like a child who’s a hyper rational. So I think it’s I can speak to it really well. The hyper rational is motivated by the need to know everything and understand everything to the nth degree. And they want to be self-sufficient and they don’t want to look foolish. And so what happens is the inner critic over thinks, and they get very logical, way too much logic. And so they drown out emotions and gut feelings. And what is important is we need to work towards getting a balance between logic and emotions and not shutting out the logical thinking, but also not letting the feelings to overtake. So it’s what is that balance for the hyper irrational? So I find, when I, when I look at the hyper rational or somebody who has that saboteur, they have a really hard time getting in touch with their feelings and their gut, and they really need to work hard on that. Hmhm Deb, do you.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:33:00] Want to want to add anything.

Rhonda Farrell Lloyd [00:33:01] On?

Debbie Masson [00:33:02] Yeah. I mean, I can really also talk to the stickler because, my like, Rhonda, I’ve got two girls and my eldest is a stickler. But she also has Add. And so what I see with her add in the stickler is it’s is it almost they it it just they, they almost like counteract one another. So she, you know, she’s in, content development. She’s in social medium. And she would have created a perfect piece and I’m like, it’s great. It can go and, you know, but you know what? I think I just need to add this or it just needs another line or the image. And her stickler just gets so in the way of her being able to kind of take it to where it needs to be. And as a result, it slows her down and then it kind of gets her triggering all sorts of other, saboteurs along the way. So then her void comes into play because then her boy is going, it’s not good enough yet, and so she doesn’t send it. And then a hyper achieve is going, yeah, it’s not good enough. And so I see how these three kind of work in tandem with her and then along with her A.D.D. and it just becomes messy. So The sticklers is like it’s got to be flawless. It just has to be absolutely perfect. And we’ve got this one image that we’re using, and it’s literally this individual cutting grass with a pair of scissors with the ruler. And and that’s literally what it’s like. It’s got to be perfect. But it’s not this bull’s eye approach to everything. And it is. It’s painstaking.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:34:35] So another one is that, I think people would relate to perhaps this victim.

Debbie Masson [00:34:41] I’m happy to, to take this one as well. Because the victim is when it’s, you know, I’m unable to have clarity about something. So I fall into this, this victim mode. And, you know, what’s interesting is I don’t, I don’t score with the victim. So when I did my saboteurs, I had an absolute zero. I didn’t score. So I’m going to talk to a personal experience that I had. But then I had something happen in my life, and I for three days, I knew I was I was absolutely caught up in victim mode, and I had to phone my coach and go, I’m so sabotaged by my victim at the moment, but because it’s not a familiar saboteur for me, I don’t know how to navigate my way out of this. And I need your help. And it was. Just this poor me and like feeling so incredibly sorry for myself, unable to see. And I’m a very positive individual so always glasses, you know, half full. And if not, I get a smaller glass and my glass is always full and it’s always just, you know, moonshine and roses all the time. And it was just I was like, why can’t I shift? What is wrong with me? And she was able to kind of really take me through navigating what my victim is and really helping me understand the saboteur and why it had held me captive. And even though we all I don’t have a victim, how it can come and be detrimental at times. So yeah. It’s it’s not to say if it’s most likely, in, you know, in your, in your, as one of your accomplices that it can’t come and cause havoc.

Rhonda Farrell Lloyd [00:36:22] The one thing I would tell you is one of the things I’ve learned just recently because I’m doing, PKI mastery program, is that when the victim shows up, showing empathy for yourself is really important to help work it through. Also, what we talked about, is where we encounter somebody who that is their major saboteur. Showing empathy for them is helpful as well, right? Because you really need to recognise they are in pain, they’re suffering, they’re feeling terrible. And so how can you help them? And showing some empathy is always to me the first step. And then exploring why it is you’re feeling that way. What what is happening right now that is giving you those types of thoughts and how can we address that? So just thinking about how you can match up, the saboteur with what you can do with your powers to really get you out of that sort of feeling is important.

Debbie Masson [00:37:26] You know, so it’s.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:37:28] Going to.

Debbie Masson [00:37:29] Be driving the emotion to when you’re in saboteur mode and you feeling it. So like when I was in victim what was the emotion. It wasn’t that I needed to I was so trying so hard to shift it but actually just let the emotion come in. So it’ll label it move and and keep going there until such time as I had actually worked my way through it. Because, at times you can work really hard to try and shift, and you actually just need to settle with the emotion first and acknowledge the emotion that you feeling. Because with every saboteur, there’s generally an emotion. So there will be a stress and anxiety or something that’s that’s associated to that saboteur.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:38:05] I mean, people would say if they were listening to this might say, well, aren’t my isn’t judging, isn’t being a hyper achiever, isn’t this why I’m as successful as I am? And and you know, this has worked so well for me. This is why I am where I am. Well, what do we say to that?

Debbie Masson [00:38:26] We hear that often.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:38:28] Well, let’s let’s let’s respond. First you. Rhonda. Rhonda. Sure.

Rhonda Farrell Lloyd [00:38:32] So the first thing I would say is that how happy are you? You you say these things have helped you. How happy are you feeling today? Has it helped you feel better as a person? If you. You can achieve all these things using your powers and being in that positive mindset. And you can actually potentially achieve more. But the most important thing is you’ll be happier along the way, and what your saboteurs do is beat you up and make you feel terrible, either about yourself or about others, or about the circumstance that you’re in and doesn’t allow you to be as clear headed and laser focussed in your thinking. So what we want is not to keep your hand on the hot stove all the time, because that’s what you’re doing when you in saboteur mode, your hand is on that hot stove. That hot stove is just for a split second to let you know something is wrong and need to deal with it, and then you need to get out of that saboteur mode and get into your mindset, and you’re going to have a better outcome, and you’re going to be a happier person.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:39:43] Debbie, did you want to add anything?

Debbie Masson [00:39:46] I mean, Rhonda summed it up beautifully. And, you know, I can say to you that I’ve been doing PCU for three and a half years, and this year I’m celebrating 25 years of marriage, and my husband reckons he wishes he could have had a peak up 25 years ago. So I’m just going to leave it right there. Because she does think very differently. And so the way that I and and again, you know, your, your services serve you for that millisecond and, and I do this for more ease and flow. It has served me both personally and professionally. So the best version of me is showing up. So I love me. I’m loving this version of me, the mom, the professional and how she gets to have impact in the world. And that’s what we wanting to bring to organisations. So yes, I believe for many years that my hyper achiever has done me well and served me well. But I can tell you now that my age has served me far better. And my husband will attest to that.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:40:50] Yes. Well, I don’t want to get too much into a kumbaya moment here, but, I could not agree more. And, you know, with my wife and I just coming up for our 45th year of of knowing each other, and, and I must say, never been happier. And I’m not saying that this isn’t a small part of it either. But but that was so interesting, Rhonda, you said how happy are you? Because I’m also very interested in the world of wellbeing. This is a whole global movement of happiness and, well, well-being. Let’s put happiness for a moment. But. But the question that one could or should ask oneself regularly, and I like to quantify things, and it’s actually been validated that quantifying things is not a bad thing to do. And that is asking yourself, on a scale of 1 to 10, how happy are you today with your life? How happy are you today with your life on a scale of 1 to 10? And, you know, everyone will answer that question differently. And obviously, if you’re a 9 or 10, good on you. You know, and that’s something we will aspire to. And, that’s what I love about this. You mentioned also and you got us through and I love the fact that you did this, got us through these p q reps. And I said we can either develop the, the pathway to the front as a five lane highway or a dirt track. But when the saboteur shows up and that’s an important first step, isn’t it. Then the this doing these p q positive positivity quotient reps is like doing a push up is a really powerful tool to refocus you towards the sage. Let’s talk about the theory or the some of the things that one can do as a p q rep as a mental push up.

Rhonda Farrell Lloyd [00:42:41] That this is your Steph.

Debbie Masson [00:42:44] Well, I’m actually going to use a colleague of mine who said, she watched her son showing at I think it was at a cross-country race and he’s like nine years old. And they were about to start a race and she noticed the little girl standing next to him was rubbing her fingers together. And she said to him, did you show her how to do it? Yeah, mom. She was really nervous. And so we seeing this, as both my girls like runners, you know, struggle with mental health and, you know, they’re going into exams. My daughter’s in a final year of schooling, and, mom, I’d be dead in the water without ribs. So it’s really just about calming that in a that, in a sense, in you. So you’re whether you’re doing it visual with, you know, with anchor or whether it’s touch, a lever of touch to get know the touch, the sensation. So it, it’s this beautiful way to stop and recenter. I’m going to use a personal story. And, I used to shake incredibly badly. So I had a sublime train. And so when I couldn’t thread a needle and I used to take medication for it, and I obviously started scraping, I don’t shake anymore. I don’t take any medication for it. And my doctor just he’s like, what weird wizardry is this? So much so that my doctor actually now uses me with, patients and using peak program because he’s seen the power of it. He’s seen the shift in me. He did secretly say to me, you’re not using a medicinal drug. I was like, no, don’t worry, this is real. And I actually took him through a peak rep. And so if I do feel anxiousness or I am starting to feel that I will stop and do a peak rep, and really, it’s become very centred in terms of what’s happening in my body. I’m so self aware and. Yeah, so having having lived a life where I was struggling with these terrible tremors and unable to really even hold a cup of coffee without spilling it everywhere, I don’t have it any longer. And it’s down to the art of peak and my wrapping.

Rhonda Farrell Lloyd [00:44:50] So one of the things I want to add is that with the peak reps, it’s using different senses. So some people like Debbie and I love the touch, but they are a variety of peak reps. You can do so you can listen to the song furthest away, and then listen to the song closest to you and really pay attention to it. You can do deep breaths in and out, or you don’t have to even do deep breaths. Could be just focus on the temperature of your breath as it goes in and out. Right? Then there’s visual, looking at a picture and looking at the lines and the textures, and really paying attention to all that that picture has to offer. Sometimes when I’m in a zoom meeting and I feel like I need to take a ten second rep and I’m not in the mood to do like a touch one, I pay attention to one of the people in the room, in the zoom room, and pay attention to different things on their face that I didn’t notice before, and or maybe their background that I didn’t notice before. And really focus on that just for a few seconds. 10s is all you need. And it helps to reset. So I hope that gives you an idea of the different types of peak that you can do.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:46:02] Yes, Debbie. Go on.

Debbie Masson [00:46:03] Please. You also don’t need to do the reps in the in the app. So it’s simple things like washing your hands. We don’t realise how we actually doing peak reps all the time. So I’ve become very self-aware about. Literally washing my hands or peeling something, or how I become very focussed on what it is that I’m doing, and sort of almost becoming mesmerised in terms of what I’m doing. So and inculcating my picture ribs into that.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:46:29] And again, this is what I love about it, because we’ve talked for so many years about mindfulness as being very important tools like change your, you know, like I just said, you can change your attitude to things and events, but what do I do with that? And mindfulness is we know it’s good, but why am I doing it? What am I doing? Well, I’m actually calming this habit. I you know, I’ve just engaged the saboteur and I’m just pressing the pause button while the traffic signal changes towards my sage. And this is what mindfulness does, and I can do it, as you said, Rhonda, using any one of my senses. And Debbie, I love that too. That you can even just be washing your hands because you know, whatever. Brushing your teeth, washing your hands, getting dressed, doing something mindfully to then change the direction of thought. This is again what I love about about the whole thing. Listen, there is a I know that I was fortunate enough to do the six week program that well, actually, let’s just talk for a moment about the innovator of this, Shahzad. Tell us a bit about Shahzad.

Rhonda Farrell Lloyd [00:47:41] So Shahzad Amin is the CEO and founder of Positive Intelligence. He wrote the New York Times bestselling book Positive Intelligence. And, he studied at Stanford and an incredible research that involves looking at things like cognitive behavioural psychology, positive psychology, performance science, and so forth, and bringing this all together in his Positive Intelligence book and created this amazing six week program that allows you to shift your mental state so that you build your mental fitness over those periods of time, so that if you actually put your brain and then MRI machine, you would actually see a change, because what’s happening is you, changing the way those automated responses that you have that many times are negative and you’re intercepting that and having it move into more positive thinking or positive mindset.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:48:44] Yes. No. I, having done that six week program and will, of course, have links to that, you know, in our show notes as well. I think the whole platform and the whole concept, because you’ve also mentioned IQ, emotional intelligence, which is again, a rather, you know, it’s often a term that’s thrown around and, you know, you need to improve your IQ. You know, what are the what is IQ? Well, there are 20 or 25 different parameters that make up IQ. And I could never remember more than two or 3 or 4. And I’m not even sure what the relevance of them were to me at any one time. But that’s what I love about this sage saboteur thing. There are five sage powers. There’s the one judge which is common to us all, and our accomplice saboteur. So it’s very personalised and gives a wonderful structure and language to that noise that’s going on in our head. Thank you so much for joining us today. Was there anything else you wanted to end.

Debbie Masson [00:49:49] That was good advice for me?

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:49:51] Yeah, look, I’ve enjoyed it too, and it’s been a great reminder. Not as no, I needed and I’m practising all the time, but it’s been great to touch base with somebody from from the cult, from the organisation and hear your own insights and personal experience. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Rhonda Farrell Lloyd [00:50:09] You’re welcome. Thanks for having us.

Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:50:11] Well, Stress Health has really focussed on health and wellbeing for individuals and for the workplace. And essentially we looked at the cycle of our daily lives as three things that we go through each and every day. We face challenges, be they personal or professional. We call that life. How do we approach those challenges? What is our mindset? Is it growth and thrive, or is it survive and threat? And this is where the world of positive intelligence dovetails into the UN stress health mission. And then the next part of the cycle is how you recover each and every day, how you recover on a daily basis or how you recover from any disease. And that essentially is the five stress model and five pillar model that any regular listener of this podcast will be familiar with. The five stressors. Two. Well, it defines a stress as anything that compromises your immune system or promotes chronic inflammation. And so the idea is to identify and minimise as many stressors as possible. And we look at five emotional, environmental, postural, nutritional and dental stress. The other side of the balancing beam is to build resilience by focusing on the five pillars of health sleep, breathe, nourish, move and think. And this balancing beam pivots on our genes. But you’re not a victim to your genes. It’s how they express themselves in the wonderful and empowering science of epigenetics. That’s what counts. So approaching this with a high positive intelligence makes so much more of life possible, enjoyable, productive, and it impacts on every aspect of our lives. Now, if you’re wanting more information, let’s get onto the, positive intelligence side. Or you can join the unstressed health side and explore your peak with us. I hope this finds you will. Until next time, this is Doctor Ron Erlich. Hey. Well, this podcast provides general information and discussion about medicine, health, and related subjects. The content is not intended and should not be construed as medical advice, or as a substitute for care by a qualified medical practitioner. If you or any other person has a medical concern, he or she should consult with an appropriately qualified medical practitioner. Guests who speak in this podcast express their own opinions, experiences and conclusions.