The breakthrough contribution of Positive Intelligence® research is through factor analysis to discover the core factors that impact both performance and wellbeing. This research revealed that there are only 10 negative response factors (10 Saboteurs) and only five positive response factors (5 Sage Powers).
Discovering these root-level factors of performance and wellbeing dramatically simplifies personal and professional development. Intercepting one’s Saboteur and activating one’s Sage automatically results in a wide array of impacts including stress management, relationship improvement, performance, selling and persuasion, creativity, leadership, resilience, and happiness.
This is because we are rewiring the brain at the root level rather than treating symptoms.
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Breakthrough Research
You have two very different regions in your brain.
Saboteurs are the voices in your head that generate negative emotions when you handle life’s challenges. They exist in the brainstem, limbic system, and parts of the left brain. They produce much of your stress, anxiety, self-doubt, anger, shame, guilt, frustration, and mind chatter. These negative emotions are only helpful for a second as they alert you to dangers or issues. However, staying in these emotions hurts your ability to see clearly and choose the most impactful response.
Your Sage lives in an entirely different region of your brain, the middle prefrontal cortex, “empathy circuitry,” and parts of the right brain. It generates positive emotions while handling life’s challenges. These include empathy, compassion, gratitude, curiosity, joy of creativity, and calm, clear-headed laser-focused action. This region is wired for creativity and big-picture awareness of what is important and the best course of action.
Activating this region results in release of endorphins that counter the negative impacts of stress-induced cortisol.
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The Thrive Region (Sage)
The Survive Region (Saboteurs)
Origin of the Saboteurs
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Saboteurs start off as our guardians to help us survive the real and imagined threats to our physical and emotional survival as children. By the time we are adults, we no longer need them, but they have become invisible inhabitants of our mind.
Our Saboteurs’ patterns of thinking, feeling, and reacting become soft-coded in our brain through neural pathways. When these neural pathways are triggered, we are “hijacked” by our Saboteurs and instantly feel, think, and act using their patterns.
Neuroplasticity: The Key to Shifting the Balance of Power
Your brain is made up of neurons. When a signal travels down a neuron, it results in activation of other neurons based on synapses that connect neurons. But there are multiple choices for which direction the signal would travel. The question is which neuron will be activated. Every time a neuron activates another neuron, they become more closely wired together, making it more likely that the signal will go in that direction the next time around. This constitutes a “neural pathway.”
This is how a repeated action becomes an automatic habit. In Positive Intelligence®, we use the powerful 10-second PQ Rep technique as a way of intercepting the old Saboteur responses, so we can pause and choose a new Sage response. Repetition results in Sage neural pathways (muscles) to counter the old Saboteur muscles. That is why our training results in sustained change, as opposed to results fading over time. Mental fitness is about building mental muscles and not just stopping at insights.
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Building New Neural Pathways
Mental fitness is increased when new mental muscles are strengthened through positive habits. Our program focuses on growing three specific mental muscles, which become visible as new neural pathways in MRI imaging within eight weeks of practice.
Saboteur Interceptor Muscle
Your Saboteurs generate all your negative emotions, including stress, anxiety, self-doubt, anger, avoidance, procrastination, insensitivity or discontent. Mental fitness requires the ability to intercept and discredit the Saboteurs.
Self-Command Muscle
Boost your ability to command your mind to quiet the Saboteur region and amplify the Sage region. Using simple daily exercises, you learn to run your brain, rather than allow your Saboteur-hijacked brain to run you.
Sage Muscle
Your Sage is the one in you that handles challenges with a clear and calm mind, and positive emotions. Your Sage accesses 5 positive powers. For peak performance, you learn to boost all 5 powers and know when to use which power.
© 2024 Positive Intelligence, LLC. All rights reserved. No reproduction, alteration, translation, publication or distribution, inanyform, printedor electronic, is permitted without the express prior written consent of Positive Intelligence, LLC. POSITIVE INTELLIGENCE®, PQ®, PQ COACH™, CERTIFIED PQ COACH™, and P+ logo™are trademarks of Positive Intelligence,LLC. DISCLAIMERS: Thecoach identified herein is an independent member of the PQ Coach program, and not an employee, agent or representative of Positive Intelligence, LLC. The coaching program offered herein is independently owned and operated by the coach, and is not affiliated with or endorsed or sponsored by Positive Intelligence, LLC. PROGRAM CONTENT AND MATERIAL DO NOT CONSTITUTE MEDICAL OR MENTAL HEALTH ADVICE AND ARE NOT A SUBSTITUTE FOR PROFESSIONAL CARE, DIAGNOSIS OR TREATMENT OF ANY MEDICAL OR MENTAL HEALTH CONDITION.