Intelligence Quotient or IQ gets you a job.
Emotional Quotient or EQ gives you success. But not happiness.
So, what gives both – success and happiness?
Shirzad Chamine, founder and CEO at Positive Intelligence Inc., coined this term. Positive Quotient or PQ.
In his New York Times bestseller Positive Intelligence, Chamine explains: “Your mind is your best friend, but it is also your worst enemy. Your Positive Intelligence Quotient is the percentage of time your mind is serving you as opposed to sabotaging you. Your PQ indicates how much mastery you have over your own mind.”
Perhaps, it’s the most important life skill that we have left behind in our quest to achieve and conquer, and call it a success.
Your PQ is the percentage of time your mind is serving you as opposed to sabotaging you. For example, a PQ of 75 means that your mind is serving you 75 per cent of the time and sabotaging you about 25 per cent of the time. Compelling evidence from a synthesis of research in psychology, neuroscience, and organizational science shows that with higher PQ teams and professionals ranging from leaders to salespeople perform 30-35 per cent better on average. What’s more, they report being far happier and less stressed.
“Our brains are hard-wired for negativity; this goes back to our Stone Age ancestors, who needed to be cautious all the time from attack. Attack from dangerous animals, imminent bad weather or threats from other tribes,”
And in current Covid19 times, the pandemic has triggered our negativity thinking on a mass scale across the world. Everyone is concerned about safety which is the need of the hour and makes sense; but how many of us have created an imaginary world in our minds with negative thoughts leading to anxiety and stress? This can be avoided and definitely does not make sense.
Harvard Business Review said recently that training your brain to be positive is not so different from training your muscles at the gym. Engaging in one brief positive exercise every day, for as little as three weeks, can have a lasting impact. Without micro-moments of positivity on a daily basis, you’d still be grappling with the world no matter how intelligent you are.
The Saboteurs (negative thoughts) are the internal enemies. They are a set of automatic and habitual mind patterns, each with its own voice, beliefs, and assumptions that work against your best interest.
The key to weakening your Saboteurs is to identify which one you have and expose its key hidden beliefs, patterns, thoughts, and emotions.
Your Sage’s great wisdom and strength are rooted in its perspective: any problem you are facing is either already a gift and opportunity or could be actively turned into one.
If you follow the Sage perspective, you get greater access to vastly untapped mental powers which can meet absolutely any work or life challenge without being worked up about it.
The PQ Brain gives rise to the Sage perspective its powers. Its focus is on thriving rather than surviving, which is the Saboteurs’ focus. The PQ Brain “muscles” are activated and strengthened when you command your mind to stop its busy mind chatter and direct its attention to any of your five physical sensations.
This might appear simplistic, but it is backed by a massive amount of research. Every time you attempt such a shift of attention for about 10 seconds, you have performed a “PQ rep,” strengthening the muscles of your PQ Brain. The goal is to do 100 PQ reps per day to build up and maintain strong PQ Brain muscles. This can be done while sitting in a meeting, driving, walking the dog, or taking a shower. It doesn’t need to take any extra time from your busy day. These muscles build up really fast.
If this topic interests you, please connect with me. Or read more at www.PositiveIntelligence.com