Positive Intelligence: The Beginning of Emotional Intelligence

Phil Holberton

Phil Holberton

Dedicated to helping you achieve your maximum potential

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Both Positive Intelligence (PQ) and Emotional Intelligence (EQ) have been discussed and analyzed in past blog posts. It’s been done before – so why should we keep talking about them?

Firstly, most initiatives at increasing EQ — especially in the workplace — only produce temporary results. The reason for this is that a more foundational intelligence has been overlooked: Positive Intelligence. In other words, monitoring your PQ actively aids you in growing the skills required to effectively regulate your EQ. You get the opportunity to reflect on yourself and ask questions regarding your mental and personal evolution.

Is your thinking consistently lifting you up and assisting you in making the most of what you have? Or do your thoughts routinely make you feel uneasy, insecure, and emotionally drained? All these inquiries are more than valid — not just for your personal development, but for your professional development as well.

Building Up Your Positive Intelligence 

PQ is a measurement of how well your thinking can benefit you. It shows your mental fitness and influences how probable you are to function in a particular way in the workplace.

Here, your mind is both your best friend and your worst enemy when dealing with self-sabotage. Thus, it is simply draining your mental resources with no redeeming worth. That is something no true “friend” would do.

The percentage of time your mind works for you rather than against you is known as your PQ. For example, a PQ of 75 suggests that your mind assists you 75% of the time and harms you during the other 25%. Businesses and professionals ranging from executives to salespeople perform 30-35% better when their PQ is higher, on average. They also become much happier and less stressed.

How to Increase Your Positive Intelligence: Sages, Saboteurs, and Mental Muscles

With the ongoing growth of PQ tools, workers, and business owners inevitably discover themselves increasing. Several essential players are on the frontlines of this never-ending mental battle: We have the alluring but destructive “Saboteurs,” that derail any attempt to improve happiness or performance; we have the wise and observant “Sage” on the other side.

To be more frank, different regions and muscle powers of the brain fuel the Saboteurs and Sage. Both are crucial to improving one’s PQ — then, subsequently, one’s EQ. It’s all about understanding how to navigate them.

Positive Intelligence Balanced with Emotional Intelligence

Saboteurs – The Weakening

Saboteurs are a group of automatic and habitual mental patterns, each with its own voice, beliefs, and assumptions, all of which operate against your best interests. They come in a variety of feelings, as described in prior posts, depending on the person. The question isn’t whether you have them; it’s whether you know how to tame them.

The real question is how powerful they are and which ones you have.

Self-awareness is the best step you can take to improve your PQ. They can still exist in this form, but they can’t dominate you. They won’t be able to stop you from realizing your full potential for success and happiness.

The key to neutralizing your saboteurs is as follows:

  • Figuring out which ones you have and exposing its concealed ideas, patterns, thoughts, and emotions. This effectively gives you the ability to create a “mug shot” of your internal foe. It enables you to recognize the Saboteur as soon as it appears in your mind.
  • Processing the thought rather than repressing or giving into it completely. Rather than pursuing that notion further, you simply name it as a “Saboteur” thinking and let it go. Sure, it’ll return; you’ll just keep identifying it and letting it go. The act of simply seeing, naming, and letting go has a huge influence.

The Saboteur will have lost a lot of its authority and credibility over you.

Getting Stronger with Sages

Your Sage’s immense knowledge and strength are rooted in its perspective: whatever challenge you’re dealing with is already a gift and opportunity, or something that may actively convert into one. Your saboteurs mock that viewpoint, making you feel nervous, dissatisfied, disappointed, stressed, or guilty because of “poor” events. The perspectives of the Sage and the Saboteur are both self-fulfilling prophecies.

If you choose the Sage approach, you’ll have more access to the Sage’s five massively underutilized mental skills, which can help you deal with any work or life difficulty without getting worked up about it. There are some simple and enjoyable “power games” you can play in your head to help with this process.

Workplace-Based Positive Intelligence

How It Ends: The Rise of PQ… and the Turn To EQ

The Sage perspective’s powers are derived from the PQ Brain. It is more concerned with prospering than with surviving, as the Saboteurs are.

You can do this while in a meeting, while driving, while walking the dog, or while showering. It can happen anywhere. So, any attempts to improve overall performance or personal contentment without a strong foundation of PQ are akin to creating elaborate new gardens while allowing ravenous snails free rein. Raising your PQ first is the sensible investment here. To become a black belt in Sage, you need to practice over and over.

Think of it from a workplace business perspective: The business world is under tremendous stress. Nevertheless, improving one’s mental health is no longer frowned upon as it once was. Investing in yourself can help you be more productive and empathetic of others around you. It can assist you in developing trust and moving toward an infinite mindset; thinking will extend beyond 1st-order consequences. End consequence — a higher and more efficient EQ — have the potential to be game-changing for the team and life-changing for the individual.

Do you want to take the next step and reach your highest potential? Call me at 781-608-1966 – Direct/Text or visit my website. Learn more about being more secure in the workplace and how to manage your decision making for your benefit.

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CATEGORIES: Leadership, Personal Development, Professional Growth, Team Management


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