Your mind can be your best friend or your worst enemy.

That is what Shirzad Chamine, a popular Stanford lecturer, tells us in his book Positive Intelligence.

He says that the way to be successful is by overcoming the “Saboteurs” that are holding you back, whether you realize it or not.

You might have heard of IQ (Intelligence Quotient) and EQ (Emotional Quotient). Now learn about PQ (Positive Quotient) so you can reach your maximum potential.

As you read this book summary, look for ways to improve yourself so you can help your struggling learning be better prepared for improved learning and success in life.

What is Positive Intelligence?

Positive Intelligence measures how much your mind helps you instead of harms you… how strong your mind is. It measures how often your mind is your friend instead of your enemy.

If you have high Positive Intelligence, your mind works more as a friend than as an enemy. If you have low Positive Intelligence, the opposite is true.

The author found that most people have low PQ.

He blames ten Saboteurs for ruining people’s potential for success and happiness.

The Ten Saboteurs

As you read, think about how you’ve seen these things in your life.

1. The Master Saboteur: The Judge

The Judge is the master saboteur. Its main job is to find faults in yourself, others, and circumstances. It justifies its existence by reminding you that without it you would get lazy and complacent.

It will hound you for your past mistakes and current shortcomings. In your relationships with others, it focuses on what is wrong rather than appreciating the good. The thoughts it typically conjures up sound like “what’s wrong with _______.”

Those thoughts then get turned into emotions like anger, guilt, regret, and shame.

The Nine Accomplice Saboteurs

You will always have helpers to do the work for the Judge. Your nature and how you are raised will decide who your helpers will be. This happens without you realizing it and is usually based on your core motivations and style.

You have three core motivations, and you will usually prioritize one of these over the others:

• Independence: you need to be independent from other people.
• Acceptance: you need to be accepted by others.
• Security: you need to feel secure in life.

There are three different ways that you can try to get your need for your core motivation met.

• You can take action (Assert),
• work hard to earn it (Earn)
• withdraw from activities so you can avoid things that might stop you from getting what you need (Avoid).

You will usually prioritize one over the others.

The thing that will most likely stop you from achieving your goals is the intersection between what motivates you and how you like to work. We will go through nine different saboteurs, and for each one, try to identify which one most applies to you.

1. Controller (Independence/Assert)
   • This controller personality type feels the need to take control of situations. They often force other people to do things their way.
   • This personality type is alive when doing the impossible and beating the odds. They connect with others through competition and challenge.
   • They plant thoughts in your mind like “no one tells me what to do” and “I’m either in control or out of control.”
   • When things aren’t going their way, they experience high anxiety levels and anger when others don’t follow their lead.
   • This personality type justifies themselves with thoughts like “I’m trying to get the job done for all of us” and “Without me, nothing would get done.”
   • Their impact is usually temporary, but at the expense of others feeling controlled and resentful.
2. Stickler (Independence/Earn)
   • The Stickler is a personality trait that can show up as perfectionism and need for order that goes too far.
   • It can show up as methodical, highly critical of others, and a strong need for self-control.
   • This character trait causes thoughts like “If you can’t do it perfectly, don’t do it at all” and “Others have lax standards.”
   • This trait also causes feelings of frustration and disappointment when you or others don’t live up to the high standards set by the Stickler.
   • This trait justifies itself with thoughts like “I know how things should be done and it’s up to me to do them.”
   • Unfortunately, this trait has a negative impact on anxiety and frustration.
3. Avoider (Independence/Avoid)
   • The Avoider focuses on the positive and pleasant in an extreme way.
   • They avoid conflict and downplay the importance of some real problems.
   • It plants thoughts in your mind like “Maybe if I let it go it will take care of itself” and “If I get into conflict with others, I’ll lose the connection I’ve built.”
   • This can cause anxiety about what has been avoided and suppresses anger and resentment.
   • The Avoider justifies itself with thoughts like “no good comes out of conflict” and “it’s good to be flexible.”
   • Denying prevents Avoiders from turning problems into growth opportunities and gifts. Others trust them less because they are not sure when negative information is being withheld.
4. Hyper-Achiever (Acceptance/Assert)
   • The Hyper-Achiever is someone who always needs to be doing well in order to feel good about themselves. They often work a lot and can seem like a workaholic.
   • This type of person usually covers up their insecurities, and they may change their personality so that it seems more impressive to others.
   • The Hyper-Achiever plants thoughts in your mind such as “I must be the best at what I do” and “emotions get in the way of performance.”
   • They also make you feel fear of intimacy and vulnerability, as well as feelings of emptiness or depression at times. However, the Hyper-Achiever doesn’t like dwelling on emotions for very long.
   • The Hyper-Achiever justifies themselves with thoughts like “Life is about producing results” and “Feelings are a distraction and don’t help.”
   • Ultimately, this type of person is not very happy, and their self-acceptance always depends on the next big win.
5. Pleaser (Acceptance/Earn)
   • The Pleaser often causes you to lose sight of yourself and become resentful.
   • It needs frequent reassurance and expresses its own needs indirectly, making people feel obligated to reciprocate.
   • It plants thoughts in your mind like “I give too much and don’t think about myself enough” or “I’m a good person so I’ll put the needs of others ahead of my own.”
   • This makes you feel worried that expressing your own needs will drive others away, and resentful for being taken for granted.
   • The Pleaser justifies itself with thoughts like “The world would be a better place if everybody helped others selflessly and didn’t expect anything in return.”
   • This can lead to resentment and burnout over time.
6. Victim (Acceptance/Avoid)
   • The Victim tends to focus on painful, internal feelings. It often plays the martyr role.
   • If criticized, it will often withdraw and sulk. This Victim Repressor pushes down its rage, which results in apathy and constant fatigue.
   • The Victim’s thoughts might be “Terrible things always happen to me” or “No one understands me.”
   • Its feelings are often loneliness, even when around family or close friends. It might dwell on envy and negative comparisons a lot.
   • The Victim justifies itself with thoughts like “if I act this way, at least I’ll get some of the love and attention I deserve.”
   • This usually backfires and results in pushing people away even further.
7. Restless (Security/Assert)
   • The Restless are always looking for new and exciting things to do.
   • They get easily distracted and are always busy with many different tasks and plans.
   • They plant thoughts in your mind that make you feel like what you’re doing isn’t fulfilling or exciting enough.
   • This causes feelings of impatience and fear of missing out on other opportunities.
   • The Restless justifies their behavior with thoughts like “life is too short” or “I don’t want to miss out.”
   • As a result, they often avoid the issues and relationships that truly matter to them.
8. Hyper-Vigilant (Security/Earn)
   • The Hyper-Vigilant person is always anxious about the dangers in life. They focus on what could go wrong all the time.
   • This person is suspicious of what others are doing and they need reassurance and guidance from rules.
   • This trait plants thoughts in your mind that make you feel like “when is the other shoe going to drop” or “if I make a mistake, everyone will pile on me.”
   • This person causes feelings of skepticism and anxiety.
   • The Hyper-Vigilant justifies themselves with thoughts like “life if full of dangers” or “if I don’t look out for them, who will?”
   • This constant anxiety can be really draining, and it takes away energy that could otherwise be put to good use.
9. Hyper-Rational (Security/Avoid)
   • The Hyper-Rationalist is someone who focuses exclusively on rational thinking. This can make them seem cold and distant to others.
   • They often come across as intellectually arrogant, and their feelings are mainly shown through their passion for ideas.
   • This person plants thoughts in your mind like “others are often irrational and sloppy in their thinking” and “needs and emotions of others distract me from my work.”
   • This can cause feelings of frustration with others who are emotional and irrational. They often feel alone and misunderstood.
   • The Hyper-Rationalist justifies themselves with thoughts like “the rational mind is the most important thing and should be protected from other people’s emotions and messes.”
   • This severely limits the depth of relationships they can have with others.

Charmine’s strategy for dealing with the Saboteurs is to bring them into awareness. He will then use what he calls Sage superpowers to deal with the situation in a more powerful and healthy way.

The Antidote for the Saboteurs

The author gives five superpowers you can use develop stronger PQ:

1. Empathize
   1. Empathy is when you feel and show compassion and forgiveness. It can be used for yourself or others. The Judge doesn’t like empathy, and will do anything to stop you from using it. But one way to have a deeper sense of empathy is to imagine yourself or others in a situation where they are being themselves and are happy. See them in a setting where they are playing their favorite game, or holding a puppy.
2. Explore
   • Even when we are in a difficult situation, we can try to find the fascination and curiosity that children have. We can do this by asking ourselves “what more is here for me to discover?” We should try to be the “Fascinated Anthropologist” and see things exactly as they are.
   • For example, if you are in a conflict with somebody, let go of your demands just for a minute or two and become fascinated with why the other person feels the way they do.
3. Innovate
   • Innovation is about finding new ways to do things. It’s about asking yourself “what is a whole new way to do this?” This power will allow us to break free of our limiting beliefs and assumptions, and find unique solutions to otherwise impossible problems. A powerful technique to foster this sage power is “yes and.” It’s about appreciating each idea that you come up with rather than judging it immediately.
4. Navigate
   • There are two steps to finding the right path when you don’t know what to do. First, come up with a few different possible paths. Second, choose (navigate) the path that is right for you by looking at what is important to you and what gives your life meaning. To help you make this decision, think about how you would want to look back on this problem in the future.
5. Activate
   • Now that you have chosen a path, it is time to take action. Use your “activate power” to focus on what you need to do. In order to do this well, play the game of “preempting the Saboteurs.” Pretend you are your Saboteurs and think about how they will try to stop you from succeeding. Then, come up with a plan to overcome them.

Conclusion

He ends with his beginning statement. Your mind is your best friend or your worst enemy.

If you know what your Saboteurs are, and how to fight them with your Sage Powers, then you will be able to change the way you interact with the world and see success.

When you work on yourself, it becomes easier to help your child change their brain and get the life they want.