Build Your Brain to Build Your Leadership

“Katie, a third employee just gave their notice this month, I am overwhelmed and exhausted.”

“Hey Katie, my board has been really challenging to connect with and it is stressful trying to engage them.”

“Katie, I am tired. I don’t want to make another decision. I have a serious case of burnout.”

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Stress, overwhelm, disconnect, and burnout. These are the recent themes of calls from nonprofit Executive Directors. And yet, in the next breath they share a solution:

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“I am considering outsourcing accounting, what do you think?”

“I think the board needs a retreat to reconnect with one another, can you help?”

“I am going to take some time off just to recharge and encourage my team to do the same.”

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With each of these conversations I wonder what tools could help these leaders navigate through their challenges in a positive way.

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Just over a year ago, I was introduced to the work of Shirzad Chamine and Positive Intelligence. Early in his book he shares:

“Your mind is your best friend, but it is also your worst enemy. Positive Intelligence measures the relative strength of these two modes of your mind. High Positive Intelligence means your mind acts as your friend far more than as your enemy. Low Positive Intelligence is the reverse. Positive Intelligence is therefore an indication of the control you have over your own mind and how well your mind acts in your best interest.”

Is your mind regularly on your side, lifting you up and helping you make the most of what you have? Or is your mind regularly making you anxious, keeping you up at night, judging you, and wearing you down?

Just like being physically fit, allows you to climb steep hills with ease, being mentally fit allows you to handle life’s daily challenges more easily. Mental fitness increases happiness, satisfaction, and joy.  It leads to a quicker recovery when you are thrown off balance. Negativity is diminished which leads to greater productivity, and performance.  It takes practice.  But with practice mental fitness empowers a shift to positivity.  

Over the past 7 weeks, I had the honor of leading six passionate nonprofit Executive Directors through Shirzad Chamine’s Positive Intelligence course. Each week the group watched a video to learn the elements of Positive Intelligence, they did daily work building their PQ muscle, and weekly we met together to share what we were learning.

There was so much growth and magic during our weekly meetings together. We connected, we laughed, we were vulnerable, and we realized we each want to increase the joy and ease of our lives and decrease the stress and overwhelm in our work and life.

One of my 2022 goals is to share the tools in the Positive Intelligence framework with the amazing leaders in the nonprofit sector who work so hard to make the world better.

If learning more about Positive Intelligence interests you, I invite you to join a free one hour overview session via Zoom on March 28 at noon or 4pm. Email me katie@armstrongmcguire.com and let me know which session you want to join and I will send you a link.

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PS. Interested in knowing what your PQ Score is?

You Can Measure Your Positive Intelligence Quotient (“PQ”) by going to Assessments | Positive Intelligence

Your PQ is the percentage of time your mind is acting as your friend rather than an enemy.

For example, a PQ score of 75 means that your mind is acting as your friend 75 percent of the time and is in self-sabotage mode about 25 percent of the time.

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