October 4, 2025 • 36 mins
When your children leave home, the loudest voice isn't always the one you want to hear—it's your inner critic. It whispers doubts, tells you "you shouldn't," "you can't," or "you're not enough," leaving you feeling stuck and uncertain about how to move forward. However, there's a practical, proven framework that can quiet the noise and help you reclaim your peace: Positive Intelligence (PQ).
In this episode, we sit down with coach Kevin Gazzara to demystify PQ and explore how it applies to life after the nest empties. Kevin introduces us to the Judge and its nine accomplice saboteurs—Controller, Hyper-Achiever, Restless, Stickler, Pleaser, Hyper-Vigilant, Avoider, Victim, and Hyper-Rational—that hijack our thoughts with seemingly true but unhelpful stories. He explains how these saboteurs influence our daily lives and how shifting into the Sage mindset—empathy, curiosity, creativity, and decisive action—can transform challenges into opportunities.
Highlights & Key Takeaways:
- Positive Intelligence (PQ) offers a prescriptive, practical approach to mental well-being.
- The Judge and its nine saboteurs undermine confidence and clarity.
- Moving from threat-based thinking to Sage powers—empathy, curiosity, creativity, and decisiveness—shifts your perspective.
- After caregiving and life changes, reframe your identity for reinvention instead of loss.
- The Pleaser pattern can lead to burnout—setting oxygen-mask boundaries prevents that.
Join us and challenge the noisy inner critic. Map out a clear, actionable path for growth, reinvention, and community—because the person you already are has everything it takes to lead your best life.
Here's your free PQ assessment and practical next steps!
Kevin Gazzara Bio
Dr. Kevin Gazzara - CEO of Magna Leadership Solutions, Management & Leadership Expert, Executive Positive Intelligence Coach, Professor at 5 Universities, Speaker, & Author of The Leader of OZ. Kevin worked for 18 years at Intel Corporation in positions from Program and Product Management to Leadership Development. He holds a BS in Commerce and Engineering, an MBA and a Doctorate of Management in Organizational Leadership.
Find Kevin Online: Facebook, Linke
FREE WORKBOOK
3 Steps to Loving Your Empty Nest Life
ENJOY THE SHOW?
Don’t miss an episode, subscribe via Apple Podcasts or follow on Spotify and many more.
LOVE THE SHOW?
Get your THIS EMPTY NEST LIFE swag
Review us on Love the Podcast, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify -- reviews and ratings help others find us and we’d appreciate your support greatly.
CONNECT WITH JAY
Email, LinkedIn, Instagram, or TikTok
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
Hey there, my emptiness friends.
Are you sick and tired of thosevoices in your head telling you,
I can't, I shouldn't, I don'tknow how, that's impossible, I
couldn't, and actually allowingthose thoughts to maybe hold you
back from living your bestemptiness life.
I hear from so many of you in mysocial posts that have these
exact same thoughts and aren'tenjoying this special time in
(00:22):
our lives.
So what are we going to do aboutit?
Well, today I'm joined by KevinPizarra, a coach trained in
positive intelligence, and we'regoing to dig into how we can
leverage positive intelligenceor PQ as it's known to find
surprising ways to thrive in ouremptiness lives.
Kevin, welcome to this emptinesslife.
SPEAKER_00 (00:40):
Jay, thanks for sharing me with your listeners.
I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_01 (00:43):
Yeah, I'm so excited for you to be here.
Why we were talking a little bitbefore we hopped on PQ is one of
those things that, you know, itkind of is out there in the
periphery.
Some people know, some peopledon't.
But so before we actually startgetting into the meat of this
conversation, what exactly ispositive intelligence or PQ as
we'll probably refer to it fromhere on out?
SPEAKER_00 (01:05):
So I think that probably the easiest way to
describe it is there's a lot ofwork that was done on emotional
intelligence many, many yearsago.
Daniel Goldman from Rutgers madeit popularized and really
created the one of the first,I'd say, commercial assessments
(01:26):
for emotional intelligence.
And I've been a fan of Goleman'sas well as his predecessors for
many years.
And he did a wonderful job ofkind of defining what emotional
intelligence is with regard toour self-awareness, our
awareness of others, ourmotivation, and kind of all put
(01:47):
it together in a single model.
And a few several years ago, agentleman by the name of Shrizad
Shami wrote a book calledPositive Intelligence.
And what Shrizad had done was hehad taken a lot of the
foundational work that was doneby Goleman.
And I would say Goleman, the bigdifference is Goleman's work is
(02:12):
very descriptive.
So you can take the assessmentand you can read his books, and
it makes tons and tons of sense.
Taking it to the next level, ash prescriptive way has always
been a little bit nebulous.
And what Shirzat had done in thepositive intelligence book is he
has taken the work of Goleman.
(02:34):
He's also included work by inpositive psychology.
If anybody's read any of thework by Martin Seligman from
University of Pennsylvania, he'staken some work by in
neuroscience like David Rock.
And he's basically put these alltogether into an operating
system.
And he's moved from thisdescriptive, how do I move
(02:54):
forward, to a very prescriptivemethodology so that you can
understand yourself, uh, you'reyou can understand others, you
can understand your motivation,and he gives you a process in a
mindfulness meditation type typeof approach where you can
(03:18):
actually build new neuralpathways in it in your brain.
So the great news is if you'rewondering what's going on in
your head and how to controlthose, what he calls saboteurs,
um this is a wonderfulprescriptive methodology to
build those neural pathwaysthrough some very quick a couple
(03:41):
minutes at a time, mindfulness.
You don't have to be, you know,you don't have to be a
meditator.
I remember back in college andmy roommate was heavy in the
meditation, and I'd wake up inthe morning in the dorm room and
he'd be sitting in the middle ofthe room in a lotus position,
all humming for 45 minutes as amantra.
And I tried that, and that justnever really worked for me.
(04:02):
And what Shirzad has done is hehas created, he's brought all
the concepts together that thatreally were independent and
should work together in a waythat that's very understandable
and enticing to want to getengaged with.
SPEAKER_01 (04:24):
Yeah, it sounds like it's perhaps a little bit more,
his work is a little bit moreaccessible.
You mentioned the meditationpiece, and people talk about
that all the time.
Oh, you should meditate, that'llhelp you.
Yeah.
People, I don't understand thatpiece, or do I have to really
sit for 30 minutes or 45 minutesor an hour in silence and kind
of figure things out?
But the piece that intrigued mewas you mentioned like the work
(04:45):
all ties togetherself-awareness, and I would
imagine to a certain degree,self-identity.
And what I find with emptynesters who were primarily the
full-time caregivers in theirfamilies, was like that, their
identity of self has gotten losta little bit.
And so it's like, how could weuse PQ, positive intelligence,
(05:05):
to rebuild identity and purposein our empty nest lives?
SPEAKER_00 (05:09):
Yeah, it it's a great question.
It's and it's something when I Ido a lot of executive coaching
currently.
I left the corporate world about18 years ago to run some, to
start up a company called MagdaLeadership Solutions.
And we do lots of leadershipdevelopment programs around the
world for big organizations,medium size, even some small
(05:33):
organizations.
But what has emerged out of thatas we've been working with the
different leaders, is there'sbeen a desire for them to get a
use me as a coach, right?
So I went back many years,several years ago, four or five
years ago, and I did all myofficial ICF coach
certifications.
(05:54):
And then one of my businesscolleagues was involved with
Shirzad when he was with anotherorganization.
And just as positiveintelligence was coming out, she
said, Oh, there's this newprogram uh that you that I'm
about to take, and why don't youjoin me on it?
So I joined her on it, and itwas life-changing for me, right?
(06:19):
Because what I recognized isthinking back to my roommate in
the lotus position in the dormroom, thinking about, oh, it's
another one of these soft.
I don't want to, I don't want todeal with that.
My background is, just soeverybody knows here, my
background is in engineering andbusiness.
So I I lived in the high-techworld at Intel for 18 years.
(06:40):
And before that, I was withTrans America Corporation.
And I've always lived in kind ofthe bits and bytes world, right?
Things that were very rational.
And I understood the value ofemotional intelligence,
particularly as I did all mydoctoral work and motivation and
engagement, and I've found thevalve the value of it.
(07:01):
So the key is to recognize thatthis soft, squishy kind of stuff
really does help you create thisposition, particularly as you go
into retirement, into a positionto think about yourself as a a
reinvention as opposed to some adecline, which I think many
(07:23):
people do.
SPEAKER_01 (07:24):
Yeah, I think what folks who hit the empty nesting
stage, and I I look at that asit's not just a moment when the
kids leave home.
Like, yes, that's when emptynesting starts, but it is that
time frame between when theyleave home and when we retire.
I know a lot of what you talkabout is like how we can thrive
in retirement.
And I'm saying, let's back thatup.
How can we thrive in emptynesting?
(07:46):
And how can we use a tool likePQ to actually help us do that?
SPEAKER_00 (07:51):
Yeah, and it's a great it's a great tool to be
able to get you started, but youalways want to have a plan.
I was fortunate enough that Ihad this personal goal to retire
at 50, and I was able to dothat.
If you look at success intransition and you look at
(08:13):
success in your retirement life,I'd say very close to 100% of
that is with regard to yourmental models and the strength
of your what Shazada calls yoursage brain.
And if you can get your sagebrain turned on, which means
turning off the naysayer brains,which he calls your saboteurs,
(08:34):
and there's 10 of them, we'lltalk about that today.
The 10 saboteurs that do that.
If you can really turn them off,because one of the things that
we know from really greatneuroscience work that was done
by Dr.
Richard Boyatsis is that we knowthat when we have a negative
event that happens, that youneed to have three other
(08:55):
positive events to get back touh to the status quo, right?
So if you have a lot of negativeevents happening, you have 10 of
negative events happening duringthe day, typically it just
completely overwhelms yourbrain.
And unless you've really builtthose neuropathways by
understanding which saboteursare creating these negative
(09:18):
events, because each event isit's how you interpret it
determines whether it's positiveor negative.
Do you look at it as anopportunity or as a threat?
But some other terms that peoplewill talk about, do you have a
fixed mindset of well, if thethis happens, it's bad, and this
happened, it's good?
Or do you have what they call agrowth mindset?
Some work that was done by CarolDweck, also at University of
(09:42):
Pennsylvania.
And if you have that growthmindset, and people say, Well,
I've always been like this, andthis is how I am, so I don't
have that growth mindset.
The really good news is you cando work to be able to change
that.
It's very possible.
And I think the reason thatpeople don't, in fact, I know
(10:04):
the reason, because this is frommy research, that people don't
do that is that we live in aWall Street world, right?
Everything is 30, 60, 90, what'shappening, and we don't really
think longer term.
And for people who are gettingready for the emptiness life,
that you have to take a littlebit longer look.
(10:25):
And the reason that people don'tdo that is that in our brain
likes causation.
If I do an hour of this, I getan hour of benefit there, right?
And what we're talking about iswe're talking about correlation.
And you have to continually,it's just like building any
habits, right?
Or exercising or weight loss orwhatever it is, that you have to
(10:48):
do things on a continuoushabitual method in order to
continually build that thoselittle pieces of the road.
And so when you need to go tothat neural pathway in your
brain once something bad hashappened, that it's there.
And because you can't see thatin the short-term Wall Street
(11:09):
model, people aband abandon it,say, Well, this is a valuable.
So I'll just drudge throughthings.
SPEAKER_01 (11:16):
Okay.
So for somebody who's trying tofigure out, I've got to I've got
to make a change in my life nowthat the kids have gone.
They're battling, you said 10saboteurs.
Yes.
I break them down intocontractions for folks.
Is I can't, I shouldn't, Iwon't, but what are the names of
the 10 saboteurs so that peoplemight have an idea of what to
look out for?
SPEAKER_00 (11:37):
Yeah, so they're so I'll start at the top, which is
the judge saboteur, right?
He or she is the mastersaboteur, right?
That controls all of us, that wehave this judge in our brain
that takes all the informationcoming in from the other nine
saboteurs and makes thedetermination of what to do
next.
Then I'm gonna run down throughthese, and these are in no
(12:00):
particular order.
And I'll give you a briefdescription, and then what we're
gonna do, Jay, is at the end ofthis, we'll give them a link and
they can take the the two PQassessors for free.
SPEAKER_01 (12:14):
You can throw it into the show notes too, so they
have access to it, so they canbe like, oh, okay, now I see
where this is what's botheringme, this type of saboteur.
SPEAKER_00 (12:22):
Exactly.
And it's like read out thenames.
What I would encourage people tolisten to is listen to see if
this that name resonates withyou.
So the first saboteur is theycalled or Sirdad identifies as
the controller, right?
It's being able to make surethat you have control of
(12:42):
everything, regardless of othersand the environment.
The next one is what's known asthe hyper-achiever, right?
Where nothing is good enoughthat they always have you have
to do better and more over andover again.
The other one is the restless.
A lot of people have thisrestless saboteur where they're
(13:04):
always thinking about woulda,coulda, shoulda, as Kenny, you
had mentioned before.
So you have this kind of restrestlessness of like when
everything is done at the end ofthe day, your brain just fills
it with more mind chatter.
You have that restless.
The other one, next one iswhat's known as a stickler.
And a stickler is really whereit's paying attention to deep
(13:29):
details that really have a very,very small, if not zero, degree
of importance or imp impact towhat you're doing.
And it's usually kind of thingsthat are never never good enough
that that I'm constantly lookingfor more and more m minutia,
which delays our ability to moveforward.
(13:53):
People get stuck there to thinkthey want things.
And it's usually a combinationof the stickler and one of the
other saboteurs as well.
And by the way, we all havedifferent levels of these, and
it's a scale from from zero to10 when you take the assessment.
So the next one is what's knownas the pleaser, and this is the
(14:14):
one that that I particularlyhave several client executive
clients that I'm working with,uh, that they they have the
pleaser saboteur, and it'salways much more about what
you're doing and about pleasingothers, independent of what it's
doing to you.
Just taking more and not dealingwith conflict, pushing it off.
(14:38):
Hope is not a strategy type ofthing.
So that's the pleaser type.
And I've seen from a lot ofassessments that I've done.
The pleaser one seems to be inthe top three for many people.
And then you have the hyper-vitvigilant, right?
The hyper-vigilant saboteur isvery similar to the restless.
(15:00):
The difference is the hyper-vitvigilant is also worrying about
all the things that are outthere, right?
Oh, I did this wonder that whenthis is going to come back.
I probably should call or touchpoints again.
And and you can do this.
And by the way, this works bothin business and with the family
in particular.
(15:21):
Most of the people have gonethrough the the six-week PQ
program that that I offer isthey found that that's equally,
if not more, um impactful forfor their family.
So you have the hyper-vigilantsaboteur.
And the last three areas, youhave the avoider, particularly
with the pleaser.
(15:42):
Those two seem to work kind ofhand in hand with each other,
that they don't want to dealwith the uh the conflict.
They hope is a strategy forthem.
And usually with the avoider,the more time that goes on, the
worse it gets.
Not always.
Quite often it's uh it's veryprevalent.
(16:04):
And then you have the victimsaboteur.
I think from a coachperspective, this is the one
that's the most challenging forme.
Is someone that sees themselvesit's a victim as the things are
happening to them.
And the I think the people withthe growth mindset believe that
things happened for you and notto you.
(16:24):
Victims always it's happening tome.
Why do they do that to me?
Why is the stock marketcrashing?
Why is does my daughter want totalk to me?
Those type of things that's thevictim mentality.
And then the last one, which isone of my top ones coming out of
the engineering, the bits andbites, and the rational world is
(16:47):
the hyper-rational, right?
Where the belief is that thateveryone can turn any anything,
any problem into a rationaldiscussion and decision.
And the one thing that we havelearned is that the way our
brains work, then the way I liketo think about it, is if you
think about your brain, you haveyour emotional brain and you
(17:09):
have your rational brain.
And I always think about theemotional brain as a kind of a
wall that goes around therational brain, which is in the
center of your brain.
And our tendency for thoseparticularly have a strong
hyper-rational, like I do, isjust pushing harder to break the
wall or get over the wall.
Push, push, push.
(17:30):
And what we know is until thewall has come down, the
emotional brain has beensatisfied, you really can't
address the rational brain in avery practical, um, productive,
efficient way.
So the my best tip for any ofyou that, particularly if you're
(17:54):
a scientist or an engineer or amedical person that really lives
in the rational world with lotsof data, is take the pause,
listen, and see if you canrecognize if there's an
emotional challenge happeningthere or if it's a rational
challenge, right?
(18:14):
And if it's irrational, you canstart the discussion right away.
Most of the time, there'ssomething else going on.
There's something else going on.
Like, oh, I can't get thisproject done.
I'm always late.
And you ask, and what's going onemotionally, a lot of times has
nothing to do with theworkplace.
It has to do with somethingthat's happening at home.
(18:36):
Of my daughter's studying forthe SCTs, and she's really
worried, and I'm worried she'snot going to get into college.
She wants all of that mindchatter is happening.
And people with a very strong PQvalue, where they have low
saboteur numbers and a very highsage.
(18:58):
There's five sage powers.
We could talk about those wherethey have that sage brain
happening.
If they if they have a reallystrong sage brain, what they can
do is they can recognize theimpact and deal with it and have
a discussion about what's reallyhappening.
And then once that's out of theway, then you can have the
(19:21):
rational discussion.
SPEAKER_01 (19:22):
Got it.
So I'm I the one thing thatpopped up for me in those
descriptions, and you mentioneda lot of your clients are this
one, is the pleaser.
I imagine a lot of primarycaregivers feel like they're the
pleaser too.
They're always looking out fortheir kids, their partner,
spouse, maybe other people intheir lives, their parents,
their siblings.
What is it in particular aboutthe pleaser saboteur that makes
(19:45):
it hard to get over?
Like, how do you help peoplework through that?
I'm just I'm super curiousthere.
SPEAKER_00 (19:51):
Yeah.
So, first of all, is one youhave to recognize that's your
saboteur.
And the on a scale of one toten, somebody that is at a 10 uh
is very different than someone'sat a six or five five type of
thing.
And if you're at a 10 or you'rein an eight, nine, ten in the
higher range, the myrecommendation, and if you read
(20:15):
Shoes Odds book on PQ, hisrecommendation would be is to
one is to to think aboutyourself like uh like you're on
an airplane.
That we want you to put youroxygen mask on first before you
can help others.
And the tendency is to help allthe others, and by the time
you're done and you haven't putyour oxygen mask on, bam, you're
(20:36):
passed out, then you're of nouse to anyone else.
So you want to be able toleverage that.
And the one thing I always tellpeople is when people are trying
to load more stuff on you, oryou feel like you're not doing
enough, or whatever is really tosay to them is I will be here
(20:59):
with you to facilitate what weneed to accomplish today.
It may not be me doing the work,but I will make sure that the
work gets done or therelationship gets done or
whatever that we take care ofyour needs.
And then you have to delegate itto others.
And too often I think many of usjust keep loading it on, and we
(21:21):
don't the for the pleasures,they don't ask for help.
Because they don't want to beseen as not a team player or
insensitive to other people's tneeds, and I have to do more,
right?
Or what will they think aboutme?
And that's the saboteurs talkingto you.
Oh, what would they think aboutme if I don't go over to see mom
every day or take care of thisor give her a call or whatever?
(21:45):
And they haven't really talkedthrough that, and they also
haven't said who else in myenvironment or my system can be
we can work together rather thanjust do it doing everything.
So it's it's settingexpectations, it's working with
(22:06):
others, it's bringing morepeople into the fold so that
it's not just you.
You can't you just you can't doit all yourself.
SPEAKER_01 (22:15):
Okay, so I'm gonna tie some pieces together here
for the listeners, becausethere's I had another guest on
talking about executive functionand where our brains don't fully
develop until we're 25.
And so oftentimes parents playthe role of executive function
for their kids.
And so when they go off toschool, if you are, if you're
listening to Kevin, you're like,oh yeah, the pleaser, that's me.
(22:37):
I feel like that's me.
It's like when the kids do gooff to college, because their
brains aren't fully formed yet,you played the role of their
that part of their brain for solong.
Is that when they do call andsay, How do you do X, Y, and Z,
or I have this problem, is askthem, Well, interesting.
What are you going to do aboutit?
That's how you remove thepeople, like the people pleaser
(22:59):
saboteur from is like you don'tfeel like you have to jump in
all the time for your kids oncethey're off to college.
It's like you give them thespace to learn and grow.
Feel like that, I think, is agood analogy transition for the
folks who are listening.
Like, okay, here's the peoplepleaser and me.
I feel that this is what I cando about it.
But number one is to go and takethe test to find out, are you
(23:19):
really the people pleaser?
Are there some other saboteursat play here for you?
SPEAKER_00 (23:23):
And the the great news is even on the site that
you'll get access to forpositive intelligence, even if
you don't buy the book, there'slots of information there that
if you wanted to go delve intothe saboteur that's I would say
to take a look at your topthree, depending on the numbers,
right?
If you have one that's at a 10and all the rest are fives and
(23:47):
below, really focus on that 10.
If your top three are like 888,uh then you probably want to
look at all of those.
And and some some may come in atzero, and that's a good thing.
And some other some others willcome in higher.
I think the one thing I'll say,Jay, is I took the program about
(24:09):
four or five years ago to getcertified to teach positive
intelligence.
And then when I first took myassessments, my top three were
in the seven and eight range.
And then by doing this for manyyears, because I do this as it's
first thing I do in the morning.
I get a focus for the day.
I do some mindfulness activitiesfor anywhere between two to
(24:31):
twelve minutes, depending on.
I usually try to get up and takea walk every morning.
And that's the first thing I dois to clear flush out my brain
and not be thinking about allthe stuff I have to do.
And it brings a lot of clarity.
And by doing that, it reallyhelps.
And when I've retaken theassessment, which I think the
last time I took the assessment,uh ever everything is down into
(24:57):
the six and five range.
Right.
So move from eight to seveneight and sevens to sixes and
fives.
So it's still there, but it'sfifty percent less than it was.
So I know that the stuff isworking.
Uh, so that you can't you canmake the change.
Getting everyone to to zero isprobably I don't think anybody's
(25:19):
ever done that.
I don't think they talk aboutthat in the book, but the key is
to get them reduced so that youremotional brain stays at a lower
level so that you can really usethat rational brain when you
need it.
SPEAKER_01 (25:34):
Yeah, I think that the takeaway here for folks is
often in emptiness life we wehave to like work on our health,
or we have to work on ourrelationships, or we want to go
to the gym, whatever it may be,is that it takes time.
Like your perfect example of Iwas at eights and now I'm at
fives and sixes, is you actuallyget up and do the work every
day.
And I think that's a good pointto make for folks like
(25:57):
everything we talk about here onthe show is you have to put the
F like the reps in, the time in.
And just sitting there willnever get you over.
I can't, I shouldn't, I don'tknow how, that's impossible.
I couldn't.
Right?
Though those things are gonnablock you until you decide,
okay, I do want to make achange.
Let me dig into it a little bitmore and figure out why.
unknown (26:17):
Yep.
SPEAKER_01 (26:18):
One of the biggest challenges for empty nesters,
which I think is true forretirees as well, but it happens
in that empty nest phase too, issocial isolation.
It's so much so they're ourfriends were the parents of our
kids.
So that whatever our kids'friends' parents are, those were
our friends.
That just happened to be how weall mesh together as human
(26:40):
beings.
Like we go to where our kids goand get to meet those people,
and then we move on.
And I know you talk about thiswhen this happens in retirement,
you leave work and all of asudden you're just home, and
there's social isolation thathappens because everybody has
scattered and you're byyourself, which happens in empty
nesting too, especially ifyou're not working.
How can PQ help there too?
SPEAKER_00 (27:02):
Well, the thing is the I think for thinking about
PQ, um, first you want torecognize which saboteur is
holding you back from making thesocial connections.
I think what you'll find isthere's usually one of those.
So, for example, an avoidermight be, you know, what might
(27:23):
be is like, uh, so if I go meetsomebody and they don't like me,
that's going to be upsetupsetting to me, or what can I
give them, or this is new.
So you basically just avoid itand you hope that think things
will happen, right?
So all of the saboteurs havesome kind of voice in your head
that's telling you not to dothat, right?
(27:46):
That and once you recognizewhich ones, then there's lots of
stuff in the book on the websitethat will say, if you're get
here's the voice, is this ifthis is what's it's saying to
you, here's approaches that youcan use in order to do that.
And the other thing is you don'thave to go it alone, right?
(28:08):
So pairing with someone else,whether it's a spouse, a
significant other, uh a friend,a colleague, a coworker, someone
else is in that space, and doingit together.
I think that's one of the thingsthat we found, particularly as
we've done our leadershipprograms, is probably the
biggest advantage you can getfor advancing yourself and
(28:28):
really building your PQ brain iswhat we call capability
partners.
We don't call themaccountability partners because
it feels too much like policing.
But we say get a capabilitypartner so that you hold
yourself accountable and say,okay, guess what?
You and I are gonna go to thegym that day, or you and I are
gonna go to the that golfingmeeting that's happening about
(28:52):
this golf social group, whateverit is, or card group and so
forth, that you're gonna do thattogether.
And when you physically do thattogether, you hold yourself
accountable.
And the capability partners canbe my capability partner is in
San Francisco, and I am here,and we talk about what we're
(29:15):
gonna accomplish.
Then when we meet on a regularbasis, we talk about what we did
do and what we didn't do.
And if we didn't do it, toreally go deeper of the why.
And usually the why, or almost100% of the time of the why is
uh has to do with the saboteurs.
It's that hyper-vigilantsaboteur.
Oh, I've been working on allthis other stuff, and my long my
(29:37):
to-do list is a thousand thingslong, so I didn't get to that
point.
It's why didn't you prioritizethat?
I understand why you didn'tprioritize that.
And once you understand that,you can really move forward.
SPEAKER_01 (29:50):
Yeah, I like the idea of the capability part.
Accountability only happenswithin, nobody can hold you
accountable, I believe.
And yeah, it feels very likeonerous to say, oh.
Oh, somebody's gonna hold youaccountable to doing whatever,
or getting outside your comfortzone, or meeting new people now
that the kids are growing andflown.
Can you find someone like thecapability partner to even say,
(30:12):
hey, are we capable of doingthis?
Like together, let's make thishappen.
Let's try and find something todo together.
SPEAKER_00 (30:18):
And I think there's I know there is.
I don't remember what the siteis, but there's actually a site
where you can go on.
I don't know if it's I think ifyou search accountability
partners, because that's themore common term to use that you
can that it pairs peopletogether.
So you can meet somebodyremotely.
(30:39):
And I I think probably might bea little bit scary, realize is
that the other person isprobably in an equal situation.
So you can work through thattogether.
I my I found for me the best wayto extend my social network is
really by giving back, right?
(31:00):
Whether it's coaching, whetherit's mentoring, uh, whether it's
working with nonprofitorganizations.
The more I give back, the more Iget back from a social
perspective, the more people Iso I don't go in with the
intention of, oh, I'm doing thisto meet people or to build my
(31:20):
network.
I'm doing this because it's theright thing to do.
And if I and if I can do that,it really helps with my
gratitude.
SPEAKER_01 (31:28):
I love that.
And folks, if you're interestedin more mentoring stuff, I
actually have another episodecoming out on that specifically
with Deborah Heiser.
So listen to that one as well.
Kevin has been a huge resourcehere for helping you understand
a little bit more about positiveintelligence, PQ.
We've dove into a lot ofdifferent things here today, and
it really is just at the30,000-foot view.
(31:52):
There is so much to this.
But I really encourage folks totake the time, go take the test,
figure out where you'restumbling and where you get
stuck, because that's how youfigure out how to move forward
in life.
Kevin, I'm curious, through allof your work, what's one of the
most defining moments of yourlife in this past year?
Not with your clients, not withanything else at work, but just
(32:14):
in your own life.
SPEAKER_00 (32:16):
I think, you know, the transition for me from I've
had several different versions.
The first transition was leavingthe corporate world, which was
planned.
We just celebrated our 18th yearfor my company on Magna
Leadership Solutions.
Every year has been better thanthe last.
Very fortunate for that.
(32:36):
But the I think the big thingfor me is my kids, my two
daughters have had theirchildren late in life.
Right.
So I be so I became agrandparent about six years ago.
But the defining moment thisyear in the past 12 months has
(32:58):
been the arrival of my firstgranddaughter.
So I have two grandsons, threeand six, and then I have a
granddaughter.
And really what has happened isthe kind of the next definition
for me, beyond just being acoach, a mentor, leadership
expert, has been as agrandparent.
(33:19):
And we are very fortunate thatwe have a home right next door
to my younger daughter, who hasthe three, and the uh the
nine-month-year-old, and then myuh six-year-old grandson is two
miles away.
So I get so that's my dailybasis, right?
My daily basis, I'm agrandparent and a parent first,
(33:41):
and then I have uh I'm a I'm acoach and a leadership and a
professor.
I'm teaching, I've taught at sixdifferent universities.
So that's secondary.
So the shift has happened fromuh in the last six years, but in
particular, as of the last twohave I've shown up as three and
(34:02):
three years and nine months hasreally been that's really been
the biggest difference from myidentity to be the grandparent
first.
And it's been a wonderfultransition.
I didn't I didn't plan to go,this is when it's gonna happen.
I just knew it was gonna happen,and I just needed to be ready
for it, and that's the reasonthat having that positive
(34:25):
mindset, whether it's for homeor work, is so important.
SPEAKER_01 (34:28):
I love that, Kevin.
Congratulations.
That's so exciting.
I know a lot of people in theiremptiness life feel like they
are just waiting around tobecome a mother-in-law or
father-in-law or a grandparent,waiting for the kids to get
engaged and married and havekids.
But I think the importanttakeaway here is get prepared
(34:48):
for it before it happens.
Live your life before ithappens, do lots of other things
before it happens because whenthe grandkids do come, they you
just said when you listed youridentity, you listed grandparent
first.
And so take the time now, folks,to do the things you want to do
in life and learn what's holdingyou back.
I think that's the biggesttakeaway from today is which
saboteur is holding you back andhow might you move forward in
(35:13):
life now that you're emptynesting.
Kevin, it's been an absolutepleasure having you on today.
Folks, we're gonna put a lot ofstuff in the show notes about
Kevin and his work, anddefinitely the link to take that
PQ test that is free just to getyou started.
So it's good to have you here,Kevin.
Appreciate you being on.
SPEAKER_00 (35:31):
All right, thanks, Jay.
Hey there, my emptiness friends.
Are you sick and tired of thosevoices in your head telling you,
I can't, I shouldn't, I don'tknow how, that's impossible, I
couldn't, and actually allowingthose thoughts to maybe hold you
back from living your bestemptiness life.
I hear from so many of you in mysocial posts that have these
exact same thoughts and aren'tenjoying this special time in
(00:22):
our lives.
So what are we going to do aboutit?
Well, today I'm joined by KevinPizarra, a coach trained in
positive intelligence, and we'regoing to dig into how we can
leverage positive intelligenceor PQ as it's known to find
surprising ways to thrive in ouremptiness lives.
Kevin, welcome to this emptinesslife.
SPEAKER_00 (00:40):
Jay, thanks for sharing me with your listeners.
I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_01 (00:43):
Yeah, I'm so excited for you to be here.
Why we were talking a little bitbefore we hopped on PQ is one of
those things that, you know, itkind of is out there in the
periphery.
Some people know, some peopledon't.
But so before we actually startgetting into the meat of this
conversation, what exactly ispositive intelligence or PQ as
we'll probably refer to it fromhere on out?
SPEAKER_00 (01:05):
So I think that probably the easiest way to
describe it is there's a lot ofwork that was done on emotional
intelligence many, many yearsago.
Daniel Goldman from Rutgers madeit popularized and really
created the one of the first,I'd say, commercial assessments
(01:26):
for emotional intelligence.
And I've been a fan of Goleman'sas well as his predecessors for
many years.
And he did a wonderful job ofkind of defining what emotional
intelligence is with regard toour self-awareness, our
awareness of others, ourmotivation, and kind of all put
(01:47):
it together in a single model.
And a few several years ago, agentleman by the name of Shrizad
Shami wrote a book calledPositive Intelligence.
And what Shrizad had done was hehad taken a lot of the
foundational work that was doneby Goleman.
And I would say Goleman, the bigdifference is Goleman's work is
(02:12):
very descriptive.
So you can take the assessmentand you can read his books, and
it makes tons and tons of sense.
Taking it to the next level, ash prescriptive way has always
been a little bit nebulous.
And what Shirzat had done in thepositive intelligence book is he
has taken the work of Goleman.
(02:34):
He's also included work by inpositive psychology.
If anybody's read any of thework by Martin Seligman from
University of Pennsylvania, he'staken some work by in
neuroscience like David Rock.
And he's basically put these alltogether into an operating
system.
And he's moved from thisdescriptive, how do I move
(02:54):
forward, to a very prescriptivemethodology so that you can
understand yourself, uh, you'reyou can understand others, you
can understand your motivation,and he gives you a process in a
mindfulness meditation type typeof approach where you can
(03:18):
actually build new neuralpathways in it in your brain.
So the great news is if you'rewondering what's going on in
your head and how to controlthose, what he calls saboteurs,
um this is a wonderfulprescriptive methodology to
build those neural pathwaysthrough some very quick a couple
(03:41):
minutes at a time, mindfulness.
You don't have to be, you know,you don't have to be a
meditator.
I remember back in college andmy roommate was heavy in the
meditation, and I'd wake up inthe morning in the dorm room and
he'd be sitting in the middle ofthe room in a lotus position,
all humming for 45 minutes as amantra.
And I tried that, and that justnever really worked for me.
(04:02):
And what Shirzad has done is hehas created, he's brought all
the concepts together that thatreally were independent and
should work together in a waythat that's very understandable
and enticing to want to getengaged with.
SPEAKER_01 (04:24):
Yeah, it sounds like it's perhaps a little bit more,
his work is a little bit moreaccessible.
You mentioned the meditationpiece, and people talk about
that all the time.
Oh, you should meditate, that'llhelp you.
Yeah.
People, I don't understand thatpiece, or do I have to really
sit for 30 minutes or 45 minutesor an hour in silence and kind
of figure things out?
But the piece that intrigued mewas you mentioned like the work
(04:45):
all ties togetherself-awareness, and I would
imagine to a certain degree,self-identity.
And what I find with emptynesters who were primarily the
full-time caregivers in theirfamilies, was like that, their
identity of self has gotten losta little bit.
And so it's like, how could weuse PQ, positive intelligence,
(05:05):
to rebuild identity and purposein our empty nest lives?
SPEAKER_00 (05:09):
Yeah, it it's a great question.
It's and it's something when I Ido a lot of executive coaching
currently.
I left the corporate world about18 years ago to run some, to
start up a company called MagdaLeadership Solutions.
And we do lots of leadershipdevelopment programs around the
world for big organizations,medium size, even some small
(05:33):
organizations.
But what has emerged out of thatas we've been working with the
different leaders, is there'sbeen a desire for them to get a
use me as a coach, right?
So I went back many years,several years ago, four or five
years ago, and I did all myofficial ICF coach
certifications.
(05:54):
And then one of my businesscolleagues was involved with
Shirzad when he was with anotherorganization.
And just as positiveintelligence was coming out, she
said, Oh, there's this newprogram uh that you that I'm
about to take, and why don't youjoin me on it?
So I joined her on it, and itwas life-changing for me, right?
(06:19):
Because what I recognized isthinking back to my roommate in
the lotus position in the dormroom, thinking about, oh, it's
another one of these soft.
I don't want to, I don't want todeal with that.
My background is, just soeverybody knows here, my
background is in engineering andbusiness.
So I I lived in the high-techworld at Intel for 18 years.
(06:40):
And before that, I was withTrans America Corporation.
And I've always lived in kind ofthe bits and bytes world, right?
Things that were very rational.
And I understood the value ofemotional intelligence,
particularly as I did all mydoctoral work and motivation and
engagement, and I've found thevalve the value of it.
(07:01):
So the key is to recognize thatthis soft, squishy kind of stuff
really does help you create thisposition, particularly as you go
into retirement, into a positionto think about yourself as a a
reinvention as opposed to some adecline, which I think many
(07:23):
people do.
SPEAKER_01 (07:24):
Yeah, I think what folks who hit the empty nesting
stage, and I I look at that asit's not just a moment when the
kids leave home.
Like, yes, that's when emptynesting starts, but it is that
time frame between when theyleave home and when we retire.
I know a lot of what you talkabout is like how we can thrive
in retirement.
And I'm saying, let's back thatup.
How can we thrive in emptynesting?
(07:46):
And how can we use a tool likePQ to actually help us do that?
SPEAKER_00 (07:51):
Yeah, and it's a great it's a great tool to be
able to get you started, but youalways want to have a plan.
I was fortunate enough that Ihad this personal goal to retire
at 50, and I was able to dothat.
If you look at success intransition and you look at
(08:13):
success in your retirement life,I'd say very close to 100% of
that is with regard to yourmental models and the strength
of your what Shazada calls yoursage brain.
And if you can get your sagebrain turned on, which means
turning off the naysayer brains,which he calls your saboteurs,
(08:34):
and there's 10 of them, we'lltalk about that today.
The 10 saboteurs that do that.
If you can really turn them off,because one of the things that
we know from really greatneuroscience work that was done
by Dr.
Richard Boyatsis is that we knowthat when we have a negative
event that happens, that youneed to have three other
(08:55):
positive events to get back touh to the status quo, right?
So if you have a lot of negativeevents happening, you have 10 of
negative events happening duringthe day, typically it just
completely overwhelms yourbrain.
And unless you've really builtthose neuropathways by
understanding which saboteursare creating these negative
(09:18):
events, because each event isit's how you interpret it
determines whether it's positiveor negative.
Do you look at it as anopportunity or as a threat?
But some other terms that peoplewill talk about, do you have a
fixed mindset of well, if thethis happens, it's bad, and this
happened, it's good?
Or do you have what they call agrowth mindset?
Some work that was done by CarolDweck, also at University of
(09:42):
Pennsylvania.
And if you have that growthmindset, and people say, Well,
I've always been like this, andthis is how I am, so I don't
have that growth mindset.
The really good news is you cando work to be able to change
that.
It's very possible.
And I think the reason thatpeople don't, in fact, I know
(10:04):
the reason, because this is frommy research, that people don't
do that is that we live in aWall Street world, right?
Everything is 30, 60, 90, what'shappening, and we don't really
think longer term.
And for people who are gettingready for the emptiness life,
that you have to take a littlebit longer look.
(10:25):
And the reason that people don'tdo that is that in our brain
likes causation.
If I do an hour of this, I getan hour of benefit there, right?
And what we're talking about iswe're talking about correlation.
And you have to continually,it's just like building any
habits, right?
Or exercising or weight loss orwhatever it is, that you have to
(10:48):
do things on a continuoushabitual method in order to
continually build that thoselittle pieces of the road.
And so when you need to go tothat neural pathway in your
brain once something bad hashappened, that it's there.
And because you can't see thatin the short-term Wall Street
(11:09):
model, people aband abandon it,say, Well, this is a valuable.
So I'll just drudge throughthings.
SPEAKER_01 (11:16):
Okay.
So for somebody who's trying tofigure out, I've got to I've got
to make a change in my life nowthat the kids have gone.
They're battling, you said 10saboteurs.
Yes.
I break them down intocontractions for folks.
Is I can't, I shouldn't, Iwon't, but what are the names of
the 10 saboteurs so that peoplemight have an idea of what to
look out for?
SPEAKER_00 (11:37):
Yeah, so they're so I'll start at the top, which is
the judge saboteur, right?
He or she is the mastersaboteur, right?
That controls all of us, that wehave this judge in our brain
that takes all the informationcoming in from the other nine
saboteurs and makes thedetermination of what to do
next.
Then I'm gonna run down throughthese, and these are in no
(12:00):
particular order.
And I'll give you a briefdescription, and then what we're
gonna do, Jay, is at the end ofthis, we'll give them a link and
they can take the the two PQassessors for free.
SPEAKER_01 (12:14):
You can throw it into the show notes too, so they
have access to it, so they canbe like, oh, okay, now I see
where this is what's botheringme, this type of saboteur.
SPEAKER_00 (12:22):
Exactly.
And it's like read out thenames.
What I would encourage people tolisten to is listen to see if
this that name resonates withyou.
So the first saboteur is theycalled or Sirdad identifies as
the controller, right?
It's being able to make surethat you have control of
(12:42):
everything, regardless of othersand the environment.
The next one is what's known asthe hyper-achiever, right?
Where nothing is good enoughthat they always have you have
to do better and more over andover again.
The other one is the restless.
A lot of people have thisrestless saboteur where they're
(13:04):
always thinking about woulda,coulda, shoulda, as Kenny, you
had mentioned before.
So you have this kind of restrestlessness of like when
everything is done at the end ofthe day, your brain just fills
it with more mind chatter.
You have that restless.
The other one, next one iswhat's known as a stickler.
And a stickler is really whereit's paying attention to deep
(13:29):
details that really have a very,very small, if not zero, degree
of importance or imp impact towhat you're doing.
And it's usually kind of thingsthat are never never good enough
that that I'm constantly lookingfor more and more m minutia,
which delays our ability to moveforward.
(13:53):
People get stuck there to thinkthey want things.
And it's usually a combinationof the stickler and one of the
other saboteurs as well.
And by the way, we all havedifferent levels of these, and
it's a scale from from zero to10 when you take the assessment.
So the next one is what's knownas the pleaser, and this is the
(14:14):
one that that I particularlyhave several client executive
clients that I'm working with,uh, that they they have the
pleaser saboteur, and it'salways much more about what
you're doing and about pleasingothers, independent of what it's
doing to you.
Just taking more and not dealingwith conflict, pushing it off.
(14:38):
Hope is not a strategy type ofthing.
So that's the pleaser type.
And I've seen from a lot ofassessments that I've done.
The pleaser one seems to be inthe top three for many people.
And then you have the hyper-vitvigilant, right?
The hyper-vigilant saboteur isvery similar to the restless.
(15:00):
The difference is the hyper-vitvigilant is also worrying about
all the things that are outthere, right?
Oh, I did this wonder that whenthis is going to come back.
I probably should call or touchpoints again.
And and you can do this.
And by the way, this works bothin business and with the family
in particular.
(15:21):
Most of the people have gonethrough the the six-week PQ
program that that I offer isthey found that that's equally,
if not more, um impactful forfor their family.
So you have the hyper-vigilantsaboteur.
And the last three areas, youhave the avoider, particularly
with the pleaser.
(15:42):
Those two seem to work kind ofhand in hand with each other,
that they don't want to dealwith the uh the conflict.
They hope is a strategy forthem.
And usually with the avoider,the more time that goes on, the
worse it gets.
Not always.
Quite often it's uh it's veryprevalent.
(16:04):
And then you have the victimsaboteur.
I think from a coachperspective, this is the one
that's the most challenging forme.
Is someone that sees themselvesit's a victim as the things are
happening to them.
And the I think the people withthe growth mindset believe that
things happened for you and notto you.
(16:24):
Victims always it's happening tome.
Why do they do that to me?
Why is the stock marketcrashing?
Why is does my daughter want totalk to me?
Those type of things that's thevictim mentality.
And then the last one, which isone of my top ones coming out of
the engineering, the bits andbites, and the rational world is
(16:47):
the hyper-rational, right?
Where the belief is that thateveryone can turn any anything,
any problem into a rationaldiscussion and decision.
And the one thing that we havelearned is that the way our
brains work, then the way I liketo think about it, is if you
think about your brain, you haveyour emotional brain and you
(17:09):
have your rational brain.
And I always think about theemotional brain as a kind of a
wall that goes around therational brain, which is in the
center of your brain.
And our tendency for thoseparticularly have a strong
hyper-rational, like I do, isjust pushing harder to break the
wall or get over the wall.
Push, push, push.
(17:30):
And what we know is until thewall has come down, the
emotional brain has beensatisfied, you really can't
address the rational brain in avery practical, um, productive,
efficient way.
So the my best tip for any ofyou that, particularly if you're
(17:54):
a scientist or an engineer or amedical person that really lives
in the rational world with lotsof data, is take the pause,
listen, and see if you canrecognize if there's an
emotional challenge happeningthere or if it's a rational
challenge, right?
(18:14):
And if it's irrational, you canstart the discussion right away.
Most of the time, there'ssomething else going on.
There's something else going on.
Like, oh, I can't get thisproject done.
I'm always late.
And you ask, and what's going onemotionally, a lot of times has
nothing to do with theworkplace.
It has to do with somethingthat's happening at home.
(18:36):
Of my daughter's studying forthe SCTs, and she's really
worried, and I'm worried she'snot going to get into college.
She wants all of that mindchatter is happening.
And people with a very strong PQvalue, where they have low
saboteur numbers and a very highsage.
(18:58):
There's five sage powers.
We could talk about those wherethey have that sage brain
happening.
If they if they have a reallystrong sage brain, what they can
do is they can recognize theimpact and deal with it and have
a discussion about what's reallyhappening.
And then once that's out of theway, then you can have the
(19:21):
rational discussion.
SPEAKER_01 (19:22):
Got it.
So I'm I the one thing thatpopped up for me in those
descriptions, and you mentioneda lot of your clients are this
one, is the pleaser.
I imagine a lot of primarycaregivers feel like they're the
pleaser too.
They're always looking out fortheir kids, their partner,
spouse, maybe other people intheir lives, their parents,
their siblings.
What is it in particular aboutthe pleaser saboteur that makes
(19:45):
it hard to get over?
Like, how do you help peoplework through that?
I'm just I'm super curiousthere.
SPEAKER_00 (19:51):
Yeah.
So, first of all, is one youhave to recognize that's your
saboteur.
And the on a scale of one toten, somebody that is at a 10 uh
is very different than someone'sat a six or five five type of
thing.
And if you're at a 10 or you'rein an eight, nine, ten in the
higher range, the myrecommendation, and if you read
(20:15):
Shoes Odds book on PQ, hisrecommendation would be is to
one is to to think aboutyourself like uh like you're on
an airplane.
That we want you to put youroxygen mask on first before you
can help others.
And the tendency is to help allthe others, and by the time
you're done and you haven't putyour oxygen mask on, bam, you're
(20:36):
passed out, then you're of nouse to anyone else.
So you want to be able toleverage that.
And the one thing I always tellpeople is when people are trying
to load more stuff on you, oryou feel like you're not doing
enough, or whatever is really tosay to them is I will be here
(20:59):
with you to facilitate what weneed to accomplish today.
It may not be me doing the work,but I will make sure that the
work gets done or therelationship gets done or
whatever that we take care ofyour needs.
And then you have to delegate itto others.
And too often I think many of usjust keep loading it on, and we
(21:21):
don't the for the pleasures,they don't ask for help.
Because they don't want to beseen as not a team player or
insensitive to other people's tneeds, and I have to do more,
right?
Or what will they think aboutme?
And that's the saboteurs talkingto you.
Oh, what would they think aboutme if I don't go over to see mom
every day or take care of thisor give her a call or whatever?
(21:45):
And they haven't really talkedthrough that, and they also
haven't said who else in myenvironment or my system can be
we can work together rather thanjust do it doing everything.
So it's it's settingexpectations, it's working with
(22:06):
others, it's bringing morepeople into the fold so that
it's not just you.
You can't you just you can't doit all yourself.
SPEAKER_01 (22:15):
Okay, so I'm gonna tie some pieces together here
for the listeners, becausethere's I had another guest on
talking about executive functionand where our brains don't fully
develop until we're 25.
And so oftentimes parents playthe role of executive function
for their kids.
And so when they go off toschool, if you are, if you're
listening to Kevin, you're like,oh yeah, the pleaser, that's me.
(22:37):
I feel like that's me.
It's like when the kids do gooff to college, because their
brains aren't fully formed yet,you played the role of their
that part of their brain for solong.
Is that when they do call andsay, How do you do X, Y, and Z,
or I have this problem, is askthem, Well, interesting.
What are you going to do aboutit?
That's how you remove thepeople, like the people pleaser
(22:59):
saboteur from is like you don'tfeel like you have to jump in
all the time for your kids oncethey're off to college.
It's like you give them thespace to learn and grow.
Feel like that, I think, is agood analogy transition for the
folks who are listening.
Like, okay, here's the peoplepleaser and me.
I feel that this is what I cando about it.
But number one is to go and takethe test to find out, are you
(23:19):
really the people pleaser?
Are there some other saboteursat play here for you?
SPEAKER_00 (23:23):
And the the great news is even on the site that
you'll get access to forpositive intelligence, even if
you don't buy the book, there'slots of information there that
if you wanted to go delve intothe saboteur that's I would say
to take a look at your topthree, depending on the numbers,
right?
If you have one that's at a 10and all the rest are fives and
(23:47):
below, really focus on that 10.
If your top three are like 888,uh then you probably want to
look at all of those.
And and some some may come in atzero, and that's a good thing.
And some other some others willcome in higher.
I think the one thing I'll say,Jay, is I took the program about
(24:09):
four or five years ago to getcertified to teach positive
intelligence.
And then when I first took myassessments, my top three were
in the seven and eight range.
And then by doing this for manyyears, because I do this as it's
first thing I do in the morning.
I get a focus for the day.
I do some mindfulness activitiesfor anywhere between two to
(24:31):
twelve minutes, depending on.
I usually try to get up and takea walk every morning.
And that's the first thing I dois to clear flush out my brain
and not be thinking about allthe stuff I have to do.
And it brings a lot of clarity.
And by doing that, it reallyhelps.
And when I've retaken theassessment, which I think the
last time I took the assessment,uh ever everything is down into
(24:57):
the six and five range.
Right.
So move from eight to seveneight and sevens to sixes and
fives.
So it's still there, but it'sfifty percent less than it was.
So I know that the stuff isworking.
Uh, so that you can't you canmake the change.
Getting everyone to to zero isprobably I don't think anybody's
(25:19):
ever done that.
I don't think they talk aboutthat in the book, but the key is
to get them reduced so that youremotional brain stays at a lower
level so that you can really usethat rational brain when you
need it.
SPEAKER_01 (25:34):
Yeah, I think that the takeaway here for folks is
often in emptiness life we wehave to like work on our health,
or we have to work on ourrelationships, or we want to go
to the gym, whatever it may be,is that it takes time.
Like your perfect example of Iwas at eights and now I'm at
fives and sixes, is you actuallyget up and do the work every
day.
And I think that's a good pointto make for folks like
(25:57):
everything we talk about here onthe show is you have to put the
F like the reps in, the time in.
And just sitting there willnever get you over.
I can't, I shouldn't, I don'tknow how, that's impossible.
I couldn't.
Right?
Though those things are gonnablock you until you decide,
okay, I do want to make achange.
Let me dig into it a little bitmore and figure out why.
unknown (26:17):
Yep.
SPEAKER_01 (26:18):
One of the biggest challenges for empty nesters,
which I think is true forretirees as well, but it happens
in that empty nest phase too, issocial isolation.
It's so much so they're ourfriends were the parents of our
kids.
So that whatever our kids'friends' parents are, those were
our friends.
That just happened to be how weall mesh together as human
(26:40):
beings.
Like we go to where our kids goand get to meet those people,
and then we move on.
And I know you talk about thiswhen this happens in retirement,
you leave work and all of asudden you're just home, and
there's social isolation thathappens because everybody has
scattered and you're byyourself, which happens in empty
nesting too, especially ifyou're not working.
How can PQ help there too?
SPEAKER_00 (27:02):
Well, the thing is the I think for thinking about
PQ, um, first you want torecognize which saboteur is
holding you back from making thesocial connections.
I think what you'll find isthere's usually one of those.
So, for example, an avoidermight be, you know, what might
(27:23):
be is like, uh, so if I go meetsomebody and they don't like me,
that's going to be upsetupsetting to me, or what can I
give them, or this is new.
So you basically just avoid itand you hope that think things
will happen, right?
So all of the saboteurs havesome kind of voice in your head
that's telling you not to dothat, right?
(27:46):
That and once you recognizewhich ones, then there's lots of
stuff in the book on the websitethat will say, if you're get
here's the voice, is this ifthis is what's it's saying to
you, here's approaches that youcan use in order to do that.
And the other thing is you don'thave to go it alone, right?
(28:08):
So pairing with someone else,whether it's a spouse, a
significant other, uh a friend,a colleague, a coworker, someone
else is in that space, and doingit together.
I think that's one of the thingsthat we found, particularly as
we've done our leadershipprograms, is probably the
biggest advantage you can getfor advancing yourself and
(28:28):
really building your PQ brain iswhat we call capability
partners.
We don't call themaccountability partners because
it feels too much like policing.
But we say get a capabilitypartner so that you hold
yourself accountable and say,okay, guess what?
You and I are gonna go to thegym that day, or you and I are
gonna go to the that golfingmeeting that's happening about
(28:52):
this golf social group, whateverit is, or card group and so
forth, that you're gonna do thattogether.
And when you physically do thattogether, you hold yourself
accountable.
And the capability partners canbe my capability partner is in
San Francisco, and I am here,and we talk about what we're
(29:15):
gonna accomplish.
Then when we meet on a regularbasis, we talk about what we did
do and what we didn't do.
And if we didn't do it, toreally go deeper of the why.
And usually the why, or almost100% of the time of the why is
uh has to do with the saboteurs.
It's that hyper-vigilantsaboteur.
Oh, I've been working on allthis other stuff, and my long my
(29:37):
to-do list is a thousand thingslong, so I didn't get to that
point.
It's why didn't you prioritizethat?
I understand why you didn'tprioritize that.
And once you understand that,you can really move forward.
SPEAKER_01 (29:50):
Yeah, I like the idea of the capability part.
Accountability only happenswithin, nobody can hold you
accountable, I believe.
And yeah, it feels very likeonerous to say, oh.
Oh, somebody's gonna hold youaccountable to doing whatever,
or getting outside your comfortzone, or meeting new people now
that the kids are growing andflown.
Can you find someone like thecapability partner to even say,
(30:12):
hey, are we capable of doingthis?
Like together, let's make thishappen.
Let's try and find something todo together.
SPEAKER_00 (30:18):
And I think there's I know there is.
I don't remember what the siteis, but there's actually a site
where you can go on.
I don't know if it's I think ifyou search accountability
partners, because that's themore common term to use that you
can that it pairs peopletogether.
So you can meet somebodyremotely.
(30:39):
And I I think probably might bea little bit scary, realize is
that the other person isprobably in an equal situation.
So you can work through thattogether.
I my I found for me the best wayto extend my social network is
really by giving back, right?
(31:00):
Whether it's coaching, whetherit's mentoring, uh, whether it's
working with nonprofitorganizations.
The more I give back, the more Iget back from a social
perspective, the more people Iso I don't go in with the
intention of, oh, I'm doing thisto meet people or to build my
(31:20):
network.
I'm doing this because it's theright thing to do.
And if I and if I can do that,it really helps with my
gratitude.
SPEAKER_01 (31:28):
I love that.
And folks, if you're interestedin more mentoring stuff, I
actually have another episodecoming out on that specifically
with Deborah Heiser.
So listen to that one as well.
Kevin has been a huge resourcehere for helping you understand
a little bit more about positiveintelligence, PQ.
We've dove into a lot ofdifferent things here today, and
it really is just at the30,000-foot view.
(31:52):
There is so much to this.
But I really encourage folks totake the time, go take the test,
figure out where you'restumbling and where you get
stuck, because that's how youfigure out how to move forward
in life.
Kevin, I'm curious, through allof your work, what's one of the
most defining moments of yourlife in this past year?
Not with your clients, not withanything else at work, but just
(32:14):
in your own life.
SPEAKER_00 (32:16):
I think, you know, the transition for me from I've
had several different versions.
The first transition was leavingthe corporate world, which was
planned.
We just celebrated our 18th yearfor my company on Magna
Leadership Solutions.
Every year has been better thanthe last.
Very fortunate for that.
(32:36):
But the I think the big thingfor me is my kids, my two
daughters have had theirchildren late in life.
Right.
So I be so I became agrandparent about six years ago.
But the defining moment thisyear in the past 12 months has
(32:58):
been the arrival of my firstgranddaughter.
So I have two grandsons, threeand six, and then I have a
granddaughter.
And really what has happened isthe kind of the next definition
for me, beyond just being acoach, a mentor, leadership
expert, has been as agrandparent.
(33:19):
And we are very fortunate thatwe have a home right next door
to my younger daughter, who hasthe three, and the uh the
nine-month-year-old, and then myuh six-year-old grandson is two
miles away.
So I get so that's my dailybasis, right?
My daily basis, I'm agrandparent and a parent first,
(33:41):
and then I have uh I'm a I'm acoach and a leadership and a
professor.
I'm teaching, I've taught at sixdifferent universities.
So that's secondary.
So the shift has happened fromuh in the last six years, but in
particular, as of the last twohave I've shown up as three and
(34:02):
three years and nine months hasreally been that's really been
the biggest difference from myidentity to be the grandparent
first.
And it's been a wonderfultransition.
I didn't I didn't plan to go,this is when it's gonna happen.
I just knew it was gonna happen,and I just needed to be ready
for it, and that's the reasonthat having that positive
(34:25):
mindset, whether it's for homeor work, is so important.
SPEAKER_01 (34:28):
I love that, Kevin.
Congratulations.
That's so exciting.
I know a lot of people in theiremptiness life feel like they
are just waiting around tobecome a mother-in-law or
father-in-law or a grandparent,waiting for the kids to get
engaged and married and havekids.
But I think the importanttakeaway here is get prepared
(34:48):
for it before it happens.
Live your life before ithappens, do lots of other things
before it happens because whenthe grandkids do come, they you
just said when you listed youridentity, you listed grandparent
first.
And so take the time now, folks,to do the things you want to do
in life and learn what's holdingyou back.
I think that's the biggesttakeaway from today is which
saboteur is holding you back andhow might you move forward in
(35:13):
life now that you're emptynesting.
Kevin, it's been an absolutepleasure having you on today.
Folks, we're gonna put a lot ofstuff in the show notes about
Kevin and his work, anddefinitely the link to take that
PQ test that is free just to getyou started.
So it's good to have you here,Kevin.
Appreciate you being on.
SPEAKER_00 (35:31):
All right, thanks, Jay.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.