Stop Sabotaging Your Health: How To Rewire Your Brain for Success with Shirzad Chamine, BA, MS, MBA

[00:00:00] Shirzad Chamine: Finally realized, you know what? Insight is about just 20% of the game. 80% of the game, true change, is about you taking those insights and converting them into new daily habits. Meaning, you really are needing to build neural pathways in the brain. 

[00:00:19] Dr. Melinda Ring: This is Next Level Health. I'm your host, Dr. Melinda Ring, Director of the Osher Center for Integrative Health at Northwestern University. On this show, we explore ways to take actionable steps towards optimizing our health with leaders in the integrative, functional, and lifestyle medicine fields who believe in science-backed and time-tested approaches to well-being. Let's take your health to the next level.

[00:00:50] Dr. Melinda Ring: As an integrative medicine physician, I've spent my career looking at the whole person, the intersection of biology, lifestyle, and mindset. We often prescribe the what. Eat this, move like that. Sleep more. But we frequently hit a wall with the how. So why is it that so many of my patients and honestly my friends, family, colleagues, and me, even me, struggle to stay consistent? Why are we so often ending up sabotaging our healing even when we know better? My guest today offers what I believe is a missing piece of the puzzle. Shizard Chamine is the New York Times bestselling author of Positive Intelligence and a lecturer at Stanford University. He has served as chairman and CEO of the largest coach training organization in the world, training thousands of coaches and faculty at institutions like Stanford and Yale. His work uniquely blends neuroscience, behavioral psychology, even electrical engineering, to create what he calls a common operating system for human performance. And on a personal note, this work has been truly transformative for me. I've gone through the positive intelligence coaching program myself. I use these tools with my patients. And my husband, who's now a health and wellness coach, also did the coaching program and he integrates positive intelligence with his clients. So it is in our house. Shazad, I am so glad to have you here. Welcome to Next Level Health.

[00:02:19] Shirzad Chamine: That's such a pleasure being here, especially knowing that you have been a practitioner of these tools that you're going to be talking about.

[00:02:26] Dr. Melinda Ring: Yeah, I'm a believer. I'm a believer, so, we'll, we're, I'm so thrilled to share this with other people. So let's jump in, because for me, one of the biggest aha moments, it was literally I was driving in my car listening to you talk about this one and about positive intelligence was. We have this inner judge, it's not a personality flaw, but it's something that actually forms early in our life as a kind of survival strategy.And you know, I see the result of physically, of chronic stress, like elevated cortisol and immune dysregulation, inflammation. And in your framework you talk about this isn't just life, but it's the result of living with this judge in the survivor brain. So can you talk through how that judge forms for us and how it tricks us into thinking that it's helping us?

[00:03:22] Shirzad Chamine: Yes. So generally we are, we actually have identified 10 types of voices and we call them the saboteurs, the ones that sabotage us. And the judge is the universal one. It's the one everybody has. Now, the other nine saboteurs, you got to do a test to figure out which ones you have. But the judge is universal.The reason it's universal is that the judge is the predisposition to focus on the negative, amplify the negative. The brain holds onto the negative relative to the positive by a factor about five to one. And the reason is evolutionary, you know, when, being negative and focusing on the negative threats was helpful to the evolution of our and survival of our ancestors. Back in the, ancient times when one of our distant ancestors was in the jungle and the tree starts shaking, the one that was paranoid and assumed the worst and said, I'm sure there's a, you know, tiger coming out from behind the tree to eat me alive. The one was paranoid and assumed the worst. Ran away. 99 out of a hundred times, they were wrong, but the one time they were right, it saved their life. Now imagine if you had a distant ancestor who was very optimistic and positive and said, you know what? I have good feelings about about. Uh, Things today, you know, I'm in a good mood. I bet you it's a koala bear coming coming out to give me a bear hug and they stayed. And how long do you think that ancestor lasted? So the predisposition to the negative and assuming the worst and being paranoid and being stressed was actually helpful for survival. That's why the judge voice is universal and it actually in early childhood begins to gain strength. And it's not judged of our, just judged of ourselves, but we, it also is judging others and judging the circumstance of life. So the judge character in us is quite impactful, and it's the starting point for all of our stress and all of our negative reactions to, to things around us and really erodes our, our wellbeing and health.

[00:05:24] Dr. Melinda Ring: I'm going to ask you to expand on this a little more because the way you explained it was really, again, like an aha thing for me. So in childhood, what's going on that makes this judge. Others of self and, and things form , cause we don't have a saber tooth tiger hanging around outside. So what are the threats, you know, What kind of threats are there as a child that make this judge come out for people?

[00:05:52] Shirzad Chamine: Yeah. For us, the, the, the, the tiger is not there, but we need to survive mentally. Emotionally and physically as a child. alsos of threats to our survival, which we just don't realize when we are adults. But as a child, the human being is very dependent for the very survival, for the very life, dependent on others. Dependent on being loved, being accepted and so on, and first and foremost from your primary caregivers and then beyond. And the threats. Look you know, it doesn't have to be, you know, unhappy childhood. It could be quite a happy child. You could, for example, be the first child very loved by your loving parents. And then. Comes a second child. So you've been a center of your parents' universe and all of a sudden they're going go, go gaga over this new thing. And oh my goodness, what's going to happen to me? Are they going to continue to love me? Are they con are they going to continue to take care of me? Am I going to survive? So that, that from the eye of the child, that's very threatening. Now we don't realize that, but it is happening. And so the question is how do you what do you do to survive? So these saboteurs that we talked about are ways to do that. And uh, let's just uh, a little bit uh, older. When you say you're in, in school, somebody sitting next to you is either going to be taller than you, more handsome or more beautiful than you. Sounds smarter than you, more social than you. The teacher seems to be paying more attention to this one. Oh my goodness. You know, how am I going to survive in this? Tribe now. These characteristics come in to try to make sure they get you more acceptance, they get you more love and more safety.So those are the things that they do. In my own case, I was grown up. With a, you know, in chi in poverty with with four siblings and a father who was quite terrifying violent and, and terrifying to me. And so I'm, I'm the sensitive kid growing up and I'm not getting much love or attention and. It's interesting, but act, but as a child, my survival would've been in danger if I had acknowledged the truth to myself, which would've been, Hey, you know what? You got some parents who are not healthy parents. There's something wrong with this father, you know, he has issues. That would've been a terrifying admission for a child admitting that. Their parents are broken people or, or flawed people, because my life was in the hands of my parents. So therefore, I needed to keep my parents perfect in my, in my world that would've been helpful for my for my emotional survival. So I needed to construct a narrative that made sense of the fact that these perfect parents are not giving much love or attention to me. And that's where my judge of self started forming because the, the judge came in and said, Hey, I can explain this. Your parents are perfect beings. Don't worry, you're going to survive. They're not giving you much love or attention because you're not worthy of their lover and love and attention. So that was the voice of my judge against myself forming. It seems to, to us right now that that's a very cruel thing for me to have done to myself. But actually it is what I needed to do in order to not be terrified about having imperfect parents. It needed to keep my parents perfect. Once that judge of self started happening in me, and now I also needed to judge. Everybody else, I needed to find something wrong with everybody else around me, except for my parents. Why? Because how terrifying would it have been for me to believe that I was the only one who was unworthy and, and imperfect? I needed to find something wrong with you. And the next one, the next one, the next one, so that I cut them down, down to side so that I would say, I would relax and say, okay, I am unworthy and imperfect, but so is everybody else except for my parents. So that then began to be the construct of my judging of others. And as it turns out, I had, I was profoundly judgmental of others, not just myself. And something happened while I, while I was at Stanford Business School, that just completely revealed that tendency to me. It was very shocking to me. But until then, I thought I was just seeing things as they were not realizing that everything I was seeing and experiencing was through the lens, the distorted lens of the judge.

[00:10:26] Dr. Melinda Ring: You know,an interesting thing that came up for me in going through the program, because that was very powerful to understand like, well, why is this judge there? Like, and then it just clicked, it made sense is as a parent, you know. I know you're a parent also, when I see my kids who are now in their twenties and sort of, you know, they've had their, everyone, like everyone ups and downs. I, I'm then I'm thinking, oh, did I do something as if, you know, I trigger, I create, I help create these sorts of saboteurs in them. How do we move forward with that in a way that's helpful for us, rather than becoming an excuse or a blame or something that creates guilt.

[00:11:08] Shirzad Chamine: As a parent, I know that most of us parents have a you know, have a lot of guilt about anything that's not. Perfect with our kids. How did I cause that? How did I get my poor kid to be like this? An interesting way to understand the saboteurs and it's easier to explain what all the other nine saboteurs is that one way to talk about what these voices are, what these saboteurs are is that they take our greatest strength, greatest natural strength and they overuse and abuse that great strength when we are under pressure in order to help us survive. Give you an example, one of my greatest strengths and I had it from time.  I was a kid, I was very sensitive and very kind of giving, that was just, just who I am. And I'm empathic and sensitive and giving. That's an awesome strength. That strength that today really helps me be successful in my work and taken it too far. It becomes the pleaser saboteur, the pleaser is when the thing to do is draw a boundary, say no, you know, take care of yourself, right, and give to others in certain situations.And the pleaser just can't do that because it's overusing that kindness and empathy in situations where that's no longer the appropriate thing to do. Give you another example. Having attention to detail is a wonderful strength. It's just absolutely helpful for people who have that in their profession. Career taken too far, it becomes a stickler, saboteur, the over perfectionist that's causing a tremendous amount of anxiety for you and everybody else around you. And so on. And so what happens is that all of us are, are born with certain strengths. In order to survive mentally, emotionally, physically as a kid, we overuse those natural strengths. The overuse becomes our saboteur pattern. So whether you have a. The controller, the stickler, the pleaser, the avoider, the victim, and so on. Again, there are nine of those in addition to the judge. And then as adults, we realize, oh, we are paying a price for these saboteurs. They're causing all of our stress and they're harming both of our, both relationships and performance and wellbeing. And finally to kind of connect this uh, to parenting saboteurs are unavoidable. Your kids have saboteurs not because of your being a bad parent, but it is a, it's a healthy thing about parenting, so you can let go of your guilt around it. Uh, so I have, I have a boy and a girl. They were born. Night and day different from each other. My son was born with this just sweet, sweet, easygoing personality. Life is a bowl of cherries. You know, everything is fine. It's lots of you seeing lots of shades of, of, of grace, adaptable, flexible. It's, it's a wonderful, you know, that's a wonderful, wonderful quality. Taken too far becomes the avoider saboteur. So when there is a challenge, an obstacle in front of him, the avoider says, you know what? That's not pleasant. That's not fun to deal with. Let me just avoid it all together. So he developed the avoider, saboteur right in front of my eyes, and then my daughter extroverted, hard charging, confident, goal-oriented, wonderful qualities. Right from day one. She was kind of like that. Taken too far, it becomes the controller saboteur. So right in front of my eyes, she developed a controller saur. Not because I was a bad parent, but because these are, because it's unavoidable that you would overuse national strengths as you try to gain more love, more acceptance, more security as a kid, and it becomes a 

[00:14:52] Dr. Melinda Ring: So many high achieving patients and lots of my fellow physicians and colleagues believe this lie that self-criticism is the only way to stay motivated. And from your research, why does this no pain, no gain mentality actually cause productivity to plummet and health to suffer rather than to improve?

[00:15:14] Shirzad Chamine: So you are talking about the hyper achievers avatar and the hyper achiever, plus the judge end up resulting in things like the imposter syndrome, which a lot of high-achieving individuals have. So the, the, the challenge with the hyper achiever is. Is that it makes your self-love and self-acceptance conditioned on your achievement. And so you, you, you have a voice in your head that says, you are worthy only if you achieve. And the problem is it sets you this big achievement goals and then you try to make it, make it to that goal. And. You suffer a lot along the way because your whole identity is on the line. If I don't achieve it, who am I going to be? So along the way, you're going to be very stressed to make sure you achieve that. And then once you achieve, when you achieve that, it will allow you a celebration for an hour, a minute uh, day if you're lucky. And then it says, okay, but that was the old achievement. You're not worthy of my love and acceptance unless you achieve this other next thing. And so on and so on. Many people go to their graves still trying to satisfy the next condition for achievement so they feel worthy. And so what we talk about is that the, the, the problem with that, having a, an achievement. Be your sense of worthiness versus unconditional love, which says, I am, I am worthy. Just because, and just, you know, my kids weren't when they were born, they were born, like I said, night and day different. Each of them were beautiful essence beings from day one. And the essence of my daughter and son has not changed at all from the time I held them in the hospital until today. They're the same person. That essence being has never changed. And what I love and adore about my kids is that essence being they were born rather than what have you achieved lately? If that's how we want to be with our kids, why are we not that way with ourselves? We were each born with extraordinarily beautiful, unique essence being we are each as unique as our fingerprints. Why aren't we in love with ourselves at that beautiful essence being that we are unchanging? You are as unique as your fingerprint. We want you to fall in love with who you are unconditionally. Now, once you do that, do you want to have achievement orientation? Of course, have achievement orientation, and then you are more likely to achieve very high goals that you set for yourself. When you don't make yourself worth conditioned on that achievement. . Because as you are working really hard towards that achievement that you've set for yourself along the ways, I guarantee you glitches are going to happen. Things are going to go wrong if your identity is on the line with the hyper achiever. Everything, something goes wrong, you freak out, oh my God, my identity is on the line. What if I don't achieve? Who am I going to be if I don't achieve this? And because you freak out, you stress out, you waste so much mental, emotional energy to try to get back to the track and try to make it an extreme version of it is athletes when they choke in the most important moments of their career, the basketball player who is given the ball. Two seconds before the end of the game. If he makes the basket, he's going to win the championship for his team. If he doesn't, he's going to you know, really fail the team. Now I imagine if that person has the hyper achieve saboteur, what's the voice in their head when they get the ball? Oh my God, I better make it. I better make it. I better make it. If I don't make it. Who am I? Am I'm going to be hated by all, all, of those voices is the very reason that athlete is going to choke and not going to make it as opposed to. Athletes who doesn't have the hyper achiever, they get the ball and they are, first of all, they know they're completely worthy of all the love in the world without making the basket. So even if they don't, nothing make it, it's not going to. Affect who they are and serve sense of self, and that they're present with the joy of the game. In this moment, I am present. This is a magnificent moment of playing this fun game and seeing if I can achieve this wonderful thing. So the hyper achiever hurts our ability to achieve it doesn't help our ability to achieve. Final thing on this, you asked the question of don't we need the judge criticizing us and all that to improve? Well think about it. When you were a kid and you were the beach walking around, and building a sand castle. Why were you building a sandcastle? Were you building a sandcastle because you had to achieve something and be worthy? Were you building a sand castle because you had to improve yourself and be better in building sand castle? Criticizing, pushing yourself? No, you were doing things because it's an inherent nature of the human being to want to grow. You don't need to beat yourself and push yourself and criticize yourself to into growth. The positive part of you wants to grow. It's a joyful thing to grow, so you can either push yourself through the saboteurs shame and guilt and fear and stress to improve or love yourself into wanting to grow, because why not the, because that's an inherent draw of the human being to self-actualize. So the saboteurs are the way we threaten ourselves and push ourselves with negative emotions in order to grow, improve, and perform. And the sage is the positive side of it. All saboteurs are based on fear. All sage is based on love, the sage being counterpart to your saboteurs. So we are talking about letting go of, of pushing yourself through fear-based saboteurs in order to improve and perform and all that stuff. And instead, pull yourself through the love of sage. Love for yourself, love for others, love for humanity, love for discovery. Love for creation. All of those things. Do you want to keep pushing yourself through fear or pulling yourself through love? the choice point that

[00:21:27] Dr. Melinda Ring: Mm-hmm. Would you say, I mean that these saboteurs and judge. Do they all come from a place of, I am not worth loving, I'm not lovable? Or is that just a piece of the puzzle?

[00:21:43] Shirzad Chamine: No, it's, it's all from fear

[00:21:46] Dr. Melinda Ring: Fear.

[00:21:47] Shirzad Chamine: And because of survival, because fear and love are the two primary forces that make life possible.

[00:21:54] Dr. Melinda Ring: Okay.

[00:21:54] Shirzad Chamine: and, and fear is very helpful for our evolutionary survival. That's why the judge, which is very fearful of all the stuff that could go wrong and amplifies that, is really, it's a universal saboteur. Fear of fear of many things. And so when you think about it, what is, what, what are the fears that we have? Fear of, failure. Fear of looking bad, fear of being rejected, fear of poverty, fear of, starvation, fear of we have lots of fears and now. If I, if I have fear of not being loved, one of the things I might want to do is again, based on my wiring, I might do the pleaser saboteur. So my, the pleaser way. So my pleaser saboteur had to do with me wanting to earn more love. By pleasing people. Now somebody else who has, who has that fear of wanting to, of not being loved enough, may become the stickler. So they want to be the perfect child. I gotta show my parents how perfect I am, worthy of that love, or the hyper achiever let me achieve, achieve, achieve, so they can love myself and so others can love me. The hyper, hyper-rational is another one I had, I had the very rational mind. The hyper-rational is I gotta be this. Smartest kid in the room and always raise my hand first so that my teachers love me. And so my parents love me and all that stuff. So each of these saboteurs are ways for us to gain more security, more acceptance and more safety. Those are the things that we seek as a child. There are strategies to gain those things in our life.

[00:23:43] Dr. Melinda Ring: And then to talk about then moving into this sage. So I mean, I think it's very helpful for people to develop this insight into these saboteurs that they carry and how they are showing up for them. And I encourage people to go to the Positive Intelligence website because there's a free quiz or that you can take and just, just the process of taking it is enlightening in and of itself. But then once you have those and recognize them, you don't just leave people with that. You're, there's strategies that you recommend and, and it's not, you know, not necessarily therapy, although that's important for many people, but , what are your tools or strategies for help people learn how to, you know, that sage.

[00:24:33] Shirzad Chamine: You are not a broken human being. You are not a diseased human being. You are not a neurotic human being. You are just a human being who has having a human experience and you happen to have saboteurs because every human being has saboteurs. So this is a stigma of and mental health that we would love to remove the stigma that started kind of with Freud uh, saying, I am the doctor. You are the neurotic patient. Let me brilliant, amazing doctor fix you and heal you. You neurotic, patient, let's do therapy together. And that stigma is still with us to some extent. And mental, mental health has a stigma of, gee, I don't want to admit that I need help. And something is broken with me. And we are saying, what are you talking about? Freud himself had bunch of saboteurs. I, who wrote all of this book and did, did all this research. I have these saboteurs, I have them every day still. I get hijacked by my saboteurs still. So. Let's just be honest with each other. We all have saboteurs. We all get hijacked by our saboteurs. We all go negative. We all, you know, have these self-sabotage moments. So let's not be ashamed of having it. Let's be real. We all do it. So I do it by having my hyper achiever and pleaser and, and avoider, how do you do it? You know? And that's how we normalize the conversation. There is no stigma here. The second thing in which is what Melinda, you're bringing up is. Insight is not a lot, is not enough. And the, one of the biggest mistakes we make about growing ourselves is that we think the aha experience is going to do it. So we read book after book, workshop, after workshop, after workshop, all that stuff. Can't tell you how often. I did a workshop, I read the book and said, oh my God, I got it. I got it, I got it. I'm transformed. I'm enlightened now and then. A month or two later, I went right back to my old behavior and I finally realized, you know what? Insight is about just 20% of the game, 80% of the game. True change is about you taking those insights and converting them into new daily habits. Meaning you, you really are needing to build neural pathways in the brain. Muscle power in the brain. So one way I talk about this is your saboteurs are the automatic reaction of your mind because you've been doing it for year after year after year. They have built Muscle power neural pathways in your brain. That's why the saboteur reaction so automatic. You can't fight the Muscle of your saboteurs with just the inside of your sage. You need to. Counter the Muscle of the saboteurs with new Muscle of the sage. How do you build that Muscle to daily practices of intercepting the saboteur, energizing your sage, brain and U using the sage positive responses? So the three step process for us, it's very simple. Intercept the saboteurs.

[00:27:29] Dr. Melinda Ring: I see You

[00:27:30] Shirzad Chamine: And hey, I see you you're the saboteur. And that's the first step, intercept the saboteur. Second step is we have techniques for you to energize the sage part of your brain, the ca saboteurs and sage, the different parts of the brain. So the second step, once you intercept the saboteur, is to do these ten second exercises we do to energize the sage part of the brain and quiet the saboteur part of the brain so that then you can do the third thing, which is. Respond to the challenge in front of you using your sage superpowers. The Stanford kids call this work Jedi Mind training because they were saying, you know, what this is about is are these Darth Vader in our head? That's the saboteurs. There's the inner Jedi, that's the sage, and you're helping us see how do I shift from the Darth Vader to the Jedi response. Jedi mind training is what we do, and it's really simple, but, and it's something that needs daily practice.

[00:28:26] Dr. Melinda Ring: So let's talk about these daily practices, the PQ reps. This idea about mental fitness, you know, we, we get like. You go to the gym, you want to build your biceps, you got to do your reps. So every, you can't do them once. You have to keep doing 'em. And if you don't do it, they're going to atrophy. So we need to do the same thing for the brain, for the, you know, to develop mental fitness. And in integrative medicine, my area. We do a lot of research. Our team does a lot of research on mindfulness, on positive emotion, on all of these kinds of tools, I think now have gained really, you know, widespread acceptance and a lot of really what this, these PQ reps are kind of like mini mind moments. I know when I had first learned about mindfulness, it was like, okay, well the ideal amount is 20 minutes, twice a day. That's a lot. that's a lot for a lot of people. You teach that. Focusing on things like a physical sensation, the weight of the body that I, I still go around touching my two fingers together. The breath can shift the brain activity from the side survivor brain to the PQ brain, but it can happen much faster. So how do you teach this idea of the PQ reps and what's, what's the science of what's happening here?

[00:29:51] Shirzad Chamine: Everything we do in positive intelligence is root cause. And so these 10 saboteurs that I was talking about, they. Came from root cause factor analysis with more than a million participants. And it showed us that there are 10 ways we self-sabotage. And those became the 10 saboteurs. Those are the 10 negative factors. It also showed that on the positive side, the sage, there are five superpowers of the sage. And so there are the five positive factors. So we really massively simplify things, uh, by doing root cause work. It's like. If you do factor analysis on colors, you realize there are only three color, three colors, right? At the root of it all. And now you, all you need is a color power of three. So that's the work we have done in identifying 10 saboteurs, five positive sage powers and them being in different regions of the brain. And the question is, how do you energize? The sage region of the brain. Quiet, the saboteur region brain. That's where this, these exercises, we call them PQ rep. There are ten second exercises. PQ stands for positive intelligence quotient. So that's why we call these PQ reps. And and there are ways of quiet the saboteur region of the brain and energizing the sage. And the most popular is the one you already mentioned, Melinda, which we can practice right now for people too. To go along with us. So, so everybody please do this with Melinda and I gently rub two fingertips against each other with such attention that you can feel the fingertip ridges on both fingers. So gently rub two fingertips against each other with such attention that you can feel the fingertip ridges on both fingers. So, so that was one PQ app, and it's so, it's ever so slightly quieted. If you had, if we were watching you under a MRI machine, it would've begin to notice that it's ever so slightly quieted the region of your brain where the saboteurs live and ever so slightly. Energize the sage power brain, so you have deeper access to that power brain. Now, and of course one of these is not going to change your life, but what if you did a lot of them? . We have brought this to a lot of physicians, but also a lot of scientists in Silicon Valley who are very tough-minded people. And you know, because of that we use just very direct terminology of what is it that we are doing. 'cause often people, when we talk, we talk to people about mindfulness, they say, I don't know what mindfulness is. And it comes from, you know, who knows where, whether. And so the way I talk about these PQ reps what we are doing is we are building the Muscle of self command. Because there's a part of your middle prefrontal cortex that gets activated. That's the part of the brain that has you rise above yourself and be able to witness yourself and command yourself. So what we are doing is we are going, we are exercising self command to break out of our autopilot automatic mind that does all these crazy stuff and saying, I'm going to take command of your my own mind. Hey, mind, I am going to command you to stop wandering around and now focus on this. I'm just noticing this fingertip. And then the mind will keep wandering away, and then we are going to recommend it back. It keeps wandering away and we are going to recommend it back. And it's building the Muscle of self command, which is the most critical here to break out of our autopilot responses because all these saboteurs are auto. Pilot automatic responses. So we are intercepting that and it, we are also energizing the sage part of the brain that has access to the five sage superpowers. It is misleadingly simple, but it is profoundly impactful. It's the root building block. Which meditation and mindfulness are special forms. So if you're doing meditation and mindfulness, you are doing a bunch of these without realizing it. But the beauty of of this is that lifelong meditators tell us when they learn this, they say, ah. Now I have learned finally how to actually shift my brain activation, not just in my meditation room, and I have my eyes closed. I'm listening to music and mantra and all that stuff. But in the middle of having a fight with my, you know. Partner, that's when I need to shift my brain activation. I can't close my eyes and and do my mantra. I have now learned how to actually shift my brain activation from salvager to stage when I need it the most. In the middle of the day when the challenges are occurring, you learn ways that are closed eyes, some that are open eyes, but generally saying I am taking command of my mind when I need it the most.

[00:34:33] Dr. Melinda Ring: And one other thing I'll just mention and share with people is you, you bring up this idea of the 80 20 rule. And I talk about the 80 20 rule a lot when I talk to people about. Their diet. You know, you, you don't have to be a hundred percent perfect. We, you know, try to eat well 80% of the time. And you have a similar concept when it comes to conflict, this 80 20 rule of conflict. And I think it's a great thing to think about for people in their relationships. It could be with their work colleagues, could be any kind of this. So because these are big stresses and we have so much conflict in the world right now, so much that if we can. Think about this a little bit, it helps me and it helps me help my patients who are just feeling overwhelmed by feeling like they're right and the other side is

[00:35:31] Shirzad Chamine: Yeah.

[00:35:31] Dr. Melinda Ring: And they can't live in that. So can, you share a little about this?

[00:35:37] Shirzad Chamine: So when you look at the fights that you have with your partner, significant other or, or whatever. What you are going to really see is that all fights are about my sa your saboteur, triggering the other person's saboteur and vice versa. And first and foremost, the thing that keeps the fight going is the judge on both sides. Trying to convince the other person that you are 100% right and they are 100% wrong, and we completely shift that dynamic by saying in any conflict, the other party is at least 10% right. In any conflict, the other person is at least 10%, right? They are not complete idiots. They're not completely evil, you know, people you're interacting with on day, on day in and day out basis, right? So people in your life, let's respect them enough to say that if they're taking a position, it's not because they're complete idiots or complete evil. There is something right about what they're saying. And can I, instead of being so insistent on proving how I'm 100% right. Get curious about what's the 10% truth on their side. The moment you shift to curiosity about what could be the 10% right under position, you've completely shifted your energy from saboteur to sage, which is stopping to fuel their saboteur. So if you get curious, it's more likely. That you'll create this contagion through mirror neurons of helping make sure that the other party might also go to deeper curiosity you can have a very different conversation.

[00:37:19] Dr. Melinda Ring: I think that's so true and so such a great tip. Just to open yourself up to that, because, you know, I think when we are in an argument or when we're stressed about something we see on the news, we feel threatened and so our response is to double down on being right and opening up to curiosity just really create space for something better to manifest.

[00:37:52] Shirzad Chamine: The polarization in the world right now is, is feeling as intense as it is because we are 100% right and righteous in our stance, and, and I know that the judging us is, is already coming up with examples of this person and this person and this person. Nothing right about them. Now there are cases where somebody is a sociopath and somebody really does have an extreme level of pathology. But I mean, and so they, they kind of have a disease and they, there is, and even with that, I don't want to be. Judging somebody who has a disease, I want to be empathic about the fact that they have a disease and they have a condition. Even with them, I don't want to be judging them, feeling superior and all of that stuff. Right? But minus those extremes, I guarantee you a lot of people that you're judging right now and feeling so righteously superior to, there is something about them that is, that that is beautiful and wordy of you getting curious about, and that just shifts so much of our orientation towards what's happening on the planet right now.

[00:39:02] Dr. Melinda Ring: Thank you. Yeah, I think that's a tip that everybody can use, everybody listening. if somebody listening feels stuck, maybe they're operating at a fraction of their potential. Maybe they started the new year with a real goal of something they were going to do and now they're beating themself up 'cause they haven't done it. What is one. simple, doable practice that you might invite them to try over the next one or two weeks. That could genuinely help them, genuinely help them level up their health or their life.

[00:39:40] Shirzad Chamine: Well, I, I would very much recommend that you start the first step of mental fitness that we are talking about, which is become aware of how you self-sabotage you know, be curious, have fun with it rather than judging yourself. So I would love for you to just figure out how you self-sabotage? How do you go negative? How do you cause your own stress? How do you cause your own pro procrastination or all of these things that have gone into you feeling stuck right now? And once you do that, we want you to bring just a level of compassion and curiosity yourself. Like, ah, okay, this is what I've learned since I was a kid. How to create more love and safety and security for myself. Ah, and these are no longer serving. And here's what I can do to shift it so that it all starts with awareness and also understanding rather than judgment. So I would love for you to shift. From potentially judging yourself, well, what's wrong with me? Why am I not already? All of that stuff to let's lovingly understand what I'm doing right now to myself be stuck. And with that comes then energy and hopefully excitement to do the next step of beginning to shift this pattern.

[00:40:55] Dr. Melinda Ring: Thank you. So insight and comp, self-compassion, those can make such a difference right there. Well Shizard, thank you. Thanks for taking time to be with me. I think it's such powerful, such powerful information that people can use, not just for reducing stress or. You know, feeling a little bit happier, but actually for doing things in their life that relate to their health, that connect to other people that are going to bring them more joy. So, I, I. What I appreciate most about the work that you do is that it gives people agency and tools that they, as you said, can use in the middle of real life, in the middle of real stress and real messiness. So for everyone listening, I hope today's conversation is a reminder that struggling doesn't mean you're broken. It means your brain is doing exactly what it was designed to do. And the good news is with the right tools, we can train it differently. To be in its sage space. If this episode resonated, I invite you to reflect on what part of your own inner dialogue might be running the show and what it would feel like to strengthen your sage instead. Shirzad, thanks for your wisdom and the science that you put together with your team to create this positive intelligence framework and for making the ideas so accessible to people. And to our listeners, thanks for spending time with us. Until next time, keep finding small, meaningful ways to level up your health.

[00:42:33] Shirzad Chamine: Thank you, Melinda. Has been a delight. And I do want you to find the saboteur assessment. So if people go to positiveintelligence.com/assessment, they can access the five minute saboteur assessment so that they can get going on that. Melinda, it's such a pleasure to talk to somebody who's actually practicing all of this every day, and so it just has made this conversation delightful. I'm very grateful to you.

[00:42:57] Dr. Melinda Ring: Thank you for joining me on this episode of Next Level Health. I hope you found some inspiration and practical insights to enhance your wellness journey. Don't forget to leave a comment on YouTube or review on Apple Podcasts. I'd love to hear your thoughts and suggestions for future topics or speakers. Be sure to follow Next Level Health with me, Dr. Melinda Ring as we continue exploring the path to healthier, happier lives together.