[00:00] Katie: Welcome back to the Focus B show. This is Katie Sudddhart here aka the focus b. And on this show, I interview high performers and leaders around the world to discover their secrets on peak performance, productivity, mindfulness, and leadership. So if you want to take your performance and your leadership to the next level, then you're in the right place. Listen up and connect with the magic.

[00:36] Katie: Welcome to a brand new episode of the Focus B show. I am absolutely thrilled to be here today with Joanna Lott. Joanna works with coaches to help them build their coaching business. She is the co author of the number one selling book, your Dream Job Toolkit, and she has over 20 years experience in different businesses and with leadership teams. Hello Joanna, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here today.

[01:06] Joanna: Hi Katie, thanks so much for having real, real pleasure.

[01:09] Katie: Can't wait to dive into this. We've got lots of different aspects to discuss, but to begin, why don't you tell us a bit how everything started for you? What was the biggest pivotal point in your career?

[01:23] Joanna: So I think the taking the Positive Intelligence program, which is a six week mental fitness program which we can talk about today. And they have this great free assessment on their website. So do go and check it out. It's WW dot positiveintelligence.com and it's called a saboteur assessment. And I took this two minute free assessment and came out ten out of ten as a pleaser and quit my job that day because I realized the only reason I wasn't quitting was because I didn't want to upset my boss. But instead I was so busy pleasing everybody else that I was completely dissatisfied myself. And it was just such a huge realization. And I'm now lucky enough to be a pioneer for the positive intelligence and use it with my clients. And they have also had huge insights from the program.

[02:09] Katie: That's fantastic. I also love the positive intelligence and sabotage test. I know that in my case, the hyperachieever was extremely high and explained a lot of temptations, behaviors, thought patterns that I had, but we can discuss maybe the hyperachiever a bit later. I'd love to hear a little more about once you'd realized that the pleaser was playing such a role in your life, how did you then change? What did you act upon? And maybe if you can explain a bit more the pleaser and the behavior of the pleaser, that'd be great.

[02:41] Joanna: Yeah, that's it. So, yeah, the pleaser is essentially continuously putting everybody else before yourself. And I think especially as women, you get brought up with thinking that's a good thing to always put everybody else first. Actually, the program helps you to see that actually it's not always a good thing because then you build up silent resentment and lots of other negative associations and people don't know what to expect from you. They don't know my needs, so therefore they can't fulfill my needs. So actually, it wasn't such a kind thing. I'd always been brought up to think it was just so kind to continuously put myself last and put everybody else first. And the positive intelligence completely reframes that and says, actually, there's good elements, of course, but there are also negative elements. And yeah, that really shone through to me, essentially, that it wasn't me being really nice because instead I'm just silently harboring grudges because I'm such a pleasing person. So it also then teaches you ways of stopping these behaviors. So they're called PQ Reps, and you can do them various different ways. I could talk through how if that could be useful.

[03:53] Katie: Yeah, that sounds great.

[03:54] Joanna: Yeah. Brill so there's a tactile one. So if you rub your two fingertips together, so you can feel the ridges of your fingertips and really concentrate on that sensation for a minute. And now rub two hands together so you can really feel your palms. And again, really concentrate on that sensation. And now close your eyes and take a deep breath in and deep breath out. Just really concentrate on your breathing. And now if you want to listen for the furthest sound you can hear, and then listen for the closest sounds that might be your breathing. And then if you want to open your eyes. And the last one is visual PQ rep. So just look at the screen or anything around your desk or vicinity and just really concentrate on that thing. So colors, the textures, everything about that object. And that's therefore four ways of doing PQ reps. So it's basically no emotion lasts longer than 90 seconds. But the reason we can stay in that anger, anxiety, all those feelings for so long, is because we're continuously adding fuel to the fire. So PQ Reps are a scientific way of interrupting that usual neural pathway. So the trigger happens, so your kids don't put their shoes on and before you know it, you're going to be shouting, because you shout every day and that's what happens. So the way of stopping that usual pattern of behavior is to do something like this, at least 10 seconds, but preferably 90 seconds of one of these peaky reps, or all four, if you fancy, and then you get to choose a new behavior. So it's a great sort of middle point.

[06:03] Katie: That's interesting. And so the four were the finger, then the hands together, then the sound, and then the vision.

[06:09] Joanna: So those four oh, yeah, no, sorry, the hands together and the finger are the same one. So that's tactile breathing and visual and the breathing interesting.

[06:19] Katie: So you're going through the different senses to break the pattern.

[06:24] Joanna: Exactly. That's it. And it definitely does give you the ability to then start thinking, oh, I'm doing that thing again, and I don't want to do that. How do I want to behave? And obviously, the more you start choosing that better behavior, the more that becomes your norm. And you develop new neural pathways that mean it's more likely that you'll behave that way again in the future. And yeah, it's scientifically proven on an MRI, but in six to eight weeks to actually rewire your brain, it'd be visible if you do this regularly, every time that anxiety or stress comes up, instead of fueling the fire, they talk about take your hand off the hot stove. So no more than 1 second of negative emotion, which sounds harsh, I realize, before you move to your more creative, innovative side of the brain, which will help you deal with that challenge in nicer ways, more positive ways.

[07:18] Katie: That's amazing. It's such a great combination of both the awareness so you realize, and then the pattern interrupt through the different senses, and then the rewiring the behavior. Because I often think of it in terms of emotional management, pausing, acknowledging the emotion, seeing what triggered it, breathing, and then going to the next but what I realize is, mind you, I'm doing that with the breathing, I guess. But this is giving you alternatives to when you pause before you rewire to another emotion.

[07:50] Joanna: Yeah, and it's a great way of doing it. I use this in lots of interview training and things I run, because therefore, it's not just about closing your eyes and being in meditation. As such, you can literally do it while you're in the waiting room. Waiting for your interview. While you're in your interview room, you can just literally look at them, try and be really present. So it does give you other options, I think, that well, I certainly hadn't heard of before.

[08:13] Katie: No, I haven't heard of it either. Not with the listening to the most distant sound and the most close sound, and then the finger and the hands. I would definitely go to you. That's great tip. And I love the sabotage and the positive intelligence side. And I had seen their things about the PQ reps, but I didn't know what it entailed. So this is fantastic. It's always nice. I always learn new things on podcast interviews. This is the main reason I do it. It's like my second university. Hopefully the audience gets as much out, if not more, than I do. So, coming back to the pleaser. So you use these PQ reps. Can you tell us a bit more what your journey was like when you started to overcome and change that behavior?

[08:52] Joanna: Yeah, so it was interesting, actually, because they advertised the program as completely life changing. It will have huge dramatic effects on your life within six weeks. And it sounded a bit hyped up, to be honest. You think this is crazy. But anyway, clearly I signed up just to see if it was as crazy as it sounded. For me personally and for loads of my clients now, it has genuinely been life changing. I spoke to a client last week who literally used those words, he said it's just been completely life changing. And he laughed when he said it, because again, it sounds so ridiculous that something can change your life in such a short period of time, but it really can. So I quit my job, I became a coach, I became visible on social media, which I previously would never have been, wanting to be visible on social media and things like that. I've talked at huge events, which again, previously, I thought I couldn't do. I think essentially it gives you the ability of interrupting all of those negative or limiting beliefs. That for Woody told you, you can't do that, you can't do this. Because now I can stop myself and think, do you know what? I can. And I can rewire the old thoughts and start to think something else. And it genuinely has changed, I'd say every single aspect of my life, including parenting and work relationships, because, again, you just get aware of your thoughts. It gives you that space to become aware of your thoughts. And I think having names for these things like the Judge, the Pleaser, the hyperachiever, the Controller, help you to just spot it that second earlier than you normally would spot it, so you can do something about it rather. Than just continue bumbling through life, which is what most of us do with very little awareness of our own patterns and our ways of sabotaging our own success.

[10:47] Katie: Yes, I think it's an interesting combination of the awareness and awareness just in and of itself can be life changing. That's why meditation can be life changing or being coached, because having that awareness already of these thoughts and patterns, most people don't. So they might be hyperachievers like I was, or am in some ways, and you with the pleaser, but they might not see how that is affecting their life, their parenting, their relationships, their work. So the awareness is huge, but then interrupting the patterns, then you can rewire faster. So I feel that the combination of both, I'm not surprised it's life changing. I think that's the general coaching is like the awareness, because it's pattern interrupting and coaching when you ask questions and do things.

[11:34] Joanna: Yeah, exactly. Well, this really supplements coaching. And the guy that created it actually was the CTI, one of the top training coach training organizations. He was the head of the CTI, the guy that created this. So he discovered that coaching on its own wasn't quite enough because people needed that continuous support to help them. Because obviously, you know what it's like. You go to a coaching session, you come out, you're pumped, you're like, yeah, I'm going to change. And then you don't know how to interrupt the usual pattern, so you end up going to your next session and you haven't made maybe the progress you wanted to make, because obviously you've been just falling into your usual patterns of behavior. So I think together with coaching, it's a really amazing combination because then you get to continue that awareness on that you had in your coaching session because it basically pings up on an app on your phone three to five times a day, reminding you of these little activities. So I think that really helps to sort of supplement coaching as such, to really embed that change really quickly.

[12:38] Katie: Yes, because it's a continuous rewiring of the brain. Is this related in any way to CBT cognitive Behavioral therapy?

[12:46] Joanna: No, it's not really. I suppose it's a similar sort of thing, isn't it? Becoming aware of and then choosing a different outcome or different choice of behavior or whatever. But no, I don't think they kind of linked it to that.

[13:02] Katie: Okay. And so the real power here, what you were explaining, is really around these four pattern interrupts. So using the tactile, the visual, the breathing or the hearing as a way to rewire. And this is what you did with everything I'm imagining, not just with the pleaser, with all the other matters.

[13:19] Joanna: Yeah, exactly. And the app runs through. You'll have one week on the pleaser, you'll have another week on the judge. And it's very true that they say we all have the judge because we all judge others or judge ourselves, one or the other one's normally stronger than the other. So, yeah, you can use it for all of your personal saboteurs and do find out which ones yours are because it's really interesting. Well, you already know, but listeners, it's really great to actually find that awareness of what your saboteurs are and then you can use this for anything.

[13:53] Katie: Yes. I mean, having the awareness and the knowledge of those saboteurs, I also think was this something that you also learned during the training, the differentiating yourself from those voices? I know that I named my hyperachiever, I named it Hat hyperachiever type. And so I would speak at it and be like, look, I hear you Hat, and this is good, but I'm happy with where I'm doing or I'm doing well. I don't need to have this extra pressure to achieve. I will still achieve my goals with self acceptance and staying calm and grounded, but I would literally have a conversation with it.

[14:27] Joanna: Wow. Yeah, that's exactly it. They do say to name it I don't think I ever did name mine, actually, but lots of people do. And why it works is because when you're in the sort of stressed part of the brain, you can't access emotions like creativity, laser headed focus, innovation. All of those are kind of blocked off because your stress is just fight or flight. You just can't see all of the options. And by doing this for at least 10 seconds, but the longer the better. You do start to be able to move over to that other side of the brain. They call it the sage side of the brain in positive intelligence program and then you can start to handle that challenge in a different way than you probably have previously handled it.

[15:12] Katie: Yes, it's an interesting concept. And I think, in general, whether it's beliefs or the different sabotages or any of these things, just knowing that our thoughts and our usual behavioral patterns, even though they feel like this is us, they're not. They're just like behaviors we've done so often that they feel so familiar that we identify with them. But you're not a pleaser. I'm not a hyperachiever. We both had pleasing or hyperachieving patterns of behavior and knowing that's not our identity I also feel is extremely helpful.

[15:45] Joanna: Yeah, exactly. That's so true. And I think the fact that most of this starts like prior to age seven, your beliefs and things are formed. So actually what I discovered, another thing I discovered was that I'm not shy because I'd always thought I was shy. And again, it just helps you build that awareness that actually do you know what? That's not true anymore. That was true when I was seven and now I'm not and it's not true. So it's freed me up to be able to do huge talks and lots of different things that I would never have done previously, before that awareness, before being able to question it. I think that pause to be able to question are these things true or not? Which again, most of us don't really get that space in life, I think.

[16:25] Katie: So how does it happen in practice? So in practice, if you have, let's say a thought that is sort of a people pleaser thought do you notice it every time? Do you catch it? How do you strengthen that awareness now?

[16:40] Joanna: Yeah. So as I say, take your hand off the hot stove, no more than 1 second of negative emotions. So the minute you notice yourself thinking something that's just not healthy, that you're about to agree to something that's going to be of detriment to you and whatever, just take a minute, at least 10 seconds, and then think about it again. And you will be able to think about that situation and weigh it up in a different way. So it is about learning to take that pause and it's not easy. So I'm making it sound super easy but of course it's not because our brains are just wired to just go, go. So it does take awareness. Hence why it is handy to have the app buzzing up at you because you are thinking I'm busy, I don't have time for this. But actually in the long run, just taking that time out really helps and the feedback from my clients is the same. I run it for lots of big corporate organizations. And then we have a weekly discussion with a group of ten of us. And it is amazing that they're all in really senior positions, really manically busy. And they do say, every single one of them, that by doing it they have created more space and they have noticed huge changes the way they would react in their teams and everything. So yeah, as I say, it's not as easy as it sounds. Hence why I think it is good to do the official program because then you get those reminders because otherwise it is easy to just drift back in. But you could use your phone, you could have reminders popping up on your phone just going take a minute. Well, phones do that now, don't they? My iPhone is continuously popping up at me going Breathe. Did yours do that?

[18:26] Katie: No, I don't know. I leave my phone in play mode and I don't have an iPhone but maybe this is the iPhone thing like Breathe.

[18:32] Joanna: Yeah, my phone and I've got an I watch as well that continuously goes take a minute to breathe. So it's obviously lots of places are trying to kind of come about this sort of app the continuous I think you need something to continuously stay on the level as such, so your stress levels don't get completely out of control. So that's why I think just by small sort of 92nd exercises throughout the day, three or four exercises, you can just stay on that level. It just keeps bringing you back down before you get completely spiraled out of control.

[19:06] Katie: Well, this is all directly linked to Focus. And obviously I'm really passionate about Focus with my brand, the Focus B, the podcast, the Focus B show. And this is really what I feel focus is about, is about remembering and coming back to that place of mindfulness, to that place of whether it's that gap. And when you were talking about realizing and waiting 10 seconds or more, that's also what Victor Frankl talks about between the stimuli and the response and there's being that gap. And I feel that most people aren't aware, most people don't realize that when something happens they do have a freedom to how they respond. They don't realize because maybe their behavior is naturally pleaser or hyperachiever or controller or anything or avoider and so they just go to their natural pattern of reaction and so they lose that freedom because they're in their autopilot. But I feel that if you have the awareness, if you know that when something happens, you can pause, rewire, think through Breathe and then answer again. I feel that in itself is enough to change someone's life for sure.

[20:14] Joanna: Yeah, that's it. So you can literally take that away from this conversation and just start implementing it in every single stressful moment of your life. And obviously there are many stressful moments of life. Yeah, just literally start doing it and commit to I mean, it is a commitment. So I would literally write down I commit to six weeks of strengthening my mental fitness. I think when you write down and use words, strong words like commit, it can really help you to actually do it and create a plan. Put it in your phone to buz up a few times a day to remind you to do some PQ reps. I mean, the program has got lots of other messages. Like, for example, there's a Childhood Picture week, so you find a picture of yourself prior to age seven, really connect to your true inner essence as such, before life piles on and we all pretend to be what we're not most of the time because you just have to conform with life. But this kind of really connects you back to who you were before all of those expectations kind of get put on you. And there's lots of other elements as well, which are brilliant. But yeah, you can still definitely take and run with some of the stuff we've talked about today.

[21:27] Katie: I really like that. I think it's basically mindfulness, but directly implementable. So when people say, oh, you should just be more mindful and be more present, I think a lot of people get confused and don't really know what it looks like. If people are struggling with mindfulness and they're always busy and they're not really present, it doesn't help them to just be more present. They don't know what it means because that's their way of functioning, they think they're being present. And so by doing that, you have practical, direct ways of implementing mindfulness. By pausing, essentially, you're putting in place whether it's through the app, through a timer, through a postit reminder, you're putting in place obligatory pauses where you stop, you breathe, you rewire think through, you calm down, you calm your nervous system also probably to the parathympathetic nervous system, and then you can function again.

[22:20] Joanna: Yeah, totally. Yeah, it's exactly that. And I think the language they've used in this, though, I think was specifically to corporates and lots of men also, because the man that created it and he's deliberately used and he talks about this really strong language such as PQ reps instead of mindfulness or meditation, because he thinks that puts people off sometimes people are not into that. So he uses words like PQ reps and mental fitness to try and encompass all of society, rather than those who just think, oh, mindfulness, what is all this about? Like you say, I love mindfulness, don't get me wrong, but lots of people think, I haven't got time for this. So he has kind of reframed it, I think, in a way, to try and access lots of other people in society.

[23:07] Katie: And it's clearly working well. Fantastic. Well, we're already approaching the end of the episode. We've got a few minutes left. What would be your main message for people who are looking to work on their mental fitness? Maybe work on their pleaser and put all of this in place.

[23:24] Joanna: Yeah, so I think the reminder take your hand off the hot stove, no more than 1 second of negative emotion. So a child learns by taking their hand off the hot stove when they get burnt. So why do we continue to make ourselves suffer by staying in our negative thoughts again and again and again and again? It's not helpful. So I think that's a really good takeaway to just keep having in your mind every time that you are ruminating in that same thought. Remember that emotions only last 90 seconds, so you can actually come out of this sort of state you're in if you are getting stressed or anxious, it's just a matter of continuously bringing yourself back down. Yeah. And I'm a pioneer of the positive intelligence program, so do get in touch if you would like to do it.

[24:10] Katie: Yes. Wow, it sounds fantastic. I think everyone can benefit from it and definitely from doing the test. I'll be putting both a link to your social media and website in the show notes, but also to the positive intelligence website. So for you that listening, you can just take the test, see which ones are your sabotages and start working on your mental fitness.

[24:30] Joanna: Yes, do that, definitely. And there's another test called a PQ score, which is another great they've got and lots of the people I work within corporates are all like, oh, I'm going to ace this, I'm so good at this. And they always shocked at their results. So do take that one as well and see how mentally fit you actually are.

[24:49] Katie: What does that one judge or evaluate?

[24:52] Joanna: So it gives you lots of scenarios. So there's a person shouting at you in the street, how do you react? So it would just say I would walk away. It goes through your normal reactions of how you would normally deal with situations. And the best thing is you can then take the same assessment at the end of the program and see if your scores have increased. So I had somebody, she was seriously sort of ill and depressed, in fact, and her score was about 23%. So, in other words, she's only thinking positively 23% of the time. So negatively 77% of the time. And by the end of the program, she'd basically completely switched it. So she was thinking positively 77% of the time. Her score had increased so much through doing this. So, yeah, it's just basically they say once you get over 75%, it's tipping point that your mind will continuously just be in that positive zone and you won't be able to get dragged down. But until you get above 75%, you kind of get dragged down by the negative emotions because they have more weight.

[25:53] Katie: There was also one last question that I had. Did you redo the sabotage test to see if your pleaser came up as high?

[25:59] Joanna: Yeah, I did. Definitely. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm still not completely cured. I think I'm at about 6.9, but I was on literally ten out of ten. So I have managed to move down slightly. Yeah. But I think, again, a lot of these things are ingrained from childhood and everything. So it's not just a quick, easy fix. But, yeah, there are things you can do about it.

[26:25] Katie: I think maybe also a valid point for, again, people who are listening is that all of these things, all of these sabotages are strengths that we've overused. So being a pleaser, being generous and kind to other people is good up to a certain extent. Being ambitious and having drive whatever is good up to a certain extent. So I think all of these if they're sort of imbalanced and that they're not sabotaging your behavior and your result, it's still sort of let's not be perfectionist about it.

[26:57] Joanna: Perfectionist. I think there's another one.

[27:00] Katie: Yeah. That's great. Okay, well, thank you so much, Joanna, for being on the show today. We covered a lot. I really liked everything you talked about in terms of the positive intelligence, in terms of the pleaser. And I feel a lot of people can relate and benefit from this. So thank you.

[27:15] Joanna: Brill thank you very much.

[27:17] Katie: Thank you.

[27:22] Katie: Thank you so much for tuning in today to the Focus B show. I would absolutely love to hear your feedback. So let me know in an Apple review or YouTube comment what was most valuable for you, and feel free to share this episode with a friend or a family member. Wishing you a wonderful, magical and focused day ahead.