From Mindset to Mastery: Overcoming Internal Barriers in Your Professional Journey

Sarah Dau: Shirzad really in his book he outlines and all the training I’ve been through that he feels that only 20% of the teams out there reach their full potential because of these saboteurs and negative thought patterns in our in our minds.

Bethany Fishbein: Hi, I am Bethany Fishbein, CEO of the Power Practice, host of the Power Hour Optometry podcast. And I am here with my guest and colleague and friend Sarah Dow. Sarah is the Vice President of Business Development for the Power Practice and she is one of our extremely talented practice coaches and has worked with many, many practices over the last 10 years. So I’m excited to have the opportunity to do a podcast episode together. Sarah, thank you so much for agreeing to do it.

Sarah Dau: Thank you so much for asking and for having me here. I’m really excited to talk about today’s topic.

Bethany Fishbein: Yeah, there’s nobody else that I would rather talk to on this topic. And I’ll give you the background of where it came from. In last week’s podcast, I was talking with Gavin Rebello, and we were talking about mood hoovers, which are those people who just seem to suck any positivity out of a situation. In the US, people will say, oh, you know, she’s a cancer in the practice and things like that. But in the UK, they call them mood hoovers, which is much nicer terminology, right?

Sarah Dau: I agree. Yes.

Bethany Fishbein: I love it. So Gavin was was talking about this and talking about how sometimes it’s just someone’s own mindset or their own unconscious bias that makes them react a certain way to a certain person or a certain situation or gives them a feeling. And it really made me curious to learn more about what creates those unconscious biases and where those come from. And so that led me to one of your areas of keen interest, which is the field of positive intelligence. And that’s what we’re talking about today. So just define a little bit what it is. What is positive intelligence?

Sarah Dau: So positive intelligence, or what the author of the book Positive Intelligence called it is your PQ muscle. And what positive intelligence does is measures the percentage of time your mind is servicing you versus the time where you’re in that sabotage mode or survival mode or as Gavin coined it, mood hoovers, when your brain is not serving you.

Bethany Fishbein: So this is all about just kind of how you are within yourself. Like, it’s not even reacting to others at that point. It’s it’s kind of what your own brain is, is telling you.

Sarah Dau: Right. So whatever scenario or situation that you’re in, and if it’s triggering to you, you go into that survival mode or that saboteur mode, and you’re going to feel things like anxiety, anger, disappointment, shame, guilt, regret, blame, just to name a few. And we don’t always perform or communicate or act in our best self moving forward because of that.

When we’re able to kind of calm those those triggers and think a little bit more forward focused or in a positive light, that’s what this approach calls your sage. And you’re not in survival mode anymore. You’re in that thrive mode where you’re feeling emotions like curiosity, empathy, joy, creativity, peace, calm, resolve, gratitude, again, just to name a few. And we all have the ability to switch from survivor brain to that positive intelligence, sage type of brain. It’s just training. It’s first recognizing those thoughts when they’re happening, and then how to refocus so you can be more productive, but also have less anxiety.

Bethany Fishbein: So you talked about the, this as a percentage of time that you should be spending in positive sage mode versus negative saboteur mode. Is there a number like a percent to shoot forth?

Sarah Dau: So based off of Shirzad’s findings, we are performing at optimal levels, both professionally and personally, when we’re operating at about 75% or above in that, that sage mode, and he find or found that with an increased PQ, people are far happier, less stressed, but also professionally speaking, more productive.

Bethany Fishbein: And you and I learned about this together at the same time, because we, through power practice, we’re having a conversation about why some people seem more able to effectively execute change than others, and why some people seem to just be able to move forward, and some people are just stuck. And so it was a training that we did internally. When you first heard about this, what was it that resonated with you that got you like, I want to do more, I want to learn more? Because you took this way further than any of us.

Sarah Dau: Oh, I was super excited. And I apologize in advance for those of you listening that are spreadsheet lovers, and don’t like to get into the emotional side of, of leading a team and business ownership, I get it. But I’ve always been fascinated how the brain works, how it influences our actions and our productivity. And I’ve been with power practice for about 13 years now.

And one of the issues that I found that really prohibits doctors from achieving their goals, really is that what Shirzad calls that inner judge, that negative thought process that starts to go into a circle there, and spirals, and it holds them back from implementing, it holds them back from leading their team, it holds them back from making those recommendations to the patient.

So I was a psych major, you know that Bethany, I minored in business, I’ve always loved that combination of the two. So when you brought this to to our attention, I watched Shirzad’s video, I took the assessment on my top saboteurs. And I was all in on how I can navigate my own saboteurs, we all have them. So I can be more productive, but also a better, better team member, and happier in the long run, personally, for sure.

Bethany Fishbein: And you sound very credible. But just to establish credibility, talk about the process that you did from there that you went on to learn more.

Sarah Dau: Yes. So I absolutely wanted to learn more. And I’m constantly looking for tools on how to best help our clients move forward. And I’m certainly not a neuroscientist, I do not have my PhD in psychology or industrial psychology. But this tool that you brought to us as a team, I said, I want to learn more so I can help our clients identify some of those saboteurs, not only within their own minds, but also help to work better as a team. And so I what I did was I actually enrolled in a six-week course on identifying my own saboteurs, Shirzad believes first and working on yourself, and then helping to apply it to others in your team.

So I went through that six-week program, did daily exercises to strengthen my PQ muscles to get myself out of that, that saboteur mode and into that sage mode. And it takes work. This is not a quick fix by any means, but it’s so well worth it in the long run. So once I was done with that six-week course, I still wanted to learn more.

Then it becomes, how do we take all this knowledge and teach it to others? How do I take this and apply it to my clients? How do I teach them to calm their own judges, their own saboteurs in their mind, so they can be more effective leaders within their practice and they can implement and actually get things, things done. So I went through an additional year course to earn my certification to now teach others on how to do that. And it’s been a journey, but one that I’m very happy that I chose to take.

Bethany Fishbein: Me too. So one of, I mean, one of the things that I think is interesting about this is it’s not, it’s much more specific than be happier, right? Eliminate the things that make you unhappy. Like there’s lots of advice out there, but this really gets into a process of understanding your own brain. So you talked about this main saboteur being the judge.

Sarah Dau: Yes.

Bethany Fishbein: And so talk about that. And then like the more specific saboteurs that differentiate one person from another, that mine are different than yours. And probably each person’s listening are a little bit different.

Sarah Dau: How long do we have?

Bethany Fishbein: Maybe some of the big ones. I guess there’s a lot of them, some of the most common ones that you see.

Sarah Dau: So Shirzad in his book, and there’s also some video content out there as well. His thought process is on, on the saboteurs that we have in our minds. And we all started out these young babies full of life and positivity. We laughed at everything, right? Everything was fun. But then as we started to get older, we subconsciously develop these saboteurs in our minds that start to protect us as children within our childhood.

They’re basically defense mechanisms against real or perceived threat. So the keys are to recognize them and know that you actually can control them. And the interesting part to me was how that judge and those saboteurs can affect others around you. When our master saboteur or that judge is in full force, we’re in total what I mentioned earlier, that saboteur mode, that negative thought process.

Unfortunately, what happens, whether we realize it or not, we start to find fault within ourselves, within others that we’re talking with or communicating with, or the actual circumstance. And that causes disappointment, anger, that regret and guilt, shame, anxiety. And the first step is understanding, acknowledging it. When I talk about this to people, they say, well, this sounds like nothing more than toxic positivity. And I totally understand that comment.

What I am not saying, if a client were to call me and say, okay, I have a staff member that stole $50,000 from me. I am not saying, hmm, I need you to take a deep breath. Let’s think about where that person’s coming from. Absolutely not. This is really understanding how we can be, we can recognize them, pull ourselves out of that negative mindset where we can be more productive and happier for it. Shirzad identifies the judge as the ultimate saboteur, but then there’s nine subsets or nine saboteurs underneath that judge that we can identify that helps us to understand where that mind goes in a given situation.

You and I can be in the same scenario, but have completely different reactions to it based on what saboteur takes over our mind. Does that make sense?

Bethany Fishbein: It will, I think with a little bit more information.

Sarah Dau: Gotcha.

Bethany Fishbein: What are these nine? He names them, right?

Sarah Dau: He does name those nine. The first saboteur is the judge. Then we have the avoider, the controller, the hyperachiever, the hyper rational, the hyper vigilant, pleaser, restless, stickler, and victim. Have I intrigued you?

Bethany Fishbein: Yes.

Sarah Dau: What do these all mean?

Bethany Fishbein: Yes. So talk about, like you’ve done these assessments now with some practice owners. We’ve done them with our team. What are the ones that jump out or what’s one that jumps out to you as this is one I’ve seen a lot?

Sarah Dau: Avoider is a big one.

Bethany Fishbein: So talk about what the avoider looks like when that’s going on in someone’s head.

Sarah Dau: Well, thank you for choosing that one because I have that as one of my top ones. And interestingly enough, when I see that in a practice, that avoider, for instance, let’s say in the doctor’s shoes, they might avoid recommending that second pair of glasses. And they might avoid recommending myopia control or a dry eye treatment because it’s not covered by insurance.

And they avoid it because they’re afraid of rejection. They’re afraid of what the patient might say next. How do I handle that? They go into saboteur mode. What if the patient says no? What if they push back? What do they do? So they’re a little bit less motivated to bring it up and they’ll procrastinate on it.

Another example of an avoider in a personal setting would be someone that does not like conflict. So they avoid it all costs and they don’t truly share with the other person they’re in conflict with how they truly feel. And that’s an issue in itself because we know an issue, a big issue usually doesn’t resolve itself. It usually snowballs and gets bigger and bigger until all of a sudden the explosion happens, right? Because it was never dealt with and put to bed. So within the office and outside the office, how that avoider can present itself and it really gets in the way of progression and implementing something that can move that practice and that team forward.

Bethany Fishbein: And I’m thinking about the interactions that I have with clients and doctors that I speak to. And I think that that avoider is probably what I’m hearing when people say things like, I don’t like selling, I’m non-confrontational, I hide in my office instead of talking to a staff member. I don’t like dealing with these kinds of things.

Sarah Dau: Yes.

Bethany Fishbein: What’s another one that you see pretty commonly?

Sarah Dau: I would say controller is also a big one. I do have some of my clients that will, whether they admit it or not, will say they have a hard time delegating. They have to do it all themselves because the only way that it’s going to be done properly, if they do it. If I delegate this to someone else, they’re not going to do it properly or the way that I would do it. And that holds them back because especially I see it come out even more so when that practice is growing and growing and growing, you get to that point, right? Where you’re spinning a thousand plates at once. It’s not humanly possible to do so. You need to start delegating out tasks to work best as a team and to move that practice forward.

You can’t do it all. But what I see in some of that leadership block is the reluctance to have others help you, a part of that team. Also, when they do say, okay, I’m going to step out of my comfort zone, out of my controller zone and give my office manager A, B and C to work on, you’re going to be a stickler about that and say, hmm, okay, you didn’t do this the right way. And then you try to fix it. So that puts your office manager in kind of a leadership block where now they feel that they don’t want to step out of that comfort zone because they’re always going to feel judged by their boss or the owner or the owner of the practice because they delegate something to them. They do it. And then the doctor comes back and says, no, you didn’t do this right.

So then you actually inhibit your office manager’s ability to lead and to delegate the tasks you asked them to do in the first place. And it happens without you even realizing that it’s happening.

Bethany Fishbein: And in that example, you can start to see how some of these can work in conjunction. Like you talked about that controller and that stickler. That’s a tough combination.

Sarah Dau: Yes. Yes. They’re contagious. We saw that in our meeting, right, Bethany? Amongst the team, we started to talk about, we shared our top saboteurs with one another and explained when we’re in a certain situation, this is how I react and why. It was like, whoa. Like my avoider was triggering a saboteur in one of my teammates and I made her feel badly.

And I don’t know if you remember, but I had tears in my eyes because we’re teammates, we’re coworkers, we’re friends, we adore one another. We would do anything for each other. And I’m making my teammate feel badly because my avoider kicks in. I don’t want to deal with something. And that’s not okay. That was a big eye-opener for me of how our behaviors and actions affect others, affect the team, affect our friends, our families. It really is quite powerful in and outside the office.

Bethany Fishbein: And talk about one more, do hypervigilant because that was mine. Ironically.

Sarah Dau: No, no, no. And you know what? It’s funny because when you said, is that bad? We all had that reaction and everyone does like, oh my gosh, I’ve got hypervigilant or I’ve got a voider on the top of my list. That’s horrible. No, that’s not how we look at it. They’re all not good for our brains, but they’re there. We can’t control them coming in, but we can certainly control how we deal with them and how we quiet them down so we can get back to what Shirzad calls our sage whenever possible.

Bethany Fishbein: So I want to talk about how to get out of them, but talk about what that hypervigilance looks like.

Sarah Dau: I don’t know if I’ve ever shared this with you, Bethany, but I had my entire family take the assessment, the saboteur assessment. And all three of my kids are hypervigilant. I was like, oh my gosh, I never knew. And quite honestly, that has changed the way I approach them as a parent. That’s a whole other topic. But the hypervigilant saboteur makes you feel intense and continuous anxiety about all the dangers surrounding you and that what can go wrong.

So in a doctor’s mind, when I’m working with a client, they’ll say, well, if I do that, what if my staff member quits? You know, that’s a popular one. We have a staff member that’s not performing up to standards, or maybe they’re not, they’re coming in late all the time. I actually had this one recently where a doctor said, she’s showing up late all the time, but she’s a really good staff member. So if I come down on her, she’s going to quit. What if she quits? And the anxiety was rising there, right? So that hypervigilant saboteur was taking over his mindset and not allowing him to address the situation.

So you’re constantly in that hypervigilant mode where your brain cannot rest. So it results in a great deal of ongoing stress that just, it wears you down, but it also wears others down because that stress and anxiety then spills out onto other people. Are you okay? Are you okay? I don’t mean to stress you out even more.

Bethany Fishbein: I am. No, no, I’m good. But I am aware of that and have become more aware of it since we did our training of how that does affect other people. Because just because I have that one doesn’t mean they have that one.

Sarah Dau: Right.

Bethany Fishbein: And so to someone else, it can sound like, you know, I did this thing and I’m like, okay, but did you think of this possibility? And did you think of this reason it could fail? And they’re like, oh, come on, I did this thing like, you know, looking for positive praise. And I just want to make sure that they, they poked holes in it and it’s going to be fail safe, but it can come across as very negative, right? You’re never satisfied with anything. Nothing is ever good enough. You’re always asking a question.

Sarah Dau: Yeah.

Bethany Fishbein: Right. And I remember, hopefully not too personal to share, but that was the way that ours, like ours kind of connected where my tendency is to ask those poke holes in this question, to ask those questions like poking holes in something to just, that’s where my brain goes. And I remember, you know, with, with you as an avoider, we kind of realized that to you, that was hitting your fear of rejection. Like she doesn’t like it and was making it hard for us to communicate on certain things. It was interesting.

Sarah Dau: Yes. Yes. And, you know, another one, you would ask a good question. What I see a lot, another one is, is a stickler. So the stickler has that need for perfection, order, organization, that’s taken way too far. So stickler is top of the list with avoider. Oh my gosh. Right. Like, and looking at my past in my sport, perfection was, it’s all about perfection and being judged constantly in gymnastics, right?

So stickler and avoider, I probably didn’t even need to take the assessment, but I did, but I was not surprised with the results. So, you know, talking about stickler, avoider, controller, let’s talk about how they’re contagious. So let’s say we’re all working on a project together. And between us, we have a strong stickler, controller and avoider saboteurs.

Here’s a scenario that might happen. And as I’m saying this, think about a scenario in, in your offices. So my stickler ignores the hundred good things that you’ve done on a project or that staff member has done, and doesn’t show any appreciation whatsoever and blames you for the one thing or the one flaw that needs fixing or is not working. That triggers your avoider, leading that staff member to feel demotivated, unwilling to share that resentment, and they procrastinate on those issues that really need fixing because of it.

So that procrastination triggers my controller to push you to fix things and fix them my way as I have further lost confidence in your abilities or so that staff member thinks. Is your head spinning? Probably. Mine is too, just going through it.

Bethany Fishbein: But I think one of the things that was really helpful about it was being able to put words on it. Because what you just said in the context of understanding these different things makes sense. Like, and we started to use the words, right? You know, hey stickler, right? Like we were, we were calling each other out, you know, or my, my hypervigilance is leading me to ask the following six questions. So it was received differently with that because it allowed us to understand a little bit where each other was coming from. And it’s very different to say, oh, I know she’s hypervigilant, then she’s just an asshole who hates everything I do. Right. Hopefully, I’m not quoting verbatim, but I don’t know.

Sarah Dau: No, no.

Bethany Fishbein: Having words like we did have a lot of aha moments, like, oh, that’s why you’re like that. That’s what’s happening here.

Sarah Dau: Totally. And that Shirzad talks about how to strengthen your sage and that we have these powers that we can tap into to do that. One of them is empathy. So you’re describing that empathy, that realizing what our saboteurs are, gives us more empathy. Okay. That’s Bethany’s going into hypervigilance stage. I need to provide that reassurance and confidence to her. I need to communicate that to her so I can help her to quiet that saboteur. We just communicate on a different level and it’s not all roses from there. Once you realize it, right? There are, there are smaller scenarios where you’re able to laugh through it and say, okay, stickler. But then there’s bigger picture, bigger scenarios that really push those saboteur buttons. Right. And we need to work a little bit harder on those.

So just when you think you’ve, okay, I’m empathizing. I understand Bethany’s hypervigilance is coming out. There might be another issue that comes up that’s on a broader scale that we go back to our own saboteurs. So it takes practice to recognize it and to best handle scenarios. So don’t get into that saboteur mindset. Shirzad really, in his book, he outlines and all the training I’ve been through that he feels that only 20% of the teams out there reach their full potential because of these saboteurs and negative thought patterns in our, in our minds.

Bethany Fishbein: So this is where you kept going on with training and I was like, all right, we have words for it. I’m good. So let’s talk about how you start to control it or start to quiet that when it happens.

Sarah Dau: Yes. The first piece of this is simply recognizing when they’re happening. So anyone out there, I’m going to give you homework as I do when I’m speaking to my, my clients every month is when you get into a negative thought pattern. Think about when you’re going into your office, something that really gets under your skin or something that you’re avoiding, identify it and say, Oh, this is what Sarah and Bethany were talking about. I think I’m in a saboteur mode. One of my saboteurs are taking over. Just recognize it. That’s the first thing that Shirzad teaches all of us, recognize it.

Bethany Fishbein: Gavin had talked a little bit about this in the last podcast where he talked about just over time realizing that because of things that had happened in his childhood, he was reacting differently to patients or staff in his practice who smelled of smoke because it triggered something for him. And so that self-awareness helped him, I guess, be aware of that, you know, aware of why he was being the way he was. And I guess is the first step before you can change it. You have to know you’re doing it.

Sarah Dau: You do. And that’s, that’s the first step for absolutely. So catch yourself, think about it. After you listen to this podcast, whether it’s in your personal life or when you go back into your offices, once you feel that, that negative thought process, anxiety, anger, disappointment, those negative emotions, just recognize it. And you’ve already learned something from the time you’re spending with us right now. Just recognize it. That’s the first part. Many times we don’t recognize it because we go, we spiral.

Bethany Fishbein: So that’s the first stage. So you’re, if I’m coming into work and I’m just like not feeling super good about it, is it like putting a word on it? Like somebody had recommended to me at one point there is this wheel and it had 80 different emotions. And so I can’t remember what they all were, but you picked a category and then it like, is it, is it about naming it or just realizing like, okay, I’m feeling pretty poopy about work today?

Sarah Dau: Both actually. Great question. And I think it’s both. The first is just saying, okay, I’m on the left side of my brain. That’s the survivor side of the brain, which Shahzad talks about. I’m in saboteur mode. So A, recognize it. B, which saboteur is it? If you’re coming into the office already in that mindset, could it be something that happened the day before or days before in the office? Or is it something from home? We all have struggles in our professional personal life, right? Hurdles that we have to jump through. So personally, is something going on in, in that staff member’s life that’s causing them to feel that way once they walk in the office.

So just acknowledging it and seeing what saboteur that is, is the first step. Going into how to quiet that again is a whole other show, which if you invite me back, I’d be more than happy to, to talk about it. But there are actual exercises that Shirzad teaches us on how to get from that left side of the brain of survivor mode into the right side of the brain, which is what he calls the sage brain.

In his research, he’s actually seen these neural pathways change on functional MRIs. This is where my geeky psychology major brain goes. I thought it was so interesting to learn about. He can actually see it. We have trained our brains, whether we realize it or not, to go into that negative thought process. We’ve done it to ourselves. We also have the ability to recognize it, stop it, and get into our right side of the brain by creating new neural pathways that he shows us how to do through various work and exercises. Can you tell my voice is escalating? It’s so exciting to me. I just love it. We have the power to do it. We just have to apply it.

Bethany Fishbein: Without going into a whole episodes worth here, can you give an idea of what an exercise can look like? Now somebody hears this, they recognize that they’re in it, they name it, and I don’t want to leave them hanging where now they just have to walk around knowing this. At Power Practice, we’re all about finding solutions. So give something.

Sarah Dau: Yes. Okay. So he goes into exercises being very aware of your breath, aware of your touch. We’ll do some exercises guided by Shirzad with touching your thumb to your pointer finger and really putting your thought press to that sensation, what you’re feeling. Everyone kind of has a different exercise I feel that resonates with them. So for me, it was the breath. I also meditate. So for some reason, maybe that’s why I went to the breath. So he’ll go through a guided exercise, being very, very aware of what you’re feeling during the inhalation, the temperature of that breath, and during the exhalation.

So taking a deep breath, closing your eyes and just saying, for instance, that hypervigilant, everything’s going to be okay. I’m okay. While you’re breathing in and feeling that cool air on the in inhalation, and then slowly exhaling and feeling that exhalation, probably a temperature, a little bit warmer than the inhalation and focusing on that, at least that’s what I felt.

It breaks that thought pattern of survival brain mode and focuses on that breath. So it stops that pattern and helps you to get on the right side because you’re not focusing on, oh my gosh, what if this doesn’t work? You’re focusing on your breath and you’re getting back to that sage brain.

Bethany Fishbein: So the breath, the touch, these are like just mindfulness.

Sarah Dau: Yes, being mindful. And I want to, I think it’s important to point out, we’ve had this in our studies together. I was studying under Shirzad with a group of people and this question came up quite a bit. Well, what if I just got some horrible news about a family member? They have cancer. They’re in a car accident.

We can’t make those very unfortunate scenarios in our lives go away. No breath can take that away. No sense of touch can take that away. And I think it’s important to acknowledge that. It’s about what we do with those emotions is where positive intelligence can come into play.

For example, Shirzad talks about the founder of MAAD, Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Candy Lightner lost her 13-year-old daughter due to a drunk driver who swerved and unfortunately had killed her daughter. And as traumatic and devastating as that is, she took all of those emotions, all of those feelings, and put it to help others. So she took a very, as I said, devastating life event and is using and choosing to use this to help others. We can somewhat call that sage, but I’m sure that that helps her to cope with such a devastating loss. So that’s just an example of how we can take that, this concept as a way of coping also with something that’s quite traumatic.

Bethany Fishbein: And you mentioned that idea of that argument of this is toxic positivity before.

Sarah Dau: Yes.

Bethany Fishbein: And so on one hand, I’m hearing a little bit of that, right? You have a negative feeling, take some breaths and don’t feel it anymore, right? Or just, you know, don’t be, don’t let your saboteurs take over, switch gears, right? Where I feel like sometimes those negative thoughts have a purpose. So just go into that a little bit more of the difference here and how, like, is there a part of this where those can be good for you?

Sarah Dau: I’m a strong believer that we can learn from our mistakes of today to be better tomorrow. I do believe that. So can you give me an example? I want to be able to apply it to a real-life scenario in office. So give me an example of where you feel doing this could be toxic positivity. Does that make sense?

Bethany Fishbein: Yeah. So my hypervigilance, I am making sure that everything is going to work the way that it’s supposed to.

Sarah Dau: Right.

Bethany Fishbein: And although that may be rather annoying to the people around me, the alternative, like if I just stuff that away and say, I’m not going to be like that, I’m not going to care how things turn out, then I feel like I’m less likely to get a good result. So I feel like it’s good to understand it. It’s good to know how this affects people. And at the same time, I really have a tough time believing that I just need to shut that down.

Sarah Dau: Right. Your hypervigilance, it’s your desire to be successful. Right. That requires you being a good leader and your team and having a team that produces. So you have a successful business that grows. You’re reaching those milestones and those goals that you have for your practice. So it’s important to feel that way. It’s important to want it to be done right.

Sometimes if your hypervigilance is kicking in and you’re saying to me, Sarah, I need A, B, and C done right now. And I go into that avoider mode because I felt you’re a little too confrontational. So you demotivated me because I’m afraid to implement because it’s not going to be right. It’s okay. Because what I need to do as the receiver on that end, I know where your mindset is coming from now. I know you might be in saboteur mode, but my avoider and my ability to address that says, Hey, do what she’s asking for. Because you know what you’re doing, have confidence in your work.

So it’s a two way street of calming those saboteurs to work and communicate better as a team. I feel it’s unrealistic to constantly be in the sage mode. The key is when you get to that saboteur mode is to recognize it and to try to stop it and minimize it the best you can. So you can get the best results from your team. But then when your team is aware, yeah, sometimes we have bad days and we might be a little bit more abrupt than other days, right? You might not say, Hmm, so I’m going to trigger Sarah’s avoider by this, but I’m going to ask her. No, we’re aware of it already. Right? So I know where you’re coming from, where the angst is coming from. And the key is to have those right people on your team and go back to having people on your team that believe in your mission and your core values and willing to carry them out.

So this is again, a whole other topic. And we get into this quite a bit with clients, too. Do I have the right person in the right seat on the right bus? Is that person on the right bus, but in the wrong seat? Or does that person need to get off at the next stop? So finding a team that is willing to work well together to bend and flex when you’re having maybe some of those off days where you’re like, Yeah, I’m not tapping into that. I’m just going to say, do this. And them understanding that. And that’s for the highest good is, is a winning combination. In my book, we have to give each other grace, that sometimes, whether it’s in the office or at home, sometimes we need to empathize with that scenario. Did I answer your question fully? Are you still skeptical? Be honest.

Bethany Fishbein: I’m hypervigilant. I’m always skeptical.

Sarah Dau: Yes, right. Trick question.

Bethany Fishbein: Sarah, I have felt and I hear the value of this. I hear your passion for it. If someone wants to learn more about themselves, you mentioned a self-assessment that people can take. How do they find that? And then if someone wants to really take this next level and utilize this as a tool to work better with their team and to become a better leader and a stronger group, how do they, what would they do next? There are a few ways that people can can learn more.

Sarah Dau: The first I would recommend is going on to positiveintelligence.com. You can read about the science behind the program, the saboteurs. There are some videos on there. And you also can take yourself the self-assessment. Also, I’d like to think of myself now as positive intelligence for optometry. Perhaps I’m giving myself a little too much credit, but I saw such a need for this for as long as I’ve been with power practice. What I see holding doctors and their staff back from reaching goals, this gives me that tool to help work with the doctor and their team so they can be more productive. They can understand the way their communication, their actions affect others and how we can tweak that when need be for the best productivity possible.

So for those that want to learn more about applying it to their own practices, please feel free to reach out to info at powerpractice.com. Put saboteurs or saboteur in the subject line. They will make sure that I receive it and I’d be more than happy to reach out to you and have a conversation about what’s happening in your office and how we can apply positive intelligence and some of the amazing, all the amazing other tools that we have through our over 20 years of experience in helping other doctors. We can talk about how we can apply positive intelligence and some of those other tools to help you and your team reach your goals as well.

Bethany Fishbein: Sarah, thank you so much. You gave a great plug there, so I don’t even need to. So I will just thank you for being here and thank everyone out there for listening.