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Lessons - Post-Traumatic Growth Reality | Niyc Pidgeon - Award-Winning Positive Psychologist · Success Story with Scott Clary

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  In this lessons episode, explore how positive psychology transforms adversity into resilience
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  and sustainable performance, discover how evidence-based tools build emotional strength and clarity
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  under pressure, understand how structured practices unlock motivation and creative problem solving,
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  and uncover how resilience-driven mindsets create lasting, personal, and professional growth.
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  When you're actually, when somebody comes to you and I want to highlight that you are an
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  exceptionally positive person, at least we're talking right now, you seem exceptionally positive,
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  but the topics and not the topics of things that have happened to you over the course of your
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  life are not light things. So I have notes here and please correct me if I'm wrong here, but
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  you've obviously been bullied, you attempted at one point to take your own life, you lost three
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  friends to suicide and you were a victim of sexual assault or rape. Is that correct? These are all
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  correct. So when you adopt a positive psychology mindset, these are horrendous things that you're
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  still functioning, you're still excelling and obviously operating at an exceptional level. So what are
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  the tools? What are some of the tool kits, the tool sets that you use to overcome some of these
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  things? And I want to highlight the things that have happened to you and occurred in your life,
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  because if you think about what somebody in a business goes through, the large not everybody,
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  but the large majority of people have not had these many horrible things happen to them. So
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  if somebody is struggling because they lost an RFP or they didn't raise a round of funding,
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  it almost seems trivial now compared to the stuff that has happened in your life that you're still
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  very capable of overcoming. So if I can apply the tool set to somebody who's struggling in their
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  business and stressed, because a silly reason like maybe they shipped the wrong product or something
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  like that, obviously when you look at how you've applied it to your life, it's very useful and
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  very practical and obviously very much works skill set that you should take on and understand.
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  So what are what are the tools that you've included in your life and what you teach over?
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  Well, I feel like I could literally sit and talk about this all day. It feels like very
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  fulfilling for me to be able to both share the science, but also share it from a perspective of
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  not just being a person that's used it to go from good to great, but to use it from going from
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  really being very, very stuck and scared and uncertain and being able to go on and perform
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  that they've never before. And I always say it's not in spite of challenge, but it's because of them.
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  And I think something that's important to recognise is that everybody experiences
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  challenge in adversity in a different way. So the bias that we have in our brains means that
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  some people really do feel things more and some people experience small things. There's really,
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  really big things and what positive, and it could feel like it's choking even if it to someone
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  else it doesn't seem like a big thing. It could feel like maybe that raise was actually something
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  that kept you up and caused you to get stressed out and anxiety and lack of appetite and all the
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  horrible things that come with massive amount of stress. Yeah, exactly. And I think it's one
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  of the things that positive psychology teachers is that you can build resilience and you can build
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  your set of psychological resources so that you can weather the storm and you don't just have to
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  feel like you get beaten up by life all of the time, but you feel like you really do have a
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  higher level of capability. So to get super specific and super granular, I'll tell you about that
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  theory, first of all, and then I'll go into some of the tools. So the theory or one of them I'm
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  talking about is the theory of positive emotions and the ability that positive emotions have to
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  broaden and build. So when we experience the top tail end of emotions like joy, like excitement,
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  enthusiasm, gratitude, love, we open up our thinking. So let's say someone's doing a raise
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  and they're super stressed out what happens is your cognition shuts down. So it's like very,
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  very hard for you to come up with creative solutions or for you to see the bigger picture. So what
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  would benefit is actually practicing a positive psychology intervention and they're super simple,
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  really easy to do, reaching for a tool so that you can create a shift and you can feel that at first
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  so that it opens up your mind ready for the intake of information, you build relationships more
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  quickly and you reach your goals faster as well. So that is the broadening. The building area
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  of positive emotions, it says that when you experience more positivity or positive emotions,
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  you're then able to almost like put those the effects of the positive emotions into a bank.
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  So let's say you experience more humor or more laughter, you're able to put those resources
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  into a bank so your psychological toolkit, when you need it, your bank account, you can actually
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  reach into it and you can make a withdrawal which is the resiliency that actually gets you
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  through the hard times. So some of the things that I've reached for when I've been really struggling.
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  So let's say I'm having a, I'll give you a few examples. So let's say I'm having a really,
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  really bad day because positive psychologists still have bad days, okay? I used to feel like I had to
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  be like a hundred percent on all of the time and I recognised through my personal challenges that
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  no one can be a hundred percent happy all of the time and it's actually not about that. So what
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  I might do, let's say I'm feeling overwhelmed or I'm feeling like I don't have motivation to do
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  my work, I might pull a tool out which is like the gravestone exercise. So if a couple of minutes,
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  you can do it as a meditation, you can do it as a written exercise, both ways are super powerful
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  and it asks you to consider a time where you're at the end of your life and you're looking back
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  on everything that you have done. You are at your own funeral, you see your own headstone on
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  your grave and you're seeing and witnessing what people are saying about you and what you'll
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  be remembered for. So the intervention asks you to consciously create what it is you want to be
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  remembered for your legacy and to really connect with that and write it down and it's such a powerful
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  exercise. We deliver it within some of our coaching sessions and it's the real tear jerker,
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  it's the one where people remember the meaning and the purpose or they connect with it for the first
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  time and when you connect with that meaning and purpose, it really energises you. So if you're
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  feeling like you're lacking in motivation, that's a really good tool to go to. If you're feeling like
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  you are overwhelmed and you don't have solutions and you're feeling like you don't know the way through,
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  you might pull a tool like the hope map. So the hope map gives you a six-step process to follow
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  when you want to reach your goals and the good thing about positive psychology is even though it
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  sounds like it's a soft science and it's like an meditation or something that is like light or
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  fluffy, it's all grounded in evidence and research. So positive psychologists have literally tried
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  and tested these tools in various different ways to figure out which order things work in
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  and what you must do in order to create the result. So the hope map has got six steps. They tested
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  it with four, they tested it with five, they looked at what it is that makes people reach their goals
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  and it's actually the last two steps in the process. So step number one of the hope map is to decide
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  on what the goal is that you want to focus on. Step number two is to apply something called divergent
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  thinking theory which asks you not to come up with the number one solution to the goal but instead
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  to come up with five or ten and get creative and play with the pathways that could be possible to
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  help you get to that goal. Step number three is to identify any obstacles that might get in your
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  way. So what happens when we set goals is we get into optimism, we get into excitement and that can
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  actually prevent us from reaching our goals because if we get thrown off track and we're not prepared
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  for it then we can get disheartened or we might give up. So if you can identify the obstacles and then
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  consider what the pathways might be through those obstacles that can actually help you reach your
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  goals faster but you then need to lock it in with the final two steps. So step number five is to
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  consider what the why is behind the goal in the first place and step number six is to consider
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  who you need to share with or who you need to ask for support from in order to reach the goal.
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  Beautiful so that now you these steps are incredible and and when you apply these to the person
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  is just trying to get through life it makes a lot of sense why it would be helpful to incorporate
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  this into your day today. But obviously entrepreneurs have an extra level of stress sometimes where
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  I feel like these steps are incredibly useful because I find that entrepreneurship is very lonely
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  and sometimes depressing venture to go on. Not to say that work is easy for anybody but I mean
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  entrepreneurs find themselves alone and usually isolated and finding a hard time talking to people
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  about the things that they're going through. And I guess my more of a point but also a question
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  at the same time when you talk about positive psychology why did you in particular decide to
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  build a brand in the business around teaching this to entrepreneurs was it a niche that you felt
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  needed attending to was it and I also know you work with a lot of coaches as well like you probably
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  could work with you know a venture back software somebody in SF but I mean you've chosen a certain
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  avenue for the work that you do why is that why is this something that in particular a coach would
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  need or a solo printer needs. For me it's the potential of the impact of the ripple effect.
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  So there's been studied done specifically on positive psychology coaching where we look at the
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  impact of a coach and a client having that relationship and what happens after that. So they found
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  that every person that somebody who's received coaching comes into contact with they also
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  increase their wellbeing. So it's really exciting for me when a student goes back into the home and
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  they come back and tell me that their husband is now feeling better and their husband is performing
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  better at work or their kids are coming and having conversations teenagers having conversations
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  can you imagine it. So they're like super happy about that or there's like a five-year-old who
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  practicing gratitude. So the power of that impact really excites me and it doesn't just stop that.
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  So the study found that somebody who goes to like a positive psychology coaching and then goes
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  out into their day-to-day life they will impact every single person that they come into contact with.
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  So if they're going to stand in the line at the post office or waiting to go into the dentist
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  the ripple effect extends far and wide. So I see it like an activation around the globe where the more
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  people I can support to become positive psychology coaches the more people can receive positive
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  psychology coaching and the more we can elevate the wellbeing and the performance of the planet
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  because of that. So that feels exciting. Thanks for tuning in. If you found this valuable don't
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  forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode and if you want to dive deeper
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  into this conversation check out the links in the description to watch the full episode. See you in
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  the next one.