Episode 612 Positive Resiliency and the Human Upgrade With Alfredo Borodowski
Show Highlights
The provided text is an excerpt from a podcast episode of “The SDM Show,” hosted by Rob Cairns, which focuses on business, life, and digital marketing. Cairns is interviewing Alfredo Borodowski, an expert in positivity and resiliency, who shares his compelling personal journey, including his dramatic shift from being a prestigious rabbi who was arrested and diagnosed as bipolar to becoming a social worker and positive psychology expert. Their conversation centers on the practical application of positive psychology, such as identifying one’s top five character strengths to foster personal and professional excellence. Borowski also discusses his upcoming book, “The Human Upgrade,” which explores the necessity of implementing a “human plan” alongside technological advancements like AI to mitigate the associated increase in anxiety and fear in the workplace, stressing the importance of culture, purpose, and self-care for achieving peak performance.
Show Notes
This episode features a compelling conversation with Alfredo Borodowski, a Positive Resiliency Expert, discussing his incredible journey, the power of positive psychology, and the need for a “Human Upgrade” in the age of AI.
Alfredo’s Unexpected Journey to Positive Resiliency
- Former Life as a Rabbi: Alfredo was a prominent rabbi in a large, prestigious New York congregation, serving top leaders and Wall Street executives. He described himself as being “on top of the world.”
- The Turning Point: His life drastically changed on June 19, 2013, when he was arrested for impersonating a police officer while suffering from mania (later diagnosed as bipolar disorder). The incident, which stemmed from holding a friend’s badge while improperly medicated, led to him being dubbed the “Road Rage Rabbi” by the press, causing his life to go viral globally.
- The Deepest Depression: He was hospitalized and diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Following the incident, he fell into a deep depression, spending eight months on a couch.
- A Revelation: An internal energy prompted him to go to his study, where he found an old yellow folder containing the results of a Positive Psychology test he had taken years before.
- Top 5 Strengths: The test revealed his top five character strengths: Creativity, Love of Learning, Curiosity, Perseverance, and Courage.
- A New Calling: Realizing that knowing his strengths saved his life, he returned to school, became a social worker, and committed himself to helping others discover their strengths—a mission he describes as a “game changer.” He notes that bipolar disorder is completely manageable for him.
The Power of Positive Psychology and Strengths
- Blindness of Strengths: Alfredo asserts that 70% of people are unaware of their top strengths, creating an “epidemic of blindness of strengths.”
- Flourish Factor: Studies show that simply knowing your strengths increases your capacity to flourish nine times, and applying them increases it 18 times.
- The Optometrist Analogy: Alfredo calls himself an “optometrist” for strengths, opening people’s eyes to what they already possess.
- Character Strengths: Positive psychology identifies 24 well-researched character strengths that form the backbone of human character across cultures and history.
- Actionable Step for Listeners: To find your top five strengths, text the word “POSITIVE” to 33777. This will provide a chart of the 24 strengths, a three-question exercise, and exercises to develop your strengths.
Mindset, Mental Health, and Explanatory Style
- The Importance of Self-Care: Both Rob and Alfredo emphasize that mental health is as crucial as physical health, stressing that you “got to take care of the head as well.”
- Internal Reality: “Reality begins inside.” People have the power to envision internally what they want and make it happen (like Olympic athletes visualizing their success).
- The Filter: The brain uses a filter to select information based on the command you give it. If you believe something will fail, your brain will miss opportunities.
- Lucky vs. Unlucky Study (Wasserman at Stanford): A study found that “lucky” people were more likely to see a large message in a newspaper telling them to stop counting and revealing the answer, while “unlucky” people missed it. The lucky people had the eye to look for opportunities, while the unlucky people had already determined they would fail.
- Explanatory Style: This is how you write the history of your life in your mind—tragedy or romance. Your “origin story” (series of moments that shape decisions, usually between 15 and 20) often creates a default modality based on fears, pain, or trauma.
Positive Resiliency in the Age of AI: The Human Upgrade
- The Tech Cost: The rise of AI is leading to a significant increase in anxiety, depression, and uncertainty in the workplace, referred to as technostress.
- AI is Different: Unlike past scientific revolutions (printing press, industrial revolution) which replaced or augmented labor, AI infringes on our humanity (creating poetry, mimicking voice, etc.). It poses a deep, existential threat of who we are, not just what we can do.
- The Solution: The Human Upgrade: Organizations are mistakenly relying solely on technology to solve human issues. Alfredo argues that companies need a “human plan” alongside the technological plan to manage this cultural change.
- New Book: Alfredo’s forthcoming book, “The Human Upgrade: The New Leadership for Peak Performance in the AI Revolution,” (publishing in January via the John Maxwell house) explores applying positive psychology tools to manage the human cost of the AI transition.
Leadership, Purpose, and Performance
- Defining Leadership: A good leader is a “narrative leader” who creates a “cultural myth” where employees feel they are on a quest for something great.
- Mission vs. Vision vs. Purpose:
- Mission & Vision: Where you want to get.
- Purpose: The reason and the why you want to get there. Purpose is the most neglected motivator.
- The Purpose Factor: Alfredo is one of the first licensed providers of a new, comprehensive instrument called the Purpose Factor to measure and map the purpose of a company and a person.
- The Peak Performance Equation:
$$ \\ \text{Positivity} + \text{Psychological Capital} + \text{Purpose} = \text{Peak Performance}$$
$$$$ * Positivity: Character strengths.- Psychological Capital: Confidence, hope, optimism, and resilience.
- Purpose: The why.
- A Focus on Nourishing: Management styles should shift from a “culture of fixing” to a “culture of nourishing.”
Connect with Alfredo Borodowski
- Website: https://www.google.com/search?q=PositiveForAlfredo.com (Find workshops, keynotes, and book announcements.)
- Free Strengths Chart: Text POSITIVE to 33777.
- One-on-One Chat: The website also includes a calendar for a free, no-strings-attached 30-minute one-on-one session to get to know each other.
Would you like me to find the link for Alfredo’s book or provide more detail on any of the concepts he discussed, such as Psychological Capital?
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