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Deb Levy | Coaching Is Good

Deb Levy, M.Ed., PCC

Certified Business and Life Coach

Introducing the PQ Program

Improve Performance. Live a Happier Life.

Physical fitness gives you the ability to climb steep hills without physical stress. Mental fitness enables you to handle life’s great challenges without mental stress or other negative emotions.

How mentally fit are you?

positive psychology graphic

The Positive Intelligence (PQ) Program

Positive Intelligence Quotient (PQ) is a synthesis of recent breakthroughs in neuroscience, cognitive and positive psychology, and performance science validated by over half a million participants in 50 countries.

PQ is a measure of the strength of positive mental muscles (Sage) versus negative ones (Saboteurs).

Saboteurs react to challenges in ways that generate negative emotions such as stress, disappointment, self-doubt, regret, anger, shame, guilt or worry.

Saboteurs
  • The Judge – The Master Saboteur
  • Controller
  • Hyper-Achiever
  • Hyper-Rational
  • Hyper-Vigilant
  • Pleaser
  • Restless
  • Stickler
  • Victim

The Sage handles challenges through positive emotions like empathy, gratitude, curiosity, creativity, self-confidence and calm, clear-headed, laser-focused action.

5 Sage Powers
  • Empathize
  • Explore
  • Innovate
  • Navigate
  • Activate

PQ (Positive Intelligence Quotient) measures the relative strength of your positive mental muscles

(Sage) versus the negative (Saboteur).

PQ is the most widely used measure of mental fitness. Independent researchers have validated this measure to be the greatest predictor of how happy you are, and how well you perform against your potential.

It teaches you how to shift your mind from self-sabotage to self-mastery for optimal performance and happiness.

Which saboteurs are holding you back from achieving your potential?

TAKE THE FREE ASSESSMENT

Breakthrough Results of Boosting PQ

  • Performance: Perform better while working less hard—similar to athletes “in the zone.”
  • Happiness: Feel less stress, more peace, and consistent happiness, even in tough times.
  • Relationships: Improve relationships, handle conflicts in ways that deepen trust and harmony.

How the PQ Program Works

Designed like a mental fitness bootcamp, the PQ Program gives you the insights, motivation, and structure to practice for only 15 minutes per day over a 6 week period.

The program uniquely combines weekly video sessions, daily app-guided practices and weekly group coaching sessions, and optional individual coaching, to boost your mental fitness muscles.

Video

Each week you access a one- hour video lesson on Monday with New York Times bestselling author and Stanford University Professor, Shirzad Chamine.

Mobile App

Tuesday through Friday, you access the PQ App for 15 minutes each day to get you out of theory and build your PQ mental muscles through exercises and practice.

Coaching Pod

Every Thursday, you participate in live coaching sessions with assigned group members, called your Pod, to debrief the activities and discuss your application.


Sample Weekly Schedule

Week 1: Boost Your Self-Command Muscle

Learn innovative 10-second PQ reps that boost your self-command. Self-command is key to intercepting unhelpful mental habits and rewiring your brain to respond more effectively.

Week 2: Intercept the Judge Saboteur

Intercept and weaken the most damaging Saboteur, the Judge. Discover how judging yourself, others and circumstances is a crucial source of your stress and quite damaging to your performance.

Week 3: Intercept Your Accomplice Saboteurs

Identify and weaken the top accomplice to your Judge Saboteur - Avoider, Controller, Hyper- Achiever, Hyper-Rational, Hyper-Vigilant, Pleaser, Restless, Stickler, and Victim.

Week 4: Shift From Saboteur to Sage

Strengthen your Sage, the counterpart to your Saboteurs. Your Sage lives in an entirely different part of your brain, generates all of your positive emotion and achieves peak performance through a calm and clear-headed mind.

Week 5: Boost Your Sage Powers

Discover the Sage regions of the brain that enable the 5 primary powers that form all of the emotional intelligence competencies considered crucial to professional success.

Week 6: Take Clear-Headed, Laser-Focused Action

Use your Sage's Navigate and Activate powers to take clear-headed, laser-focused action.

Week 7: Sustain the Momentum

Continue using your PQ tools for a variety of current work and life applications.


Your PQ Program Coach – Deb Levy

Deb Levy

Deb is a certified life and business coach specializing in action-oriented coaching for individuals, businesses, schools, non-profit organizations and corporations.

For 25 years, Deb has been using research-based positive psychology strategies to help clients prioritize their goals and develop road maps to success.

In addition to coaching, Deb leads workshops on using positive psychology to improve performance and well-being for a variety of schools , businesses and non-profits.

Deb is an award-winning Teaching Fellow at Harvard University, where she taught Positive Psychology alongside Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar and Shawn Achor when it was the largest class at Harvard. Deb has also taught Positive Psychology at the Tufts Experimental College and is currently leading Positive Psychology Academic Coaching workshops for the Harvard Extension School.


Your Coaching Pod

Research indicates 500% increased likelihood of establishing positive new habits when supported by accountability partners.

zoom window with Deb Levy

Every participant in the PQ Fitness Program is placed in a carefully selected support and coaching group called a Pod. Pod members meet once a week with me to share experiences and discuss the week's training. Pod members are also able to communicate privately with each other using the PQ Community App.

PQ Program Includes

  • Seven, Weekly 1-Hour video sessions
    Founder Shirzad Chamine guides you through experimental exercises that deepen and personalize your understanding of the PQ tools.
  • Seven, Weekly 1-hour group POD meetings
    Meet each week with your Coach and Pod members to discuss real life PQ application, challenges and successes.
  • Exclusive mobile App guiding your daily practice
    Each day a different focus for daily practice is assigned through a personalized companion app available only to program participants.
  • Daily progress tracking
    The app tracks your daily progress against minimum targets associated with new neural pathway (muscle) formation. Personalized daily coaching tips from Shirzad continue to both encourage and challenge you to keep going.
  • Private Individual coaching sessions
    Two, 1-hour private coaching session with coach Deb Levy to discuss your own personal goals and uncover areas of opportunity. Additional coaching sessions can be added at a discounted program member rate.

Upcoming PQ Program Availability

January 2025

Still have questions?

Contact me at deb@coachingisgood.com

About Coaching

By tapping into my clients’ strengths and capitalizing on what’s working in their lives we set the stage to inspire change and develop a strategy to achieve it.  Using research-based strategies I establish a partnership with my clients to identify goals and work toward best possible outcomes.

Coaching for Businesses


I help businesses make change. From corporate executives initiating new programs, to small business owners trying to increase profitability - I help you develop an integrated strategy that leverages your strengths and maximize your assets. Working with you (and your team, as appropriate), together we design an ambitious action plan and create the momentum needed for change. I coach you forward, providing the structure and accountability you need, to exceed your goals. Business Coaching is ideal for:


  • Executives in large corporations

  • Small business owners

  • Startup entrepreneurs

  • Solo practitioners

  • College administrators

  • Non-profit managers


I have helped businesses:


  • Change work culture, and thus improve job satisfaction and retention

  • Boost employee productivity and performance

  • Develop operational systems that enhance efficiency

  • Design programs to foster team building and inclusion


Business Coaching sessions will help you:


  • Motivate employees to succeed at the highest levels.

  • Improve your skills at engaging employees through difficult times with positive communications that will feed their continued efforts.

  • Learn to focus employees on what is working well, especially when they must use creativity to do more with less.

  • Effectively communicate with others as you make crucial decisions under high pressure.

  • Practice prioritization and time management skills that will generate leadership opportunities for developing forward-thinking strategies

I provide and facilitate:

  • Focus groups

  • Individual assessments

  • Staff Development sessions

  • Team Building Retreats

  • Individual and group coaching

  • Motivational speaking


To learn more about how I can help your business, contact me to schedule a free initial coaching consultation.

Coaching for Individuals

Life doesn't’t come with an instruction manual—we’re all left here to create our own individual paths. It’s hard to see the way, and sometimes there are challenges, but I’m here to tell you that there’s no reason to panic. As your life coach, I will be your "goals doctor", helping you uncover what you really, really want to do, and together, defining a set of challenging, integrated goals you are eager to work on. Through creative coaching strategies and motivational techniques, you will make step-by-step progress, building your goal-setting skills and confidence along the way. I will provide you with the support, structure and accountability you need to catapult into action, holding your hand as you navigate through each setback and cheer you on after each accomplishment.

I’m here to let you know that you can feel more personally and professionally fulfilled. It’s simply a matter of finding the right tools for you. I can show you how to combine the latest goal-setting strategies, your own personal character strengths and the principles positive psychology, to improve your performance and well being—for life. Coaching is right for anyone who sees change as a big gap and needs a bridge to make the jump, or who feels stuck in the status quo or caught in a loop. It will take practice, and it may not be easy, but with me as your coach, I promise you it will definitely be fun


My coaching has lead directly to transformational success for clients:
  • making a career transition
  • returning to school or work
  • working on a big project (dissertation, book, marketing campaign, startup)
  • seeking a better work/life balance or better health (through fitness and diet)
  • struggling in school or taking a gap year


Want to learn more about how my coaching can help you? Contact me to  sign up for a free initial coaching consultation. I’ll give you a little perspective about setting goals and introduce you to ways to make change in your life.  I look forward to hearing from you!





Deb Levy, M.Ed., PCC

Deb is a certified life and business coach specializing in action-oriented coaching for individuals, businesses, schools, non-profit organizations and corporations. For 25 years, she has been helping clients prioritize their goals and develop road maps to success. Her genuine enthusiasm and insightful prodding helps clients break through perceived limitations to stretch themselves. Using research-based positive-psychology strategies, Deb creates the support and structure her clients need to stay on task.

Whether you're an executive charged with the success of your organization or an mid-career professional ready to make a change, Deb can help you use your strengths to your advantage and leverage your assets to accelerate your progress. Deb makes the process of change an enjoyable, and can help you achieve your boldest goals.

In addition to her coaching work,  Deb leads workshops on using positive psychology to improve performance and well-being for a variety of  schools , businesses and non-profits. Deb was an award-winning Teaching Fellow at Harvard University, where she taught Positive Psychology alongside Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar and Shawn Achor when it was the largest class at Harvard.  Deb taught Positive Psychology class at the Tufts Experimental College and received rave reviews from her students.  Each semester she leads  Positive Psychology Academic Coaching workshops for the Harvard Extension School, as she is one of their most popular presenters.

Deb received her BA in psychology from Amherst College and an M.Ed. in Counseling from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Deb is an ICF Certified Professional Coach (PCC) and received her coaching training from Mentor Coach.  Deb lives in Arlington, MA and enjoys tennis, cooking, biking and performing stand-up comedy.

About Positive Psychology

In 2006 I had the privilege of being a teaching fellow in Tal Ben-Shahar's Positive Psychology class at Harvard University. Alongside Shawn Achor, (as well as other talented teaching fellows), we lead over 856 undergraduate students through a transformational learning experience. Dubbed the "Happy Class", it created some bewilderment and suspicion on campus: What made this class so popular? Were students given A's for smiling and thinking positive thoughts? Flash forward to winter of 2014: my Positive Psychology class at Tufts University fills up one minute after registration opened. It doesn't take a scientist to tell us that, clearly, there's something "up".

The person responsible for launching the field of positive psychology in 1998 was Martin Seligman. He brought together researchers to study and find answers to a fundamental question: What contributes to happiness and success as we develop as human beings? Students and others are drawn to the material in Positive Psych because it encapsulates research-based strategies to improve mood, well-being and performance. (It's by no means the standard mood enhancer!) By studying positive emotions, strengths, goal-setting and relationships, people learn the skills necessary to succeed-- in their personal, academic, and professional lives.

Speaking and Presentations

I offer presentations, small-group talks, keynote speeches and leadership sessions for conferences, business meetings and staff development events. The content combines research, best practices, skills training, participatory activities and a hefty dose of humor and inspiration -- customized for your audience! -- so they will learn valuable skills, be exposed to new insights and problem-solving techniques, and have an uplifting and educational experience.

Topics include:
  • Using Positive Psychology to improve performance and well-being
  • Happiness at work - How and why it matters
  • Resilience — Thriving during challenging times
  • Achieving work/life sanity - How to work smarter not harder
  • Strengths Leadership - Leveraging the best in you to get the best out of others

Motivational talks

I offer motivational talks and training for sports teams at key competitive moments and during pre-season and post-season play. These programs teach mental performance skills and inspire athletes to their peak performance. I also speaks at sports banquets and end-of-year events.