Each of us is an agent of change facing a greater prevailing change that we need to adapt to in order to survive and grow. We are changed by this greater prevailing change, and we can change this greater prevailing change.
As we are changed by this greater prevailing change, and as we seek to change this greater prevailing change, we give values to what changes us, and what we want to change. Based on the values we give to what changes us and what we want to change, our behavior often mirrors the value we provide to these changes, and the performance of our behaviors, based on our valuations of change, dictate whether or not we will successfully adapt to change, in order to survive and grow.
Accordingly, how we value greater prevailing change, and how we value what we can change is very important to our survival and growth.
We value change using words and numbers, but also using non-verbal language, like drawing, painting, music, dancing, laughing, crying, sweating, changing skin color, changing pupil dilation, sighing, signing, yawning, crossing our arms, standing tall, slumping, facing towards, turning away, pacing, fidgeting, smiling, frowning, relaxing, stressing, et cetera.
The more we learn, the more tools we have available to value change, and the more tools we have to govern the behaviors that follow our valuations of change, which collectively improves our performance, and the performance of others.
MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCE SCAFFOLDING
In 1983, Havard University's Dr. Howard Gardner published a theory on multiple intelligence, a valuation of change, suggesting that there are many different types of intelligence, above conventional IQ intelligence, which doesn't test for most other types of intelligence, creative intelligence, emotional intelligence, social intelligence, athletic/physical intelligence, practical intelligence, spiritual intelligence, ecological intelligence, et cetera.
Metacognition is the study of thinking about thinking. First we must learn something, or we must learn "what" there is to learn. Then we must learn "how" to employ "what" we have learned. Then we must learn "when" to employ "what" we have learned and "how" it must be employed. Then we must learn how to self-monitor "when" we apply "what" we have learned, "how" this must be employed, and we must learn to "self'-regulate" after we "self-monitor".
Dr. Gardner's multiple intelligence theory provides an excellent scaffolding to the other "whats" we need to learn, from which we must then learn "how" and "when" we need to employ "what", which we will "self-monitor" and "self-regulate".
MindSpokes uses Dr. Gardner's multiple intelligence theory as a foundation for personal development, adding on many other personal development theories, each a spoke on the wheel of our spinning minds.
Leonardo Da Vinci and Benjamin Franklin are two excellent examples of people who developed multiple intelligences, changing the world forever, and both are considered geniuses.
DEVELOPING GENIUSES
Leonardo Da Vinci developed multiple intelligences as a painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer, helping Europe out of a thousand years of ignorance, a time known as the Middle Ages or Dark Ages. Some of his inventions include flying machines, boats, submarines, machine guns, parachutes, cross-bows, and other war machines. His drawings of the inside of the human body were so accurate and so well done that some are still used in medical school textbooks to this day, some six hundred years later.
Benjamin Franklin developed multiple intelligences as an author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat, who discovered electricity, and who was an integral part of the founding of the United States.
The question is how did these two geniuses become geniuses? Was it by learning one subject only, keeping a single job for their entire lives, or was it by learning as many subjects as possible, and working in many different fields?
The expression "Jack of all trades and master of none" is extremely misleading and misguiding, suggesting that people need to develop a single body of knowledge, or trade or career path, in order to master anything in life, when the complete opposite is true.
Geniuses don't become geniuses by restricting what, how, and when they can learn. Geniuses become geniuses by learning as much as they possibly can, in as many different areas of intelligence as possible, by overcoming an amazing number of learning curves, which requires extraordinary motivation and focus. Then armed with a much bigger body of knowledge, they are able to see how different bodies of knowledge connect, allowing them to make breakthrough innovations that change the world. Armed with a much bigger body of knowledge, they have more tools to be able to help themselves and others adapt to change, to survive and grow. Accordingly, geniuses like Da Vinci and Franklin had to develop as "Jacks of many trades" in order to become "masters in many trades", and there was no way around this, and again, this required exceptional motivation and focus for a long period of time.
The brain is analogous to a muscle, the more it is exercised, the stronger it gets. Exercising a single fiber of the muscle, or single type of intelligence, will not strengthen the muscle overall. Exercising as many different fibers as possible, as many different ways as possible, will strengthen the muscle overall. Therefore, the more we seek to develop different types of intelligence, the more intelligent we'll become, and the closer we'll get to becoming true geniuses. That said, there is more information to learn and more intelligences to develop than there is a lifetime to develop them, and so we must pick and choose those intelligences that are of the greatest interest to us, provided that their development will allow us to adapt to change in a manner conducive to both our survival and growth.
CORE INTELLIGENCES
The core intelligences are derived using the overlapping contributions of Gardner's multiple intelligence theory, Myers Briggs Type Indicator, DISC psychological inventory, and Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. With respect to the multiple intelligence scaffolding, ecological intelligence paves the way to physical intelligence, which paves the way to creative intelligence, which paves the way to symbolic intelligence, which paves the way to spiritual, emotional, and social intelligence, which collectively pave the way to practical intelligence. That said, practical intelligence is not only about learning "what" is changing, and "what" can be changed, but it is also concerned with "how" and "when" things have changed, are changing, and will change, and so it incorporates intelligences beyond the multiple intelligence scaffolding.
ECOLOGICAL INTELLIGENCE
Similar to physical and spiritual intelligence, ecological intelligence is concerned with learning about how smaller and larger internal and external changes interact, and how to optimize their interactions to result in optimal sustainability. The more one practices internal and external sustainability, the more this intelligence develops. This intelligence aligns well with Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs concerned with survival and safety.
Consuming unhealthy foods (sugar, salt, fat), polluted air (industrial smog, occupational exposure, allergens, cigarettes, drugs, and polluted water (caffeine, alcohol) can negatively impact the performance of internal ecological sustainability, resulting in medical and behavioral diseases and disorders, and even death. Similarly, the performance of external ecological sustainability can be negatively impacted by volcanic activity, meteorites, glaciation periods, deforestation, strip mining, smelting, desertification, over-fishing, over-hunting, over-grazing, over-farming, and over-use of high concentrations of chemicals in the air, soil, and water locally and around the world.
Most living things depend on the slow death of other living things in order to survive. Microscopic organisms depending on the death of other organisms in order to survive. Many plants depend on microscopic organisms in order to survive. Many herbivores and omnivores depend on plants in order to survive. Many carnivores and omnivores depend on herbivores to survive. Culling has to be continuous but gradual in order for the food web of life to remain sustainable. Environments that threaten the mass death of the most sensitive smaller organisms in the food web can have a major impact on the rest of the food web.
A great example of this occurred 65 million years ago when debris from space crashed off the shore of Mexico, sending enough material into the global air system to block out the light from the sun for years. In those years, most plants died, and so most herbivores died, and so most predators died, resulting in the extinction of most of the dinosaurs. To date, there have been five other mass extinction events on Earth, which wiped out large percents of life on Earth. One such event wiped out over 90% of everything living on Earth. The most recent mass extinction event on Earth has resulted from human industrial practices, to provide 7 billion humans with products and services.
Internal and external ecological sustainability are related, as internal environments are extensions of the external environment. Accordingly, the more defiled the external environment or ecology, the more defiled the internal environment or ecology.
Exactly like physical, creative, and spiritual intelligence, the more we practice high or nourishing ecological intelligence, the better our external, and thus internal environments will perform. The more we practice low or toxic ecological intelligence, the better we'll defile our interconnected external and internal environments.
PHYSICAL INTELLIGENCE
Physical intelligence is the type of intelligence we have because of our genetics, nurtured by our environments, that can transform us into amateur and professional athletes. The ability for a person to a throw, kick, or drive a ball into a hoop, goal, or hole from a long distance, while traveling at a high speed; the ability for a ballerina to repeatedly spin on an angle and to land on one toe with perfect balance; the ability to ride a bicycle, motorcycle, plane, sailboat, surfboard, skateboard, snowboard, or skis; or the ability for a person to look down the barrel of a rifle and hit a target a mile away, are examples of physical intelligence. Another way to look at physical intelligence is our ability to understand and manipulate energy through space and time.
Our genes dictate our maximum physical potential for all of our intelligences, and our environment dictates whether or not our genes will meet that maximum potential. Accordingly, learning about our genetic strengths and weakness is the first step to nurturing them accordingly, to realize our maximum potential.
Learning about how our environments affect the performance of our genes is governed by the emerging field of epigenetics, and our epigenome is a hundred times larger than our human genome, which is composed of DNA from both our nuclear and mitochondrial DNA, the nucleus and mitochondria, respectively. Our external environment affects our internal environment, and our internal environment affects our epigenome, and our epigenome affects the performance of our nuclear and mitochondrial genomes, which impacts the performance and magnitude of our physical intelligence. Organic raw foods, clean air and water, stress-free environments, loving and socially accepting environments, exercise or practuce, sleep, stretching, and deep breathing can all positively improve the performance of physical intelligence. This intelligence also aligns well with Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs concerned with survival and safety.
CREATIVE INTELLIGENCE
Just as there are many types of physical intelligence, there are many types of creative intelligence, painting, drawing, photography, graphic design, writing, filming, modeling, music, dancing, composing, and inventing are a few forms of creative intelligence. Just like physical intelligence, the more one practices or exercises the creative intelligence sections of their brain for these and other creative behaviors, the more this intelligence develops or performs. This intelligence aligns well with Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs concerned with self-actualization.
SYMBOLIC INTELLIGENCE or INTELLIGENCE QUOTIENT (IQ)
Symbolic intelligence has to do with mastering the relationships of symbols, like letters, words, sentences, paragraphs, as well as numbers, mathematical symbols and their applications, logic, reasoning, and critical thinking. Symbolic intelligence is rooted in philosophical logic, reasoning, and critical thinking, which is the basis for mathematical and statistical measurement, which are the basis for physics, which is the basis for all other sciences.
As per Sir Ken Richardson's TEDTALK in June 2006, the primary reason the world is in a dire state has to do with the disproportionate mining of IQ intelligence around the world, at the expense of the creative intelligence required to find the solution to the world's problems. He suggests that if the world invested in creative intelligence, like it does in IQ intelligence, that we'd likely have solutions to the all the world's problems. Myers Briggs Type Indicator overlaps with the multiple intelligence theory here, with the thinker personality or logic, reasoning, and critical thinking intelligence.
SPIRITUAL INTELLIGENCE
Spiritual intelligence is the ability to connect to everything, or the changes that we come from, the changes we are a part of, and the changes we will return to. It is the ability to connect to greater and smaller prevailing changes inside and outside of us. It is the ability to connect to everything known and unknown. There are many different valuations for this greater prevailing change including, but not limited to, everything, God(s), Great Architect(s) of the Universe, Supreme Being(s), universe, power, energy, time, space, matter, et cetera, all different ways of describing the same thing, using different words, numbers, symbols, and other values. Just like any other intelligence, mastering spiritual intelligence requires years of practice.
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
Emotional intelligence is whether or not we provide a nourishing and/or toxic value to ourselves as we continue to adapt to greater prevailing change. It is the nourishing and/or toxic value we assign to how we are changed, and the nourishing and/or toxic value we assign to what we change. People that value themselves in a nourishing manner have high emotional intelligence, and have mostly relaxing molecules flowing through their brain and bodies.
People that value themselves in a toxic manner have poor emotional intelligence, and have mostly stressor molecules from the fight or flight mechanism flowing through their body. Emotional intelligence is deeply rooted in the lymbic brain, at the back of the head, which wraps around the spinal chord, and sits under the motor function brain for movement, and is greatly controlled by the prefrontal cortex, at the front of the brain.
To increase emotional intelligence, people need to minimize perceived threats by finding alternative valuations to change, by engaging in stress management, of which physical and spiritual intelligence are components. Deep breathing exercises and activities like yoga and tai chi, flood the brain and body with relaxing molecules, which balance the stressor molecules from the fight or flight limbic system.
SOCIAL and ETHICAL INTELLIGENCE
Social intelligence is whether or not others provide a nourishing and/or toxic value to us as we continue to adapt to greater prevailing change. This type of intelligence requires a fundamental understanding of the conflict inherent in ethics, or ethical intelligence, understanding that what is nourishing or good for one person, can simultaneously be toxic or bad for another person.
Ethical intelligence is understanding that it is good for the lion that kills the zebra, and that it is simultaneously bad for the zebra to be killed by the lion. It is understanding that the building of a dam on a river in an arid region is good for the people who have greater access to water, and simultaneously bad for those with a reduced access to water. People with high social intelligence are able to behave in a manner that is nourishing to the individual, group, organization, and/or interorganization valuing their behavior. People with low social intelligence behave in a manner that is toxic to the individual, group, organization, and/or interorganization valuing their behavior.
People with high emotional intelligence are often a threat to people with low emotional intelligence, and can be valued by people with low emotional intelligence as having poor social intelligence. Similarly, people with low emotional intelligence can be valued as having poor social intelligence by those with high emotional intelligence. People with high emotional intelligence tend to stick together, and tend to be extraverts, and people with low emotional intelligence tend to stick together, and tend to be introverts.
Myers Briggs Type Indicator overlaps here also, with the extravert personality or sociable intelligence. Balancing the extravert personality is the introvert personality, or anti-social intelligence. Though one might think that anti-social behavior results in poor social intelligence performance, but only in extreme cases. A healthy dose of anti-social intelligence is required to keep someone from being hyper-social to the point of being toxic, like the people with no concept of personal space at a party, who attack anyone they see with long-winded monologues about themselves.
This intelligence also aligns well with Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs concerned with love, belonging, and self-esteem.
DRIVING/DOMINANCE INTELLIGENCE
The DISC psychological assessment inventory balances people with high dominance intelligence, people who are demanding, forceful, egocentric, strong willed, driving, determined, ambitious, aggressive, and pioneering, with low dominance intelligence, people who are conservative, low keyed, cooperative, calculating, undemanding, cautious, mild, agreeable, modest and peaceful.
There is some overlap with the multiple intelligence theory and MBTI social intelligence, as people with low dominance, tend to have higher social and emotional intelligence than people with high dominance intelligence, who tend to have lower social and emotional intelligence.
INFLUENCE INTELLIGENCE
The DISC psychological assessment inventory balances high influence intelligence, convincing, magnetic, political, enthusiastic, persuasive, warm, demonstrative, trusting, and optimistic, with low influence intelligence, reflective, factual, calculating, skeptical, logical, suspicious, matter of fact, pessimistic, and critical.
There is some overlap with the MBTI extravert and introvert, as people with high influence, tend to be more extraverted than people with low influence intelligence, who tend to be more introverted. There is also some overlap with the MBTI and multiple intelligence social intelligence component, as people with high influence tend to have high social and emotional intelligence, and people with low influence tend to have low social and emotional intelligence.
PRACTICAL INTELLIGENCE
Practical intelligence has to do with mastering the ability to provide values to changes that result in behaviors that perform, or behaviors that allow an individual to adapt to changes in order to both survive and grow. Practical intelligence requires that individuals frame, research, analyze, design, develop, implement, evaluate, innovate, and integrate the value they provide to change. Then it requires individuals to frame, research, analyze, design, develop, implement, evaluate, innovate, and integrate the behavior that follows the valuation provided to change. Then it requires that the behaviors that follow the valuations of change perform in such a way as to not only survive change, but to grow. Practical intelligence requires all of the other core intelligences in order to perform well. Practical intelligence is to learn what needs to improve, and then to improve what needs to be improved, and then to continue to what has been improved, in a manner that adapts to change.
MOTIVATIONAL INTELLIGENCE
Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a hierarchy that described how people prioritize their needs, reflective of their motivation towards how they are changed by everything, and how they would like to change everything. Each of these types of motivational intelligence are considered core intelligences.
Physiological needs require the greatest motivational intelligence priority, to access the resources required to survive, air, food, water, sex, sleep, homeostasis, and excretion.
Safety needs require the second greatest motivational intelligence priority, to access the security of the body, employment, resources, morality, the family, health, and property. That is to say it is more intelligent to access the resources required to survive, than it is to be safe from danger, though it is even more intelligent to access the resources required to survive and be safe from danger.
Love and belonging needs require moderate motivational intelligence priority, to access friendship, family, and sexual intimacy. That is to say that it is more intelligent to seek safety, than it is to seek love or friendship.
Self-esteem needs require the second lowest motivational intelligence priority, to access self-esteem, confidence, achievement, respect of others, and respect by others.
Self-actualization needs require the least motivational intelligence priority, to access morality, acceptance of facts, to problem solve, to lack prejudice, to be creative, to be spontaneous, and essentially do whatever one wants, when they want to. That is to say it is more intelligent to seek the resources required to survive, safety, love and belonging, and self-esteem, than it is to seek to do whatever one wants. If I want to visit Antarctica, and spend all of the money to get there, and have no money left once I get there, I am doing what I want, but at the expense of my survival and safety. Hence, it is even more intelligent to seek and achieve all of these things, but in the right order.
SENSING and INTUITIVE INTELLIGENCE
Myers Briggs balances sensing intelligence, the intelligence associated with taking things at face value, with intuitive intelligence, the intelligence associated with reading in between the lines. Intuitive intelligence overlaps with the pattern recognition of symbolic intelligence, and creative intelligence.
JUDGING and PERCEIVING INTELLIGENCE
Myers Briggs balances judging intelligence, the intelligence associated with polarizing values, like black and white, right and wrong, good and bad, and true and false, with perceiving intelligence, the intelligence associated with moderate values, like shades of grey, partially right and wrong, partially good and bad, and partially true and not true (paradoxical), respectively.
Objective reality is what is real, and subjective reality is what we think is real. Because we are limited in time, space, energy, and power, it is impossible for us to know all objective reality, blacks and whites, leaving us with the next best guess, subjective reality, shades of grey, or a perspective that is partially objective and subjective.
STEADINESS INTELLIGENCE
The DISC psychological assessment inventory balances high steadiness intelligence, calm, relaxed, patient, possessive, predictable, deliberate, stable, consistent, and unemotional, with low steadiness intelligence, like change and variety, restless, demonstrative, impatient, eager, or even impulsive. This overlaps with the MBTI extravert and introvert intelligence, with extraverts being similar to people with low steadiness, and introverts being similar to people with high steadiness.
COMPLIANCE INTELLIGENCE
The DISC psychological assessment inventory balances high compliance intelligence traits, careful, cautious, exacting, neat, systematic, diplomatic, accurate, and tactful, with low compliance intelligence traits, self-willed, stubborn, opinionated, unsystematic, arbitrary, and unconcerned with details. This overlaps with the MBTI thinker and feeler intelligence, where the thinker is more exact, and the feeler is more opinionated.
MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCE DEVELOPMENT
There are more types of intelligence, than there is a lifetime to develop them all. The types of intelligence described above serve as a core group that can help anyone increase their intelligence, by framing long-term goals for each type of intelligence, and then scheduling short-term goals to achieve the long-term multiple intelligence goals. To do this, frame, research, and analyze the long-term intelligence goals that you seek to develop, then design, develop, implement, evaluate, innovate, and integrate smaller goals into your calendar, and eventually, you'll achieve your goals. Then like Leonardo Da Vinci and Benjamin Franklin, commit to your scheduled goals, and change the world.
