How Smart Are You ? (Powerful knowledge that can change your life !).

  1. 1. The past 20 years have seen thousands of research and development on the brain and its development. We have more knowledge about about what happens in this wonderful organ in the last two decades than all the human knowledge put together before that. 
  2. Much of the debates among researchers since 1920's centres around the definition of intelligence itself. Some school of thoughts emphasised on thinking ability (abstractions) while others on learning (ability to respond to questions). The more modern recent thoughts however agreed on the its ability to adapt. Psychologists agree that it is the ability to adapt to the environment that differentiate those who are successful from the rest. The contexts could be at home or at school, workplace etc.
  3. Knowing your areas of strength and weaknesses can mean a whole lot in advancing your career at work or academic excellence if you are a student.
  4. Howard Gardner proposed that we have multiple intelligences instead of having just one type of 'smart'. This is one of the more better and holistic way of looking at this topic. As such at the workplace, if one is able to master these intelligences, he would be able to adapt better to the changes that happens at the modern workplace. Below are the 8 intelligences he postulated:
  • Musical-rhythmic and harmonic. (sensitive with sound quality such as pith, timbre, meter, tone and rhythm. People who has this intelligence has the innate ability to be good in music and in speech able to use voice modulation to be good public speakers).
  • Visual-spatial (have the general ability to visualise with the mind's eye and possess the unique ability to 'create' space in visualise how people interact with it.
  • Verbal-Linguistic (special ability to use words and languages and good at story telling, reading, writing, memorising words and dates and generally good at speaking in public).
  • Logical-mathematical (fluid when it comes to numbers, logical reasoning, abstractions and critical thinking). These people also has the natural talent to organise thoughts and understanding principles underlying causal systems.
  • Bodily-kinesthetic (people with this intelligence are good at controlling their bodily motions and very capable at handling and manipulating objects. Generally they excel at sports, dancing, acting or any activity that require use of the hands to produce something).
  • Interpersonal (characterised by the sensitivity to other people's moods, attitudes, temperaments and motivations and as such able to work in groups in a very special way. They are very adept to working in teams and getting results from people. They often enjoy discussion and debates).
  • Intrapersonal (these are people who are good at introspection and have keen understanding of their own strengths and weakness and strong ability to realise and control their own emotions). 
  • Naturalistic (this area of intelligence has to do with one's ability to relate and interact with one's surrounding and learn and adapt to become a functional member of the ecosystem. It includes the ability to classify animals, rocks, plants etc. On a larger scale it also includes the understanding of the complexities of the life and humanity itself).
  • Existential (proponents of multiple intelligences strongly suggest spiritual intelligence although Gardner is more hesitant to include this element but more readily agrees to use the term 'existential' as another form of intelligence.
Looking at the wide range of cognitive ability is actually a better way of viewing our intelligence from the traditional and narrowed angle of how smart we are. As we can see from all the intelligences listed above, we need to look at a wider perspective and spend a whole lifetime towards self mastery. All of us will have a few innate abilities that predominate how we behave and in a way predict what and how we do in life. But the good news is that all the intelligence can be learnt and acquired given enough time and effort. That to me is more important and life changing. 

Note: You can take various free multiple intelligence tests available on line like the link below:


Take the test and know where you strength and areas for improvements are.
#brain #intelligence #multipleintelligence #worlduniversity #workplaceskills

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Retooling Your Brain with Visual Thinking (Tools for Creative Thinking)

Image
"The clarification of visual forms and their organization in integrated patterns as well as the attribution of such forms to suitable objects is one of the most effective training grounds of the young mind."  —Rudolph Arnheim I used to think that creativity is a natural talent God given to the lucky few. Thus only creative people will produce creative results. However, throughout my career as a training consultant, I discovered that if we give people the tools of creativity, they will produce similar outcomes. Quite often this can astound them and change their beliefs about their creative thinking abilities. This shows that creative thinking is a skill that can be learned.  In this blog, I will share a very powerful method of thinking outside the box i.e. visual thinking. This method is powerful because it is able to bring out ideas in ways that the conventional method is not able to express. Numerous research has been conducted to prove the benefits of visual thi...
Read more

Taman Negara Endau Rompin (Selai)

Image
Date: 11-13 September 2014. Venue: Taman Negara Endau Rompin ( Selai)-Endau Rompin National Park, Selai, Johor, Malaysia. It starts from here,the Rangers's office. All visitors must register here. Transportation  will also be arranged here. You would need a 4x4 vehicle to go in. The journey starts from this small town called Bekok, in Labis. This will be the last place to get any last minute supplies like biscuits, lighters, mineral water etc. Then you have to make your way to the Ranger's office for registration and transport arrangement. Resting at Takah Selow 2 Air Terjun Takah Selow 2 Moss Air Terjun Takah Selow 1 Plectocomia spp Mantang Rotan  Plectocomia spp Asam gelugur  ( Garcinia atroviridis  Griff) Rensel F...
Read more

Is your Thinking Pattern Built for Success ?

Do you know that most of the time the only difference between successful people and failures is in how they think ? In my line of work as a training consultant, I find this to be true all the time. One of the most obvious difference in thinking between successful people and failures is successful people do not make or take excuses in their thinking. They focus their thinking in doing and finding ways to implement worthwhile ideas. They focus more on how to make things work rather than finding blames on why things fail. Failures on the other hand will focus on their inabilities and focus their attention on the different excuses they can find to justify why an idea cannot be implemented. Result is the dependent on attention. What we focus on gets expanded. As such when we focus on excuses and failures in our lives, that will be the outcome of our lives. In contrast, the mindset of successful people is always saying to themselves that the solution to a problem is not there yet beca...
Read more