Speaker 1: I'll get a gang. I hope your bloody terrific. So
Speaker 1: I want to talk about intelligence today, and I want
Speaker 1: to for a range of reasons. One, I've always been
Speaker 1: fascinated with the idea of being smart, and I think
Speaker 1: because I never really felt smart, like I never really
Speaker 1: felt like an athlete, so I tried to become one.
Speaker 1: I'd never had amazing genetics, so I tried to optimize
Speaker 1: my genetics, and I rightly or wrongly through my childhood
Speaker 1: and teen years. But I will admit also though I
Speaker 1: wasn't a very studious student. I didn't apply myself brilliantly,
Speaker 1: but I but I was definitely around other people who were,
Speaker 1: from an academic point of view, perhaps more adapted to that,
Speaker 1: more suited to that, more natural students than MOI. But
Speaker 1: there were sometimes when I realized I had a kind
Speaker 1: of a kind of intelligence where I could navigate situations,
Speaker 1: solve problems, do things, understand things, deal with things that
Speaker 1: some of my academically brilliant friends couldn't. So I think
Speaker 1: I understood from an early age, or I became curious
Speaker 1: from an early age about what intelligence might be beyond academia,
Speaker 1: what intelligence could be, or maybe what it is beyond
Speaker 1: IQ and some number, some arbitrary number that we might
Speaker 1: score answering some arbitrary, very familiar, very similar questions, you know,
Speaker 1: across that kind of IQ testings spectrum. And so for me,
Speaker 1: intelligence over the last ten to twenty years, I've really
Speaker 1: come to understand that intelligence is not a thing, but
Speaker 1: rather a range of things. It's many things. And we
Speaker 1: know some people who are socially smart but academically not
Speaker 1: so smart, or creatively brilliant but not you know, can't
Speaker 1: add three numbers. And some people who have got brilliant
Speaker 1: incredible timing and humor and storytelling capacity, but they can't
Speaker 1: cook a piece of toast. And in some situations or
Speaker 1: some rooms, they're brilliant. In other situations or rooms they're
Speaker 1: not so brilliant. And I think that's all of us,
Speaker 1: all of the time. So there was a dude called
Speaker 1: Howard Gardner. I should have looked up when, but I
Speaker 1: think it was the early eighties. He developed a theory
Speaker 1: called the theory of multiple intelligences. Now he's probably should
Speaker 1: have done more research, but I know he is or
Speaker 1: was a professor at Harvard. He's a psychologist, and he
Speaker 1: kind of proposed that intelligence was not a single, fixed
Speaker 1: ability to be measured by traditional IQ tests, but rather
Speaker 1: intelligence was a range of things. It comprised a variety
Speaker 1: of distinct types of intelligence that reflected different capacities to
Speaker 1: interact with the world. And so he wrote a book
Speaker 1: one hundred years ago, now I think it was about
Speaker 1: forty years ago, early eighties, called Frames of Mind, The
Speaker 1: Theories of Multiple Intelligences. And while this, I mean there
Speaker 1: was four decades ago, so it's been expanded and extrapolated,
Speaker 1: and different people have thrown there to bob'sworth, as Mary
Speaker 1: Harper says, and I've even got one addition to his
Speaker 1: kind of proposal or his his kind of model. But
Speaker 1: I think this is a good way to open the
Speaker 1: door because I want to talk, as you would have
Speaker 1: seen by the title of today's episode, I want to
Speaker 1: talk about interpersonal intelligence because I think that on a practical, functional,
Speaker 1: operational level, out in the real world, as a human
Speaker 1: being interacting with other human beings, which is most of
Speaker 1: us most of the time, not all of us all
Speaker 1: of the time, but most of us do a lot
Speaker 1: of you know, interacting, connecting, connecting, conversing, problem solving, working
Speaker 1: alongside being team members with and so on other humans,
Speaker 1: and our ability to be able to do that and
Speaker 1: interact and connect and solve problems and all of those
Speaker 1: things in real time with other humans. That capacity falls
Speaker 1: under the banner of interpersonal intelligence. How well we can
Speaker 1: do that, how well we can int act with, intersect with,
Speaker 1: understand meet the needs of communicate effectively with be understood
Speaker 1: by others. So he recognized eight core intelligences. One of
Speaker 1: them I'm a bit oh, yeah, they are. I think
Speaker 1: there's a lot more, but I think this is a
Speaker 1: nice start. So his first one was linguistic intelligence, which
Speaker 1: is essentially sensitivity to spoken and written language, the ability
Speaker 1: to learn new languages, and our capacity to be able
Speaker 1: to use language well to express ourselves, he says quite clunkily,
Speaker 1: which is ironic for that sentence, But to be able
Speaker 1: to articulate ourselves in a way, express ourselves in a
Speaker 1: way that others understand. But part of that also is understanding.
Speaker 1: Listen to this sentence, understanding how they understand. As I've
Speaker 1: said before, thinking about thinking, So that whole kind of
Speaker 1: understanding others, which we'll get to. So linguistic intelligence, how
Speaker 1: well we can frame things, express things, tell stories, solve
Speaker 1: problems in conversation, sit in a meeting, connect with others
Speaker 1: in conversation, understand be understood, and all of that that
Speaker 1: comes broadly in the space of linguistic intelligence, logical mathematical intelligence.
Speaker 1: To this is more in the I guess, the traditional
Speaker 1: IQ space, which is our ability to think logically, to
Speaker 1: analyze problems, to recognize problems, to analyze problems, to come
Speaker 1: up with potential solutions and strategies, and all of those
Speaker 1: things that I talk about a lot timelines. Accountability to
Speaker 1: understand abstract concepts, you know, like mathematics and scientific reasoning,
Speaker 1: and you know people generally, people with high levels of
Speaker 1: this often fall into you know, the sciences, mathematics, physics, engineers,
Speaker 1: you know, people like that. He his third kind of
Speaker 1: intelligence in his list of eight is musical intelligence, whereas
Speaker 1: I I think I would replace this one. I would
Speaker 1: replace this one with creative intelligence, which is just more
Speaker 1: broad like I think for me, whether it's through music,
Speaker 1: whether it's through art, whether it's through singing, whether it's
Speaker 1: through coming up with an idea to build something and
Speaker 1: then transferring that theoretical something in our head to a
Speaker 1: real world something. It could be to design a beautiful
Speaker 1: garden at the front of your house. It could be
Speaker 1: it could be to build a bridge literal brick doesn't matter,
Speaker 1: but anything where that creative intelligence is where we can
Speaker 1: invent something in our mind in inverted commas, conceptualize it,
Speaker 1: visualize it, dream it up, and then extract that from
Speaker 1: our mind being something that doesn't exist in the world,
Speaker 1: and pushing it out into the world and transferring that
Speaker 1: theoretical potential something into a real world, actual something for
Speaker 1: other people to experience and interact with and enjoy it.
Speaker 1: And of course, you know, musicians, composes, artists of all kinds, architects,
Speaker 1: you know, there are a myriad of people who fall
Speaker 1: into this space. His next one is called bodily or
Speaker 1: kinesthetic intelligence. And so we see this with often with
Speaker 1: people who are physical like they are very you know,
Speaker 1: so dancers and athletes and even people like our friend
Speaker 1: doctor Alex who's been on the show a bunch who's
Speaker 1: a neurosurgeon. So surgeons, neurosurgeons people like that who can
Speaker 1: control their body really well, like they have an ability
Speaker 1: to be able to move their body in a way
Speaker 1: to execute certain physical requirements, be they athletic, or be
Speaker 1: that something less gross mode of control and more kind
Speaker 1: of very specifically fine mode of control, like a surgeon.
Speaker 1: But it's that body awareness, that body control, that ability
Speaker 1: to be able to even to kick a football, or
Speaker 1: to throw a netball or a basketball, or throw a
Speaker 1: javelin or make an incision with a scalpel in a
Speaker 1: brain and do what's required. That's what we would call
Speaker 1: bodily or kinesthetic intelligence. Spatial intelligence. So somebody that I
Speaker 1: know who's got a high level of spatial intelligence, and
Speaker 1: it's almost like where we are, where we are, and
Speaker 1: where things are in three dimensional space. So I trained
Speaker 1: to an elite athlete for a very long time, five
Speaker 1: time Olympian, five time world champion, Jackie Cooper aerial ski jumper.
Speaker 1: So somebody like her who would have to hurdle down
Speaker 1: a ramp at eighty kilometers an hour, jump off the
Speaker 1: ramp and then twist and contort and spin and rotate
Speaker 1: upside down, inside out, back the front, and then know
Speaker 1: where she was so that she could then keep moving
Speaker 1: forward and then land beat together ish in an upright
Speaker 1: position and then complete the movement and win a gold medal.
Speaker 1: That ability, that spatial awareness, that's spatial intelligence. It can
Speaker 1: be trained to an extent. Of course, we can improve
Speaker 1: spatial awareness through training and our ability to do all
Speaker 1: of those things. But people like you know, pilots also.
Speaker 2: Navigators in planes need to be able to visualize and
Speaker 2: have that capacity in real time to know where they
Speaker 2: are even when they're upside down.
Speaker 1: So that's a kind of I don't think I have
Speaker 1: that pretty sure. If I jumped off the ski RAMPI
Speaker 1: would I would land on my head. That would be
Speaker 1: my first and last attempt. So the one that I'm
Speaker 1: going to talk about today mostly just because it interests
Speaker 1: me and I think this kind of intelligence is kind
Speaker 1: of a personal person superpower. I'll talk about it last.
Speaker 1: But on his list, it's number six into personal intelligence.
Speaker 1: Number seven is intrapersonal intelligence. This is really falls in
Speaker 1: the kind of self awareness. Space is understanding you, is
Speaker 1: understanding your thoughts and feelings. You're like, what.
Speaker 3: Drives you, why you think the way that you do,
Speaker 3: Your ability to navigate life, and to be aware of
Speaker 3: the space between the objective reality around you and the
Speaker 3: subjective reality in you.
Speaker 1: That's that. So that intra versus interpersonal personal person intro
Speaker 1: within you. So you know and I think because my
Speaker 1: PhD is in this space of understanding, understanding myself, understanding others,
Speaker 1: and how I am for others, but that whole kind
Speaker 1: of deep dive into self awareness. I think the reflection
Speaker 1: and the introspection that I've been through over the last
Speaker 1: five years of study in this space has really helped
Speaker 1: me understand me better, to understand me better, but also
Speaker 1: then to understand me for others better. And that has
Speaker 1: helped me do what I'm doing right now, which is
Speaker 1: sit in a room with no audience, with no feedback,
Speaker 1: with no real stimulus, and to be able to keep
Speaker 1: a conversation going and recognize in real time, you know,
Speaker 1: my own nerves, my own ego, my own propensity to
Speaker 1: overtalk my you know, all the bullshit that is me,
Speaker 1: the good stuff and the bad stuff. But to be
Speaker 1: able to understand myself and when I can, when I
Speaker 1: can understand myself better, you know, self awareness, self reflection,
Speaker 1: then I can regulate myself better. And the last kind
Speaker 1: of last kind of intelligence that old Howard Gardner talks
Speaker 1: about is naturalistic intelligence, which is kind of sensitivity to
Speaker 1: nature and to be able to understand the relationship between
Speaker 1: us and the planet US and you know, nature, ecology, flora, fauna,
Speaker 1: and so people who are in the kind of kind
Speaker 1: of the biologist, space, conservationists, farmers, people who work on
Speaker 1: and with the earth and land and nature and plants
Speaker 1: and agriculture and all of that. Those kinds of people
Speaker 1: who were great at that and suited to that. You
Speaker 1: would say they had potentially high naturalistic intelligence. But the
Speaker 1: one that I want to dive into, let me just
Speaker 1: finish also just quickly. So in this was quite groundbreaking
Speaker 1: when he wrote his book. You know, there of multiple
Speaker 1: intelligences in the early eighties because while you know, even
Speaker 1: the Stoics we're talking two thousand and three thousand years
Speaker 1: ago about you know, what intelligence was and understanding their
Speaker 1: self and all of those, But for a very long
Speaker 1: time in research and academia, intelligence was really looked upon
Speaker 1: one dimensionally and researched one dimensionally. You want to know
Speaker 1: how intelligent someone is, they do this particular test and
Speaker 1: then we go boom, you're that intelligent. But we now
Speaker 1: know through you know, a range of things, and we've
Speaker 1: evolved and we've adapted, and we've got more awareness and
Speaker 1: more understanding. We know that that you know there are
Speaker 1: some people who are academically challenged. But like, for example,
Speaker 1: I read recently and I posted recently, I think I'm
Speaker 1: going to fuck this up a little bit. But it's
Speaker 1: a very high percentage of millionaires and therefore billionaires, but
Speaker 1: a very disproportionately high percentage of people who who are
Speaker 1: super successful in business are dyslexic. And you think, wow,
Speaker 1: people who really struggled. So obviously, most dyslexic people who
Speaker 1: can't read well and really struggle to understand the words
Speaker 1: on the page in front.
Speaker 2: Of them, an extraordinarily a disproportionately hypercentage of them do
Speaker 2: well in life.
Speaker 1: And I was talking with this about this with a
Speaker 1: friend of mine, Christian, who I trained with the gym
Speaker 1: alongside the crab, and his dyslexic and he's also he's
Speaker 1: also funny, he can also read the room. He's also creative.
Speaker 1: He's also really good at solving problems. And our kind
Speaker 1: of theory together was that because he lived in a
Speaker 1: world where he often couldn't understand what everyone around him understood,
Speaker 1: I mean everyone, would you know, open to chapter four
Speaker 1: and read fucking page one, two three of the Web
Speaker 1: of Life, the biology book we had in year eight
Speaker 1: nine and ten or whatever it was, everyone's reading it
Speaker 1: going all right, so it sells a single this and that,
Speaker 1: and he was looking at it as just a page
Speaker 1: full of fucking horror glyphics and mumbo jumbo bieroglyphics whatever.
Speaker 1: You can't understand it, you get my point. And so
Speaker 1: when you live in a world where there's a lot
Speaker 1: going on that you can't naturally understand, and you need
Speaker 1: to figure out how to navigate that world with your
Speaker 1: own kind of I guess language, and with your own strategies,
Speaker 1: and that requires a specific kind of intelligence and a
Speaker 1: real ability to be able to be able to problem
Speaker 1: solve in real time. And so I'm sure there's research
Speaker 1: on this. Why the bit between you know, people who
Speaker 1: are people who have dyslexia and why they are disproportionately
Speaker 1: successful in business, But I would not be surprised if
Speaker 1: there was a correlation between that and their ability to
Speaker 1: solve problems, to think outside the box, to be creative.
Speaker 1: Because they had to be creative. They couldn't do things typically,
Speaker 1: they couldn't do things traditionally, they couldn't do things the
Speaker 1: way that their classmates did things. And also because it's
Speaker 1: not something that people really wanted known or to make public,
Speaker 1: or you know, people would keep it a secret and
Speaker 1: they would not tell people quite often, or they would
Speaker 1: tell limited people because they didn't want to be judged
Speaker 1: or criticized or marginalized or bullied or all of those things.
Speaker 1: And so they developed this capacity to be able to
Speaker 1: navigate the world looking like the rest of the group,
Speaker 1: while on some level not really being like the rest
Speaker 1: of the group in the sense that they didn't have
Speaker 1: a certain skill or capacity that their friends or colleagues
Speaker 1: or classmates did anyway, So but just quickly when when
Speaker 1: Old Howard was developing this, he also made clear that
Speaker 1: or he suggested that there was no real hierarchy of intelligence,
Speaker 1: that they were all equal in a sense. And I
Speaker 1: understand what he's saying with that, but also I think
Speaker 1: we would have to acknowledge that different kinds of intelligence
Speaker 1: would be more or less important, more or less valued
Speaker 1: in different contexts and different cultures, depending on where we're
Speaker 1: at and what we're doing. If you're living on an island,
Speaker 1: then interpersonal living on an island by yourself, then interpersonal
Speaker 1: intelligence is probably not high on the list of things
Speaker 1: that you need. But being able to solve problems might
Speaker 1: be really fucking important. So his thinking was that they are.
Speaker 1: They're all different, kind of connected, but all different, and
Speaker 1: none is more valuable than the other. And I think
Speaker 1: that is generally true, but specifically in certain instances, cases, environments, context, cultures,
Speaker 1: of course, organizations than different kinds of intelligence are going
Speaker 1: to be held in higher esteem, of course, and you know,
Speaker 1: more valuable in certain contexts. So let's I just want
Speaker 1: to share with you just some really practical examples of
Speaker 1: its personal intelligence. So, in general terms, it's the ability
Speaker 1: to understand, to interact and communicate effectively with other people.
Speaker 1: I'll say it again, to understand, to interact and communicate effectively,
Speaker 1: build rapport, build understanding, build awareness, build respect, work with others.
Speaker 1: It involves recognizing and interpreting other people's emotions, motivations, desires,
Speaker 1: and intentions and responding in ways that build connection, collaboration,
Speaker 1: and mutual understanding. So people with this kind of intelligence,
Speaker 1: you know, this high level interpersonal intelligence, tend to excel
Speaker 1: in social settings. So in other words, and by social
Speaker 1: I don't mean at parties, I mean, although they're probably
Speaker 1: crush parties, I just mean any environment, any situation setting
Speaker 1: where there are other people, so you know which is
Speaker 1: going to make them good at leadership and teamwork, and
Speaker 1: like I've said many times, resolving conflict and building connection
Speaker 1: and building strong, respectful personal and professional relationships. So the
Speaker 1: six kind of characteristics that i'll mate identifies as important
Speaker 1: or foundational too. And none of these are going to
Speaker 1: blow you away, but I'll just quickly run through them.
Speaker 1: So empathy, understanding how others feel, and caring would be
Speaker 1: good effective communication, conveying thoughts, ideas and emotions clearly and
Speaker 1: listening actively, being able to resolve conflict of course, teamwork
Speaker 1: of course, social awareness of course, and our ability to
Speaker 1: influence others in an ethical way, not in an a
Speaker 1: moral kind of subversive way. So I wanted to share
Speaker 1: just some really fundamental thoughts and examples of interpersonal intelligence
Speaker 1: for what I do and for the people that I
Speaker 1: work with, which is a lot of corporates. I work with,
Speaker 1: some athletes, I work with a range of people across
Speaker 1: a range of settings, but virtually everybody that I know,
Speaker 1: I think everybody that I know, but maybe somebody doesn't
Speaker 1: come under this ban. But in terms of who springs
Speaker 1: to mind, everybody that I know needs to be able
Speaker 1: to build rapport and trust and respect and understanding and
Speaker 1: communication with other people at some stage. And so this
Speaker 1: falls in the context of interpersonal intelligence. So for example,
Speaker 1: knowing when to talk and when not to talk. So
Speaker 1: this is something that I was probably an over talker
Speaker 1: when sound ironic coming from a man who's just talking
Speaker 1: NonStop now, but in one on one situations or in
Speaker 1: group situation maybe when I was younger, I think I
Speaker 1: was an overtalker, not a chronic over talker, but probably
Speaker 1: at times spoke more than I needed to. And if
Speaker 1: you are in especially if you're in a one on
Speaker 1: one conversation and you're over talking, then you're under listening.
Speaker 1: And if you are over talking, you are probably creating
Speaker 1: more disconnection than you are connection. And if you're over talking,
Speaker 1: then you might be creating more problems and solutions. So
Speaker 1: being not only knowing when to talk to somebody, but
Speaker 1: also how to talk how to talk to them, like
Speaker 1: how do I approach this conversation or this interaction in
Speaker 1: a way with this particular person who isn't like me
Speaker 1: and also isn't like that other person over there or
Speaker 1: the other person over the other side of the room,
Speaker 1: but with this person about this issue that I wanted
Speaker 1: to discuss or explore or resolve or whatever. When is
Speaker 1: a good time to talk to them, How do I
Speaker 1: talk to them? And also perhaps in what, sometimes even
Speaker 1: where should I talk to them. Many times, when I
Speaker 1: had a challenge, let's say, a challenge or an issue
Speaker 1: or a problem with one of my staff members. Remember
Speaker 1: I owned gyms, and so most of the work was
Speaker 1: done most of the most all of the training was
Speaker 1: done on the gym floor, of course, and most of
Speaker 1: the work was done out of an office and on
Speaker 1: a gym floor. So if I would see somebody doing
Speaker 1: one of my team doing something that I didn't want
Speaker 1: or that I didn't approve of, or I thought was
Speaker 1: potentially problematic. Now, depending on what it was, of course
Speaker 1: i thought someone was going to injure someone in the
Speaker 1: next ten seconds, I would just going intervene, and if
Speaker 1: they got their feelings hurt, bad luck, because I'm more
Speaker 1: interested in a client not getting hurt than someone's feelings
Speaker 1: emotions being fucking hurt for seven seconds, right, But in
Speaker 1: general terms, when I would need to have a talk
Speaker 1: to one of my team about something that I thought,
Speaker 1: it depends of course, maybe I was going to tell
Speaker 1: them they were doing great. But if I was going
Speaker 1: to tell them that there's something I needed them to
Speaker 1: think about or change, I would be really careful about
Speaker 1: how I did that. I would be really mindful about
Speaker 1: the energy that I brought into that conversation. I would
Speaker 1: be really mindful of the language and the tone that
Speaker 1: I used. I would be really mindful of what is
Speaker 1: it like being.
Speaker 2: Around me, because I can be intimidating, and I don't
Speaker 2: want to intimidate this person.
Speaker 1: I don't want to upset them. I just want to
Speaker 1: fix this thing or I want to resolve this. I
Speaker 1: want to have a conversation about this, and I want
Speaker 1: to do it in a way that works for them
Speaker 1: and works for me, so that when we finish this interaction,
Speaker 1: we've made some real progress and they're fine, but they're
Speaker 1: somewhere between fine and happy, and I've moved closer to
Speaker 1: or we've moved closer to solving a problem. So if
Speaker 1: somebody would do something on the gym floor or there
Speaker 1: was something happening that I didn't love, I would virtually
Speaker 1: never I would never have this conversation in front of
Speaker 1: somebody else, like because that would be, even if what
Speaker 1: I had to say was relevant and right and pertinent
Speaker 1: and potentially going to help them as an exercise specialist
Speaker 1: or an exercise professional, even if what I had to
Speaker 1: say was one hundred percent accurate, relevant and right, giving
Speaker 1: that information in the wrong setting, in the wrong way,
Speaker 1: at the wrong time is a fucking catastrophe. And that
Speaker 1: is what interpersonal intelligence is about. That it is about
Speaker 1: knowing when, what, and how to connect with people, to
Speaker 1: talk to people. It's about it's about understanding, like, for example,
Speaker 1: with that conversation or any conversation, understanding their reality in
Speaker 1: the moment. Remember that old chestnut that I keep wheeling out.
Speaker 1: As you know, theory of mind is your ability to
Speaker 1: understand somebody else's thoughts and feelings and subjective experience as
Speaker 1: much as you can in the moment, realizing that only
Speaker 1: you think like you and what's in your head. What
Speaker 1: is your intention? What is your goal? Might not necessarily
Speaker 1: be anything close to their fucking version of that interaction.
Speaker 1: Your intention may well not be their experience. Your intention,
Speaker 1: I'm assuming, would be good, it would be positive. It
Speaker 1: would be to fix something, to improve something, to help someone,
Speaker 1: to enlighten someone, to help them become better. But you
Speaker 1: and I know this is no revelation. I'm not pulling
Speaker 1: back some mysterious curtain now when I tell you that,
Speaker 1: how many times have your good intentions not had a
Speaker 1: good outcome? Or how many times have you shared with
Speaker 1: somebody something that is unequivocally true, but nonetheless it is
Speaker 1: not well received at all? And the outcome of that interaction,
Speaker 1: despite your good intention, despite the validity of the information
Speaker 1: being shared, actually makes things worse. So we need timing,
Speaker 1: we need awareness. We need to know when and how
Speaker 1: to speak to people. I spoke recently about the fact
Speaker 1: that we all speak our own language. Now, of course
Speaker 1: that we all speak English, right, but if we for example,
Speaker 1: if we reframe English from a language to a tool,
Speaker 1: it's a tool that we use, and we all have
Speaker 1: the same essentially a version of the same vocabulary. And
Speaker 1: even though we all have a similar or same vocabulary,
Speaker 1: we don't all speak the same. We don't all speak
Speaker 1: the same. We have a different language. And the way
Speaker 1: that we speak in inverted commons is the way that
Speaker 1: we think. So the way that I speak is interpreted
Speaker 1: by some people as funny and amusing, by some people
Speaker 1: as rude, and abrasive by some people, as offensive by
Speaker 1: some people, as enlightening and illuminating by some people, as educational.
Speaker 1: Now all of these disparate, different varied experiences of the
Speaker 1: same person me speaking the same way. I know that
Speaker 1: that is going to happen. And so when I begin
Speaker 1: to talk to a group that two or three or
Speaker 1: two or three thousand, I'm absolutely positive that nobody in
Speaker 1: front of me is having an identical experience of me
Speaker 1: as somebody else in the group. There might be similar,
Speaker 1: there might be some overlap, but that is that kind
Speaker 1: of awareness, that kind of intelligence, that kind of knowing,
Speaker 1: that kind of real time kind of navigation of what
Speaker 1: is in front of me. That is high level into
Speaker 1: personal intelligence. I'm not saying I have high level, but
Speaker 1: that is an example of it. Being able to read
Speaker 1: the room, you know, being able to I told you
Speaker 1: a story recently about a gig I did with hundreds
Speaker 1: and hundred seven or eight hundred people, a mental health
Speaker 1: workshop for the general public, and a young lady in
Speaker 1: the front row who was amazing. By the way, her
Speaker 1: name was mel I think her name was mal I remember,
Speaker 1: and she had an intellectual handicap, but she was fucking
Speaker 1: fantastic and nalarious and gorgeous. And she kept shouting out
Speaker 1: while I was doing different things, while I was doing
Speaker 1: my presentation. It's not really a presentation. It's just a talk,
Speaker 1: isn't it. But here's the thing, right, So in that moment,
Speaker 1: I've got hundreds of people there to listen to me
Speaker 1: sitting down, and I've got to talk for an hour
Speaker 1: and a quarter about an hour and a quarter maybe
Speaker 1: it went a bit longer. And there's and I've got
Speaker 1: seven or eight hundred different people with different personalities and
Speaker 1: backgrounds and needs and expectations and wants in front of me.
Speaker 1: I've got this information that I want to share. I've
Speaker 1: got this kind of conversational journey that I want to
Speaker 1: take people on. And I did not expect to have
Speaker 1: Mel in the front road joining in the process, but
Speaker 1: I did. I did have her, And so then the
Speaker 1: challenge is, well, how do I do this? How do
Speaker 1: I do this in real time? And how do I
Speaker 1: And so we just need to be able to problem
Speaker 1: solve like with other people with different persons interpersonal intelligence.
Speaker 1: And I don't know how well I did, but I
Speaker 1: think I did okay. And so I thought well, for
Speaker 1: better or worse, Mel's involved, and so essentially it was
Speaker 1: a three way kind of exchange between Mel and me
Speaker 1: and everyone else in the room. And the feedback that
Speaker 1: I got was really positive, which was really nice. But
Speaker 1: being able to being able to be in an unpredictable, uncertain,
Speaker 1: unknown dynamic where you know when you step on stage
Speaker 1: as a speaker, and most of you won't do this,
Speaker 1: but it could be even just stepping in into a
Speaker 1: meeting room where you're talking, but when you step on
Speaker 1: stage as a speaker, you don't know the people in
Speaker 1: the room. Generally, most of the audiences I talk to
Speaker 1: in the real world, face to face, three dimensional live gigs,
Speaker 1: most of the people in most of the rooms I've
Speaker 1: never met and may well never see again. And so
Speaker 1: I'm talking to a group of strangers, and so I
Speaker 1: need to be able to read the room. I need
Speaker 1: to be able to read the energy I need. Of course,
Speaker 1: I need to go in and have a plan and awareness,
Speaker 1: and you know, these are the kind of key things
Speaker 1: I want to get across. But I need to understand
Speaker 1: how to navigate that moment in time with those people,
Speaker 1: with that group of people at that moment in time,
Speaker 1: in that room on that day, because my goal, apart
Speaker 1: from information and education, my goal is to be able
Speaker 1: to create a moment in time that is for them,
Speaker 1: hopefully informing and inspiring and all of that, but also
Speaker 1: something that they enjoy. People to leave that experience and
Speaker 1: go that was good. That was good. Yeah, he's good.
Speaker 1: It was good. I got something from it. I liked it.
Speaker 1: Because apart from the fact that I'm an educator and
Speaker 1: a motivator, I've also got to create an experience or
Speaker 1: contribute towards creating an experience for people that they want
Speaker 1: to be in the middle of. I say to bosses
Speaker 1: all the time, leaders, managers in corporate spaces. I say
Speaker 1: to them when I'm standing at their workplace, I say,
Speaker 1: do your staff? Does your team like coming here? And
Speaker 1: they're like Often they're like, what do you mean? I go,
Speaker 1: do the people that work for you like coming to
Speaker 1: this place? And if the answer is no, well, how
Speaker 1: can you fuck batman? You've got some things to figure
Speaker 1: out Like that. There are some significant problems that need
Speaker 1: to be a dressed and resolved because if you have
Speaker 1: a work environment or a culture or a place that
Speaker 1: you're the people that work for you don't want to
Speaker 1: be in they don't look forward to coming to that place,
Speaker 1: they don't enjoy it. Then you have a lot bigger
Speaker 1: problems than the bottom line that you need to address.
Speaker 1: And this is as a leader, as a manager, as
Speaker 1: whoever you are, as a teacher, as a coach. Being
Speaker 1: able to create experience is being able to interact with people,
Speaker 1: being able to read a room, being able to have
Speaker 1: some insight into their thoughts and their feelings and their
Speaker 1: reality in real time, and taking all of that into
Speaker 1: account as you open your gob, as you open your
Speaker 1: gob and say something that might create a problem or
Speaker 1: a solution. This is a kind of intelligence that is becoming,
Speaker 1: I believe, more and more valuable. I think this kind
Speaker 1: of intelligence is an interpersonal superpower. And I've said this before.
Speaker 1: It's like, if you can really build connection or poor
Speaker 1: and trust and understanding with people, if you can really
Speaker 1: by the way, as I've said a thousand times, you
Speaker 1: don't have to agree with them. Remember you don't have
Speaker 1: to be like them. There are people who do horrible
Speaker 1: shit in the world. I wish they didn't. I wish
Speaker 1: there was no horrible shit in the world. But that
Speaker 1: is not the world that you and I live in.
Speaker 1: You and I live in a world with sociopaths and psychopaths.
Speaker 1: You and I live in a world with amazing, generous, kind,
Speaker 1: beautiful humans who have a purpose bigger themselves, bigger than themselves.
Speaker 1: You and I live in a huge cross section of
Speaker 1: different people, different personalities, different needs, different motivations. That's the
Speaker 1: world that you and I live in. Now. If you
Speaker 1: and I want to be able to function somewhere close
Speaker 1: to optimally around a myriad of different, different people, at
Speaker 1: the very least, we should try to understand them because
Speaker 1: like them or dislike them, good or bad people. Hopefully
Speaker 1: most people are good. I think most people are good.
Speaker 1: But it's in our interest to understand people. I employed
Speaker 1: lots of people, about five hundred people over the years.
Speaker 1: Did I like every person?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Did I really like every person that I employed? If
Speaker 1: I'm being honest, you know, like, not necessarily like? I
Speaker 1: definitely didn't like them at times? And did they not
Speaker 1: like me? Of course? And do I understand? Of course?
Speaker 1: Do I expect everyone to like me? I absolutely do not.
Speaker 1: In fact, I expect people to dislike me. I expect that,
Speaker 1: do you know why? Because it's statistically inevitable and by
Speaker 1: the way, I will get things wrong. And by the way,
Speaker 1: I completely understand right, this is the form of interpersonal
Speaker 1: and social intelligence. Can completely understand that I'm not for everyone.
Speaker 1: I completely understand it. And also, my goal is not
Speaker 1: to make people like me. If my goal is to
Speaker 1: make people like me, then that's about my insecurity, my
Speaker 1: shitty self esteem and my ego. My goal is to
Speaker 1: serve people. And yes I want to serve myself in that,
Speaker 1: I guess, but understanding that, of course, there will always
Speaker 1: be people that intersect with you that for no apparent reason,
Speaker 1: won't click with you, may not like you at all,
Speaker 1: and it might be something that you can't explain. But
Speaker 1: the challenge, the challenge for us is to know that
Speaker 1: we are not going to connect with everyone. We are
Speaker 1: going to piss some people off. You and me are
Speaker 1: going to get things wrong. Also, news flash, sit down,
Speaker 1: get out your fucking pen and paper, write this down,
Speaker 1: underline it. News flash, you and I, me and you.
Speaker 1: I know you're fucking great and I'm great, just look
Speaker 1: at us. But you and I are going to be
Speaker 1: the problem at times. The problem will be you. Now,
Speaker 1: if you're traversing life, thinking that you are almost never
Speaker 1: the problem. Well, then you're probably the problem more than
Speaker 1: you think you could be the problem a lot. Now,
Speaker 1: that's not self loathing. That's not throwing ourselves under the bus.
Speaker 1: That's going you know what, I'm human, I've got flaws,
Speaker 1: I've got bias. I see things the way that I
Speaker 1: see them. If I always think I'm right right, if
Speaker 1: I always think I'm right, then I always think everyone
Speaker 1: who disagrees with me in the world about anything is wrong.
Speaker 1: That's a very precarious moral high horse to climb up onto,
Speaker 1: to perch myself up there like the all knowing, fucking
Speaker 1: deity that is me. When I've up until this point
Speaker 1: in my life been wrong, probably tens of thousands of times,
Speaker 1: of course, So how do I navigate that? Well, I
Speaker 1: know what I think, but I also you might say
Speaker 1: to me, what he doesn't matter. Let's not pick a
Speaker 1: topic because people get fucking hysterical and emotional. I think
Speaker 1: a certain way about topic A. However, I'm open to
Speaker 1: being wrong because I've been wrong many times, and so therefore,
Speaker 1: unless I have absolute evidence and data and by the way,
Speaker 1: somebody telling you something is not evidence or data. Unless
Speaker 1: I've fucking seen it or touched it or measured it.
Speaker 1: And you know, unless I have unequivocal evidence or proof
Speaker 1: of something, then I assume with almost everything that I
Speaker 1: could be wrong. And I think, by the way, I
Speaker 1: don't assume I'm wrong, but I know that I could
Speaker 1: be wrong. And I think this having certain beliefs and
Speaker 1: ideas and values that kind of provide a compass for
Speaker 1: your choices and your behavior, an internal sat Nav for
Speaker 1: how you live and who you become and where you
Speaker 1: go literally or metaphorically. I think having those beliefs and
Speaker 1: those values as kind of internal drivers and compasses, as
Speaker 1: I said, are great. But also being open to the
Speaker 1: idea that I might be wrong, getting out of the
Speaker 1: echo chamber, like it's a specific kind of intelligence and
Speaker 1: awareness to know that well, despite the fact that this
Speaker 1: is comfortable for me to think, despite the fact that
Speaker 1: I've thought this for a long time, despite the fact
Speaker 1: that this belief, this idea, this philosophy, this ideology is
Speaker 1: intertwined with my sense of self, as much as it
Speaker 1: fucking terrifies me, because if it's not true, then who
Speaker 1: am I? As much as it terrifies me, the idea
Speaker 1: that this might not be true. I have to acknowledge
Speaker 1: that it might not be true, and if that's the case,
Speaker 1: I will just deal with it. Because also if I
Speaker 1: unequivocally know something, then that makes the need for belief
Speaker 1: and faith redundant because you don't need faith now because
Speaker 1: you have evidence, you have data. And faith is literally
Speaker 1: or belief is literally believing in something that you can't prove,
Speaker 1: because if you could prove it unequivocally, then you would
Speaker 1: just have science or data or knowledge or information. I
Speaker 1: feel like I've banged on a lot, but I just
Speaker 1: love this. I love this intelligence conversation. You know, it's
Speaker 1: my training partner who I've spoken about probably fifty times
Speaker 1: over the years on the podcast. Mark his name is
Speaker 1: I call him the Crab. His actual name is Mark.
Speaker 1: And Mark is you know, just somebody who I think
Speaker 1: he I don't know what you left school year ten
Speaker 1: or eleven, and certainly even academically, he's not stupid at all.
Speaker 1: He's quite smart. But he has a kind of intelligence.
Speaker 1: He has an ability to solve problems and make things
Speaker 1: and fix things, and and just he has a kind
Speaker 1: of intelligence that I do not have. And he's very
Speaker 1: laid back, he's very informal he's like me a little bit.
Speaker 1: But when I look at him and him and I
Speaker 1: are a good friends, and I have I guess a
Speaker 1: certain capacity for certain things and he has for other things.
Speaker 1: And between us, what's interesting is there's a lot of divergence,
Speaker 1: not convergence. We're quite different in terms of our skills
Speaker 1: and our abilities and our kinds of intelligence, like the
Speaker 1: kind of social and emotional intelligence that I have, the
Speaker 1: interpersonal intelligence that I have. Not that he is socially stupid,
Speaker 1: it's not at all. But he will often ask me
Speaker 1: something in that space, how do I go about this?
Speaker 1: How do I And then on the other side, he's
Speaker 1: got a kind of a practical intelligence that I do
Speaker 1: not have. You know, there's just things that I don't
Speaker 1: know how to solve certain problems. I'll run it by him.
Speaker 1: He will come up with four potential solutions in thirty
Speaker 1: seconds that I couldn't come up with one in thirty hours.
Speaker 1: So it is indeed a multitude of things. It is
Speaker 1: a spectrum intelligence. It's not one thing, it's many things.
Speaker 1: So I wonder what your kind of intelligence is. I wonder,
Speaker 1: I want. I'm sure it's more than one thing, but
Speaker 1: I'm interested in how smart you are and in what
Speaker 1: way see you next time.