Latest / The You Project / #1710 Interpersonal Intelligence - Harps

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#1710 Interpersonal Intelligence - Harps · The You Project

0:00
Speaker 1: I'll get a gang. Hope your bloody terrific. So I
0:04
Speaker 1: want to talk about intelligence today, and I want to
0:08
Speaker 1: for a range of reasons. One, I've always been fascinated
0:12
Speaker 1: with the idea of being smart, and I think because
0:19
Speaker 1: I never really felt smart, like I never really felt
0:23
Speaker 1: like an athlete, so I tried to become one. I'd
0:27
Speaker 1: never had amazing genetics, so I tried to optimize my genetics,
0:30
Speaker 1: and I rightly or wrongly through my childhood and teen years.
0:38
Speaker 1: But I will admit also though I wasn't a very
0:40
Speaker 1: studious student. I didn't apply myself brilliantly, but I but
0:46
Speaker 1: I was definitely around other people who were, from an
0:49
Speaker 1: academic point of view, perhaps more adapted to that, more
0:54
Speaker 1: suited to that, more natural students than MOI. But there
1:02
Speaker 1: were sometimes when I realized I had a kind of
1:09
Speaker 1: a kind of intelligence where I could navigate situations, solve problems,
1:15
Speaker 1: do things, understand things, deal with things that some of
1:21
Speaker 1: my academically brilliant friends couldn't. So I think I understood
1:29
Speaker 1: from an early age, or I became curious from an
1:35
Speaker 1: early age about what intelligence might be beyond academia, what
1:41
Speaker 1: intelligence could be, or maybe what it is beyond IQ
1:45
Speaker 1: and some number, some arbitrary number that we might score
1:50
Speaker 1: answering some arbitrary, very familiar, very similar questions, you know,
1:56
Speaker 1: across that kind of IQ testings spectrum. And so for me,
2:03
Speaker 1: intelligence over the last ten to twenty years, I've really
2:07
Speaker 1: come to understand that intelligence is not a thing, but
2:11
Speaker 1: rather a range of things. It's many things. And we
2:16
Speaker 1: know some people who are socially smart but academically not
2:18
Speaker 1: so smart, or creatively brilliant but not you know, can't
2:23
Speaker 1: add three numbers. And some people who have got brilliant
2:27
Speaker 1: incredible timing and humor and storytelling capacity, but they can't
2:33
Speaker 1: cook a piece of toast. And in some situations or
2:38
Speaker 1: some rooms, they're brilliant. In other situations or rooms, they're
2:43
Speaker 1: not so brilliant. And I think that's all of us,
2:45
Speaker 1: all of the time. So there was a dude called
2:49
Speaker 1: Howard Gardner. I should have looked up when, but I
2:53
Speaker 1: think it was the early eighties. He developed a theory
2:55
Speaker 1: called the theory of multiple intelligences. Now he's probably should
3:01
Speaker 1: have done more research, but I know he is or
3:04
Speaker 1: was a professor at Harvard. He's a psychologist, and he
3:09
Speaker 1: kind of proposed that intelligence was not a single, fixed
3:16
Speaker 1: ability to be measured by traditional IQ tests, but rather
3:21
Speaker 1: intelligence was a range of things. It comprised a variety
3:27
Speaker 1: of distinct types of intelligence that reflected different capacities to
3:35
Speaker 1: interact with the world. And so he wrote a book
3:40
Speaker 1: one hundred years ago, now I think it was about
3:43
Speaker 1: forty years ago, early eighties, called Frames of Mind, The
3:47
Speaker 1: Theories of Multiple Intelligences. And while this, I mean there
3:53
Speaker 1: was four decades ago, so it's been expanded and extrapolated,
3:56
Speaker 1: and different people have thrown there to bob'sworth, as Mary
4:00
Speaker 1: Harper says, and I've even got one addition to his
4:04
Speaker 1: kind of proposal or his his kind of model. But
4:10
Speaker 1: I think this is a good way to open the
4:12
Speaker 1: door because I want to talk, as you would have
4:13
Speaker 1: seen by the title of today's episode, I want to
4:16
Speaker 1: talk about interpersonal intelligence because I think that on a practical, functional,
4:21
Speaker 1: operational level, out in the real world, as a human
4:24
Speaker 1: being interacting with other human beings, which is most of
4:30
Speaker 1: us most of the time, not all of us all
4:31
Speaker 1: of the time, but most of us do a lot
4:33
Speaker 1: of you know, interacting, connecting, connecting, conversing, problem solving, working
4:39
Speaker 1: alongside being team members with and so on other humans,
4:43
Speaker 1: and our ability to be able to do that and
4:46
Speaker 1: interact and connect and solve problems and all of those
4:50
Speaker 1: things in real time with other humans. That capacity falls
4:55
Speaker 1: under the banner of interpersonal intelligence. How well we can
4:58
Speaker 1: do that, how well we can inter act with, intersect with,
5:02
Speaker 1: understand meet the needs of communicate effectively with be understood
5:08
Speaker 1: by others. So he recognized eight core intelligencers. One of them,
5:16
Speaker 1: I'm a bit oh, yeah, they are. I think there's
5:19
Speaker 1: a lot more, but I think this is a nice start.
5:21
Speaker 1: So his first one was linguistic intelligence, which is essentially
5:27
Speaker 1: sensitivity just spoken and written language, the ability to learn
5:30
Speaker 1: new languages, and our capacity to be able to use
5:37
Speaker 1: language well to express ourselves, he says quite clunkily, which
5:41
Speaker 1: is ironic for that sentence, But to be able to
5:44
Speaker 1: articulate ourselves in a way, express ourselves in a way
5:48
Speaker 1: that others understand. But part of that also is understanding.
5:53
Speaker 1: Listen to this sentence, understanding how they understand. As I've
5:58
Speaker 1: said before, thinking about thinking, so that whole kind of
6:01
Speaker 1: understanding others, which we'll get to. So linguistic intelligence, how
6:05
Speaker 1: well we can frame things, express things, tell stories, solve
6:12
Speaker 1: problems in conversation, sit in a meeting, connect with others
6:17
Speaker 1: in conversation, understand be understood, and all of that that
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Speaker 1: comes broadly in the space of linguistic intelligence, logical mathematical intelligence.
6:29
Speaker 1: To this is more in the I guess, the traditional
6:33
Speaker 1: IQ space, which is our ability to think logically, to
6:39
Speaker 1: analyze problems, to recognize problems, to analyze problems, to come
6:44
Speaker 1: up with potential solutions and strategies, and all of those
6:46
Speaker 1: things that I talk about a lot timelines. Accountability to
6:51
Speaker 1: understand abstract concepts, you know, like mathematics and scientific reasoning,
6:57
Speaker 1: and you know people generally, people with high levels of
7:02
Speaker 1: this often fall into you know, the sciences, mathematics, physics, engineers,
7:10
Speaker 1: you know, people like that. He his third kind of
7:15
Speaker 1: intelligence in his list of eight is musical intelligence, whereas
7:21
Speaker 1: I I think I would replace this one. I would
7:27
Speaker 1: replace this one with creative intelligence, which is just more
7:31
Speaker 1: broad like I think for me, whether it's through music,
7:36
Speaker 1: whether it's through art, whether it's through singing, whether it's
7:42
Speaker 1: through coming up with an idea to build something and
7:46
Speaker 1: then transferring that theoretical something in our head to a
7:50
Speaker 1: real world something. It could be to design a beautiful
7:53
Speaker 1: garden at the front of your house. It could be
7:57
Speaker 1: it could be to build a bridge literal brick doesn't matter,
8:01
Speaker 1: but anything where that creative intelligence is where we can
8:05
Speaker 1: invent something in our mind in inverted commas, conceptualize it,
8:09
Speaker 1: visualize it, dream it up, and then extract that from
8:14
Speaker 1: our mind being something that doesn't exist in the world,
8:17
Speaker 1: and pushing it out into the world and transferring that
8:22
Speaker 1: theoretical potential something into a real world, actual something for
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Speaker 1: other people to experience and interact with and enjoy it.
8:31
Speaker 1: And of course, you know, musicians, composes, artists of all kinds, architects,
8:39
Speaker 1: you know, there are a myriad of people who fall
8:41
Speaker 1: into this space. His next one is called bodily or
8:45
Speaker 1: kinesthetic intelligence. And so we see this with often with
8:53
Speaker 1: people who are physical like they are very you know,
8:56
Speaker 1: so dancers and athletes and even people like our friend
9:01
Speaker 1: doctor Alex who's been on the show a bunch who's
9:05
Speaker 1: a neurosurgeon. So surgeons, neurosurgeons people like that who can
9:12
Speaker 1: control their body really well, like they have an ability
9:17
Speaker 1: to be able to move their body in a way
9:20
Speaker 1: to execute certain physical requirements, be they athletic, or be
9:27
Speaker 1: that something less gross motor control and more kind of
9:33
Speaker 1: very specifically fine mode of control, like a surgeon. But
9:37
Speaker 1: it's that body awareness, that body control, that ability to
9:42
Speaker 1: be able to even to kick a football, or to
9:45
Speaker 1: throw a netball or a basketball, or throw a javelin
9:49
Speaker 1: or make an incision with a scalpel in a brain
9:52
Speaker 1: and do what's required. That's what we would call bodily
9:55
Speaker 1: or kinesthetic intelligence. Spatial intelligence. So somebody that I know
10:03
Speaker 1: who's got a high level of spatial intelligence, and it's
10:07
Speaker 1: almost like where we are, where we are, and where
10:11
Speaker 1: things are in three dimensional space. So I trained to
10:16
Speaker 1: an elite athlete for a very long time, five time Olympian,
10:20
Speaker 1: five time world champion, Jackie Cooper aerial ski jumper. So
10:24
Speaker 1: somebody like her who would have to hurdle down a
10:28
Speaker 1: ramp at eighty kilometers an hour, jump off the ramp
10:32
Speaker 1: and then twist and contort and spin and rotate upside down,
10:37
Speaker 1: inside out, back the front, and then know where she
10:41
Speaker 1: was so that she could then keep moving forward and
10:44
Speaker 1: then land beat together ish in an upright position and
10:50
Speaker 1: then complete the movement and win a gold medal. That ability,
10:53
Speaker 1: that spatial awareness, that's spatial intelligence. It can be trained
10:58
Speaker 1: to an extent. Of course, we can improve spatial awareness
11:02
Speaker 1: through training and our ability to do all of those things.
11:06
Speaker 1: But people like you know, pilots also navigators in planes
11:16
Speaker 1: need to be able to visualize and have that capacity
11:21
Speaker 1: in real time to know where they are, even when
11:24
Speaker 1: they're upside down. So that's a kind of I don't
11:28
Speaker 1: think I have that pretty sure. If I jumped off
11:30
Speaker 1: the ski, rampire would I would land on my head.
11:34
Speaker 1: That would be my first and last attempt. So the
11:41
Speaker 1: one that I'm going to talk about today mostly just
11:44
Speaker 1: because it interests me and I think this kind of
11:47
Speaker 1: intelligence is kind of a personal person superpower. I'll talk
11:53
Speaker 1: about it last. But on his list, it's number six
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Speaker 1: into personal intelligence. Number seven is intrapersonal intelligence. This is
12:03
Speaker 1: really falls in the kind of self awareness. Space is
12:06
Speaker 1: understanding you, is understanding your thoughts and feelings. You're like,
12:12
Speaker 1: what drives you, why you think the way that you do,
12:17
Speaker 1: Your ability to navigate life, and to be aware of
12:22
Speaker 1: the space between the objective reality around you and the
12:25
Speaker 1: subjective reality in you. That's that. So that intro versus
12:30
Speaker 1: interpersonal personal person intro within you. So you know and
12:36
Speaker 1: I think because my PhD is in this space of understanding,
12:42
Speaker 1: understanding myself, understanding others, and how I am for others,
12:45
Speaker 1: but that whole kind of deep dive into self awareness.
12:48
Speaker 1: I think the reflection and the introspection that I've been
12:55
Speaker 1: through over the last five years of study in this
12:57
Speaker 1: space has really helped me understand me better, to understand
13:05
Speaker 1: me better, but also then to understand me for others better.
13:08
Speaker 1: And that has helped me do what I'm doing right now,
13:13
Speaker 1: which is sit in a room with no audience, with
13:15
Speaker 1: no feedback, with no real stimulus, and to be able
13:19
Speaker 1: to keep a conversation going and recognize in real time,
13:24
Speaker 1: you know, my own nerves, my own ego, my own
13:27
Speaker 1: propensity to overtalk my you know, all the bullshit that
13:32
Speaker 1: is me, the good stuff and the bad stuff. But
13:34
Speaker 1: to be able to understand myself and when I can,
13:36
Speaker 1: when I can understand myself better, you know, self awareness,
13:41
Speaker 1: self reflection, then I can regulate myself better. And the
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Speaker 1: last kind of last kind of intelligence that old Howard
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Speaker 1: Gardener talks about is naturalistic intelligence, which is kind of
14:00
Speaker 1: sensitivity to nature and to be able to understand the
14:03
Speaker 1: relationship between us and the planet us and you know, nature, ecology, flora, fauna,
14:13
Speaker 1: and so people who are in the kind of kind
14:18
Speaker 1: of the biologist, space, conservationists, farmers, people who work on
14:26
Speaker 1: and with the earth and land and nature and plants
14:30
Speaker 1: and agriculture and all of that. Those kinds of people
14:35
Speaker 1: who were great at that and suited to that. You
14:37
Speaker 1: would say they had potentially high naturalistic intelligence. But the
14:41
Speaker 1: one that I want to dive into, let me just
14:44
Speaker 1: finish also just quickly. So in this was quite groundbreaking
14:50
Speaker 1: when he wrote his book. You know, they are of
14:53
Speaker 1: multiple intelligences in the early eighties because while you know,
15:00
Speaker 1: even the Stoics were talking two thousand and three thousand
15:03
Speaker 1: years ago about you know, what intelligence was and understanding
15:08
Speaker 1: the self and all of those, but for a very
15:11
Speaker 1: long time in research and academia, intelligence was really looked
15:16
Speaker 1: upon one dimensionally and researched one dimensionally. You want to
15:21
Speaker 1: know how intelligent someone is, they do this particular test
15:25
Speaker 1: and then we go boom, you're that intelligent. But we
15:29
Speaker 1: now know through you know, a range of things, and
15:31
Speaker 1: we've evolved and we've adapted, and we've got more awareness
15:34
Speaker 1: and more understanding. We know that that you know, there
15:39
Speaker 1: are some people who are academically challenged. But like, for example,
15:43
Speaker 1: I read recently and I posted recently, I think I'm
15:48
Speaker 1: going to fuck this up a little bit. But it's
15:49
Speaker 1: a very high percentage of millionaires and therefore billionaires, but
15:55
Speaker 1: a very disproportionately high percentage of people who are super
16:00
Speaker 1: successful in business are dyslexic. And you think, wow, people
16:07
Speaker 1: who really struggled. So obviously, most dyslexic people who can't
16:12
Speaker 1: read well and really struggle to understand the words on
16:17
Speaker 1: the page in front of them, an extraordinarily a disproportionately
16:22
Speaker 1: hypercentage of them do well in life. And I was
16:25
Speaker 1: talking with this about this with a friend of mine, Christian,
16:28
Speaker 1: who I trained with the gym alongside the crab, and
16:32
Speaker 1: his dyslexic, and he's also he's also funny, he can
16:37
Speaker 1: also read the room. He's also creative. He's also really
16:41
Speaker 1: good at solving problems. And our kind of theory together
16:46
Speaker 1: was that because he lived in a world where he
16:51
Speaker 1: often couldn't understand what everyone around him understood, I mean everyone,
16:56
Speaker 1: would you know, Open to chapter four and read fucking
16:59
Speaker 1: page one, two three of the Web of Life, the
17:01
Speaker 1: biology book we had in year eight nine and ten
17:05
Speaker 1: or whatever it was. Everyone's reading it going all right,
17:07
Speaker 1: so it sells a single this and that, and he
17:10
Speaker 1: was looking at it as just a page full of
17:13
Speaker 1: fucking horror glyphics and mumbo jumbo hieroglyphics whatever. You can't
17:18
Speaker 1: understand it, you get my point. And so when you
17:22
Speaker 1: live in a world where there's a lot going on
17:24
Speaker 1: that you can't naturally understand, then you need to figure
17:27
Speaker 1: out how to navigate that world with your own kind
17:32
Speaker 1: of I guess language, and with your own strategies. And
17:36
Speaker 1: that requires a specific kind of intelligence and a real
17:40
Speaker 1: ability to be able to be able to problem solve
17:43
Speaker 1: in real time. And so I'm sure there's research on this.
17:50
Speaker 1: Why the bit between you know, people who are people
17:55
Speaker 1: who have dyslexia and why they are disproportionately successful in business,
18:00
Speaker 1: But I would not be surprised if there was a
18:03
Speaker 1: correlation between that and their ability to solve problems, to
18:08
Speaker 1: think outside the box, to be creative. Because they had
18:12
Speaker 1: to be creative. They couldn't do things typically, they couldn't
18:16
Speaker 1: do things traditionally, they couldn't do things the way that
18:19
Speaker 1: their classmates did things. And also because it's not something
18:24
Speaker 1: that people really wanted known or to make public, or
18:29
Speaker 1: you know, people would keep it a secret and they
18:31
Speaker 1: would not tell people quite often, or they would tell
18:34
Speaker 1: limited people because they didn't want to be judged or
18:37
Speaker 1: criticized or marginalized or bullied or all of those things.
18:41
Speaker 1: And so they developed this capacity to be able to
18:46
Speaker 1: navigate the world looking like the rest of the group,
18:50
Speaker 1: while on some level not really being like the rest
18:54
Speaker 1: of the group in the sense that they didn't have
18:58
Speaker 1: a certain skill or capacity that their friends or colleagues
19:03
Speaker 1: or classmates did anyway, So but just quickly when when
19:10
Speaker 1: Old Howard was developing this, he also made clear that
19:17
Speaker 1: or he suggested that there was no real hierarchy of intelligence,
19:23
Speaker 1: that they were all equal in a sense. And I
19:30
Speaker 1: understand what he's saying with that, but also I think
19:35
Speaker 1: we would have to acknowledge that different kinds of intelligence
19:39
Speaker 1: would be more or less important, more or less valued
19:44
Speaker 1: in different contexts and different cultures, depending on where we're
19:47
Speaker 1: at and what we're doing. If you're living on an island,
19:49
Speaker 1: then interpersonal living on an island by yourself and interpersonal
19:53
Speaker 1: intelligence is probably not high on the list of things
19:57
Speaker 1: that you need, But being able to solve problems might
20:00
Speaker 1: be really fucking important. So his thinking was that they are.
20:07
Speaker 1: They're all different, kind of connected, but all different, and
20:11
Speaker 1: none is more valuable than the other. And I think
20:18
Speaker 1: that is generally true, but specifically in certain instances, cases, environments, context, cultures,
20:27
Speaker 1: of course, organizations than different kinds of intelligence are going
20:32
Speaker 1: to be held in higher esteem, of course, and you know,
20:36
Speaker 1: more valuable in certain contexts. So let's I just want
20:40
Speaker 1: to share with you just some really practical examples of
20:45
Speaker 1: it's personal intelligence. So, in general terms, it's the ability
20:50
Speaker 1: to understand, to interact and communicate effectively with other people.
20:55
Speaker 1: I'll say it again, to understand, to interact and communicate effectively,
21:00
Speaker 1: build rapport, build understanding, build awareness, build respect, work with others.
21:08
Speaker 1: It involves recognizing and interpreting other people's emotions, motivations, desires,
21:13
Speaker 1: and intentions and responding in ways that build connection, collaboration,
21:17
Speaker 1: and mutual understanding. So people with this kind of intelligence,
21:23
Speaker 1: you know, this high level interpersonal intelligence, tend to excel
21:30
Speaker 1: in social settings. So in other words, and by social
21:33
Speaker 1: I don't mean at parties, I mean, although they're probably
21:38
Speaker 1: crush parties, I just mean any environment, any situation setting
21:43
Speaker 1: where there are other people, so you know which is
21:46
Speaker 1: going to make them good at leadership and teamwork, and
21:49
Speaker 1: like I've said many times, resolving conflict.
21:52
Speaker 2: And building connection and building strong, respectful personal and professional relationships.
22:02
Speaker 1: So the six kind of characteristics that i'll mate identifies
22:06
Speaker 1: as important or foundational too. And none of these are
22:14
Speaker 1: going to blow your weight, but I'll just quickly run
22:16
Speaker 1: through them. So empathy, understanding how others feel, and caring
22:21
Speaker 1: could be good effective communication, conveying thoughts, ideas and emotions
22:26
Speaker 1: clearly and listening actively, being able to resolve conflict of course,
22:31
Speaker 1: teamwork of course, social awareness of course, and our ability
22:37
Speaker 1: to influence others in an ethical way, not in an
22:43
Speaker 1: a moral kind of subversive way. So I wanted to
22:48
Speaker 1: share just some really fundamental thoughts and examples of interpersonal
22:56
Speaker 1: intelligence for what I do and for the people that
23:01
Speaker 1: I work with, which is a lot of corporates. I
23:03
Speaker 1: work with, some athletes, I work with a range of
23:08
Speaker 1: people across a range of settings, but virtually everybody that
23:13
Speaker 1: I know, I think everybody that I know, but maybe
23:16
Speaker 1: somebody doesn't come under this ban. But in terms of
23:20
Speaker 1: who springs to mind, everybody that I know needs to
23:23
Speaker 1: be able to build rapport and trust and respect and
23:26
Speaker 1: understanding and communication with other people at some stage. And
23:33
Speaker 1: so this falls in the context of interpersonal intelligence. So
23:39
Speaker 1: for example, knowing when to talk and when not to talk.
23:46
Speaker 1: So this is something that I was probably an over
23:50
Speaker 1: talker when sound ironic coming from a man who's just
23:54
Speaker 1: talking NonStop now, but in one on one situations or
23:58
Speaker 1: in group situation maybe when I was younger, I think
24:02
Speaker 1: I was an overtalker, not a chronic over talker, but
24:05
Speaker 1: probably at times spoke more than I needed to. And
24:12
Speaker 1: if you are in especially if you're in a one
24:14
Speaker 1: on one conversation and you're over talking, then you're under listening.
24:20
Speaker 1: And if you are over talking, you are probably creating
24:26
Speaker 1: more disconnection than you are connection. And if you're over talking,
24:31
Speaker 1: then you might be creating more problems and solutions. So
24:36
Speaker 1: being not only knowing when to talk to somebody, but
24:42
Speaker 1: also how to talk how to talk to them, like
24:45
Speaker 1: how do I approach this conversation or this interaction in
24:49
Speaker 1: a way with this particular person who isn't like me
24:54
Speaker 1: and also isn't like that other person over there or
24:57
Speaker 1: the other person over the other side of the room
25:00
Speaker 1: with this person about this issue that I wanted to
25:03
Speaker 1: discuss or explore or resolve or whatever. When is a
25:07
Speaker 1: good time to talk to them, How do I talk
25:11
Speaker 1: to them? And also perhaps in what, sometimes even where
25:19
Speaker 1: should I talk to them. Many times, when I had
25:24
Speaker 1: a challenge, let's say, a challenge or an issue or
25:27
Speaker 1: a problem with one of my staff members. Remember I
25:30
Speaker 1: owned gyms, and so most of the work was done
25:33
Speaker 1: most of the most all of the training was done
25:36
Speaker 1: on the gym floor, of course, and most of the
25:39
Speaker 1: work was done out of an office and on a
25:41
Speaker 1: gym floor. So if I would see somebody doing one
25:45
Speaker 1: of my team doing something that I didn't want or
25:48
Speaker 1: that I didn't approve of, or I thought was potentially problematic,
25:53
Speaker 1: now depending on what it was. Of course, if I
25:55
Speaker 1: thought someone was going to injure someone in the next
25:57
Speaker 1: ten seconds, I would just going intervene. And if they
26:01
Speaker 1: got their feelings hurt, bad luck, because I'm more interested
26:04
Speaker 1: in a client not getting hurt than someone's feelings emotions
26:08
Speaker 1: being fucking hurt for seven seconds, right, But in general terms,
26:13
Speaker 1: when I would need to have a talk to one
26:16
Speaker 1: of my team about something that I thought, it depends
26:20
Speaker 1: of course, maybe I was going to tell them they
26:22
Speaker 1: were doing great. But if I was going to tell
26:24
Speaker 1: them that there's something I needed them to think about
26:26
Speaker 1: or change, I would be really careful about how I
26:32
Speaker 1: did that. I would be really mindful about the energy
26:36
Speaker 1: that I brought into that conversation. I would be really
26:40
Speaker 1: mindful of the language and the tone that I used.
26:44
Speaker 1: I would be really mindful of what is it like
26:48
Speaker 1: being around me, because I can be intimidating, and I
26:52
Speaker 1: don't want to intimidate this person. I don't want to
26:54
Speaker 1: upset them. I just want to fix this thing or
26:57
Speaker 1: I want to resolve this. I want to have a
26:59
Speaker 1: conversation about this, and I want to do it in
27:02
Speaker 1: a way that works for them and works for me,
27:04
Speaker 1: so that when we finish this interaction, we've made some
27:09
Speaker 1: real progress and they're fine, They're somewhere between fine and happy,
27:14
Speaker 1: and I've moved closer to or we've moved closer to
27:19
Speaker 1: solving a problem. So if somebody would do something on
27:24
Speaker 1: the gym floor or there was something happening that I
27:26
Speaker 1: didn't love, I would virtually never I would never have
27:31
Speaker 1: this conversation in front of somebody else, like because that
27:34
Speaker 1: would be even if what I had to say was
27:37
Speaker 1: relevant and right and pertinent and potentially going to help
27:42
Speaker 1: them as an exercise specialist or an exercise professional, even
27:47
Speaker 1: if what I had to say was one hundred percent accurate,
27:49
Speaker 1: relevant and right, giving that information in the wrong setting,
27:54
Speaker 1: in the wrong way, at the wrong time is a
27:57
Speaker 1: fucking catastrophe. That is what interpersonal intelligence is about. That
28:04
Speaker 1: it is about knowing when, what, and how to connect
28:08
Speaker 1: with people, to talk to people. It's about it's about understanding, like,
28:13
Speaker 1: for example, with that conversation or any conversation, understanding their
28:18
Speaker 1: reality in the moment. Remember that old chestnut that I
28:21
Speaker 1: keep wheeling out. As you know, theory of mind is
28:24
Speaker 1: your ability to understand somebody else's thoughts and feelings and
28:29
Speaker 1: subjective experience as much as you can in the moment,
28:34
Speaker 1: realizing that only you think like you and what's in
28:39
Speaker 1: your head. What is your intention? What is your goal?
28:44
Speaker 1: Might not necessarily be anything close to their fucking version
28:48
Speaker 1: of that interaction. Your intention may well not be their experience.
28:55
Speaker 1: Your intention, I'm assuming, would be good, it would be positive.
28:58
Speaker 1: It would be to fix something, to improve something, to
29:01
Speaker 1: help someone, to enlighten someone, to help them become better.
29:06
Speaker 1: But you and I know this is no revelation. I'm
29:09
Speaker 1: not pulling back some mysterious curtain now. And I tell
29:12
Speaker 1: you that how many times have your good intentions not
29:15
Speaker 1: had a good outcome? Or how many times have you
29:19
Speaker 1: shared with somebody something that is unequivocally true, but nonetheless
29:26
Speaker 1: it is not well received at all? And the outcome
29:30
Speaker 1: of that interaction, despite your good intention, despite the validity
29:36
Speaker 1: of the information being shared, actually makes things worse. So
29:40
Speaker 1: we need timing, we need awareness, We need to know
29:44
Speaker 1: when and how to speak to people. I spoke recently
29:48
Speaker 1: about the fact that we all speak our own language. Now,
29:53
Speaker 1: of course that we all speak English, right, but if we,
29:56
Speaker 1: for example, if we reframe English from a language to
30:01
Speaker 1: a tool, it's a tool that we use. And we
30:03
Speaker 1: all have the same essentially a version of the same vocabulary.
30:09
Speaker 1: And even though we all have a similar or same vocabulary,
30:12
Speaker 1: we don't all speak the same. We don't all speak
30:15
Speaker 1: the same. We have a different language. And the way
30:18
Speaker 1: that we speak, in inverted commons is the way that
30:21
Speaker 1: we think. So the way that I speak is interpreted
30:26
Speaker 1: by some people as funny and amusing, by some people
30:29
Speaker 1: as rude and abrasive by some people, as offensive by
30:34
Speaker 1: some people, as enlightening and illuminating by some people as educational.
30:39
Speaker 1: Now all of these disparate, different varied experiences of the
30:45
Speaker 1: same person, me speaking the same way. I know that
30:52
Speaker 1: that is going to happen. And so when I begin
30:58
Speaker 1: to talk to a group that two or three or
31:01
Speaker 1: two or three thousand, I'm absolutely positive that nobody in
31:07
Speaker 1: front of me is having an identical experience of me
31:11
Speaker 1: as somebody else in the group. There might be similar,
31:14
Speaker 1: there might be some overlap, but that is that kind
31:19
Speaker 1: of awareness, that kind of intelligence, that kind of knowing,
31:23
Speaker 1: that kind of real time kind of navigation of what
31:28
Speaker 1: is in front of me, That is high level into
31:31
Speaker 1: personal intelligence. I'm not saying I have high level, but
31:34
Speaker 1: that is an example of it. Being able to read
31:39
Speaker 1: the room, you know, being able to I told you
31:42
Speaker 1: a story recently about a gig I did with hundreds
31:46
Speaker 1: and hundred seven or eight hundred people, a mental health
31:51
Speaker 1: workshop for the general public, and a young lady in
31:57
Speaker 1: the front row who was amazing. By the way, her
32:00
Speaker 1: name was Mail I think her name was mal I remember,
32:02
Speaker 1: and she had an intellectual handicap, but she was fucking
32:05
Speaker 1: fantastic and nalarious and gorgeous, and she kept shouting out
32:08
Speaker 1: while I was doing different things, while I was doing
32:11
Speaker 1: my presentation. It's not really a presentation. It's just a talk,
32:15
Speaker 1: isn't it. But here's the thing, right, So in that moment,
32:19
Speaker 1: I've got hundreds of people there to listen to me
32:22
Speaker 1: sitting down, and I've got to talk for an hour
32:24
Speaker 1: and a quarter about an hour and a quarter maybe
32:28
Speaker 1: it went a bit longer. And there's and I've got
32:30
Speaker 1: seven or eight hundred different people with different personalities and
32:33
Speaker 1: backgrounds and needs and expectations and wants in front of me.
32:38
Speaker 1: I've got this information that I want to share. I've
32:40
Speaker 1: got this kind of conversational journey that I want to
32:44
Speaker 1: take people on. And I did not expect to have
32:48
Speaker 1: Mel in the front road joining in the process, but
32:53
Speaker 1: I did. I did have her, And so then the
32:56
Speaker 1: challenge is, well, how do I do this? How do
33:00
Speaker 1: I do this in real time? And how do I
33:02
Speaker 1: and so we just need to be able to problem
33:06
Speaker 1: solve like with other people with different persons interpersonal intelligence.
33:14
Speaker 1: And I don't know how well I did, but I
33:16
Speaker 1: think I did okay. And so I thought, well, the
33:20
Speaker 1: better or worse. Mel's involved, and so essentially it was
33:24
Speaker 1: a three way kind of exchange between Mel and me
33:29
Speaker 1: and everyone else in the room. And the feedback that
33:33
Speaker 1: I got was really positive, which was really nice. But
33:37
Speaker 1: being able to being able to be in an unpredictable, uncertain,
33:42
Speaker 1: unknown dynamic where you know when you step on stage
33:48
Speaker 1: as a speaker, and most of you won't do this,
33:50
Speaker 1: but it could be even just stepping in into a
33:54
Speaker 1: meeting room where you're talking, but when you step on
33:57
Speaker 1: stage as a speaker, you don't know the people in
34:01
Speaker 1: the room. Generally, most of the audiences I talk to
34:04
Speaker 1: in the real world, face to face, three dimensional live gigs,
34:09
Speaker 1: most of the people in most of the rooms I've
34:11
Speaker 1: never met and may well never see again. And so
34:14
Speaker 1: I'm talking to a group of strangers, and so I
34:21
Speaker 1: need to be able to read the room. I need
34:23
Speaker 1: to be able to read the energy I need. Of course,
34:25
Speaker 1: I need to go in and have a plan and awareness,
34:27
Speaker 1: and you know, these are the kind of key things
34:30
Speaker 1: I want to get across. But I need to understand
34:35
Speaker 1: how to navigate that moment in time with those people,
34:39
Speaker 1: with that group of people, at that moment in time,
34:42
Speaker 1: in that room on that day because my goal, apart
34:47
Speaker 1: from information and education, my goal is to be able
34:51
Speaker 1: to create a moment in time that is for them,
34:54
Speaker 1: hopefully informing and inspiring and all of that, but also
34:57
Speaker 1: something that they enjoy. I want people to leave that
35:01
Speaker 1: experience and go that was good. That was good. Yeah,
35:05
Speaker 1: he's good. It was good. I got something from it.
35:09
Speaker 1: I liked it. Because apart from the fact that I'm
35:12
Speaker 1: an educator and a motivator, I've also got to create
35:16
Speaker 1: an experience or contribute towards creating an experience for people
35:22
Speaker 1: that they want to be in the middle of. I
35:25
Speaker 1: say to bosses all the time, leaders, managers in corporate spaces.
35:29
Speaker 1: I say to them when I'm standing at their workplace,
35:35
Speaker 1: I say, do your staff? Does your team like coming here?
35:40
Speaker 1: And they're like Often they're like, what do you mean?
35:43
Speaker 1: I go, do the people that work for you like
35:47
Speaker 1: coming to this place? And if the answer is no, well,
35:53
Speaker 1: how can you fuck batman? You've got some things to
35:55
Speaker 1: figure out Like that. There are some significant problems that
35:59
Speaker 1: need to be a reed and resolved, because if you
36:02
Speaker 1: have a work environment or a culture or a place
36:05
Speaker 1: that you're the people that work for you don't want
36:09
Speaker 1: to be in they don't look forward to coming to
36:11
Speaker 1: that place, they don't enjoy it. Then you have a
36:15
Speaker 1: lot bigger problems than the bottom line that you need
36:19
Speaker 1: to address. And this is as a leader, as a manager,
36:22
Speaker 1: as whoever you are, as a teacher, as a coach.
36:25
Speaker 1: Being able to create experience is being able to interact
36:29
Speaker 1: with people, being able to read a room, being able
36:32
Speaker 1: to have some insight into their thoughts and their feelings
36:35
Speaker 1: and their reality in real time, and taking all of
36:39
Speaker 1: that into account as you open your gob, as you
36:44
Speaker 1: open your gob and say something that might create a
36:49
Speaker 1: problem or a solution. This is a kind of intelligence
36:53
Speaker 1: that is becoming, I believe, more and more valuable. I
36:58
Speaker 1: think this kind of intelligence is an interpersonal superpower. And
37:01
Speaker 1: I've said this before. It's like, if you can really
37:05
Speaker 1: build connection or poor and trust and understanding with people,
37:09
Speaker 1: if you can really by the way, as I've said
37:11
Speaker 1: a thousand times, you don't have to agree with them.
37:13
Speaker 1: Remember you don't have to be like them. There are
37:16
Speaker 1: people who do horrible shit in the world. I wish
37:20
Speaker 1: they didn't. I wish there was no horrible shit in
37:24
Speaker 1: the world. But that is not the world that you
37:26
Speaker 1: and I live in. You and I live in a
37:29
Speaker 1: world with sociopaths and psychopaths. You and I live in
37:34
Speaker 1: a world with amazing, generous, kind, beautiful humans who have
37:38
Speaker 1: a purpose bigger themselves, bigger than themselves. You and I
37:42
Speaker 1: live in a huge cross section of different people, different personalities,
37:48
Speaker 1: different needs, different motivations. That's the world that you and
37:52
Speaker 1: I live in. Now. If you and I want to
37:55
Speaker 1: be able to function somewhere close to optimally around a
37:59
Speaker 1: myriad of different, diferent people, at the very least, we
38:02
Speaker 1: should try to understand them because like them or dislike them,
38:07
Speaker 1: good or bad people. Hopefully most people are good. I
38:11
Speaker 1: think most people are good. But it's in our interest
38:15
Speaker 1: to understand people. I employed lots of people, about five
38:20
Speaker 1: hundred people over the years. Did I like every person? Like?
38:25
Speaker 1: Did I really like every person that I employed? If
38:29
Speaker 1: I'm being honest, you know, like, not necessarily like? I
38:33
Speaker 1: definitely didn't like them at times? And did they not
38:37
Speaker 1: like me? Of course? And do I understand? Of course?
38:40
Speaker 1: Do I expect everyone to like me? I absolutely do not.
38:44
Speaker 1: In fact, I expect people to dislike me. I expect that,
38:49
Speaker 1: Do you know why? Because it's statistically inevitable, and by
38:52
Speaker 1: the way, I will get things wrong. And by the way,
38:54
Speaker 1: I completely understand right, this is a form of interpersonal
38:57
Speaker 1: and social intelligence. Can completely understand that I'm not for everyone.
39:02
Speaker 1: I completely understand it. And also, my goal is not
39:06
Speaker 1: to make people like me. If my goal is to
39:09
Speaker 1: make people like me, then that's about my insecurity, my
39:13
Speaker 1: shitty self esteem and my ego. My goal is to
39:15
Speaker 1: serve people. And yes, I want to serve myself in that,
39:19
Speaker 1: I guess. But understanding that, of course, there will always
39:24
Speaker 1: be people that intersect with you that for no apparent reason,
39:32
Speaker 1: won't click with you, may not like you at all,
39:35
Speaker 1: and it might be something that you can't explain. But
39:41
Speaker 1: the challenge, the challenge for us is to know that
39:44
Speaker 1: we are not going to connect with everyone. We are
39:48
Speaker 1: going to piss some people off. You and me are
39:51
Speaker 1: going to get things wrong. Also, newsflash, sit down, get
39:56
Speaker 1: out your fucking pen and paper, write this down, underline it. Newsflash,
40:00
Speaker 1: you and I, me and you. I know you're fucking
40:03
Speaker 1: great and I'm great, just look at us. But you
40:05
Speaker 1: and I are going to be the problem at times.
40:09
Speaker 1: The problem will be you. Now, if you're traversing life.
40:14
Speaker 1: Thinking that you are almost never the problem, Well then
40:21
Speaker 1: you're probably the problem more than you think you could
40:25
Speaker 1: be the problem a lot. Now, that's not self loathing.
40:29
Speaker 1: That's not throwing ourselves under the bus. That's going you
40:32
Speaker 1: know what. I'm human, I've got flaws, I've got bias.
40:35
Speaker 1: I see things the way that I see them. If
40:38
Speaker 1: I always think I'm right right, if I always think
40:42
Speaker 1: I'm right, then I always think everyone who disagrees with
40:45
Speaker 1: me in the world about anything is wrong. That's a
40:50
Speaker 1: very precarious moral high horse to climb up onto, to
40:55
Speaker 1: perch myself up there like the all knowing, fucking deity
41:00
Speaker 1: that is me. When I've up until this point in
41:04
Speaker 1: my life been wrong, probably tens of thousands of times,
41:09
Speaker 1: of course, So how do I navigate that? Well, I
41:15
Speaker 1: know what I think, but I also you might say
41:18
Speaker 1: to me, what he doesn't matter. Let's not pick a
41:20
Speaker 1: topic because people get fucking hysterical and emotional. I think
41:25
Speaker 1: a certain way about topic A. However, I'm open to
41:31
Speaker 1: being wrong because I've been wrong many times, and so therefore,
41:35
Speaker 1: unless I have absolute evidence and data and by the way,
41:40
Speaker 1: somebody telling you something is not evidence or data unless
41:44
Speaker 1: I've fucking seen it or touched it or measured it.
41:47
Speaker 1: And you know, unless I have unequivocal evidence or proof
41:51
Speaker 1: of something, then I assume with almost everything that I
41:56
Speaker 1: could be wrong. And I think, by the way, I
42:00
Speaker 1: don't assume I'm wrong, but I know that I could
42:03
Speaker 1: be wrong. And I think this having certain beliefs and
42:06
Speaker 1: ideas and values that kind of provide a compass for
42:11
Speaker 1: your choices and your behavior, an internal sat Nav for
42:15
Speaker 1: how you live and who you become and where you
42:18
Speaker 1: go literally or metaphorically. I think having those beliefs and
42:22
Speaker 1: those values as kind of internal drivers and compasses, as
42:27
Speaker 1: I said, are great. But also being open to the
42:31
Speaker 1: idea that I might be wrong, getting out of the
42:37
Speaker 1: echo chamber, like it's a specific kind of intelligence and
42:42
Speaker 1: awareness to know that well, despite the fact that this
42:47
Speaker 1: is comfortable for me to think, despite the fact that
42:51
Speaker 1: I've thought this for a long time, despite the fact
42:55
Speaker 1: that this belief, this idea, this philosophy, this ideology is
43:00
Speaker 1: intertwined with my sense of self, as much as it
43:05
Speaker 1: fucking terrifies me, because if it's not true, then who
43:09
Speaker 1: am I? As much as it terrifies me, the idea
43:13
Speaker 1: that this might not be true. I have to acknowledge
43:17
Speaker 1: that it might not be true, and if that's the case,
43:21
Speaker 1: I will just deal with it. Because also if I
43:26
Speaker 1: unequivocally know something, then that makes the need for belief
43:31
Speaker 1: and faith redundant because you don't need faith now because
43:34
Speaker 1: you have evidence, you have data. And faith is literally
43:37
Speaker 1: or belief is literally believing in something that you can't prove,
43:43
Speaker 1: because if you could prove it unequivocally, then you would
43:46
Speaker 1: just have science or data or knowledge or information. I
43:53
Speaker 1: feel like I've banged on a lot, but I just
43:57
Speaker 1: love this. I love this intelligence conversation. You know. It's
44:06
Speaker 1: my training partner who I've spoken about probably fifty times
44:10
Speaker 1: over the years on the podcast. Mark his name is
44:14
Speaker 1: I call him the Crab. His actual name is Mark.
44:16
Speaker 1: And Mark is you know, just somebody who I think
44:24
Speaker 1: he I don't know what you left school year ten
44:26
Speaker 1: or eleven, and certainly even academically, he's not stupid at all.
44:32
Speaker 1: He's quite smart. But he has a kind of intelligence.
44:36
Speaker 1: He has an ability to solve problems and make things
44:39
Speaker 1: and fix things, and and just he has a kind
44:43
Speaker 1: of intelligence that I do not have. And he's very
44:48
Speaker 1: laid back he's very informal. He's like me a little bit.
44:53
Speaker 1: But when I look at him and him and I
44:56
Speaker 1: are a good friends, and I have I guess a
44:59
Speaker 1: certain capacity for certain things and he has for other things.
45:04
Speaker 1: And between us, what's interesting is there's a lot of divergence,
45:11
Speaker 1: not convergence. We're quite different in terms of our skills
45:14
Speaker 1: and our abilities and our kinds of intelligence, like the
45:20
Speaker 1: kind of social and emotional intelligence that I have, the
45:23
Speaker 1: interpersonal intelligence that I have. Not that he is socially stupid,
45:28
Speaker 1: he's not at all, but he will often ask me
45:32
Speaker 1: something in that space, how do I go about this?
45:35
Speaker 1: How do I And then on the other side, he's
45:39
Speaker 1: got a kind of a practical intelligence that I do
45:43
Speaker 1: not have. You know, there's just things that I don't
45:48
Speaker 1: know how to solve certain problems. I'll run it by him.
45:52
Speaker 1: He will come up with four potential solutions in thirty
45:56
Speaker 1: seconds that I couldn't come up with one in thirty hours.
46:00
Speaker 1: So it is indeed a multitude of things. It is
46:05
Speaker 1: a spectrum intelligence. It's not one thing, it's many things.
46:09
Speaker 1: So I wonder what your kind of intelligence is. I wonder,
46:13
Speaker 1: I want. I'm sure it's more than one thing, but
46:16
Speaker 1: I'm interested in how smart you are and in what
46:20
Speaker 1: way see you next time.