Latest / 100 Stories: The Narrative Intelligence Project / Meegan Kriley-Mackay: The Program You Didn’t Choose — Human Intelligence, AI & Narrative
Transcript
- Paige Williams: Welcome to 100 Stories, the Narrative Intelligence Project. I'm your host, Paige Williams. I'm speaking with 100 thinkers, creators, researchers, leaders, and people shaped by profound change as I explore the emerging field of narrative intelligence. At the center is one question. How malleable are the stories we live by? And what does it take to change one? What I learned will help shape the field in the foundational book that I'm writing about it. This Is one hundred stories. Today I am speaking with Megan Criley McKay. She's an author, an international speaker, and former spy. She is training organizations on soft interrogation. And I invited Megan because she has a great book out called Leadership in the Age of AI Rebooting Human Intelligence. And so I'm deeply curious to talk to Megan about. human intelligence and narrative intelligence and their similarities, their differences and everything in between. Megan Criley McKay, welcome to the show. I'm so happy you're here. Meegan Kriley-Mackay: Thank you so much, Paige. It's an honor. Paige Williams: Will you please tell me about the work that has most shaped how you see yourself in the world? Meegan Kriley-Mackay: You know, I knew since I was a young child that I was fascinated with human behavior. And in first grade, when the teacher said raise your hand, mine was always in the air. But the teacher stopped calling on me. And the kids in front of me, specifically the girls, would give me a sort of nonverbal communication And I didn't understand. Then at recess, real world, it became verbal and physical. And one day, they tripped me while we were playing tag, and I slid and cut my arm, and they started to bully me using words like, know it all, teacher's pet, you're making us all look stupid. Why did a human respond to me like that when I had no intent to ever do any of those things? Well, to the point, my dear, is once I got home and got done crying, I had an amazing father who was a professor in his own right, and he took me aside and taught me Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I was in first grade. And the gist of what I learned from that is human behavior. is you gotta know the human thinking behind it. And not any human is alike, and every human has a program. And it's become my life's work and my pursuit of my career, which has come full circle, to write the book and share it with the world. Paige Williams: Amazing. We're going to circle back to your father. But first I want to ask you, will you tell me one transformational moment from your life where you were living away and then you had an aha moment or a dark night of the soul moment or this is it moment and then your life changed. Meegan Kriley-Mackay: Absolutely. So in two thousand eight, I was lying on a cold concrete prison floor questioning myself, thinking was I going to die? What happened during what one call a breaking point for me became a breakthrough to a total different kind of intelligence within me, that I recognized my program had told me certain things that I believed to be true, but that it was putting a wall, not just the prison cell wall, but a wall within my mind restricting who I truly believed I could become. And as I broke down in that prison cell in two thousand eight. What I recognized as the choices of my entire life, from first grade to thirty-one, when I was in that cell, had led me to that place in time. And it was a choice because I always wanted to be a spy. And the good news, which I share in a TED talk, is I wasn't captured. Mm-mm. I chose to be in that cell. Interrogation was part of spy training. And it changed how my mind and intelligence, I believe, transcended to where I'm at now. Paige Williams: Hm how did you become a spy? And what does it mean to be a spy? Meegan Kriley-Mackay: So back in the 80s and 90s growing up, I wanted to do secret missions, travel the world, and learn human behavior to save the world, just like James Bond, 007. I watched all the movies. And what I believed Hollywood was telling me is it didn't matter if I look like, walk like talk like him. And there's many of him, right? Who played that role. But I wanted to be the first female double seven. So by the time I was sixteen, and believe it or not, I was in a dark place because there was some trauma going on in my life. Things started to shift and I started to shut down because I felt like I didn't have a voice and I was in a dark place. But a counselor in my high school noticed and called me in and said, not on my watch. And she said, it is time for you to see the world because you have got skills and talents and dreams. She helped me apply for a Fulbright scholarship to be a young ambassador at the age of 17 in Japan. I received that scholarship, was awarded it by our state senator. He called me at high school and in front of everybody announced that I was the chosen. I then flew to Tokyo, Japan, along with a couple other students from the US who were gonna be young ambassadors. And because I was from Montana, which is where I grew up, I got to have tea with the ambassador himself one on one. Why? That was former Ambassador Mike Mansfield. And if you Google him, you'll see why I hold that meeting near and dear. And when Paige Williams: Mm-hmm. Meegan Kriley-Mackay: I got done with that one hour one-on-one at the age of 17 with Mike, I knew that's who I wanted to be. In order to become a diplomat, you had to learn how to be a spy. So by the time I returned home, I immediately pursued multiple languages, because you need to buy bilingual, Japanese being number one. And then I studied other languages and pursued a political science degree. And when I finished college in the 90s, I sent out the applications to everybody. CIA, FBI, NSA, DEA, you name it. Snail mail, which is the way it was done back then. But then through that journey, I got nothing. And there was no responses. So I reached out to a mentor of mine, a retired US Air Force colonel who was married to a spy. And he said, Megan, it's all about timing. The end of the Cold War has just happened. The intelligence communities are shifting and changing. It's not your time. But if you truly believe in what you want to do, keep gaining the skills and practicing them. But most importantly, you need to learn about money. Okay, I didn't study finance, I didn't study accounting, that was my mom's master's, and I had to cross over to figure out what is why money. Well, the root of all evil comes down to how much you have. And as I've stated publicly in presentations and on TEDx, how you earn it, spend it, save it, risk it, and hide it tells you a lot about a person. Paige Williams: Mm. Meegan Kriley-Mackay: And so for 11 years I worked in the financial sector and I realized how true that was. And I loved it. I could see when people were lying and hiding and cheating and doing all that. And I realized the financial world was not for me because I wanted to do good. And money couldn't do good. But you start to realize what drives the human choices. And I kind of became an expert, and I could see it before it even happened. And then September eleventh happened, 2001. I'm standing in my office as a stockbroker, working in finance, I'm out with meet with clients, and sure enough, the towers are coming down. And I realized in that moment we were at war, and the opportunity for me to live my dream, to become a spy, was right in front of me. And within a year and a half, I followed the 9-11 commission hearings, which were live on television. And I did the homework. Who's moving who? And where's the funding and the budgets and the allocation and the reorganization and the politics? I delved right in. And I pulled the trigger, so to speak. And a year and a half after 9-11, I sold my book of business, put the money in the bank, rented out my house, and cold turkey, no job, no contacts, no security clearance. Drove to Washington DC to give myself one year to see if I could make it happen. And the beautiful part, Paige, is if you believe it, you will achieve it. And I was gone for 20 years doing that work. Paige Williams: Isn't that something? Meegan Kriley-Mackay: It's crazy. You never know till you try. And that's part of what I share with people. You need to get out of your own comfort zone. And that fear and that mindset, which is what I call the human program, at what point do you realize that's a program that you've been given? Because none of us got to choose who brought us into this world or the culture or setting. But once you start to reach your teens and mid-20s, you can start to question it and say, why am I afraid of that? Who am I listening to? That's their version, is it mine? And once you start to question and say, instead of why, why not? You start to discover a whole different level of thinking, which I learned, expanding your emotional intelligence, your social intelligence, your narrative intelligence, your quantitative intelligence. And in today's world, We haven't even quantified human intelligence, which I believe is the all-encompassing really science, then we need to start focusing and investing on, especially in a world full of artificial intelligence. Paige Williams: Yes. So I said we were gonna sic circle back to your father. Meegan Kriley-Mackay: Yes. Paige Williams: So your dad was my mentor in grad school. I had the great honor of studying under him and being mentored by him after he had started Montana's only professional theater, been the dean of the School of Performing Arts, started the media arts program at Montana, and he was still t hanging out with, you know, kids like me saying, why? Why? Why? And He influenced my whole life. I started off in a in an MFA in directing and and we were outside smoking a cigarette when you could still smoke in on campus and I was still a smoker. And he said, You know, Paige, why don't you come over here to run and learn to run a camera? And then when you graduate with your MFA, you might actually be able to get a job. And I said, Well, Jim, I think that's a really good idea. And I switched over to Media Arts, not even knowing how to turn on a Mac computer. Meegan Kriley-Mackay: Love it. Paige Williams: And what I learned was story. And I learned it directly under him. Now, you had the great honor of him being your father. So let's talk about how what your parent and one of the things that he always taught was Gardner's multiple intelligences. Meegan Kriley-Mackay: I think I've got it here. I think it's right on the shelf. Yep. Paige Williams: Yeah, right. So here you are with a book on human intelligence. Human intelligence. I've got a book I'm writing on narrative intelligence. So talk about being raised by Jim Cryley and your mom, who is a mathematician and a different kind of thinker, and how that shaped how you think it shaped being able to understand that we are all operating under a human program. And leading into what might human intelligence mean. Meegan Kriley-Mackay: my god. I'm just giving you a big hug. We can feel them present, can't we? Paige Williams: Yes, we can. Meegan Kriley-Mackay: Yeah. So as a child, right? You only know what you know. And we still that's the statement even today. But what we knew then was so limited, and why is a question that really helps us as young human beings identify and try to understand this crazy world around us. What I learned, which I did not experience, was that most people's response to when a child says why, why, why, is because I told you so. That's the way it is. Be quiet. Which is what has, I believe, kept us from being the level of intelligence humans are capable of. Paige Williams: Mm. Meegan Kriley-Mackay: Different part of the conversation. At dinner, my entire childhood, because my father had a PhD in theater and moved from chairman to dean of the School of Fine Arts, he would go to work at five o'clock in the morning. He had a morning brain, just like me, up early and go. And then he'd work all day. In what he loved to do, which was teach and educate and guide and inspire. He was a visionary. But then he'd stay late until about eight to nine o'clock at night because he directed. And theater, on stage, in the round, riverfront, travel, Montana rep. It consumed his life because he loved it. But every night, Even if it was nine or ten o'clock at night when he would roll in the door, me and my two younger sisters, I'm the eldest of three, would have dinner ready, our chores hopefully done, and our schooling and studies, and we'd sit down for dinner, which would last sometimes two more hours. Paige Williams: Mm. Meegan Kriley-Mackay: And this was dinner. So, Megan, what'd you do today? Who'd you do it with? Tell me more about that. Why? And what about? And then he'd go around and we'd all interact. My two younger sisters and my mom. That was my entire childhood. I had no idea that that open-ended questioning, active listening, storytelling, and references to Maslow's hierarchy of need, gardenos, gardeners and Buddhism, you name it, all of a sudden it was coming through him to us. And I assumed, isn't that what every kid gets? But then once I got into high school and then to college, I realized, nope, he was training me to be an interrogator. And it was part of the early programming, and I wasn't even aware of it until it started to lock in, and I realized not everybody thought like that. When I asked why, my dad would explain. But most importantly, it wasn't about him knowing it all. He would give his references and give his experience, but then always, within a short, pretty good time, he wasn't lecturing always like he did at the classroom. But in a one on one, he would then flip it, which was his mastery, and say, What do you think? Why? He knew how to problem solve. Critical think, executive function, and he was in a teacher in it, way before his time. And it's what he did on the stage. And when you saw him throw it out based on what a script was and the story, and getting the students to challenge what is the character and who do you need to be be? Nonverbal, verbal, tone pitch, volume, how you stand and present yourself. That was the other part of that was every summer where we were babysat all the students of the university. We were thrown into the costume shop or in the stage with the stage manager in the lighting booth, you name it. As children outside of the home setting, and I haven't even mentioned mom yet, because that's a piece of it too, is we experienced his world. And so even as you hear me talk, I am nothing but a version of what I learned. But I've learned to tailor it my own way through my life experiences, but also because of his guidance. Now, mom on the other side, opposites attract. Right? And each child relates differently. Dad and I were two peas in a pod. My two sisters identified with different sets of who they were, and the truth is we're all part of them. It wasn't until decades later in my 30s that I realized starting my own business, and as a military spouse supporting my former husband, that I needed to get better, and of course the stockbroker piece, at money, finance, and accounting. Which was my mom's jam. And the good news is it was already part of my brain. I could do numbers left and right because of her. And I am so grateful. So those pieces come together and weave themselves, but at the end of the day, I think the biggest thing I want to share with the world is you are part of where you come from. And it's part of you, good, bad, and different. But that's in the past. Who do you want to be today? And how in the heck are you going to take it forward? That's how you build what I believe is human intelligence. Paige Williams: Great. Let's start there. Talk about soft interrogation and how you might become who you want to be today. Meegan Kriley-Mackay: so Hollywood 007, right? What you see in the movies, we see nothing but hard interrogation. And it's really how do you break down another person's defenses to get information or access. That's really what a spy used to be. But that's also Hollywood, because it's more exciting and threatening and intimidating. The reality, which I think Is just life's experience is I was trained by the Marines at Quantico Marine Corps Base. And I didn't even choose to be an interrogator. It was just kind of offered to me during my training. We had a 12-week window, the group of us, it's called a cohort. And they said, Hey team, we're gonna send you to Quantico, pack your bags. You're gonna be off the radar, no communication with the outside world. Let your families know you're gonna be okay and you'll talk to them in 10 weeks. Okay. I said, why not? I am open to learning. On our the day before, as we're packing our bags and loading in a van to go to Quantico, 'cause I lived in DC at the time, we said, What training is this? you're gonna spend 10 weeks in a jail cell becoming an interrogator. Well, okay. Here we go. And the reality of interrogation training is we were all expecting the worst case scenario, which was big in the media at the time. And it's really the black operations side of it, which is illegal, immoral, and violates humanitarian laws and treaties. Waterboarding, torture, all of that manipulation, stuff like that. It happens out in the big world because they don't have the same rules and laws that we do. But as interrogators representing the United States military and Department of Defense, we're trained a little differently. The first three weeks of those ten weeks, we are the interrogated. Why? In order for you to become an interrogator, which I absolutely would never change, you need to experience what it's like to be interrogated. Especially if you are not on US soil, dealing with different mindsets and cultures. And so they simulate what that could be like. And through those first three weeks, people step out of training. At three weeks, this is what I learned. And that's part of my book and my TED Talks and things like that for me personally. Hard interrogation is the yin to the yang, the evil and the good. When you are dealing with very evil souls, you have to be able to see evil. But that doesn't mean you become it. And that's what that training is about. Once you go through to recognize what that is about and get introduced to it, which is where you have your own, as my father would say, come to Jesus with self, because I could have walked out that door and left any time. I chose to stay. I chose to stay because I was willing to die if I had to, for what I believe, and that is our constitution and democracy and freedom. I was willing to take that risk. That's the hard interrogation, which is the beginning. But the remaining seven weeks of that training, which people don't realize, and it's no secret, is soft interrogation, is how you get the information. When people are told what to do, they shut down. When they are threatened or intimidated, tortured, coerced, or commanded, they will lie or die to protect those they love. It shuts us down. It's our design to survive. The human operating system, which I call the program. But soft interrogation, my friend, is what changed my life, and it's what I share with individuals, teams, educational platforms. Corporations and more. There are three rules to soft interrogation. It's pretty simple. Number one, you lead with your heart, not your mind. It's not about the facts or the data or the objective. It's about empathy, kindness, and compassion. And in order for you to do that and get someone else to build trust with you and make them feel empathetic or let them know you care, you have to know it. Within yourself first. Once you know why you're in that room with this person, and you can look into their eyes, not the exterior, as Maya Angelou said it best: the eyes are to the spirit, to the soul. And once you start practicing looking at humans in the eye, young to old, truth is right there. You can see when somebody's lying, you can see when they're nervous, you can see their anger, you can see their pain, you can see their brilliance, you can see their depression. The Paige Williams: Mm. Meegan Kriley-Mackay: eyes tell you everything. It's part of the story. They just don't know you can see it. But once you look people in the eye, you'll start to see how everybody's different, and there's a different story behind it. So that's rule number one, and it's really what leads you through the conversation to build trust. The second part of soft interrogation, which is not a natural skill born into us and the program because of the millions of years of coding to survive, is active listening. It's not just what I said, it's the words. Was it negative speak or positive? Was it two syllables or four? Was it in a certain industry or was it in a certain culture? What language am I speaking in what tone, pitch, volume, and pace? Because that tells you a lot about where they are as far as communicating with you. Negative, positive, or truth. And once you fine-tune your listening skills, which is exactly what those 10 weeks in that prison cell helped me elevate to a whole different level, you can start to hear it around you. And you can hear it coming, that negative energy, or that tone, or that pitch, or that volume. And how, number three, you respond to it is always open-ended questions. Why, who, what, when, where? Not yes or no's. It's about open-ended questions so that people start to say, huh? You're noticing me? Yeah. Why are you behaving that way? What can I do to help? How come this is happening? The conversation begins. And once I got into this space, I realized, why is this so comfortable and familiar for me? Because of my dad. And dinner. And as I kind of started to expand my boundaries and get trained and then work in that career field, it's become my purpose and meaning because it's constantly leveling me to a different level of awareness and learning every day. But I see how it can help others. not only for themselves but more importantly, for their families, for their communities, and for our planet. Hopefully help each other. So long answer. Hopefully that gave you some content. Paige Williams: Absolutely. And you know, if you're listening to this on the podcast, I encourage you to go to YouTube and watch. Because there is there are words happening, but there are movements happening right now as Be Megan is speaking that makes the context understandable, which makes me think about narrative intelligence and how it's not just the words we speak, right? Meegan Kriley-Mackay: It's how you speak it. I want to hear more about that. Talk to me, Pai, right now. I know it's your podcast. Who am I to ask questions? But think about the yin and the yang and the piece of the human intelligence factor, which I believe is the all-encompassing science of all intelligences, the narrative intelligence piece, and how it aligns with everything I just shared. Paige Williams: Hmm, thank you for asking. You know, I'm doing these 100 interviews so that I can answer that or know more about that. Because I think if we're gonna learn about narrative intelligence, I should go learn from people. I should go learn from narratives, I should go learn from strategists, creatives, scientists, spies, and those who help people change. And so what I'm finding so far. Is that narrative is, I think, the leading intelligence. We come in with a narrative. We're born into a narrative through genetics. Then we learn a narrative of our family, and that shapes us. And then we are sense-making machines. It never stops. And it's always a story. It's always a story. That comes before we can identify feelings. Read me a book. In the crib, right? Meegan Kriley-Mackay: Love it. Paige Williams: I think we start with story. I think it's what makes us one of the things that makes us human. So, where it lines up in terms of multiple intelligences, I don't know. But if we look at Gardner's intelligences, all of them require narrative. Meegan Kriley-Mackay: Yes. Paige Williams: Right now I'm thinking about what is the correlation between emotional intelligence and narrative intelligence. One person said, maybe you have to have emotional intelligence to have narrative intelligence. I don't know yet. Can an evil genius be narratively intelligent? Or are they just using narrative to move the world? What does intelligence actually mean? What is the ethics of intelligence? What is a belief system? I have way more questions right now, Megan, than I have answers for, but that's that is a little bit of the shape that these conversations are giving me. Meegan Kriley-Mackay: That is so exciting. Paige Williams: So tell me how you see human intelligence and how you might see narrative fitting in from your concept of human intelligence. Meegan Kriley-Mackay: Absolutely. So I'm gonna pick up exactly where you were. And there's neuroscience, of course, behind all of that. And what we know today versus what we knew 10 years ago and 30 and 50 years ago is from what I know, and it's all that I know, and I realize I've got so much to learn, so take it with a grain of salt, is what I thought was human intelligence was a term that was associated with 007 and spies. As I then started to move into Looking into being a spy, I started to research HUMINT, A military term about gathering information from human sources. And all I knew about that was what I saw in, you know, Mission Impossible. Top gun, 007. It's pretty much going in, getting the bad guys and scaring or beating it out of them until you got the information you needed, right? Because that was like, my god, I feel like I'm gonna die. Because that's what it seems like. But then I started to realize through my own journey, through college and after, that that's what human was in the military and what spies were trained to do, CIA, FBI and all those guys. And so I said, I want to learn about it. But I don't want to hurt people, but it's part of the job. I'll be okay with that. And there are other parts of my story that gave me that, shall we say, need for adrenaline. And I'm a risk taker. And I'll be brutally honest, and people know this. The reason I jumped out of an airplane at 18 was to tell my mom. Why not? I think everybody goes through that at some or at child point. We worked through that. But the essence of where human intelligence came into it. Was it really a parallel of what I had been told to when I started working in the career field after 9-11 and I was going through training to become a spy and then working in that career field? Is that the way they had been said it was is it was pretty much here's your checklist and the information that different ints, SIG in, communication int, these are military terms, other ways of gathering information about people. And you need to go follow this person and get them to tell you. And then they gave you certain techniques and approaches. And I'm like, nobody tells you the truth. Your approach doesn't work. And I mean this respectfully, and this was a time and place, and it's changed in the decades since. But instead, it was like, here's a bag of money for you to go tell that person if they give you the information and give you people's names, you can give them money. See the parallel and the connection? And people just lie. And it was okay for me to give money to these people who just kept lying. And then I'd take it back through the chain of command and I'm like, that's not working for us, folks. And that's not what I we can do better. And that's when I started to realize my own personal journey and pursuing a master's degree while I was in DC during post nine eleven and surrounding myself with mindsets that pretty much said, We gotta do better. Is that's when human intelligence, the way I define it, H-I, human intelligence, not humint, is where my story begins. Because in my life and my different background and experiences, and raised on a stage in the theater, role-playing scenarios, and then turning that into real-life scenarios with real people and real money and real weapons, I started to say, no. Humans have so much more, and they're so much more intelligent that we give them credit for. The question is, why aren't we helping us improve it, expand it, instead of shut it down? And to the point in today's world with artificial intelligence, which is really what shifted me into this new, shall we say, pivot in my career? Having left working for the US government and coming out as an author and a speaker and really a voice and coach that says, I think every human being on earth is here for a reason. We are born into a world we don't choose, but the journey is figuring out your reason and your skills. Because I believe there's an intelligence within us that we have still yet to define. And I am just hoping that we can save humanity before we kill it. Thanks for listening. Paige Williams: Yeah. Can you tell me a little bit about how you're seeing AI and what's going on with human and human intelligence and human judgment and why it's important? Meegan Kriley-Mackay: Yeah, so it's an evolution. I can't talk so much about the history of how we got here with AI, but it's just been something that's been coming for a long time. And I am not an expert in the coding or programming of AI, but I do a lot of reading on all sides. And the truth of what I see is we are where we are and there's no going back. Period. Exclamation point. But my biggest question is where we are now. Is really stepping back to say AI is something humans created. The question is who and what narrative are they creating? And that's where the world now is starting to recognize we've got some red flags. Because it's not just about the age, gender, race, background, or level of intelligence, known as IQ, that's doing this coding. Who is it for? And I, as long as I am here on planet Earth, am gonna continue to bang the drum and say it shouldn't be isolated to the small group of people who think they're the brightest and most intelligent. It should be available and coded from all which will better represent both the good and the bad of humanity. Because right now I Don't think that is an even-level playing field. And I am in the process of banging the drum to say human intelligence needs to be present in every conversation with AI, at every conference, in every school, in every family, in every workplace, because if we don't start talking about the inputs and the code itself. I don't know what we're gonna leave with the kids behind us and the future leaders and the legacy. I'm on a mission to make human intelligence something that's just as important as artificial intelligence, hopefully for the next generations to come. Paige Williams: Awesome. How do you define human intelligence and how do you differentiate it from narrative intelligence or IQ? Meegan Kriley-Mackay: So, from what I know about IQ, is that something you're born with? And then they test it. And that's the way it was back then. But nowadays, that is only just a portion of what we are neurologically capable of. And whether you were born with the ability to take a test and score high means you have a component of you that can take a test and score high. That's it. And I give credit to those who can score high. However, what we are now identifying is that human intelligence, in my definition, which still is not a Webster definition yet, and that's changing, is it's not only our ability to access the information and story and narrative of our program, which part of it is DNA, but more importantly, our ability to expand it and assess it. Outside of ourselves, based on other people's intelligences, in how we connect and relate. In short and sweet, I believe the transition between human program to human intelligence is four things. Our ability to be aware that we each have a program. Number one, I don't think the world's aware of it. Number two, it's about questioning it. Why do I think this way? What is my program and where does it come from? Number three. Start to think creatively and authentically while choosing what you do based on the old program or daring to step outside your comfort zone and do it different. Break the pattern. Last but not least, number four, is learn how to connect it to where you are now, and most importantly, how you evolve to connect better. with others, advancing different things and levels within your own intelligence. I gotta shorten that answer. I'm getting better at it. I hope. Paige Williams: That was great. it reflects a lot of how Meegan Kriley-Mackay: Yeah. What's your thoughts? Paige Williams: I'm in I'm defining narrative intelligence and I'm wondering if we're talking about the same thing. So from your perspective, what do you think might be different between human intelligence and narrative intelligence and could it be the same thing? Meegan Kriley-Mackay: That's a really good question. I think, like you had mentioned earlier, there's so many questions to ask. And I, you know, I go into some part of my mom's brain, which I was taught is I'm thinking post-its, colored org charts, regroup, you know, I I've got a whiteboard here over here that's covered with them. And I'm like, okay, so what is that? And how do we define it? But more importantly, how does it connect? Because narrative intelligence for me, and you're the expert, I'm learning, is how you tell the story. And telling the story depends on how you see not only what you've received, right, and what you've seen, but also how you translate it, kind of like learning a second language, and then feed it out. And through that process, I'll remember a great moment with my dad. I think I was in 18 years old. And I thought I was out in the world and I was figuring it and I knew everything. Welcome to eighteen. But the way I told my stories and described what I was doing to him in story form because that's what I was taught. He's like Megan, you use the word always and forever too much and it's exaggerating. He was right. The question is, why was I spinning it that way? Well, the reality is, as I learned, it was my own insecurities. When we start to exaggerate that story, or it's kind of a skew of the truth, an interpretation, I believe, narrative intelligence is where you are at this place in your life and how you tell that story, not only internally, but more importantly, externally. Because you only know what you know. And if others can see these things that maybe are a little off, and this is also interrogation now coming into it, or a little bit on the side, but not straight, or a little bit raw when it's a little more soft. It's all interpretation. And discovering why we do that and how we tell those stories makes it exciting. We have a lot to discover, my friend. Because I do believe it is a big piece of human intelligence. Paige Williams: Yeah. The way that you're defining human intelligence and the way that I'm defining narrative intelligence is very similar. But the way that you just defined narrative intelligence s gives it space. So I'm gonna have to think about this a long time. Because I Meegan Kriley-Mackay: Yeah. Paige Williams: think there's h five capacities. Can I run these by you? Meegan Kriley-Mackay: Please, I want to learn. Paige Williams: I think there's five capacities which you're gonna recognize in narrative intelligence. Ready? Okay. Meegan Kriley-Mackay: Bring it on. Paige Williams: Recognition? Can I see the narrative? Right? Sounds like yours. Discernment Can I evaluate what's true? Flexibility, can I remain open to other possibilities like maybe maybe there's another story here I could look at. Agency, can I choose my relationship to that story? An enactment, can I live it? That sounds like human intelligence. Meegan Kriley-Mackay: It's exactly! I wonder where we pick this up. And the truth is, my dear, what we know is nothing new. I'm the first to acknowledge decades, millennials, you know, centuries before us, this is Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, all those guys, right? This is really no new concepts. The question is, how do we interpret it? And I love that we both came up with the fives. Because what we're seeing is If I could summarize the alignment, is it starts with cells. Paige Williams: Yes. Meegan Kriley-Mackay: Which is where I believe humanity struggles most 'cause they don't want to deal with it. Once we know that it's a it starts with self and you go through that journey, through that whole process of those five steps to discover what is your narrative intelligence, you then can teach it and observe it in others. And that's the student. Because you have to learn how to do it and practice it yourself, which is the same as interrogation, before you can even dare to do it. That I think is the underlying thread that you and I absolutely have clearly identified and are blessed to walk this path. I look forward to the adventure of us aligning these things and discovering how we can get this message out to the world. Paige Williams: Totally. I just keep coming back over and over to Plato's allegory of the Cape. Meegan Kriley-Mackay: Bingo! Share that! Paige Williams: Well, you know, the allegory of the cave is people are in the cave, they're watching a projection of reality, they believe it's the reality, someone sneaks out. I mean, I'm killing it, but it anyway, and realizes, my God, that's a projection of reality, that's not reality. And actually there's this whole outside world. And once you see it, you can't go back in the cave and believe that that t is true. So you're right. We've been humans have been wrestling with these questions and thinking about this. But I do think that right now we have emergent properties, especially with AI. Where some of us have been placed into the world to say, and what are you thinking about this right now? Because it is so important for humanity right now. And what what whatever we call it, it's funny that we're gonna get keep getting to the same qualities, regardless of what we call it, because we're called to that work because we're here to get that message out so that people can become all of themselves. And AI can never do that. Meegan Kriley-Mackay: Never. Never. It's not human. Paige Williams: Fascinating. Meegan Kriley-Mackay: Love it. So exciting. Paige Williams: So exciting. This conversation has been so enlightening for me. Thank you. And of course we're coming to these same conclusions because who your father was and how important he was in my life. And and you know, I don't I don't know yet these differences between human intelligence and narrative intelligence, and you're making me change my thinking that maybe narrative intelligence is too narrow. And is it really human intelligence? I don't know. But here's what I'm grateful for. I'm grateful for you and for talking about human intelligence. And it I just want you to know that it deeply, deeply resonates because I actually think that we're talking about the same thing with two different words. From the way I'm Meegan Kriley-Mackay: I agree. Paige Williams: looking at narrative. Meegan Kriley-Mackay: I agree. I agree. And even to complement that, you know, right now the research with emotional intelligence, which is kind of the big buzzword, and then social intelligence. I believe there's hundreds, if not thousands, of kinds of intelligence. You look at the Michael Jordans. That's a physical intelligence plus a neurological intelligence. I mean, the way we're designed, the way we move, the way we see. But at the end of the day, this is a science that needs to be recognized, invested in, and pretty much shared worldwide now. Because whatever the intelligence language is, we're in that space to better identify our true. What I'm gonna call superintelligence as humans. And I think we have to do it because time is not our friend. And that's what my purpose in life is. And I'm so blessed to join you, Paige. Let's get this party started. Paige Williams: Megan. Yeah. Thank you for teaching me today. I loved learning from you and hearing your story. Meegan Kriley-Mackay: Crowley coming out. Paige Williams: Thank you. Meegan Kriley-Mackay: Yeah, we both had the same program, a similar program. But we listened to it, right? And that's a different thing. We chose to listen to that program that Dr. James Crowley was feeding us. And I rejected it because I lived in it and I questioned it. But what I realized at the end of the day, full circle, is he wanted me to. That's the difference. He encouraged me to challenge it and question it. And I think you and I believe in the same thing. Paige Williams: Agreed. Thank you so much. Meegan Kriley-Mackay: You're well. Paige Williams: Before we close, here's what I'm taking from this conversation. Megan uses the phrase human program for everything we inherit and absorb before we're consciously choosing family, culture, experience, fear, expectations, the ways we learn to understand ourselves and the world. And what struck me is how closely her description of human intelligence mirrors what I've been calling narrative intelligence. for Megan, it begins with becoming aware that you have a program and then questioning it, becoming capable of thinking and choosing beyond it, and finally learning how to connect differently with other people in the world. Recognition, discernment, flexibility, agency, enactment. Those are the five capacities of narrative intelligence. They overlap, and that leaves me with a question I don't yet have an answer to. Are human intelligence and narrative intelligence describing the same human capacity from different starting points? Is narrative intelligence one part of something larger that we might call human intelligence? Or is there something specific about narrative, about the stories through which we organize experience that deserves its own name? Megan also gave me another piece I want to carry forward from her work in soft interrogation. Before you can truly question another person, you have to be willing to question yourself. Her training taught her to lead with empathy, listen beyond the words, ask open ended questions rather than impose an answer. And maybe that matters for narrative intelligence too. The goal may not be to replace one story with a better story as quickly as possible. Maybe it begins with becoming curious enough to ask, why do I believe this? Where did it come from? Is it still true? And what becomes possible if I question it? I don't know yet where human intelligence ends and narrative intelligence begins, but after this conversation, I'm much less certain that they can be understood separately. And that is exactly why I'm doing these one hundred stories.