How do you measure intelligence?

IQ is still the most common way, isn't it? Do you think it is limited? You bet it is. Ask Richard Branson, because he's dyslexic he would probably score pretty low.

EQ Emotional Intelligence is starting to be recognized but it is only one type of intelligence

In his book "Head First", Tony Buzan identified 10 intelligences: Creative and Emotional Intelligence, Personal Intelligence, Social Intelligence, Spiritual Intelligence, Body/Physical Intelligence, Sensual Intelligence, Sexual Intelligence, Numerical Intelligence, Spatial Intelligence and Verbal Intelligence.

Often we will have great strengths in some of these areas, rarely does it happen though, that we have all round ability. Leonardo da Vinci is often given as the 'all round genius', who could use extremely creative thinking and create amazing works of art, he was also an accomplished musician (any stringed instruments he could 'work out' and begin to play it). He also loved his own company and cared for and looked after himself as a best friend or partner would. He had amazing self confidence. He was also the known as the strongest man in Florence and was brilliant at engineering and invention…the list goes on.

On top of this, he was self taught and used to sign himself as 'The Disciple of Experience'. How many of us use our brains in that way? I can tell you there's bits of mine still in the box! I think creatively thinking about any thing or problem is a fantastic skill which many of us just do not have. Only because no one ever taught us there is a different way to think. In progressive schools they are starting to teach, 'how to think' allowing children to work out their own solutions not just be given the answer or one way of looking at things. They actually encourage them to come up with several answers, not worrying if they are right or wrong.

Business people often hire people to help them and their managers to train their staff 'how to think creatively'. This helps people be more productive, stimulated and have a greater sense of achievement in themselves and their new skills.

So 'thinking out of the box'. How often in your daily lives do you employ a different way of thinking, even if you don't really need to, just to see what other ways you can come up with doing some of the same things differently.

Once you start, I've found it both great fun and incredibly difficult. When I have come up with some pretty nifty ideas, there is a wonderful sense of having really used your creative mind and feeling somehow 'stretched', (and you know when you stretch something it doesn't go back to it's original shape!)

So today here is a fun experiment you can do with your friends or family

1. Take a sheet of paper and a pen

2. In exactly 2 minutes, write as fast as you can every single use you can think of a paper clip

3. Compare your result with others

4. Have they been thinking in ways that are different from yours?

5. Have you been limiting your thinking? E.g. we didn't say that the paper clip had to be in metal and of standard size...

To find out how well you performed and what are the tens of use other people have thought of, I will direct you to the book I mentioned, or if you prefer, send me an email and I'll tell you if you are as talented as Thomas Edison

6. Now that you are starting to think in a more expanded and creative way, think of a problem you haven't yet got a satisfactory answer to.

This could be anything from buying a birthday present to a work problem.

7. Instead of going down the usual routes e.g. thinking about the same kind of shops you would normally visit to buy that birthday present or thinking in the same way about your work problem, try one or all of these:

8. Ask yourself 'what would Winston Churchill, Al Pacino, your best friend, Martin Luther King, think/do in this situation. You can substitute anyone you like.

9. Try changing your posture as you do this, for example, how would Churchill sit/stand/lie or how would you not normally do this kind of problem solving, then do it.

10. In your daily life look for ideas that have always been around and accepted that you can make into the opposites.

For example, Leonardo da Vinci turned the idea of 'study the art of science' and by reversing it made it into the equally creative idea of 'study the science of art'.

So this week really try and see, think and feel things differently, you'll be setting up some incredibly creative networks in your brain.

Until next week Onwards and Upwards and have a fantastically creative week!

© 2004 Denise Bosque All Rights Reserved

UPDATE: How can a paper clip become a house?

Read the story of Kyle MacDonald who keeps trading a red paper clip against something bigger

http://oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com