"How Intelligent Are You?"

That’s the typical bottom line question many individuals have had to struggle with in the school environment, whether it’s via an IQ test or a SAT or percentile placement or some other supposed measure. In a nutshell, my interest in brain function is designed to promote what I believe is a much more helpful question: "How are you intelligent?" If you figure that out and capitalize on it, life is much more likely to be lived by design. There may be as many ways to exhibit intelligence as there are brains on this planet (albeit society rewards some types far more than others) and no one assessment will ever measure all of yours. In fact, assessments don’t even exist to measure some aspects of intelligence. According to Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner, the human brain has multiple intelligences (e.g., intra-personal, inter-personal, mathematical, spatial, musical, linguistic, kinesthetic), which are more or less independent of each other. So, how are YOU intelligent? Figure it out and find a way to capitalize on it. More on other types of intelligences tomorrow.