What’s the True Test of Intelligence?

Welcome to the Missing Secret podcast. I'm Kelly Hatfield,

And I wish I was Kelly Hatfield. Why you're living the dream you're living,

You're too funny.

So, the topic today is, what's the true test of intelligence? Just think about that. What's the true test of intelligence? So, Kelly, what do you think?

Oh, my gosh, you just like sent this to me out of last field. I've not heard

Essentially, so I might add.

What? Okay, so what is it again? What's the

What's the true test of intelligence?

I, that is deep thinking.

It's, it's, it's hard to, hard to,

It's hard to articulate it. Yeah, it's hard to articulate it. And intelligence, you know, like, like, how what kind of intelligence,

Right? Right.

So, well, do your thing.

Okay. Well, you know, we're operating from the 30,000 foot view of intelligence, and, and here's what true intelligence is: it's getting what you want from life, and more specifically, creating the life you want, pretty, pretty sharp in that, that's that's pretty accurate, right?

Yeah, so the true, true test of intelligence is that what,

Yes

Was, and so it is your ability, your ability to create the life, the extraordinary life and the life that you want is that,

Well, get it more specifically, getting out of life what you want, whatever that is, whatever that is. I mean, you've been given this, this, this precious life, and now you're on your own. You got to figure out how to get what you want, you got to figure out what you want, then had to figure out how to get it, boy, that is true intelligence, I see, and it encompasses a lot of things, it obviously encompasses emotional intelligence, pure intelligence, but I think that's that's enlightening, and especially when you step back a little and go, okay, okay, by that, that that intelligence is getting out of life what you want. What would seem obviously obvious to me that the first step would be define exactly what you want, I mean, like, who do I want to be? What do I want to accomplish, and how am I going to accomplish it? I mean, that's just logical, right?

Oh, 100% logical. And then also, too, like, again, we talked about this before, but, like, how do you know if you like what you know, if you aren't feeding your, you know, reticular activating system, your brain, the clarity that it needs to create, you know, the life that you want,

Right?

And how are you supposed to know where you're going, or how to get there, if you don't know what there

is? Yeah, exactly,

you know that clarity piece, and then you know, understanding those key, you know, pieces, like, okay, Who do I want to be? Who do I need to be to get to where I want to go,

rRght?

You know, and speaking more to identity and those kinds of things. So, now I, it's interesting, it's an interesting concept.

Well, and, yeah, as we talked about a while back with the top book of the world on success, it's all about clarity. I mean, it literally comes down to one word, and so intelligence flows from you just having clarity about what you want and how you're going to get it and who you want to be. And here's another thing, and I heard this, and I forget who to attribute this to, but the same person that came up with that came up with this other thing. What do you think the currency of life is? The currency of life, you think it's time? Do you think it's money? What do you think it might be?

Time is the first thing that just jumps out at me,

Right?

You know, so what is the question again? The currency of life, what is the current? Yeah,

What is the.. what is the currency of life?

That, yeah, I would say time would probably be it, wouldn't be money in my mind anyway. It would be time. The word influence popped into my head for some reason,

Right?

So, yeah, I'm interested. What, what is the, what's the their take on

Attention. Your attention, think how powerful that is. You control your intention. I mean, you know, money's a factor, time's a factor, but at the end of the day, your attention is what is most important, because at the end of the day, you know, success is a function of the thoughts going on in your head most of the time, that's determining your success, that's determining your enjoyment of life, and and all that is basically a function of attention. What are you putting your attention to? You know, we're, we're also the person that exists today is, is a combination of their genetics and what has come into their consciousness. So, how have you been influencing what's coming into your consciousness? Yeah, you know, that's, that's your attention, and, and again, seems like all roads come back to clarity, you know. Once you're clear about what you want, then your reticular activating system, the filter for the brain, brings that to your consciousness. So, does that make sense?

Yep, it does. It basically is. It goes back to kind of that saying, and I don't.. you'll have. I don't know, who said this originally, but you know where your attention goes, the energy flows,

Right?

That same thing, what you know, which, what you focus on expands, you know that it's that same kind of, you know, philosophy. So, no, I get that, and you know, too, when you're talking about attention, when you're talking about clarity, and we're tying it back to what we were talking about, and you know, at the beginning of, you know, where this podcast and discussion started, you know, it's like anything that you want a positive outcome on, you know, so let's even say that it is a conversation you need to have with somebody,

Right,

You know, having a lot of clarity around all of the different moving pieces, and you know that person's perspective, and all like play into the outcome that you're going to get out of that particular situation, you know, or that particular deal you're going after, or that particular, and so it would make sense that on a grander scale, your life, the very thing holds true. Yeah,

Absolutely, absolutely. You know, it's interesting. So I just finished writing my, my second book, Advanced Leadership of Self: The Science of Leveraging Yourself, and I did it, aided by AI, which was a phenomenal experience, but one of the things that, and I would have extensive conversations with AI, and one of the things that AI said back to me, said the people that are are just weighing life, which is the vast majority of them, are really surprised when they hear that 95% of their daily actions, or up to 95% their daily actions are unconscious, and, and, and that the the implication of that, as we, as we've discussed other types, is that you don't control the very thing that is determining your success, and even more fundamentally, because they're right conscious, your conscious mind intelligence and intellect is not directing your daily actions, and so that's the effect of all that is you are inconsistent about being able to do the right actions that you need to to create the life you want, and that's that's why, and there's a lot of research about why people continually recreate their, their lives, they have nothing pulling them forward, but you know, yeah, when you look at it this way, it, and you know, it's interesting to talk to, to AI about this, because one thing I've seen from writing the book is it has a much deeper understanding of logic than than that I do than humans do, I mean it, and I'm pretty logical, I can sort of see the path, but it has a much deeper ability to to articulate logic beyond what I can, but I guess the takeaway from, from all this is that is the main point, point is that if you're winging life, you typically don't know that you're not in control of your daily actions, you think you are. I mean, I suffered from that, I. Once I discovered all the things I discovered, I saw I had that false belief that I controlled my daily actions when I only controlled 5% of them. So, what a game changer it is when you

sort of realize all this, especially when you see not only is that true, but oh, here's a way to take control of them, and it just takes 12 minutes a day, so, and you know it's interesting, and so this, this book I'm writing is, is, is the purpose of it, is to be the, the academic text for this emerging field of advanced leadership itself, and so there, there can't be any, any like marketing things, and you know, and sometimes how we speak, we, we don't, maybe don't intend it to be, but it comes off as, as marketing, and it's been interesting to, to you know, make sure that there's none of that, and I see how easy it is to take something that you might glibly say and and and sort out the marketing component of that and say it you know more clearly and it doesn't sound like marketing

Yeah it's interesting what what those, the language models inside AI, and you know, understanding your audience really well, and you know, because obviously, maybe in your first book, some of that language and framing was great, in the

Right

It was coming from your perspective, it was your story, how it impacted your life, you know, but now coming from a different vantage point, you know, academic side of things, and then having the input, because I would see this is your story, it's personal to you, this is life

Right

So even just in sharing that, that can sometimes come off as being marketing,

Right,

You know what I mean, and so I'm sure that that was interesting process going through writing your second book, on you know, with having that additional insight.

Well, it is. It was interesting to be able to create the book. We did it chapter by chapter, and, and, and then at the end I came back and said, okay, there's there's like six things that I want to make sure are properly emphasized. I also want to make sure that there's not too much repetition, of course, that some, some repetition is really valuable, but, but as you probably know, we can overdo

Yeah,

And so you know, went through that process. Okay, let's take a look at the book as a whole, and pull out the repetition, but also here's like five or six concepts that I really want to drive home, and, and like one of them was that that the academia today, and and leadership today fundamentally misses that 95% of a person's daily actions are unconscious, and and that's a fatal flaw in the entire leadership industry, and AI supports this, and talks about how Harvard is missing it, Stanford is missing it, you know, and I said, well, let's drive that home. That's, that's, that's our key things that makes us way different than anything else. So, let's make sure that that is is driven home 20 times, and another one is, is I'm like, well, this gives you an edge in life, and that's an example of marketing, you know? I mean, it's a sound sort of marketing, but hey, it does give you an edge in life. I mean, so it could take that, you know, I didn't, I don't have the mental capability to articulate that nearly as well as AI could, and he could say it in a way that doesn't come off as barking. So,

Right, yep

It was pretty, pretty interesting, you know. I'll tell you something that happened this weekend that was interesting. So, one of my students from many years ago, got married, so the Ginge and I go to the wedding. It's here in Austin, and she, she was my assistant for a time, and when I met her, I had a little one on one visit with her, as I do all my students, and she tells me she wants to be a physician's assistant. I'm thinking, why do you want to be an assistant? You know, yeah, if you want to be a physician, be a physician, but I just didn't like that limiting thing, and. And and not that there's anything wrong with being a physician's assistant, but, but you know, she's she was 19 years old, and and so what, what evolved ultimately was she saw that she really didn't want to be a physician's assistant, and after she learned our methodology, she became a counselor, which is really, you know, along her wheelhouse, and so, but it was funny. So, we're, we're there at the wedding, we don't know anybody but but the bride and groom, and the, and the mom. I'd met the mom before, and so the Ginge and I are there, of course. Ginge, as you well know, loves small talk.

She does. She's the queen of

I hate smoke.

Just got the gift for Gab.

She has talking there, you know, anybody she can find that looked like they're halfway awake. She's, she's talking to

I love it

And I'm just, I'm just standing there, and but I'm really observing of people, and so I'm, I'm observing. I hope this doesn't sound too sexist, but I know you know

It's going to, you just set the framework, so we already are already know it is going to be. So

Here we go.

Okay,

Here we go

On alert, a sexism alert.

Simple. I'm looking now. Can you bet my most of the crowd is in their 20s, and then you have like the parent side, who are you know, probably 60 5060 something like that, so that's the dynamics of what you have going, and I'm looking at those, the girls, and and the girls either are alone or they're with a boyfriend, now if they're with the boyfriend, the girls are they're like at the Super Bowl, they're like, boy, I'll tell you, this is, I want this to happen for me, and I got this slug right next to me that he needs to step up, you know, I mean, she's she is locked in on this, she's happy for her friend, but, but you know this,

Yeah,

This is it. This is, or you know, making me aware that this thing needs to happen, and of course the guy is thinking, God, when are they going to have the cake, that's bullets. extent of what he's thinking.

Emily, they're like, "When does the bar open up? Yeah,

Yeah, yeah, that's as deep as their thing. They're not thinking about the rest of their life and fighting their, their, their partner in life, and and then you have the single girls, and, and I look at them, and, and you know, and I'm like, okay, okay. Well, how are you gonna, how are you gonna find somebody? They have no clue, they have no clue at all, no plan. They, they're not even clear what they're looking for. They, they have no idea of how they're going to do it. They're just like 99% of people just winging it, hoping for the best. And, and then you look at the, the parents, and I sort of look at them, and I'm like, hmm, you know, they're by and large winging life too, they, because nobody, nobody really taught people how to lead themselves, they so everybody wings it, and that's just the effect, and obviously some of them are more successful than others, and I'm thinking, well, well, what, what made them successful or not successful? Well, if, if you're not leading yourself, largely it's luck. Largely, it's it's luck. Now, there's some factors, like how you were raised, yo, maybe your parents made you hard working and and some of it is genetics and and all that, but but I guess it's that combination of luck and genetics that that creates whatever has has come forth. You think that's an accurate estimate of what goes on with people.

I think so. I think there's probably more to it than that, but I think that that's a good generalization. If you're sitting there observing people in groups at a wedding and looking at it from that lens, then then yeah, and if you just sort of. Looking at it too, in terms of just the statistics we talk about, where you've got 2% of people. Well, yeah, then that means that most of the people, regardless of what their age are, are just winging it, you know what I mean? Yeah, right. And so, yeah,

Well, and the other thing that's interesting is that that 2% also is, is the people that are, are basically highly successful. I mean, you know, I mean, and that's not all money by any means. It's, you know, let's, let's define successes as having having adequate money, but, but even more important, what's your relationship with yourself? Which, what's your relationship with your spouse? Do you have a partner to share your life with? And, and when you really look at it, only 2% can really say they have the exceptional life, and, and I had no clue about that when I was in college, and neither do any of my students, and so I think it is eye opening. I'm not sure they believe me yet, but I'm like, yeah, you keep on winging life, and you're going to get that average life,

And I think so to John, even more so today than ever, because they're, you know, what's happening with them, and the social media input on, you know, technology, and kind of what that is doing. I think also is, you know, training their brain, you know, to not think deeply about anything, to totally just wing it, to be looking externally instead of working on the little part and focusing on that, so like they've got even bigger challenges, you know, the generation that you're dealing with, you know, in in college, and then the generation after that have even more up against, you know, and also, too, I think you know, if you're looking at the different factors that are happening culturally, you know, it's the same thing. There are different obstacles than we had, you know, as we were, you know, coming up in technology, and I think social media being really been one of the main factors that they're, that they're, this makes this even more important, because they have the kind of the card stacked against them from a brain standpoint, they've got models and people making billions of dollars trying to train their brains to, you know, not think, so I think that's part of the challenge that we've got to with the youth, and I think part of maybe some of the disenchantment, you know, that they may be feeling about the world that they're beginning to engage with as young adults.

Right.

Yeah.

Well, you know, AI pointed out to me that everything in the leadership space is all conscious mind stuff that that you know you ought to have this strategy or that strategy, and but it's 100% conscious mind stuff, and as it points out very astutely, How can you have a a leadership of self model if you ignore the 95% of behavior that's unconscious, you can't, and, and so that's what's so to me, so stunning, that the entire leadership industry and academia misses it, but, but also the great opportunity for what we teach, so

Absolutely an excellent opportunity, and I just think, you know, using myself and everybody who's listening to this as an example. Listen, we've all, I mean, obviously everybody who's listening to this has a growth mindset, and you know, is in pursuit, you know, of something, and so we've all gone to the conference, we've all taken in new information that this is life changing, all conscious material strategies, tactics, things along those lines that we got for so excited about going in and implementing, and we did for a while of time. Yeah, and then all of a sudden, huh, you know, a month goes by and you're like, oh yeah, I was doing that, you know, yeah, I'm gonna be more, what happened, you know, and I think you know that is a real example of what it is that people are dealing with. We've all done that before, where you are so excited about learning something new, you implement it, you're implementing it with success for a window of time, and then something happens that throws you off track, so your old subconscious program, and then you're, you're, you know, it's a foregone conclusion, and you've stopped doing it, you know, and

Yeah,

I, for me, it was such a relief to understand. Oh, okay, so that's how my brain is designed, you know.

Yeah,

All then I need to do is put. Get a different input, and I'll get a different outcome, and so anyway, I know we've talked about this a million times, but that's what's so exciting about this is that you've got it gives you control over your, you know, over your daily actions and thoughts. Anyway,

Let's, that's that's the lesson today. You have to have clarity, and you have to have control over your thoughts and actions. So, until next time, we'll see you. Bye.