The Ultimate Guide To
Increasing Your Intelligence, Part 2 Of 2
In this part two of this series, we’ll look even closer at
what the best of the best do to become smarter. Increasing your intelligence
doesn’t have to feel like lifting a freight train – It can be quite
straightforward with the right battle plan!
9. Use Your Existing Leadership Skills
As most children go through primary school
and possibly higher education, the number of people who gradually influence
them reaches the tens of thousands. Parents, teachers and peers alike often ask
questions about what an individual will pursue after education; what kind of
life they hope to live; what their financial goals are and even more. What few
people afford attention to early on, however, is the art and science of becoming a leader.
Leadership is a paramount objective
throughout the entire world. Leaders help solve problems faster, more
efficiently, produce better results and assign people more fluidly to their
ideal roles. Sometimes people work towards leadership-oriented titles; other
times people find themselves chosen to run a group. No matter what situation
you’ve found yourself in, one fact is sure: High quality leadership training
materials still aren’t widely distributed enough.
In order to become the best leader you can
be, it requires learning from the greats at some point. However, what most
people continually overlook is the fact that every day, individuals already exhibit
leadership actions. Leadership is defined as anyone who holds influence. So
yes, it’s true: Not everyone is a fantastic leader (at least not today), but
everyone can sharpen
leadership skills with the right mindset.
Leadership forces you to be better at solving
problems because you’re required to take responsibility. Leadership
invariably means you’ll be on the front lines, calling the shots for the
betterment of your group. Leadership – often synonymous with sacrifice – builds
a more intelligent person from the inside out.
8. Pick Sides
Yes, yes, I know; this can sound like a way
to start a fight rather than how to become more intelligent. But what we rarely
give attention to is the fact that picking a side on an issue forces us to
think critically about a situation.
As one example, while picking a political movement to side with is often the cause of many arguments, this exercise
can truly help you think in the bigger picture about an issue. Should
recreational drugs be decriminalized or generally remain as they are? It can
seem like a fairly innocuous question, but when picking a side and defending
it, you force yourself to research information that will either support or
detract from your stance.
In other words, picking a side on a topic
requires that you increase your level of knowledge about the topic in the first
place. Life is too short to live it with purely uneducated opinions, so
discovering new info on a passionate topic can literally alter your knowledge –
and intelligence – about the subject.
7. Seek Out The Opposite Of What Most Others Do
This is another observation that may sound
rather ridiculous on the surface, but holds incredible wisdom at second glance.
It’s no secret that many of the greatest names in personal development and
financial success often preach unorthodox methods. Tony Robbins, Jim Rohn,
Robert Kiyosaki, Zig Ziglar, Dale Carnegie, Napoleon Hill, Gary Vaynerchuck, Og
Mandino and hundreds of others have all spoken on this point at one time or
another: Master the art of non-conformity.
The reason nearly half of Americans cannot
come up with a few hundred dollars for
an emergency expense shows one thing for sure: Doing what most people do is a
surefire way to end up in mediocrity. Such a sad truth can act as fuel for
victory when used in the proper context.
From now on, every time you’re presented with
a common problem, ask yourself: “What would most people do in this situation?”
Then, consider the opposite. For example, many people find themselves in the
doctor’s office year after year because their weight problems have slowly caused
other problems. Americans especially seem to still have fairly high reliance on
doctors, and with current food consumption patterns, this will not be going
away any time soon.
Instead of merely going to your doctor and
following the same path as everyone else, what if you took a few minutes a day
to do your own research? Life is rarely chunked into disparate boxes, meaning
the cause of one problem might be related to another. Taking the time to
examine the cause of a specific problem, rather than simply going through the
motions that everyone else does, can yield incredible problem-solving rewards
you may have never experienced before.
6. Apply Grant Cardone’s 10X Rule
Sales expert and author Grant Cardone
published The
10X Rule in 2011, and this book went on to
become one of the most popular books for entrepreneurs in recent memory. In
essence, Cardone shares – through many of his own prior struggles and pitfalls
– that success requires 10 times more effort than most people anticipate.
Intelligence grows when you use desire to apply far more effort than you
initially dreamed possible!
5. Increase The Agility Of Your Unconscious Thought
Every day we spend time in conscious thought.
Yet what most don’t realize is the vast
majority of your thoughts are unconscious! As
explained by Charles Duhigg in The
Power Of Habit, your body works efficiently on your
habits so as to minimize effort in all scenarios.
This means that in order to maximize one’s intelligence,
you should apply effort towards increasing the agility of your unconscious
thought. How is this done? Don’t
block emotionally challenging thoughts, and
don’t run away from obstacles in general. Overcoming a problem with your
conscious thought is a sign you’ll be able to do it more effectively in the
future.
4. Hone Your Emotional Intelligence
As a particularly prominent buzzphrase of the
past decade, “emotional intelligence” really does matter. Despite it only being
a recent label for a set of characteristics that’s been around for much longer,
EI, or EQ, is often the sole make-or-break factor in whether or not someone
will become successful.
Fostering and growing
emotional intelligence is typically
grueling, but essential. Being aware of and managing your own emotions
requires great focus and a boatload of patience, but it does pay off. Practicing
delayed gratification is perhaps the single greatest method
for increasing your emotional intelligence.
3. Become Skilled At List Making
Even in
addition to the science, list making remains
one of the most practical things you can do to
boost your memory, keep track of all your valuable ideas
and stay productive – even during bad days. Always, always,always remain
stocked up on pens and notepads – These are cheap materials anyways and it’s
worth it!
2. Master The Abstract
Being able to see people, events and concepts
for what they are is a valuable skill, but being able to master the abstract is
an entirely different skill set. Richard Branson recommends
listening – and doing so with great intent – as
the number one way to master the abstract sides of life. He views it as a way
to gather elements of a conversation, presentation or event you’d otherwise be
oblivious to.
1. Remember To Enjoy Life And Take Breaks
Finally, remember that taking it easy now and
then is one of the best ways to increase your intelligence! We are emotional,
pleasure-driven creatures at the end of the day. We can’t work optimally unless
we are able to balance
work with rest. Hundreds of studies already illustrate
how upholding
sleep and rest is essential for your body to work
properly. Enjoy the breaks you take, because it’s what allows you to focus that
much more intensely when you are working!
BRAD JOHNSON
http://www.lifehack.org/410822/the-ultimate-guide-to-increasing-your-intelligence-part-2-of-2
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