Арсен Аветисов – The Power of Narrative Intelligence. Enhancing your mind’s potential. The art of understanding, influencing and acting (страница 2)

Perhaps when the most curious of the apes climbed down from the trees and began to walk on two limbs, this freed up their upper limbs. The proponents of the theory of evolution argue that the autonomy of the upper limbs contributed to the ability to engage in active work. Labour, allegedly, made a man out of an ape, as the founders of Marxism also claimed. But today, having free hands does not necessarily contribute to active work, or they are not used in the way intended at the beginning of the journey. All this is a little alarming about the prospects for further human evolution.

There is another hypothesis that walking on two limbs contributed to the increase in blood flow to the brain. Since moving on four legs requires more energy and increased blood flow to them, moving on two legs made it possible to redistribute blood flow more effectively and significantly increase the ability to supply the brain with energy for thinking.

The brain uses an amazing amount of energy for its work, and a constant and sufficient blood flow not only has led to the supply of energy to the brain, but also, accordingly, has delivered more biological building matter, which also contributed to its anatomical development. Ultimately, humans possess the highest brain-to-body weight ratio among mammals. To be fair, it should be noted that the ratio is almost the same in mice, thus the surface area of the cerebral cortex is crucial.

Due to the need for constant energy replenishment, the life of primitive man consisted of endless movements, aimed at finding and supplying the body with calories for both physical activities and mental processes. The surrounding world was full of ill-wishers and competitors. But man did not become an intermediate link in the food chain for the surrounding species. The brain allowed him to create weapons for defence and attack, to subordinate his movement to strategy, to consider circumstances and plan changes, to form up in battle order or to retreat in an organised manner. And not only that.

The term intelligence comes from the Latin language and means understanding. This term refers not only to the general abilities of a person to know and understand, but also to the ability to solve problems, achieve goals, and everything that is currently associated with the effectiveness and success of an individual.

In the process of intelligence research, numerous tests have been developed to assess human intelligence. The most well-known among them is the IQ (intelligence quotient). It includes such abilities as goal setting, planning, developing strategies, learning, and applying abstract concepts. Today, it is obvious that this indicator does not fully describe the capabilities of an individual, let alone their implementation in life. Success in life, just like the scores you receive on the test itself, depends on many other factors. Even on nutrition: in developing countries, the introduction of dietary supplements with iodine helped raise IQ. What can be said for sure is that IQ tests demonstrate the ability to pass these very tests.

Continuing their research, scientists and theorists came to the conclusion that describing just one type of intelligence is not enough to understand the whole picture of the brain’s capabilities. A theory of multiple intelligences, with almost a dozen different kinds of intelligences, has been suggested. Depending on which functional quality is more developed in a person, that type of intelligence dominates the personality. Consequently, the use and development of this particular type of intelligence simplifies the realisation of the individual in the appropriate professional environment.

The founder of this theory is Howard Gardner, who proposed a line of six types of intelligence. Later, this line was expanded. Among the intelligences are: linguistic – an expressed ability to write or speak a language, logical-mathematical – the ability to remember and operate with numbers, musical – the ability to understand, feel and handle rhythms and timbres, visual-spatial – showing the ability to navigate in space, and also naturalistic, kinaesthetic, social, personal. Probably, with the expansion of forms of employment and areas of human activity, we can expect an increase in the number of these types. But, regardless of what domain a person is engaged in, there are some abilities that are necessary every day and on which one’s life and fate really depend.

The first is intelligence itself, scored in IQ: to perceive, understand, remember, reflect, plan, and solve problems.

The second is emotional intelligence (EI), a.k.a. emotional quotient (EQ): the ability to understand and manage your own and other people’s emotions while solving problems.

The third is narrative intelligence (NI): a set of abilities to determine and understand your own and other people’s behaviour, to influence it while solving problems.

Most of the knowledge, research, and literature exists on intelligence and IQ, to a lesser extent – on EQ, and scattered and non-systematic information – on NI. The latter, possibly, because most people benefit from the formula: ‘He who knows, does not speak. He who speaks, does not know.’

EQ: Who Controls Emotions, Controls the World

Why is emotional intelligence so                      important for business?

Just as the mode of the rational mind is words, the mode

of the emotions is nonverbal. ― Daniel Goleman

A famous businessman once joked that we use emotional intelligence when, if it is impossible to sell, there is at least an opportunity to seduce. But seriously, the peculiarity of this intelligence lies in the very definition of emotion.

Emotion is a mental process that shows our subjective evaluation of the present or possible situation. The key word in this definition is 'subjective’. Many of us sometimes confuse the concepts of feeling and emotion. Feeling is a combination of thought and emotion, and even something more than their wordless compound.

The use of emotions to actively influence the environment, in its essence, is an irrational influence. But, on the other hand, it is efficient, clear, and does not require developing complex algorithms, in-depth analysis, or calculations. Often a single glance conveys more information than a few hundred words or a string of numbers.

The fact is that working with the rational part of consciousness, conclusions, along with clarity and logic, has, accordingly, a downside. Such processes, due to their linearity and consistency, are extremely slow. The quality of results of such intellectual work depends on many factors, both innate and acquired, including vocabulary, education, and upbringing. Therefore, thought can be compared to the strategy of a certain general staff, and emotion can be compared to tactics directly on the front line.

We are convinced: in order to manage something, it is necessary to control something. Control is understanding of what is happening and what needs to be done to make something different happen. We strive to control everything we can imagine and measure. But the fact is that such a rational approach to controlling the irrational, in this case emotions, has its own peculiarities.

The task of emotional intelligence is not to indulge in control, in the usual sense of this process, but to focus on understanding the experience. In order to be aware of emotions, they must initially be felt, experienced, but this does not imply following them. We need to follow our goals and needs, which often diverge from the direction that our emotions show us. Either we control our emotions, or they control us.

Using emotional intelligence allows you to purposefully influence and draw attention to what it is necessary for. The amount of information that enters the brain through all channels in one second is approximately 11 million bits. Mental activity processes only about 50 bits. Because there is so much incoming information, we focus on the main things, and many reactions or decisions are executed in the background of the brain. In turn, the brain itself, in order to create a representative image for us, gets rid of more incoming data and uses data that is already available and exists in it. And in this competition of priorities, only emotions indicate to us what is really worth paying attention to, which contributes to the consolidation of incoming information in memory.

We believe that emotions focus our attention on things or events that are our priority. But emotions are just as likely to focus attention on the priorities that are presented to us by our surroundings. Through emotions, bypassing rational consciousness, we have access to more ancient brain structures. This allows us to control our behaviour by paying attention to how desires emerge. And this gives an opportunity to influence the behaviour of a person as a consumer. Who owns the attention, owns the market. Who owns the market, owns the world. Through attention, we can control the world. Attention is capitalised.