What is Intentional Intelligence

I have named this blogsite, ( is that what its called?) Intentional Intelligence. In my recent readings, I have understood this term to be relative to my own life as follows.

Intentional Intelligence, or II as i will refer to it from now on, is the practice of focusing one's thoughts towards success with any given goal in your life. For me, it is defined a bit differently, and has more to do with curiosity. I pursue II daily, in that i try to learn something new every day. These lessons are many and varied, similar to the days that we all live. The lessons may be interpersonal, a mechanical skill ( which is one of my personal favorites, as you will soon see) or something else.

This is the intentional portion of the name. It is fairly literal i suppose. Much like the more mainstream definition of II, it refers to actually trying to do something. I intentionally look each day for the lesson it will hold. I try to seek it out as i go about my business, asking questions, listening ( to both my elders and those who arent) and practicing skills that I am honing.

The Intelligence portion of the name has a few different facets. First there is what i call detective or research intelligence. These are facts, tidbits, funny jokes, myths, and so on. They are more like things that could be written down and stored away than like things that could be practiced. The proper spelling of a word, a conversion table from measurement x to measurement y, things of this nature fall into research intelligence.

The second portion of intelligence to me are skills. This seems obvious, but skill intelligence is those things that a person learns to DO. Skill intelligence can be practiced, honed, refined, and possibly never perfected. Some of the skill intelligence that interests me most is parenting, my relationships with people, my golf game, and my welding ability.

The last portion of intelligence is the most common definition i think. I will call it learning ability for lack of a better term, if anyone has a better term, feel free to let me know, i really dont like this one. In any case, learning ability refers to the training of the mind in the areas of creativity, focus, determination, problem solving, empathy, and all of those other touchy-feely things that we all could stand to work more on.

And such will be the common thread of these postings. I intend to share with you my daily pursuit of Intentional Intelligence. I will share those things that I think would make anybody more capable in our lives, as I find them, and welcome any ideas you may have.

Perpetually learning,
Greg