Discovering Your Intelligence

Thoughts and Advice on Thinking
and Intelligence

From the Research and Writings of Thomas Ganey

I.

How you think about thinking and intelligence will markedly influence the power of your mind . . . You can make a gigantic difference in your life depending on how you apply your intelligence . . . It’s a good thing to examine your history and ask yourself if anywhere in your schooling you learned how to think . . . In American education, the typical graduate at any level has neither a developed concept of intelligence nor the full range of mental habits required of the intelligent person.

II.

Before all else, be actively aware of the nature of your own mind . . . Possibilities for achievement emerge when you realize that your mind is almost always taxed moderately compared with its potential . . . Know that your attitude and intentions are no small part of your mindpower . . . To have a good mind is to use it well.

III.

It is a fact everywhere renewed in lively evidence that the intellect is spiderlike in nature, a connective consciousness . . . You enrich your creativity immeasurably if you act on an awareness that everything is something else besides . . . If you would perceive creatively, regard reality as an inkblot.

IV.

One who is supremely perceptive is supremely creative: the mind invents in order to discover . . . Spontaneity is the soul of creativity . . . The original mind is open to everything.

V.

The person with a closed mind has closed down his or her intelligence . . . Open-mindedness is a frame of mind you must choose . . . Every significant event in life offers a lesson in intelligence . . . Watch and appreciate how intelligent people think . . . No school accomplishes its work unless it brings the student to an appreciation of the power of the intelligent mind.

VI.

Your mind cannot produce an idea you have not prepared it to yield . . . Ally yourself with physical conditions that stimulate your mind’s productivity . . . Keep an awareness that intelligence is a habit of the whole body . . . Energize your mindpower with good sleep and physical exercise.

VII.

While many accomplished geniuses are born with tremendous capabilities, most achieve real excellence through intellectual habits they purposely develop.

VIII.

What does it mean to “discover your intelligence”? It means you learn what really makes a difference in your power to think . . . Connect, connect, connect—actively connect idea with idea, because the mind is an associative organ that flourishes in making connections . . . Mindpower is established not only in the intellect but also in the will. How you opt to use your mind is crucial.

IX.

An active awareness of your own thinking is the first requisite of a superior intelligence . . . An important step in advancing your mindpower is to question popular notions of intelligence familiar in the schools, the media, and society . . . To gain a genuine concept of intelligence, you must resist notions that equate intelligence with a superior IQ, a perfect memory, speedy thinking, winning debates, or always having the right answer, none of which alone constitutes the authentic article.

X.

The popular understanding of intelligence is deficient mainly because it is unduly influenced by the concept of IQ . . . IQ tests imply a definition of intelligence that has limited application in life . . . Your intelligence is always an open possibility—it is fluid and is not frozen at a level designated by your IQ.

XI.

The existence and use of timed tests may wrongly suggest to people that quickness is everywhere a virtue in thinking . . . In most intellectual matters, speed is the enemy of thinking things through; quick is the enemy of thorough . . . Not measured in intelligence tests is any sort of extended thinking that may demand patience, perspiration, and pains.

XII.

Within the halls of schools where memory is stressed, an implicit goal of instruction is to produce something resembling the answer-smart brain . . . A good memory does not ensure an apt mind . . . A prodigious memory is freakish in people who are otherwise foolish.

XIII.

A little-heeded attribute of intelligence is the will to pursue a thought through all its obscure passageways . . . To be an effective thinker is to suspect a hazard at every corner . . . Deciding any issue, do not ever come to a conclusion until you strictly ask yourself, “How do I know that I know?”

XIV.

Logic in everyday life is a matter of intellectual character because it depends on an honest pursuit of the whole truth . . . No judgment can really be logical that is unfair . . . The intelligent mind is fair precisely because it is objective, which is to say it considers every issue from multiple points of view . . . If you would be objective, develop the art of counterthinking . . . Correct your logic by inviting thoughts hostile to your belief.

XV.

The two rules of intelligent discussion are, “Seek truth and be cooperative” . . . A big test of your mindpower is whether you can remain objective in a discussion when others decidedly are not . . . Notice in your life how intelligence involves a considerable amount of magnanimity.

XVI.

In ordinary discussion and debate, no one is a superb reasoner who is not also eminently reasonable . . . Reasonableness is a more important attribute of intelligence than wit . . . To be reasonable in debate, dispel your eagerness to win.

XVII.

Some people would rather be told they are ugly than be told they are wrong . . . Someone may have a good moral character but a bad intellectual character . . . It is an excellent practice to qualify just about any thought you are tempted to announce as an absolute . . . By all means learn not to believe everything you think.

XVIII.

Don’t fancy yourself more intelligent than you are merely because you are said to be smart . . . The properly educated person understands why being intelligent is wider and deeper than being smart . . . Intelligence is not a single ability nor an isolated power but a range of powers combining synergetically.

XIX.

You do not understand what intelligence is unless you comprehend it as a discipline you enforce in your behavior . . . No one is intelligent who is a low-energy thinker because intelligence in life is established in acts . . . More than something you possess, intelligence is something you habitually accomplish.

XX.

When your powers of intelligence are applied constructively, they reveal themselves plainly in your habits of thinking, as in openness and objectivity and exactness . . . It is not enough to have a good mind; intelligence is established in use and is a complex habit . . . Schools and colleges need to realign their curricula to provide genuine training and exercise in the habits of intelligence . . . Applied intelligence, like English or math, should be a discipline to itself in the curriculum.

XXI.

Make the effort to discover on your own what you were not taught in school about the mind, thinking, and intelligence . . . Leverage your thinking by allying yourself with the nature of the mind itself . . . A special capability of the mind is that it may prompt itself to gain ideas it would not otherwise have . . . With discipline and ready strategies, you can excite the recessed, secretive sources of your consciousness.

XXII.

To generate the idea you need, give your mind a challenge: the popularity of puzzles is proof positive that the intellect thrives on challenges . . . Always applying target awareness, spot the hidden challenge to your thinking in every situation . . . Remember that what you see depends on what you look for . . . To see something in a different way, perhaps an entirely new way, revise the usual vocabulary others apply to it.

XXIII.

Realize the abiding wizardry of your mind as you seize opportunities to stretch its powers to the limit . . . Just by initiating mental action you can jump-start the generative power of your mind . . . Overproduce—generate more ideas than the one you need, so to discover the one that serves best.

XXIV.

A particular advantage of thinking as an activity which is never noted because it is obvious—which, still, is crucial to intelligence—is that you can think and come back to it, think and come back to it . . . until you have the very thought you require.

XXV.

When you don’t get it right the first time, consider in that circumstance the value of the rich wrong answer . . . Accidental discoveries arise when perceptive thinkers spot unexpected opportunities . . . An idea has a superb chance of prospering when the originator regards it as a continuing construction . . . Stretched-out ingenuity is the prime method of invention.

XXVI.

Ingenuity is the result of successive moments of inspiration . . . The mind creates new ideas by making connections in a sequence of progressive discovery . . . Great achievements in thought are accomplished rather more by progressive discovery than by instant full insight . . . Quick thinking never made a profound theory.

XXVII.

Inspired thinkers bring into play their own physical and mental conditions for inspiration . . . Just as the spider spins its web out of itself, genuine thinking grows entirely from within the person’s own mind . . . To say that the intelligent mind is genuine is to say that it is in every way original even when it draws an idea from somewhere else: it makes every idea its own . . . Your thinking cannot be genuine unless you trust your mind before all others.

XXVIII.

Retain your own separate attitude concerning the requirements of intelligence . . . Set a superior standard for the performance of your mind . . . Insist that your intelligence make a difference in your life . . . Keep an awareness that in your life and work few things are more valuable to you than your intelligence.

XXIX.

Remember that none of your “smarts” in isolation deserves the name of intelligence . . . The surest way to measure your intelligence is to check its positive and negative results in your life . . . As your mind becomes habitually more active through an effort of will, you are certain to enhance your effective intelligence, which is mindpower gauged by its affirmative outcomes.

XXX.

Because intelligence is not wholly a gift but is learned, you may stretch your mindpower beyond its apparent limits, enlarge it to an unexpected degree, maximize it.