Years ago I watched an episode of the series ‘Prison Break’ and saw an interesting definition of intelligence. It went like this:

Intelligence is just how sensible one person is to a specific type of stimulus.

Different people have different sensibilities: to math, to music or painting, to closing deals or seducing women, to listening to people. Or to accepting fear or to filtering reality adequately.

Some things seem very natural to you, right? And others you just can’t figure out no matter the effort!

Are our minds designed to process different types of inputs differently?

I like the above definition of intelligence because it could explain:

1/ why lots of people who seem like geniuses in certain areas often do extremely poorly in others

2/ people which are seen as successful are often those which seem well-rounded, but without being considered geniuses in anything specifically.

That math wiz that can’t handle dates or that fantastic sales guy who has a hard time dealing with his kids.

In the end it feels like we have 100 pieces of “intelligence” that needs to be distributed across skills, like in those RPG games. And some people have 150 pieces and still end up fucking things up.

BUT…

Now onto a tweet storm which prompted me to dig this ‘Prison Break’ episode from ages ago and do some writing here. I found it spot on and decided to steal it from the author:

Intelligence is the capacity for learning. Successful people are the best learners. Measure learning across time & you measure success.

— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 16, 2017

Succesful people don't focus on "being successful". They focus on learning and improving their skills and abilities across their domain.

— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 16, 2017

Ability is just a word. So is talent. So is skills. Learning is a process, a mindset, a way of living. That makes all the difference.

— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 16, 2017

Conor's coach has this great quote : "Win or Learn". You are not here to prove competence, but to pursue it. That is the meta-goal.

— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 16, 2017

Pehaps no other notion has been so fiercely co-opted by marketers and ad men than the notion of what constitutes success.

— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 16, 2017

The true metric of success is a dynamic metric (constant learning), but most are sold on a static metric ($$$, status, achievement, etc.)

— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 17, 2017

A static metric is the measure of outcome, a dynamic metric measures performance, and ultimately success depends on great performance.

— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 17, 2017

People tend to judge success in themselves and others by evaluating outcomes. This turns out to hinder their success rather than enable it.

— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 17, 2017

The psychological reason behind this is simple: You examine a static quality (one single outcome) rather than a dynamic one (performance).

— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 17, 2017

When we focus on outcome that focus comes at the expense of focus on process, or performance, which is the only variable within our control.

— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 17, 2017

The best predictor of high performance is the propensity or desire for, learning. Those who focus on learning become high performers.

— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 17, 2017

Without an inner drive to learn one simply does it in a utilitarian fashion; again the focus is the outcome of learning, not learning itself

— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 17, 2017

This is where incentive, motivation, and the emotional dimension of goals and desires comes into play. Learning done for it's own sake.

— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 17, 2017

Out of curiosity, how do you measure learning over time Mr. Mircea?

— Andrew Ruiz (@then_there_was) June 23, 2017

Fundamentally the measure of change is the measure of learning. As long as you are learning it is impossible not to change. pic.twitter.com/5GibG8p9zc

— Mr. Mircea (@mistermircea) June 24, 2017