← THE ED MYLETT SHOW
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- [00:00]
Ed Mylett
So hey guys, listen, we're all trying to get more productive and the question is, how do you find a way to get an edge? I'm a big believer that if you're getting mentoring or you're in an environment that causes growth, a growth based environment that you're much more likely to grow and you're going to grow faster. And that's why I love Growth Day. Growth Day is an app that my friend Brendan Burchard has created that I'm a big fan of. Write this down growthday.com forward/ed. So if you want to be more productive, by the way, he's asked me, I post videos in there every single Monday that gets your day off to the right start. Got about $5,000, $10,000 worth of courses that are in there that come with the app. Also, some of the top influencers in the world are all posting content in there on a regular basis, like having the avengers of personal development and business in one app. And I'm honored that he asked me to be a part of it as well and contribute on a weekly basis. And I do. So go over there and get signed up. You're going to get a free tuition, free voucher to go to an event with Brendan and myself and a bunch of other influencers as well. So you get a free event out of it also. So go to growthday.com that's growthday.com Ed.
- [01:04]
Unknown
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- [01:44]
Ed Mylett
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- [02:19]
Howard Gardner
This is the Ed.
- [02:25]
Ed Mylett
All right everybody, welcome back to the show. I'm so excited about today's episode. Because let me tell you how it usually works. Typically, folks send me their books, and I scale through hundreds of books to decide who I want to have on the show. This situation is different today. This man's work has impacted me personally very deeply for a long period of time, and I've been reading his work. And so I told my producer about six months ago, I said, I want Howard Gardner on the show if we can find this man and if he's willing to do it. And we found him, and he's willing to do it, and he's here today, and so I'm very, very grateful. Howard is a renowned developmental psychologist, probably best known for his theory of multiple intelligences, which is the work that affected me most. But he's also got a couple paired books out right now called the Essential Howard Gardner on Mind. It's sort of a collection of all of his work you can get, or some of his work, rather, and a couple different books. And we're going to talk about all of his work today. But today is really going to explain you to you maybe better than you've ever heard before. And so probably my favorite author walking the planet today, his works affected me the most. Howard Gardner, welcome to the show.
- [03:38]
Howard Gardner
Wow. Well, that's a daunting introduction. I appreciate it. And, yeah, I would like to give people a sense of who I am, where I'm coming from, what I've done in my work, and what lies ahead. I have written over 30 books and probably 1000 articles. No one is ever going to be foolish enough to even assemble these things, let alone digest them. And my mother is deceased. So a few years ago, I said, let's put together the best of my thinking and writing in two volumes. And one of them is focused in education, the other more broadly in my own understanding of the mind. And I'm happy to convey as much of that as I can with Ed leading the way.
- [04:24]
Ed Mylett
If I'm leading the way, we're in big trouble, I got to tell you that. But we'll. I'll do what I can today to hang in there with you. I mean, this everybody, this man's work is so profound. Let's start with sort of the basis, if you don't mind, because we could. If I had 20 hours with you, I could fill it up with questions that I have for you. And I think the audience knows they can feel the difference sometimes when. When someone's works really deeply impacted me. This idea of multiple intelligences, I think, is so important because so many people through traditional education, which you know a lot about. If they don't fit into a particular box or think a particular way, they just feel like they don't have a lot to offer the world. They get stamped as a young person is not bright or not intelligent. And you put forth the theory. I'd like you to just share the basics of that. First, that there are multiple. I'll call them geniuses in my way, or gifts that people have, and not all of them are the same, so I'll let you take the floor on it. But hang on, everybody. This for your kids, for you, for the future of you developing and recruiting leadership in your businesses. This is going to help you a great deal. What are the multiple intelligences?
- [05:29]
Howard Gardner
Okay, well, I'm going to give a bit of context. Scholars didn't take the word intelligence seriously as something that could be measured until about a century ago, when a French psychologist named Binet put together a set of questions. And it was really the first intelligence test. And if you lived in Paris and you had 45 minutes and you were sitting with a kid in front of you and you asked him a bunch of questions and you saw how well the child did, you could give him a number. And we call that the iq. And for its purposes and its time, it was quite an invention. And I have respect for Alfred Binet for having done that. But once you begin to think about it, you realize that the mind and the brain are very complicated entities. And my big insight, which came in the early 1980s, was that if you thought of the mind and brain as a single computer, then if you were good in one thing, you'd be good in everything. If you were average in one thing, you'd be average in everything. And if you didn't do well in one thing, you'd be a dummy in a sense. We all know this intuitively, and many of us use the word talent. But talent, when it's opposed to intelligence, kind of says, well, intelligence is what's important. But I happen to be talented at playing poker or at fixing windows or what I did, and what my critics have never really taken seriously, is I did five years of research with a whole research team, put together the book that Ed referred to called Frames of mind. It's over 400 pages, and it's got hundreds of references. And now I'm going to answer your question. If you thought that intelligence was one thing, then basically you're implying there's one computer in the head. The breakthrough that I made was to hypothesize that there were several computers. And if your musical computer was good, it told absolutely nothing about whether your computer for understanding other people was good or if you were good in finding your way around an unfamiliar territory. That said nothing about whether you would be good in understanding yourself. So at the time, in 1983, I posited seven different intelligences. A decade later, I added one, which shows you I'm pretty conservative. And now, 42 years later, I think there might be one or two others. But it's less important whether I picked the right number and gave them the right names. What's really important is the fact that somebody is strong in something or weak in something simply doesn't predict whether you'll be strong or weak in anything else. That's the theory of multiple intelligences in a nutshell. For extra credit, those of you who are really in the business of taking a speaker very seriously. My colleagues and I recently posted a blog called who Owns Intelligence? And we talk about the work that I originally did 40 years ago in positing or so intelligences. But we go on in this essay to talk about the intelligence of animals and artificial intelligence. So if I had another 40 years, Ed, the next frames of mine would include birds and chimpanzees and various kinds of plants, which can signal whether there's something dangerous in the environment so the other plants can avoid it. And, of course, what everybody's talking about now, Pacific AI and general AI.
- [09:16]
Ed Mylett
Luckily for us, we have at least 40 more minutes, and that's a good thing because, you know, everybody, I. This IQ thing, I have a speech hour that I give on the road when I make fun of myself. I talk about in my own household of my wife and two children. I'm fourth out of four in an IQ test. And, you know, I feel really strongly about this. I feel like if people would have been exposed to your work more broadly, I think a lot of lives would have turned out differently. So many people are stamped in their youth as, you know, not special or not smart. I remember even as a young man, my. In our family, there's not a lot of very mechanically inclined people. You know, we're just not any good. I can't fix a light bulb. And I remember as a young man thinking, my gosh, you know, that guy must not be very bright. You know, he fixes cars or engines. And as I got older, I went, oh, my gosh, that man's got a form of intelligence that I don't possess. And just because it's different than mine doesn't mean it's not special. And I want you to fill in the blanks for me here, though, a little bit, if you would. We have linguistic intelligence. We have linguistic. We have musical intelligence. We have logical and mathematical. We have spatial, bodily, and kinesthetic. What are the ones that I'm missing beyond those?
- [10:27]
Howard Gardner
Okay, well, that was. That was a good rendition. And just to fill in a little background, the IQ test basically looks at language and logical math. And if you're good at using language, reading, writing, doing crossword puzzles and. Or you're good in chess and in Go and in other games that involve logic or mathematics, you'll do well in the IQ test. And I joke, as long as you simply stay in school and try to get into Mensa, you'll be okay. But if, as you say, your washing machine breaks down or you get lost while you're in downtown Boston, which just happens to me after 60 years, or if you have to understand how to make sense of somebody with whom you're having a negotiation or even talking to on the podcast, or if something happens to you and you can't really understand its impact on you, those are different kinds of intelligence, and we can all be helped. There's no question that if you know that you're deficient in intelligence, the right kinds of scaffolding can help you. But frankly, I think it's better to have a relationship with somebody who has complementary kind of intelligence. And then when they're stuck with a crossroad puzzle, you can help them. Or where they can't recognize one tune from another, you can help them. And if an intelligence test had been developed in China three or 4,000 years ago, it would have been much more about morality and ethics and knowing how to relate to other people. And they wouldn't care if you could do a crossword puzzle. And here's the big issue. This is going to take another podcast. What do we do with education in 21st century? Why teach people geography when this thing I'm holding in my hand can find anywhere? I don't have the answer to that question, but at least I know that that question we have to raise.
- [12:24]
Ed Mylett
I'm going to make you do this. Still, though, what intelligences did I miss? Because I want the parents to hear this. I. I just feel like this. Parents listening to this or people that are running a company, if you looked at your child, maybe they don't do great at math. That doesn't mean they're not intelligent. Maybe they got an unbelievable linguistic intelligence. It was probably one of Mine perhaps. Right. I wasn't great at math or geography. Or, or, or are they more musical or the spatial. I assume bodily kinesthetic is sort of an athlete, or could be an athlete, sure.
- [12:53]
Howard Gardner
It could be a dancer. It could be somebody who knows how to maneuver either their body or the body moving through space, which is unfamiliar. I just had my exercise for the day and I'm glad I have a very good PT person because she has a lot more bodily kinesthetic intelligence than I do. But to answer your question, there are two forms of personal intelligence. One is interpersonal intelligence. How you understand other people, how you can work with them, cooperate with them, give them help when they need it, and so on. Then intrapersonal intelligence is understanding yourself, your strengths, your weaknesses, the kinds of things that could go wrong, the kinds of abilities you have which should be helpful. I think we've just run through the initial seven. I'll recap them. Linguistic, logical, mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily, kinesthetic, interpersonal and intrapersonal. I added an eighth one called the naturalist intelligence. And that's being able to make consequential distinctions in the world of nature between one plant and another, between one animal and another. Obviously that was very important when we were living in the tundra in darkest parts of Africa. But I think it's equally important in the world of commerce. You go to a store or you go on the web and you're trying to decide between one product and another. The computers in our head, which were designed initially for us not to get eaten by the monsters before they ate us, now helps us decide which product to buy, which one we like, what it looks like, and so on. And it took me 10 years to add the naturalist intelligence because I don't just wake up in the morning and say, oh, there's a wisdom intelligence, but there's a humor intelligence. I do very thorough research. That's why we have a 400 page book on the topic. But if you want, if you want the short version, get Howard the Essential Howard Gardner on Education. Because I have an essay there called In a Nutshell, and that takes pages and boils it down to probably 20 pages.
- [15:05]
Ed Mylett
Howard, I think they should get both. I don't talk like this on my show all the time either. I really. You guys, Howard's been sitting with this work that he's been doing, you know, for 40 plus years, right. And, but I have to say this to you, I believe this is like earth shattering, life changing type information. So many people, you know, Howard, in my space, it's always People overcoming their limiting beliefs about themselves or, or not understanding why they're not successful at one thing or another. This explains it. And, and for so many of you, if you're building a family, it's beginning to look at your precious children and finding their special thing. And maybe it isn't math. That doesn't mean they're not smart. Right. And thank God I was raised by parents that sort of started to look for what mine was, you know, And I think such a huge part of life is sort of figuring out your proclivities is what I'll call it. And then it's kind of spending a life. I mean, you should work on your weaknesses, but if you can figure out my geniuses XYZ or my intelligence and building a life kind of in that zone, it just makes life so much more fun, so much easier. A hard life is either A, thinking you have none, or B, being forced into one of these intellect bubbles. That isn't your strength. Don't you?
- [16:22]
Howard Gardner
Right, yes. One of the most rewarding thing for me is letters I get from individuals. They could be parents, they could be spouses, they could be working in an HR division at a company. And they say, you know, until I read your writings and understood what you were saying, I didn't realize that I had a combination of abilities as well as some disabilities which showed me what I should do, or if I'm in HR or I'm a grandparent, what I should direct other people to do so they are most likely to feel competent and to fulfill what it is that has meaning for them. I play the piano every day, Every day. Because I'm over 80, I get worse. But this has enormous meaning for me. In fact, it's the closest thing to spirituality. And especially as you get old, it's very, very important to be able to do those things which you have an affinity for and which can give you pleasure. And if somebody else wants to listen to me, I charge them a lot of money. Just kidding.
- [17:26]
Ed Mylett
But I have to say one thing to you about that. As a person of faith, as a Christian myself, whatever someone's religious beliefs are or not, what you just said is really profound. I have found in my own life that when I am really in my intelligence state, and for me, it's typically, usually my form of expression, and one of my giftedness is, is verbal, is speaking on stage, is moving people linguistically. And when I'm in that state, I somehow feel closer to God when I'm doing it, because I think that's where that intellect emanated from in my belief system. And so you're exactly right. Many people will say that if they're a singer, when they' singing, it's spiritual for them or a speaker or a writer. And it's so important that someone knows that they there is not one better than the other. Everyone should have known this when this book came out and it should have changed the plan. And it's made a big difference. But I wanted Howard on one because he's in his 80s and I want to make sure I have him on as many times as I can over the next 15 years. But also I wanted you all to have the gift of this.
- [18:30]
Howard Gardner
So.
- [18:30]
Ed Mylett
Hey guys, I want to jump in here for a second and talk about change and growth. And you know, by the way, it's no secret how people get ahead in life or how they grow. And also taking a look at the future, if you want to change your future, you got to change the things you're doing. If you continue to do the same things, you're probably going to produce the same results. But if you get into a new environment where you're learning new things and you're around other people that are growth oriented, you're much more likely to do that yourself. And that's why I love Growth Day. Write this down for a second. Growth day.com forward/ed my friend Brenda Burchard has created the most incredible personal development and business app that I've ever seen in my life. Everything from goal setting software to personal accountability journaling horses. Thousands of dollars worth of courses in there as well. I create content in there on Mondays where I contribute, as do a whole bunch of other influencers like the Avengers of influencers. And business minds. In there gets the Netflix for high achievers or people that want to be high achievers. So go check it out. My friend Brennan's made it very affordable, very easy to get involved. Go to growthday.com that's growthday.com forward/ed. Running a small business means you're wearing a lot of hats. Your personal phone becomes your business phone and vice versa. And the thing just blows up all day long and it's hard to tell the difference between one and the other. And as your team grows, it becomes almost impossible to manage your personal phone number along with your business phone number. That's where Open Phone comes in. Open Phone is one of the top business phone systems in the world. They'll help you separate your personal life from your growing business. For just 15 bucks a month, you get complete transparency and visibility into everything happening with your business phone number. Open Phone Phone works through an app on your phone or your computer and integrates with hundreds of different systems. They use AI powered call transcripts and summaries so you'll have summary of your phone call with action Items. Right now, OpenPhone is offering 20 off for your first six months. If you go to openphone.com mylet that's O-P-E-N-P-H-O-N-E.com mylet for 20 off six months openphone.com mylet and if you have existing numbers with another service, Open Phone will port them over at no extra charge. So what makes a leader? It's a tough question, but one thing's for sure, a true leader leads by example. And a true leader takes risks too. They plunge into life with determination. For those who lead by example and those who approach life with a palpable passion, there's a Range Rover Sport. Each model has a well appointed cabin that brings a sense of occasion to every drive and its cocoon like interior creates an engaging and supportive journey with features like active noise cancellation that filters out unwanted sound, making the cabin of your Range Rover a sanctuary an optional PM 2.5 filtration that helps reduce odors, bacteria and allergens while CO2 managed management enhances the wellness of everyone on board. There's also configurable cabin lighting to curate the mood of every journey and an optional 22 way adjustable heated and ventilated electric memory front seats to bring a hint of refinement to every exhilarating drive. Range Rover is a symbol of high adrenaline and high achievement. Where dramatic design meets distinctive sporting character. It truly redefines luxury with dramatic modernity. Explore the Range rover sport@range rover.com ussport so let me ask you this question. This is a tough one, IQ wise because I have like zero mechanical ability. I mean like none, right? And I've never judged myself thinking I'm stupid because I can't repair things, fix things. I don't know how the lights came on in this studio. Heck, Howard, before we started the show today, this screen wouldn't come on behind me. It's still kind of glitching a little bit. I'd have been here a month and a half trying to figure how to get this screen on. Stephen, my producer, walked in and got the thing turned on in about 90 seconds. That's part of his intellect. And in building a business, everyone, it's knowing your intellect zone. As Howard said And surrounding yourself with the people who fill those gaps in. That's what Jim Collins work. Get the right people on the right seats on the bus, man. Howard just takes us to a much different level, which is this. This idea of the intelligences. Is there a way, if you have children, Howard, I'm sure you've been asked this many times that you can begin to identify their intelligence. Is there a test? Is there something as we look at our children or even people that work with us, that will illuminate that? I'll call gift or talent or intellect.
- [22:38]
Howard Gardner
Yeah, absolutely. I have four kids and five grandchildren. And, yes, I have two answers which have worked for me and for other people. One is, and most people here who would be listening to us would have this option is, go with your child to a children's museum, but don't tell them what to do, just watch them. And if they see they're interested in something, encourage them. And then when you come, go there again. Let the child go there if the child wants. And if the child, kind of ritualistic, just repeats himself, that's one thing. But if the child begins to explore differently, try things out, say, I want to do more. Where else can we do this? Is there a game I can have at home? Is there something I can play with online that's giving you a hint that this is something that the child is good at? I'm going to give you another advice in a moment, but let me talk about my own life. My parents were very indigent. They had no money at all. But when I was five, we went to a neighbor's house, and I began to pick out pieces on the piano. And I'd never seen a piano before, and my parents had no money. But the hosts said, you need to get this kid a piano because he has some musical ability. It didn't say musical intelligence. My parents spent $30 on the piano. It would now be probably $300. My kids still have that piano, and that made an enormous difference. But that was the Children's Museum. I was growing up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, a bit of trivial information. Same age and same city as Joe Biden, but did not know him.
- [24:21]
Ed Mylett
Were you in a gang with him? You weren't in a gang with him? No. Okay.
- [24:24]
Howard Gardner
I'm just kidding. If I. If that hadn't happened, my life would have been very different because music wouldn't have been opened up to me. The other idea is, whether or not you have the children's museum available or a science museum, just go to an unfamiliar territory. It could be a big city, could be a farm, it could be a forest. And again, don't tell your child what to do. Watch what the child does. And if the child shows interest, encourage it. And if you don't know how to encourage yourself, find a friend who would encourage it. So a museum of some sort or an unfamiliar territory, whether it's a big city or a suburb or a forest or mountains, and just watch the child and don't try to project what you would do. Watch what the child does, what the child's interested in, what the child wants to do more of. And often if you're not good at that, find a friend either an adult friend, a peer of the child would like to do that sort of thing. And I must say that people haven't written to me that much about doing either of those things, but in my own life it's been revealing. When I am trying to make sense of anybody, including somebody who works with me, is give them an amorphous stimulus, to put it in psychology terms, and see what they do with that stimulus.
- [25:45]
Ed Mylett
So good, I have to tell you, everybody, we're going to get to business is the next topic. But as a parent, you know what we do do a lot of use the word sort of projection. Sometimes I wonder back on my children's lives how much I projected my passions, beliefs, talents onto them. Especially like sports. You know, my kids were in sports and around sports and around sports and in, in one of the two of their cases, it is clearly not. It's not, my son's a very good athlete, but my daughter, that was not her giftedness yet, you know, because that was one of my core intelligences. I think I projected that onto her rather than give her the space to find and navigate hers. There's a part of your work I've always wanted to ask you about, and unless someone's read it, they probably won't understand this question. But I want to serve everybody, then we'll shift the business. I think you stipulate in part of the book where you talk about the personal intelligences, this idea of personal growth, the ability to grow. Right. Let me ask it my way. And then you just correct me because I'm 99% sure the way I took it is sort of self serving. But are you, are you saying that the ability to grow is also a form of intelligence? Meaning do some people have a capacity for growth in general that's greater than another person's capacity? Or am I conflating the whole idea there?
- [27:07]
Howard Gardner
I think it's somewhere in between. Ed. Okay. If you. If you don't have a good personal intelligence and you don't have some help in nurturing it, and therapy often can help you have a better understanding of yourself, you're much less likely to be able to make the best use of whatever God or the devil gave you. So the way I would translate what you're saying, it's giving your personal intelligence the help that it needs so you can make the best of who you are and who you could become. And here's another way of putting it. If you have a lot of personal intelligence, you don't need much help in that. But if you don't, this is where a friend, an aide, a parent, a therapist, and a therapist doesn't have to be somebody you pay a lot of money to. It's somebody who's got more clinical insights than you do, can help you grow. And of course, no two people grow in exactly the same way. Let me go back to one thing that you said before, because it's kind of a confession on my part. I certainly was aware of the theory of multiple intelligences when I was raising my family, and I tried to do what I could to encourage what they were good at. But you can't hide your own strengths and your own value system. And it took me quite a while to recognize with each of the family members and others that I was setting a powerful example of what I would say is a typical scholarly mind of linguistic and logical matter, mathematical. And I wouldn't say they had to overcome with it, but they had to be able to say, oh, that's just dad doing his thing. But when I'm with dad, I like to do something. And I must say, they've all come through very, very nicely, either despite what I said and did, or maybe they got something from their mother and from other people in the world. Because especially in America, we aren't just raised by our families. We're raised by our peers, by our teachers, our coaches, and so on. And as I said, my parents didn't even think about musical intelligence. Thank God the people who live down the block. I can still see the apartment. When they saw 5 year old Howie picking out Jingle Bells or something, they said, this kid needs a panel.
- [29:26]
Ed Mylett
Wow. Do we have a bias towards our own? I want to ask you about business. Now, the, the, the general question will be what makes a great leader? But then I'll give another confession. Probably the first. I'll say 40 years of my life, maybe not quite that many. I lacked an Appreciation for people because I didn't have a context for it. I hadn't read your work yet. I thought the smartest people were like me, I guess is what I'm saying. Like when I talked about the mechanic earlier. Right. So I didn't know that guy's bright or that lady's got it. And I wonder as a leader, if we have to be careful of a filter or a bias towards frankly hiring and developing people around us that are a lot like us. Like, if someone doesn't communicate verbally very quickly, I sometimes still don't think they're very smart. Like, come on, let's go. Right. Like you don't process things quickly. But no, they're just not.
- [30:19]
Howard Gardner
We're speaking early in 2025, and I have a one word answer which probably everybody in 2025 will understand. The person who does exactly what you described is named Musk. Musk. Looking for people who are just like him and maybe for what he does. That's absolutely right. But we would hope that most people in positions of leadership and authority wouldn't just look for clones of themselves.
- [30:47]
Ed Mylett
What should they be looking for? I mean, I guess it depends on the type of business, but I have now my net worth, my productivity, the last decade of my life, 15 years of my life, exponentially grown as I've surrounded myself. Now that I understand your work with people, frankly, this sounds funny the way I don't mean it arrogantly when I say it, but I got enough of my type of intelligence for all of us in our company. I need the stuff I don't have around me, if that makes any sense. And everything's changed since. I've appreciated that. Do you believe that that's the definition, Definition of a great leader, or do you have a different definition?
- [31:25]
Howard Gardner
Well, my definition of leadership is quite different, though we may end up at the same place. But let me respond first to the question that you're asking. And that is, I don't think there can be a formula for leadership independent of what kind of work you're doing yourself. For example, I'm doing scholarly work. And therefore, when somebody works with me, if they don't have a scholarly aptitude, it's not a good use of their time or my time. That said, one of the things I'm most proud of is the number of people who've worked with me, who continue working with me and who I now can follow through their life. I have students who are already retired and I think because I did follow what you said in the sense That I helped them recognize how good they were at stuff that they hadn't known before. And I think that's an important part of, let's call it mentorship rather than leadership. Now, I have a fairly succinct definition of leadership. I think a leader is an individual who creates a story, a narrative which is convincing to others. And the individual, the leader embodies that narrative or story in himself, herself, or now we would say, in themselves. So it's a simple definition. You have some kind of a narrative or story, who we are, where we come from, where we're going. But you don't just tell the story, but in the way you live, you embody that story as well. And I think that's kind of what I said. I do. But when I look at the landscape in 2025 and people who are in leadership positions around the world, I think that it's less of an issue of whether the people embody what they're saying or whether they can seem to embody it, because we're moving into a much more authoritarian kind of world. And somebody who isn't an authoritarian myself, somebody who doesn't believe that the one with the power have all the answers. I'm not very fond of that definition of leader, but I'm also, you know, an observer and a reader. And, you know, if I take a look at the leaders of many countries now, big and small, they aren't, they don't simply catalyze a way of thinking, they sort of make you think that way. So I, I would. And again, in the book on the Essentials Essential Howard Gardner in mind, I have several chapters on leadership. And I say that I may be talking as much about the kind of leader I admire and would like to have as I am about the kind of leaders that I see emerging in the world today and in 2025, it's not the same picture I would have given in 1995 when I was talking about China, Russia, or places closer to home.
- [34:29]
Ed Mylett
You know, one of the things that I think so important in life is some sort of self worth and sense of belief in yourself. And I don't think you can really love yourself or believe in yourself if you don't know yourself. And I think Howard's work is so critical for so many of you that are for you, yourselves, your children, you leading people, for them to say, oh, that's me, that one I have, and, and, and that's what's special about me. And then to build from that, that's where that foundational belief can come from is understanding yourself and knowing your intellect and knowing. I keep calling it a genius and I guess depending on the level of whether you have it or not, I mean, I guess someone with spatial intellect is good, but LeBron James is probably a genius. You know, I. I suppose there's, there's levels to this stuff. Listen, I've made some mistakes in my life. Heck, half the time. This podcast is saving you time on mistakes I've made before. Let me tell you one of them. I owned a house in Idaho for a long time. I had these rain gutters that were really pretty, but they weren't functional. Leaves accumulated in it and I lost part of my roof. Clogged rain gutters suck. They're easy to forget, they're annoying to clean and they can grow into a big problem. That's why I love leaffilter. Listen to me. This is a big deal. There's an easier way for you to ensure your gutters stay clean and avoid costly damage. Every installation comes with a lifetime no clogs guarantee. Leaffilter uses award winning patented technology to keep out everything but the water. Over a million homeowners have already trusted Leaf Filter. So protect your home and never clean out the gutters again with leaff Filters, America's number one gutter protection system. Schedule your free inspection. Take advantage of the Spring Spectacular sale with up to 30% off your entire purchase at leaf filter.comed. that's a free estimate. Free inspection and 30% off@leaf filter.comed. see representative warranty for details.
- [36:22]
Unknown
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- [37:02]
Ed Mylett
I was fascinated by this. I want to ask you a question about this. Just sort of it's a left turn, but maybe we'll put it together. The study of brain damage actually in people and cognitive insights and what came from that? I had a really good friend say will you ask him about that? And I said absolutely. I'll throw that out there. So there it is.
- [37:21]
Howard Gardner
Absolutely very pertinent question. I was on my route to be a developmental psychologist interested in how Children grow particularly intellectually, cognitively. But in 1969, so you can do the math, a long time ago, I happened to hear a lecture by a neurologist named Norman Geschwind. And that lecture changed my life because I was going to go on and study kids. And I said to myself, I need to understand the brain, and I need to understand brain damage. I spent 20 years working in a aphasia ward. That's the kind of brain damage that affects language and working with all sorts of individuals who are once perfectly okay, but had the misfortune of having a stroke or a tumor or shrapnel wound, and part of their brain got destroyed. And as we were talking about at the very beginning of the program, where the damage occurred impaired the kinds of things that you could or couldn't do. So an area damage in one area would affect your language. Damage another area would affect your mathematical ability in another area, understanding of other people, another area of music and so on. And I said, goodness, we don't have one computer in our skull. We got a bunch of them. And of course it's best if they work together. But when brain damage is an experiment in nature, you can say an experiment in the divine if you want. It helps us unpack the package of what our talents and what our weaknesses are. So I would never have come up with the ideas about multiple intelligences or frames of mind, the book that you mentioned, if I hadn't spent 20 years working with patients and seeing what abilities were undermined and then sometimes how you could strengthen them again. We developed something again decades ago called melodic intonation therapy, using music to help people with language, another thing called visual communication, using spatial configuration to help people improve with language. And this is before I had the idea of multiple intelligences. So, yeah, the brain was crucial in what I did. And now at this point in my life, I've been trying to think about what's special about my mind. And the truth is, multiple intelligences theory doesn't tell me much about my own mind, because I'm a scholar, and I would do well in an IQ test or an sat. And the fact that I'm musical is kind of a bonus. But what it does enable me to do is to look at different things in the world and figure out how to put them together. And so I've written 20 or 30 blogs, and this is described in both of the books of synthesizing. Synthesizing means there's a lot of stuff in the world. There's a lot of noise. How do you Figure out what's important, how do you put it together? And especially not just how it makes sense to you, but how it makes sense to other people. So when I wrote an autobiography came out in 2010, 2020, I didn't call it multiple intelligences theory. I called it a synthesizing mind. Because if I have a gift, it's the gift of synthesizing. And now for people who are really curious, I have 20 or 30 blogs just posted at my website, HowardGardner.com about what I think synthesizing is. And what I thought even in 2020, was that what large language instruments do is incredibly powerful synthesizing. And so I have to figure out is that, well, all of us have to do. If we were born today, what would be our competitive advantage when we have very, very smart machines that do almost everything we can think of better than we do. In fact, my wife, who's in the same trade as I am, and I want to start a project called AI in the Era of AI Artistic Intelligences. In the Era of Artificial Intelligence. Very good. Mean to be a poet or a painter or a choreographer or a violinist, when we have machines who do stuff better. If anybody who's listening wants to help us, we have no support for this. Please let us know. But we love the.
- [41:36]
Ed Mylett
You're going right down where I wanted to go next, which is just unbelievable. Can you all. Can you all just sit back just for a second and think about. He's not going to accept this, so I'll just say it so you can all hear it, because he'll just make a face when I say it. But the absolute brilliance of his work. And although, you know, millions of people have been exposed, hundreds of millions haven't. And I have a feeling about. Howard can be around a long time, but his work is going to stand on its own for centuries about human beings, their capacity, how special they are, and it should be a revolution. And how people look at themselves, look at their children, look at their own lives, find their own self worth, their own self belief. You know, every week and for years now on the show, we're always trying to increase our self worth and our self belief. But the truth of the matter is, if you really understood yourself, if you really knew yourself, if you really understood you do have a form of intelligence, that would be a whole lot easier journey than all of the stories you've been told about yourself. Because people don't know his work, because what he said about stories earlier is true. You've been told a story about Yourself and now you've been telling one about yourself for a long time. And a lot of that was founded by people that just don't know this information. This show is sponsored by Better Help. Who's your support system? For me, it's my family and friends. And you know, one of the things I get asked often is what are all 800 people that have been guests on your show have in common? And not all of them have this in common. But the thing that would surprise most people that many of them have in common is they've been to therapy, including myself. That's something most people don't talk about. You know, therapy can help you from things like you're working through some trauma from childhood or a difficulty that you're going through right now. But it could also be just to get clarity of thought, a sense of direction in your life. Talk out loud about your goals and dreams or your issues and problems with somebody. Therapy from BetterHelp is helpful because you can do it online and if you don't vibe with your therapist, you can switch out anytime and get one that you do work with. Well, you can access a iverse network of 30,000 credentialed therapists, a wide range of specialties and easily switch, like I said. So build your support system at Better Help. Visit Better Help Ed show to get 10% off your first month. That's Better H lp.comed show that's Better Help hp.comed show so having said all of that, I, I got off my soapbox there. I just want to thank you for your work. But now let's talk about AI I covered on the show. Probably about every 10 weeks somebody will come on and give me their opinion about it. I'm wondering how you think it impacts the world, but also the synthesizing idea, how will it affect intelligence if, if a computer can do all of this thinking for human beings, what does the world look like? Like 30, 40 years from now if we're not using parts of our brain that we like? I don't mean this as a general statement, but you mean a 15 year old now, their interpersonal communication skills compared to a 15 year old 40 years ago. It's been quite a fall off in my experience in general because of their nose in a phone and in a laptop over time. So it seems to me there's been a not all 15 year olds. Everybody trust me, please don't send me your all my 15 year old listeners. But you all know what I'm talking about. Your friends at school, what's AA a guy? What's it look like and what's it going to do to the world, but also what's it going to do to human intelligence?
- [44:52]
Howard Gardner
That is, of course, a huge topic and one that I don't claim to have expertise on, that other. Other people don't.
- [45:01]
Ed Mylett
Well, you've been writing about it, though. Don't. Don't be falsely humble here. Don't. No humility. You writing about and thinking about it a lot.
- [45:08]
Howard Gardner
Let me take this in two parts, sort of education and life. Okay, Education. I think we need to do much more what I'm going to call meta or super, namely less learning how to do something and more understanding of what it is and why it's important. For example, when I grew up in Pennsylvania in the 1950s, we had to draw a map of Pennsylvania with all 57 counties and get them right. Maybe that had some point, but now I'm carrying around a machine like everybody else, which does anything geographically better than I could ever hope to do. Meta or circle or super knowledge means understanding what geography is and what is important and what happens when it can go wrong, but not having to memorize where the 57 counties are or how to get from Florida to New England the way you need to do. So. We need to have much more of a focus on meta knowledge. And that's one answer. And I'm sorry that Facebook has taken the word meta, because it's the best one, but I'll come up with something else. But the other thing is what I've spent my last 30 plus years on, which we haven't talked about. And that's what I call good work and good citizenship. Because intelligences are amoral. Both Goethe, the German poet, and Goebbels, Hitler's propagandists, use the German language very well. Both Nelson Mandela and Slobodan Milosevic, Mandela in South Africa, Milosevic in the former Yugoslavia, knew how to manipulate people. But one did it in a positive way and the other in a very harmful way. And so when people say, oh, let's develop the intelligences, I say, but intelligence is for what? If you're going to use your linguistic intelligence to generate hatred and to divide people, that's very sad. But if you're very good with language and you can write poetry that moves people, or you can write inspirational speeches which makes people want to be helpful to others, or run a podcast where you have people who you hope will be benevolent rather than malevolent, you're using your intelligences in a positive way. Similarly, this applies not only to how you go around your work, but what it means to be a good citizen, because a good citizen doesn't just promote what's good for himself or herself or themselves. A good citizen says, what's better for my community, what's better for the society, what's better for the world? You said something which was overly complimentary, that people will read my work in the future. I'm worried where there is a future because we have many countries now with nuclear weapons and other ones that are likely to get it, and they could destroy the planet quickly. And, you know, climate change is doing its best, though it's doing it at a slower rate. So we don't need people, Ed, who are simply more intelligent. We need people who will be good workers and good citizens who will say, how can I use my abilities, my capacities in a positive way, not at the expense of myself or my family, but not just for me, not just for us. And again, I don't have to talk politics. Everybody who's listening can apply that metric to what we're observing all over the world these days. It's a very different world than when I grew up in 70 years ago, you grew up in 45 years ago, and our kids and grandkids are growing up now. And so we can't just cultivate our own garden. I'm a gardener. I'd like to cultivate my own garden, but we need to think about what happens after us. You say you're very religious. I often talk about an existential intelligence, which is a concern with big questions. Who are we? Where are we going? Where we should go? And you can do that whether or not you're religious, whether or not you are religious in a particular religion or just spiritual in general.
- [49:27]
Ed Mylett
Sure, man, I like you so much. What would you say to somebody who says, I don't think I'm intelligent? I'm kind of taking us all the way back to the beginning. And then I want to ask you a question about you last, but by the way, you know, most people feel that way.
- [49:42]
Howard Gardner
Well, I would say, what do you mean by that? And you tell me more. Then I would say, tell me what you like to do. Tell me what you enjoy watching, listening, participating in. If you have kids and they're different from one another, Here I have a line. I used to say, when I had one kid, I thought all kids were the same. When I had two kids, I said, well, there are two kinds of kids. When I have three kids, I said, they're all different. And when I have four kids, I said, I don't have time for theory. I have to make enough money so they can all go to school. I wouldn't say. I would ask questions and kind of as you would nurture their understanding of themselves and find out what they like, what they're better at, what they try to cultivate in other people. And to be frank, anybody who asks me that question, that's opened the door because you wouldn't go around and say that unless you were looking for help. And I can't always help, but I always try to help.
- [50:38]
Ed Mylett
Yeah. You know, you're. You're one of the just kind, good, brilliant souls I've met in my life. When I ask you about you, you are not 30 years old yet. Cognitively, I always think it's an odd thing to say to somebody who's a little bit older. Well, you're very cognitively sharp. You know, I think there's. I think that's almost a backhanded compliment. But I am listening to you. And I didn't, you know, I didn't know. I just knew the books. Now I'm meeting the man. Have you done something to cultivate your own cognition as you've aged? Is this a. Is this just genetics or are there things I. The people listening should be doing? So then we hit the big eight number. We're going back and forth in a podcast like this, and everything is processing at full speed.
- [51:25]
Howard Gardner
A good question, and one that I think spent a lot of time thinking about. I spent the last weekend with four of my college friends, so we're all the same age, and we're all asking that question the first thing, which is a facetious answer, but it's true. Pick your parents and grandparents well, and if you have family where there's been dementia, of course, you need to be more alert. I am very meta about my own thought. I get help whenever I need to. I take notes all the time, and I build little things in. For example, I take medicine every morning, as most people do. I now have a calendar, and I check off the medicine. So if I'm saying, did I take it this morning? I can check and see if I did. I don't need it yet, but it's kind of planning ahead. When I have a conversation with people, I take notes on it. The very fact of writing up the notes, this may be the most valuable thing I can say, usually means I don't have to look at them again, because very active them was a second thing. But finding help when you need it. But equally important, if there are things that you're better at with your peers, your spouse, your friends, you try to help them. And that's one wonderful thing about having a good marriage or good friends, is you can compliment one another, which doesn't mean say nice things. It means provide what it is that you can do well, and hopefully they can help you on things that you can do well. But of course, you have to accept that if everybody is old enough, they're going to things they can't do anymore. And this is for very extra credit. My teacher was Eric Erickson, who was a great psychoanalyst, and he wrote about eight life stages. And most people who study psychology will remember the identity life stage, identity versus identity diffusion. Are you sort of hang together and know who you are, or are you diffused? The last stage, which I'm in now, is called integrity versus despair. And what Erickson was saying, does your life kind of hang together? You feel like you did pretty much what you could? Or are you despair because you're falling apart and you can never put it back together again? And what I wrote in this blog, which will be posted soon, is, when I just look in the mirror, I feel okay. But when I look at the world, as I've said more than once in this podcast, I feel despair. And Erickson never talked about whether what's happening elsewhere can affect your own views of yourself. And that's why we've worked so much on good work and good citizen, because I always say what I do when my friends do isn't going to make a difference. But if enough other people do the same thing, if enough other people try to develop good work and good citizenship, we may save the planet. And whether you're a believer or not, saving the planet is an important thing to do. We are at the end of the Anthropocene. That means we're the end of the era where human beings ruled everything. And we could blow up the planet. We could have AI do it, or we could arrive at some kind of an understanding about the world, physical world, and the computational world, and make it better together. And maybe that's a good thought in which to mull.
- [54:43]
Ed Mylett
I'm smiling because biggest compliment I give you, Howard, is I'm just listening to you. My dad would have loved you, man. You and my dad, by the way, are same age. And he's gone. I get the feeling your political leanings are identical to my dad's as well. He's also a Boston guy for all these years and My favorite guy of all time is my dad. And so that's about as big a compliment as I could give somebody. My dad would love you. So. And you said he sounded a lot like you about the way he viewed the world, especially as he got older as well. And I think that idea of despair about the world and feeling pretty good about himself also fit with my dad.
- [55:19]
Howard Gardner
So let me say that in your way, you're carrying on your dad's work.
- [55:24]
Ed Mylett
Thank you.
- [55:25]
Howard Gardner
The very best thing. I'm almost tearing that. That any of us can do.
- [55:29]
Ed Mylett
Oh, thank you, Howard. I have to tell you, your work is. Everyone knows this says, boy, I opened up with it, but, you know, made me understand me and my children and the people that are around me every day. Love, appreciate, and believe in myself and other people more as I understood their intelligences. And so you're a treasure, Howard. And by the way, Howard wants me to make sure that you go get the essential Howard Gardner on mind. I want to make sure you guys all do that, but I also want you to go get Frames of Mind. And it's going to be a long read. You need to pack a lunch. It's going to take you a while. And it's worth it. It is absolutely worth it. All of his work is. And I'm going to check out these blogs as well, Howard. So thank you for the time today. I enjoyed it immensely. And you are. You're welcome here anytime you want to come back.
- [56:16]
Howard Gardner
You're very kind. All the best to you, your listeners, and those who come after us.
- [56:20]
Ed Mylett
Amen. All right, everybody. You could tell I love this one today. I hope you all did as well. Please share this episode. Make sure you get on my email list. Everybody@mylet.com just go in there, put your email in so you can get the episodes before everybody else. God bless you. Max Out.
- [56:37]
Howard Gardner
This is the Ed Milan show.