Before you read this post, you might want to take a deep breath. This is one of those turning-an-idea-upside-down posts, and it’s entirely counter intuitive. So consider yourselves warned! 

 Background________

 Two of my long-term goals are to pull both my weight and my finances under control.  I like it being pretty, being thin, being healthy.  I like feeling financially secure, having enough money to  be generous to others at a whim, and to spend in ways that make me happy. 

Right now I am none of these things.

I like these things, I value them, but somehow, they don’t seem to *motivate* me. Not when it comes to making and maintaining changes in my lifestyle. 

So instead of pushing and should-ing myself to force motivation that will eventually fail, I’ve decided to strap the goals of health, exercise and finances to something that *does* motivate me…. the intellectual vanity I discovered a week or so ago.

Read the rest of this entry »

Since I’ve been rambling on about my own intellectual vanity, several readers have remarked on different concepts of intelligence, and asked for how I define it. 

Before I answer, though… I’d like to hear more of your thoughts. 

How do YOU define intelligence?

What is it that you see in a person that makes you think “Hey, they’re smart?”

And what is it you might see that makes you think “Hey, maybe they AREN’T so smart after all?”

I’m not looking for the scientific or dictionary answers here - but how you use the word, what it means in your own head.  It may take some thought to really figure out what you think makes someone “smart”.

Yesterday, I exploded my subconscious assumption that wealth and intelligence were strongly connected (they aren’t). Today, the topic is even more painful; just typing the title of this post made me shudder.

But exploring this second subconscious prejudice of mine (A presumed link between being overweight, and being not-so-bright) didn’t lead me at all where I expected.

When I keyed the search terms into Google, I was confident that I’d find there was no real link between weight and intelligence.

I was wrong. Read the rest of this entry »

The other day, I asked if you thought intelligence was connected to weight and/or wealth. As I delved into my own prejudices last week, I’d done a bit of research via Google, to turn up any related facts.

I’d expected to find that yes, wealthy people were a bit brighter, and maybe a lot brighter… and that weight had very little to do with intelligence. Studies suggest I’m very wrong.

Wealth and Intelligence_________________

USA Today reports on a study focused on the impact of IQ on wealth, income and financial distress.

What they found was that IQ does slightly increase income, but has little impact on actual net worth. Increased IQ does, however, put people at a higher risk for financial problems - things like maxed out credit cards, missed payments, and bankruptcy. Read the rest of this entry »