Career Development Archives

Genius and Intelligence

November 21, 2017 By Daniel Davis Leave a Comment

What is your gift? What can you do that no other human being can do just like you?”

“There is nothing special about me!” said the character, Jack, in the film, The Fisher King. “I control my own destiny.”

Life is mysterious. Yet I believe that we all have a certain genius. The word genius comes from the root of gignere which was to ‘beget.’ We bring forth or give birth to something, according to this definition of genius.

In the late 16th century, the word genius had evolved to mean natural ability. By the mid 17th century, genius came to mean ‘exceptional natural ability.”

The evolution of the word genius seems to reflect our cultural perception that we are not all gifted as individuals. There are special people who are different than average humans, like you and me.

It is my experience that everyone has unique gifts. School can be confusing, because of its emphasis on language and mathematical ability. Often we see a person’s I.Q. (Intelligence Quotient) as a number which defines whether she or he has genius or not. Further, our I.Q. is too often seen as fixed and never changing.

Alfred Binet originally developed the intelligence test to identify which French students would have difficulty in school to assist them. It is ironic that we now use the concept of IQ to label and shame others. IQ scores have a long history of gender and cultural bias.

Fortunately, Howard Gardner developed the ideas of Multiple Intelligence. He asserted that there are nine different types of intelligence:

1. language (Verbal-Linguistic)
2. mathematics (and logic)
3. science (Naturalist)
4. artistic (Visual-Spatial)
5. athletic (Bodily/Kinesthetic)
6. musical
7. interpersonal (social)
8. intrapersonal (self-awareness)
9. existential (meaning of life)

Your IQ score will not reveal your creativity, your common sense, or your social skills. The singer, Lady Gaga has high Musical Intelligence. The tennis player, Serena Williams has great physical abilities. The teacher, Thich Nhat Hahn has high intrapersonal Intelligence.

Yet one does not need to be famous to have genius. I think each of us has unique gifts with which we are born. It is our opportunity and privilege to develop these talents. The saddest thing is when families and schools fail to recognize the uniqueness of each child, leaving one to feel insignificant, powerless, or unlovable.

If we work hard at developing our natural gifts, then we are able to experience the joy of expressing our gifts in sophisticated ways. Richard Bolles writes, “where your great passion meets the great need of the world, that is where your work lies.”

May each of us have the courage to take the heroic journey of individuation. May we work and struggle to develop the natural gifts with which we are born.

Charles Baudelaire writes that “genius is childhood recaptured.” A healthy relationship with our inner child may assist us in developing our unique talents in love and work. Please watch this video by Judith Peterson,M.A., on the Inner Child:

How are you feeling?

May 31, 2016 By Daniel Davis Leave a Comment

”It is our feeling function that gives a sense of joy, worth, and meaning to life . . . . No one ever succeeded in finding a reason for living by the reasoning process,” writes Robert Johnson.

“It is as if we have gained the highest technical civilization in the history of the world but at the cost of losing the simpler virtues of happiness and contentment,” writes Robert Johnson.

Every country and every culture throughout the world take on a certain character. The Italians have a reverence for extraverted feeling, says Robert Johnson. This is also true for Mexico. Whereas the Germans have a preference for introverted thinking. Within each culture there are individuals with a great variety of personality types, yet a culture as a whole makes a collective choice about what is revered. The Japanese prefer introverted sensing which can be seen in beautifully manicured Zen gardens throughout Japan.

In India, introverted feeling is revered. “One quickly sees the wealth of vocabulary and corresponding consciousness in the realm of feeling but suffering from a crushing poverty in awareness of the practical elements of science, politics, and planning. One can learn by observing a society that has exactly the opposite pattern of inferiority and superiority from one’s own,” writes Robert Johnson.

Whole cultures make a typology decision. Collectively America has made the decision that thinking is the most virtuous capacity that a human being can portray. “Our superior function has given us science and the highest standard of living the world has ever known – the envy of the third world – but at the cost of impoverishing the feeling function,” writes Robert Johnson.

Apple builds the iPhone. Boeing assembles 767 airliners. These types of accomplishments come from a highly disciplined thinking function. Bill Gates writing computer software code, late at night, is the symbol of the useful, brilliant, and noble man in modern life. The person who develops mastery with the extraverted thinking function is our contemporary hero. The development of the thinking function is the focus of most American schools and universities. In the United States, individuals with a well-developed thinking function are offered the best jobs and are the best paid. The development of the thinking function and the things produced have great value for the world.

Yet when one specializes in one function, then the opposite function is neglected. One specializes in extraverted thinking by robbing from its opposite – the introverted feeling function. “One feels this coldness around people who are who are feeling wounded, and they seem to reply to warmth or relatedness in some objective or dispassionate manner that stops all feeling ‘cold’ in its tracks. It is as if such a person is unable to see over his own woundedness and contact another on a human level,” writes Robert Johnson.

Yet it is our greatest weaknesses that provides us with the means to our greatest triumphs. In the English-speaking world, thinking is the superior function. Therefore, it is in our feeling function that our salvation lies collectively.

Unfortunately, discussing the feeling function in English is a challenge, because there are no suitable words. When we lack vocabulary, it naturally follows that we lack consciousness. “Sanskrit has ninety-six words for love; ancient Persian has eighty, Greek three, and English only one. . . . Imagine what richness would be expressed if one had a specific vocabulary for the love of one’s father, another word for love of one’s mother, yet another for one’s camel (the Persian’s have this luxury), still another for one’s lover, and another exclusively for the sunset,” writes Robert Johnson.
No matter how much we think or things we buy – homes, cars, jewelry – we cannot soothe the suffering and wounded feelings. Money and power will not restore our creativity. “I am often puzzled in going to India to see people who have so little in an outer sense but have so much happiness,” asserts Robert Johnson.

Our Emotional Intelligence is highly related to the development of our Feeling Function. Please watch this video on Emotional Intelligence:

What kind of attitude to you have?

May 10, 2016 By Daniel Davis Leave a Comment

“Sensation tells us something exists; thinking tells you what it is; feeling tells you whether it is agreeable or not; and intuition tells you (from where) whence it comes and where it is going,” writes Carl Jung.

Our attitude determines the direction and order of our psychological functions: sensation, thinking, feeling, and intuition. There are four attitudes: Introverted, Extraverted, Judging, and Perceiving. Each person who prefers introversion is primarily concerned with the inner world. Someone who prefers extraversion is oriented to events primarily in the outer world. Someone who prefers judging is oriented to the outer world in an organized and methodical way. One who prefers the perceiving attitude is open and free flowing with the outer world.

There are eight psychological types:

Extraverting sensation – People who prefer this type are primarily concerned with objective reality, with how things really are. Their constant pursuit is to “have sensations and enjoy them if possible,” says Jung.

Introverting sensation – Emma Jung (who preferred introvert sensation) described herself as being like a highly sensitized photographic plate. Every detail of a situation is observed and these can be recalled at will.

Extraverted thinking – People who prefer Extraverted Thinking are good at “solving problems, reorganizing businesses, clarifying issues, and sorting the grain from the chaff,” writes Anthony Stevens. They are often concerned with outer conditions – not theories or ideas.

Introverted Thinking – People who prefer Introverted Thinking show little interest in events that take place in the outer world but basically are concerned with ideas and theories. They want to understand impersonal and objective truth. They seek justice and value fairness.

Extraverted Feeling – People who prefer Extraverted Feeling value what is culturally acceptable. They are easy to get along with. They are able to read others and then respond by caring for others when possible.

Introverted Feeling – Those who prefer Introverted Feeling have a clear sense of their internal values and generally keep to themselves. They exert influence on others by embodying their internal values.

Extraverted Intuition – People who prefer Extraverted Intuition quickly see the possibilities in a given situation. They identify patterns and connections and seek to reshape their environment.

Introverted Intuition – Individuals who prefer Introverted Intuition focus on unconscious images, like dreams and visions. They have difficulty communicating about these images and may uses abstract symbols to explain their insights.

We all have different gifts that we bring to our families, marriages, workplace, and communities. The better we are able to see each other’s gifts and collaborate together, they more we are able to accomplish together. Understanding psychological types helps us to relate well and be successful. If we observe what we do, say, and think, we will be better students and workers. Who are you?

If you want an assessment to understand your psychological type, please consider contacting me at danieldavislmft@gmail.com. Also, please watch this video by Gretchen Sterenberg on note making:

What Type of Person are You?

May 3, 2016 By Daniel Davis Leave a Comment

Blog 57 – Typology

“Psychological Type is nothing static – it changes in the course of life,” write Carl Jung.

“We cannot safely assume that other people’s minds work on the same principles as our own. All too often, others with whom we come in contact do not reason as we reason, or do not value the things we value, or are not interested in what interests us,” writes Isabel Briggs Myers.

All of us humans have the same psychological equipment to perceive what happens inside us as well as outside us. We use four different kinds of building blocks to form ideas about our experiences and decide how to respond to events – sensation, thinking, feeling, and intuition. Virtually every one of us is born with a preference for one of these four psychological functions in a descending order. We will use all four of these functions, but our preference will determine how much we will use sensation, thinking, feeling and intuition.

Sensation is simple to explain – how one relates with material things in the world. When a person who prefers sensation type person enters a room, he evaluates the things in it. “There is a solid black table and wooden shelves. The walls are brick, and ceiling has exposed beams.”

The thinking function is rational, cool, and logical. One who prefers thinking will interpret events as they happen, working what it means. This rational psychological function is high valued and almost exclusively taught in North American schools. Our capacity to think is tested and an I.Q. (Intelligence Quotient) labels us. Our place in the modern American world is almost exclusively determined by our ability to think, says Robert Johnson.

The feeling function is a way of judging using values. One who prefers feeling function responds to what happens with value judgment. “Awesome concert, Dude!” “This class bites!”
This name can be confusing, because the term “feeling” function is often confused with emotion or affect. Feeling, in this sense, is the capacity to place value on people, places, things, and events. For many, the feeling function is the orphan of these four and largely misunderstood and haphazardly named.

The person who prefers intuition is able to ‘see’ the whole picture, asserts Anthony Stevens. This is a mysterious process. Intuition is very hard to define. “It is an extraordinary and out of the world capacity of knowing without knowing how one knows,” says Robert Johnson.

These four functions are like radio stations, we can either use our thinking function or our feeling function at one time. Jung assumes that we are born with a preference for one of these. Due to this preference, we will often develop skills related to one of these functions. If we are not supported in our family and schools to develop our preferred functions, then we may have difficulty. For the psychological functions that we naturally prefer may be undeveloped. We are like a fish trying to fly. A fish needs to swim; this is what they are naturally inclined to do.

Balancing our brain helps us to use more of our mind. It is very helpful to learn over time to access all our psychological functions. Please consider watching this video on the importance of balancing your brain:

Adult Development

March 22, 2016 By Daniel Davis 2 Comments

“What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves? This is the most important of all voyages of discovery, and without it, all the rest are not only useless, but disastrous.” Thomas Merton

Our world is changing ever faster. Facebook, the iPhone, YouTube, the WiFi internet, Twitter, and Instagram give us a connected world with lots of instant information available. These and other changes complicate our lives in many ways. We may be busier than ever. Our children often are doing homework later into the night. The family structure is breaking down, and we see changes in marriage and sexuality. The values that we assumed made us unified are changing because of the great diversity we see in not only America, but throughout the world. As we cope with the impact of these changes and many more, we encounter stress in our bodies.

In the middle of all these changes globally, we still face the challenges of adult development. Frederick Hudson writes: “Most grown-ups know very little about the territory of their (later) adult years.”

This becomes more important as our life expectancy grows. The changes in lifestyle and medicine enables us to live much longer. We often waste our most valuable resource – citizens over fifty year of age. Corporations too often want to eliminate older workers. Our cultural assumption – in the United States – is that aging is bad and as we age we lose much more than we gain. Robert Lifton says, “There is a special quality of life-power available only to those seasoned by struggles of four or more decades. . . . The life-power of this stage can be especially profound.”

Carl Jung viewed the second half of life as a time of immense growth and development. It is a time for personal introspection, reevaluation of our lives, and dynamic spiritual discovery. We may assume that we need to decide on our work and marital partner by our late 20’s. Wow, that is a lot of pressure! Most of us are engaged in several different types of jobs in our working lives. Sometimes this happens by our choice. And there are times when someone chooses for us, saying: “You are fired.”

As our income changes, we need to reassess our lifestyle and adjust our spending. Our assumption that we would simply continue to earn more money endlessly may have been false. The larger world economy also affects us all as we learned in 2008 with the financial crash.

“For centuries, it was the understanding that when people became adults, they stopped growing and became fixed as predictable, responsible persons the rest of their lives,” writes Frederick Hudson. “Growing was over. The adult years were shaped by the personality and experiences of the child.”
Our lives are a heroic adventure. Life after fifty can be rich in many ways. Robert Epperly wrote his very personal and open book, “Growing Up After Fifty: From Exxon Executive to Spiritual Seeker,” about his journey after midlife. Please enjoy this video about his book:

What is Career Development?

January 5, 2016 By Daniel Davis Leave a Comment

Career development is a significant aspect of human life. Our career development begins at an early age with imagination and play. As we grow, hopefully we are learning the skills to do work that we love most. Career Development is defined as the lifelong process of managing your work experience or your employee’s work experience within or between organizations.

In 1988 when I graduated from San Jose State University in San Jose, California, USA, I wanted to earn a living as a writer. I needed to get a job, so I chose another interest area in which to develop skills. I had my Bachelor of Arts Degree with Great Distinction in Political Science. I enjoyed the subject of politics, so I worked on for a political campaign in the summer and fall of 1988. I quickly learned that working in politics was incongruent with my values. I wanted to change the world, making it a better place. Manipulating people to vote for my candidate seemed to just be adding to the poor state of the world. I was interested in collaborating with people in community to build a just world.

In order to earn a living, I began working in government – the County Assessor’s Office, Registrar of Voters, Family Court, the Department of Drugs and Alcohol, and the county hospital (Santa Clara Valley Health and Hospital Services). These government agencies had cultures that were different than my values. It was difficult for me to work in these organizations. In 1991, I decided to apply to graduate school in Counseling Psychology. I had read many books about psychology and attended lectures so I knew that counseling was an area of interest.

I had been so self-conscious about my anxiety that I feared taking a psychology class as an undergraduate student in college. It was a courageous choice for me to pursue a Master’s Degree in Marriage and Family Counseling at Santa Clara University. It was a terrifying gauntlet to face my fears about how I appeared to others. Even though I had spent 5 years in psychotherapy and worked hard to become healthy, I feared that I was too flawed psychologically to ever be an effective marriage counselor. What I came to believe was that in order to be effective as a counselor, I needed to be objective – not perfect psychologically. I also learned that my challenges can give me empathy for the challenges of my clients.

After I graduated from Santa Clara University with my Master’s Degree in Marriage, Family, and Child Counseling, I went to work at the publisher of the Myers Briggs Type Indicator as a corporate trainer. I began teaching a psychology course at Heald Colleges and continued to work as a counseling intern at Almaden Valley Counseling Service. I was making much more money that I ever had. I was very busy working about 50 hours a week as well as commuting to 5 locations. At Consulting Psychology Press, I was advising psychiatrists, psychologists, corporate trainers, and career counselors from all over the world on leadership development, team building, and career development. I was enjoying doing my Work – my Soul Work.

Over time and with patience, I was able to develop my skills in areas congruent with my personality, interests, and values. It made all the difference. Even though I had my challenges and complaints, I was able to do work that was meaningful and satisfying. When we are able to build skills directly related to our Soul Work, we feel differently about our work. With a direction to our career path, we add meaning to our work. We are not just getting a paycheck, but getting paid to learn things our Soul longs to gain. And even after doing counseling for over 20 years, I am still learning everyday how to get better.

When you are out of work or seeking to move to a new employer, it is critical to know more about yourself than you know about the job market. Most people who are making a change in their job think that searching online for jobs listed, reading and responding to classified ads, taking various types of career tests, or talking to a career consultant of some sort will help them find a job. Yet in reality, these actions are helpful only if you invest the time and energy to learn about yourself and develop a plan for your career. Most people buying a car or home invest a substantial amount of time. Isn’t the work you will be doing for years just as important?

If you have interest in career development for yourself or others, please read “What Color is Your Parachute” from Richard Nelson Bolles. The work you put into building the skills to do work congruent with who you are will bring you a higher quality of life and satisfaction.

Career Development is also important for managers. Please watch this video by Bob Epperly on Career Development and its role in managing employees:

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