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PeopleSmart  |  Exercises

Exercises for Enhancing Your PeopleSmart

The 8 Kinds of Smart are already within each us! It's part of our nature as human beings. However, as you've discovered from your SmartProfile™ not all of the intelligences are equally developed.

As I mentioned in the introduction to the SmartProfile™ Information & Management Center some of your intelligences are strong and highly developed. Others are emerging. While still others are in various states of latency or are simply asleep!

But again, the good news is that any underdeveloped intelligence can be enhanced, improved, and otherwise strengthened. The following set of exercises are designed to help you "awaken" your less developed intelligences and help grow those intelligence areas that need some help.

INSTRUCTIONS

During the coming week experiment with the follow set of exercises. The goal of these exercises is:

1) To help you become more aware of how much PeopleSmart is part of your everyday life,

2) To increase your comfort level for working with this intelligence, and

3) To help you build your PeopleSmart capacities.

The exercises are designed to help you understand the PeopleSmart capacities which are already inside you just waiting to be awakened. Do each exercise once a day.

Enjoy this. It's not a difficult as it may seem, in fact, it's really quite fun!.


EXERCISE 1:

After a conversation with another person, say, “Let me summarize what we have been talking about to make sure I have heard you accurately.” Review the conversation. Ask the other person to correct any inaccuracies. What can you do to be a better listener?

EXERCISE 2:

During a meeting, watch the interaction patterns which occur: Who speaks and when? What clues do people give registering their feelings? What roles do people assume? What are the different perspectives? How could the meeting have been improved?

EXERCISE 3:

Practice disciplined people watching. Guess what different people are feeling. Imagine their story (who they are, what they’re about). Initiate an informal conversation with someone you have been observing and indirectly check your intuitions.

EXERCISE 4:

Practice empathizing with characters in a novel, TV show, or movie. Stand in their shoes and experience life from their perspective, especially if you don’t agree with them. Start with characters that are closest to your perspective, then move to those more distant.

EXERCISE 5:

When you are part of a team, list the effective teamwork strategies which the team uses AND strategies that could improve the functioning of the team. Unobtrusively introduce and implement as many of these “improvement strategies” as possible.

EXERCISE 6:

Each time you talk with another person, find something you genuinely like or appreciate about the person and tell them about it. Practice seeing the positives and ignoring the negatives. How does this feedback effect you and the other person?


Reflection on the Week of PeopleSmart Explorations

[Focus your thoughts on the past week and your work
with your PeopleSmart through the exercises. Type your
reflections in the boxes provided, then click the "print button"
at the bottom of the page too save your work.]

1. As I think back over the week, what stands out in my mind from the PeopleSmart explorations I’ve been doing?

2. What did I find most interesting about working with PeopleSmart this week? What was surprising? What made me laugh? What disturbed me?

3. What new discoveries did I make about myself and my PeopleSmart potentials this week? What benefits have I experienced from working with PeopleSmart?

4. What can I do to make PeopleSmart a regular part of my daily life? How can I use it on the job? At home with my family? In my personal life?

5. My next steps for continuing to work with PeopleSmart are:

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