Multiple dumbnesses

Quoted in toto from Seth Godin, because I think this insight is directly applicable to more than one of my friends.

About twenty five years ago, Howard Gardner taught us his theory of multiple intelligences. He described the fact that there's not just one kind of intelligence, in fact there are at least seven (1 Bodily-kinesthetic, 2 Interpersonal, 3 Verbal-linguistic, 4 Logical-mathematical, 5 Intrapersonal, 6 Visual-spatial, 7 Musical, 8 Naturalistic). This makes perfect sense—people are good at different things.

The flip side of this occurred to me the other day, as I was busy judging someone for being really dumb. Of course, no one is really dumb. And certainly no one deserves to be judged as such. If we're good at different things, we're also bad at different things, right?

The story people tell about you (and the one you tell about yourself in the way you act) may be broadcasting one of your weaknesses louder than you deserve. We often fail to hire or trust or work with someone merely because one of their attributes stands out as below par. That's our loss.

(I need to go read up on these and figure out which ones I'm dumb at.)