Intelligence and Creativity (with Scott Barry Kaufman)

1. Seek Meaning Through Growth

To live a meaningful life, actively get outside your comfort zone, take risks in relationships, explore, treat people with curiosity and loving kindness, and cultivate values and a sense of purpose.

2. Pursue Unique Self-Actualization

Focus on becoming all that you are uniquely capable of becoming, identifying and contributing what is truly meant for you to the world, rather than chasing others’ dreams or actualization.

3. Strive for Transcendent Oneness

View transcendence as an emergent phenomenon from integrating your whole self in service of the good society, fostering a feeling of oneness with humanity where what’s good for you is also synergistically good for others.

4. Cultivate Rational Thinking

Develop rational thinking skills such as probabilistic thinking, nuanced thinking, testing your own assumptions, trying to prove yourself wrong, and actively seeking out other viewpoints.

5. Foster Creativity Through Engagement

To become more creative, actively exercise your creativity by engaging in projects that inspire you, get you into a flow state, and encourage thinking about diverse possibilities in life.

6. Embrace Openness to Experience

Cultivate openness to experience, as it allows more information into your perception and helps you entertain novel ideas and potential connections that others might miss, finding a sweet spot for optimal creativity.

7. Simplify Complex Problems

Improve your ability to quickly and efficiently break down complex problems into smaller subtasks, preventing working memory overload and enabling clearer, higher-level reasoning.

8. Develop Expertise

Acquire deep expertise in specific domains, as sufficient knowledge and skills can override or compensate for lower general cognitive ability, allowing you to perform brilliantly.

9. Align Needs with Values

Understand that life satisfaction is predicted by the discrepancy between your unmet needs and how much those needs truly matter to you, rather than simply having unmet needs.

10. Practice Gratitude

Cultivate gratitude by consciously appreciating what you currently have and bringing your expectations below that, which can lead to greater contentment and happiness in life.

11. Secure Basic Needs

Ensure your deficiency needs are met, including security, food, shelter, water, connection, and self-esteem, as these form the secure base (the ‘boat’) necessary for purposeful movement and growth.

12. Engage in Growth and Exploration

Once basic needs are secure, actively engage in growth needs by opening yourself to exploration, cultivating universal human love, and moving in a purposeful, valued direction.

13. Merge Utility Functions

In deep relationships or with society, strive to merge your utility function with others, where their happiness and well-being become as important as your own, enabling more effective collective optimization.

14. Cultivate Awe and Flow

Seek out experiences that evoke awe and wonder, foster feelings of inspiration, envision a better world, and engage in flow states where you are deeply immersed in an activity, leading to less self-focus.

15. Quiet the Ego

Actively work to quiet your ego and reduce self-focus, allowing you to be more sensitive to and receive the subtle beauty and vibrations of the universe, fostering transcendent experiences.

16. Beware of My Side Bias

Be aware of the ‘my side bias,’ which is the tendency to only look for evidence that confirms your own preconceived ideas, and actively work to overcome it, especially if you have a high IQ.

17. Integrate Hedonism and Meaning

Recognize that hedonistic pleasures and meaningful pursuits are not always incompatible; strive to integrate both into your life, considering what proportion of your life should be assigned to each.

18. Holistic Success Factors

Understand that real-world success is messy and predicted by many factors beyond IQ, including grit, conscientiousness, motivation, emotional intelligence, and environmental opportunities, and broaden your focus accordingly.

19. Balance Imagination with Reality

Recognize the trade-off between finding true patterns and seeing patterns that don’t exist (apophenia); pair your imagination with executive functioning to ensure your ideas are tethered to reality while still exploring possibilities.

20. Brain Training for Specific Needs

While general brain training programs may not significantly improve IQ for healthy adults, they can offer substantial benefits for individuals with specific needs, such as veterans with traumatic brain injuries.

21. Experience Art for Transcendence

Consider engaging with powerful artistic experiences, such as listening to specific musical pieces (e.g., the Algar Chowl concerto), as a potential pathway to induce feelings of transcendence.