Multiple Intelligences: Why You’re A Green Rock Star but Suck at Saving Money

We’re all different and that’s what makes life beautiful, right? Growing up, we all navigate different avenues, make different decisions that impact our lives, and draw different conclusions from the same information. The culmination of all these differences are what come to make us uniquely “us.”

This is largely related to the fact that everyone possesses their own unique learning profile, meaning that we are naturally inclined to learn better from specific types of inputs and are predisposed to perform better at certain tasks than others.

This is something that we all recognize intuitively, but have you ever considered that it might explain why you’ve got a knack for understanding and caring for the environment, but have thousands of dollars in credit card debt and can’t seem to dig yourself out?

8 ways to be a genius

There’s a gentleman by the name of Howard Gardner who understands this. From 1983 to present, he’s developed the Theory of Multiple Intelligences to challenge the generally accepted measurements of intellect.

According to Gardner’s studies, there are 8 ways that a person can express the intelligence that they naturally possess. They are:

• Linguistically – People with linguistic intelligence have a natural affinity for reading, writing, speaking and listening. They’re often good at explaining and teaching.

• Logically – If you possess logical intelligence, you’re probably good with abstractions, numbers, and complex math.

• Spatially – Those with spatial intelligence usually have a talent for visualizing and manipulating objects and ideas. This is a common trait of the artistic.

• Bodily-kinesthetically – If you’re good with your hands or find that you learn the best by doing an activity, you probably have a strong kinesthetic intelligence.

• Musically – People with a strong sensitivity to sounds, rhythms, and tones usually have a great musical intelligence.

• Interpersonally – If you have interpersonal intelligence, you’re likely extroverted and can easily read others’ moods and temperaments. You probably work well in groups.

• Intrapersonally – People with a very strong sense of self and internal understanding have what’s called intrapersonal intelligence.

• Naturalistically – Those with naturalistic intelligence are highly aware of their environment, can understand how ecosystems work, and can be talented with communicating with animals.

Interesting list, no?

Now consider for a second the relevance of each of these intelligences to understanding how you and the natural world work versus, say, the manmade construct of money. I’m not insinuating that you have to be primarily a logical learner to understand money, but it sure would help, wouldn’t it?

What’s your learning profile?

So what are you supposed to do if you’re not naturally inclined to understand and appreciate the math behind the conventional rules of personal finance?

I suppose it would help to begin by understanding your learning profile. Most of us probably have at least an idea of how we learn best, but it might help to have an idea of our other supporting intelligences to help us gauge the best way to approach what feels like a complex topic.

There are a lot of tests out there that aim to give you a snapshot of your learning profile. I know because I spent all day finding and taking them.  I recommend this test from the Learning Disability Resource Community. I liked it the best for these reasons:

• At 80 questions, it felt very comprehensive.

• I felt the results were accurate.

• The questions were worded in ways that made it easy to select appropriate answers.

• No email address or other personally identifying information was required to get my results.

Speaking of results, here’s a snapshot of my learning profile:

As you can see, I’m highly musical and kinesthetic. Also, I’m not very interpersonal or naturalistic. It’s true, this stuff doesn’t come naturally to me.

On improvement

To this day, personal finance and money, when they’re taught at all, are still taught with very mathy overtones. This is a roadblock for most of us.

So what could a guy like me do if I wanted a better grasp of my personal finances? I would need to find a way to relate it to the musical and kinesthetic intelligences that I already possess.

When I developed my first budget, I started tracking how much money I was spending on CDs, records, and recording equipment.

As it turns out, it wasn’t all that much and I had other parts of my life that needed a lot more attention, but relating money to music was the first step I had to take to get my brain to even accept the fact that money management was now going to be a part of my life.

It’s what got me to say, “Hey, I can do this!” I couldn’t have begun to understand it any other way.

From there, I went to an all cash budgeting system and almost entirely stopped using my credit card. Taking the physical dollar bills out of my wallet and counting them out each time I bought something really played to my kinesthetic intelligence.

Removing the barriers to successful personal finance and working from basic concepts with my natural intelligences gave me the sense of understanding that made me want to keep improving.

Putting it all together

Today, I’m on an all-credit, fully-automated budget tracking system that works perfectly for me, but starting out with what made sense at the time is what it took to get here.

Money, budgets, and personal finance were scary words not that long ago. Music and handwork were comfortable and familiar.

The human mind is a complex organ with all kinds of built-in roadblocks. Learning to connect with yourself and your natural strengths will help you to address foreign ideas and concepts with less fear and hesitance.

What are your primary natural learning styles? How can you incorporate them to improve your understanding of personal finance?

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