What Kind Of Smart Are You?

I get all my great ideas in the shower or on walks. Something about the sound of the water falling drowns out the noise in my head and I’m able to work through my thoughts. Maybe it’s the metaphysical equivalent of singing in the shower. All my thoughts are bounced off the walls and the steam until they converge into one harmonic chord.

So this morning, in the shower, I was thinking of all the different kinds of smart a person can be. I have friends and colleagues, each with one or more of these types of smarts, and I admire each of them. I began to create my shower list of all the kinds of smart I could think of, and the list was endless; cleverness, emotional intelligence, street smart, business savvy, topic smart, leader smart, influence smart, patient smart, quiet smart, creative smart, color smart.

Dictionary.com lists a few definitions for the adjective ’smart’ that I think categorize my list well:

• Having or showing quick intelligence or ready mental capability: a smart student.
• Shrewd or sharp, as a person in dealing with others or as in business dealings: a smart businessman.
• Clever, witty, or readily effective, as a speaker, speech, rejoinder, etc.
• Dashingly or impressively neat or trim in appearance, as persons, dress, etc.
• Socially elegant; sophisticated or fashionable: the smart crowd.
• Saucy; pert: smart remarks.
• Equipped with, using, or containing electronic control devices, as computer systems, microprocessors, or missiles: a smart phone; a smart copier.

The one thing that all of these kinds of smart have in common is the requirement that the subject be aware. It seems as though being smart is really more of a receptive quality; the ability to receive information. So what kind of smart are you? How can you be more aware to your world?

The Greatness Magnet

I found a post today from one of my mostest favorite bloggers, Danielle LaPorte about one of my other bestest favorites, Gwen Bell. At first I thought my Google Reader was bugging out. And then I thought, of course, this makes sense that they are connected. I don't know how they connected, but I'm not surprised. Greatness is magnetic. These women vibrate so cleanly in their frequency, how could they not find each other? I think Danielle Laporte once called it 'acidic'. Truth is acidic, sharp, precise. It cuts to the chase, to the bone, to the quick. Can you feel what I'm saying? I mean it, can you feel it? The sharpness of it, the cleanness of it. You feel it when you've stumbled onto your truth, maybe just for a split second, maybe you're lucky enough to hold it for sixty whole, luscious, timeless seconds, and you live all of your years in that one minute. I see it, I've felt it, I know how to get to it. I avoid it, but I know how to get there.

This is my raw truth today, Gwen Bell.

Recreate Fitness

I belong to a Crossfit gym in Portland, Oregon, called Recreate Fitness. It's run by a fiercely dedicated and fab couple, Tina & Nathan Jeffers. I love my gym more and more all the time. Gym owners, pay attention. There are many things these guys do well, follow-through, relationship building, sound fitness advice... But they also do two things, that are very subtle, and seldom appreciated, but that set them apart from any other gym I've been to.

They are 100% reliable. I have never once shown up at 6:30AM to find the place not open. They are never late, and without exception, they are always prepared with the workout at the class start time. Their class schedule never deviates from what they post online. Like clockwork. Too many gyms have a reputation of flaky staff, no shows, poorly maintained class schedules. Burn me once, it's not likely I'll be back. Burn me twice, I definitely won't be back, and I'll be telling everyone I know not to go.

They encourage effort and strength, not a barbie & ken image. I've never heard them say, 'good job, looks like you've lost weight'. But you will hear them say often, 'Nice work today. You look strong. Great effort.' The focus becomes being your strongest, fittest self, not fitting yourself into a visual image. And guess what, we do all look strong, and our lean muscle mass increases, and we kick ass.

Thanks Recreate!