Tune up your EQ

“EQ or [applied] Emotional Intelligence is not just important to me …it is essential ! A knife can be used to create a work of art or it can do great damage. Thus, it is equally so for intelligence. To truly make a work of art we can use a saw to cut the wood to length and then a fine chisel to fashion it further. The point is clear we do not just use one tool all the time.”

Ray Hobby, Tune up your EQ reader and contributor.

Flickr Photo Credit:aeu04117.
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In this series, I ask Ray Hobby why, as a person with a high IQ, he earns his living by encouraging people to improve their emotional intelligence.

First, I asked Ray how he discovered that he possessed a high IQ. Her’s what he told me:

“I am of the generation of schoolchildren who were ‘vetted’ for secondary education by the [now doubtful] ‘virtue’ of the 11-Plus. This was fundamentally an IQ test plus a few bits that were intended to sift out the ‘top 20%’, or so, for the Grammar School. In colloquial terms, if you ‘passed’ you went to the grammar school, if you ‘failed’ you went to the secondary modern school. I FAILED !”

“For the next 5 years I went through an education that was OK, but, let’s face it, I was labelled ‘a failure’ - so what was the point of striving to learn…?”

“I was 18 and completing an electrician’s apprenticeship when I met a maths lecturer – Reg Dawkins – who was my salvation. [I am now 61, so the fact that I remember his name IS significant]. This man made mathematics ‘sing’ for me and, better late than never, I was hooked on learning.”

“Perhaps the fact that I was working on high voltage systems and needed to accurately calculate electro- technology factors to avoid a buzz in cable and fingers was another motivator, but, at last, I saw the justification for learning. I WAS A FAILURE NO MORE !Hence, I am ‘a late-developer’, which is a euphemism for ‘a lazy boy at school’ or, perhaps more likely, someone who has not been ‘educationally switched on’ ! ”

“Do you know someone like that…?”

“It was predominantly for those feelings that after graduating in engineering I later became a teacher – a maths teacher, of course - so that I could fire the imaginations and minds of children with a love of maths …and of learning, too.”

“To really answer the question - in turn, I discovered that I possessed the academic ability to successfully achieve in tests and national examination standards to distinction at degree level […and later to post-graduate level]. With that fresh confidence and a certain level of bloody-mindedness my career developed with an early promotional appointment as Head of Mathematics Department and further promotion to Head of Sixth Form, both in a ‘new’ non-selective school, developing from scratch and then to senior Deputy Headmaster of a large and successful comprehensive school.”

“Note - ‘non-selective’ and ‘comprehensive school’s – with no selection by ‘ability’ at 11-years-of-age, which gave all children, especially the ‘late developers’ a chance to ‘catch up’ and improve.”

“It was then at the age of 39, coupled with a real determination to rid myself of the ‘chip on my shoulder’ I had been given as a child, that I took the Mensa test, perhaps aggressively, to finally ‘prove them wrong’ and ‘because it was there’ and found that I had a significantly high IQ.”

In the next article in the series, Ray decribes the 3 most significant ways that having a high IQ has affected his life.

Download the entire series in pdf format now.

More Insights From Ray Hobby

Is EQ Old or New?
Is EQ Old or New?, Part 2

More Resources

Enjoy Steve Olsen’s Understanding Intelligence-Best Resources List

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