Applying Intelligences, Imagination, and forecasting
How did you become you?
Success is an evolution and not a destination, and this has been Dr. Nilda Perez’ life lesson. She graduated from high school with an academic and secretarial degree and immediately started working as a secretary. Her career flourished fast and furious, and in that path of success she learned that she loved working with people she recognized human behaviour was fascinating, and despite all starting in the same equal plane some flourish beyond their dreams while others remain fixed to repetition and predictability. This idea urged her to earn two degrees one in social science, and another in a master’s clinical social work. This ignited
her professional career.
This path opened a plethora of opportunities in leadership as she ascended the corporate ladder. Nilda seized every possibility opened to her, making it an incredible journey. As the expert in behavioural health, she learned that what often keeps people fastened to ideologies, limiting beliefs, and to the most distressing relationships is their lack of self-awareness. She taught that emotional intelligence literacy could open the most improbable doors to achieving extraordinary goals. Explaining this to clients was riveting and seeing how they thrived emotionally made teaching it so much more enjoyable.
How does EI help feed the imagination?
On average, the lack of emotional intelligence can keep the most brilliant individual imprisoned to mediocracy. Dr. Relly Nadler stated in his article “Leading with Emotional Intelligence,” that very rarely is the individual with high IQ and low EQ that can achieve the success that Steve Jobs did. The tendency is to stop feeding imagination and remain status quo. Knowing this made cultivating elevation of emotional intelligence, her passion. Human behaviour, why people hold on to certain beliefs, why they get stuck in cookie-cutter careers and never grow to full emotional and innovative capacity became intriguing. Nilda then proceeded to get her certificate as a master life coach.
What was the turning point?
Coaching took on a life of its own. Suddenly in 2008, the clientele changed from individuals who desired the latest fad “a life coach,” to those wanting to get back into the workforce. They needed a new career, and many of them were baby boomers who desperately needed
to refine and redesign their careers. They were let go from their jobs and could not find another. Thus a new opportunity with a new clientele that desperately needed the help. It was
at this point that Nilda did not feel equipped to help this new target market adequately.
Returning to school was a no brainer. Dr. Nilda enrolled in a doctoral degree in a very new track that incorporated all of her current knowledge with a new and refreshed view. A doctorate in global business and strategic foresight. Namely, innovation and forecasting. To strategically plan for the future (foresight) you need to have high scores of emotional, social, cultural intelligences. This is the first step to innovation because before you create, you need to be first self-aware, have the capacity and the willingness to manage and comprehend social change, and also attentive to a changing culture. It is at this point that one recognized a deeper dive into all the intelligences necessary for innovating and forecasting a desired future.
Why is curiosity important?
An emotionally intelligent individual is self-aware, confident, happy, therefore, can create and innovate. They are team players and have increased social skills, and they are committed and organized, therefore have the aptitude to develop, produce, and strategize new ideas.
Because of their broad world view, they continuously seek out new possibilities. They view the world from a “what if” perspective; therefore, they can construct their desired future.
Why Innovating | Strategizing | Forecasting?
“The illiterate of the future are not those who can’t read or write but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” - Alvin Toffler
Dr. Nilda went beyond just learning business strategies and techniques she now had the keys to awakening a generation of individuals who will dare to dream, create, invent, therefore design the future. Innovation was no longer for those isolated Bell Graham, Thomas Edison, and the modern Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezo like, but now it is attainable for those willing to learn, unlearn, and relearn.
Innovation has become a trend word. Everyone thinks they have the secret recipe on being innovative, and when you look closer and ask more questions, they are doing exactly what others in their industry are doing and the doing it the same way. Innovators are curious, inquisitive, and relentless. They seek out the problems so that they can solve them, and they stretch their imagination and ingenuity. These are average people who live inspired and sharpen their creativity. They do things differently because they are seeking out possibilities and have a vivid imagination to innovate.
They strategize intricate ideas and unique interpretations by scanning for disruptive changes. These strategic foresight methods do not predict the future but rather explore the range of
possibilities for the futures that have the greatest potential to materialize. These are methods, approaches, scenarios, and game plan to design the best possible future.
In forecasting, it is necessary to explore the past and the present data and study the analysis of trends. Only then can the most accurate predictions about the future be made. This is how meteorologist predicts the weather.
These methods are critical for the future of business, careers, government. Without applying these approaches, the future is left to change. The information age has reshaped the landscape of our lives. Things are happening faster, bigger, and better than ever before. We are either the developers, the first implementors, or the followers of trends. The issue with being the followers is the rapid speed in which things are changing. The follower will be left behind and eventually lose ground.
What should you do to stay cutting edge?
Dr. Nilda and her team’s goal is to work with those that want to administer strategies and techniques to stand apart from their competition. By training the brain to shift their mindset to a broader yet organized solution-based structure. At this point, they will find that they will systematically be redefining and creating small and large innovative ideas for standing out and apart in their careers or industries.
To be cutting edge one needs to be a thought leader contributing innovative ideas and influencing change in your career or industry. It is at this point that the individual, company, or organization begins to set themselves apart and can showcase their differentiation. Remaining in that cutting edge space keeps one alive and jovial and feeling young.
Where do you see your future?
Since my trajectory has been so vast, I have learned to refuse to put a cap on it. It is evident that there is so much more that can be done, learned, and created. Therefore, the future is received with arms wide open. There is so much more to learn, to teach, and to create. The one thing that Dr. Nilda will blatantly refuse to become is complacent. She is a life learner who’s dedicated to teaching and advocating for broadening individuals’ perspective on their potential to expand their imagination, design, and forecast the future they want for their lives and their children’s lives.
Careers, businesses, institutions, and organizations are potentials for change. It is up to each individual to find problems and conceptualize solutions. Everything has a better way it is us to each individual to use their imagination to conceive possibilities. She believes that everyone has the potential to do the unimaginable when they allow themselves to do it.
Is there relevance in giving back?
Dr. Nilda believes that giving back is so important to one’s growth. As a result, she is a campaigner for emotional and professional growth. She is an adjunct professor for two universities as well as lectures, trains and teaches strategic foresight, innovation, forecasting, and the four intelligences and their application to how we respond to the world around us.
She considers each individual to be a wealth of creativity, innovation, and forecasters of the future. But only when they decide to take responsibility for the problems they observe and develop the solutions they create for a better future. Average people using the power of their
broaden minds for progression. That’s giving back.