What’s in it for me? Intelligence for today, and tomorrow.
IQ, EQ, AQ.
Intelligence measures have always been a mirror of historical context. When Alfred Binet developed the IQ test in the early 1900s, factories were replacing farms and organisations needed to sort workers efficiently. That’s why IQ measures the capacity to follow complex instructions, reason laterally, and lead effectively.
By the 1990s, the landscape had shifted. Knowledge work was rising and collaboration was key. Daniel Goleman noticed that the highest performers weren't always the smartest people in the room. That’s why his EQ, or emotional intelligence, test measures scores individuals on self-awareness and attunement.
Now neither IQ nor EQ are reliable predictors of success. The intelligence you need to thrive today, in a context defined by disruption, upheaval and rapid innovation, is related to your capacity to handle change. In other words, you need a high AQ, or Agility Quotient.
In this Blink, you'll find your AQ archetype, learn what's driving or blocking your adaptability, and pick up actionable strategies for boosting your AQ.
Uncover your AQ archetype
Are you a neuroscientist? A novelist? A firefighter? Or an astronaut?
This isn’t a question about your job title. No, these are the four AQ archetypes. Think of your AQ archetype as your ‘change personality’ – the way you respond when things veer off course, when a plan falls apart, when an opportunity appears from nowhere.
Novelists are strategic visionaries. This archetype sees the big picture, loves bold goals, and moves the plot forward. They're exceptional at what’s called proactive change – anticipating the future and positioning themselves to take competitive advantage. But they struggle with reactive change. When an unanticipated change happens (think: unwanted editorial feedback or a sudden change of strategy at work ), they frantically pivot rather than solving the problem.
Neurosurgeons operate with precision, diligence, and an uncompromising commitment to getting it right. That rigour is, sometimes quite literally, a lifesaver. But there are strings attached. Along with this precision comes perfectionism and fear of failure. In fast-moving situations, the neurosurgeon might find their perfectionist streak becomes paralyzing.
Firefighters are at their best when everything is on, well, fire. Reactive change? That’s where they thrive: they have a knack for getting a read on the chaos and finding possible solutions inside seemingly impossible situations. What’s trickier for the firefighter is thinking adaptably and flexibly in the quieter moments, when the task is to choose change, not just respond to it.
Astronauts are wired for the frontier. They are bold, passionate, and genuinely excited by what others find terrifying. Where the astronaut struggles is with follow-through. Their grand visions can outpace their capacity to execute them. Astronauts need grounding if they’re going to turn their flashes of inspiration into sustained action.
So, which one are you?
CHURN is constant
When the Zen master Shunryu Suzuki was giving a lecture, one listener asked if Suzuki could distill the entire teaching of Buddhism into a single phrase. The master barely missed a beat, before offering his two-word response:
“Everything changes”.
These days we all face constant change. Or, if you like, CHURN: that’s an acronym for Change, Hiccups, Uncertainty, Rupture, Newness. Whether you’re dealing with a hiccup like a postponed meeting or a devastating rupture like a relationship ending, CHURN demands a response.
There are three recognisable stages of response to CHURN. The first is avoidance – turning away from the disruption, minimising it, hoping it resolves itself. The second is resistance – pushing back, fighting the change, trying to go back to how things were. Neither response is unusual. But neither moves things forward, either.
The third stage is the AQ stage: meeting CHURN with clarity rather than emotion, with curiosity instead of control.
Each archetype gets to this stage differently.
Novelists, who plan ahead naturally, can struggle when CHURN arrives uninvited – the key for them is resisting the urge to immediately rewrite the plan, and sitting with uncertainty long enough to understand it.
Neurosurgeons need to resist the pull toward perfecting a response before deploying it – in fast-moving churn, good enough and timely beats perfect and late.
Firefighters arrive at the AQ stage almost instinctively in a crisis, but can freeze when CHURN requires them to initiate rather than react.
And Astronauts, energised by novelty, need to watch for the tendency to treat every disruption as an excuse to start something new rather than adapt what already exists.
No matter your AQ Archetype, you can form an AQ stage response to CHURN. And the more you practice, the better your responses will grow.
The AQ ABCD: A is for Anchor
When is a scarf more than a scarf?
Elizabeth Duffy had lived in Queens her whole life when Hurricane Sandy hit in 2012. Sandy knocked out power for millions, destroyed homes, and upended entire communities. In the aftermath, strangers showed up. And among the things they handed out were grey scarves. Years later, Duffy still remembers that. "It was the warmest scarf I ever had," she said. The warmest thing about them was what it represented: someone showing up for her when she most needed help.
A scarf is more than a scarf when it’s an anchor. Anchors are the people, objects, routines, and rituals that keep us tethered when everything else is moving. And they’re a critical tool in the AQ toolkit. In conditions of high CHURN you must adapt. And having something stable to return to makes this sustained adaptability possible.
A familiar place can be an anchor. A long-held habit. Even an object as unassuming as a grey scarf can be an anchor. Whatever your anchors are, think of them as infrastructure: they’re the stable scaffolding from which you can grow your agility.
It’s important to have anchors. It’s also possible to be an anchor, for yourself and others.
Each archetype anchors in their own way.
Astronauts anchor others through courage – their fearlessness in the face of the unknown is contagious, giving those around them permission to be bolder than they'd otherwise dare.
Novelists anchor through vision – when CHURN makes the future feel formless and frightening, they map it, and give it shape.
Firefighters anchor through action – calm, decisive problem-solving that signals to everyone around them that this situation is survivable.
And Neurosurgeons anchor through loyalty – the quiet, unwavering presence that others learn to rely on precisely because it never wavers.
As AI scales and automates more of the technical and analytical work that once defined expertise, the distinctly human capacity to anchor others – to steady them so they feel safe enough to adapt – becomes increasingly valuable. In a world of accelerating CHURN, the ability to anchor may become your most durable professional skill.
The AQ ABCD: B is for Bet
Let’s play a quick game of would you rather.
Option A: a fixed salary of $50,000. Option B: a fixed salary of $40,000 – but with a bonus that could land anywhere between zero and $30,000. Which do you pick?
If A felt like the obvious choice to you, you might have ambiguity aversion. Most of us do. Ambiguity aversion is a built-in bias that consistently favors known risk over unknown risk. But in a world defined by CHURN, the ability to tolerate – even lean into – unknown risk isn't reckless. Just the opposite: these days risk tolerance is key to surviving volatile situations.
The mechanism for building that tolerance is betting. There are two types of bets you can make: hedging bets and hopeful bets. Hedging bets are cautious and protective – they limit downside and keep things safe. Hopeful bets are optimistic – they focus on what could go right and reach toward something wanted rather than away from something feared. Both have their place. But defaulting to hedging can become a liability over time: it can leave you stuck, and scared to adapt. When facing a choice, ask: what's the hedging bet here? What's the hopeful one? Take the hopeful one as often as you can.
Ask anyone at a blackjack table and they’ll tell you: expect to lose some of the bets you take. Often, your first bet won't land. That's not failure – that's data. Failed bets still build AQ, because agility is learned through iteration, not perfection. Aim for at least three bets on any given direction before drawing conclusions.
Bets and anchors work as a pair. Anchors provide the stability that makes betting feel survivable. Bets stop anchors becoming a hiding place. Held in parallel, they are the twin poles of AQ: steadiness and agility, working together.
The AQ ABCD: C is for Classroom
"Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know." That’s the Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön. And while it’s not exactly a comforting sentiment, it does tell us something profound: that every irritation, every setback, every cringeworthy failure contains a lesson. And if everything contains a lesson, then everywhere can be our classroom.
This is the third major tool for building AQ: the classroom. More specifically, the mindset that turns every situation into a learning experience. The know-it-all to learn-it-all shift is not just an attitude adjustment. It's a fundamental reorientation towards growth. A know-it-all filters the world for confirmation. A learn-it-all filters it for information. The know-it-all arrives at a meeting to demonstrate what they already understand. The learn-it-all arrives to find out what they don't. The language of each mindset reflects this: where a know-it-all says "I'm proud of my expertise," a learn-it-all says "I'm excited by what I'm learning." Where a know-it-all says "I don't want to fail," a learn-it-all says "failure tells me something I couldn't have learned any other way."
Three strategies can help you make this shift. The first: writing an agility journal. Each day, capture three observations: a moment of rigidity, like a defensive reaction to feedback; a moment of agility, like an improvised solution; and one thing worth remembering – an insight, a surprise, something that reframed a situation. The observations don't need to be significant. But patterns will emerge revealing the triggers that produce rigidity and the conditions that produce agility.
The second strategy: asking A+ questions. Learn-it-alls use conversation to extract knowledge from others. They avoid questions that signal expertise and embrace questions that genuinely open things up: like "What am I missing here?" Mastering this kind of question is one of the fastest ways to accelerate your learning; it also has the added benefit of making those around you feel valued.
The third strategy: setting authentic learning goals adapted to your archetype. Novelists thrive on big-picture frameworks and unexpected cross-disciplinary connections – their goal might be to find the thread linking two seemingly unrelated fields. Neurosurgeons learn through depth and want true mastery – their challenge is to apply that love of depth in a genuinely new field. Firefighters learn best through doing but struggle to debrief – their focus should be on extracting the lesson from the situation before the next crisis arrives. Astronauts are energised by novelty but can fail to focus – their goal needs enough structure to ensure that what they start, they actually finish and integrate.
The AQ ABCD: D is for Discomfort
Imagine getting paid to do nothing for six weeks. Sounds like a dream, right? That’s exactly what the participants in Donald Hebb's landmark experiment at McGill University thought when they signed up in the 1950s. Hebb wanted to measure how the human brain responds to monotony. The setup was simple: lie in a comfortable cubicle, do nothing, get paid.
Within days, most couldn't continue. Their cognitive performance collapsed; participants struggled with simple arithmetic and basic problem-solving. Emotionally, they fell apart. Nobody lasted the full six weeks. The experiment had to be stopped.
The conclusion was clear. Without novelty, we can’t function, either cognitively or psychologically. And yet, many of us stay in a less extreme version of Hebb’s cubicles: in our comfort zone. Peak performance can only happen when we leave that comfort zone.
So what keeps us there?
A fear of discomfort.
But the discomfort that accompanies trying something new isn't a problem to solve. It's simply the sensation of pushing yourself further. Discomfort is not permanent. It comes in waves that build, crest, and pass. Riding the wave of discomfort, rather than retreating from it, is how you grow.
Here’s how each archetype can lean into their natural relationship with discomfort:
Novelists are comfortable with the discomfort of uncertainty, provided they're the ones who chose it. Their challenge is to stay present when disruption arrives uninvited, rather than immediately redirecting.
Neurosurgeons can tolerate discomfort when the path is clear, but struggle when the outcome is genuinely unknown – they stretch themselves by acting before everything feels certain.
Firefighters are at ease in the heat of a crisis but find intentionally planning change harder – their practice is to make a move before urgency forces their hand.
Meanwhile, Astronauts embrace the discomfort of the new with genuine enthusiasm. Their assignment is to tolerate the discomfort of follow-through, so their ideas can truly land.
All the tools we’ve discussed lead up to here: Anchors ground you when you’re feeling buffeted by CHURN. Bets help you move through CHURN by taking calculated risks that create opportunities. When the world is your Classroom, you see growth potential everywhere. And finally, when you’ve made friends with Discomfort, you’ve fully adapted to the high AQ mindset. You’re not intimidated by rapid change: you’re someone that makes rapid change happen.
Final summary
In this Blink to AQ by Liz Tran, you’ve learned that to thrive in a fast-changing world, you need a high AQ, or Agility Quotient: the capacity to meet uncertainty and disruption with curiosity rather than resistance. Building it means knowing your change archetype, developing anchors that keep you grounded, placing hopeful bets that stretch your tolerance for the unknown, shifting from knowing to learning, and treating discomfort as a signal of growth rather than a warning to stop.
Okay, that’s it for this Blink. We hope you enjoyed it. If you can, please take the time to leave us a rating – we always appreciate your feedback. See you in the next Blink.