Today, Norm Goldman Publisher & Editor of Bookpleasures.com is honoured to have as our guest, David Gruder, Ph.D author of The New IQ: How Integrity Intelligence Serves You, Your Relationships and Our World.

David holds a doctorate in clinical psychology with a secondary emphasis in organizational development. He is Executive Director of Willingness Works® and Integrity Revolution, LLC, in Del Mar California and he lectures, trains and consults worldwide in Personal Relationship & Leadership Integrity Development. He has provided negotiation skills training to ambassadors and other delegates to the World Trade Organization through a project that was co-sponsored by South Center in Geneva, Switzerland, Switzerland and Action Aid in Pakistan. His first print book Sensible Self-Help was the recipient of two book awards, including Colliers 1997 Manual Health Book of the Year.

Good day David and thanks for participating in our interview.

Norm:

What is the integrity movement and how did you become interested in it?

David:

The integrity movement is a trend toward insisting on a new level of personal, relationship, leadership and societal integrity that is necessary for individually and collectively solving the wide range of challenges we currently face. For the better part of my life, beginning in childhood, I have been interested how we develop integrity, how we fall out of integrity, and how we can enhance our integrity. This interest became the centerpiece of my life in 2002, after being in the New York area on 9/11/2001 and then going through an unexpected divorce six months later.

Norm

What is Willingness Works® of which you are its Executive Director?

David:

Since 1988, Willingness Works® has provided “an education in being human that we always needed but were never taught.” It has led the way in the next wave of self-improvement: “Personal development that serves us all.” I more recently merged Willingness Works into Integrity Revolution, LLC, in order to more fully focus on helping to spark an integrity revolution.

Norm:

Whom do you believe will benefit from The New IQ How Integrity Intelligence Serves You, Your Relationships and Our World and why? As a follow up, what are your hopes for this book?

David:

This book is truly for all of us. One thing we all have in common is three core drives: the drive to be authentic as individuals, the drive to enjoy fulfilling connection with others and the drive to have a positive impact in the world.

All of us know that we have serious problems with lack of integrity across the boards in our society and around the planet. The underlying source of these problems is being out of integrity with one, two or all three of our core drives.

Because The New IQ provides a complete road map for helping people move into integrity with their three core drives, it is a book for everyday people to world leaders and everyone in between.

The New IQ is perhaps the first book to unify personal, relationship, and leadership development in service of helping to spark the integrity revolution we so desperately need at all levels of society. My hope for this book is that it will play a major role in helping spark an integrity revolution and in transforming the fields of psychotherapy and coaching so that they facilitate “personal development that serves us all.”

Norm:

 How did you get the inspiration for this book? Why did you feel compelled to write this book?

David:

I grew up being intrigued with current events, beginning in early elementary school. As a child and teenager during the 1960s, my heart broke as I watched our society’s momentum toward uniting personal, relationship, leadership and societal development get squashed by the assassinations of John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, and the Kent State Massacre that followed.

Decades later this would come back to me as I tried to get my arms around the impact of having been in the New York area on 9/11/2001. As I witnessed the profound love and compassion that New Yorkers displayed in the face of such unspeakable trauma, I realized I could no longer stay silent about the seeds of change that died in our society in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

I felt called to help spark an integrity revolution, in part by articulating a more socially responsible vision of personal development than has previously existed. You can read more about what led me to write The New IQ in its introduction and in my free introductory Integrity Intelligence eCourse that you can enroll in through all three of my websites (mentioned below).

Norm:

Is there a message in your book that you want your readers to grasp?

David:

Yes indeed:

1) Restoring integrity is the hidden key to solving all of the many seemingly separate problems we face as individuals, in our relationships and at all levels of society.

2) The key to restoring integrity is converting this word from a vague, abstract, philosophical concept into a clear, concrete, actionable way of living.

3) The key to doing this is understanding integrity from the perspective of our three core drives for authenticity, connection and impact.

 4) The key to living in integrity with our three core drives is outgrowing our old automated survival modes and upgrading seven key life skills that Natural Developers intuitively develop (I refer to these in The New IQ as our seven WisePassions).

5) Most people don’t know that integrity and fulfillment are inseparable; understanding our three core drives shows why one cannot exist without the other.

6) The more of us who upgrade our 3D Integrity, the more quickly we will reach the integrity restoration ‘tipping point’ that we so urgently need to reach as a society.

7) Upgrading our 3D Integrity is the key to attaining the personal authenticity, relationship satisfaction and ability to have a positive impact in the world that enables us to feel fulfilled in life.

8) A clear road map now exists to help each of us succeed.

Norm:

How would you respond to potential readers who might be sceptical about the subject matter of your book and your ideas?

David:

What is there to be sceptical about? We know we live in an era of unparalleled lack of integrity. We know that restoring integrity is not simply a matter of willpower or trying to “be good,” because if that was all it took most of us would have done this long ago. We all know that our political, legal, economic and educational systems are largely broken because of lack of integrity.

What most people don’t know is what they can do to help turn this around, no matter what their station in life happens to be. Natural Developers have shown the rest of us (including me) how to do this. The New IQ and The New IQ Integrity Makeover Workbook provide a dynamic, practical road-tested guide for restoring the disappearing virtue of integrity for the sake of our loved ones, our communities, our businesses, our society, and our personal wellbeing.

Still sceptical? I’m confident that The New IQ will help you change your mind. My free Integrity Intelligence introductory eCourse is a great way to start for those who are sceptical, though. This can be enrolled in on all three of my websites.

Norm:

Where did you get your information and ideas for your book?

David:

I have been working on my own personal, relationship and leadership development for well over three decades. I have been a licensed psychologist, business consultant and leader for well over two of those three-plus decades. My gift is not so much in developing new methods as in being a faithful reporter of the obvious and connecting the dots among many perspectives and approaches to help create a more complete and coherent picture of the source of our problems and the solutions to them.

My gift is in translating conceptual clarity into clear, practical action steps to efficiently move from the problem to the solution. This material grew out of my studying what Natural Developers intuitively did, and in learning how I could best teach Deliberate Developers to successfully do on purpose what Natural Developers do by instinct. More importantly, I have been through my own share of life challenges and on each occasion have risen from the ashes to turn these undesired experiences into profound gifts – what I refer to in the book as “awe-full” gifts. This is how the material in The New IQ emerged.

Norm:

Has writing your book been a therapeutic experience for you? If so, how?

David:

It’s been a profoundly therapeutic experience for me. There is a saying that we teach best what we most need to learn and I resemble that statement. The New IQ is on some level an autobiography of how I recovered from an entirely unexpected and utterly devastating divorce through discovering subtle but vital aspects of integrity that I had never before understood had anything to do with integrity.

Writing the book was also deeply therapeutic in helping me recover from the trauma of having been in New York on 9/11/2001. And writing it helped me heal from having shut down a portion of my social conscience in response to the assassinations and other tragedies in the 1960s and early 1970s that I mentioned earlier in this interview. In short, writing The New IQ brought me back to myself and crystallized my life purpose more fully than ever.

Norm:

Are you working on any books/projects that you would like to share with us? (We would love to hear all about them!)

David:

Yes, quite a few. The three projects that I am most excited about at the moment are:

The New IQ Integrity Makeover Workbook is the companion to The New IQ. Ten modules of powerful self-assessments and exercises help you rapidly build a deeply personal and empowering relationship with all of what you learn in the book.

www.IntegrityPledge.org is a new website whose purpose is to help spark an integrity revolution. Read and sign an Integrity Pledge, take action to embody your Pledge in your daily life, and become part of a community of individuals and organizations dedicated helping spark this revolution by embodying and facilitating 3D Integrity.

The Politician Leadership Integrity Analysis is a free tool anyone can use to evaluate how strong the candidates for president of the United States (and those running for or currently occupying political office) really are in the key dimensions of leadership integrity. This free tool will be available through www.TheNewIQ.com beginning in February 2008.

Norm:

How can our readers find out more about you and is there anything else you wish to add that we have not covered?

David:

Visit www.TheNewIQ.com to learn more about me, to order your copy of The New IQ and The New IQ Integrity Makeover Workbook, and to access a wealth of resources for supercharging your 3D integrity and development. Visit www.IntegrityPledge.org to sign the Integrity Pledge and decide how you will do your part to help spark an integrity revolution.

Norm:

Thanks once again and good luck with all of your future endeavors.

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