Spiritual Intelligence: 21 Skills That Underlie Our Capacities for Wisdom, Compassion & Love in Action

Cindy Wigglesworth, trailblazer in the field of spiritual intelligence, has created an assessment tool that identifies our spiritual strengths and weaknesses—qualities that fall outside the traditional IQ or emotional intelligence (EQ) parameters—in order to provide a guide for determining which skills we as individuals need to develop in order to show up in the world as love in action. Early on, Cindy recognized the profound benefits that both spiritual practice and EQ assessments had in her leadership development work, wishing only there was a map similar to what EQ offers but going one step higher, to lead people in the realm of spiritual development. So she created a multidimensional self-assessment tool to do just that, wrote the book SQ21: The 21 Skills of Spiritual Intelligence, and founded the global leadership development network Deep Change. 

Cindy’s dedication, brilliant intellect, integral understanding, and the effects of a lifetime of spiritual motivation and practice are abundantly evident in this warmly personal, articulate, and inspiring conversation about spirituality and how we can come to embody the values we aspire to. It’s easy to love people in the abstract, Cindy points out, but how we actually behave is what’s critical. What would love see? she asks, when talking about the practice of reframing. As co-host John Dupuy said, this conversation is like “an infusion of spiritual vitamins.” It’s also very timely—Cindy reflects that spiritual intelligence skills and learning how to sustain faith are more important than ever in these times of polarization and crisis. Recorded July 18, 2024.

“Spiritual intelligence is the ability to behave with wisdom and compassion while maintaining inner and outer peace regardless of the situation.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps

• Introducing Cindy Wigglesworth, world authority on spirituality, creator of the SQ21 assessment that measures spiritual intelligence (01:25)
• How did Cindy come to focus on the field of spiritual intelligence? (04:18)
• Cindy’s existential quest began with moving to India at the age of six (05:59)
• Leadership development skills benefit directly from spiritual practice (10:08)
• Discovering Goleman & Boyatzis’ work on emotional intelligence (EQ)—where was the equivalent on spiritual intelligence? (11:58)
• Defining the terms spirituality and spiritual intelligence (15:21)
• Spiritual intelligence = love in action (18:21)
• State experiences are not sufficient for showing up as love in the world (20:35)
• Exemplars of spiritual intelligence and the quality of equanimity (21:53)
• The road to a pluralistic understanding of Christianity (24:49)
• Inheriting both strengths & weaknesses of her parents (29:40)
• Cindy’s SQ model emulates the EQ model with 4 quadrants (31:05)
• How Cindy developed the 21 skills and survey for her SQ assessment (32:56)
• A positive age correlation for skills, which grow over time, is essential (36:00)
• What strikes Cindy having given this test to so many? The 3 levels of value (37:06)
• The SQ test can uncover weak foundations under skills people thought they had down (39:59)
• How has Cindy’s understanding of spirituality changed during this process? (41:26) 
• Spiral Dynamics’ stages of development: we are all playing chords of a melody of colors (42:43)
• SQ assessment levels’ relationship with developmental stages (46:35)
• Do certain practices help with building these skills? Reframing skills are Cindy’s favorite: What would love see? (49:32)
• Exchanging self with other: practicing with Trump and the current political situation (54:45)
• Cindy’s website and resources (59:04)
• How does religion factor into this and the importance of sustaining faith in these difficult times (1:00:19)

Resources & References

• Cindy’s website, DeepChange.com, has free resources and a sample assessment
• Cindy Wigglesworth, SQ21:The 21 Skills of Spiritual Intelligence*
• Roger Walsh, Essential Spirituality: The 7 Central Practices to Awaken Heart and Mind*
• Rachel Carson, Silent Spring*
• The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
• Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ*
• Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis & Annie McKee, Primal Leadership: Unleashing the Power of Emotional Intelligence*
• Abraham Maslow, The Farther Reaches of Human Nature*
• Helen Schucman, A Course of Miracles* (Foundation for Inner Peace)
• Susanne Cook-Greuter, Postautonomous Ego Development: A Study of Its Nature and Measurement*
• Clare Graves & Don Beck, Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership and Change*
• Roland (Rollie)Stanich, Integral Christianity: The Way of Embodied Love*
• James Fowler, Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning*

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

---

Cindy Wigglesworth is the bestselling author of SQ21: The Twenty-One Skills of Spiritual Intelligence. Her SQ21 spiritual intelligence self-assessment has created a validated and diversity-appropriate way of having spiritual conversations in the workplace. John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, calls SQ “the next frontier in Leadership.” Endorsed by Ken Wilber, Cindy’s dialogue with him on SQ is available here: https://integrallife.com/spiritual-intelligence-measuring-the-infinite/. Cindy has appeared on Oprah, PBS, TEDxLowerEastSide, TEDxSonomaCounty and numerous radio programs and conferences. She is the current Chairperson of the Board at Unity of Houston. Her website is www.deepchange.com.

---

Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell