MyGiftedLife.org

** This thread discusses the content article: Exploring Grownup Giftedness: What's the Point **



Over the summer I had the privilege of prototyping my new coaching program for gifted adults with a couple of encouraging, engaged (and engaging!) friends. I was pleasantly surprised by what I learned, most of which supported the research I've done and the services I plan to offer.


I was also surprised by the response of one friend's husband. Himself a gifted grownup, he said to his wife (my prototype client) "Really? You're going to look into your giftedness as an adult? Really?" In other words, "What's the point?"


Other than him calling into question the entire focus of my coaching practice, I understand. In fact, I understand a great deal. For those of us who have felt out-of-step with the mainstream all our lives, why look into the potential of giftedness and where it might lead us in the future? After all, whether identified as gifted children or not, I'd venture to say we all experienced misunderstanding, confusion, and rejection. Why bring all that up again? What impact could it possibly have on us as adults? Isn't "gifted" just a label we use to understand our quirky kids and attempt to obtain the educational interventions they need...and not a label relevant to adulthood?





The more time I spend interacting with gifted adults (whether they know they're gifted or not), the more I know I'm on the right track. I've talked with many of you who have finally experienced that "aha" feeling that accompanies the realization that many of your struggles past and present could be attributed to your giftedness: to those pesky gifted qualities--such as your energy, intensity, sensitivity, and your wacky sense of humor--and to how others react when you express those characteristics.


That "aha" feeling alone is reason to address your adult giftedness. Here are some additional benefits to acknowledging your giftedness as a grownup:

• You can make sense of your childhood experiences and experience healing from the wounds inflicted via those experiences.


• If you're a stay-at-home mom, you'll now understand why your role doesn't completely fulfill you. Your mind races, and as bright as your children probably are, reciting ABCs with them repeatedly won't meet your needs for intellectual stimulation. You can now admit--without guilt--your need for greater mental challenges and find ways to meet it.


• You'll comprehend why you've switched jobs so often. You have multiple interests and abilities, and once you've reached a status-quo point at work, your entire self wants to run toward a new challenge. Others may call this flaky; for you, this is survival. In realizing this, you can determine how to cope with it.


• You know why you don't connect with some people, and why those people sometimes give you the strangest stares. They truly don't understand what you're saying, and you can accept this.


• You know you need to find gifted others, and that when you do, they'll totally understand you. You'll find a tribe of people who will validate you and your experiences.


• You can leverage your gifted characteristics to your advantage. For example, you know that you frequently develop answers to problems before other people do. You may not know how you reach your conclusions, but you know you're right. You can now begin to trust and use your intuition more freely to serve yourself and others.

There is a point to exploring giftedness as a grownup, and this is it: if you are a gifted person, you can only live the life you were meant to live if you acknowledge and integrate your giftedness into your adult life. How do you explore your giftedness to this end? Stay tuned, and you'll find out![/quote]
© 2009 Lisa Lauffer[/quote]
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This is a beautifully expressed assertion of the need for all gifted people to stand up and be counted. If we dishonor ourselves by denying our giftedness then we dishonor the world and whatever force we believe brought it and us into being. Organisms that fight mother nature - their environment and source of nutrition - cannot thrive. Nearly all human progress has been initiated by gifted adults so we need to thrive.
I offer a different slant on the same issue here: www.thegiftedway.com/giftedtheory/im-not-gifted-im-a-woman/

Recently I summarized all data available on the IQ of the various elite professions, professor, physician, executive, etc. I drew the general conclusion that they posses a mean IQ of approximately 126 and a standard deviation of 6.7. I corroborated the conclusion with studies of the IQ of the eminent, primarily Roe. From this, I can make a statistical inference of the relative probability that a person of any given IQ will enter an elite profession. The probability peaks at 133, in other words, within the range typically identified as gifted. However, the probability dropped by 1/3 by an IQ of 140 and by 97% by an IQ of 150. All IQs are 15 point deviation scores.

This suggests that there are two very different adult groups within the gifted range. One population, centering around 133 is the effectively gifted. Another group, centering around an IQ of about 142 is the excluded gifted. They are very different groups with very different needs. The second group is seriously in need of remediation services for what the 'system' has done to their lives.

Rergards,

Michael Ferguson

Welcome, Michael!

I'm preparing for the first job interview I've had in years that seems to rest more on a demonstration of what I can do than on what pieces of paper I have. It involves inputting the data they've sent me, analysing it for trends and preparing a presentation for the panel. For the first time in a long while, I feel some hope about getting back into a decent career line despite not having ticked all the boxes in society's list of how things are done. And that brings me to my point:

Learning skills without the "benefit" of having been formally taught is not necessarily a step on the road to success. We currently have working environments very different from 20 years ago, obviously. But one of those differences is a tendency to form over function, categories before abilities. It is no longer enough to know how to do something and even to have done it successfully for years at a professional level. Without a certificate, diploma or other "qualification" (note the misidentification of the paper for a skill), self-learning can place someone at further risk. This is yet another reason why someone with a love of learning might be nervous.

Michael,

I'd desperately love to hear any possible ideas you or your group may have with regard to how to put things right.

Whenever people have realised that I'm not your average cookie, and pushed me for answers, I tell them something to the effect that I'm not exceptionally gifted, I'm probably exceptionally cursed.

Why? Too damn smart to have gotten anywhere significant in academia or business, but just not quite outstanding enough to have made any money out of it (a la Marilyn).

My childhood "solution" was to refuse to do my schoolwork and to underachieve.

My teenage "solution" was to defiantly focus on my music and the arts, get very depressed, and read every self-development book I could lay my hands on.

My twenty-something "solution" was to get involved in a controversial religious philosophy, and get involved in a small, radical political party. Boy, was I fighting the wrongs of the world!

My thirty-something "solution" was to try to make up for my lack of educational success, and end up totally frustrated by the bureaucracy of the admissions process, and the slow pace of the university work once I had humoured them by doing this and that prerequisite level course. Small wonder I arrived at the conclusion that I was going to self-educate. Unfortunately, as Icon correctly points out, self-education has little recognition among employers etc. or other people charged with making decisions regarding whether you will be offered a particular opportunity or not.

Forty years old and still trying to fix my life. This community here, the Self-Development Forum, and the guys over at the IQ Nexus boards have been wonderfully supportive, of my radical ideas in self-development research and generally allowing me to rant.

It isn't only gifted kids who need support. What about the thousands or millions of exceptional adults who end up flipping burgers, institutionalized or worse, because no one understood or was willing to make accommodations?

Join the club!
I belive my mother was medicated into
never never land to fix her. So I learned
avoid any idea of shining at a young age.

Grandma told me life starts at 50.
...she lied.

At 60 I ought to know better, but have reached
a point in my life where it's almost time to not
care what anybody else thinks of your ideas,
or my own for that matter.

It's something few can afford when younger.