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I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

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Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#231

Post by abledon »

bitexploder wrote: post #74

One of the worst things you can do, as a parent, is tell your kid they are smart. I have two kids and one of them is obviously “gifted”. The other is still pretty far ahead. Smart is a bad word in my house. Gifted is not something that is ever uttered. We (as parents) work very hard to instill a sense of hard work, effort, and purpose into our kids lives. They do BJJ, a martial art that is very hard, even if you are…

I was browsing reddit and noticed lots of people complaining about persisting injuries from practicing BJJ. Do they handle youth BJJ differently to protect from these types of risks?

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#232

Post by yomly »

paganel wrote: post #114
yomly wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you prefer stories about sports people, the rags-to-riches story of Jamie Vardy is a personal favourite[0] Here is someone who never gave up despite apparently lacking the "talent" when young and yet went on to win the Premier League, be called up to play for his national team and beat the record of a world-class player (RvN) for scoring consecutive games in a row. Meanwhile the sad story of Ravel Morrison[1] is o…

I’m on my phone while riding the public bus so can’t really easily look for a reference, but I remember the same Ronaldo saying that there was an even more talented footballer than him while he was an youngster at Sporting Lisbon but that that player didn’t play anywhere higher than the Portuguese Second League because he was lacking in work ethic. I very rarely heard Ronaldo say about someone else that he was better…

I recall some clip from the Ronaldo movie where he takes the camera crew to his bedroom and points at his bed and says something along the lines of "this is my bed, it is very important - I spend almost 12 hours a day here:

I sleep for 7 hours, I get up in the morning, I train, I then sleep another 5 hours to recover, then get up and train some more"

The guy has virtually no life beyond training - and he optimises his schedule to squeeze even more training time out of every day.

Say what you like, but I find it to be a little bit inspiring to see someone at the top deciding to dedicate themselves to seeing just how much further they can push themselves just for the sake of being even better...

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#233

Post by adamnemecek »

dugluak wrote: post #230
adamnemecek wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

School absolutely fails on the second one. You are forced to study on someone else's schedule which is terrible for learning.

But that's the reality of life and part of learning as well. Most of us don't get the luxury of doing things on our own schedule or terms. Usually the schedule is decided by someone else, like the customer or the boss or whoever is paying you.

Maybe the reason you don't have the luxury is because the school never gave you the luxury so you didn't have the opportunity to work out something to retain it.

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#234

Post by hackinthebochs »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #91

They called me gifted as a kid. Tested at a genius level IQ (not that it matters). I barely passed high school. I started my first company while in it. I dropped out of my engineering programming. I was teaching other students about computers and was running a business on the side. I am not someone who follows the rules well. My sibling is the polar opposite, they have three Ivy League degrees. They were top 3% of th…

This is bad advice in general. For every person who happens to love something that is lucrative, there are hundreds who love things that won't put food on the table. If your advice doesn't distinguish between the two, its bad advice.

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#235

Post by criddell »

0815test wrote: post #218
peteradio wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why it's fucked up to translate these studies into advice saying "don't compliment your kids intelligence".

Kids will value what you compliment. If you compliment their smarts, they will simply work towards always being "the smartest guy in the room", and making everyone else in that room constantly aware of this in the most obnoxious way they can come up with. If you compliment their work they'll strive to get recognition for that instead, which is a way more functional attitude in the longer run!

Intelligence is like physical beauty. It probably wouldn't be terribly productive to tell your kids all the time how beautiful they are even though attractive people tend to be more successful in life.

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#236

Post by [deleted] »

rapind wrote: post #201
brm wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s also how you’d raise a plough horse. The toughest thing in life for a smart person to figure out is often what’s worth working hard at and what they truly want. It seems as rare to find a person who has gone through the steps to decide if they truly want and value the outcome they’re working towards as it is to find a smart person who doesn’t apply themselves fully when they’re actually interested in, value, a…

I would argue it doesn't matter what you expend effort on as long as you're expending effort. IMO the only true rule in life is that you only value things you expend effort on. Beyond being able to afford the basic necessities it's all semantics. For example if efficiency interests you then working smarter could be your thing, but you'll still need to find more challenges to work on so that you're always expending ef…

[deleted]

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#237

Post by bitexploder »

vagab0nd wrote: post #178
bitexploder wrote: post #74

One of the worst things you can do, as a parent, is tell your kid they are smart. I have two kids and one of them is obviously “gifted”. The other is still pretty far ahead. Smart is a bad word in my house. Gifted is not something that is ever uttered. We (as parents) work very hard to instill a sense of hard work, effort, and purpose into our kids lives. They do BJJ, a martial art that is very hard, even if you are…

Speaking from my own experience, I think it's very important to have a balanced view of the fact that you are smart. i.e. you shouldn't be ignorant of it. If you "play" competitively in any of the fields, being ignorant of your own strength is a big disadvantage in my opinion.

How would you see using the knowledge that you are smart to your advantage in a given field? You still have to do the work? (my line of thinking is something like: You produce what you produce in your field. To me the effort you put in matters the most. Smart is a meta quality to your work)

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#238

Post by tmaly »

ryanjshaw wrote: post #68
Gikoskos wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you find this article and post it please? I have to show it to someone

Try searching for the "Pygmalion Effect on children ", it covers the general principle. (I suggest ignoring the Wikipedia article as it is very narrowly focused.)

I read the Grit book and it talked about having high expectations. I had never heard of this Pygmalion effect before. Thank you for sharing. Here is the article I just found on it

https://www.wisdomtimes.com/blog/the-pygmalion-effect-at-hom...

If you can suggest a better one, I would be grateful.

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#239

Post by WhompingWindows »

bradleyjg wrote: post #38
duxup wrote: post #18

The education system provides fairly clear and predictable paths to affirmation, success, and a sort of grade based people ranking system. Life outside that system often very much does not. Everyone has to come to terms with it at some point. I can understand how for someone who school makes a strong impression on them it can be a real struggle without what was such a clear and predictable system.

I have a hypothesis that at least in the US smart people that want to continue with the same sort of “do the work you are assigned and be rewarded” become doctors. There are entrepreneurial paths in medicine but an excellent student that wants to can go from medical school to a residency, followship, and then a hospital position and earn enough to be in the 1% without ever needing to fight for it in the office politi…

The majority of US doctors have huge student loan debts for many years, they either must go into a specialty to pay them off quickly, or remain middle-class for years as primary care, pediatrics, geriatrics, and many other needed specialties are under-remunerated.

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#240

Post by Broken_Hippo »

ransom1538 wrote: post #126
celticninja wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice.

The world needs more good people. The world doesn't need more smart people.

Why not?

It isn't like smart would mean more motivation or anything. I do think it would have benefits like not being as able to be ripped off or fooled by mostly simple math. I think it'd mean we'd have more knowledgeable nurses and fewer folks that believe medical woo.

I'd even argue that being good fails if you aren't smart. "Schools just need to get back to the 3 R's - readin', writing', and 'rithmatic" isn't all ill-intentioned, after all, and is (in part) a complaint that kids aren't ready for the world, but their solution shows ignorance to what the schools teach, why it is taught, and things like that.

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