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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

#132
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That path will barely get you to 1% income, and definitely not in all areas. Just another working stiff. The Dr. who runs the LASIK place near me drives a Lambo, and he probably has 10 Drs working for him. It’s rare to strike it rich on your own labor.

My heart bleeds for “barely 1% working stiff”.

That sounds like a serious medical condition, you should contact your doctor.

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

#133

The person somewhat cruelly judging her life is using a formula of: Life score = actual potential - genetic potential Ie she had high genetic potential but failed to live up to it. It seems she has had a gifted kid. She sounds like she's given up on this metric but were she to have another gifted kid, and nurture the two to success making the world better, she would meet her metrics. Have a particularly awesome kid,…

The worldview of this comment baffles me. Do you think living to maximize some imaginary "life score" is a good idea, a healthy idea, a utilitarian idea? Why not make yourself useful in whatever situation you are in, trying to make constant progress on what is important to you, and be a benefit to the people you care about? They won't put my life score on my tombstone.

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

#134

I think the central problem here is not asking more of gifted people during early school years. I was pretty disengaged with school before college. It just wasn't challenging enough in the right kinds of ways. I flourished when I got to college since I was finally in an environment with unlimited challenge and rewards. I learned to set my own standards for achievement and be less worried about how I would be judged e…

As someone who was put into "additional classes" because of being labeled gifted, asking them to do more work isn't always the right answer. I felt like it was a punishment, basically more (boring) school work, and (as a kid) the best way to deal with that was to disengage further.

It's not supposed to be a punishment at all! If anything, the whole policy of "challenging" gifted kids is something that should be done in an unusually benevolent way, since the whole point is to visibly teach them that it's okay to fail at something that's especially difficult (particularly when they're just starting out on that task); and that good things can come out of failure, provided that it's followed by focused work and a moderate dose of "grit" - that there is a level above theirs where "no pain no gain" is the name of the game!

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

#135

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…

Thanks for sharing, but why do you refer to your sibling as "they"?

Because the gender of a third person in an anecdote is none of your gods-damned business. Even if that's your fetish.

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

#136
post #122

The key moment for me when I first had an inkling that being smart wasn't enough on it's own came at my grade 11 math final exam. I finished it in 45 minutes. No problem. Got an 88%. Felt awesome. Simon, the prototype of the "jock" football player, took the full 2.5 hours offered on the same exam. He got a 99%. It bothered me for years because it went against everything I knew. I was smarter, so I deserved the better…

My brother was always a better learner/student than me as well. He would study 10+ hours for an exam...or all night if that is what it took. I would cram 15 minutes before an exam. We both got similar grades. The difference is that he retained most of what he studied. A month later I didn't remember it. We adjusted our jobs similarly. Mine requires large amounts of information being take in and used quickly to solve…

This kind of thinking is very foreign to me but apparently it is common? Getting 100% in exam never required any effort for me, so I never studied for exam. I always studied to understand, so I retained it all.

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

#137
post #17

One of the first articles I remember reading on HN was back in 2009. The gist of the article was that you shouldn’t praise your kids for being smart, praise them when they work hard. Rewarding hard work will better serve them in the long run since being smart will plateau at some point. I have a 9 and 11 year old and I still bristle a little bit when my mom says y’all are so smart.

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

Here are some articles from 2009 that mention Alfie Kohn, who wrote "Punished by Rewards."

https://www.leanblog.org/2009/01/leanblog-podcast-57-alfie-k...

http://www.blog.montessoriforeveryone.com/are-kids-punished-...

This article also looks like a likely candidate for the OP: https://www.parentingscience.com/praise-and-intelligence.htm...

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

#138
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…

Fabio Paim

https://thesefootballtimes.co/2018/02/22/the-roller-coaster-...

"Aurélio Pereira, the Sporting scout who discovered Quaresma, Ronaldo and Moutinho, once said of Paim: “Do you think Cristiano is good? Wait to see Fábio Paim.”"

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

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

As someone who is very close to two doctors, I can tell you that networking and elbows matters just about as much as any other career.

Second this, you need to be political to make partner in your practice or move up the ladder to manager/professor even as a Dr. unless you go into private practice or start your own thing

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

#140
post #86

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 think I am smart." That's really cute! I mean, it's pretty much impossible to hide smartness. If you are smart, you will know. I am not attractive, but I also heard that if you are very attractive, it's pretty much impossible not to realize that.

>If you are smart, you will know. I am not attractive, but I also heard that if you are very attractive, it's pretty much impossible not to realize that.

From my anecdotal experiences meeting people who were in that situation, it can definitely happen if your self-esteem is crushed early on in life.

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