Being praised for “smart” can be what stunts you the most.
Sneaky little elements hiding in your self worth formula can hold you back. What does “smart” cost you on the day to day, anyway?
"You're so weird."
This one is for all my peers ages 15-85 who were never formally identified as a “gifted kid,” but have an inkling that they belong in this column. We didn’t all get the benefit of a name for this when we were children. Heck, I got the “benefit” of a word for it, some part time gifted programming….but also a whole lot of senseless “othering” and neglect in school.
Gifted Men and the Rare Alchemy of Male Connection
Men perched on a scenic ledge laughing and appreciating the company and adventure.
So…What Kind of Cat Am I?
If we only could identify ourselves in tidy little cat-egories as we give our feline friends. Except, like with people, the very best cats are a mix of a few things and defy neat arrangements.
Too Many Talents, Not Enough Time: The Gifted Woman’s Dilemma of Multipotentiality
You may contain more lifetimes inside you than you’ll ever know.
Gifted Motherhood: The Beautiful, Exhausting Intensity of Raising a Family When You're Wired Differently
It all begins with an idea.
The Gifted Woman as a Reluctant Leader: When Brilliance Doesn’t Want the Spotlight
Gifted women are often assumed to be natural leaders. Sometimes they are. Often, they get overlooked. Ambivalence tends to be the rule.
Being gifted, and quiet, is like being a lighthouse in the fog.
Present, solid, illuminated, overlooked. Lighthouse in the fog in a harbor illuminated at dusk.
The Grief Gifted People Carry: It’s Not Just About Loss
Gifted grief is multidimensional, complex, abstract, and real.
Gifted Mentors: I Am Because Barbara Was
She and I grew together for ten years, getting each other to our next phases. Now that I am in the phase that she was in back then, I really know what a gift she was.
The Gifted and Talented Quarter-Life Crisis: When Your Potential Feels Like a Curse
I thought my IQ test results signalled I should be able to cure cancer and achieve world peace by the time I was 35. After all, that’s what the adults around me seemed to expect when I was little. You too?
“I Tried to Get Help, and It Didn’t Help”: Why Gifted People Struggle to Find the Right Therapy or Coaching
gifted and talented individuals are frequently misunderstood, and their struggles minimized or even mocked, when they try to seek help for the ordinary OR the extra things we struggle with in life.
Gifted Women and the Beauty Trap: Seeing Through It, and Still Getting Caught
Gifted, talented and creative women aren’t sure they belong in a lot of places, not insignificantly to the world of beauty or lack thereof.
The Gifted Man: Brilliant, Intense, and Often Misunderstood
Exceptional men have some of the same struggles as gifted and talented women, and a few of their own.
The Gifted, Female, and Forty-Something: Midlife Hits Different When You’ve Been Weird All Along
Whose midlife reckoning is it anyway? We never fit in, in the first place.
Too Smart to Be Normal, Too Funny to Be Understood: The Gifted Woman’s Sense of Humor
Go ahead and laugh. I probably did. Whether others did, well, that depends on how closely their minds track with what ours can do.
I Want You to Open Your Gifts!
We often grow up with an ambivalent relationship to gifts that make us stand out, give us interesting social feedback, and leave us with a distorted understanding of who we should expect ourselves to be.
The Quiet One: Why Gifted Women Often Struggle in Friendships
At many stages and phases of life, gifted women struggle with fitting in to “easy” networks of other women whether at work, among mothers, or even connecting through hobbies.