From the Deep

7 Weeks Toward Leveraging your Giftedness for Greater Fulfillment & Impact

Do you believe you might be gifted, but you don’t know what difference that truth makes in your life? Do you wish you could feel better about your giftedness and leverage it to feel more fulfilled and make a greater impact on the world around you? The Set Your Brilliance Free! In this seven-week group coaching course, you will:

• Discover your unique gifted profile;
• Redesign your relationship with your giftedness;
• Envision your life based on being your full gifted self;
• Determine how you’re hiding your giftedness and how you’ll bring it into the light of day;
• Find and connect with other members of the gifted tribe;
• Integrate your giftedness into more areas of your life in specific, life-changing ways;
• And more!

Thanksgiving has come and gone (where has this year flown to?!), and we’re full into the holiday season. Whatever tradition you follow, you’ll probably give presents to family and friends. You’ll shop for just the perfect gift or create something with your own hands that you’ll wrap in pretty paper or place into a beautiful bag. You’ll hand it over with anticipation of the recipient’s joyful reaction. You’ll hope your heart–and its manifestation in a physical offering–will touch someone else’s.

We take this relational exchange for granted at this time of year. Yet we have a gift to give year-round. Have you ever considered the gift that your giftedness is to others?

Viewing our giftedness this way comes with its challenges. Many of us who are gifted frequently feel that our abilities and personality quirks are downplayed, underappreciated, and often downright rejected. But in truth we have so much to give. The gifts bestowed on us were meant to be given away.

On one level we understand this instinctively. As gifted people, we naturally see the world’s needs and feel compelled to eradicate them. I recently had a Facebook friend comment about how picking up one stray candy bar wrapper turns into a vast plan to rid the world of litter. We can’t help ourselves. We just think this way!

Yet somewhere along life’s road many of us run into resistance. Someone laughs at our ideas. Or pokes holes in them. Or calls us dreamers, as if that d-word were a dirty word. Frequently this happens to us as children, so by the time we’re adults, we’ve had it beaten out of us. We’ve become jaded and internalized the arguments of others within ourselves. We don’t need anyone else to do the job anymore (although some will still perform it), because within us we have that parent, teacher, sibling, and other chiming in and discouraging us from the inside.

Well, they were wrong. Those voices were wrong when you were a kid, and they’re wrong now, whether internal or external. You were created with gifts to give, and this world desperately needs you to give them. It’s time we all started believing and living that truth.

So what are your unique gifts to give? Do you know? Have you created your own unique profile of gifted characteristics that you possess? If not, you can start by looking at my Ginormous List of Gifted Grownup Traits. Read through them. Which ones jump out at you as reflections of yourself? Which ones make your heart beat faster because you know you own them? I encourage you to identify at least one or two you’d like to express more openly in the world and find ways to do so. Maybe you need to let your wacky sense of humor bring joy to others. Perhaps you have some sensitivity to lend to someone else’s heartache. Maybe you can identify a pattern or relationship that will solve a problem. Whatever it is, find it, and let it be your gift to the world this season and in the year to come. If you need any help with this, please contact me. I’d be honored to help you give the world the giftedness you have to give!

©2009 Lisa Lauffer

Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday. It seems to be the least commercialized, and in its intent it focuses on gratitude (although some would say it majors on food and football, and I do see that perspective!). While I believe we should acknowledge our gratefulness throughout the year, I find it helpful to have a day set aside for it too. And so today, I want to say thank you to you, my readers. Whether you’ve been reading my blog for awhile or have just stumbled upon it recently, I feel grateful that you’ve taken the time to read, and in some cases respond to, what I’ve written. I’ve received an enormous amount of encouragement, inspiration, and insight from all of you, and that has given me courage to continue down my path toward coaching gifted grownups. Because of this, I have experienced profound meaning in my life, and I’ve already witnessed others setting their own brilliance free.

I have great hope for the coming year, that what began this year is just the tip of the iceberg and more will soon follow. I hope you continue this journey with me! More fun, laughter, fulfillment, understanding, and camaraderie await!

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

As many of you know, I spent the past summer researching grownup giftedness. I have learned so much that I want to share that I’ve almost felt paralyzed! Where to begin? Well, as Maria from The Sound of Music would say, “let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.” (I’m very much about the wisdom of The Sound of Music!) The beginning seems to be in identifying what makes a grownup gifted. And boy howdy, do I have a list of gifted grownup characteristics for you!

Before I begin my ginormous list, I’ll summarize by saying that giftedness is not about a number on an intelligence test. While high intelligence can be part of giftedness, giftedness is much more about a profile of traits. If you exhibit at least two-thirds of the characteristics below, you can probably consider yourself gifted.

Also, I want you to know that I did my best to cull through the traits and winnow them down so I didn’t repeat myself. However, in a typically gifted, divergent-thinking way, at times I found that one resource would present a trait in a differently-nuanced way than another. In these cases, I did what I could to consolidate the characteristic, but I also may have just repeated myself. It was the only way I could avoid the self-torture which would have resulted from potentially omitting information you might find helpful!

So, without further ado, I give you my ginormous list of gifted grownup traits:

• early and heightened concern for justice and morality
• early verbal ability
• enjoyment of intense intellectual discussions with others and with themselves
• complex thought processes
• capacity for abstract thought, which as it increases so does the connection of emotional reactions to cognitive appraisals of situations
• internal asynchrony (out-of-sync-ness): experiencing different levels of development among physical, intellectual, emotional, social, and skill set areas of self
• external asynchrony: lack of fit with same-aged people and with age-related expectations of culture
• immense capacity to care
• assimilation of extraordinary amounts of information
• unusual retentiveness (and I’m not talking anal here, though that can sometimes apply too!)
• advanced comprehension
• unusually varied interests
• insatiable curiosity
• unusual capacity for processing information
• accelerated pace of thought processes
• heightened capacity for seeing unusual and diverse relationships
• ability to generate original ideas and solutions
• evaluation of self and others
• persistent, goal-directed behavior
• heightened emotional sensitivity and intensity (these are evident in a gifted child and may go underground in adults, especially in males, but will still exist)
• heightened sensitivity to visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, and taste sensations
• keen sense of humor (may be gentle, hostile, sophisticated, and/or bizarre)
• desire to make actions consistent with values
• sophisticated, global thinking
• capacity to generalize
• understanding of difficult concepts and phenomena
• uncommon imagination and creativity
• view of self can be fundamentally different than the view others have of them (gifted people are sometimes endowed by others with more power and ability than they actually possess)
• driven, not by what drives the rest of the world but by inner agenda
• sometimes overwhelmed by the pressure of their own creativity
• greater awareness of what’s going on in the world, therefore feeling things more deeply
• relating best to those who share their interests
• don’t have many relationships, but the ones they do have are deep and meaningful
• leadership ability
• need for solitude and time for contemplation and daydreaming
• search for meaning in both the inner and outer world
• highly intuitive, gaining insights without being aware of the logical sequence to their conclusion
• special problem awareness, therefore can predict consequences and possibly prevent foreseeable problems; but can also experience more anxiety
• ability to see patterns of development and growth, and therefore can recognize, predict, and influence trends, although they may not be trendsetters because others won’t be convinced of their way of thinking
• dislike of public relations methods of image making
• perfectionistic, in terms of own standards and expectations (not necessarily in terms of the outside world)
• multiple abilities and interests, frequently to the point of feeling frustration at not being able to engage all of themselves at any one point in time
• frequent feelings of being misunderstood, of being an outsider, of being unable to communicate
• difficulty understanding the seemingly inconsistent and short-sighted behavior of others
• ability to see a difference between justice and equality
• potential development of emotional issues related to their abilities, but also possession of greater resources for dealing with their problems
• independent thinking
• difficulty with authority figures, including knowingly or unknowingly being threatening to them
• desire to use specific talents, insights, and knowledge for betterment of the world
• ability to process information in several directions at once
• love for self-actualization
• divergent thinking ability
• high potential to be wide open to life and fully present in the moment
• love of challenge
• ability to feel great joy in the unfolding journey–goals and means are one and the same
• balance between discipline and spontaneity
• as they become more successful, development and use of a support system that fuels their creativity
• persistent
• ability to complete tasks more quickly than others
• tendency to “use up” jobs
• sensitivity to beauty and pain
• empathy
• perceptivity
• no fear of being regarding as oddball or weird person
• playfulness
• more insight than others
• need for challenging work
• resistance to routines
• low frustration tolerance
• reluctance to accept criticism
• holding unrealistic expectations of self
• being one’s worst critic
• ability to see many sides to an issue
• enjoyment of debate
• fountain of ideas
• love for puzzles, mazes, paradoxes, complex ideas, and words, including word play
• feeling of responsibility for problems that don’t belong to them
• been criticized for not sticking to one thing (”flakiness”)
• value for honesty, integrity, and authenticity
• connections with people of all ages
• capacity for keen observation
• extraordinary tolerance for ambiguity
• excitability, enthusiasm, and expressiveness
• abundant energy
• early spiritual experiences
• deep concern about universal issues and nature
• reverence for the interconnectedness of all things
• awareness of an inner force that draws them toward meaning, fulfillment, and excellence
• feelings of urgency about personal destiny
• yearning at a spiritual level for answers to existential puzzles
• passionate, intense feelings
• inability to switch off thinking
• search for questions in their lives
• a feeling of coming apart
• preference for complexity
• overwhelmed by pressure of one’s own intellectual, creative, or emotional intensity
• just seems more complicated than others

Late last night I watched ESPN, and noted on the ticker a message about Andre Agassi confessing in his new autobiography to using crystal meth. I pointed this out with curiosity to my husband, and figured this was probably Agassi’s way of getting skeletons out of the closet so he can live his life freely. Surely enough, this morning on espn.com, sports writer Rick Reilly reviews Agassi’s autobiography entitled Open (from Knopf, written with Pulitzer Prize winner J.R. Moehringer). You can read the review here. And indeed, apparently Agassi is coming clean in a way that will empower him to live more freely. (Just a teaser: the old-school Agassi mane? Fake!)

What struck me about this review, and what I imagine will strike me about this book, is that Agassi is a tremendously talented individual who lived the life many gifted and talented children live: they try to reach other people’s dreams for them. Agassi didn’t love tennis, and it showed in his performance. It showed in his downfall (the crystal meth phase). This happens to many gifted and talented young adults. They realize that they can’t reach other people’s dreams and standards, and they hit rock bottom. Some fall into drugs. Some fall into depression. Some even fall into suicide.

Only when Agassi got real with himself–when he shaved his hair, his image, and his drug use–did he begin to excel. And excel he did. His talent shone, and he won his way to number 6 in the tennis rankings and to five additional major championships.

When Agassi walked off the court for the last time, the public didn’t view him as the tennis brat that had started playing a decade or so earlier. He walked off the court beloved by his fans. He was true to himself; his talent delighted others; he had made the tennis dream his own and fulfilled it. And when he said goodbye to the sport he had come to love, he was able to walk into a full life. During an interview right before he retired, he said something to this effect: “I look forward to waking up in the morning and, instead of having to ask myself ‘What do I have to do today?’ asking myself “What do I want my life to be like?’” He had found the secret to a fulfilling life: being himself and choosing his path.

What are you doing with your giftedness? With your talent? Are you living someone else’s dream? Or have you given that up and faced your true identity, allowing your light to shine? At whatever point you find yourself in this continuum, I encourage you to keep following the path toward your truth. As you do, you will find yourself satisfied in life and blessing the world with the unique gift you have to give.

©2009 Lisa Lauffer

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.

What’s this? Look over here! It’s my blog! A little dusty from neglect, but sitting here stalwartly as I endure the last dregs of our unusually long summer break.

In case you haven’t yet heard my story, my kids have enjoyed a four-month-long respite from academia while builders finish construction on their brand new school building. After four years of leasing a strip mall, the school finally has its own beautiful–and big (hallelujah!)–home. Well, it will. In a few days. If everything continues to go according to schedule (oh please, God, let it go according to schedule).

I began the summer with great intentions and perspectives. I designed a summer alliance with my kids that would help us all survive and thrive. I’d strike a balance between hanging out with them and working (having let go of many work tasks such as more frequent blog posts), and they’d have lots of flexibility and freedom sprinkled with enough structure to keep us all sane. Best laid plans, as they say, but at least we had something to shoot for, and while we didn’t attain all of our goals all of the time, I feel we did pretty well overall.

For the past eight days we’ve enjoyed “stay-cation” (a vacation where you stay home and play tourist in your hometown), and now we’ve returned for the last eleven days (please, God, only eleven!) of summer break. And we’re all mentally and emotionally done. We’ve had enough summer vacation. We’re ready to push ourselves back from the table of summer break with that satisfied, full feeling.

But our chairs won’t budge.

Instead, we sit at a table covered with crumb-filled plates and pitchers of drinks drunk to the dregs. What do we do?

I shared the situation with my coach, Phyllis Mathis, in our session today, and she suggested that I just let it all go. That I, for lack of better terms, “wallow in the dregs.” And while that may sound pitiful, when she said it, I felt freed. I’ve kept myself and my kids on top of so many things over the summer, and maybe I can take a break from the vigilance and let us all relax until school starts or until my kids grow tired of the laxness, whichever comes first. Who knows…perhaps they’ll create something really inventive, being the gifted kids they are. Or maybe they too will feel the release and be better prepared in body, soul, and spirit for school to begin.

Do you have an area of your life in which you’ve done your best, you still have time left on your term, and you could benefit from letting go for your sanity’s sake? Will you indeed let go?

I give you permission to do so! Who knows what might happen if you do. After all, lookie here–I wrote a blog post!

Today I will yet again attempt to write a blog post. I’ve written a few over the past month, but none of them (interruption 1) have seen the light of (interruption 2) Internet day. I’ve (interruptions 3 and 4–causing me to really pause and attempt to regain my thought) gotten to the point where I’ve decided it’s harder to try than not. I’ll just allow my poor blog to starve over the summer while I’m home tending to kids’ needs and incessant questions.

Now I’m not (interruption 5) complaining (too much–and interruptions 6, 7, 8, and 9). What I thought I’d do is attempt to write a blog post and log the number of interruptions that occur as I do so, just as an experiment. All of the interruptions that I’ve already logged have come from one child (the other is still in bed, so I have a fifty-percent lower chance of being stopped mid-sentence, and you can already see where it has gotten me. (Oh, interruptions 10…and 11…and this last one is going on and on and on).

Why this experiment? Well (interruption 12), first of all, I’m desperate to get a blog post onto my site! But even more than that, interruptions are a big (#13) issue for gifted people (#14 and #15). Our minds literally race. Our thought processes happen so quickly that when they face an obstacle they can become derailed, and it can feel as if a train has crashed. How do we put the pieces back together again? How do we right the train, get the cars back in order, and regain movement and direction? It takes a tremendous amount of effort.

At the same time, if we’re gifted and we have children, our children are probably gifted too with minds that race as ours do. They frequently (#16 and #17–now what was I thinking?) have no thought of waiting to say what’s on their minds, and if they try, they too can lose their train of thought and face the resulting frustration.

Simply being aware of this truth can help us gain some perspective on it. Yes, we need to teach our children to wait (#18) their turn, to give us space and time (#19). At times my husband and I have had to invoke the “No Interrupting Unless There’s Blood, Vomit, or Fire” rule (#20). Children do need to learn manners, such as not interrupting when we’re talking to other adults or when we’re on the phone. And if we really do need to concentrate (#21–and #23, which happened while I was editing this post: an emergency search for a bathing suit, which will ultimately result in fewer interruptions once sweet daughter leaves for the pool), we need to draw a boundary around our thinking time. But understanding that our minds race and our children’s minds race can give us a different perspective, one that cuts us all some slack and helps us move forward (#22) with our daily lives.

What do you need to keep your thoughts on track? To get them back on track after they’ve become derailed? What’s a new perspective you can embrace about interruptions, or a new boundary you need to create to protect your precious thinking time? Answering questions such as these can help you stay sane amid interruptions (#24) as a gifted person and parent!

When the Gershwin brothers–George and Ira–and their fellow writer DuBose Heyward, wrote “Summertime, and the Living Is Easy” for the opera Porgy and Bess, they clearly weren’t anticipating spending three months home with gifted children. I’ve done this gig for a few years now, and I always find myself trying to outsmart summer, to make it bow to my need for predictability and sanity. But the only two predictable things that will happen are: 1) within fifteen minutes of vacation beginning, my children will make me wish it were over, and 2) multiple times during the summer I will lose my sanity.

So what can I do to make summer easier if I can’t exactly make it easy? Here are some strategies I will be trying, and I offer them as possibilities for you and your family too:

• Sign up for summer camps! I just signed up my kids for the final camp I plan to send them to. I will also remain open to other opportunities that will present themselves. The National Association for Gifted Children has a listing of summer camp opportunities; you can access this resource here. (Note: this is not an endorsement of the list or any activity on it, merely a mention of a resource for you to view.) Giving children something to anticipate, a new experience to try, and just time out of the house can create sanity for all of us!
• Practice, practice, practice. I’m a big fan of practices, those actions we take on a regular basis for our own self care. This summer, I’ll be delving into M&Ms. No, not the candy (well, yeah, maybe the candy), but practice-wise I’ll engage in movement and meditation. If I can do those two things each day, I will maintain physical and emotional energy for meeting the challenges of being with my kids all summer and running my life coaching business. If I find I’m feeling stressed, I can do one of these two disciplines again to help me recenter myself. What practices feed your soul? Can you commit to doing them everyday for your own sake and, ultimately, for your kids’ benefit?
• Balance structure and flexibility. According to Katharine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers, we all fall somewhere on a continuum between being really structured or really flexible. (To learn more about personality type and to take a temperament test, you can click here.) I tend to fall on the side of flexibility. In fact, adaptability is a great strength of mine. It can also be a weakness for me; I rely on it too much, and with children, it can cause confusion and insecurity. I’m recognizing my need to give my kids more structure in order for us all to feel good. My kids need to know what’s going to happen each day. They also need tasks to do so they feel good about accomplishing something, so we will be exploring new chores that they can grow into doing (and that’s a win for mommy!). Others may lean more on structure and may need to allow space for flexibility in their schedules to make summer a more free-flowing, relaxing time. Where do you fall? How can you create a palatable balance between structure and flexibility for you and your kids?
• Create a summer perspective. Sometimes when we feel stuck in situations–for example, when we know we have the kids home for summer and we’re going to face a challenges such as arguments between siblings, multiple proclamations of boredom, and the responsibility of being the adult on duty 24/7–we can get ourselves unstuck by creating a new perspective about it. Think of how you currently view it. Perhaps you have an “Ack!” perspective, or an “Ugh…” perspective. Perhaps you have a “Bracing for Any and All Challenges” perspective. Can you feel how clenched these perspectives might make you, and what possibilities may or may not be available to you if you stay in these perspectives? What if you were to shift your perspective to “Ease” or “Summer Island” or “Swimming Pool”? What might be possible for your summer then? What actions would you take? How would you feel? As for myself, I’m exploring the perspective of “Bright Colors” and seeing what lightness and joy that perspective might bring me and my kids this summer.
• Have a summer powwow. Today I took my kids to Starbucks, and over our tasty drinks we imagined what we want our summer to be. I drew pictures of each of us with smiles on our faces, and asked my kids what it would take for us to look like that every day this summer. They had plenty of ideas about how to be with each other and activities they’d like to try. I was also able to share my desire of balancing my time with them with my work responsibilities in a way that can bring us all joy. Might you find value in tapping your kids’ ideas creativity about how to have an awesome, ease-filled summer?

She walks onstage, a middle-aged woman in clean, conservative clothes and a less-than-stylish haircut, and the judges and spectators have visible reactions: eye rolls, smirks, exchanged “knowing” glances. You can feel the collective “You’ve got to be kidding me” vibe. The judges smugly interview the contestant, and she answers them with honest, even saucy responses. She seems good-natured and oblivious to the fact that the judges and audience members have settled themselves in for some good ol’ schadenfreude: taking pleasure in the pain of others. They’re anticipating enjoying her failure.

Then the music begins, and when she opens her mouth to sing, what comes out astounds everyone: a strong, clear, beautiful voice that gives pathos to the song “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Miserables. The judges’ faces soften, one’s jaw drops, another rises to her feet mid-song. By the time the woman sings “Now life has killed the dream I dreamed,” everyone in the theater has risen in standing ovation, some of them wiping tears from their eyes, the kind of tears the come from deep within you when you’ve heard something profoundly transcendent.

This scene, which happened recently on Britain’s Got Talent, has rocked the Internet, and Susan Boyle, the woman from some far-off village in England, is becoming a household name. You can see her triumph here. 

I’m not sure why her story is taking the world by storm, but I do know why it has affected me so deeply. I watched a woman–slightly quirky, not the cultural ideal of beauty–take a large risk. She took it in the face of tremendous ill-will and opposition. Yet she has a gift and a dream–a gift and dream she has carried since she was twelve years old–and finally let the whole world see it and be blessed by it.

If you are a gifted person and/or have gifted children, you know the risk it takes to allow that inner light to shine for the whole world to see. The opposition can be fierce and unfair. Marylou Kelly Streznewski, in her book Gifted Grownups: The mixed blessings of extraordinary potential, says it like this: “One is not allowed to enjoy accomplishments, but one is not allowed to be average either. Somebody always seems to be waiting for you to fail so they can gloat” (p. 39). 

So we and our children have two choices: 1) to shine and risk failure and opposition; or 2) to hide, blend in, and deny ourselves. Perhaps we can walk the line somewhere between the two and feel the constant tension of it. But no matter where we are on that line, we are to some degree allowing life to kill the dreams we dream.

But what do we really want? To deny ourselves forever? Or to let our gifts give birth to our dreams? I personally feel inspired by Susan Boyle. I want to take risks to allow the brilliance within me to shine–to experience possible rejection and failure but also the potential to provide a transcendent moment for the people around me. Maybe they’ll laugh, maybe they’ll scoff–and maybe, just maybe, they’ll be moved to experience the more within themselves too.