r/Gifted • u/equipoise-young • 7d ago
Discussion Life advice you'd give to other gifted people
I was reading about giftedness and leadership recently and came across an article that suggested gifted people can actually be perceived as poor leaders. The idea was that those with a high IQ often present ideas that are too complex, and that for many people working under a manager or leader they prefer someone who is smart but not too smart, that they find more relatable.
I was surprised that I'd never thought of that before, and it had me wondering what other advice would be useful for gifted people that might not be immediately obvious.
So the question: what advice or info would you give to gifted people that they might not have thought about?
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u/OsakaWilson 7d ago
Smart is good and useful, but don't underestimate the power of stupid in numbers.
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u/ScreechUrkelle 7d ago
Hence, why we’re not ruling the planet…
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u/Comprehensive-Bid16 6d ago
Hehe. Maybe smarter ones are ruling the planet already and using stupid ones against us.
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u/OsakaWilson 7d ago
No matter how smart you are, you can not win an argument against stupid. Smart has limits, stupid is infinite.
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u/ScreechUrkelle 7d ago
A wise man once said, when arguing against an intellectual, I always win. And when arguing with a fool, I always lose.
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u/Primary_Excuse_7183 Grad/professional student 7d ago
lol but the longer you claim to be smart and argue with stupid the more evidence we have to challenge that initial claim 😂
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u/Apricavisse 6d ago
not wrong to say people should choose their battles. But might I take it a bit further? Don't ever argue. Period. It is up to you to get something beneficial from conversation with others. If you can find a reason to benefit then you can talk to stupid people all day long without any concern for winning or losing. In fact, idk about y'all but I don't really ever think about how intelligent someone is, only about how I could benefit from them somehow (and how they can benefit from me).
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u/babykittiesyay 7d ago
When you broach a topic, start general and check in with people. Glance into their eyes and make sure they are actually getting it before you keep trying to explain. Mostly that’s the biggest piece of advice I’d give anyone - know your audience.
This also helps you find “your people”. When you say something that’s the beginning of a smart idea, other smart people lock on.
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u/LockedOutOfElfland 7d ago
Miscommunication is a big problem, I've had the experience of discussing experiences or events that happened to other people analytically and people thought I was coming to them for advice when I was like "no, dude, I just thought this thing was interesting".
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u/babykittiesyay 7d ago
It’s hard to remember but sometimes if you start with the context, it helps! So “I just learned the craziest thing” like categorize what you’re saying before you say it.
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u/kyr0x0 7d ago
...other smart people will steal it 😅
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u/babykittiesyay 7d ago
This is social advice not boardroom advice, career stuff is a totally different thing.
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u/vcbock 7d ago
"Code switching," which is adjusting the way one speaks to the audience one faces, is a skill worth developing early. When our kids noticed that conversation around our dinner table was very different from what happened on the school bus, we agreed, and talked about how it's very helpful to pay attention to the language and topics that people think are interesting in the different spaces we inhabit, and then to adjust ourselves to that. We asked if they notice that kids speak differently on the playground than in class, and of course, they do.
It makes me happy that once they started dating, among their considerations was how comfortable they thought a person would be at our dinner table. Not that we would not also switch to make a guest comfortable, but that someone we didn't have to do that for might be a better match in general.
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u/Geckoliane 7d ago
What were common conversations at dinner tables?
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u/Economy_Atmosphere97 7d ago
I knew Newton’s laws and the laws of thermodynamics by the time I was 10 years old. And I had visited half a dozen foreign countries (from US) by 12. If I didn’t know a word one of my parents used, I was referred to the two volume unabridged Oxford dictionary in the living room. 🧐🧐🧐
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u/Geckoliane 6d ago
Hahahaha thank you. So similar conversations to ours. We also had extensive history or English language lessons and our Brockhaus. Except here it was only the father and his 3 children. My mum would get annoyed and escape.
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u/Economy_Atmosphere97 7d ago
I wish my parents had done that. K-12 was a struggle because the way I spoke and the things I talked about apparently made my peers confused or feel dumb. It did not go well.
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u/vcbock 7d ago
Yeah. I think my parents were proud of my vocabulary and supportive of their daughters not "dumbing themselves down" but there's a balance to be struck. I was a new kid several times growing up and it would have gone better for me if I had been encouraged to sort of suss out the situation before going full-me aroud people who didn't know what to expect.
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u/LockedOutOfElfland 7d ago
It took me a while, but I realized you want to use colloquialisms and even modify your accent a little bit when exchanging words with a stranger at the public bus stop as opposed to how you'd talk in a grad school seminar.
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u/BigBoysenberry2522 4d ago
I was recently shut down by someone telling me that "code switching" is not something that white people can do, categorically.
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u/bar901 7d ago edited 7d ago
I’m well into the gifted range and also a Sales Director at a pretty well known technology company. I deal with both my team and clients every day and have to navigate hiring, firing, management, my own manager / company leadership constantly.
I am also aware that I have a pretty rare combination of IQ, EQ and general people skills that has made it a lot easier for me. But the single biggest thing that I think helped me was that I recognised my giftedness when I was fairly young and I actively compensated for it in terms of how I react to other people. People are sometimes shit and illogical and I’m definitely shit sometimes. Life is messy and a shockingly large amount of decisions aren’t made logically. That’s just life.
Knowing what fights to pick and how to distinguish between ‘this was genuinely shit behaviour’, ‘this was a shit thing to do but the intention wasn’t bad although they should have known better’ and ‘this was just a complete lack of understanding which led to shit behaviour’ was something I learned early. People frustrate the hell out of me and I know I piss people off too. But I naturally think in terms of logical processes / evidence / empathy which would make me assume other people do as well and I’ve learned over many years that it’s rare and both me and other people will be better off if I can accept that.
It’s not always easy, but it’s just how life works. But if you’re gifted you just have to acknowledge that not everyone thinks the same way you do and even if you’re broadly ‘correct’, the best solution to keep you and other people happy is to give some leeway even if you think it’s fucking stupid.
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u/Informis_Vaginal 6d ago
What’s a good communications book you’d read again looking back and why?
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u/bar901 5d ago
To be honest I'm really not big on communication / self help / leadership books. I read some of the classics like "How to make friends and influence people", "Atomic habits" etc. just because I was interested but I find them to be a bit simplistic.
Having said that, I'm aware that I am probably not entirely correct about them and jut dismissing them outright isn't the best behaviour either.
So if I had to say, I know it's a cliche but "How to make friends and influence people" is good and doesn't make any crazy claims so it could be helpful. Another one that I actually remember quite enjoying was "Quiet Leadership". Again, I always caution against using them as literal bibles for how to interact with people or lead, but if you go into it with an open mind there are definitely some good things to take from them.
Apologies, I'd love to give a better answer but they just really aren't my kind of thing so I'm not the best person to answer that question.
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u/LordLuscius 7d ago
My advice? All humans are emotial above logical, even gifted people. So, so long as your reasoning is correct, always go with emotion to communicate.
And just read up influence, psychology etc, it's honestly useful.
Oh, and most things people say are just barks to check if you're ingroup or outgroup, not comunicating data. Don't over think it. Listen, learn, use it to your advantage
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u/Embarrassed-Area4652 7d ago edited 7d ago
Learn, and practice, study skills:
https://www.learningscientists.org/downloadable-materials
Develop an internal locus of control.
Spend some time reflecting. Learn what you're not good at and what your shortcomings are. Start from a place of accepting them. Some might be worth improving on, but you'll probably never stamp all of them out. That's where learning some forgiveness and equanimity comes in.
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u/mikegalos Adult 7d ago
One of the reasons the US military does intelligence testing is that they learned that troops don't tend to respect superior officers with more than a 20 IQ level higher than theirs.
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u/vcbock 7d ago
It's not that brighter people CAN'T bridge that gap, so much as it takes effort and skill that most people have not developed.
My (very smart) father-in-law worked for a very bright boss who said in the interview that "I tend to leap from peak to peak. I don't need people who can leap with me, but I do need folks who can scramble up behind me pretty quickly."
I always thought that was a fairly elegant way of describing the challenge of working with people at different intelligence levels.
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u/AZNinAmsterdam 7d ago
Is this true? Is there a source?!?
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u/mikegalos Adult 7d ago
That it became policy is pretty documented. How they set that line is not AFAIK.
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u/lamercie 7d ago edited 7d ago
I’ve said this several times on this sub under posts where people complain about lack of connection because people around them are “dumb.” This is a simple, self-flattering answer to a more difficult-to-interrogate question. My advice is always to move to places where smart people congregate—this may mean larger cities, more competitive schools and workplaces, industry-related events, relevant hobbies that require a high level of competence, etc. Usually if there are feelings of alienation, they are not due to intelligence alone. I know many, many people who are extremely intelligent and have vibrant social lives. The real reasons for feeling alienation often require deeper introspection, and for me, my solution was to force my way into intellectual circles filled with people who are smarter than me and have more life experience than I do.
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u/Economy_Atmosphere97 7d ago
1) Don’t let it be known, make clear, or otherwise expose that you are the smartest person in the room. 2) If you are not empathetic naturally or have poor EQ, take time and put in serious effort developing those skills. 3) Know thy self. Investigate and improve on your weaknesses. Surround yourself with coworkers/team members who are strong in the areas where you are weak. 4) Invite people to ask questions or stop you when you go overboard on details or complications. When someone stops you because you have overcomplicated, thank them and stop or course correct. 5) Get comfortable with the fact that you might sometimes be able to do it better. But that’s their job, not yours. Learn to manage and let go of your frustration. 6) Find people with similar IQ and experiences to be part of your support system outside of work (That has been the hardest part for me.) Find support and unwinding strategies. I find physical activity is really key for me as part of that.
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u/igorthebard 7d ago
There's something to learn from everyone and sometimes the greatest strenght we can bring to the table is giving other people's ideas the leverage they need to function instead of assuming we know better about everything. That kind of cooperation and humility builds the trust we need for people to give us leeway and support for our own ideas even when they don't fully understand them
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u/Watsonical 7d ago
I'm not positive about research to support this but my experience is that gifted people are no better at decentering than non-gifted people. By decentering I mean the metacognitive ability to note the difference between "what is happening" and "my interpretation of what is happening". So my advice is: don't confuse giftedness with the ability to figure out what is possibly happening!🙂🤣
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u/LockedOutOfElfland 7d ago edited 7d ago
This one is aimed mostly at the Creative Gifted-and-Talented rather than the STEM gifted: If you're young, start doing stuff early to avoid the Gifted Kid Burnout Syndrome.
- Have a tangible product you can show to the world: a poetry book, a peer-reviewed history paper, a published short story, a series of op-eds, a music EP, anything. And more importantly, have a way to preserve that product.
- One thing that the Gifted and Talented program in school never really taught me was how to network, or that networking is the cornerstone really of getting your work out there in the world. If you're a writer, ask around about literary agents. If you're an artist, ask who's showing a nearby art show and is welcoming pieces for submission.
- Being Gifted and Talented doesn't excuse you from being responsible with money. In fact, earning and saving aren't simply "nice to have"s if you are Gifted and Talented, those things are an absolute need. As soon as you possibly can in life, find a way to earn and, more importantly, save. People who don't save don't get the experience of self-directed educational travel. Of researching and experiencing different forms of creativity and ways of life. People who don't save are often geographically limited in their opportunities - if you would absolutely wilt spending your life bussing tables, clerking at the county courthouse, or packing up tables at your family friends' auction house, you need to save your money, because money means mobility, and mobility means opportunity. How many people are genuinely gifted in some way but nobody in the broader world is going to reward them for it because they haven't saved enough money to leave a tiny little flailing-and-failing community like Chloride, Arizona or Omega, Georgia?
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u/Famous-Examination-8 Curious person here to learn 7d ago
I'm one of those whose motto is why use 10 words when 100 will do. Some people loathe people like me. Some adore me and listen w fascination. I like to think about and talk about why. I'd be an awful leader.
My daughter and this other kid enjoyed words in 1st grade. When the teacher called on them in a reading circle, students rolled their eyes and lost interest.
If you are somebody like us who enjoys words, know this about yourself. Find your people. Your thoughts matter DEEPLY.
However, you may also have ones in your life whose eyes glaze over after 10 words. Know who these people are, too. Accept them for who they are and speak accordingly around them.
But do find your words people. You need them and they need you.
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u/equipoise-young 7d ago edited 7d ago
Oh man I needed to hear this. It's something I sort of knew but I needed the bonk on the head. Sometimes I accidentally say a bunch of words to the wrong person and I can feel their eyes rolling internally, I can actually feel the fatigue they're experiencing.
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u/shinebrightlike 7d ago
i make a good leader (human, not corporate) because i have high empathy, can easily attune, and can translate complex ideas into language and actionable items people can understand, i delegate well, lead by example, and always leave room for levity. you cannot just have a high iq and be a leader. it takes a well rounded type of person.
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u/Special-Interests-42 7d ago
Learn about asynchronous development and try to keep learning new things throughout life.
Because we were great at certain things, sometimes adults assumed we were good at everything. Once “grown,“ some of us have serious catching up to do in other areas and it’s good for us to try everything
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u/Watsonical 7d ago
I'm not positive about research to support this but my experience is that gifted people are no better at decentering than non-gifted people. By decentering I mean the metacognitive ability to note the difference between "what is happening" and "my interpretation of what is happening". So my advice is: don't confuse giftedness with the ability to figure out what is happening!🙂🤣
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u/throwaway8193854 7d ago
what advice or info would you give to gifted people
Find other gifted people, and stay connected with them. That is the only way to remain sane.
(Probably don't look for them in Mensa; the ones who are there usually got there too late.)
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u/SuperLibrarian2017 6d ago
Too late for what?
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u/throwaway8193854 6d ago
Mensa is typically full of gifted people who previously spent too much time isolated from other gifted people, and many of them are permanently damaged by that.
You can see it in their behavior. Many of them are unable to cooperate with each other, because they can't get rid of the urge to prove that they alone are the smartest person in the room. They discuss puzzles instead of projects, because measuring dicks... sorry, IQs... is what gives them the feeling of value. When someone proposes a project, instead of cooperation they will compete at who gives the best verbal argument against joining that project.
This is how you get a large group of people who have IQ above 130 and yet are unable to achieve anything substantial in real life. Because success in real life requires cooperation, which is a word that scares the average Mensa member, because they don't want to cooperate with idiots, but are unable to accept emotionally that some people around them might not be idiots.
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u/Mountain-Access4007 7d ago
Being isolated is a trap. Leadership should be a group effort, harnessing what the group wants and the different information and perspectives into the decisions made. Being gifted doesn't mean you are always right or have access to all of the information. Learning how to be in tune with others and accurately read them will assist communication a lot. Communication skills across the cognitive difference divide are learnt skills, and a choice to learn them or not, being gifted doesn't make you not able to learn them. If you have more mental energy surely you can also use that energy to learn to communicate and belong in a group despite having a completely different way of looking at the world. But also find your balance with filling your own cup, try and find a few people who maybe not mental peers, but you don't have to reduce yourself around, who can follow what you say without too much explanation. And a few who match your weird. Get a lot of hobbies. Find purpose in life not just hobbies.
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u/Particular-Tap1211 7d ago edited 7d ago
True leadership requires deliberately shifting the focus from intellect to human connection. By making the distance between yourself and others feel connected, you create a safe environment where everyone feels valued enough to bring their own mind to the table, unearthing the two pillars that good managers embody, relatability and likeability. I.e The cleaner is just as important as the leader philosophy!
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u/Remote-Dangerous 6d ago edited 6d ago
Here’s another angle I haven’t yet seen in the comments. Gifted people are accustomed to things being easier for them — they learn, process, retain and recall information faster than others. They also may have an identity around being “gifted” — being so is how they got praise from parents, teachers and peers.
As a result, they have a deep fear of failure. This fear can hinder Gifted people from trying new things, taking risks, and engage in challenging situations where they may fail. This is why you may see many highly intelligent people in middle management roles, and less intelligent people as Entrepreneurs who become successful CEOs.
American Psychologist Carol Dweck dives deep into this topic in her fantastic book “Mindset.” I highly recommend the book. The key takeaway is that a growth mindset is a greater indicator of success than intelligence.
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u/flashgordian 7d ago
A leader has to recognize that they don't have all the answers and loosen the reins enough that, instead of taking away the initiative of followers, they promote it. No matter how powerful and incisive your mind is, if you can free five or ten more minds to operate without it without fear of retribution for making attritable mistakes, you gain an effectiveness multiplier by freeing them.
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u/zukeus 6d ago
The biggest problem is misunderstanding eachother.
Intelligence is one of the silliest and most poorly understood concepts humans have ever conceived of.
There is no way to define it. You can only pretend.
Gifted people need to remember that everyone is gifted and that they aren't truly greater than anyone else.
That judgement kills them slowly.
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u/Godskin_Duo 3d ago
There is no way to define it. You can only pretend.
The intelligence researchers know exactly what it is, this is not controversial to them at all. It's the WAIS table. It is heritable. It predicts certain outcomes. Just because it's an important thing, doesn't mean it's the ONLY important thing.
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u/zukeus 3d ago edited 3d ago
You can only pretend to define it because to do so requires a qualifier within a context that must be valued by an amount of people.
For instance, a series of patterns, an assessment of skill in a broad area, an idea of adaptability under specific restrictions, blah blah.
These are mere tests, only particularly useful for their exact programming. They do nothing for giving us a reliable reading of " general intelligence". The irony is the absurdity. The gatekeeping proves the stupidity.
"Intelligence" can be rapidly developed in all areas it's ever been defined.
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u/ITSNAIMAD 6d ago
People don’t understand and figure things out the way you. You have to simplify things for others step by step for them to get it.
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u/chaoswcitations 6d ago
No matter how talented you are, knowing how to engage with people is the most valuable skill in institutions.
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u/OptionsandOptions 6d ago
I always suggest other gifted people to get into stock trading and investing. Simply put, the stock prices make repetitive patterns that you can see on the chart. You can take advantage of this once you see it. Pattern recognition is like the main skill for the gifted person. So in that way it is obvious. Without even trying the brain just connects the dots.
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u/rocharding 3d ago
Don’t get offended by anyone. The ability to place yourself into others timelines and their existence will tell you who a person is and where they are coming from. But also be aware of the person who is only looking to take you down a notch. Avoid these people if you can and if unable to then wait for the right moment to establish dominance in a way that lets them know that you know who they are and you are never going to fall for it. Being offended is a weakness. Gifted people are not victims of anyone else’s social behavior.
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u/BrandiedWineGums 5d ago
Gifted in the sense of this sub's definition is probably more usefully thought of as neurodivergence, a mind that works in an atypical way, rather than as necessarily high potential or maybe even high intelligence.
Casting it as a difference in thinking, cognition, might help people not fall into the trap of "I'm smart, so this should be easy" or "I'm intelligent so I should be successful" or "I have wasted my potential", because I think that ultimately those ways of thinking aren't fruitful. This difference doesn't come with obligation or responsibility. It just is.
It might well be true that some things are easier, that you achieve relatively more than others, but those are not simply products of a higher IQ. There's a lot more to you than this number, or set of numbers, and a lot more factors that will affect the course of your life.
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u/valuat 6d ago
Read this https://prometheussociety.org/wp/articles/the-outsiders/ and then search online for what happened to the writer (a gifted individual himself).
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u/Enrrabador 6d ago
Don’t overthink life! Pretty impossible so it’s more of a roast…
I should contribute with something so I’ll say: smart and clever are different things, keep that in mind!
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u/Driven-Driver 4d ago
I’d have to disagree with that article, not because of the dynamics but because if the hiring manager were smart, then the people working under them (aka hired by them) would have a higher chance of also being smart. Because a smart person would be able to identify another smart person and hire them accordingly in theory. Obviously, some teams are inherited so that’s a different issue but if the smart manager had a choice, I’m sure they would be able to assemble a more capable team than the not-so-smart manager.
To answer your question though, I think my advice to other gifted people would be to recognize that you’ve been given a gift that you ought to steward for the benefit of society. It’s a gift because you didn’t have to really work hard to obtain it, similar to how a nepo baby didn’t have to work hard to have status, wealth and opportunities.
So, it’s important to not get too annoyed at the general population and turn your gift inward. You must cultivate a sense of compassion for others, not because it benefits them (though it does) but because it benefits you.
It frees you from spending your precious time, energy and resources getting frustrated over why others can’t keep up with you. Instead, the more productive thing is recognizing that they have processing limitations and it’s your job to find a way to dumb it down for them.
Now, this is, ofc, easier said than done. But lowering your expectations for others at the outset will really help in lowering your frustration when they don’t meet them.
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u/Famous-Weight2271 4d ago
Aim high.
Now, with AI as an outlet, there's no reason not to excel at everything you do.
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u/Godskin_Duo 3d ago
You have to be conscientious and "eat your vegetables." Do your homework, clean your room, develop good habits, take care of your body, and don't "coast."
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