Overexcitable

Strange Conclusions

2006-08-18T16:14:00.000-07:00

I was thrilled to read this post by the Drs. Eide about a reworking of the oft-quoted study where four-year-old children are given a choice. In the 1960s version, they were left alone in a room with a marshmallow, and told that they could have one marshmallow now, or wait 20 minutes and have two marshmallows. The conclusion usually drawn is that those children who chose not to wait have poor impulse control; and they examined their SATs at 18 and found that they scored lower. Here's the wiki, incomplete but better than nothing.

Anyway this experiment and the conclusions drawn from it about impulse control and emotional intelligence have always bothered me. As a kid, I can quite easily see me not believing a strange adult in a white coat when they told me this story about getting two marshmallows - eventually. Or, believing that my ability to charm the second marshmallow out of them regardless of whether I ate the first or not would save the day. I actually didn't even like marshmallows as a kid, and most probably I would have just sat there with it for 20 minutes, perhaps seeing how small I could squish it or pretending it was an alien or using it as an ear plug. But eating it? Nah.

Now I never took the SATs but I bet I would have screwed their curve right up, as a gifted kid with a huge imagination and an attitude to match. And I bet there are thousands more reasons why a four-year-old might decide to eat a marshmallow, or not, to do with their past experience of strange adults, or even experience with their own inconsistent parents or caregivers. There are plenty of ways to be in the world and most of them are "successful" by one standard or another. The issue here, I think, is which children were more suited to the standard systems and procedures, which involve standard motivations and actions, which are rewarded by standard tests like the SAT. I bet they never had a check-box for "Ate marshmallow. Had a twenty-minute tantrum, inducing mother to buy second marshmallow from research assistant."

Technorati tags: marshmallow experiment emotional intelligence gifted

Moved to Calgary

2006-08-11T10:21:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Anonymous for pointing out that I haven't even mentioned my move to Calgary on this blog. There's a bit of a story to this....

We decided to move to Calgary and we found a great place for the beginning of May. Now I have my own office in the basement which is great! We have a lot more house for our money here, and I'm loving this town. So why didn't I mention it?

Regular readers of this blog will have noticed a big swatch of nothingness in April and May as we made our move. I felt completely discombobulated by the whole process and I didn't want that feeling to tinge my business. I had no idea how to handle telling people I was leaving the province while convincing them that I am willing to travel anywhere to give workshops. I still don't, although I love to travel - in fact I'm off to Minneapolis tomorrow to do just that.

It seems like a trivial reason now, but what can I say, fear is always irrational. I have those business guru gremlins in my head who are whispering nonsense about stability and establishing a market presence and the value of predictabilty, and this time I listened. Thanks again to Anonymous for making me "come out". Beware listening to your fear!

Technorati tags: Calgary gremlins fear

New Project

2006-08-09T07:28:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, guess what! I got a new gig!

I'm going to be teaching communications part-time, on contract, at SAIT starting in a couple of weeks. This is extremely thrilling for many reasons, not least the impact it will have on my cash flow and my social circle here in Calgary.

I am concerned, however, that there will be a whole segment of my experience that I probably shouldn't blog about if I want to keep the job. It's one of those big institutions that I assume has a policy about this kind of thing, and I don't want to get fired for talking about work in public like my dear bloggers Dooce and Meg. I have railed against this unreasonable restriction on free speech here, but now that it might be my neck on the chopping block, I'm feeling a lot less brave.

However, this fear does not extend to the way I'm going to teach these courses. I'm going to make this required first-year course a total blast and substantive learning experience for my students. Everything I have done so far in my business and life has been pointing toward this and it's shown up just in time to save me from having to go back to executive assistant work. I'm going to be able to continue building my coaching business and finish my book, because it's part time. And there's more than enough new work and new people to keep me interested!

Technorati tags: SAIT communications challenge

SENG Conference - Part 4

2006-08-07T09:24:00.000-07:00

The last thing I simply must share with you was my experience of watching Annemarie Roeper give a presentation on the first evening. It was the most electric, real, and useful session of the whole conference.

The topic was "Growing Old Gifted". There was a great anticipation of her speech because she has been highly influential in the field of gifted education, and shows no signs of stopping now. A tiny elderly lady dressed in white, she was introduced and the interview format began.

Annemarie began to talk as she had planned but soon ditched her format and began to cry. She had just heard the news that she was to be a great-grandmother - that one of her granddaughters is pregnant. This overwhelmed her with emotions. She was profoundly grateful that she had been saved from the Nazis by the incredibly courageous actions of her late husband, and deeply touched that her family and work was allowed to flower in the US as a result. The happy news took her to unexpected memories and a tracing of connections in her life that had made it possible. A reasoned exposition of getting older as a gifted person became impossible - and unnecessary - as she explained to us why this event meant so much to her.

It was the most beautiful thing to witness her presence and emotion - the reality of being gifted, the great sensitivity and deep feeling than so often occur in this population, leading to a keen awareness of the beauty and fragility of life. It was a rare example of someone exposing their giftedness and being extremely vulnerable in front of 400 people. It was true leadership.

Afterwards, I thanked Annemarie for her session and she expressed her disappointment at her performance because she hadn't given any information about growing old gifted, as she had planned. As I said to her, that's why it was so incredibly valuable. She didn't tell us; she showed us.

Technorati tags: gifted leadership Annemarie Roeper

Coaches coaching Coaches

2006-08-03T10:28:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Morris for asking a great question. Why do coaches need coaches? Why can't coaches survive in the world without that kind of support?

Sometimes people have this image of coaches, therapist, counsellors etc., as people who have all of their issues and problems sorted out. After all, they have been to school for this stuff, so they should be able to put it into practice in their own lives, right? Otherwise, perhaps they don't have any business telling others to do it!

The truth is for me, and many other coaches, it is even harder to see what I am doing that is getting in my way precisely BECAUSE of my training. I can talk myself out of things incredibly well. Don't feel like going to the gym? It's self-care! Want to avoid making that difficult phone call? I'm just following my intuition - perhaps it's just not "meant to be"!

I've warned my coach about my slippery behaviour and she holds my feet to the fire, holding me accountable, reminding me what I told her I wanted for myself. As I grow and get to doing even scarier and more difficult things, I need her support and encouragement to stay out on my learning edge. I feel that the best thing I can give my clients is the assurance that I, too, am constantly pushing myself to grow, and loving every second of it. I can only inspire that in my clients if I am doing it myself.

Technorati tags: coaching inspiration

SENG Conference - Part 3

2006-08-01T08:22:00.000-07:00

So much is going on right now, but I really feel it's important to keep debriefing my SENG Conference experience in the background.

One session I attended was given by Kimberly McGlonn-Nelson about meeting the social and emotional needs of gifted African-American girls. I learnt about things like the Video Ho culture and the incredibly pervasive nature of music video/video game stereotypes for young people. I was surprised to realize that I had a lot of assumptions about teenage culture, based on my own teen years, that are simply wrong for today's teens - and I am only 32. It was definitely an eye opener and I made sure to thank Kimberly at the end.

The thing I appreciated most, however, was the frank nature of our discussion about race and minority. It is the first semi-public occasion I have had to learn about race in North America where I felt free to be honest and speak my mind, as others were clearly doing. Most of the time, whenever I bring up race, people immediately back away from the topic or hide their truths behind politically correct facades. I understand that it's a hot button issue for people and I really need to know more about this stuff! I was raised in a monoculture, where there were only two non-white girls in my whole year at school. I have no idea of the particular pressures, and therefore could blindly make things worse. Kimberly did help me see some small areas where I could make a difference - but only because we were all admitting to being clueless, not trying to portray an enlighted image.

I strongly believe that the more emotion and charge attached to talking about something, anything, the more vital it is to talk about it. If we don't, it just festers, as assumptions grow unchecked and become dogma. The current inability to talk openly about racial issues gives us no opportunity to examine our prejudices and learn more useful ways of being and thinking. I am grateful for this rare chance to grow.

Technorati tags: gifted race SENG

The Magic Land

2006-07-28T14:59:00.000-07:00

I am back! I am ALIVE! It was an amazing experience....I'm still processing and recovering, because of the jet lag and the hugeness of it all.

Ireland, and particularly Sligo, is beautiful - pictures don't do it justice, and everything you have heard about the magic and power of the place is true. There are rainbows daily and surprises around every corner. I climbed up lots of hills to meditate and felt the history of the place. I could have spent the whole week simply being there.

As it was, this intense sense of place was vital to my ability to really connect with my mum. Making sure I supported myself with meditation, connection, and walking in such inspiring scenery gave me a new and limitless strength. It was great to really listen to her, to offer her all my love and vulnerability - and it had the most surprising effect of taking the emotional charge out of my reactions to her. Previously, I would spiral away from her into an old pattern of making up what she meant by what she said. This time, I checked in with her whenever her words or actions might have led me to create distance between us. Or, I simply heard her words and was able to choose not to react, but to come back to her with love.

I feel as if I actually got to know my mother better, even though I feel certain that there is a whole part of her walled off, not just from me, but even from herself. I rediscovered that it is impossible to really love someone and wish that they would change; I knew this about romantic partners, but hadn't made the connection to family or the wider world. Accepting her just as she is, loving her madly and offering her everything I have, has changed our relationship and changed me. Standing in a place of unconditional love gives me unlimited strength and capacity. It is the key to everything! This is an ancient spiritual concept that I understand in a new, deeper, active way.

I am in awe of the power of being open and paying attention and holding an intention. What an incredible gift this week was.

Technorati tags: love Ireland Sligo

Off to Dublin

2006-07-18T20:04:00.000-07:00

Yes, just a quick wave goodbye....I'll be back in 10 days to continue my...er...stuff here on the blog. Going to Dublin to meet my mother and have some Conversation. My boyfriend is referring to it as the Dublin Summit. Wish me courage!

SENG Conference - Part 2

2006-07-15T12:45:00.000-07:00

I've opened the discussion on the bulletin boards, and so far only one person has posted, although 74 people have looked at it. The whole thing has been brewing for me, steeping in the background, distracting me. Finally I decided I had to do something more. I phoned the office and got the President's phone number and left her a message. There is an opportunity to make a real difference that I simply can't ignore.

Anyway, to tell you a bit more about the conference - there was a vast amount of information-passing and data-sharing going on. I was surprised, because I assumed that the whole point of having the researcher right there in front of a room was to give interpretation of their findings. I wanted to know, OK, what might this mean, how can we apply that extrapolation in the real world, what else might we want to study about it? I wanted to debate, disagree, create, imagine, and dream with the expert and the other people in the room. Most people had a lot of slides and not much time for questions. We could all read the research, offline, in our own time. So just giving us the data again seems a bit pointless. But perhaps that's how they do it in academia.

However, some data I simply had a hard time swallowing. I'm a coach; my training has taught me that no-one gets to be wrong. This principle that I hold so strongly was tested to the max at this conference. I heard a very well-respected keynote speaker say that there was no greater incidence of social or emotional problems among the gifted teenagers she studied than in the general population. All I can say is that gifted teenagers are masters at telling adults the answers they know they want to hear, and hiding their true feelings to protect the ones they love. This is also because they have been misunderstood or "helped" inappropriately so many times in the past that they no longer trust that any adult really knows what they are talking about. Their logical conclusion is that they must deal with their pain alone. It's sad, it's scary, and it's one reason why I do what I do - to reinforce their self-concept and to give them more tools to keep searching for what they need.

Generally I felt that this minimization of emotional problems was inappropriate and unhelpful at a conference specifically dedicated to supporting the emotional needs of the gifted. I am confused about it and wonder why it happened. There were other sessions that were great, some that spoke to the reality of being gifted. However there were many that gave lists of things to do with gifted people to help them fit in better. I find the lists to be terribly dangerous. Gifted people are vibrantly unique and deserve to be treated that way. The reductionist approach is particularly damaging for people who are constantly in a process of growth and change. My guess is that it would not be tolerated for any other group of people, grouped racially, ethnically, or even those at the other end of the IQ scale.

The mos surprising thing is, why is this happening at all? Why aren't the researchers and dedicated workers in the gifted world creating new and better ways to look at this population that can encompass their wholeness and individuality? Those taking a phenomenological approach are a tiny minority, one I wholeheartedly respect. I assumed that all the people drawn to this area are themselves gifted, but perhaps I am wrong. For me, working with gifted people means I need to remain constantly alert, flexible, and open to modifying any and all of my operating principles at any moment. It's the thing that makes it fun and keeps me engaged. I don't want to reduce it to a set of understandable "facts", ever. Part of the beauty of gifted people is their ability to see the big picture - the enormous, infinite picture. Let's use that as a starting point and see where it gets us.

Stay tuned for part 3....

Technorati tags: SENG conference gifted phenomenology

SENG Conference - Part 1

2006-07-12T07:55:00.000-07:00

Back again from sunny California and just getting over the post-conference wilt. There's something about spending three days away from home in the company of many strangers at an academic conference that has reduced me to a piece of old lettuce. I haven't slept so much in ages, deep sleep that is thick and sticky when I try to climb out of it and actually do some work.

This was my first academic conference as a presenter, and my first gifted conference - I have attended many software junkets before. It was a highly ironic experience and I'm still giggling about it at random moments. Despite this conference being specifically about Supporting the Emotional Needs of the Gifted (SENG), the environment and program of the conference was the antithesis of everything the presenters were talking about!

It was held in the Hilton Irvine, which while very nice, is right across the street from the airport (read: NOISY) and surrounded by other hotels. Lots of concrete and pavement and plants manicured within an inch of their lives. I was on foot and couldn't find any interesting restaurants or shops or museums anywhere nearby. I was almost in a state of sensory deprivation by the time I left - certainly cultural deprivation.

In addition, the conference structure did not seem to take into account the increased sensitivity and predominantly introverted nature of the gifted population. There were several large meetings over meals that were very loud and confusing, as well as regular hotel lighting and the type of room where the temperature is difficult to moderate. I took a couple of long breaks to regain energy alone in my hotel room, but that also meant I had to miss something.

I will be opening a discussion on this on the SENG message boards, as well as sharing my impressions here. The hope is that my perspective can add to the impact of this volunteer organization. There's a lot more to say....to be continued....

Technorati tags: SENG conference gifted

I am a Genius

2006-07-04T11:24:00.000-07:00

Great news! I forwarded my book draft to a friend, a very particular and special friend who is a Doctor of Literature or something equally robust as well as a published author. She loved it! She thought it was powerful and special and it showed her a new perspective about herself. We both got quite emotional.

Then she said it needed major reorganization and .... offered to help! I'm just thrilled beyond belief. This is major. Part of me was thinking that no-one would be interested in it, it would probably never see the light of day, even though the whole point of writing it was to spread my ideas and experience in my field. When I was writing it and banging my head against the wall on regular occassions, publication day seemed like an impossible dream. I had some lovely fantasies that people would seize on it with huge enthusiasm, but I found it quite easy to dismiss them as unrealistic. After all, I'm a brand new author.

Having my erudite friend give it such a strong acknowledgement was quite overwhelming. To be validated like this is truly indescribable. If she likes it so much, I'm more inclined to think that I've really done something valuable here. I couldn't stop crying with happiness. So I went out and bought champagne and spent a whole day celebrating!

Technorati tags: book editor celebration

Realness

2006-07-02T10:19:00.000-07:00

Perhaps it's because I have lived in two societies famous for their rectitude and politeness. Seeing people actually get angry is still a surprising novelty and always makes me very happy. When someone breaks through the social opprobrium attached to showing a real, true, emotional response, I am just totally thrilled for them.

The first time is always the hardest. The first time I do it with a new social group, I'm always wondering, what will the reaction be? I'm often told that I'm just too much, and I don't think it's just because of the gifted piece. I'm sure this happens to lots of people, because of the rarity of real emotional behaviour. What is the big deal about being who we really are?

I wish we could create a society that allowed everyone to just let it all hang out. On some level, I think we already have. People are rarely jailed for expressing themselves. Yet the old restrictions and conventions remain. Let's fight them with realness!

Technorati tags: society gifted emotion

Lavender's Reign of Tiredness

2006-06-30T13:03:00.000-07:00

I've blogged about my fatigue gremlin/saboteur/shitty committee ruling before, in passing. I like to call her Lavender, since (in my imaginary portrait of this part of myself) she wears a flowing mauve gown of some gauzy material that swirls around her romatically as she reclines, exhausted, on a chaise longue. Since the last retreat, I've realized that this particular gremlin is doing a lot more damage than just preventing me from going to Kinko's in a timely fashion.

I get TIRED whenever I have to do something that I don't feel like doing. I think this is connected to my childhood, when I was very active and verbal, rarely sleeping and always challenging my parents. If I said that I was tired and needed a nap, I could get out of almost anything, they were so grateful for the break from my incessant questions. So I told my new coach, Zoey, about this and asked her to call me on it if she ever saw any evidence of Lavender showing up.

We had the most hilarious coaching session - Lavender appeared about 5 times in 45 minutes to block me from my goals. We were laughing about it, but it's actually quite serious. How many opportunities have I passed by because I "don't have the energy"? A sobering thought. And it makes me wonder about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

It’s jolly difficult to tell at the moment whether I am actually tired or whether my gremlin is active. It feels exactly the same. Today I am trying this tactic – is there another fun, non-challenging activity that I would like to do apart from sleep, like read my trashy novel? If so, it’s an avoidance thing. Seems to be working so far – right now, for instance!

Technorati tags: gremlin Chronic Fatigue Syndrome coaching

Back Again

2006-06-28T16:19:00.000-07:00

So I returned, then disappeared again. Any of my readers who have issues around needing me to be predictable have probably decamped permanently by now. But for those of you who are still hanging out, chilling, I am back again for a week or so before my next excellent adventure.

This time I was back on my leadership program, grooving with the Deer as we climbed enormous trees and yelled and cried and laughed and danced our way into a new understanding. This retreat was number 2 of 4, and focused on creating from other - very big learning curve for me.

The way my dear friend Dr. Jane explained it to me, there is a theory of old-school group work that says the group will perform at a level slightly below that of the most competent member. Her suspicion was that I was often the most competent member, leading me to conclude quite logically that I could have done the whole project better by myself, a lot faster, and with a lot less hassle. The rest of the group would be happy and want to work with me again. I ran away as fast as I could from these people and started doing my own thing.

The work we did at this retreat gave me a whole new perspective about groups and it is exciting the hell out of me. The structure made it abundantly clear, again and again, that I could go farther with someone else than I could by myself, farther than I even dreamed possible. This is what my coach meant by meeting people where they are. I finally got it. In order to find out where they are, I have to get over there with them, ignoring me for a while, because I know where I am. Not sure if this makes sense to anyone else!

Mainly I want to point out that this is GOOD NEWS, especially because I have a big job to do, and it's going to get done much better and faster now that I can understand how to get help with it. On some level, my improv experience has taught me this before. But now I simply cannot ignore its application in my life.

Technorati tags: group work connecting

Conundrum

2006-06-16T15:27:00.000-07:00

I had a conversation with a coach that went like this:

"How can I get them to really hear me, understand what I am trying to say from the heart about giftedness?"

"It's easy. You just have to meet them where they are."

It's been three months since that conversation and I'm still trying to figure out what she meant, and more importantly, how to start experimenting with the concept.

Over the past year, I've been meeting people where they are by meeting them within the existing structures that are set up to serve gifted people. This has meant working with schools, parent associations, corporations, and self-selected groups of gifted adults. In order to get the concepts across to them, I've mastered their particular argot - the words and phrases that they are comfortable with, the workshop designs that fit into their schedules. It's been both fascinating and frustrating.

I'm starting to wonder what it would be like for me to set up a new structure that really made sense to me, and hopefully by extension to other gifted people. I enjoy designing coaching relationships with single clients, but designing with an entire culture usually means that I am the one who has to do all the compromising. What if I could choose the cost and length and learning objectives of my own workshops? It would be great, but then how would I be meeting people where they are?

It's got my brain tied up in knots. Usually I find the best thing to do with a block like this is put it on the back burner, meaning I push it to the back of my mind and let it bubble on its own for a while. Going at a problem more indirectly frees up my waking attention, and sometimes produces superior results. Let's hope this is one of those times!

Technorati tags: thinking coaching workshops gifted

Procrastination Chicken

2006-06-14T12:53:00.000-07:00

Realized that I am becoming totally obsessed by the book! All I can think about is (say it out loud to yourself, you'll get the idea) "book, book, book, aaaahhhh, book, BOOK!" It's like there is a chicken living in my head. It has had the effect of getting me up to 44,000 words in 5 weeks, but I can't live like this any more!

So that is why I hired myself a brand new fantastic coach, Zoey Ryan, to kick myself back into gear with all the other fabulous things that I love to do - like write my blog. I really miss hearing the comments and feedback, good or bad, on what I'm up to. I also love to get out into the world and meet new people, sparking unexpected connections and ideas. If I'm a chicken, then focusing on the book as my single strategy to get my experience and passion out there into the world is really putting all my precious eggs in one basket.

What has been happening is that I have used the book as a very sneaky type of procrastination strategy, as I realized when talking to Zoey today. It's easy to avoid doing anything when I am telling myself that as soon as I finish the book, things will magically change. I will become a world-recognized expert, instant riches will drop from the skies, I will be interviewed on Oprah, and I will feel like blogging again. I'm actually quite impressed with myself for coming up with something so creative. Clearly, I am also a gifted procrastinator. And in some ways, it's true - there is only so much typing a girl can do in one day.

My favourite anti-procrastination strategy is pretty effective - all I have to do is think of something that needs doing (like cleaning, or accounting, or phoning my relatives) that I want to do even less than the thing I'm procrastinating about. In this case, the last thing I want to do is fail in a commitment I made to my brand new coach. The power of coaching, happening right before your eyes!

It's good to be back.

Technorati tags: writing coaching procrastination gifted

Getting over the Hump

2006-05-12T12:45:00.000-07:00

I've got a serious case of the afternoon blahs, when my body yells at me that it's time to take a nap RIGHT NOW. This is a very bad time to have a telephone conversation, as the person you are talking to will think that you are totally disinterested in them. Or so I just discovered.

Anyway back to the point. I've just had a very busy week and managed to meet a challenge of 10,000 words on the book I'm writing. After celebrating this landmark last night (which may have something to do with the blahs) I started looking around on the internet to find out how many words there are in a regular-type non-fiction book. Imagine my devastation on discovering that the goal is 75,000! That's feeling like a LOT of words at the moment.

It's not that I don't have that many words to say on this topic. I'm enjoying the writing very much as it is a chance to witter on endlessly about something I'm very passionate about. But I wonder if I can pare down that wittering into something tight and readable. Then I start second-guessing myself and thinking that I need to do more research and start citing famous people in the field. Then I stop writing and start worrying about getting it right.

This is such a great time to do an improv show! I can't possibly get improv right, no matter what I do, and I need to bring that same experimental attitude back to my writing. So hopefully participating in the Micetro show at Loose Moose theatre tonight will be just what I need to get back in the zone. Yeah.

Technorati tags: writing improv

Another Conference!

2006-05-08T19:09:00.000-07:00

I'm thrilled to announce that I was selected from over 900 proposals (that's right, ***900***) to present at the National Association for Gifted Children's 2006 Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina. It's wonderful to receive such great support from the big cheeses in the gifted world for the work I'm doing.

In order to prepare for this and for the SENG conference, I'm doing a lot of writing about why improv is such a great tool to use with gifted people in particular. It's interesting to sit down and actually write all the reasons out, dividing them into comprehensible chunks. The best thing about using improv is that it's so immersive, and I quite easily get totally lost in it. I'm having to further develop my self-observation skills!

Lately I seem to be spending a huge amount of time writing. I love writing and it comes very easily, but I'm surprised that it has formed such a large part of my entrepreneurial experience to date. I guess that's one of the great joys of being in charge of my own journey - I get to do whatever comes naturally, whenever the opportunity presents itself. Dream on!

Technorati tags: NAGC gifted improv

Honey, I'm Home!

2006-04-24T09:59:00.001-07:00

The England Experience was, well, a huge learning experience. It's hard to get back into the swing of writing this blog. I haven't felt this fear of being exposed through the blog since I started it almost a year ago. Again, I have to go back to the reason I started - to share my experiences as a highly gifted adult. To be any use to anyone else, I must be honest.

I went back to attend my mother's 60th birthday party. My wonderful man was truly amazing throughout and I saw the best of him while we were there. He knew how freaked out I was to be back in the old country, and he supported me with incredible kindness and grace. We had fun together and we had fun staying with my best friend. The family thing, however, was a different matter.

My relationship with my parents is OK; we talk about the weather and what the family is up to and current events. There's lots of attempts to bond through gossip, and there's always some digging to get information about each other (they are divorced now), which can make it difficult to talk. There is still a part of me that wants that deep connection that I have been able to make with other adults in my life, but I am pretty resigned to that never happening between us. It's distressing to see that I make my parents so nervous. I guess I was a very scary child. Now that I'm an adult, though, I want to have an adult relationship, but the pattern is very strong and resistant to change.

My goal at the moment is just to love them unconditionally, whether things get better, worse, or never change. This is harder than it sounds. They seem to push me away constantly and I'm starting to think this is because no-one has ever loved them that way before. If so, perhaps I was born into this particular family to bring that love to them.

Technorati tags: parents gifted adult unconditional love

Can't Sleep

2006-04-06T04:39:00.000-07:00

It's 4:30 in the morning and I can't sleep. Later today I fly back to England, scene of my youthful high jinks and lair of the strangest family on the planet - mine. From this bleary perspective, the trip feels like a big soul-sucking swirl of guilt and memories. However, this is the first time my wonderful boyfriend has ever been there, so I will attempt to immerse myself in his experience and maintain a strong stance of total denial about mine. It sounds plausible.

I will be taking Bernard so hope to post some pictures when I get back. Until then, my lovelies!

The Tribe

2006-04-02T11:40:00.000-07:00

A single gifted community hasn't formed naturally because gifted people are born into all kinds of families and situations all over the world. It's difficult to find us, because many of us are deep in hiding, especially as dependent children. In the fictional world of Harry Potter, British children with magical talent receive an acceptance letter to Hogwarts School. For some, this is the first idea they get that what is different about them might be valuable and wonderful. For others, it's a family norm. All are given the opportunity to meet others like them and really develop their specialness.

I was born at this time in history to unite a tribe that has been long divided. GIFTED PEOPLE ARE DYING. This is urgent, and real. We've got to give up any defensive claims that gifted people don't need or deserve help. We've got to stop the turf wars over different conceptions of giftedness that dominate the academic and educational worlds. It's time to create a system that will hold all of us as our personalities disintegrate and reintegrate. This is the only way that we can grow into the higher levels that are the fullest expression of our intelligence and humanity.

Gifted people must come together into a cohesive group so that we can begin to do all the things tribes do for their members - provide a community of acceptance, a safe home. Serve each other, protect ourselves, and mark milestones together. Care for the young ones and give them the training and tools they need in our particular society and in the societies around us. Celebrate and mourn, support and challenge. We now have the technology to fully meet this need.

We must find a way to get an "acceptance letter" to every gifted person and invite them to join a strong, vibrant tradition of self development within the safety of a group that fully "gets it".

Technorati tags: gifted tribe Harry Potter

Business Bonfire

2006-03-28T15:59:00.000-08:00

As promised, here's the story. At my coaching course, I got some fantastic coaching from my fellow students. In one especially great experience, my coach helped me get through a huge block that has plagued me since I began my business.

I have always been excellent at following rules and making things work. I am very proficient at doing things efficiently and well. However, I don't enjoy it in the slightest. My favourite thing is making it up as I go along, relying on my ability and intuition, dancing in the moment with whatever comes up.

So I start this great program designed to help me become a big success in my self-employment journey, and immediately get plunged into this strange world of sales and marketing and networking and taxes and policies and trademarks and....basically, plenty of things to DO. Doing all this made me feel very competant and on top of things. In fact, I searched the internet for even more information about what to do and how to do it well.

Yet despite all I have done, I felt that I wasn't accomplishing much. It all seemed a bit empty and annoyingly corporate. I was able to see, through this inspired coaching, that it was because I was receiving advice focused on a goal that didn't interest me. I don't want my company to become the next McDonalds or IBM, and I certainly don't want to sell it off and make wads of cash.

It became abundantly clear that I needed to make a strong stand rejecting other people's views on the "right way" to be an entrepreneur. So I bundled up all of the handouts and flyers and notes I had made and took them down to the beach and burnt them. It took a surprisingly long time, and it turned into a great meditation on trust and freedom. When I left, because it started to snow, I felt so much stronger.

This is not to say that I don't need help; of course I do, and I ask for it all the time. But I need to trust my own instincts about what is important and take the next step that makes sense to me, even though it might appear crazy to a traditional business advisor.

Technorati tags: business coaching doing/being

Hello Darlings

2006-03-28T15:34:00.000-08:00

Hi, I'm back. After spending so much time away doing mind and soul-bending things, it's a bit weird to come home and find everything is just as I left it.

The most amazing thing has happened to time. It's as if everything has slowed down, like I'm meditating. I'm going through life just fine, getting the laundry done, renting videos, petting the dog; but every second seems bigger.

One of the great benefits of this is having more time to choose a response when I'm in a challenging situation. Something will happen that I would normally react to negatively, and I get time to hear/see it, go "ouch!", then respond in a way that is helpful to me. I feel much calmer and more present in these situations which is a huge gift.

Another benefit is that I can see the truly amazing beauty in the world around me and the people everywhere. There is so much love in every moment. I'm adoring my life and appreciating every opportunity to work and share.

Rereading this, I'm perfectly aware that it sounds a bit nuts, but that doesn't really matter, either. Wow. Yeah!!!

Technorati tags: re-entering coaching time warp

Retreat

2006-03-12T07:26:00.000-08:00

Just a quick post to let you know that I am going on retreat for 10 days. I've been organizing like crazy for the past few days and I'm ready! I'll post about what I've done, what I've learnt, and my business bonfire when I get back.

Peace out!

Jumping Off

2006-03-06T20:15:00.000-08:00

Today I did the next thing. I said goodbye to my wonderful amazing therapist. This is a very strange mixture of joy and grief. She was the person who first introduced me to my gifted self and kept on validating my perceptions no matter how out-of-the-box they were. With her support I've grown into the big red sparkly shoes I was born with. Our relationship has been one of the most important of my life.

Then I did the next thing. I called the Coaches Training Institute and signed up for their Leadership course. This is what I have to do. I can't provide you, dear reader, with any good rational reasons why. I can give you lots of great reasons why I shouldn't, but we won't go there. All I know is I have to do it, and as it happens there was one space left in the course starting next week.

It's a wild moment in my life, and as it turns out there aren't too many words here. I'm drinking it in.

Technorati tags: coaching therapy leadership

Nothing Less Than Everything

2006-03-05T20:06:00.000-08:00

I went to coaching school this weekend, and I'm absolutely thrilled. I'm going to brag about myself because I totally rocked it.

How did I do this? I pushed and pushed these leaders with outrageous honesty about my experience. I told them what I really, truly thought, even at the point when I was sure the whole thing was a big waste of my time and money. And they kept on accepting everything I could produce from my bag of tricks; tears, anger, snideness, boredom, depression.....I've got a big range....and asking for more.

I figured, they really mean it. They want it ALL and they want it all in my coaching. So I blasted them, full bore, no holding back - and they loved it. It turns out that's what they meant, all along, about coactive coaching. People have asked me for my full commitment and passion before; but when I gave it to them, they were scared and overwhelmed and told me off for being inappropriate. Not this time.

The leaders told me that my work was the best they had seen in over 30 teachings of this same course, and my classmates agreed - I got a standing ovation (another first in the leaders' experience) and many people came to tell me how much I had inspired them. I am just pumped because as a coach I am required to USE my whole self. I can't hold back and if I do I am ripping off my clients.

This post is a way to savour that experience and most importantly reinforce what I know to be true now. This blog can serve as a way to keep that fresh and constant in my life and most importantly in my coaching. My clients deserve nothing less than everything I have to give.

Technorati tags: coaching co-active celebration

Becoming More Human

2006-03-01T10:06:00.000-08:00

I recently read The E-Myth Revisited and found it very distressing! All of the business training I have absorbed has led me to believe that business people in general are totally behind the times, man.

One blog I read regularly is What is the (Next) Message by Mark Federman at the University of Toronto. I discovered him after reading The Gutenberg Galaxy and looking for others who were interested in McLuhan's work. This book was extremely difficult for me to read, so naturally I loved it. McLuhan's mind was truly brilliant and he did his best to convince people to become concious of the effects of technology on their experience of the world.

Mark often notes that the business world is changing whether or not corporations are keeping up. The old corporate model of controlling information and having highly standardized products is no longer meeting consumer demands. Consumers can (and do!) talk to each other in real time via the internet and can create a buzz or a boycott with little effort. HSBC - do you even know about yours? Politicians are also generally clueless about the potential of the medium.

While there are huge markets that do not operate in this way (hi Mum!) the Early Adopters are living more and more of their lives online. In that arena, people know how easy it is to set up a website and provide a great service which is highly personalized using today's technology. One ordinary consumer's network is no longer limited geographically, or by the number of people they can physically meet, or even time, as a website does its thing 24-7. If you suck, they tell everyone. If you don't meet their requirements, they tell everyone. If you're amazing, they link to your site, and tell everyone.

Making a business into a system that produces the same effect over and over again, even if it is personalized to the customer to the nth degree, just isn't going to work for much longer. One cannot plan for every human possibility. At some point, the system just starts getting in the way. Isn't it more sensible to set up a business that is responsive to each individual, each time a transaction happens? Anyone know of any books touting this as the next business fad?

Technorati tags: business Marshall McLuhan internet

Teaching with Games

2006-02-28T12:29:00.000-08:00

Thanks to uninterlaced for today's topic. He mentioned in a comment to yesterday's post that all he did in a weekly gifted pull-out program was play games.

To observers of my workshops with gifted children, what I'm doing looks pretty unremarkable. I leap around the room a bit more than most instructors, perhaps, but basically I spend the whole time playing games with the kids. Another improv teacher could come in and not perceive anything wildly unusual about what I'm up to.

What I'm doing is interacting with the kids as a gifted adult and teaching on multiple levels. I create a space where everyone is safe yet free to explore, knowing on some level that I will hold the space for them. I always go in with a lesson plan, but very often I will modify it, mix up the order, or abandon it completely.

I teach to the needs of the group with a constant awareness of the group dynamic and developmental purpose of each game. I follow the "aliveness" - the game that intrigues the kids, the one they want to play again and again. I take the elements of that game and present each one in a different game format to find out exactly what fascinates them so much. Then I push for more risk-taking and opportunities to fail in that area; or I use the format to teach another learning objective.

It sounds very involved but I do it all almost subconciously because I am deeply in the moment. This immersive teaching process is something that can be applied to teaching lots of different things, but it does require enormous creativity and mental energy. I first saw it modeled by my teacher, Keith Johnstone and I was so inspired. He was having as much fun as we were, solving the problems we presented to him minute by minute.

Games are a great way to teach things. Improv games are usually highly entertaining to play and hilarious to watch. However, as learning tools, games themselves are pretty useless on their own. They need a teacher who knows how, when, and why they are useful and who constantly adapts the game to the group. With gifted kids, this requires an exceptionally sensitive individual who can understand the patterns and processes of the gifted and teach to their learning edge.

Technorati tags: education gifted improv

ADHD

2006-02-27T15:17:00.000-08:00

I recently finished reading several books about ADHD. I started researching attention issues after a particularly draining workshop with Grade 1-3 gifted kids. I learnt a lot about sequencing activities and teaching so that all children could learn more easily and effectively. However, the characterisics and behaviours identified as the "symptom cluster" for ADHD could just as easily be a gifted person, acting this way for any number of reasons.

What does this mean? Are all gifted people ADHD? Am I?! I recognized myself in many case studies. It makes my head spin a little. Especially because according to some experts the only way to know for sure if you have it is to try stimulant medication and see if it alleviates your symptoms. About 2/3 of people diagnosed with some form of ADHD respond to meds - so what about the other 1/3? What hope or help for them?

My interim conclusion is that we are in the infancy of all brain sciences and in future people will look back on this time and shudder at our ignorance. There's no doubt that our medications do wonders for many mental illnesses and that we have made enormous progress. But in terms of understanding what is really going on inside someone's mind and soul and treating it by applying chemicals to their brain, I think we have miles to go.

Technorati tags: ADHD gifted brain science

What Do "Normal" People Think of the Gifted?

2006-02-24T12:44:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Unsane for poking my brain in this direction. Why do the gifted get pathologized so often? What do we look like to the rest of the world? GENERALIZATION WARNING! This whole post includes huge generalizations about both gifted people and everyone else. If generalizations offend you in principle, stop reading now!

I've been trying to figure out this question for a while. Improv has really helped me because when I am performing, I produce instant character sketches that have to resonnate with people all the way to the back of the bar. I must use every stereotype I can come up with to flesh out the character and engage the audience. This has led to me "collecting" stereotypes and prejudices to exploit later on stage.

The conclusions from my research are:
1. Normal people expect strangers to behave reasonably predictably.
2. They base their predictions on visible or auditory markers, like accent, speech style, fashion sense, role, ethnicity, age, and their own judgement of what's normal.
3. Behaving outside the prediction is funny/interesting in performance but very threatening in real life.
4. Normal people can tolerate more unpredictability as personal relationship increases, but there is a fairly low limit for this behaviour.
5. Unpredictable behaviour puts unbearable stress on a social system which must be removed if the system is to be preserved unchanged.

So I think many of the problems of gifted people in general are based on them not conforming to predictions and thereby destabilizing everyone else's nice comfy social systems and stereotypes. I don't think that much of the rejection is personal; it's just much easier than figuring out why the behaviour is occurring and accommodating it through change. I found this lovely quote from Olin Miller to illustrate the idea: "You probably wouldn't worry about what other people think of you if you knew how seldom they do." It's too much hassle!

Technorati tags: improv gifted society

Choosing a Coach (or other professional)

2006-02-23T11:33:00.000-08:00

Thanks to the trollish comment of Mr. Morris for sparking today's post. Also, I think it's a helpful followup to my last post!

First of all, determine what the problem is to the best of your ability. Even if you can't pin it down exactly, just write down the things that are driving you crazy. Identify any and all categories of professional that might be able to help. You wouldn't go to a dentist for a foot problem, but you might go to a podiatrist for input on your back problem.

Once you have a list, ask around; local associations related to the issue, social workers, school counselors, doctors, friends, family, anyone you can trust. This is the number one way most people use to find services, and there's a good reason - a recommendation takes some of the stress out of the process. However, no-one is living your life; recommendations that are right for them may be wrong for you. Complement your word-of-mouth search with contacting professional associations, trying google searches for websites of likely people, and checking the Yellow Pages.

Now you must find The Right One from this vast and confusing array of people. My advice will always be - Go With Your Gut. Set up introductory appointments by phone or in person. It's a bit like dating - you'll get a first impression of a person that will tell you a lot, and you should trust that feeling. Like dating, it can be frustrating and exhausing and you will probably go through stages of feeling that you'll never find The Right One. Prepare yourself for a long haul.

Gifted people are more likely than most to realize the limitations of qualifications and degrees. While these things protect you in some important ways and show a dedication to professional learning, they can't tell you whether this person is the right fit for you. In my opinion, finding the fit is more important than any letters after someone's name. Many will disagree with me; all I will say is that they may have another agenda. Trust your gut.

Here's the vital point - once you have decided to begin work with someone, always remember that you are the client. You have to power to ask for what you want and fire someone who is not delivering. This is your time. However, if you aren't getting what you expected, it's your responsibility to speak up and let the professional you are employing know about it. You will learn a lot about them by their reaction! A good professional will adjust to your requests, or recommend someone else if they can't give you what you need.

Good luck! I welcome your feedback.

Technorati tags: professional coaching relationship coach gifted

The Answer is In The Question

2006-02-17T18:07:00.000-08:00

I participated in an online conference this week. The keynote speaker was Annemarie Roeper, and it was a very interesting experience. The usual conference protocol is warped by the medium; each participant receives email posts of what the keynote and other participants have posted, meaning the keynote posts get lost in the noise. People are also more likely to ask very individual questions and post multiple times as if it is a small group (there were over 600 registrants!)

What I noticed was the number of parents asking questions about their kids' behaviour that are impossible to address without more context. It would be irresponsible for the keynote or anyone else to offer anything but the most general suggestions. Some people are probably just unaware of how unique each "case" is when you are dealing with the gifted population.

The reason that it's so difficult to get good, informed, and useful advice is because there is a shortage of professionals willing and able to educate themselves about giftedness. It would be wonderful if there were easy answers available that we could give out as a checklist or decision tree, but it doesn't work that way, and I caution you against anyone who tells you otherwise. It takes time to build a relationship with a family and to earn the trust of a gifted individual in pain. These sensitive people are often the "canary" - the person who reacts first and most strongly to imbalances inside themselves, at home, or elsewhere.

So it's a bit like meeting a lawyer at a party and asking for advice about your pending divorce. If you find yourself forming personal questions in your head, your answer is simple; it's time to get professional help, or invest in becoming an expert yourself. It will require research and time and money, but it really is the most efficient way to proceed.

Technorati tags: online conference gifted

Vocations and Multipotentiality

2006-02-16T17:00:00.000-08:00

Thanks to shutteredeye for today's questions: "How would you advise someone to discover what it is that they are truly meant to do? For example, is it a disservice to society for me, capable of excelling as a neurosurgeon, to instead pursue say, photography? In your opinion is it a waste of talent or resources, so to speak?"

As a coach, I don't advise people how to discover what they are meant to do - I work with them as they answer that question for themselves. We brainstorm, look at things as many ways as we can conceive of, and talk about values, dreams, goals, fears, and ultimate fulfillment. The process is different for everyone but basically we work from the inside out. We turn up the volume on that small voice inside that knows what is right.

Something I've noticed lately is that gifted people rarely find one thing that they are meant to do forever - what is deeply satisfying to them changes as they grow and change. My clients pick up the skills and tools learnt during the coaching process again and again throughout their lives. Especially the internal volume control!

Following this thread, I believe deeply that the only person who has a valid opinion about what to do with your multiple talents is you. After all, you're the only one who really knows what you are capable of. In my view, it is a disservice to society to do anything other than that which calls most deeply to your soul. Your talent for other things will inform whatever it is that you are most passionate about.

To use your example, there's many ways to combine a passion for photography with a detailed knowledge of the brain. Or perhaps it's the manual dexterity that is your talent - again, it will help you in unanticipated ways in photography, perhaps creating a unique artform. Who is to say that a completely new aesthetic sensibility is of less value to society than an awesome brain surgeon? I certainly can't judge.

No person who is storming into the world and using the magnificence of their unique talents is ever wasting anything. It's the people who play small that go to the grave with their music still inside them.

Technorati tags: talent development gifted passion

Gifted Love

2006-02-13T19:03:00.000-08:00

Valentine's Day tomorrow - I won't be posting then because I've plans all day, so I'm sharing a few thoughts right now.

One of the largest complaints of the highly gifted adults I know is the difficulty of meeting potential partners who "get" them intellectually. The relative scarcity of gifted adults in the population makes it hard. The greater variability amongst gifted people makes it even harder. Many do place a high value on intellectual compatibility. So how do you meet someone right for you?

The greater sensitivity of many gifted people can make them ideal candidates for internet dating and email communication. Some research shows that introversion is more common amongst gifted people, so what could be better than a medium that doesn't have to involve the party scene? It is less stressful than initial face-to-face contact and both people have more control of their environment. In my opinion it's been a godsend for people in all kinds of subcultures looking for love.

However, there are plenty of other ways to find pockets of gifted people. Games clubs, special interest clubs, improv groups (!), and even clubs like Mensa are full of them. One straight gifted woman I know placed a personal ad in the classified section of her local newspaper that gave all the normal information, but tagged on the sentence "I'm probably smarter than you are. If you're not intimidated by this possibility, give me a call." She got a small selection of interesting men replying who she was quite happy to date.

For the gifted looking for long-term love, it's not a numbers game. It's more a question of finding a group of prospects in a setting that's comfortable. If you're a gifted person reading this, what techniques have worked for you? Let's share the love! Happy Valentine's Day!

Technorati tags: love gifted

Surprises

2006-02-11T17:53:00.000-08:00

I must confess to a little hubris. I've done quite a few workshops lately with gifted kids and even some work with gifted adults, and I was starting to feel that I'd got the whole thing under control.

Then, along came a group that I was totally unprepared for. It was a big group, the first time they had ever been together, and they were in a new place with new teachers (me, and the gifted resource teacher). They were very young and some of them clearly had difficulty staying focused even when they wanted to.

It was one of those times when I simply had to throw the plan out of the window and improvise the teaching. Once I had recovered from the shock of all this unrestrained energy, I changed tack to some very physical activities to take the edge off the nervous excitment. I started to switch activities every five minutes just to keep them engaged. I ditched a whole bunch of games and even made up some completely new versions. It was exhausting and fascinating for me, and hopefully fun for the kids.

Luckily, I get another chance with this particular group. I'm busy reading all I can on ADD, ADHD, and other disorders to get some specific ideas on how to deal with the focus issue. I am humbled to think that some teachers have to deal with this with only a few hours of training on the needs of gifted kids and practically no information on twice-exceptional (2E) kids - those with a learning disability who are also gifted. The challenge is to make it rich and enjoyable for every kid in this very diverse class.

I do love a good challenge!

Technorati tags: improv gifted twice exceptional

Excited to be Me

2006-02-07T17:45:00.000-08:00

I love my work. I love, love, love my work! I think it is the best thing in the world to watch a bunch of 4th graders who don't know each other turn into a cohesive group in two hours flat. I love to see a kid who is all annoyed at the world, and particularly me, start laughing and smiling inside of 45 minutes. I most especially love to confuse a gifted kid who has all the answers and have him be OK with confusion by the end of the day. Such is the power of improv.

I'm a bit spinny with the wonderfulness of it all. Having a job that is always challenging me to innovate is something I thought I would never achieve. This is a short post because now I have to re-plan the whole next day of this workshop based on what happened today. It's so cool, and I just had to share. May it happen for you.

Sometimes by Sheenagh Pugh

Sometimes things don't go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don't fail,
sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war;
elect an honest man; decide they care
enough, that they can't leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best efforts do not go
amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen: may it happen for you.

Technorati tags: improv gifted career self actualization

Career Counselling for the Gifted

2006-02-03T17:52:00.000-08:00

Thanks to soh for today's question:

"I also found standard career counselling useless but I'm curious as to why it is so useless for those with a higher IQ. What rationale did you arrive at?"

Corporations like people to fit neatly into the jobs they have available. They need people to be predictable and to perform consistently, because they are trying to produce a standard product. The standard product helps them build their market and build trust with their customers. Makes good sense.

Gifted people are many things but usually not terribly predictable and consistent, at least not over the long haul. They are always testing the system and thinking of ways to do things better. Many thrive on change and need to be constantly learning. Rarely do they stay neatly within their job description. The same traits that cause friction in the educational system are even more problematic in the workplace, where there is no duty to accommodate and the bottom line rules.

Career counsellors are trying to get you employed, and all their assesments come from the same basic assumption; there is a list of possible jobs, and they will try to fit you neatly into one of them that uses your skills and aptitude. Multipotentiality complicates this approach with many gifted people - who may be excellent at multiple unrelated skills, giving a uniformly high score in skill or interest subtests.

More importantly, career counsellors are not about helping you figure out what will allow you to fulfil your potential nor supporting you as you invent a way to make money doing it. If all you want is to make money, and live your real life outside of work hours (see Einstein), this is a sound approach. But if you want work that is truly engaging and huge fun, you may have to create it yourself - like this guy. Even more difficult is the need to be prepared to innovate yet again, as your internal drive to growth looks for the next challenge.

This is potentially a whole book (yes, I'm going to write it!) but I think it mainly boils down to the incompatibility of the gifted and the corporation. I am making huge generalizations here, but there simply isn't any research on this yet - I'm looking at grad school! I feel very strongly that both groups need each other; I would love to find a way to make it work.

Technorati tags: career gifted corporation multipotentiality

How I Found My Purpose: Chapter 7

2006-02-02T13:08:00.000-08:00

The three weeks I spent determining whether or not I was cut out to be an entrepreneur were extremely draining. It felt like being thrown against the wall like a piece of overcooked spaghetti, day after day. I learnt a lot about providing psychological safety for sensitive people when doing group work. By the end, I found out that I had plenty of the required stubornness, sass, and spirit to run my own business. I simply couldn't see myself working my way up a corporate ladder, so it looked like it was start my own business or die trying.

The only problem was that I didn't know what I would sell. I was going to start a virtual assistant business, but only because I didn't have any better ideas. Then I sat down with one of the program advisors for coffee and coaching, and confessed my confusion. He asked the right questions, uncovering my passions for improv, working with youth, and all things gifted. Then he said, "Well, why not have a coaching business working with gifted people, and throw in some improv-based workshops?"

Click. It was as if the universe was rearranging itself around me, slotting all the pieces of the puzzle into place. I can't adequately describe the peace and clarity of that moment. Of course! It was so obvious, it had been staring me in the face all along. It felt daring, and crazy, and exciting, and also good and real and sane. I felt the rightness of this path down to my very core. Everything I had done had prepared me to recognize this as My Purpose and to throw my whole weight behind it now that I had found it. I was on my way.

Technorati tags: coaching gifted entrepreneur passion

Great News!

2006-02-01T18:46:00.000-08:00

I'm so thrilled - I just heard that my proposal to speak at the 23rd SENG Conference in Irvine, California, has been accepted! Here's my session description:

Improv for the Exceptional
Are you always “in your head”? Do you feel like you’re from another planet? Come and play in the Here and Now! Improv shows you how to conquer fear of failure, impress your friends, and use your gifted brain to have fun. This session explains the power of improvisation and introduces some basic games you can use to build confidence and social skills at home or in the classroom.

I'm walking on sunshine and spreading the joy!

Technorati tags: gifted SENG improv

How I Found My Purpose: Chapter 6

2006-01-31T15:12:00.000-08:00

After purchasing a second-hand laptop to write on, I set about composing my new epic blockbuster. The words just pored out of me for a couple of chapters, then life started to get in the way. My personal life was about as messy as it could get. I was living in a basement suite on a beautiful five-acre farm, just me and my dog. I was getting lonelier and lonelier, and I'd spent all my savings. Time to get a part-time job!

A temp firm got me a job at a Place I cannot mention for various legal reasons. It rapidly evolved into a full-time job, and the writing dried up. As soon as I could, I took my first paid vacation to attend a week-long career counselling workshop. That was when I discovered my unreasonable IQ, and the pointlessness of standard career counselling under those circumstances. It was devastating (again!) I began an aggressive program of personal research on giftedness and a desperate search for a good therapist who knew about my "condition". Luckily, I found one.

I stayed at the Place during this process because I appreciated the stability and the good pay with benefits. I loved some of the people I worked with and I loved being able to buy a brand new car. I wanted to really see if I could make a go of a less-than-ideal job. It's a common strategy among gifted people, like Einstein, who do one thing for money and then live their real life after work. I distracted myself with falling in love, painting classes, improv classes, yoga classes, classes, classes; but I regularly got depressed and angry from fighting the system and losing. I knew that eventually I would have to leave, as the Place and its stagnant organizational culture had nowhere for me to grow.

Under fraught circumstances, I did eventually leave. It took me at least a month to get over the psychological damage and to rebuild my self-confidence - but I was in love again, with an incredibly supportive and strong man. With his help, I decided that this was it. I was not going to disappear into another job that was wrong for me for another 4 years (I'd recognized the cycle!) I looked for a job, took a few MORE classes, did some volunteer work, and did a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then my case manager referred me to a program called "Determining Self-Employment Readiness".

Technorati tags: career gifted writing love

How I Found My Purpose: Chapter 5

2006-01-30T11:00:00.000-08:00

Note: This is turning into an epic. I hadn't realized that I have been concerned with this question for almost 20 years. Wow!

So I get to Canada, party party with my cousin, fall in love, get married, and then start trying to figure out what to do next. Having no clue how to look for a job in the Canadian market, I had assumed that there would be hundreds of employers just waiting for me to submit myself to their management training programs. In Britain, one generally gets a degree, then goes to work in totally unrelated fields. In North America they seem to have this tiresome requirement that your degree is at least tangentially applicable to the job you want.

Suffering from immigrant syndrome (I can't find a nice explanatory link, but it's basically culture shock plus identity crisis) I dropped off resumes at everywhere from the Geological Survey of Canada to MacDonald's. Friends helped out by offering me childcare work, but this was not what I wanted at all. Eventually my wonderful friend Lesley offered to lend me the cash to go to secretarial school.

The course pulled me out of a serious depression and got me a Canadian qualification. At this point I just needed a job, any job, to get me on my feet, and I found an assistant position at a small contracting firm. Not long after, I had a cancer scare. Luckily, it was caught early and treated completely successfully, but it was a big wake-up call.

I only get one life. One. The cancer made me realize that it was very precious to me, and got me thinking about the big questions. My personal life was getting really hairy, and seperation and divorce were in full swing. If I was going to live, I wanted to really live, without regretting that I never tried something or became someone I could be proud of. Anyone could be their office manager. No-one else could be 100% me. So I upped and quit, and decided to write for a living. I'd read a lot, and a lot of what I'd read had been very bad. I was sure I could do better. How hard could it be?!

Technorati tags: career cancer writing hubris

Truth

2006-01-29T00:25:00.000-08:00

The whole James Frey & Oprah thang is irresistible.

I saw part of her original interview with Frey and her gushing over the gory details of his story. It struck me as a bit strange and immature, but then lots of things that are designed to please Oprah's core demographic make no sense to me.

As I watched part of Oprah's Embarrassment Show yesterday, I was struck by her position on the whole affair. She did seem wedded to the idea that there is one truth and that is the only thing she is interested in. Does anyone else think this is a strange reaction for a talk-show host? Her show is often about varying opinions and beliefs. In another show, she interviewed a family about their decision to hire a stripper to perform at their son's 16th birthday party. She even seems comfortable showing different sides of the story and not wrapping everything up in a nice cosy resolution.

I think Oprah is missing the lesson here, the one that is challenging her to develop. It is instructive to watch her struggle with this issue; her discomfort with what she says on screen is clear, and the drive to growth is evident. I think she has the potential and the ability to expand her concept of truth and start approaching her show at a deeper level. I would love to see it happen.

It is incredibly scary for anyone to step forward into a new worldview, casting off old beliefs and growing into something larger. For someone as successful and public as Oprah, the pressure to remain as she is must be enormous. If I could talk to Oprah today, I would call her forth into the next phase of her life, to the place where the line between truth and lies melts away. She could take it.

Technorati tags: Oprah James Frey advanced development growth

How I Found My Purpose: Chapter 4

2006-01-27T11:12:00.000-08:00

WARNING - this chapter is a bit depressing. Read at your own risk.

"But I'm just not HAPPY!"

So said my 19-year-old self to the doctor across the desk, who looked scarcely older than I was. "I'm not happy either," he said, "that's just the way it is."

BOOM. Another misconception crushed. I thought that a doctor might have an answer or at least an idea where to look. I was sure that anyone who had invested the vast amount of time and energy it takes to get qualified as a doctor must have this question figured out. But, he wasn't happy either. And he seemed to have accepted it as normal.

University was a rude awakening for me. I had visions of long days drinking coffee and learning deeply about fascinating things, and long nights drinking red wine and arguing passionately with other students about esoteric ideas. When I got to Manchester I found insipid first-year lectures with 400 people in them, and students who only argued passionately about whose turn it was to clean up between drink-fests. It took at least a year to find my feet, and when I did I wasn't thrilled about what I was standing on.

I was lucky in that I incurred very little student debt and was fully supported by my family - and I thank my mother for convincing me not to drop out after a family crisis and five home robberies in a year. I got the important piece of paper, but I was sure I didn't want to become a scientist. I couldn't relate to my professors; they were all much older, lived in tiny paper-strewn offices, and seemed perpetually distracted. We met the grad students our professors were supervising, and they did not seem to be alight with the love of learning and discovery. They were slogging it out for the piece of paper, too.

By now, I was getting really depressed. Is that all there is? If the smart, fun, passionate, life-long learners weren't at university, then where on earth were they? Perhaps the doctor was right. Maybe my expectations of life were too high. When everyone else was applying for jobs, I was applying for a work visa to go to Canada for the summer before taking up an excellent opportunity created for me by regular my summer employer. It was a good job, even if it was in something I wasn't terribly interested in. If this was as good as it gets, I would have one last fling before settling down to reality.

Technorati tags: college university career choice expectations

How I Found My Purpose: Chapter 3

2006-01-25T17:26:00.000-08:00

Writing this little autobiography, I'm embarassed at my general lack of spine and initiative as a younger person. I cannot believe how much I had, how much more I expected the world to give me, and how little I appreciated it all. Yet it is the unvarnished truth, as I remember it, edited for brevity but not face-saving. Onward!

Choosing a university was considered the next logical step for everyone at my school. There was not really any question. You might take a year off, but you were assumed to be going on to college. I remember balking at this, for the not insignificant reason that I had no idea what to take at college and still no idea of a career. If by now you are picturing me wandering around England wide-eyed and clueless, just add the school uniform and you're bang on.

Eventually I got with their program and started searching for degrees. What did I want to do? I was really digging the whole evolution/genetics/behavioural science deal, but I couldn't find a degree program matching that description. Palaeontology sounded like fun. No degrees in that, either - the closest I could find was Biology and Geology at Manchester University. Close enough!

Did it occur to me to look outside the UK? Wait a few years? Get some help with this major life decision? Not a chance. I sent off an application, plus a couple more to various lucky faculties of Geography around the country. I received offers from all over, and accepted Manchester. DONE! Back to partying and attending balls with my awesomely cool friends.

Oh well. Applicable quotes:
For of those to whom much is given, much is required.
Once I knew better, I did better.
I wanna rock and roll all night and party every day.

Technorati tags: college career counselling

By George, I've got it!

2006-01-24T19:37:00.000-08:00

Today I cleaned up my desk. It is now a glistening expanse of polished antique elm, marred only by a laptop, cell phone, pad, and pen pot. It is beautiful.

I really, really hate to tidy and sort things. I'm always experimenting with ways to get myself to like it and value it more. Obviously, all previous experiments have not been able to get me to eat that frog consistently.

So today, I hit on a most excellent strategy! I did the great cleanup whilst improving my mind by listening to a teleclass on coaching. I couldn't participate, but it didn't matter because it was prerecorded. That way, I felt like the time wasn't completely wasted on something I loathe. Yay! Cue the brass band!

When I finally managed to quit smoking, it was a similar process - I experimented, and failed, about 12 times before it stuck. When you really want something, don't give up. Use that wonderful creative brain to find a way to make it happen.

Technorati tags: procrastination finding a solution

How I Found My Purpose: Chapter 2

2006-01-22T12:58:00.000-08:00

In the next couple of years, I worked on the GCSEs I had chosen and attended all the occasional career presentations given by parents. One in particular I remember: a doctor came in and told us that we shouldn't consider doctoring unless we were completely physically and mentally problem-free. I was a bit disappointed but chucked that idea out of the window without looking back - I was 14 and pretty sure that I was somewhat nuts. Oh well.

Soon it came time to decide on A-levels. One chooses three subjects and studies them intensly for two years; it's supposed to provide a thorough grounding. This early specialization is the reason a college degree is only three years in the UK. More advice was available this time, and the emphasis was placed on having some idea of a career goal and matching your A-levels to its requirements. The Careers Library was opened up to us and everyone got a personal career counselling session.

I bounded eagerly up the stairs to my appointment. I laid out my latest report card and waited as the counsellor reviewed my file. Finally she looked up and smiled. "You're really bright," she said. "You can do whatever you want!"

Time seemed to stop. I had no idea what career I wanted or was even suited for. Poor woman, I had come to her with the expectation that she would be able to instantly assess my potential and spit out my ideal life path. Totally unreasonable, but still devastating when it didn't happen.

I spent several fruitless hours in the Career Library. Every job requirement listing sounded so dry and uninspiring, or called for skills I knew I didn't have any interest in acquiring. I found nothing. The situation was further complicated because I was changing schools so I couldn't just go with my favourite teachers.

In the end, I decided to take things I liked, and worry about college later. I chose Geography (my strongest subject), Social Biology (no chemistry required, interesting topics) and Economics (brand new to me so lots of brain candy). Once again I suggested taking more, as I knew some people took four A Levels, but the new school made it harder to navigate and I didn't really pursue it. At least I would be having fun as I careened blindly into the future!

Technorati tags: education career counselling gifted

How I Found My Purpose: Chapter 1

2006-01-20T11:31:00.000-08:00

A friend asked last night how on earth I came to be doing what I do, and I thought you, dear readers, might be interested as well. "What shall I do with my life?" is the question that brings a lot of people to coaching. So here is an example; how I found out what I should be doing. This is a loooooong story, so it will unfold over the next few posts.

I've been concerned with this question since I was about 12. Apologies if the following information is now out of date; this is how it was for me. In England, 12/13 is the age when one first starts making choices about which subjects to drop. At 16 you take your first real national exams, the GCSEs. Which GCSEs you take determine which A-Levels you are allowed (by a school) to take, which determines what university programs you can apply to successfully. In England, one applies to a subject-specific undergraduate program - you cannot just show up and declare your major later.

So as you can see this was a big decision, very early. I didn't really want to drop anything, except History and English Literature. We were required to take English Language, English Literature, Maths, French, one other language, one science and either History or Geography. We had 9 examinable spots to fill in total.

Advice on making these choices was minimal, a group lecture on not shutting doors to our possibilities. I remember agonizing for days, deeply resentful that I couldn't do more of the options, but the school wouldn't let me. Biology and Geography were my favourite subjects, so that was easy. The language choice seemed obvious. I could see Latin used in the subjects I loved most, and the teacher was an amazingly smart, dedicated, and passionate woman. I couldn't have articulated it, but I was drawn to her for those reasons. Plus after the misery of French lessons since I was 10, I wasn't willing to chance it that German might be more of the same.

I decided not to take Chemistry and Physics seperately, because that was two spots used up. Instead I chose Physical Science which was a mix of both, primarily designed for people who hated science but had to take one. This would allow me to take science A-levels and still give me an extra spot to do somehing I loved now. Art, or Music? How could I choose? I loved them both!

I was deeply involved in my school's excellent music program by this time, and I was also participating in county orchestras as a violist. It seemed like the obvious choice. But when I went to tell my Art teacher than I wouldn't be studying with him any more, he was terribly frustrated. I remember him saying it was a waste, and he was sorry he wouldn't get to see my work develop. I remember being very surprised and rather sad, hearing that. Still, I went ahead and chose to take Music.

Why am I telling this part of the story in such excrutiating detail? Two reasons:

1. It was not fair of the school to deny me the opportunity to take more subjects. Acknowledging timetabling issues, they could have relaxed their "required" subjects, and should have pointed out other options - correspondence courses or community college. I was 12 and my world was small, unimaginably so for today's teens - this was pre-internet. I sorely needed advice and counsel.

I think one of the most important things to teach gifted kids is self-advocacy. If I had felt more comfortable challenging authority, perhaps I could have got what I needed. As it was, I accepted their restrictions as "the way it is".

2. My Art teacher's comments stayed buried in my memory until 2001 when I took a watercolour class. This was the first visual art I had done since I was 14, and I found out that I actually did have an "eye". After a couple of classes I remembered what he said so long ago. I was overjoyed to find out that I could develop that latent talent now.

So if you remember enjoying something in school, but didn't pursue it, it's never too late to try your hand at it as an adult. Like me, you may find a source of enormous personal satisfaction is just sitting there, waiting for you to call it forth.

Technorati tags: education self-advocacy gifted

Humble Aim

2006-01-19T13:18:00.000-08:00

Thanks, Chris for asking the following in a comment on yesterday's post:

You wrote "Humble aim: stop annoying family and friends."
Is that YOUR humble aim, or the aim of channeling gifted people?

It's all MINE! I wouldn't presume to direct others to do the same, or use the same method - if that's what you meant by "channeling". I find that I'm often the only person interested in my exciting discoveries. There's tons of ideas I think are marvellous, and make me happy to be alive. For example, I'm completely fascinated by gifted people; their lives, their brains, their relationships. When I go on about it too much, people usually tune out or remember they left something in the oven and leave. It's one consequence of devoting my time to thinking about a very specialized subject, and helps me understand why small talk was invented.

It can be depressing, though. It's difficult to feel heard if the person you are pouring out your heart to can't relate to your experience, even when they are doing their best. Part of the pleasure of finding a great new theory, author, poet, play, or movie, is sharing it with the people you love. Knowing that it won't appeal them means the only outlet for my enthusiasm is likely to be....the blog! There's usually at least one other human out there who feels the same way. Sometimes, someone might even identify with the joy - or angst - and experience universality* for the first time. Blogosphere as group therapy? Why not?

*A common feeling among group therapy members, especially when a group is just starting, is that of being isolated, unique, and apart from others.....Enormous relief often accompanies the recognition that they are not alone; this is a special benefit of group therapy. full text

Technorati tags: annoyance blog gifted

New Game

2006-01-18T11:08:00.000-08:00

We had a great time last night playing Puerto Rico (find it under Games here, online version here). This, and my recent mathematical interest, got me thinking about game theory and why we play board games in the first place.

The game universe is small, with only a few problems to solve. There is a finite set of options or plays, and one can form a cohesive, defensible strategy that will increase chances of winning, no matter what one's opponent does. It is something that can be conquered if approached in a logical manner. This makes playing very satisfying, giving players a sense of increasing competence and mastery.

Improv games are all about learning how to fail, take crazy risks, and adapt your strategy to help your fellow players look good. The improv universe is as big as your collective imaginations. There are some rules, but breaking them is essential at all but the most basic levels. Good-humoured misbehaviour is actively encouraged.

So the two types are really very different. Yet they attract the same kinds of people. Why? Rather than occupy itself with a game problem, my gifted brain usually prefers to work on these real-life scenarios, which may have many solutions, or none. An ambiguous problem, a big data set, and potential to create change with the answers.....yummy!

Technorati tags: gifted improv Puerto Rico game

There's SO MUCH to say

2006-01-17T13:32:00.000-08:00

Writing several workshop outlines and conference session proposals this week, I realize that the most difficult thing about it is figuring out what to leave out. Choosing from the huge amount of useful and fascinating information I have assimilated about life coaching and improv and gifted people is hard enough. Talking about the intensely creative process I go through in real time when I'm coaching or teaching is even harder.

Getting my audience to participate in a demonstration of what I do is a much more effective way to communicate. That is because I am able to provide a single experience that will be deeply meaningful to each individual at their own level of interest and development. For example, the simple game of Word At a Time teaches a host of skills. A storyteller will notice the narrative development, listening skills, and eye contact. A teacher will probably notice teamwork, use of grammar, and sparking of imagination. A counsellor might focus on the group energy, archetypal story forms, and low-risk group participation opportunities. A coach - the possibility of bypassing a mental censor to get to the heart of a problem, or a new brainstorming tool. A gifted person could be drawn to the freedom, hilarity, and speed of the game.

So if there are more things to say than I have the patience to find words for, I go with showing. Richer, more personal, and much more fun!

Technorati tags: gifted improv communication

The Art of Business

2006-01-16T10:27:00.000-08:00

As I work away, creating my business, I am continually struck by how much the process has in common with creating art. It seems to me that there is a whole lot here that business people and artists have in common that they can't see because of the strange micro-cultures attached to what they do.

In the art world, romantic myths abound of the artist starving in a garrett just for the opportunity to work. Artists can resist business types because they think businesspeople are all about numbers, and reports, and suits, and sales, and what can they possibily have in common.

Conversely, business types stereotype artists as flighty, illogical, unpredictable, and bad with money. Their culture is about doing whatever it takes to improve the bottom line, and aesthetics rarely find their way into it.

But both entrepreneurs and artist are engaged in the business of creating something that has never existed in the world before. They are both interested in communicating and expanding the audience for their product, but the traditional sales tactics of business are simply not artist-friendly. They both want to become mature brands with a stable market, but businesses can't always see the immense value of change and experimentation when they are ground down by day-to-day operations.

Being a good artist and finding a way to make money at it is extremely subversive in the art "establishment", as Robert Bateman has found out. Similarly, businesses rarely respect innovators until they have a proven track record according to business standards. Laying aside stereotypes and mixing the two groups could have an enormous hybrid vigour effect!

Technorati tags: entrepreneurship artist creativity

Tag I'm It

2006-01-16T09:53:00.000-08:00

In a fitting act of revenge for the blonde joke, Melody tagged me. I'm doing it, but the madness stops here!

Four jobs you have had:
1) barmaid - for extra Christmas cheer
2) technical writer
3) hospital kitchen worker - sandwich specialist
4) executive assistant

Four movies you could watch over and over:
1) Get Shorty/Be Cool (same main character, so I'm counting it as one choice)
2) Dances With Wolves - first part only, before the killing gets out of hand
3) Mr. Holland's Opus
4) Good Will Hunting

Four places you've lived:
1) Norwich, England - nice cathedral and castle, shame about the night life
2) Oundle, Northamptonshire, England - my old school
3) Manchester, England - university in the early 90s when it was v. hip
4) Langley, BC, Canada - my first Canadian home

Four TV shows you love to watch:
1) House
2) Gilmore Girls
3) Coronation Street
4) Restaurant Makeover

Four places you've been on vacation:
1) Ibiza, Spain
2) Paris, France
3) Las Vegas
4) Devon, England

Four of your favorite foods:
1) chocolate
2) sushi
3) baked beans
4) mango

Four places you'd rather be right now:
1) Venice, Italy
2) Zermatt, Switzerland
3) South Africa
4) Singapore

Four sites I visit daily:
1) technorati.com
2) statcounter.com
3) sengifted.org
4) dooce.com

Four Bloggers you are tagging:
No, I won't do it!

Blessings to this meme as it BITES THE DUST.

World's Greatest Blonde Joke

2006-01-13T17:27:00.000-08:00

Oh, I'm failing my New Year's Resolution anyway, and it's just too delicious to pass up. Here you go.

Technorati tags: blonde joke meme

Emotionally Lost

2006-01-13T11:41:00.000-08:00

There are many great articles about the social and emotional lives of gifted people, but I simply must link you to this one. It is mainly a highly instructive case study of a gifted and sensitive boy that uses his personal writings to show how his emotions inform and stimulate his intellectual growth. It's a continuous feedback loop, with growth or stress in either area ingniting growth in the other. The text also emphasizes the impact of supportive and accepting environments at home and at school.

This article reminds me how important it is to give gifted kids the tools and information about their emotional and social development that speak to their intense experiences. I suspect that much of gifted education today only concentrates on fostering intellectual growth, thus holding students back by not giving equal time to their other overexcitability areas. In my experience, the more one area grows without developing the others, the greater the internal tension created.

Gifted kids can feel so lost and alone in their highly coloured emotional worlds, with no map to guide them through the wilderness. It is nearly impossible to be happy and successful (according to western society's standards) unless you have a good understanding of self and of others, no matter how high your intellect soars. Let's at least give them a compass and wise counsel along the way.

Technorati tags: gifted overexcitabilities education

Back to your Regularly Scheduled Program

2006-01-12T11:00:00.000-08:00

Hello, I'm back. The dip is over. Rejoice greatly!

At the UBC seminar I mentioned yesterday, Dr. Marion Porath presented preliminary findings of her research* on how gifted kids think about learning - their own internal epistemology or theory of knowledge. I don't want to discuss it too much here, as the project is ongoing, but one thing that really stuck out was the difference in attitude to learning about math. Kids were much more focused on the drilling and memorization aspect of the subject than when learning about reading, which had a much greater ability to enthuse and inspire them.

My own response to this is tempered by the reading I've been doing lately about the teaching of mathematics to gifted kids. I made a huge discovery - what I think of, and was taught, as "Maths" in England, is only one tiny part of mathematics. I wasn't very good at school math, mainly because I couldn't see the point of it. Even then I had little patience for busy work.

Math teachers who write books about gifted math are quick to point out that math is everywhere, we use it every day, driving, or swimming in a crowded pool, or calculating when to leave for the movie theatre so we don't miss the previews. It's a logical language we can use to decode the world. Generally, I'm good at those things. I'm excellent at getting all the food on the dinner table at the same time. Apparently, this too is actually math! I'm good at math! I'm GOOD at math.

So what happened? Why didn't the fire light under me, in the same way it did about music or art or reading or geography? I suspect it was because I couldn't relate it to my life or my interests in any way, and the emphasis was on practice and repetition. I didn't see it as a tool to solve problems - I saw it as the problem, something to grind out to please a teacher. I feel cheated! I will now go and find some internet homework-type sites to help fill in the gaps in my knowledge so that I can begin to find the beauty and elegance that so entrances my mathematically gifted friends.

* if anyone can tell me what the clear plastic object in the wallpaper of this picture is, you will save me hours more of fruitless speculation. Thanks.

Technorati tags: gifted math

Dippy Miscellany

2006-01-11T11:06:00.000-08:00

I'm getting worried about myself. The dip continues, with brief respites. Other bloggers are in the same spot, for example Shakespeare's Sister. Her commentors have lots of good suggestions, my favourite being the chainsaw. If nothing else it would make me focus on something apart from my dippiness.

Anyway tonight I am going to a lovely seminar on gifted education at UBC. Can you say, "free educational and networking opportunity"! I'm also confirmed to do two improv shows on the next two Thursdays as part of !nstant Theatre's Cage Match. Our fabulous and talented team is called Krispy on the Edges. Yeah!

Finally, I found an exciting new feature on Bernard. If you set it right, it will take 24 shots in about 5 seconds - check out Steve flailing for maximum effect!

And that's about all for today, folks. Will continue meandering through the underworld until I find the magic door.

Technorati tags: slump improv

The Dreaded Dip

2006-01-09T15:52:00.000-08:00

The truth is, I have nothing to write about today. I am deeply uninspired. My mind is as lively as a slice of Wonderbread. And in my quest to provide the truth about giftedness, I'm gonna tell you all about it, you lucky lucky reader.

I've followed some of the news, and I don't feel like talking about that. I refuse to talk about the weather. I've been reading C.G. Jung and Joseph Campbell, and even a book by the wonderful Keith Johnstone that is new to me, and still nothing to say. Nothing bubbling up from the well of creativity. Zip. Nada.

For me, periods of extreme creative joy are always followed by periods of self-loathing and indolence, rinse, repeat ad infinitum. In this time, I usually hole up and read all the books I've been meaning to get to, and also clean up my office and do my accounting. So whilst these times are actually quite productive, I usually feel like the world's biggest slug, terrified I'm going to get busted. I am creating nothing! Execution looms!

Yet, all the reading I have done about creativity and talent development tend to skip blithely over the dips, giving the false impression that you can be creative and fulfilled 100% of the time. The really scary part of this is that the establishment educators haven't noticed that dips are a normal part of life for creative people, and push for constant progress at all times. I can deny the reality and work through it, and make sales calls and write proposals anyway, but from experience I know the best thing to do is go through the funk wholeheartedly and come out the other side.

And before you write and tell me, I know this post is not funny. Oh yes.

Technorati tags: creativity work

Blogetiquette

2006-01-05T14:06:00.000-08:00

What is the appropriate response to visiting a favourite blog, only to find a blank page? Braidwood, if you can hear me, I can't hear you. Please let us know you are OK. Being ignorant, I hope it is OK to ask that question in this format. Commentors, please put on your Miss Manners hat and educate me.

Having read of another firing due to blogging (aka "doocing") here, I'm wondering exactly how corporations and other organizations are going to deal with the "threat" blogging represents. After all, they can't fire EVERYONE. And they can't impose rules on behaviour outside work time, although they can create a culture of fear (that's easy!)

For those who crave change and are looking for guerilla tactics, blogging is very powerful. My mischevious side is gleefully rubbing its palms together and chuckling. With the anonymity of the internet, perhaps the daily torture of work will finally be exposed, and commentors will be able to support each other in getting out of disgusting situations. How about live webcasts from within the workplace, showing some of the inanity? Podcasts of actual conversations between you and your crazy boss? Blog posts that contain complete emails (identifiers removed) that are particularly juicy? Oh, I'm just getting started. Hee hee hee!

I know that most of these things could already be accomplished with pre-blog technology, but nothing has the potentially instant impact of a blog on a huge number of people worldwide. I remain optimistic that blogs can change the world!

Technorati tags: blog work dooced

It's Not ALL Bad

2006-01-04T10:45:00.000-08:00

I have noticed recently that I'm starting to enjoy going to the supermarket more. My local store recently installed a coffee kiosk (whose name I am not going to mention due to their existing cultural hegemony), a panini grill, and the music is louder. Top me up with sugar and caffine and give me a wheeled cart to dance with, and you know I'm going to spend happy hours amongst the vegetables, occasionally seizing a cucumber microphone for a big number. The staff are starting to smile and nudge each other as I sashay through the door. And it's not just me - other shoppers are catching the vibe. Last week we were involved in a spontaneous trolley dance around the butter tarts to "Wind Beneath My Wings".

I think one of the great and under-represented benefits of being gifted is a greater capacity for fun. There's lots of focus on the depression part, which is good because it's life-threatening and we need more research, but not much on the other end of the spectrum. Gifted people get more laughs! They can find the humour in everything, as well as the horror. I find myself chuckling and smiling at very inappropriate moments just as much as bursting into unwanted tears.

I am going to go to my new favourite hangouts, UBC Libraries, and see if I can find anything about this. I adore libraries and these are great - different specialties and atmostpheres, but with a central catalogue. I can choose the one that best suits my mood, the darkness of the Education Library for bad days, the soaring heights of the Main Library for transcendent ones. It's like the various varieties of Starbucks - arrrgghh, they got me in the end.

Technorati tags: gifted supermarket humour

Blogrumbling

2006-01-03T09:57:00.000-08:00

Looking back over my year of posting, I'm finding myself to be a bit earnest and ranty for my liking. Now I realize that in the field of gifted people, there is a lot to rant about, but I'm disappointed with my amusement quotient for the year. After all, I perform comedy improv, I should be able to at least make you chuckle once in a while. Henceforth, I resolve that Overexcitable will be a more amusing place in 2006.

Oh goodness, that's really tweaking all my perfectionism gremlins. Don't post unless you're funny! You've blogged it, it's out there, now you must live up to your promise! Ironically, this is the very thing that makes comedy improv go bad - a LPM, Laughs Per Minute, requirement. It's when somebody goes all corporate on an improv troupe and demands that they guarantee entertainment. In improv, you can't guarantee anything, which is what makes it so thrilling to watch. Can they make the scene work? Will they make us laugh? Will they crash and burn? Will they make us cry? Who knows?! Ah, Fortuna!

The improvisor is now in a difficult position. Do you take the restrictions and rules, in order to have the opportunity to perform and play, improving your craft and not incidentally getting paid? Or do you thrust out your chest and yell "Hey man, I'm not sacrificing my art to your fear of unpredictability!" and head off into the wilds, forming your own group, and thereby sacrificing yourself to administrative headaches and sales pitches and the temptation to institute an LPM rule yourself?

Tough choices are the only ones worth making.

Technorati tags: improv choices

Year's End Vancouver

2005-12-30T11:02:00.000-08:00

This is the kind of music Bernard and I have managed to make together so far. As with any relationship, we're getting to know each other - I'm still learning how to push his buttons!

I am becoming one of those people who walks around with a camera pressed to her face. I am delighted that I can take as many pictures as I want and look at the results instantly without paying a dime. It is really helping me learn how to get the images I like. Another shiny object to distract me from writing!

Technorati tags: Vancouver digital camera

Family

2005-12-29T11:14:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Unsane for sparking today's post with her question, "Why the sensitivity towards familial ideals?"

I'm embarrassed, but there's a part of me that continues to buy in to the safe and loving family images that bombard us at Christmastime. I know that it's a fantasy meme, and even the best of families have their own dose of craziness. Yet I literally yearn for the sugar of unconditional acceptance and understanding of my whole personality from all the people who love me. I start to believe that this time they will not have their own agendas for me. Totally impossible and unreasonable, and I've long accepted that....but...a Western Christmas can make me believe again that people are perfect, that a man flies through the air delivering toys, and that it's all supposed to be this way.

Most of the time, I laugh these things off, and give myself what I need. The wonder of the season melts my defences and creates false hopes. But I'd still rather embrace the magic.

Technorati tags: Christmas fantasy family

Christmas

2005-12-28T12:17:00.000-08:00

I had a really great Christmas in many ways. My wonderful boyfriend gave me a digital camera! It's a cool piece of equipment, many features and functions. I have named him Bernard, reasoning that it will be more difficult to leave him places now that he is personified. So far, it's working! He hangs cosily around my neck in his fleece-lined pouch until I need him. Once I have figured out how to get the pictures out of Bernard, onto the computer, and onto the blog, I will show you what we've been up to.

In other news, Christmas really sucked. I fell into an emotional storm that's common for me at this time of year. I feel an alienation to the materialism of this society, which I think is common to many. More painful is the reaction of family and friends to news about my business and the personal choices I've made as I grow. In comparision to their norms, I am living life as an extreme sport! I wasn't prepared for their negativity, which they have no hesitation about expressing to me. By being a true individual I'm breaking cultural rules, and their comments are partly due to their need to reinforce their own behaviours and values. While I know this, and I'm confident that I'm doing what's right for me, their rejection still hurts.

I think I am very threatening to many people in this world, but I simply cannot let it stop me from doing what I was born to do. I am blessed to live in a country where I am free to pursue my own method of self-actualization. I am blessed to have people who do understand and support me as I walk this path. My crazy life can represent a call for others to develop in their own unique way. Not everyone is ready to hear it!

Technorati tags: Christmas business self actualization

New Label!

2005-12-27T13:06:00.000-08:00

You scored as Cultural Creative. Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you are not religious. Life has a meaning outside of the rational.

Cultural Creative

100%

Idealist

81%

Existentialist

69%

Postmodernist

69%

Fundamentalist

56%

Materialist

56%

Modernist

25%

Romanticist

What is Your World View? (updated)
created with QuizFarm.com

Ethics and Imagination

2005-12-22T10:38:00.000-08:00

We went to see Narnia last night, which I absolutely adored. Having read the book over and over as a child had everything to do with it, as my wonderful boyfriend, whilst appreciating the effects, didn't find it that exciting.

My mentor told me how much she saw me in the character Lucy! I didn't tell her at the time, but I was Lucy for much of my childhood - the one who was always finding stuff that other people blamed on my imagination. I was also the one so quick to point out what wasn't fair, and urge the adults to act ethically. Both things got me in huge trouble several times and so eventually I just shut up. No more, dear reader! No more!

Anyway, I'm punching out for Christmas now. There are many celebrations I will be attending and friends to catch up with. I wish all of you the very best of the holiday season!

Technorati tags: Narnia Christmas

Design and Evolution

2005-12-21T15:39:00.000-08:00

I keep getting drawn back into the "intelligent design" debate, the newest incarnation of the creationist argument. It's a very popular topic in the blogosphere, at least it has been for the short while I've been here. I'm fascinated by the sheer amount of posting about this issue, because no-one has a hope of winning. Everyone gets to be right, because none of us know for sure.

The really interesting part is why it matters so deeply to the advocates of both positions. The cynical part of me answers that it's about getting attention for the advocate rather than the issue. Does it matter to you? It doesn't matter to me whether the world is a random occurrence or there is a guiding intellect. On a moment-to-moment basis, I do the best I can with the information I have at the time. If I had to explain all the information rationally, I couldn't; if I had to express it all as a product of unseen guidance, I couldn't. It's mostly a mish-mash of all types of experiencing/thinking/believing I have at my disposal.

So why does it arouse so much passion and energy? Is "not knowing" such a horrible place for people to live? As a coach, I always get really excited when a client says, "I don't know.." because it means there's a new place to go, uncharted territory to explore together. Join hands, enemies, and go forward together!

Technorati tags: intelligent design evolution reconciliation

Darkness Visible

2005-12-19T10:48:00.000-08:00

I had a horrible dream last night that is still with me today. I want to blog about it because I think that it is vitally important to acknowledge that we all have a dark side.

In the world of life coaching, there isn't much talk about terror. Negativity in general is pretty rare. The profession is all about working with people as they move forward in an active, empowering way. My impression is that the focus is on getting people through tough places so that they can come out into the light.

My experience with organizations and schools has been even greater resistance to looking at the dark side. The people involved there can shy away from anything that isn't happy-positive, seeing it more as a pastoral than pedagogical/work-related issue. In my work, I find that the kids test my acceptance of negative imagery. In improv, if there's anything lurking beneath the surface, you can bet it's going to come out in a scene - as a bloody battle between slow worms or a sacrifice to the Toast God or suicide by perfume inhalation. When I yell encouragement and tell the players to die and come back as angels or ghosts, I'm accepting their dark side, even if the teacher I'm with is mightily disconcerted.

In the wake of so many school shootings and workplace retributions, the opportunities for people to express their normal fears and rages are disappearing. The instinct to repress and deny them is understandable, but short-sighted. It's more helpful to provide a safe way to express it. Sport provides that for many, but for the rest of us, there's always improv.

Technorati tags: shadow improv

Getting Paid

2005-12-16T15:48:00.000-08:00

I received my biggest cheque yet in the mail today! It's so cool how much more rewarding it is to get paid for doing something I love.

When I worked a regular job with a regular cheque and a regular mental breakdown, I wasn't happy and grateful every time the money appeared in my account. I took the money and spent some of it, saved some, blew some; it was about as exciting as cleaning the toilet. I used to calculate how many weeks it would take me to afford something awesome like some school or travel. It was a dependable infusion of cash, but even bonuses and raises quickly became tedious. I learnt that I am not motivated by money.

But now, I get a cheque, and I'm celebrating for the whole day. I think it's because it's not just me getting the money; it's my company, my vision, my dream. Every last cent is a valued expression of support from my customers. More than that, it's confirmation from the universe that I'm on the right path. I'm motivated by money again, something I never thought I'd feel comfortable admitting!

Technorati tags: money motivation

Life is Amazing

2005-12-15T10:50:00.000-08:00

Vancouver is quiveringly beautiful this morning. A rime frost has iced every surface, highlighting the heartbreaking symmetry of ferns and rhododendrons and the crazy weave of the grass. The pale sun melts in a tentative blue sky. Light is fizzing everywhere, filling the world in a champagne bath of energy. I stand square in the park and honour the mountains and the great river before me. I feel alive to the tips of my fingers. I feel the cycle of life thrumming in my bones.

I am so greatly blessed that I can find the simple joy in brushing my teeth or waking my love with a cup of fresh coffee. What an amazing gift it is to live!

Technorati tags: joy

Classification

2005-12-14T10:46:00.000-08:00

Thanks to mark for your comment on this post for extending my thinking on the topic of labelling. And thanks for all of the thought-provoking stuff to be found on ZenPundit!

Mark said that programs for below-average kids do make average kids feel smarter. I was surprised to read this, but after thinking about it for a few days, it started to make sense, especially when related to issues around programming for the gifted.

I was excellent at "playing the game" in school (most of the time!), figuring out exactly what would receive the most praise from each teacher. In almost all lessons, I wasn't figuring out what to learn, or following my own line of intellectual inquiry, or even working hard. I was simply doing my best to get the most of what I wanted, which was praise and attention and reassurance that I was a good person.

Of course I wanted to get good marks and be told that I was smart, because that's what was valued and rewarded most in the system I found myself part of. The teachers clearly had the authority, therefore it was best to follow their rules (written and unwritten) to get the good stuff. Simple.

I think the big problem with all of these labels of gifted, learning disabled, average, etc., is that they become value judgements simply by virtue of the Western educational system. If you asked a teacher if a gifted kid was worth more than a learning disabled kid, I'm sure they would say no. But the system is set up in such a way that smarts and rule-following determine how much reward is provided. It's as small as a teacher praising a good assignment to the whole class, choosing one student's picture to display prominently, or giving more eye contact to "A" students. It's obvious to all that achievement is valued, and the natural conclusion is that your level of achievement determines your value.

I have no idea how to fix this, as it is considered a normal way to behave in almost every educational institution and corporation in the land. But somehow we must find a way to let all kids know that they are valuable and worthwhile human beings, no matter what they are doing. Then, "smarter" or "dumber" would cease to have any real meaning except to understand how to provide what that individual child needs.

Technorati tags: gifted labelling education

Post #100!!!

2005-12-13T14:57:00.000-08:00

I'm celebrating! It's delightful to have found such a fun way to connect with like-minded people, which also gives me free rein to vent and rant about my favourite topics! Cheers! [burp]

Anyway I wanted to echo unusualsuspect's sentiment that cliches abound about how to spot a gifted child, how "they" behave, and how to support "them". We are human and we want to make things simple and easy, so we produce checklists and questionnaires and prescriptive readings. However, because they have to be so general, there isn't enough context, and it's very difficult to apply them in a useful way.

The trouble is that in many cases giftedness defies all attempts to pin it down into non-flexible structures. It is essentially dynamic, and no matter how much we wish it was reducible to understandable things, it's basically something we have to deal with as a unique and ever-changing whole, arising differently in each individual from moment to moment. That's why it's so challenging and fascinating for me to work with the gifted population.

The trouble is that gifted people, and their parents and partners and bosses, often cling on to these definitions because that's the way the whole world seems to work. Very few gifted people have ever had the opportunity to be fully themselves safely, to express all of their personality, to speak about things that are incomprehensible to most. When that opportunity does arise, it can be very threatening to all involved!

So it becomes a matter of choice - how far are you willing to go? How much do you want to know? How much can you take? This is a calibration gifted people make all the time, on various levels of awareness, for self-protection. My hope is that the world will eventually begin to make space for everyone to be as unique and wonderful as they like, and the "laundry lists" of gifted characteristics and behaviours and support strategies will become artefacts of a less enlightened time.

Technorati tags: gifted definitions

The Gifted Label

2005-12-12T14:16:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Anonymous 1 (The Flink, incognito) & 2, who brought up the issue of stamping the word "gifted" on people and what effect that has. The question was, "What do you think of this idea, that gifted is a label that exists more for a parents peace of mind?"

Many parents of gifted kids would find this very amusing! They report that parenting a gifted kid, once you know they are gifted, is a constant challenge. Once one has stopped fighting the high energy, sensitivity, reduced need for sleep, etc., and learnt that they are a normal part of giftedness, they must now be accommodated creatively within the family system. There is heartache in feeling that you have a great responsibility to nurture the talent in your child, and you may not be doing that the "best" way, or have the resources to provide everything you think is helpful or even necessary. Finding helping professionals with a knowledge of giftedness is another challenge.

Other parents may react with denial and even fear. Being told that your child is different often creates considerable grief, as all your dreams and plans for that child seem to have been snatched away. This reaction is well known in disability circles but I have rarely seen it discussed in the gifted community. I know that I was definitely not the daughter my parents were expecting! And I'm sure that several times they explained my strange behaviour to themselves and others by saying, "well, she is gifted, you know..." and didn't investigate any further. As Anon.2 quite rightly points out, the label is functionally irrelevant - it is the action that follows the labelling that matters.

I think most gifted people of all ages are relieved to have an explanation for all the differences they experience in themselves. I'm sorry for Flink's friend's sake that there isn't more knowledge and acceptance of giftedness, because her brothers are probably gifted too, just in a different way. It is rare for siblings not to be within 5 IQ points of each other, and often visual-spatial giftedness are less "identifiable" in the school system or masked by underachievement and a genuine desire to fit in.

I get frustrated by arguments that gifted programs in school "make" other kids feel inadequate. Do programs for mentally sub-normal kids "make" the majority feel smart? If so, the sub-normal programs should more than compensate for this effect, as they are far more numerous and better funded than gifted programs! But at least they exist, and bring gifted kids together at least some of the time to normalize their experience. In our current educational model, it seems to be the best we can do.

Technorati tags: gifted labelling parenting

Killer PMS

2005-12-09T10:20:00.000-08:00

Flink found me online and asked me, "Is PMS worse for smart girls?" You can read my full answer here but here's a highlight:

The point is that gifted people are more sensitive to, well, pretty much everything. That's why I didn't notice PMS for all that time, because I was getting constantly triggered by other things in life. If normal people experience themselves and the world like regular 52-channel cable, gifted people have an enormous sattelite dish with thousands of channels. So yes, it is going to be harder for us because we are simply more aware.

This is why I want to get into schools so badly and let gifted kids know about overexcitabilities. If we don't grow up knowing that we are more susceptible to and reactive to life's normal ups and downs, we can start to think there is something badly wrong with us. For me, this led to a scary run through the mental health system before I finally found someone who could normalize giftedness for me. My own esoteric calling is to help prevent this for as many people as I can.

Technorati tags: gifted PMS overexcitabilities

Sensitivity.2

2005-12-08T07:42:00.000-08:00

So what can one do when finding oneself in a state of mental disintegration in a personal growth workshop? Basically, aggressive self-care.

Whenever you are going in to an experience that is going to confront you with some part of yourself that you are not usually concious of, it's important to put in place a basic first-aid kit. For me this also means going to family gatherings, returning to an old stomping-ground, or going on a blind date.

My personal kit includes water, nuts & raisins, a clean tissue, and a poem or book I know and like. I also pack a small object that is comforting because of prior associations - for example, a Christmas ornament given to me by a close girlfriend, or some earrings I bought myself to celebrate a previous success. Lately the latter two objects are combined as I slip into my purse a tiny book of Keats' most beloved poems given to me by my great aunt.

These things help bring me back to my integrated self. But most the most vital step, and most difficult one for me, is to actually get up and leave the room in order to fix myself up. It is so difficult to resist workshop leaders/people who are convinced of their rightness and demonize any deviance from their views, but it is absolutely necessary for me to stand up for myself in this way. It gets easier the more I do it, making me suspect that I am also resisting childhood programming!

Take care of yourself this holiday season.

Technorati tags: gifted self care workshops

Sensitivity

2005-12-07T11:34:00.000-08:00

Gifted people often have an enormous interest in their own development. This can lead to a frantic search for teachers and methods that will speak to their experience and give them an anchor as they journey along this path. Personally, I have a vast collection of self-help literature, copies of religious texts like the Bible and the Bhagavad Gita, and pyschological theory. At a certain point, I started to wonder why this self-directed bibliotherapy did not seem to be giving me the answers I was seeking. So, I turned to in-person self-help groups.

Many of the personal growth courses out there are run by people who have absolutely the best intentions. They provide a very good product for the majority of the population. The only trouble is, a highly or profoundly gifted person is likely to show up in one of their classes at some stage, and this can be trouble.

The exquisite sensitivity of a gifted person and deep desire for self-actualization means that group encounters must be structured very carefully to avoid extreme reactions. Exhortations to "let go" and be completely vulnerable to the process are common, and when a gifted person complies, they are sometimes left swinging out over an incomprehensible void. The workshop leader is rarely able to address the disturbance on the level it is occurring.

When this happened to me for the first time, I thought I was really losing my mind. I went into a severe existential depression with suicidal thoughts, and required much time and support to claw my way back to safety. It wasn't until it happened again that I realized what was going on; these workshops were pushing me into a dangerous place. Thereafter, I continued to explore, but with the knowledge that I needed to protect myself. More on how to do that tomorrow....

Technorati tags: gifted self-actualization workshops

Canada the Polite

2005-12-06T17:20:00.000-08:00

Giving another workshop today, I noticed that the Grade 6/7 class are fantastic at giving feedback. When they got bored, they just started wandering off or talking about what they saw on TV last night. Of course, at that point I sprang into action with a game of Lines of Dialogue aka Pockets, which is always a crowdpleaser, to draw them back in.

Adults (and I'm guilty of this, too) feel so compelled to be polite and support the workshop leader that one has to really pay attention to the underlying "feel" of the group. They are likely to hide their yawns and fake interest in what's going on, rather than complain or walk out of the room (which I'd prefer!) Here in Vancouver, politeness is a such a high art that it's starting to interfere rather than grease the wheels of society.

Take, for example, the four-way stop. This traffic device is like a roundabout, but everyone stops at a stop sign and takes turns to proceed through the intersection. Sounds sensible, doesn't it? But when the person whose turn it is decides to wave on another car out of turn, it all goes pear-shaped. We have a stalemate as drivers wave and bob to each other trying to coax each other to move: "After you." "No, please, it's your turn." "I insist, I'm not in a hurry." "Thank you, but it really is your turn." !!!!

Canada, we're not working as a team here! Let's follow the rules of play so that we can all get where we're going a little bit faster - and perhaps we can apply this to honest feedback, too.

Technorati tags: Canada four-way stop critique

Channelization and The Gifted Brain

2005-12-05T12:05:00.000-08:00

In my experience, gifted people are just like everyone else in the way that we channel our thinking, getting stuck in a rut in life. We do it on more levels, in more creative ways, and have very fancy rationalizations for what we're doing, but it's basically the same process with a few new twists added. To the outside world, this is very hard to explain, as people assume that being smarter means that you don't fall into the classic thinking traps they struggle with - you have the ability to rise above it. Not true in the least! The traps increase in complexity along with the brain that creates them.

Yet although the difficulties are the same, this doesn't necessarily mean that gifted people can be helped in the same way as everyone else. I've returned to the puzzle of finding a good metaphor for the way that gifted people experience life, so that I can use it to explain why they need specialized helping professionals. This is the latest:

Imagine two people given the same report to do on analyzing quotes and recommending a supplier for the company. One has just been hired out of university, and one has 20 years experience in the industry and a five-year history with this particular firm. Most of us would probably assume that the 20-year veteran would give the more reliable report - because of their experience with suppliers, their knowledge of the supplier marketplace, their connections with other companies in the industry, and the networks of related professionals they can draw on. Even if the report's conclusion is surprising, it's possible that we would trust the veteran's opinion.

A gifted person has a brain that is like that 20-year veteran, because it can give veteran-caliber answers to brand new problems. Their large knowledge base has been accumulating since the very beginning of awareness. They have been making connections between experiences in order to try and make sense of their world since the beginning. They extrapolate, interpolate, and make logical and intuitive leaps. When you receive communication from that brain, sometimes it's hard to understand where the knowledge you receive came from, because it's such a small piece of the big picture.

So when a gifted person is experiencing difficulties, it requires someone else with the same kind of brain to sort through the huge mass of data and processing that created it. When a 20-year veteran is assigned a newly hired graduate to help solve a problem, the veteran is likely to take anything they say with a large pinch of salt, and privately laugh at the hubris of youth.
___

OK, coments/edits/ridicule welcome! I appreciate any feedback.

Technorati tags: gifted

Learning to Fail

2005-12-04T12:54:00.000-08:00

I've just finished a five-day improv workshop with some amazing gifted 7th-graders. It was a truly awesome experience, I had huge fun and I learnt so much! So did the participants, according to their evaluations.

One thing that really stood out for me when reading their feedback forms was that almost all of them mentioned that we had encouraged them to fail. I regularly yelled out things like "Fail!" "Get into trouble!" "Failure is good!" I reminded them that as they had never done this before, it was unreasonable to expect that they would be good at it. Watching a face clear when this insight is internalized is magical.

Gifted kids often struggle with only feeling valued for what they can do, rather than who they are as people. Although not all fall into the trap, perfectionism is a natural consequence of getting approval for achievements. Emphasizing a form of learning that is experimental, failure-based, and where advance planning actually makes things worse, gives people permission to unlock their creativity. I was thrilled to find out that they were listening (!) but more importantly that they had felt safe enough to make mistakes. Improv workshops make it easy and fun to experience unqualified approval for taking risks.

I wish I had enough expertise with English to convey to you the utter joy of knowing that I am living "on purpose", doing the things I am supposed to do with my life. It is a very deep satisfaction that is worth far more than money. Very cool.

Technorati tags: gifted improv right livelihood

Learning Something New

2005-11-29T16:24:00.000-08:00

It struck me today, as I designed another workshop, that a large part of the learning happening in my classes is from participants simply watching each other and trying to repeat what they've seen. This may be blindingly obvious to most people, but I really hadn't thought about it before.

Improv appeals to me so greatly as a teaching method because it is whole-body, whole-mind stuff that frees people to react emotionally - the ultimate magic pill of learning. That most fulfilling part of the method can be overwhelming in large doses and it is important to intersperse those experiences with the more passive activity of watching and listening. Seeing someone else deal with the same set of rules (such creating a scene from an audience suggestion) gives valuable information about what works and what doesn't!

In my opinion this participatory style of learning is the wave of the future. Simple lecture-style learning is becoming less and less relevant to how people actually participate in their world. We want to ask questions, divert the lecturer from their intended topic to follow a particularly juicy idea, just as we do when surfing the web. This is easy to do with improv - one just improvises the class!

It is difficult for me to justify investing time rote-learning any information because I know that all I have to do is feed my question into google any time I need an answer. The skill set I would most desire as a kid today would be learning to boil down the most relevant information from the many thousands of google hits. And if that's so, then what is the point of the traditional essay, apart from providing proof that you know how to use google? - a complete paradigm shift.

What a exciting time to be working in education!

Technorati tags: imitation improv education

Improv Nightmares

2005-11-28T10:01:00.000-08:00

Following Braidwood's comment on the last post, I thought I'd make an attempt to explain why improv gives me nightmares!

The main attraction to improv for gifted people is usually the initial brain-candy aspect of it. Some favourite improv games reward the ability to memorize large amounts of irrelevant data and think fast. It's nice to find something where a quick brain is an asset, gaining admiring glances from your fellow players and laughs from an audience. But soon, I found that the only way to improve was to actually let go of thinking completely. To create improv, and any art, I needed to find a way to relinquish control.

This is because in order to perform great improv one needs to let down all defences and be totally in the moment. It has a meditative, trance-like quality to it; many improvisors finish a show with no memory of what just happened. It is even more powerful than meditation, because it includes movement and narrative, bringing in the wisdom of the body and the most primitive emotional parts of the brain.

When I am developing scenes on the spot, creating instant stories with one or more people, I am very vulnerable. We are tuning in to our collective unconcious, the very essence of our humanity, and working out our stories using the shadow part of our personalities. Naturally this brings up stuff that we would rather keep hidden, as we work out our personal dramas on each other through the characters and scenes we create. It's a turbo-charged version of our individual dreams, with the added twist of having other characters and viewpoints made real within the scene. I think that's why improv is so fascinating to watch, and also why vivid dreams are a common after-effect for the players.

Keith Johnstone was very aware of all this when I worked with him. He concentrated on reducing fear in his students as well as building performance skills. Keith emphasized continually that we were safe and showed us how to create that safety in a workshop group. His personal grace was an anchor we could all cling to as we unlocked our minds. Keith is an amazing teacher, of improv, but also of the process of teaching. Take his classes whenever you can, even if you have no interest at all in improv!

Technorati tags: gifted improv art

Dangerous Animals

2005-11-27T09:53:00.000-08:00

Thanks to soh for sparking today's post. She asked why I would have a rottweiler for a pet.

Rottweilers are an intelligent, sensitive breed of dog who need daily exercise and stimulation, respond well to positive reinforcement, and require constant enforcement of clear boundaries. Even after living together for six years, my dog still tests those limits every once in a while. I always behave in a high-status way with her (making her move so that I can sit in a certain spot, for instance.) My dog is very fond of her routine; the security it gives her allows her to tolerate stressful situations and make good choices - like coming straight to me for help.

My dog chose me, by sticking to me like glue every time I went to visit her home, so that the owner (who had "inherited" her from a previous tenant) eventually asked me to take her in. I have taught her commands that we practice regularly such as "mine" and "drop it" just in case we ever need them, which we never have. On the contrary, she is a big chicken - she's afraid of the vacuum cleaner! A huge sponge for affection from friends or total strangers, the power of her love for me has got me through some really tough times. I dread the day she won't be there.

There is so much fear of the breed that is increased by media reports of dog attacks. We exploit them for our own nefarious purposes and demonize them when they react the only way they know how. It is much easier to blame the dog rather than look at ourselves and our failure to provide the training and leadership these dogs need so badly. A dog like this is a lot of work but incredibly rewarding to know. Can anyone else see the parallel with the needs of gifted people?

People who are treated inconsistently, with praise and affection one minute, rejection or abuse the next, grow mistrustful and twisted in a very deep way. The more intelligent and sensitive the person, the deeper the damage goes and the hearder it is to heal; the less sympathy and empathy they will develop. People who are not allowed to be themselves will eventually rebel against those who have oppressed them - and the ethical code they will use as they rebel will often be the same one they have experienced from their oppressors. That's a rational argument for loving and accepting all beings.

Technorati tags: gifted rottweiler

Perfectionism rises again!

2005-11-25T14:46:00.000-08:00

So strange to be back in a school again, as I'm no longer a student and I'm not really a teacher. I'm facilitating this workshop in a precarious half-light, being neither one thing or another, trying to balance all the relationships it involves. Exquisite sensitivity to social nuances, and the reality of the school environment, makes this a lot to deal with. Not being anchored in a traditional role makes it harder to fend off unwelcome emotions. I've been doing a lot of crying and shaking over the past few nights; I have to process the day before I can move on.

I often fall prey to nightmares after doing improv; it seems to unlock a part of myself that my brain usually works hard to keep under hidden. Other improvisors have told me this is common, and I believe it is actually one of improv's greatest treasures. Yet I feel less and less in the world and more at the mercy of my imagination after improv class. Having a fiercely protective boyfriend and equally staunch rottweiler at my side helps enormously, especially when they are both so good at making me laugh!

They often point out to me, in their own idiosyncratic ways, how my desire to do a perfect job gets in the way of enjoying the process. Despite all my gains in self-knowledge, I usually need to hear that I need not get things 100% "right" to be a success. I am the person, now is the time, and giving everything I've got is enough.

Technorati tags: gifted improv imagination

What's stopping you?

2005-11-22T10:45:00.000-08:00

Not going to things always makes me feel guilty. The trouble is, everything sounds so fun and exciting that I always want to go when the idea first comes up. "Dinner on Thursday? Sure!" I chirp merrily, momentarily forgetting that I have already committed to doing a 6-hour workshop for 13-year-old gifted kids that day. That amount of personal interaction, working on so many levels, is completely exhausting, and I will need to do a lot of nothing to get my head back together afterwards. So I jam out at the last minute and beat myself up for it.

I need to spend a vast amount of time simply taking care of myself. This is really frustrating and I rebel against it mightily every day. I want to get more stuff done, but in order to take care of me, I have to cut back. This balance isn't easy to maintain and honouring it often stops me dead. Even now, I'm thinking about ditching my morning meditation so that I can write a proposal. But I know that if I do make the proposal a higher priority, I will pay for it later.

I suppose this is what it is like when you work in service of a larger vision, when you see the needs all around you and just want to get on with meeting them. It's so different to all my other jobs, where I could easily let go at the end of a work day. The only way I can see to transcend my physical time limitations is to work in a team, and that just takes more time away from the work. Besides, who on earth would I get to work with me on this esoteric quest?! I'm reading The Fabric of the Cosmos to try and find another way....

Technorati tags: gifted balance team

Doing Nothing is still a Choice

2005-11-21T13:42:00.000-08:00

Apologies for the lack of posts last week! I'm thrilled to say that I was busy, not sick!

On Friday I attended a conference on acceleration of gifted students by Miraca Gross. It was fascinating to see, when Miraca polled the crowd, how few gifted students ever get the chance to leave their age peers when their intellectual and emotional development is much closer to that of older children. Only about a third of the local educators present knew of an accelerated child at their school - ever. This meant all types of acceleration, from a radical, multi-grade skip to sending a kid to take math lessons in the next grade every day.

Why should children be placed based on their chronological age alone? If schools are set up to help children learn, shouldn't kids be allowed to learn at their own pace? Although Miraca was preaching to the converted, it was evident that these dedicated teachers had a lot of work to do convincing administrators, other teachers, and even parents when trying to provide an adequate education under the current system. Miraca quite correctly pointed out that every child has a right to develop their brain through education, and to hold someone back is not a neutral choice. It is actually damaging to that child's brain and self concept, and it is an infringement of that child's rights. Unfortunately, as I saw, simple ignorance, misunderstanding, administrative convenience, or even fear, can stop a gifted child in their tracks. For more on this, see this article by Miraca, and A Nation Deceived, where you can find lots of research to back up any attempt to appropriately accelerate a gifted child. If you are a gifted adult, have the box of tissues standing by!

Technorati tags: gifted acceleration Nation Deceived

Support

2005-11-16T10:41:00.000-08:00

I just realized that several of my carefully planned activities that give me emotional and spiritual support were missing last week. For various reasons, I was unable to attend my storytelling class, speak to my coach, or kvetch with my Success Team. The impact on my emotional health was really amazing; I went into a nosedive and got all wound up about trivial things, lost touch with my vision for this business, and bickered at my long-suffering boyfriend. I even became physically ill at one point.

Why would I share this on my blog again (see this post)? Because I want to spread the word that gifted people can be susceptible to minor breakdowns whenever the weather changes - hormonal, intellectual, social, emotional, spiritual, or literal weather, that is. It is very inconvenient when you are trying to fit into a regular school or work mould because the ability to deal with challenging situations is greatly reduced. I have burnt my bridges during one of these phases and it wasn't easy to build them again.

So how to deal with it? In my case, lots of chocolate, staying out of people's way, counting to ten before opening my mouth, and getting the necessary support a different way (meeting a very wise friend for lunch, going to the VAG to spend time with Emily Carr). It's going to be different for everyone, but the great thing is remembering that this is normal for me, and taking awesome care of myself is the best remedy. Yes, it's not what I want, given all the work I have to do, but in the long run it really is more efficient.

Technorati tags: gifted emotional health chocolate

Harry Potter and The Gifted Kid

2005-11-15T10:16:00.000-08:00

While creating a workshop for gifted middle school students, I hit on the idea of piggybacking on the popularity of Harry Potter and using those character relationships to talk about social skills. It's a difficult subject to address with gifted kids because they are often intensely loyal; talking about real people in their lives as non-gifted can feel like a betrayal. Reframing it as "Harry and the Dursleys" allows more play and creativity around negotiating sticky situations.

Some gifted kids have more intellectual and emotional sensitivities than all of the adults around them. They may be able to do amazing things that their families view with awe and fear, refusing them the chance to refine their raw talents into something manageable. In the story, Harry Potter finds a community of people who understand him and are willing to do anything to protect him and train his talent. But for most kids there is no opportunity to go away to a school where their gifts are unconditionally celebrated and nurtured.

The workshop will give gifted kids living "normal" lives some tools and validate their perspectives and experiences. They are at the same age as our hero, Harry, was when he first figured out what was going on!

Technorati tags: gifted Harry Potter

Renzulli

2005-11-14T12:38:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Frida for her comment which sparked today's post.

In the gifted forums I've participated in, the topic of Renzulli's Three-Ring Conception of Giftedness usually comes up at some point when talking about identification of gifted kids. This model really gets me steamed up! I have heard some people say it got their kids into gifted programs when they are not globally gifted, but obviously gifted from their performance on an IQ test or another assessment method. I've heard others say that the model has been misapplied to get kids into programs that were not really suitable for them. But what if a kid is gifted but not showing any task commitment because of social or emotional problems? Or a kid isn't showing creativity because of a lifetime's experience of being squashed whenever they think outside the box?

I greatly dislike the implication that the system needs to provide services because of the potential productivity of these individuals. I also dislike the focus on "gifted behaviours" and the implication that people are only gifted when they are behaving in a certain high-powered, socially accepted manner. This is not an ethical position in my opinion.

Gifted people come out of the box with a different experience of the world and a big contribution to make. How or even whether they choose to use their gifts to serve a society which is largely hostile to them from day one is really their own business. There are many gifted mothers raising children, unappreciated and unacknowledged for their awesome contribution. People are still gifted if they choose to take a non-challenging job and live a quiet, unremarkable life. They still need support and help to deal with their intellect and special sensitivities even if they choose to do nothing creative with them. It's when they don't get it that they turn away and begin to harm themselves and their communities.

Technorati tags: gifted Renzulli

Opting In to Society

2005-11-11T10:17:00.000-08:00

Thanks so much for all of your comments and thoughts about my question, "How can we give all gifted people acceptance and meaningful work in modern western society?" Many good points raised, and good practical strategies on fitting in while still giving your best.

My own answer to the question is simple yet has many layers, like an onion; tell the old tales. Give them freely to all our children and the adults who haven't heard them. These stories contain ancient wisdom that operates on many levels, entertaining us, providing the community with common reference points, then hiberating in our psyches until the self is ready to hear the deeper messages. They are like innoculations against losing that self. Most importantly, they provide internal fuel to sustain a person as they step out on their hero's journey, a model and a guide to help them find and use the treasure inside. Then their work and their role will be meaningful, no matter what it is.

The question really arose from reading the myths and stories that so often contain wise characters that are a bit strange and on the fringes of society, like wizards or fairy godmothers. The coach in me relates to these witchy types, because they challenge characters to connect with their own power. These tales from traditional societies usually emphasize the interdependence of all life and the importance of self within the context of a family and a community. A great gift to give anyone this holiday season!

Technorati tags: gifted career story

To Be Continued...

2005-11-10T16:52:00.000-08:00

Having tried and failed to write a coherent post today, I have decided to concede to whatever bug has turned my brain to marsmallows and my stomach to jelly. Going for reinforcements, hope to see you tomorrow...

Socialization

2005-11-09T11:49:00.000-08:00

I'm a bit late posting today because I'm having a very interesting discussion over on The Language Guy . It's about evolution and intelligent design, my favourite debate, and a time-sink for anyone interested. You have been warned!

In discussing the design for a workshop I'm giving in the spring, I got to thinking about the importance of socialization of the gifted. It's interesting in that unlike people who obviously come from another reality, because they have an accent or look different or are just new in town, the gifted live among everyone else largely incognito. So asking for special treatment really doesn't make sense to a lot of people.

In societies difference is either punished or celebrated, but it is rarely ignored. Some tribal societies might train their gifted to be spiritual leaders, for example, which along with a defined role and responsibility gave enormous licence for a gifted person to be deviant (not using this word perjoratively!) Other groups might ostracize them or even kill them as dangerous "witches".

How can we give all gifted people acceptance and meaningful work in modern western society? I have my own theory, but I want to know what you think!

Technorati tags: gifted career

What makes you a confident person?

2005-11-08T15:09:00.001-08:00

I was asked this question today at a look-see at Womyns' Ware. The answer I came up with in the moment was self-knowledge. Then I went home and thought about it a bit more.

My confidence comes from knowing that no matter what happens I will be all right. Even if my careful plans and fondest dreams don't materialize, I will always find my way. There is an incredible freedom in knowing that. It allows me to take risks and be grateful for the consequences, come what may. But I only know this because I have already tried and failed so many times.

If life is a huge room, most people camp in the middle with all the others and go to the far corners maybe once or twice. Gifted people will find out where the walls are, play with the climate control system, and try to bust out of the room as soon as they figure out it is a prison. When a person leaves the comfortable and familiar, it's scary for everyone involved. Having a coach nodding, smiling, handing them tools for their escape and waiting for them on the other side helps; but having the drive and courage to leave the middle of the room comes from the heart. True confidence is forged by passing through the white heat of fear.

Technorati tags: gifted coaching

Word Verification

2005-11-07T13:20:00.000-08:00

I have decided to add word verification to comments. I hope this does not discourage people from sharing their thoughts with me! I appreciate all your input so much and would hate the spammers to take that away from all of us - so please let me know how you feel about it during this trial period. Thank you.

Finding the Way

2005-11-07T12:54:00.000-08:00

What an incredible weekend of meeting people with the power to speak to my soul. I went to the Vancouver Storytelling Festival. I had planned to stay all day Saturday, but I found I had to go home at lunch time after hearing from Mike Burns in his workshop, "Storytelling as a Healing Art".

Mike enthralled us for two hours by telling stories and showing us through word and deed how much people need stories to awaken to the deepest mysteries of life. Stories are a way to tell people they are not alone, that other people have felt what they are experiencing. I cannot think of another population who needs to hear this more than the gifted adult community, who may not have been properly initiated into the mystery of their brains in their teens. I felt almost called to action!

This workshop inspired me to find a way to end the story of "The Magic Hill", an A.A.Milne tale that I have been retelling in Storytelling class. I was always dissatisfied by the ending. A princess is cursed (gifted?!), and in Milne's ending this is dealt with by removing the princess to a place where she can't do any damage - and the story ends before we hear what happens when she grows up.

In my version she will go on a hero's journey. She will find the resources she needs to master her own power so that she can exercise it without leaving the safety of her community. Story models as well as heals.

Technorati tags: gifted story

Gifted Imagination

2005-11-04T10:51:00.000-08:00

How precisely can you visualize events, real or imaginary? Last night at my Storytelling course taught by the talented Helen Mintz (no link because, can you believe it, she doesn't have a website!) we were discussing the ways we remember stories.

Remembering is a necessary skill when telling any good story, improvised or not. It's important to notice what has already happened in the story and lead it to some kind of satisfying conclusion. In Playback theatre, it's essential to the teller and the entire performing group that all the plot points are shown. When I'm improvising I often "go blind", by tuning out visual information. This gets in the way of group creativity and is something I work on improving.

Discussion with the class might have revealed the reason for my troubles! Surprise surprise, I remember differently to the other participants, by watching the movie in my head and describing or playing what I see on my imaginary screen. It's very vivid and rich, lots of detail, even smells and sounds come through. So it makes sense that I would not pay as much attention to perceptual data in my physical surroundings.

Being too firmly rooted in the real world never felt natural, but is much easier since I started improvising and meditating. I simply can't do either unless I am in the moment. My guess is that this vivid imagination developed in childhood, when my need for stories was like my need for air. Is this a blessing or a curse? Like all things gifted, it depends. Now that I have an awareness of why I go blind on stage, I can start investigating methods of preventing it. My wild imagination must still be useful for something or I would have grown out of it. I just wish I knew what!

Technorati tags: visualization story improv

Flow

2005-11-03T11:35:00.000-08:00

Last night I watched a great movie called Schultze Gets the Blues. To me this film showed very clearly how comfortable we can get in life until all of a sudden, something changes. When Schultze gets laid off from the mine, his routine is shattered; this creates space for new ideas to come in. The story is beautifully told with very few words. It's slow, requiring time to unfold. And it shows how intentions are supported in unexpected ways.

As an intense, driven, ambitious gifted adult, one of my most difficult lessons has been learning to let go and allow things to happen in their own way. Accepting help along the way, and creating space for things to show up, is part of this surrender. I am used to applying my energy and will to get where I want to go. This independence was a way to protect myself as a child with little control of my circumstances. As an adult, I am able to reach out to people and receive assistance as well as give it.

Starting a business is the most challenging and creative experience of my life so far. When I get into the flow of it, it's nothing but joy, and I'm constantly surprised and delighted at the positive energy that I receive. Peace out.

Technorati tags: Schultze Gets the Blues surrender flow

Emotional Maturity

2005-11-02T11:34:00.000-08:00

Thanks to soh for catalyzing today's post! (see comment on yesterday's post)

There's really two issues here; my emotional sensitivity, and society's reaction to that. The reason that my sensitivity is a problem during conflict is that the emotions from all participants stream into my conciousness and flood me, making it hard to access higher-order thinking. So I avoid asserting myself through conflict, knowing that this is my least effective method of communicating.

This is compounded by the factors that soh describes - it is assumed that a person showing emotion is immature or lacks the confidence needed to successfully navigate the challenge. This is not the image most of us want to project, whether we're at work or in a personal situation - and the distress of knowing that gives the sensitive person yet another emotion to handle!

Emotional control is often seen as a sign of maturity, but I disagree. I have realized that I must embrace the whole me, not just the parts that I like and other people are comfortable with. My emotional life has always been vibrant. Childhood conditioning taught me to squash that down, and I learnt very well. It is an important part of my journey to authentically express my emotions and let go of the results of that action.

Often the response is surprising. Several people have thanked me for crying in workshops because they felt it gave them permission to express themselves too. Other people became impatient and walk out. Some reminded me that my situation is so much better than that of many other people around the world, in an effort to stop me crying. Still others began crying too and couldn't really explain why.

What if we could reframe emotions for the world, and start to value and affirm those who are sensitive? What does it mean when we can't be with emotions? What if bursting into tears was taken as a sign of high intellect and advanced development, or attainment of spiritual integration?

I think that the discomfort people experience with emotion is from societal restrictions on the passionate side of our natures - the side that is both dangerous and healing, like belladonna. It's unpredictable and needs an experienced handler, but letting strong emotion into our discourses informs us in unexpected ways and leads to more creative solutions. Thanks again, soh, for helping me clarify my thoughts about this issue.

Technorati tags: gifted sensitivity tears

Gifted and Yellow

2005-11-01T10:57:00.000-08:00

I admit it, I'm a big coward. I hate conflict with a passion, I get overwhelmed easily despite all my efforts to remain calm. I've been working on this for years and I'm starting to understand that it is part of who I am as a gifted adult.

I am so sensitive that when emotional "stuff" is flying around I catch all of it and my instinct is to deal with the emotion first. I know I don't think best when I'm getting multiple emotional pings, so I try to ameliorate the atmosphere before I get into rational argument. This generally makes people think I am avoiding the discussion altogether, which makes them even more emotional. If I don't throw out a few ill-thought statements to keep the whole thing going, I'll probably just walk away in tears.

As you can imagine this gets complicated very quickly, and makes it difficult to have a cogent argument about anything. If I'm going to engage, I generally pick a time and place when I know I will be less likely to lose it (familiar, comfortable surroundings, not hungry, not tired) and start stating my case. I also let people know that I am quite likely to start crying during the exchange; if I don't they can think I'm trying to get one over on them by turning on the waterworks. But actually, it's just a way for me to release some of the stress that inevitably comes up. Not great for my image as a top businesswoman, but at least it keeps me in the same room.

Technorati tags: gifted conflict emotional

Narrative Greed

2005-10-31T07:52:00.000-08:00

I heard somewhere, "The material world is infinite, but it is a boring infinity". I understand what prompted this statement - I took invertebrate and vertebrate classification in university. There are so many different forms of life, one could use up all one's time just in learning and remembering all the subtle differences. The course was taught by one such man, who loved his work, getting great satisfaction from mastering an enormous number of details. Yet I search for a different type of knowledge entirely.

I love learning about big ideas, sweeping theoretical paradigms that change the way I look at the world. I want to know about new ideas and ways of being. Luckily, there is an endless source of new ideas all around me.

Each person is not just a physical individual, but they are also a seperate psychological creation - by which I mean everyone sees themselves and their world in a unique way. It's fascinating to hear people's stories and find out how their views shape their actions. I love to read biographies and autobiographies, especially of gifted people, to find out how they met the daily challenges of living in a non-gifted world.

We all carry a story in us about our past and what's possible for us in the future. For those who feel stuck, changing that story can change their life. I am intrigued by the possibilities of this ancient art for healing, so I'm reading and researching and learning as much as I can. I need to learn how to use story responsibly and to maximum effect. It's a powerful tool.

Technorati tags: gifted story

Money Conundrum

2005-10-27T16:54:00.000-07:00

With the help of my wonderful coach, and Success Team, and Buddy, I've come to realize that the gremlin I most need to deal with at this stage in my business is Money.

It's really hard to uncover your own gremlin, especially if you have the kind of brain that is excellent at rationalizing things away. The Coaches Training Institute uses the concept of gremlins to talk about shadow beliefs that we hold which in turn hold us back. Once I've rooted out one of them, though, I love the technique of personifying it and then banishing it!

Money's a sneaky-type gremlin for me that's been around for a long time. It gained strength from my parents' totally different perspectives on Money, what it was for, and what it could do. Neither of their perspectives is comfortable for me. I got a big boost from Morgana's philosophy about treating money as I would treat a person - making my life a great place for money to hang out, rather than yelling at it for being too late and a dollar short! Now, I welcome Money, give it interesting and important work to do, and we have a lot of fun together!

Yet there's still a part of me that is terrified of having no money, and no ability to get it. According to a friend in the gifted world, becoming destitute and/or insane are the top two fears of gifted people. Rationally I know this is never going to happen, but emotionally the fear is still there. I'm getting annoyed with it because it's stopping me from enjoying the rich creative experience of building a business. Any suggestions gratefully accepted!

Technorati tags: gremlin money

Inspiration

2005-10-27T12:54:00.000-07:00

Out of a need for self-protection, I don't watch the news on TV or read any kind of daily news media. I choose not to subject myself to the negative energy, it pings my emotions too much. I usually hear a 30-second news spot on the radio at some point during the day, and that's about it. So I only just heard that Rosa Parks died.

This is a person who inspires me by her dedication to human rights causes. She's a role model for me as someone who saw a problem and just rolled up her sleeves and did what she could to help. The trickster inside me loves that she just got fed up one day and decided she wasn't going to obey some archaic and ridiculous rule. I can really relate to that feeling!

She represents for me the power of one person performing one small act of defiance that starts changing everything. One person with a vision can make a difference for millions. What a great role model for all of us!

Technorati tags: Rosa Parks