“Talent will out.” If that old aphorism were really true, those with the highest potential to make the world better would inevitably have the opportunities and power to provide a constant supply of art masterpieces, to lead medical, political and business organizations, or otherwise realize their advanced potentials.
What keeps so many high potential people from [...]
“When I say to you, there is nobody like me, and there never was, that is a statement I want every woman to feel and make about themselves.”
Lady Gaga
Read more at Women and Talent
A critic once described the mind of Jonathan Miller as “a turmoil of sizzling wires, connecting drama with anthropology, literature with quantum physics, linguistics with genetic theory.”
From the PBS site of Bill Moyers Journal / Jonathan Miller
What caught my attention to write this post was the discord Dr. Miller has expressed about his choosing various [...]
Being exceptional is by definition to be out of the ordinary, not normal in some notable ways, and according to some common standards of behavior or values.
Processing information much faster, for example, or being able to generate many more creative and unusual ideas than most people, or being highly sensitive.
Looking in a direction other than [...]
In Through the Looking-Glass, the Red Queen “takes Alice on a wild run through the countryside. But no matter how fast Alice runs she can’t seem to get anywhere.
“Finally, breathless from her efforts, the Queen allows her to rest long enough for Alice to comment that ‘Everything is just as it was!’ to which the [...]
Video: “What stops you from doing what you love? It’s a survival mechanism called Resistance, and it goes into alert mode any time you do something that raises anxiety.”
Barbara Sher points out, “Everyone has unique gifts and talents. What you love is what you’re gifted at. To be completely happy, to live a completely fulfilled [...]
Einstein’s concept that “time is relative depending on your state of motion” had been explored by others, but “they were too confined by the dogmas of the day.
“Einstein alone was impertinent enough to discard the notion of absolute time.” Walter Isaacson, who wrote the biography Einstein: His Life and Universe.
Robert Ornstein, PhD, author of The [...]
In this sample clip from his audiobook Excuses Begone!: How to Change Lifelong, Self-Defeating Thinking Habits Wayne Dyer says “Just because people know what to think, doesn’t mean they know how to think, or how to change what they’ve been thinking for a lifetime.”
“Why do some people rise to the top while others languish? Are there personal characteristics that enable some individuals and groups to thrive during tough times?
“What initially began as a study to define greatness evolved into a quest to uncover those characteristics that people who were deemed ‘great’ exude.”
From article Pathways to Greatness – a [...]
Wunderkind, genius, prodigy. Freak, geek, nerd. How we label exceptional people and ourselves affects our identity and what we think about the reality and value of our talents, and the possibilities of expressing them in the world.
One of the most positive experiences for me in high school was my friendship with an artist (painter, sculptor) [...]
One of the creativity-inspiring characters in her book The Nine Modern Day Muses is Audacity, as author Jill Badonsky explains:
Audacity in the case of Muse creativity is not disrespect toward other mortals, or toward oneself. Audacity’s influence includes respect — yet this does not necessarily mean a positive public opinion is needed.
In fact, one of [...]
“I don’t like the word nice; it means No Inner Core Evident.”
That is a quote from one of creativity coach Eric Maisel’s podcasts titled “On Being Too Nice” in which the focus [as the description says] is on “the problem of self-censorship and how too many people, wanting to be ‘nice,’ fail to find the [...]
Let your light shine
Robert White writes:
One of the most powerful pieces of writing that I’ve ever seen is from Marianne Williamson’s book A Return to Love.
It was quoted by Nobel Prize–winner Nelson Mandela in his inaugural address, and perhaps you’ve heard it before.
I used a sentence from it when talking earlier about risking.
I keep the [...]
Rejected for excellence
Children with outstanding talents sometimes get rewards and acclaim, but many are overlooked, discounted or unsupported. Adults with exceptional talents can also live on the fringes of recognition and contribution to society, some by choice, but often on account of mainstream discomfort with outsiders.
Even those who are called eccentric may want to live [...]
Comfortable with being different
A new Los Angeles Times profile describes some of Barack Obama’s journey, including these excerpts:
As a scholarship student at Occidental College in Los Angeles in 1979, Obama faced assertions of identity everywhere: the Democrat/Socialist Alliance, Black Student Assn., Jewish Student Action Coalition, feminist support group, Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan.
It was here [...]
“Our aim is not only to make the child understand, and still less to force them to memorize, but so to touch their imagination as to enthuse them to their innermost core.”
- Maria Montessori (1870-1952)
In his article What is the Montessori Method?, Steve Olson enthuses about the approach and schools: “I have seen kids who [...]
Previous research has confirmed that a high IQ in childhood is not a guarantee for eminence or creative productivity (Terman, 1925). Researchers within gifted education assert that personality factors and motivation are the most important elements of creative achievement and distinguish creative producers from others.
Csikszentmihalyi writes, “The unifying similarity among geniuses and innovators is not [...]
