Are You Gifted?
Gifted people, children and adults, often don’t do well in school or in regular mainstream. Research on school dropouts traditionally reported that some 30% of high school dropouts were in fact Gifted. Gifted dropouts become distraught with the mechanics of conforming to expectations and find school very boring and not challenging. Many Gifted Students graduate with poor grades reflecting their inability to be able to fit in. Grades are a poor predictor of ability and later life success.
A recent article in Market Watch, www.marketwatch.com, provides some insight into the habits of Gifted Entrepreneurs-Billionaires. If you or your child has been diagnosed with ADHD or ADHD-Gifted Potential, see if some of these habits fit your life:
They get up early, often as early as 5 or 4 in the morning. Richard Branson is an example of that. Needing less sleep than most seems to be a habit of successful people. We know this to be the case of many of us with ADHD.
They do cardiovascular exercise daily to sharpen their brain. Mark Cuban is reported to exercise 6/7 days a week and reports it improves his attention span and allows him to multi-task by ignoring distractions. We know from the research that this is a fact for those of us with ADHD -- research supports this as does our experience with www.exercisemd.ca.
They don’t like wearing different clothes. Mark Zuckerberg is reported to wear the same t-shirt, pants, and hoody every day. Ever have your ADHD child refuse to change their clothes because of the way the clothes feel, or the tag is bothering them? Hypersensitivity to physical and auditory stimuli is a trait of different types of ADHD and some Gifted adults. Let your child wear the same clothes if they must.
They read a lot. Now this often isn’t identified as a trait for ADHD, but is for those with the Gifted Profile. It has to do with the insatiable appetite to learn new things and consume them at levels well above “normal” people. I’ve had a number of children in my office who got in trouble because they were caught reading a novel in grade 3 math class for example, only to have our testing later confirm their Gifted potential. Bill Gates reads 50+ books a year.
Being Gifted means you have ability, task commitment (work ethic) and creativity in what you do. For those that demonstrate their gifts by using their minds, patterns are emerging. It is no surprise that ADHD-Gifted profiles may be over-represented in this select group of successful adults. Does this fit your profile?
With regard to reading, make sure you encourage your adult child or teen to read the blogs at www.mrmoneymustache.com. At a time when young adults feel that there is no hope for them, financially this expert provides hope and a clear path to financial success. He believes that anyone can retire at the age of 30 if they engage in 10 years of saving and delaying wasteful spending. Get started reading on his free web site today.
