I remember some poster writing that she expected our children to be successful because they were gifted. Recently I was thinking of 2 people I know and was wondering on the difference of their individual success.

One, highly gifted, got himself to Princeton and is a physician in a pretty good, well paying specialty. The other is smart enough, got into medical school and is now the head (sorry to be oblique but he would be highly idenfiable) of an organ transplant thing at a name hospital center.

The first one struggles in his specialty and building his practice and his wife has to work as a physician, despite 3 kids to maintain their fairly modest lifestyle. No big travel or anything.

The second guy has rich people fly in from all over the world for his services and he gets paid cash from these people, gets free luxury trips for him and his family to their vacation homes. His wife never works, takes care of 4 kids and has a little sports car and they have a lovely vacation home at the ocean.

Being gifted does gets you into schools but does it give you ultimate success? That organ transplant guy is fairly decent looking, surfs (he does a child in college already) runs marathons. The highly gifted guy is not so atractive or fit.

Anyway, just thinking about what ultimately will give our kids a leg up as they pursue their passions and provide for a lifestyle they want?

Ren

Personally, I make a conscious decision to not be "too" successful.

I make a fairly decent living, but I chose not to move up the corporate ladder because I enjoy a work/life balance.

I spend most of my 20s studying day and night to get to where I am now, and I was under great pressure to perform.

Am I world-renowned? No, but I am happy with my relatively stress-free life.

Our intelligences give us a ceiling as to how far we can go, but that doesn�t mean we have to go to the ceiling to be happy.

You seem to define success as depending heavily on money. I think I would (personally) be happier as a physician, working for myself, than as a businessperson in charge of an organ-transplant business unit.

To me, success doesn't just depend on money. Happiness counts too, and one component of happiness is doing something that one enjoys-- and for me, at least, there's a big component of that that depends on exerting mastery. In any event there are a lot of people who make conscious choices to make less money because they will be happier that way.

Some people love working for themselves instead of having a boss, for instance. Building a practice, for a solo practitioner professional, often takes some time. I wouldn't call your # 1 example unsuccessful or less successful because of that. Perhaps if he had set his sights on becoming another schmoozing business guy, he would have done even better than # 2.

I also think that we could cherry-pick plenty of examples to support the idea that high intelligence is not necessary for success. Examples abound in the sports world. That doesn't mean that high intelligence is not generally an advantage in thinking about any definition of success.

Of course, high IQ people can fail like anyone else (well, maybe more spectacularly). I would never expect someone to be successful based on their IQ, even if they weren't known to have any mental or other problems.

You haven't given any information on how successful these people are. Are they happy, do they enjoy what they do? Are their families happy?

So you're painting the first guy as less successful than the second? To me that doesn't follow at all - you haven't given us the information that would let us deduce that from what you say. The first guy may be much happier and more fulfilled than the second, for all we know.

I'm certainly not the only one here who's stepped off a ladder leading to riches in order to step onto a place that seemed likely to offer me greater satisfaction. I'll never be rich, but I'm confident I've made the right choice. In fact, come to think of it, both my DH and I have made choices not to take/stay in a job that would have enabled us to have the kind of life where only one of us works. Even within it, we've chosen not to be maximally successful, in order to maintain work/life balance - DH's life-threatening illness a few years ago marvellously focused our minds on what's important.

If other things could be equal, I could wish I earned more money; I wish I could be completely free of cost considerations in thinking about my DS's education, for example. Other things can't be equal, however, and I don't see another career choice I could have made that would have been better. A higher LOG wouldn't have opened more options to me, either [ETA neither would anything I or my parents could have done differently, unless it had left me interested in career choices that, as it is, don't appeal]; all the choices I was ever interested in have been open to me. I suppose a higher LOG might enable me to accomplish more in the same amount of time, but tbh, it's not my LOG that's the limiting factor anyway; that's my sticktoitiveness, confidence, ability to persist with hard problems without sliding off and finding myself reading websites instead ;-)

So no prizes for guessing what I think's important to give our children to ensure their success:

- a clear sense of self: feeling empowered to make choices that will satisfy them, whether or not it's what someone else thinks they should do;

- familiarity with the process of trying, failing, trying some more, succeeding, so that that process feels normal.

Interesting questions, thanks for asking them!

Plastic surgery?

It creeps me out that rich people are paying cash and offering up vacation homes for organ transplants. That sounds shady and personally I can't imagine feeling happy that my good fortunate was based on the kidney disease of a rich person who would give me space in their vacation home.

So, in other words, I don't think there can be a single answer to your question Ren. There is not a universal definition of success or happiness. Are you assuming your kids will have the same definition of happiness as you do?

OK, first, they are both physicians. The kids in both families are good kids. Really polite, good kids. The kids from the organ transplant surgeon get to travel all over the world, spend their summers on the ocean and the oldest is now at an IVY.

The second, the wife, also a physician, would like to not work and spend more time with the 3 kids, who have 2 nannies, juggling schedules. She complains that she really doesn't want to work but the husband says she has to for monetary reasons.

I am quite sure the first is not loaded with debt. He is with one of the top universities in the country. I look at it as he is a skilled surgeon, but so is my brother in law. This is more about manuevering, even in medicine. I expect it in investment banking but this is medicine. I talk to DH about it, he had a pretty good private practice and said the schmooze factor is big, even in medicine.

Passthepotatoes, can you say anything to me without judgement? I never once said happiness. Give it a break.

Ren

Ok, there you have one answer. Save up your money so that your kids can attend the Ivy.

I couldn't (even though I was admitted) because of lack of family funds and significant family income (no financial aid).

Happiness is a central part of my definition of success. I'm not clear what is threatening about that word, I'm thinking many parents think about factors like feeling personally fulfilled, happy in relationships, satisfied in work, etc. when they think of success for their kids. Their kids may or may not have the same ideas. Some people care more about great vacations pr material wealth than other people. I can say that for me personally being a person who does organ donations for rich people who can pay in cash and will give me access to their vacation homes, wouldn't be the road to happiness.

To me, success IS happiness. And I think what high-ability gives you is lots of choices. What choices you make depend on so many factors that it is impossible to set someone up for "success" if your idea of success is not their idea of success. And, just because we raise our kids in the shadow of our own choices does not mean that our kids will have the same idea of success that we do. Or, even if they do, that their path to success is the path that we would want to lead them to. I think the best you can do to "give our kids a leg up as they pursue their passions and provide for a lifestyle they want" is to provide them with love, confidence, a good work ethic, and exposure to the options out there for them.

I, like others seem to, have a problem with equating success with work and financial success. I could have chosen (and still can) any career, but my success is in raising my children and volunteering at their schools. My husband's success if working as a more rural physician so he can, in part, spend a lot of time with family. High falutin' careers, no. But a hugely successful life, yes.

Hey, if you are more intelligent than 99% of everyone else, you're going to feel bad until you arrive in the 99th percentile for wealth and material success.

Just like school. Unless you're #1, you are going to feel like a complete failure.

I think I read somewhere that once your IQ is above 120 or so, you're pretty much "smart enough" for any career path, and the correlation between IQ and success begins to break down. Other factors become very important, such as drive, risk aversion, ethics, luck, etc. And of course, a sample size of two is much too small to read anything into.

Ditto what others have said. Intelligence gives you the ability to properly assess your options in light of your own individual values and circumstances.

It illustrates the need to pick the right medical specialtiy.

One of the samples apparently didn't pick radiation oncology. Always a bad move.

This is some thread. It seems a bit high jacked.

I think the point is she is asking "what makes a person successful?"

Getting along with others and managing well is what helps a person be successful. It helps to be smart, hard working and have good ethics are also important.

Why does anyone get to the top of the totem pole like that? It seems to me that some of the characteristics of gifted adults are also characteristics that can make it hard to "play the game" and get to the top. It seems like several people in this thread dropped out of the rat race for financial and outward success in order to create the lives that they wanted, even if they were not very impressive, perhaps, to others.

I am not sure what the highly gifted guy's issue is. Maybe they really do need the money. Maybe they need her income to cover their costs because they live beyond their means (even if it doesn't seem that way to you?)

Maybe the highly gifted guy is tight with their money and wants to build savings. Maybe he doesn't enjoy the business end of things and isn't great at it. Maybe he is disenchanted with his career. 2 nannies certainly cost money to keep.

My husband is currently temporarily engaged in a decent paying blue collar type job. Well, well paying for blue collar, but high enough for me to be able to stay home with our child, because we live beneath our means. If that guy wanted to make it work, trust me, he could.

As far as success is concerned, I believe our earning power is pretty high and our income is going to continue to grow over time. We just bought our home and purposely chose a modest little neighborhood full of friendly middle class neighbors. Some have college degrees, many probably don't. We had a choice between a more "upscale" neighborhood, full of fancy cars and people who seemed to be enjoying financial success and the one we ultimately chose. We didn't like the focus on material things (and the fact that when we rented in the upscale neighborhood we noticed neighbors were not neighborly.) Our home is "just enough" for us, and we will eventually spend our extra money and time pursuing things that interest us. We have some happy dreams to that end...

"Being gifted does gets you into schools but does it give you ultimate success?"
No way! Obviously success means different things to different people, but being gifted and going to the right schools definitely isn't a guarantee for success.


Anyway, just thinking about what ultimately will give our kids a leg up as they pursue their passions and provide for a lifestyle they want?

I have thought about this, because sometimes I wonder what I could have achieved with the right start in life. If that Outliers book is at all accurate, it would seem that many successful people just have the right things happen for them at the right time.

However, here are some things I think are necessary for success (and happiness) and that I want to give to my potentially gifted kid(s):

*They need to be challenged and really learn and understand that when they work hard, they get better and succeed at things. This is the most important point. If you get this right, all the advantages gifted kids might enjoy can be put to good use and not wasted. You can't just coast, you can't just expect your brains to get you by, and you don't give up when most other people give up. "Persevering past the point when most people would have given up is the key to success." - Me lol.
(I think your wealthy guy knows this. He has WORKED HARD to have that fit body and complete those marathons. Most people would never get to that point.)
*Their strengths / interests should be nurtured, so they can grow into passions.
*Their emotions should be validated, so that they can learn to trust themselves and their view of who they are in the world. If they have confidence in who they are, it will be a lot easier for them to choose the right path.
*They shouldn't have to waste their entire childhood stuck in a classroom or other place that ignores their true needs. It is too many years.
*They should choose goals and careers based on what they really love and what their ideal life would look like. Of course, their goals and priorities might change when they get married and have kids...

If they don't know and trust themselves, if they don't know how to work hard to get over difficult humps, if they haven't nurtured their interests and such over the years - Well, when the time comes to succeed in "real life", I think they'll have catching up to do that will set them back.


EDIT:
If they do learn the lessons outlined, I think it will open the way for whatever they want to do. They can work hard and try to get into a top college. They can try to become professional musicians. They can start their own business or go to college aiming for law school. It doesn't matter, because they will have the skills necessary to do what they want to do.

I recently showed my students a graph from Pew poll of Americans in general on this topic. Let's see if I can find that again...

"While Americans value college, they value character even more. Asked what it takes for a young person to succeed in the world, 61% say a good work ethic is extremely important and 57% say the same about knowing how to get along with people. Just 42% say the same about a college education."

Seems like 43% cited on-the-job training.

Whoops! Here's that website:

http://pewsocialtrends.org/files/2011/05/Is-College-Worth-It.pdf

I think there are some interesting ideas here. One thing I was thinking about when I wrote that all the kids were good, nice kids, is the oldest son of the organ guy. He is now about 16, cool surfer dude. This kid, even when early teen, never forgot to acknowledge DD, we are talking when she was 3 or 4, say hello and ask how she was doing. How many young teens do you know do this? This shows a real sense of confidence.

This is difference between the kids. The confidence factor.

I acknowledge this is a sample of 2 but I do this internal analysis about everything and I thought I would share it with you guys, as many are similar dissecting situations.

I do try and give DD work ethic, the best I know how but I also try and give her the confidence factor. When we were in Egypt in April and in the market, I was demonstrating my bargaining technique and how you set your price and walk away. Each time the guy the came running after me. A little thing but something I remember my father teaching me. And as a kid I would be embarrassed that he didn't pay up, when buying a car, but I got the lesson. I remember getting the call that night at home and the deal was done at my father's price. A little thing but that is all I have at the moment.

Confidence factor. Maybe part of the work ethnic, maybe something more.

Maybe some of that is hard to teach in a world of bullys. I don't know.

Ren

Debt avoidnace is pretty important. You don't want to end up out of school with $250,000 in debt and only a $60,000 a year job.

That's not good.

There are so many internal and external factors that contribute to one�s success and/or happiness, and I believe that many parents underestimate the influence they have on these factors. As a mother I can contribute to forming the internal factors that I believe will be important to my children�s future success and happiness. Self-motivation, self-esteem, emotional stability, positive and realistic world view, and ability to form interpersonal relationships are qualities that I would like my children to have. Many of the external factors I believe are connected to one�s cultural and social capital. This is where our understanding of what is needed to succeed in current educational system comes in and we can help our children to develop skills and knowledge so that they can be successful academically. We also have numerous ways of contributing to our children�s social capital. This may include guiding them in career selection and helping them in college selection process.
Have your read Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers?

Yes, read Outliers. His view was when you were born was a big factor for opportunities.

Though I think that as parents we can also limit our children by our worldview. My parents were European, came over after the war, my father was able to study in England as a vet and then come to Canada as a British subject. My mother came over and had to redo some of her education, do a quick study of English in order to practice in Canada. They met there.

Since they lost everything and only had their education, that was their mantra and because science was a practical and secure thing, medicine for my mother and engineering for my father, those are the things they pushed, believing they provided secure jobs. I took engineering but as an Outlier was in the right place at the right time and got a job as a research analyst at Merrill Lynch, beating out MBAs. The kind of job my parents, and as a result me, didn't know existed but fell into my lap.

I do not know what DD will choose. But I try not to limit her view on what the possibilities could be. Sometimes that is hard to do from where we are ourselves.

Ren

Different times have different opportunities, and it's to be expected that it won't be obvious to us as parents of smallish children what the opportunities will be for them - maybe they've been born in just the right time and place for something, but we're unaware of it. (Sometimes one can guess. DS the other day said something the other day about wanting to design tiny machines to do things inside people's bodies to help make them well. I don't know whether he'll be a nano-machines-for-health pioneer, but I do think it quite likely that there are people around his age now who will be, and I do think his emerging skillset might suit him well for that role, so I let him know that I thought this was a very promising avenue to think about following!) I think you're right that we have to try hard not to limit our children's views of what's possible, but since they naturally care what we think it's hard!

I also think that it's really common for children of parents who have been through hard economic times, and come out the other side, to grow up automatically valuing material success more than most people do - sometimes even more than the parents who went through the experience. It's scary as a child to know that your parents are, or were at one point, struggling financially. It's much easier to deprioritise wealth if you've never known anything other than a financially steady (even if not wealthy) existence.

self acceptance, serenity with any choice, living at peace with yourself and the world, compassion, internally directed motivations.

But, my IQ is only 130, so maybe I don't qualify.

What's going to happen is More Successful Doctor/Businessman is going to retain his position because he's paid by wealthy people.

Less Successful Doctor is going to suffer the loss of income, sliding further away from More Successful Doctor because he's paid by Medicare/Medicaid/Private Insurance.

The only one of these that I have is compassion. I pretty much have to when I deal with disabled/dying/homeless people.

I didn't even understand what an "internally directed motivation" was until about a year ago.

I totally disagree with this. I know a lot of 99th% people in terms of IQ, very few of whom are in the 99th percentile for wealth. (I think I know exactly one person who fits both descriptions--and she is not that happy, IMO.) While some of them may not be totally satisfied with their lives, certainly many don't feel bad about themselves at all.

My comment wasn't meant to be that serious, just a representation of the hypercompetitive mindset more than anything else.

It's pretty hard to get to 99th percentile in wealth because a number of environmental factors come into play, some of which function as brick walls - such as picking a career track that guarantees that you will basically spend everything you earn.

Success is like beauty (in the eye of beholder). Really beautiful/successful people are easy to spot but as long as you are happy with who you are, who cares what others think.

As parents, we all want our kids to be successful (rich, famous, etc..) There are many HG kids who falter in the real world because of personality issues and who are profoundly successful (like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, etc..)

Success depends on the hardwork, dedication, social skills beside IQ and choices that you make in life. If the 1st doctor chose organ transplant/neurosurgery/invasive cardiology specialty (when he pick his residency), he could make 1 mil/yr like the other doc. But if he chose the specialty that he enjoys, I am sure he is happy going to work everyday. I would say that he is successful himself too. But if he wants the other guy's pay, then he is a failure within himself.

The same goes with the organ transplant doc. If he wants Bill Gates money, he is a failure (in his soul).

Money can't buy happiness but it helps you opportunity to have happiness (ability to go vacation, eat at favorite restaurants, etc..) and you can find happiness unrelated to money and success (material).

I have a secretary who had a online college degree (at 50 yrs old) and she believes she is successful because she is the 1st one in her family to graduate college. She makes about 40k and she is content with her life (livng in a modest home and drives a modest car). She did not balme her parents that she couldn't go to college after high school because they couldn't afford it. She worked soon after high school, got married, had kids and divorced. She is at peace with turn of events in her life.

A nurse who works for me makes about 80k. She drives a nice car and lives in a nice house but always complained about how high the mortage and car loan payments are. She wants to keep up with the Joneses and she is practically living pay check to pay check.

I want my kids to be scientists, innovators or CEOs of fortune 500 companies one day. But if they are not interested and pursue their dreams, I will teach them to be happy. If they find their balance in life, that will be my success (at least in my soul) in raising my kids.

May you all find success!

2% of the global population is much more than 2% of the United States. If Business Doc is already attracting foreign cash, he's going to continue to be in demand even as the U.S. fiscal position deteriorates in the coming soverign debt fiasco and much of wealth and prestige of Doctorland is blasted to pieces.

And there's a difference between Standard Med and Help Me Save Me Now Med, see cardiac surgery, radiation oncology, and our friend Business transplant doc, etc...people with money (and current insurance) who need their lives saved.

Now, what *could* blow a hole in Business Doc's life would be grow-your-own organs, but I bet you that Business Doc is already on top of that trend and ready to capitalize.

Organ transplant guy does get insurance but if some rich Chinese or Greek guy comes in and pays you 50K, and you get a few of those, it makes a difference in a guy who makes 300K from insurance.

Not Bill Gates kind of money but a big differnce from a specialist trying to build a practice and making 250K and stuck there.

Ren

I don't agree with this either. I don't care if my kids are rich, and I feel quite ambivalent about the idea of them being famous (fame isn't all it's cracked up to be, IMO).

My main hope is that they will be happy and fulfilled. I would also hope that they won't have to be really seriously worried about money, but mainly that means I really hope they can have decent healthcare and not get into serious debt.

The best way to do this is to save 50% of your gross income and stay as healthy as possible.

I think that $250K doc would probably do much better if he was saving $125K a year. Then he would have a cushion and probably feel better.

I agree. I was involved with the music industry for awhile and I chose to leave and get away from it. I don't know what I'll do if DD ends up being talented and interested in acting, singing, or dancing. I wish someone had supported my love of singing early on, but now that I see what the industry is like, maybe I am better off for it...

Well, 50% seems a bit steep!...however, I certainly hope to teach them to live within/below their means, as we do. I do think that's a component of happiness and security, regardless of actual income.

Have you tried using a retirement calculator recently?

Everything in the world is returning 2%!

Except stocks. They're at about 0% long-term now.

So, long term economic and regulatory projections are necessary to achieve material and/or career success.

Don't aim for where the ball is. Aim for where it's going.

I would agree that saving 50% of income above that needed to obtain decent food, clothing, and shelter is probably wise advice. I think it would be cruel and totally unreasonable to tell someone in the US making $15000 a year (full-time work at the Federal minimum wage) that he or she should be able to save $7500 a year.

I was thinking more in the context of the numbers in this post. $80K - $400K plus.

Not poverty line. I would expect people at that level to run chronic deficits and experience periodic bankruptcy, which is part of the modern American experience. This is based on what I see with my clients, who normally have negative net worth, no job, and often no healthcare.

Such an interesting topic.

As a radiation oncologist....and by Jon's comments, one of the "successful" people, I thought I should give my 2 cents.

Success most certainly cannot and should not be defined by how much money you make.....at least not for everyone. Obviously, to many people in the United States, success is defined by material wealth. As emphasized in the preceeding posts, each individual, however, has his/her own measure of success. In my opinion, success should be defined as having the means available to achieve one's individual measure of success.

I, for one, have conciously chosen to work part-time and make half the money as my full-time colleagues. I feel that I would actually be less successful if I worked full time. I say this because my definition of success includes building relationships with my friends and family, raising strong and confident children, having a career that I truly love (and that I'm not totally burned out on), contributing to my communtiy through volunteer work, and having time to to travel and pursue my other interests. I don't define success by the size of my house or the type of car I drive.

So what does all of this have to do with giftedness?

I think giftedness opens doors so that more choices are available, but it does not necessarily mean that you will make all the "right" choices to obtain your particular definition of success.

Do I think my gifted children have a better chance of being successful than "average" chidren? Yes. Do I think that success is guaranteed? Absolutely not. Do I think that it is possible for an average intelligence person to be more successful than an gifted person? Most certainly.

Do I think that the "gifted" physician in your initial post is successful? Maybe. He may consider himself successful even though he is working his *** off, lives at the hospital and barely makes any money. He may consider himself successful because he loves his job and he loves his patients and no trip to Aruba or anywhere else in the world can compare to the feeling he gets when he is able to help someone that otherwise would be suffering. I wonder what the world would be like if more people defined this as success?

Perplexed, that was very beautifully said.

Great post, perplexed. I was trying to come up with something like this, too: "...success should be defined as having the means available to achieve one's individual measure of success." I want my kids to be able to do what they want to do. For at least one of them (my DD is very driven and ambitious--DS remains a bit more of a mystery) that may mean getting her the best education possible. That might look like I'm pushing her towards wealth and conventional achievement, but IMO it's more a question of giving her tools.

as for this:


There's a big expanse in between minimum wage and $80,000/year--most of America lives in it, in fact.

And at the minimum wage, it's virtually impoosible to succeed.

In fact, according to my brother-in-law psychiatrist, it's almost impossible to avoid mental health problems at that level of income.

No problem. It was only recenlty that I realized that I should have probably gone into radiation oncology.

I didn't even realize that DoctorWorld had social castes, either, until I started dealing with disability law. I was recenlty talking to a cardiologist who was complaining about how little money the GPs in his practice bring in and how his group (cardiology) are the ones who actually support the practice, whereas the GPs are financially worthless.

My family avoided interacting with the physicians in our family (uncle, cousin). I think my immediate family was embarassed by their own relative poverty.

I know I started this thread but I am a little amused at the tangent it has taken. First. Having looked at our own finances recently to make a long term plan. I could live really well in MI, or IA. But if I choose to stay in NYC, it takes a different kind of cash flow.

Also, if I live in NYC, and then want to have a home at the ocean, it could be in the Hamptoms at ridiculous cost of several million or try a more reasonable approach at the Jersey shore. Still, these things cost more money than a cottage in MI. I am just using MI as an example to make my point.

So whether someone makes 80K or 400K, the cash flow required to maintain a standard of living, even in a modest enough house for the family, depends on where you live.

As much as we think we are imbuing our children with these wonderful values we have posted about, how many of our children are doing exactly as we want. I wanted NYC, I love NYC, I fit in NYC. My brother is totally happy in the midwest, with a nice house on Lake Huron, goes fishing and doesn't worry if his passport is valid. Two kids, 2 years apart. A friend once told me that she would never have put us in the same room let alone in the same family.

The point being, our children may want to buy a Porsche or a Honda civic. Those are choices they will make when they are old enough. My point is what can I give my child so that if she really, really wants that Porsche, she has the options to pursue that life.

During my 20s, I spent my life traveling first class and staying in the best hotels in the world. It was fun. I spent a lot of money on my clothes and went to ridiculous parties.

I drive a Honda Element now because it is totally plastic inside and I can vaccum it in 15 minutes. I have child and dog and spend summers at the beach, that is a priority. But when I went to Egypt in April, I bought 2 rugs. Because I wanted to. I have that option.

To make sure my kid has that option, to give her kids the summers at the beach, the travel, the lessons, the time with them, means a career that gives her choices. She could choose to live in MI and require less cash flow, but I will not be making those choices for her. She gets to make them when she is grown. Hence, what tools do I give her to be able to make those choices?

And why I went with confidence as one of those tools. Then we went on the tangent of how much anyone person should save.

Ren

You mirrored my feelings 100% with this ColinsMum, and said it so beautifully too!

I guess you could use religion, politics, and peer pressure to guide youngsters into a future social circle. �That's common. �You could do some reflection about what money and reputation mean to you so that you're ready to share that part of your beliefs with your kids. �More practically I would think that if your kids were accustomed to a lifestyle and you modeled consistency and discipline then they'll be drawn to that later. �Is that what you want to hear,? Because I feel it's probably mostly true, although I know a few friends and probably you do to who fell into a lower quality of life than what their parents left them as a legacy. �The only thing you can do is maybe fund annuity trusts and hope they're smarter than to need them?�There are no guarantees. �I think I'll just do my best while they are young and trust them more with their own life as they get older. � Wren, I love how you try to brainstorm to see if you're missing giving your kid something because they only have one childhood, one life, and one future. �Even though we all have different ideas of perfection it's nice to ask and to think about it.

ETA: I just got some books from my grandfather's library including "making people productive", granted it's a business book and not a child-raising book but maybe you could read some books like that and see if it makes you feel better. �Leadership is leadership. �If you learn it you can teach it to your babies. �That's the difference between the two jobs you posted, one's a worker and one's the head of a..

Family connections help. There's nothing quite like being handed a job because you family knows someone and they feel like giving you a job. That was my last job.

Also, the right school works. My first job out of law school was basically handed to me because of where I went. That was nice. Credentialsim works. It helped me get my current job, too.

Also, you can fund your children direcly so they can buy as much stuff as they want.

Well, what tools did you have to be able to do all those things? I haven't left the country yet. You probably know the answer better than some of us...

What I take away from this thread (and already knew) is that intelligence is just one factor in worldly success. That doesn't change the fact that great talent enables achievements that most can only dream about, and which are valuable in different ways from things rewarded by money, Audis and vacations abroad. There is no perfect mapping of intellectual achievement to the monetary value system imposed by society, and many great thinkers have failed to be properly appreciated in their own time. Thus I see these repetitive musings on the nature of worldly success as tangential at best to discussions of intelligence.

Good question. The only things I can think of is desire and luck, and the willingness to try. The biggest comment I get on my talent is that I can "make it happen". Which means I do not take no well. I refuse to take no well. Not sure if that just means I want what I want or what.

Ren

Well Wren, I certainly have one child that wants what she wants when she wants it, has since birth, and generally she is a force to be reckoned with.

I haven't traveled around the world or anything (though I really want to... we were going to Europe before I found out I was pregnant.)

But I've also wondered why I did things none of my peers did. (Like getting fairly far in my music career, which was my main goal as a teen.) and I decided it was just my willingness to try and persist. Isn't one of the characteristics of giftedness persistence?

I just found that when I got near the "top", already having self-discipline and being able to work hard to get better at something would have helped me a lot. I definitely haven't been influenced by any Puritan ideals, either. I've only my own experience to go by. The vast majority of people (at least that I've met) will quit something whenever it gets too rough.

If you can keep a child loving a challenge and working hard at something without them feeling like they "must be dumb" because they need to work at it, I'd say your child would have a huge advantage over a lot of other people.

(Just think of all the divorces, obesity, people who hate their jobs but don't want to do the initial work to start their own business, etc.)

Did self-discipline or the ability to work hard and not quit help you to be successful? Persistence and other things might show up with giftedness, but I don't think self-discipline and the willingness to work through difficulty are necessarily inborn traits. Someone with an average IQ could likely accomplish quite a lot if they had those traits.

I think extreme stubbornness is one hallmark of talent. So can be great flexibility.

This is making me think of the experiment with kids and marshmallows. Have we discussed this here before? Fascinating stuff. FTR, I did the experiment with my kid (intense, often difficult, VERY FOCUSED when she wants something) and she passed with flying colors.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/18/090518fa_fact_lehrer

At one time I wanted to write a children's article on that psychologist. I must have the beginnings of that draft somewhere.

Willing to delay gratification is a good one but how many gifted people really apply that to their lives? Not all gifted people are well fit and healthy eaters as adults.

And I do not think persistence is linked to giftedness. I think it is nurtured. Just like discipline or being able to delay gratification.

Which means that being gifted is like a lucky break but in no measure guarantees any kind of success.

Thanks for all the input everyone.

Ren

The fact that something can be nurtured does not mean it is not linked to giftedness. If you'd like to explore the topic further, here are a couple of links:

http://www.google.com/#tbm=bks&tbo=1&q=("Persistence")+(gifted+OR+giftedness)
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%28%22Persistence%22%29+%28gifted+OR+giftedness%29&nfpr=1

I did google persistence and gifted and did not see a "nature" link, it appeared to be nutured. In fact there were several things that came up and mentioned teaching persistence to gifted children.

Ren

It's not a "lucky break".

It's a feature of a particular person that provides a wider range of outcomes because the circle of potential is larger.

Some outcomes are much more positive or "successful".

Some outcomes are much more negative. See World History for further details.

When very young children show persistence as a trait, it's probably at least part of their nature. Again, the fact that you can find a reference to something being taught does not mean that there is no link to giftedness; there are scads of references, some of which come up in those starter searches, showing that there are indeed links between persistence and giftedness.

A sample that literally took me less than five seconds to pull up, from one of the starting links I gave you:
http://gcq.sagepub.com/content/31/2/70.short
"Gifted students showed more persistence in regard to the difficult task than EMR students and also chose more often to repeat the difficult task."

When my daughter was a baby (in the age 1 range), she found a duck puzzle in the toy box. You had to fit four pieces together to make the duck. She sat down with it and struggled to put it together. Some people here may have observed that the idea of turning a puzzle piece to make it fit isn't always obvious to a young child, and many (most?) kids have to learn how to do this. She was getting stuck on this point. I didn't help her --- we used to call her "By-myself baby."

Anyway, she was struggling to do the puzzle for a while. It got to a point where I was worrying that she was going to throw it across the floor and start crying. Instead, she kept at it quietly and eventually put it together. I breathed a sigh of relief, happy that it was done.

Then. . .she dumped it out onto the floor and started all over again. She did that puzzle again and again until it was trivial for her.

You can't teach a baby to be persistent in this kind of situation. This was 100% internal drive. She continues to display this trait to this day (she's nearly 7). It doesn't surface in every situation, but when it does, she really tries. We encourage her, but the drive primarily comes from her. So in her case, there is way more nature at work. (YMMV)

Val, my daughter is also very much like that. More so than her intelligence, I think this is the trait that is going to get her places. It astounds me to watch because, frankly, I am not like that and neither is my husband. It's really rather beautiful (and at the same time, this intense persistence makes her a major challenge to parent). It's also a big part of why we moved her to a gifted school. She isn't just smart. A lot of kids in our circle are smart. She is driven. It's especially humbling to watch when it applies to things at which she is not naturally good--riding her bike and learning to swim come to mind. These skills took her a WHILE, but goddamn it she was GOING to DO it. She would cry and rage but she would get back on that bike.

My son is probably more driven than the average bear, too, but definitely not like she is, and I wonder how it will all play out.

I think persistence is a very important skill for children (and adults) to have. There are kids who are just very good at persisting in the face of failure, but that is a skill that can be developed and learned.
My husband and I both volunteered last year in my son's second grade public school- I did math and he did reading. (Our public school is ranked in the top 10% of California schools; high income, high-achieving). Several kids would say to us when we tried to get them to do the little worksheets or write sentences, "I can't do it." At one point, my husband sat down with this little boy and said, "yes, you can. You can write your name!" This went on for awhile, and usually the boy would do the work. We thought, as did the teacher, that this boy and several others weren't dumb; they just weren't able to hunker down and get it done.
Not surprisingly, I guess, that boy and the others who couldn't persist as the work got harder were invited to do voluntary summer school at our school. Some kids in the class were not any smarter, but they somehow had developed skills where they could persist until they got done what they needed to do.
I think having your child do sports or a musical instrument, for example, can be good ways for them to learn persistence in the face of failure. My son is hearing impaired and extremely bright- I have always told him that he might have to work harder than the other kids to keep up, if he doesn't hear at the same level, and he has been able to (usually!) do that.

I talk to my kids about learning to channel their stubbornness (I am still learning this skill, but I'm at least better than they are). My husband is pretty good at it.