Originally Posted by indigo
Originally Posted by sunnyday
This goes back to the growth mindset work, which I think has been discussed here recently.

My favorite bit of anecdotal evidence is Richard Feynman, one of the greatest physicists of the 20th century, whose IQ was about a standard deviation above the mean (various reports say it was in the 120s), barely "gifted", and yet he drastically advanced understanding in his field and achieved very highly.

I teach my children that there are three factors to success in anything you do, be it sports or academics or career: natural talent, passion, and hard work. If you have all three, you can reach the highest levels; if you have any two, it's possible to be among the best -- but you won't get very far on just one.

I teach them that their natural talent in school-related stuff means that things come more quickly to them and they might need fewer repetitions to learn some things, but if their classmates are interested in those same subjects, they will get to the same level of achievement and make the same kinds of contributions, just maybe at a different pace. And in the meantime, it's up to my kids to realize that if things are coming easily, that means it's time for them to find more challenge so they can continue to put in hard work and grow.

I also like the distinction between high achievers, gifted learners, and creative thinkers (http://www.bertiekingore.com/high-gt-create.htm). There can be overlap between the three groups, but more often, they get conflated when they shouldn't be.
Agreed smile

Not disagreeing with the overall point, but I think one should note that this was not necessarily an accurate measure of his cognitive ability, as noted by Stephen Hsu in this Psych Today interview:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blo...hard-feynmans-low-iq-and-finding-another
In that era, it is likely that an individually-administered test would be an old Stanford-Binet, which was heavily loaded for verbal ability, and not so much for mathematical ability. If it was group-administered, it would be even more questionable in its ability to capture mathematical giftedness. You'll also notice that there appears to be some circumstantial evidence from Dr. Hsu's anecdotal reports that Feynman may have had a second exceptionality, such as dyslexia or dysgraphia, as he observed frequent errors in writing mechanics (spelling and punctuation) in his notebooks.

...pronounced like the long vowel and first letter of the alphabet...