Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Article: Which traits predict success?

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/03/what-is-success-true-grit/
"Instead, success in the real world depends on sustained performance, on being able to work hard at practice, and spend the weekend studying the playbook, and reviewing hours of game tape. Those are all versions of deliberate practice, and our ability to engage in such useful exercises largely depends on levels of grit."

Thanks for posting this. It's always good to be reminded that talent is only the starting point.

Preparedness is something the military taught me and was key along with training to ensure success.

My 6yr & 4yr old boys are learning training through their musical instruments as well as preparedness by doing homework up front instead of waiting until the last minute to ensure it gets done on time and is done correctly.

The Boston Globe had an article two years ago called, "The Truth About Grit". Unfortunately, it is not available for free anymore. But, it remains one of my favorite articles. As a mom of a child that is 2-E and one that is neuro-typical/ average, I am heartened that they can be successful due to their stick-to-it-ness, work ethic and goal setting. These are not things I taught them - but traits they inherited largely from my husband's family.

I like what inky says - talent is only the starting point.

Thanks for posting.

Being a member of the "sleepless elite" -- people who thrive on five to 6 hours a sleep a night -- may confer an edge, according to a WSJ article

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703712504576242701752957910.html
The Sleepless Elite: Why Some People Can Run on Little Sleep and Get So Much Done
by Melinda Beck
April 5, 2011

...

Out of every 100 people who believe they only need five or six hours of sleep a night, only about five people really do, Dr. Buysse says. The rest end up chronically sleep deprived, part of the one-third of U.S. adults who get less than the recommended seven hours of sleep per night, according to a report last month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

To date, only a handful of small studies have looked at short sleepers�in part because they're hard to find. They rarely go to sleep clinics and don't think they have a disorder.

A few studies have suggested that some short sleepers may have hypomania, a mild form of mania with racing thoughts and few inhibitions. "These people talk fast. They never stop. They're always on the up side of life," says Dr. Buysse. He was one of the authors of a 2001 study that had 12 confirmed short sleepers and 12 control subjects keep diaries and complete numerous questionnaires about their work, sleep and living habits.One survey dubbed "Attitude for Life" that was actually a test for hypomania. The natural short sleepers scored twice as high as the controls.

There is currently no way people can teach themselves to be short sleepers. Still, scientists hope that by studying short sleepers, they can better understand how the body regulates sleep and why sleep needs vary so much in humans.

...

Interesting, never heard of hypomania. Pretty much describes me, except I have learned to talk slower and stop once in a while. I am on the up side of life, have few inhibitions and my mind never stops. Don't know if I would call it racing thoughts.

Now, I am not sure if the hypomania is the reason I could never sleep before 2:30 AM for most of my life. What I do know, is my mind was most active between 11:00 PM and 2:30 AM. I would not consider myself a short sleeper though as the only reason I slept for such a short time was I had to get up early. It was my dream one day to know what it would be like to be able to sleep as much as I wanted.

Short sleeping may be a result of hypomania, but I don't think short sleeping is a cause of either hypomania, being gifted or success. I had a work colleage who decided he wanted to be smarter, so he decided to sleep only 2 hours a night. All that happened was he ended up very tired. We all got a good laugh out of it including him.

I think there are cases where short sleepers may end up being extremely successful in some way. However, I also expect some may run into a lot of problems in life. This is much like being gifted, it can be a gift and/or a curse.

These psychological studies which use the totals to determine the results are for the most part poor science. It is not the totals, but the shape of the graph which is important. This is the same as they used to do in the early what causes cancer studies. All they proved was any substance in overdose levels was likely to cause cancer. Some good scientists realized the error in these studies and many of them have been redone.

My husband who was in military intelligence years ago once told me that it wasn't just the training that made them successful but the fact that they trained in chaos. I think the ability to function well and improvise when things can't be planned is a trait that my son is developing while dealing with his invisible disabilities. Before he started getting frequent migraines, he competed in a spelling bee at the state level and seemed to enjoy spending hundreds of hours preparing for that. Chronic pain has slowed him down but I predict that his grit and determination will help him overcome the disabilities.

I talked to my uncle, a retired engineer, about how he managed to become an engineer when he had bad headaches and a difficult childhood. My uncle had to work to help support the family in high school, but he taught himself a lot of what he needed to know after work and school. His small town school didn't offer the higher level classes that he needed but he found that he could teach himself a lot of what he needed using library books. I got some unexpected encouragement for continuing homeschooling.

My stepson is highly gifted. I used to think high IQ alone was enough to predict success but my stepson does not seem to have the other necessary traits for success that the article mentions and he is barely able to support himself. I wish I knew how to help him.

My daughter, who was never tested but possibly moderately gifted, would definitely score highly on a test for social giftedness. It is the social giftedness that makes her very successful in sales. She is a very fast learner and made higher scores on tests than the people she was training with who happened to have marketing degrees. She does not have a degree, but she is planning to go back to college to get one. She is close to earning more money than my husband who has a degree and a job as a supervisor and retirement income.

An interesting essay by venture capitalist Paul Graham, "What We Look for in Founders", on the qualities of people who create successful web companies is at http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html . His list is

1. Determination
2. Flexibility
3. Imagination
4. Naughtiness
5. Friendship

The thing that interests me about the Spelling Bee example is that surely the results are biased by the fact that learning to visualise individual words on cards is, in my understanding, the gold standard of learning to spell a word? They aren't just working harder - they are working smarter. Someone who worked just as hard - however that is measured, say by hours alone in a room - but with a less useful approach might not do as well.

My first boyfriend - who if he disagreed with the dictionary was generally correct and would go to getting a bigger better dictionary to prove it - did more for my spelling than any of my prior schooling ever had and I was at university at this point. He insisted that good spellers have a visual check and I had to stop "hearing" the words and start looking at the shape of the word and knowing if it is right or not. My spelling has been steadily improving ever since.

And this gels nicely with the reading I have just been doing about visual-spatial learners and teaching them to spell. Which is all about teaching them to SEE the word as a picture.

I have also come to realise this "seeing the word" may be part of my DDs problem with spelling. She is learning to see her weekly spelling list as a LIST. So she will ace her spelling test and then spell the words incorrectly in her writing - because she didn't learn the words, she learned the list! She needs flashcards.

According to a New York Times article "Distilling the Wisdom of C.E.O.'s"
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/business/17excerpt.html based on a book "The Corner Office" by Adam Bryant, corporate success depends on

(1) passionate curiosity
(2) battle-hardened confidence
(3) team smarts
(4) a simple mind-set
(5) fearlessness

Maybe this is true, but in addition to retrospective studies, I would like to see prospective ones where people are rated on such qualities early in their careers and their success is tracked at regular intervals. I believe Terman did this.

Fearlessness can lead to great success or disaster. Even if the most successful people are fearless, it may not mean that everyone should be.