Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Success factors

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.