Discover their stories and visions to better understand your own.

21 gifted adults, from giftedness experts to those who are discovering how they operate differently, share their perspective. How do you recognise a Gifted Adult? What professional and personal advice is there for living well being neurodivergent? Dive into a multitude of constructive views on neurodiversity from France and the USA.

Gloria Jensen: A hunch on the subject of giftedness?
Emma-Claire Fierce: It may be confirmed later in life, but in reality it is visible very early on, and to ignore it is to lose time, but also life force. The only result is a ticking time bomb.

Gloria Jensen: What does being gifted mean to you?

John Thompson: Giftedness to me is a unique and extraordinary manifestation of intelligence with an unyielding desire to positively change the world at some level.

Gloria Jensen: What do you find personally to be the most difficult?

Nicole Tetreault: I feel that it can be a problem when we over-identify with the labels and roles that we think we are. When we rely too much on a label to describe ourselves, we can begin to minimize who we are and get stuck in roles that can interfere with our personal growth and development.

Gloria Jensen: The mistake not to make for a gifted person?

Gaétan Lecire: Shouting from the rooftops to be neurodivergent : “I’m a gifted, take care of my differences!”. I think you have to make yourself an actor and not present yourself as a ‘victim’ of your neurodivergence and its effects.

Gloria Jensen: What do you want to say to gifted adults?

Isabelle Pangault: Giftedness is a way of brain functioning. It does not determine who you are and what you can do. You are above all the result of your story, culture, joys and wounds. You have the choice of who you want to be.

Gloria Jensen: What does being gifted mean?

Matthieu Play: Being gifted is not about being right or having the truth, it is about being a ‘dissonance detector’. It’s feeling deeply when it sounds fake.

Gloria Jensen: What does being gifted mean to you?

Camille Cocaud: Human brains are like IKEA chairs. Everyone gets the same assembly plan, except for 2% of people. They receive a different plan, which makes their chair more efficient.

Gloria Jensen: What are the essential steps when discovering one’s giftedness ?

Thomas Fayon: Detecting, understanding and using your (profound) giftedness.

Gloria Jensen: What to do when you get bored quickly as a gifted person?

Tamara Laszlo: Don’t judge yourself when you already want to move on, but seek either to go deep (into another dimension, which restores depth: slowing down, feeling, for example); or fully allow yourself to change direction, and be at peace with giving up what had been started.

Gloria Jensen: What are the difficulties around Giftedness?

Michael Postma: Misdiagnosis, mis-understanding, lack of resources, lack of proper educational access, and as I stated early, the attempt to dumb down the intense nature of giftedness.

Gloria Jensen: What is being gifted?

Karina Degrez : Actually, giftedness does not define me.
I don’t associate giftedness (being profoundly gifted) with what I “AM” but rather with how I “FEEL” (a sensory functioning) and how I “THINK” (a cognitive functioning).
It is part of me. That is why I prefer to say I LIVE WITH giftedness.

Gloria Jensen: What phases have you gone through since the discovery of giftedness ?

Jean-Philippe Lecreux : After reading this book [about giftedness], I felt certainty, then doubt, because I thought I was less gifted than average. I had built up a false and negative image of myself. The term ‘gifted’ is so heavy that it is difficult to accept, especially when you doubt yourself (…).

Gloria Jensen: What would you like to highlight about Giftedness?

Elodie Crépel: The fact that giftedness is not a subject of psychology, but a social and anthropological subject above all. It is because there is a given norm that we question being neurodivergent. It is because there is a way of being/not being and of doing/not doing that the subject exists. Finally, the more one opens oneself up to difference, the less different it seems (or at least more than another difference, such as height, weight, skin colour, etc.).

Gloria Jensen: An inspiration from abroad to share about giftedness?

MaryGrace Stewart: Australia and other nations require gifted education on a national level. I think the United States needs to do the same. I believe that education should focus on the creative, mental and emotional development of each individual and as such, should not be age related but rather ability related.

Gloria Jensen: What irritates you in relation to giftedness?

Lionel Lesguer: The gender inequality in the world of giftedness infuriates me. “Your son is gifted”: it’s the father! No! No! The mother or grandmother can also be gifted. Intelligence does not only concern men.

Gloria Jensen: The remark that struck you the most in connection to giftedness?

Virginie Recoura: Actually, there is something incredible happening since my discovery. Things are happening naturally. I finally feel aligned. And when I bring up the subject with people close to me, they say, well yes, we knew you were gifted. It shows… you are able to do a lot of things in complex and unrelated areas. So I was surprised to see how people around me could perceive something exceptional in my daily life that seemed quite normal…

Gloria Jensen: What would you like to emphasize about Giftednessl?

Samuel Young: It’s important to be on the lookout for all kinds of gifts and to make sure you develop all kinds of talents. I would say that two of the most gifted people I know are mechanics who live in their own shop. They both have off-the-charts IQs, but they are underappreciated and were underserved by a flawed system in their childhood. Both men are more comfortable with motors than with other people. They literally wake up every day reading primary materials in their areas of interest. I joke that they eat primary documents for breakfast. These types of gifts are often underdeveloped and under-celebrated. This needs to change.

Gloria Jensen: How do you explain it to someone who has never heard of it?

“Gifted is the worst choice of word ever! It’s not a gift that you unwrap and treasure. It is not a one-size-fits-all that can be understood simply from the word. Rather, it is a unique wiring of the brain that must be nurtured, supported and explored for each individual. It impacts social relationships, cognitive functions and physical sensitivities. It persists throughout life, with strengths and challenges emerging along the way.