An unusual date: More than 1000 people – all with amazing IQs – meet in Duisburg. There is brain food, exchanges, lectures. What is clear here is that being gifted can also be a burden.
Over coffee we exchange ideas about astrophysics and philosophy. Before the lecture about radioactivity or Korean writing, there is still time for a 1000-piece puzzle. And on the sidelines of a mine tour you can chat about IT issues or wind power. When more than 1,000 highly gifted people with an astonishing IQ of at least 130 come together, the conversation and seminar topics are broad and intellectually demanding.
“We can’t do small talk, we’re always looking for depth and we like to talk about several topics at the same time,” says Claus Melder from the cafeteria board. The Mensa association, with around 16,000 members the largest network for gifted people in the country, organized the meeting in Duisburg.
The group of participants – from all over Germany and German-speaking countries – is colorful. Siefke Lüers says: “Everything runs by itself for me, that’s how it was at school and university and that’s how it is at work.” With an IQ of 145, the entrepreneur who came from Munich is extremely talented.
According to Mensa information, around two percent of the population are highly gifted with an IQ of at least 130. Above 145, people are considered to be highly gifted. Most people have an intelligence quotient of 100.
“Everything I’ve ever tackled naively has worked,” says Lüers, relaxed and self-confident. “I didn’t have an academic environment, I come from a farm and don’t like to surround myself with academics.”
His partner Sabine Lettenmeyer admits with a smile: “He has enormous knowledge and can argue well, so I’m already reaching my limits.” And: “He is very competent socially. You can’t say that in all cases.”
Giftedness can also be ballast and a burden
In fact, it quickly becomes clear that being highly gifted is not the same as living a life in carefree, high-flyer mode. It can also be associated with many hurdles, become a burden and make you sick. Many people know the feeling of being rejected, of being labeled as a cranky nerd.
When friends told her she was “different” ten years ago, Ulrike Alt first started searching on the Internet. “I looked for mental disorders that I might have,” reports the mental trainer. “I have always accumulated knowledge. As soon as I understood something, I did something new.”
She was a bad student, did two “honor laps” and her great talent went unnoticed. After working as a jewelry entrepreneur, IT project manager and magician, the 49-year-old now offers coaching for highly gifted people and gifted diagnosis.
In a lecture in Duisburg, she explains in a humorous and practical way how the stressful flood of thoughts in the high-performance brain can be slowed down. She regrets: “There are a lot of inappropriate pictures about us, that’s a shame. We’re nothing special, we just think faster and have enormous skills.”
Highly gifted people sometimes “drive full steam into the wall”
Canteen board member Melder says: “Some gifted people have a poor tolerance for frustration.” Many people would have ticked off everything in school and university without putting in any work. You didn’t learn how to deal with problems that arose at the latest in the job – for example when dealing with superiors.
“We tend to think in a complex, networked way. This often doesn’t go down well at work. People then say: ‘Don’t always question everything,'” explains Melder. Because highly gifted people are quicker, they also get bored quickly and lose interest. And: “We often throw ourselves into a Mission Impossible at full speed and then end up hitting a wall,” says the mechanical engineer. The widespread assumption that being gifted always means a career is wrong.
Claus Melder is extremely talented, has held senior positions at industrial groups and associations, advises investment bankers, writes children’s books, and is fascinated by psychology and philosophy.
He is one of the “late connoisseurs” and only took an IQ test when he was 40 – and understood why he was considered exotic as a teenager. More advice and support for young, highly gifted people at school and outside of school is important in order to leverage their valuable potential and talents, says Melder.
More understanding, education and support are desired
Many gifted children are massively underchallenged in school lessons, which can sometimes have fatal consequences for their motivation to learn and also their health, emphasizes the German Society for Gifted Children.
Some are permanently bored, dissatisfied, sad. Others are insulted as “smart-asses” and there are sad fates, including behavioral problems. What is needed is better identification and support, and more flexibility in the school system – for example through early school entry or multiple grade skipping.
Engineer Ulrich Pieper observes: “Society is having a very difficult time integrating from above.” The 61-year-old from Osnabrück is familiar with burnout, but also bore-out – illness-inducing under-challenge and boredom at work.
After many years in the industry, he is now pursuing his own projects, including a technological invention in the environmental sector, as he described at the multi-day event in Duisburg. “I would like to pass on to the next generation a future project that can save energy and raw materials to a large extent” – in the area of copper pipe production.
Book project with interior views of “later known people”
Pieper’s story is one of many in the volume of stories “Suddenly highly gifted” with descriptions from numerous people who later met him. According to Pieper, the project – the book has not yet been published, a search for a publisher is about to be completed – makes it clear: the highly gifted do not fit into any cliché box. There are people with several degrees or no training at all, insecure as well as strong personalities. And it shows that highly gifted people are often highly sensitive at the same time.
Susanne Kaptmann from Baden-Württemberg, who came with her highly gifted sister, says: If you are intelligent, have foresight, can see the second step when others are still at the first, then you will do it with great regularity. The doctor of chemistry makes it clear: “IQ is not the same as success in life.” And: “Many highly gifted people fail when they have self-doubt.”