Discover their stories and visions to better understand your own.

Gloria Jensen: An image that sums up Giftedness?

Anne-Claire Pliska: “Driving a racing car in the city of Lucerne, which is known for its speed cameras on every corner. The social fine can be quite high.”

Gloria Jensen: Is it a waste to not know you are gifted?

Eric Labrie : (…) A diagnosis at a young age would have saved me a lot of trouble, as a gifted who has no filter. The frankness of a gifted person can be murderous and corrosive. I don’t let anything that is unfair and unacceptable pass.

Gloria Jensen: The mistake not to make when you are gifted?

Elodie Bossoutrot: Using your giftedness as an excuse, a pretext, a justification…

Gloria Jensen: What do you want to tell gifted people?

Quentin: Don’t stay alone, get help and talk to people you trust who will understand and will be able to support you.

Gloria Jensen: What annoys you about giftedness?

Gwendoline Vessot: (…) the pathologization of the phenomenon = giftedness as a source of problems and an explanation of all problems. No, one can be very happy gifted, thank you ! And if you have problems, blaming them on giftedness is both very easy, but also cuts off a lot of tracks to work on these problems.

Gloria Jensen: What do you recommend to a person who wonders if he or she is Gifted?

Didier Poli: Find as soon as possible his answers, if not, be patient!

Gloria Jensen: And your opinion on the WAIS IQ test?

Didier Poli: Made for the gifted who still accept frames.

Gloria Jensen: A personal giftedness (life) tip?

Caroline Desquest: Take an interest in personal development! By opening up to yourself, you open up to others and you will offer yourself/them a bright life… I am so much happier in my relationship, in my family and in my personal life today than I was at 25. I am opening up to myself, to the world and to its infinite field of possibilities.

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

Stephan Boschat: Do not let yourself be imprisoned by the codes imposed by our society. Your real limits will always be higher than those you will always impose on yourself.

Gloria Jensen: What does being gifted mean to you?

Nathalie Alsteen: “A world of EXTRA ordinary possibilities, an intense and meaningful life.”

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

Fusée Nai: I was mostly surprised at how I had developed a normal functioning in parallel. But I was not shocked. Maybe because I put my difference on the account of cultural differences.

Gloria Jensen: The most difficult thing about Giftedness?

Emilie Vion: “The difficulty to turn off your brain. Always being in constant questioning and bubbling, I am often afraid of going into overdrive. That’s what I find most difficult to deal with personally.”

Gloria Jensen: What you allow yourself since you know you are gifted?

Anthony Gonnet Vandepoorte: “When I feel that too many things are starting to clash in my mind, that I don’t have a clear idea and that my brain is clogged with hundreds of information, I unplug everything to simply go for a walk. The simple fact of getting some fresh air for an hour or two allows me to release all the tension accumulated due to a lack of efficiency on various tasks. When I get to the “too full” point, rather than cracking up futilely, I allow myself to practice other activities like abstract painting, ideation, seeing friends, etc.”

Gloria Jensen: What do you recommend to a person who is wondering if she or he is gifted?

Bénédicte Braud: Take the test. It is the only way to remove this questioning. And above all, do not perceive it as a success or a failure. Is someone born in October disappointed that he or she was not born in January? It’s not an accomplishment, it’s just a fact. Knowing this will lead to answers, but if it’s not, then it will lead to looking for those answers elsewhere.

Gloria Jensen: A representation to be question?

Vincent Lahouze: Giftedness is not a disease, it does not mean that we are the best in the class, that intelligence of the heart is not always intelligence of the brain!

Gloria Jensen: What do you allow yourself since you validated your Giftedne?

Licka Sarr: I allow myself to create, to flutter. I allow myself to trust that it is by spreading myself thin that I build precisely. I allow myself to distance myself from certain people because I am comforted by my possible incompatibility and my inability to maintain superfluous relationships.

19 views of gifted men and women to understand and explore neurodiversity in its plurality! The Gifted Interview is celebrating its first year since its creation by Gloria Jensen in February 2020. It’s the occasion to have a nice retrospective of the nuggets. A big thank you to the interviewees and to you, the reader!

Gloria Jensen: How did it change your life to know you were gifted?

Guillaume Macczak: (…) It really made me wonder how others functioned. To try to understand what was different.

Gloria Jensen: What you allow yourself since then?

Guillaume Macczak: Clearly to follow my intuition more and to say to myself that the fact of arriving more quickly at a conclusion is not due to laxity.

Gloria Jensen: How did it change your life to know that?

Audrey Bouquet: (…) I now have a life that reflects me. I was 40 years in search mode. I knew that something was wrong and I attributed my discrepancy with others as pathological. Knowledge makes non-standard characteristics “normal”. Giftedness is not a disease and that changes everything! Now when someone tells me I’m weird, I thank them for the compliment.

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

Pierre Stanghellini: Trying to behave like a normal person. And finally to ape an attitude in order to blend in with the mass. In the short term this can help, in the long term it is deadly.

Gloria Jensen: How long have you known you were gifted?

Ema Perey: (…) Since always unconsciously. We all know it inside, unconsciously.

Gloria Jensen: What have you allowed yourself since then?

Ema Perey: To become who I am.