Highly gifted rebel

A Vision for Authenticity, Awareness and Impact

This page describes  my vision on helping our society and the world to progress. I focus on a group of people – the highly gifted – whose ideas, commitment, spirituality, intellect, intenseness, creativity, determination, daring and discipline can have a big impact on the progress of many. But they mustn’t let themselves be pigeon-holed!

My main mission is to create awareness of the fact that every highly gifted child (and adult) has the right to be themselves, an individual able to take on the world, self-reliant and self-managing, who dares to be their own person in every respect and who doesn’t hide away.

Highly gifted children are intelligent and autonomous; they try to forge a path for themselves outside the established frameworks, norms and expectations. They want to discover and follow their passion, completely ignoring other people’s opinions. I believe that’s the only way to be free. I would like to inspire you and help you discover who you really are, so that you can help your child to choose their own path and be a highly gifted rebel. The fact is that only people who are free can create a community in which happiness and freedom are defined in terms of genuine freedom: to be who you are without letting yourself be told who you should be.

Genuine freedom for the individual, who at the same time is responsible for the well-being of the whole. Highly gifted people can make a big difference there but first, there must be awareness, starting with the parents and counsellors of highly gifted and exceptionally gifted children.

Contributions to our planet

If the most intelligent children are given scope to be able to become their own person and grow into autonomous adults, they can make an exceptional contribution to all of society. And I’m not just talking about Nobel prize-worthy breakthroughs. I’m talking about all the commitment that leads to an increase in the well-being of many. Whether that involves running a children’s farm or a restaurant, writing a book, being an honest accountant or politician or a teacher, a scientist or an empathic baker… it doesn’t matter. It’s your energy and passion that can move mountains.

I firmly believe that precisely the fact that you know who you are and you live your life based on authenticity, can inspire people to dare to be themselves. Your energy and charisma are contagious. That way, fewer and fewer people will wear a mask, all of society will be more authentic and fewer people will live in fear.

How do I aim to achieve this?

By teaching you how to use a compass and a map. Exceptionally gifted children (and adults) lose their way in the world of the average. Schools teach in a certain way, people interact in groups in a certain way. It’s often black and white, right or wrong, in or out, join in or be left out, be friends or not, be happy or angry. A nuance is lacking that exceptionally gifted people naturally need and always apply intuitively. Because children are trained from an early age to fit in with the world of the average, they lose themselves.

You need a compass and a map. If you have a map, if you know who you are, you can navigate through the world, through the system that has been set up by averagely gifted people. It’s the same with the school system – parents often try to adapt the system to the child but that doesn’t teach the child to live according to their own power and from their core. The child learns that adapting is the norm and becomes dependent on that. The fact is, it’s important to teach a highly gifted child to apply self-insight, to learn self-management skills so that, regardless of what others do or think about it, the child remains resilient and independent. They can then ultimately learn to trust their own compass.