alt Hacker NewsMy experience was very similar to yours. I was definitely not prodigious. I was slightly gifted, for the most part, and exceptionally gifted in other non-notable ways.
I think one thing that hurt me, in particular, is that I repeatedly got told "you're really going to go places some day!". And, so I waited for things to happen.
It took me way too long to realize I had to make things happen.
If you're reading this and you're young and gifted, you need to make things happen. You'll have people help you along the way, but odds are, you will never be discovered and have riches lavished upon you.
This comment really resonates with me (I’m old now, for context). I was put in the gifted program, but the truth is I wasn’t very good at math while I was wildly strong in language. I was a pretty solitary kid who read a lot of quality literature and was endlessly curious about the world. I ended up getting kicked out of the program early in elementary school for being "immature," but the gifted label stuck and I kept hearing how smart I was.
By high school, I was a 1.4 GPA student who was also on the Academic Decathlon team winning state-level medals. My upbringing was extremely abusive, which definitely contributed to the academic problems, but what I really needed was someone in my corner pushing me to explore and actually try. Being told I was smart wasn’t just useless, it was actively harmful. I became afraid to try and leaned on what came naturally (hence doing well on Decathlon tests) while consistently failing to finish things (no homework, no papers... and the GPA shows it).
What would have made a huge difference for me was being explicitly taught how and why to study, how to take and review notes, and how to manage my time. And just as importantly, someone consistently emphasizing that effort matters a lot more than being "smart."
Even now, I’m honestly surprised by how many people I work with in tech equate being "smart" with being good at math, algorithms, or pattern recognition, while seeming almost oblivious to some pretty big gaps in other areas. That mindset isn’t doing anyone any favors.