p.8 We can see what gifted people produce, but we can't see the internal systems and operations that produced
those products... While the cognitive components are certainly important to consider in discussing giftedness, too often there
is a piece missing... giftedness is as it thinks as well as feels, senses, perceives, and does.
p.11 My purpose is to show gifted adults how they can bring their gifts to fruition by fully expressing
the very qualities that are the foundation of their personality.
p.11 What studies have shown is that gifted children perceive the world in fundamentally different ways
than other children. It is as if their sensory apparatus is more finely tuned to detect input that others either filter out
or ignore. This heightened receptivity is present from the earliest stages of development and later gives rise to the urge
to perfect.
p.11-12 I call these two underlying components of giftedness, heightened receptivity and the urge to perfect,
"First Nature" traits... It is the First Nature traits that give rise to the Intensity, Complexity, and Drive that are the
more visible characteristics of giftedness... Most gifted people are not able to articulate that it is their First Nature
that makes them extraordinarily aware, compels them to make things "just so" or makes them so dissatisfied when things are
not that way... In the course of working with gifted adults over the years I've discovered that they've learned that they
can't express their First Nature traits without censure. As a result, they modify their behavior in one of two ways - by either
collapsing it or exaggerating it.
p.17 Everyday Geniuses... will always be quantitatively, qualitatively, and motivationally
different from most other people. Nor do they know that these very same things that are the basis of criticism are fundamental
building blocks of excellence and Advanced Development.
p.81 All of us believe the way we think, perceive, feel, and react is not so different from everyone else's,
certainly not different or special enough to require a wholly new method of classification.
