More than 1,000 gifted people meet in Duisburg. — Photos: CHRISTOPH REICHWEIN/dpa
IT’S coffee break time at the packed event venue in the western German city of Duisburg. Participants sip hot beverages while discussing astrophysics and philosophical paradoxes.
Before heading to a lecture on radioactivity or Korean writing, some manage to squeeze in a 1,000-piece puzzle.
As you might have guessed, this isn’t just any ordinary conference. To be able to attend this annual meeting, you must have an IQ of at least 130.
Besides excursions in the surrounding Ruhrgebiet area, Germany’s former industrial heartland, this year’s edition includes numerous lectures and workshops, including on cryptography and neurosciences, but also lots of lightweight fun, from trips to an escape room to dance classes and bouldering.
Organised by the biggest network in Germany for the gifted, this year’s event has drawn more than 1,000 very clever people from the German-speaking world.
“We’re bad at small talk, are always looking for depth and like to talk about several topics at the same time,” says Claus Melder from the Mensa network, which has some 16,000 members.
Siefke Luers, a businessman, has travelled all the way from Munich in southern Germany to attend the meeting.
“Everything runs like clockwork for me, that was the case at school and university and it’s the same at work,” he says about life with an IQ of 145, meaning he is considered to be highly gifted.
According to Mensa, some 2% of the general population is gifted, meaning those people with an intelligence quotient (IQ) of at least 130, a score derived from standardised tests to assess a person’s intelligence. By comparison, the average person achieves an IQ of 100.
“Everything I’ve ever tackled without a clue has worked,” says Luers, looking relaxed and confident. “I don’t come from an academic background, I grew up on a farm and I don’t like to surround myself with academics.”
His partner Sabine Lettenmeyer grins and agrees: “He is enormously knowledgeable and good at arguing, which is where I reach my limits.”
Unlike other highly gifted people, though, Luers is also socially competent, she adds. “You can’t say that about everyone.”
Lettenmeyer (left) and Luers (right) from Munich take part in the annual meeting for gifted people where participants meet to exchange ideas and attend lectures.
It isn’t always easy being smart
Indeed, chatting with the highly gifted at the meeting soon makes it clear that having a high IQ doesn’t mean people always have it easy.
Many know what it feels like to be rejected due to their above-average intelligence, to be labelled as a quirky nerd.
Being gifted can come with obstacles, even become a burden and lead to illness.
When friends told her 10 years ago that she was “different,” Ulrike Alt began to look around online for clues. “I searched for mental disorders that I might have,” recalls the mindset coach. “I was always gathering knowledge. As soon as I understood something, I did something new.”
Her giftedness remained undiscovered for a long time, as she didn’t do well at school and had to repeat two years.
After working in a jewellery business, as an IT project manager and a magician, the 49-year-old now offers coaching for gifted people, including aptitude testing.
In her lecture in Duisburg, she explains how the stressful flood of thoughts in the high-performance brain can be slowed down.
She regrets that people often harbour wrong ideas about what it means to be gifted. “We are nothing special, we just think faster and have enormous skills.”
‘Full steam ahead until you hit the wall’
According to former board member of the Mensa network Melder, sometimes gifted people struggle to accept when something doesn’t go their way.
While many breeze through school and university, they don’t learn how to deal with problems – a skill that’s required at the latest when starting your first job.
“We tend to think in a complex, interconnected way,” he says, but at work that doesn’t always go down so well, especially when it leads to them questioning everything.
Since highly gifted people are able to solve problems faster, they also get bored more quickly and lose interest, according to Melder.
Another issue can be a lack of foresight. “We often throw ourselves full steam ahead into a mission impossible and then sometimes hit the wall,” says the mechanical engineer. The widespread assumption that giftedness automatically helps you to get ahead in your career is wrong, he says.
Melder, also considered highly gifted, has held a vast number of positions in his life, from leadership roles at industrial groups to investment banking consulting. He also writes children’s books and is fascinated by psychology and philosophy.
He also didn’t realise he was smarter than the average person until later in life, when he took an IQ test at the age of 40 – a step that helped him realise why he had been considered somewhat of an outcast as a teenager, he says.
Melder believes increased support for young gifted people in and outside school is needed to help them to realise their valuable potential.
During breaks, participants solve puzzles with 1,000 or more pieces.
A lack of support
Many gifted children are not challenged enough in school, which can sometimes severely impact their motivation to learn and overall well-being, according to the German Society for Highly Gifted Children.
Some are permanently bored, dissatisfied and sad, while others experience bullying, which can lead to behavioural problems in some cases, according to the organisation, which also calls for more support and greater flexibility in the school system, for example regarding early enrolment.
Ulrich Pieper, a 61-year-old engineer from the northern city of Osnabrück, says society is struggling to integrate those with above-average intelligence.
In his career, he has experienced both burnout and bore-out, a disorder caused by a lack of adequate challenges or workload, usually in the workplace.
After working in industry for year, Pieper now pursues his own projects, including a green tech innovation to help reduce the amount of energy and natural resources used copper tube production, he explains at the multi-day meeting in Duisburg.
Susanne Kaptmann from south-western Germany who is attending the meeting with her sister, says being intelligent means always being one step ahead of the field. But that regularly leads to conflict, she adds.
“IQ is not the same as success in life,” Kaptmann, who has a PhD in chemistry, says. “Many gifted people fail once the self-doubt begins.” – dpa
