When Being an Exception Is Your Default Setting: A Different Perspective on Intelligence and Choice

Think about the people that irritate you most for a moment. Not the ones whose differences challenge you but for whom you have compassion. No I mean the ones that just piss you off. What is it about them that makes your skin crawl?

We readily accept that some people are naturally tall, naturally athletic, or naturally musical. We also readily accept that some people are broken, disabled, challenged in ways that instill compassion in us. Yet when it comes to intelligence, particularly the kind that manifests as knowing things without being able to explain how you know them, we're expected to downplay it or apologize for our difference.

I've spent over half a century learning how to navigate this reality. The key insight? Intelligence isn't something I earned or achieved - it's my default setting. The achievement isn't in having the gift; it's in learning how to use it without making others feel small without diminishing my own brilliance.

This brings me to a crucial distinction that's often missed in discussions about intelligence and success: the difference between excellence and exception.

Excellence, as traditionally defined, is about being the best version of someone else's definition of normal. But what happens when your starting point isn't normal? What if your brain processes reality in a fundamentally different way?

I can't NOT know what I know. But I have learned that wisdom is best shared with those who have invited it. I don't need to prove my intelligence or convince anyone of what I know. The people who need what I know will recognize it when they hear it. The others? They're not my audience.

This understanding led me to develop what I call "The Chooser Gets to Choose" framework. It's a permission structure for being exceptional in a world obsessed with excellence.

Here's how it works:

1. Recognize that your different way of being isn't a flaw to fix but a feature to leverage.

2. Understand that you can only plan for consequences you can anticipate.

3. Accept that despite what every self-help guru claims, you cannot actually know what will happen until it happens.

4. Give yourself permission to choose based on what you know right now.

5. Trust that your exceptional mind will be equally exceptional at handling whatever consequences arise.

This isn't about being reckless or ignoring potential outcomes. It's about recognizing that the fear of unknown consequences often prevents us from making the choices our exceptional selves need to make.

Consider this: Every major breakthrough in human history came from someone who chose to trust what they knew, even when they couldn't explain how they knew it. They chose to act on their understanding, even when others couldn't see what they saw.

That's what I'm advocating for - not just for myself, but for everyone who's ever felt the need to apologize for knowing too much, seeing too clearly, or being too intense. I'm suggesting that instead of trying to excel at being normal, we embrace being exceptional.

You get to choose not just what to do, but how to be. Not just how to handle consequences, but how to define success. Not just when to share wisdom, but how to be wise.

This isn't about being better than anyone else. It's about being exactly who you are, at full voltage, without apology. It's about recognizing that your exceptions are what make you exceptional.

The consequences? We'll handle those when we know what they actually are, not what we fear they might be.

Because ultimately, the chooser gets to choose. And I choose to be unapologetically exceptional. What do you choose?

#Neurosparkle #TheChooserGetsToChoose #EmbraceYourException #AuthenticLeadership