Why Bright Students Underperform - The Hidden Struggles Behind High Potential

Why do some highly capable students, teens, and young adults seem to have so much potential, yet struggle to perform in ways that actually reflect it?

In this episode, we take a deep, compassionate look at one of the most misunderstood patterns parents, educators, and students face: underperformance in students with clear strengths. We unpack why intelligence alone is often not enough, and why strong reasoning, insight, verbal ability, or creativity do not automatically translate into consistent follow-through, organization, task initiation, emotional regulation, and sustained output.

We explore the deeper reasons bright students underperform, including the gap between intelligence and executive functioning, perfectionism, shame, identity, nervous system overload, hidden bottlenecks, and years of compensation that may work for a while — until the demands of school and life finally outrun the supports. We also discuss why these struggles often become much more visible during major transition points, including the shift from elementary school to middle school, middle school to high school, and high school to college.

This episode goes beyond surface-level advice. Rather than reducing underperformance to planners, timers, or generic study tips, we focus on the importance of understanding the individual pattern underneath the struggle. Because when we better understand what is truly getting in the way, we can respond with more accuracy, more compassion, and more effective support.

If you are a parent wondering why your bright child is not showing what they are capable of, an educator trying to make sense of inconsistent performance, or an adult who has quietly lived this pattern yourself, this episode will give you a richer framework for understanding what may really be going on.

#ExecutiveFunctioning #Underperformance #BrightStudents #GiftedStudents #ADHD #StudentSupport #ParentingTeens #SchoolPsychology #LearningDifferences #AcademicStruggles #Perfectionism #Neurodiversity #CollegeReadiness #EducationPodcast #MentalHealthInEducation

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Transcript

Vinita 0:00

Someone can be very organized, but have a really hard time regulating themselves. Over time, shame and identity begin to interfere with performance. That unevenness makes it so easy to be misunderstood.

Ruth 0:16

Welcome to Net Collective, where we navigate everything together, from classroom to college to careers and beyond.

Vinita 0:22

I'm Kay McBrudy, career coach and founder of Waterville Partners. I'm Vanita Patel, school psychologist in private practice.

Ruth 0:29

I'm Ruth Hayes, education professional and founder of Fulcero Prep. Net Collective. Navigating everything together, one conversation at a time. Welcome back to Net Collective. Today's conversation is going to be a little bit more abstract than what we usually have, but I'm really excited about it because we're going to dig into a phenomenon that I think we've all seen a lot in our work and in our lives. What are we talking about, Benita?

Vinita 0:55

Yeah, so today we're going to be talking about one of the most confusing and emotionally loaded experiences for students and teachers and parents alike. Why bright students underperform? I think we've all seen that in our practices, and I think we know we may even have that student in our minds as we're talking about this. That student can be thoughtful, have strong verbal skills, is perceptive and clearly intelligent, and they grasp ideas quickly, has, you know, have deep questions, but yet somehow their output, and by output I mean whether it's their grades, their consistency, the follow-through doesn't fully reflect what they seem to be capable of. And in your practices, have you Kay, have you seen that?

Kay 1:46

Yes. I will have students who may have really high grades, they've got a degree, and they want to go transition into the workforce, but they just can't get launched. And the parents are calling me saying, Can you help them launch? And so I it it's very it's it it is a big issue. It's not some people need just the roadmap, but I find that there are other clients who are incredibly capable and they seem to get in their own way. And so trying to unwind what is the roadblock. And so they are to your point, they're intelligent and they're high performers, yet they are unable to deliver on something. That next step.

Vinita 2:27

The next big step. Right, right. And and so imagine the confusion that the people around that student or or young adult are left with, like questions like, what are we missing? Or I know she or he can do more than this. And the student themselves or the young adult themselves are wondering, well, I've been smart my whole life. Maybe I'm really not that smart. And now they're questioning their own cognitive identity or their own future and what that could look like because they're no longer or they don't feel like what the messages that they've heard about themselves and their thinking match what their output is. So there's this cognitive dissonance, like those two competing thoughts trying to make sense of each other, but quite doesn't, right?

Kay 3:16

Right.

Ruth 3:17

I really like the term you use, cognitive identity, because I think that's a big part of it. I think student and we've talked about this before, students can get into their heads about being the smart one or being the one who doesn't need to ask for help. And it can feel not only stigmatizing, but really um destabilizing as a person. Right, right.

Kay 3:36

I was gonna say the other thing is I found that with some of my clients, I was wondering, was it a motivation issue? Maybe they just weren't motivated enough and the the care wasn't obvious to them. And then what I was finding is that with some of these highly capable students or or clients, they I would ask them before I started working with them on a scale of zero to ten, how motivated are you? And their motivation was really low, but their desire was really high. And so I would it's different than um somebody who just needs organization strategies or other, you know, prescriptions that might help them get on track. And so I've been really fascinated by this whole phenomenon, this gray area of motivation versus desire versus you know what gives.

Vinita 4:26

Right. And and it is very great. It is very abstract the way that you described it when we first started our conversation, Ruth, is that you know, this episode, we may not be able to offer sp uh prescriptive strategies like we have in the past. Right. You know, a planner may not fix this. Right. A, you know, um checklist or a roadmap per se may not, you know, necessarily fix this. Those all help, and we know that they do, but this is going to be much more of a larger, uh deeper conversation. Let me ask you, in our practices, um I've heard the term laziness come up a lot, particularly as we describe, you know, these students. And I I certainly don't like that term. I never have, because we know that laziness is a symptom of something much larger. And in many cases, these students and young adults that we're talking about, uh the bright ones, um, though they're all bright, let's be honest, all of our clients are bright. Um, they're often carrying invisible struggles that are easily missed from the outside. They're invisible, you know? And so it's our job to really uncover what's going on. Um, and so today we're going to be talking about the gap between that underperformance from not only an executive functioning perspective, from a brain-based perspective, from an emotional perspective, but most importantly from a human perspective. Okay. Right. So um and this topic isn't just academic, as as Kay, you so eloquently talked about with your clients trying to find a job. It affects confidence, it affects your identity, it affects stress, family relationships, and how a young person can really come to understand themselves. Okay. But the good news is really that once we understand the gaps more accurately, we can support um it far more effectively. Okay. Um, anything you guys want to share, any anecdotes or other stories uh before we move on as to some of the reasons why this could be happening?

Speaker 1 6:30

It's interesting. One of the things I ask my clients about too is you know, how are you spending your time? Because if they're not completing the tasks that they've been given, um I ask them how how um what are their squirrels? The same way when you're walking a dog and the dog sees a squirrel and just gets distracted. So is there a distraction that's getting in the way, for example? Um that could be one of them, certainly. And we've talked about that before.

Vinita 6:55

Right. But big picture here. Let's let's let's let's talk um uh bigger picture and higher level here. Number one, I think it's really important to just lay the groundwork and that, you know, we're talking about bright individuals, right? Right. And and what I mean here is that look, all of our students, all of our adults are bright. And I say that because we all have strengths. Every single person that's walked into my office or that I've worked with in a classroom has a strength. So this episode isn't about separating students who are bright and not bright. That doesn't exist because we all have strengths, okay? Um, it's really about understanding a specific pattern when a student has clear strengths or potential in certain areas, but they're not really able to show that day-to-day in their performance or in their output. So I think that that's just something really to delineate there is that we are talking about, and at Net Collective, we're very strength, strengths-based, right? Right. Okay. Um and so when you think about bright students or um these strengths I'm talking about, what comes up in your mind? What do you think about?

Ruth 8:07

Yeah, I think you're you're right on the money cave about the distraction, but I think for me, I always want to peel back and see what's behind the distraction, right? Exactly. So if you find your attention wandering, if you can't sit and focus on the thing you're trying to do because all these other things are getting in, what's the reason? Why aren't we locked in? Um, and I think there can be a lot of reasons for that. Sometimes the task itself feels so daunting that you kind of want to hide from it or busy yourself with other things. Sometimes there's a fear that actually doing the task um will never live up to what you imagine you could do with it. And there's a sense of paralysis. I see that a lot with students. Um, almost a sense that you're getting rid of all these possibilities by actually by actually doing the task. Um and that can be a really difficult one to reframe, but I think through conversation you really can.

Vinita 8:58

Right. And so let's go back to that original question about the bright, the, you know, when we talk about bright students or or or students or young adults with strengths, what does that look like? You know, like I'm talking, you know, the the client that we have that has strong reasoning skills, right? Or really good um problem-solving ability, or they're curious, or they're quick learners. And so when we have a perception of an individual like that, we think that they're gonna rise to the occasion in almost everything that they do based on what we're seeing. And we know that that's not going to always be the case. And also, by the way, underperforming doesn't necessarily mean failing, right? It just means that there's a gap between where we think the student should be or the client should be and what they're what they're putting out there, right? Or where they could be, I guess. And where they could be, or where we would like to see them to be. And so many of these bright underperformers are still they're still getting by, right? But if you think about, you know, the question I always ask is, well, what did that person do to get there? What did they do? You know, some people may say, well, they got a B. A B is okay, but what did they do to get to that B? You know? Imagine all of the things that went on behind the scenes, the late night studying, or the parents, you know, creating the note cards for them, or, you know, the multiple hours and and resources spent on tutors, you know. And so, you know, that's what I mean by a lot of these um struggles can be, can be hidden. Okay. Okay. Um, and then also let's talk about the difference between someone's um our students' intelligence and their um executive functioning skills. We do know that our executive functioning skills are, you know, can really be the culprit to to a lot of this. When you talk about the distractions, when you talk about the fear, you know, that's getting in the way, we do know that um our cognitive skills, so when we say kids are bright or when they have these strong abilities, and our executive functioning skills, they don't develop at the same timetable. Okay. Um, we know that they influence each other, we know that they overlap, but they don't mature lockstep with each other. So often there's a gap between our thinking and problem solving and our brain's management system or their executive functioning skills. Have you guys it sounds like you've both have certainly seen that.

Speaker 1 11:34

And when it's an issue with their executive functioning skills, that's when I refer them to you. That's that that to me is one of those areas where I don't want to say it's easy to fix, but there is there are strategies available that can help them if it's their executive functioning.

Ruth 11:49

Yeah. And something I see, because you're right, they don't always develop at the same pace. Um, something I see a lot is students who um have intellectual things come easily to them. They understand things, they don't need to study, they just get everything and go to the test and do it. And then when they get to a certain point, whatever class it was, um for me it was calculus, where you suddenly really have to study and you realize you've never done it before. That can be really daunting because they don't have these kind of tools and these resources that someone who might have been struggling earlier on already has access to. Right. And that's called we have varying profiles, you know.

Vinita 12:23

You you know, Ruth, you're an incredibly verbal. You're I I bet your verbal skills are off the charts because you you are super articulate and and I know you you think with language and words and at a at a high level. And so that's your superpower, that's your strength. And so it kind of makes sense when you say calculus for me didn't come, didn't come as easy. And that that that's the reality for many of us is that we have varying skills. So even when we're talking about our cognitive skills, there are many different things that we look at to measure cognitive skills. It's rare that everyone is up here in every one of those skills, right? And even with our executive functioning skills, someone that are already lagging behind our cognitive skills. So even within, if you look at just your executive functioning skills, someone can be very organized, but have a really hard time regulating themselves, you know? So those are also within each one of those systems, cognitive system and executive functioning systems, even the skills within those are not developing alongside each other. So we are very complex, our brains are very complex, is what I'm saying. And the one thing I think to really kind of highlight that is just because you have a student that you're working with that is um a high thinker doesn't mean that their management skills are at that level as well. Right. So, yeah, bottom line, our development is not always even. A student can be advanced in one part of their functioning and delayed or less mature in another. And so that unevenness is part of what makes it so easy to be misunderstood. So, one, you know, one big reason is why why bright students underperform is because intelligence and our cognitive ability is not on the same developmental timetable as our executive functioning skills. Okay, so that's really one of the first, you know, um reasons that we should that we should um make sure that we uncover and and think about as you're thinking about your student. Any questions there or anything that you guys want to um add to that?

Ruth 14:51

I would just say that that's something we see I I think throughout our lives, the whole stereotype of the absent-minded professor. And you know, anyone who's been to college knows that being an expert in a field does not make you a good teacher. Um, so I think just giving people permission to develop other parts of themselves, I think, and we're gonna get into this a little bit more later, but just emotionally, you can be so invested in that that it can be difficult to even allow yourself to work on those skills because it feels like a betrayal of your intelligence or something.

Vinita 15:20

Yeah, yeah. And and and to that is, you know, just because a student can think at a high level doesn't mean that they can manage life at the same level. Yeah. So like your absorpted professor who can talk, you know, at depth and at such a high level about so many different things may show up to class with two different socks on, you know? Exactly. Exactly. Okay. Um and then let's let's talk about this. Ruth, you and I have had multiple conversations about this where we work with students who seem to have compensated for years until the demands finally outrun their supports. Yes. What does that look like with students you work with?

Ruth 15:58

It looks like a real crisis. It looks like a real crisis. A conversation that I've had with several different students, and honestly with myself at one point, is that especially if things have always come easily to you, like that's how you've always experienced school. You just learn things, you don't even think about it, you know. Um when you suddenly have to think about it in a systemic way, it can feel like, oh no, I've got to the end of the line. This is it, this is the end of my talent, I can't do anything else. And I think that there can be a real emotional roadblock between taking the steps that you know you need to take to improve that, because it's it's so difficult to get yourself there. And I think a lot of students, especially you know, who are in these high-achieving families, Kay, like we were talking about earlier, um, have a really difficult time with that. Um, and something that I've found is helpful is just to talk it out with them and to say how it because when you think about it, you're 16, 17, so much of your identity is in who you are as a student and what you're doing in school and how you're progressing.

Vinita 17:00

You're spending like 80% of your time in school or 75% of your time in school, right? Yeah. And so for a lot of these students who who have these strengths, and and again, all of our students have strengths, their strengths covered the gaps. Okay. They were compensating. And we do that naturally as humans. We tend to lean towards what we're good at, right? Um, until one day, those strengths can no longer be managed on their own, right? So we often see them becoming unmasked during large transition periods. So, for example, you know, a student who was able, you know, to be a star from kindergarten through fifth grade, you know, had the same teacher, you know, every school year and managed well. And then all of a sudden you get to middle school or junior high, and now you've got, guess what, six or seven different teachers with six or seven different expectations and a lot more to manage. Or, you know, the the transition from junior high to high school, which is even a bigger gap, right? And then I think we see it the most with high school to college, where then there's the real independence and the more planning and the more sustained output and less external scaffolding really hit. And, you know, you can't compensate as much as you have been able to.

Ruth 18:23

Yes, high school to college is one I see a lot because the other thing is also a lot of times people handle your executive functioning for you when you're at home. So you understand things. You have people who are your frontal lobe. Exactly. You understand things, you do what you're doing at school, you do what you're doing with sports or music or whatever, but somebody wakes you up, somebody washes your clothes, somebody makes your food, somebody makes sure you're getting places on time.

Vinita 18:47

Somebody's looking at your power school or your grades online saying, wait a minute, why did you, you know, you have no one to answer to? You get to college and you're like, freedom, and you almost don't know how to manage that. So, and Kay, what about the the post-college students?

Speaker 1 19:03

Well, they finally figure out that um some of them went to school for four years thinking, oh, well, this is where I'm gonna start my adulting. And some of them did grow up and some of them did not grow up. And so when they get to the point where they're trying to find a job, a lot of times they get to the end of that and they're like, okay, now I need a job. And it's like, well, no, the four years was to set you up for that in terms of learning and networking and all these other elements that we talked about. And they just, you know, they need scaffolding even to make that last transition. Right.

Ruth 19:39

I think that's a great point, Kate, because something I one of the key differences I think between being a student and being an adult out in the world is that as a student, you can generally find checklists to complete. You know, so you're finishing an honors program, you're doing, you know, you're always kind of completing a thing that someone else has laid out. And when you're building a career, you really need to do all those soft skills of kind of putting yourself out there and building networks and things like that, which is a lot more nebulous a skill set than say getting good grades.

Speaker 1 20:08

It's proactive versus reactive. I mean, you're not, to your point, you're not checking a list. You're you have to create the list and then check the list. And so, yeah.

Vinita 20:18

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so when that happens, the student strengths that, you know, they they were so heavily compensating um and using as as like, I don't want to say crutch because it's not a crutch, it's uh it's their strength, but that was is no longer um, they can't compensate for it anymore because anymore because the underlying weaknesses, you know, just find its way to show itself. You know, you can only you can only hide that so much.

Ruth 20:42

Exactly. And that's if this is a good place for this digression. I think that's why we really need to change the way we teach these skills in schools. Yeah. Um because I think now we treat it as an intervention. It's like a crutch or it's something that you need if there's an issue. Whereas I think everyone should be taught, you know, these study skills, EF skills, so that you have those um available. That's right.

Vinita 21:04

Yeah. And and these are life skills you're talking about. Yeah, the the uh EF skills. And so, you know, me being the EF coach and and and finding that to be such an important part of everyone's life, I do think that a lot of our executive functioning skills are the culprit for that gap. It's not the only thing. So let's move on to the next um reason why we believe that bright students tend to underperform. And the third one is the perfectionistic qualities. And again, I think we've all worked with the client that is um obviously bright, but they have this standard, internal standard that they want to put out there into the world. And if their output or that paper or that presentation, whatever it is, doesn't meet that standard. It's no one's gonna see it. It doesn't get completed. Or even if it is completed, it doesn't get submitted or shown, right? So it's that perfectionism that's tied to their emotional emotionality, right? Have you guys seen that?

Ruth 22:16

Yes. I you know what phenomenon I see? I see students who don't put as much effort into things as they could. So they know they're not doing their best. Because if you try your best and you don't get to the level you want, that's disappointing and that makes you feel bad about yourself. But if you know you're not trying your best, well then it doesn't really reflect on you. It's kind of a way of keeping it at arm's length.

Vinita 22:36

It's protective. Yes. That that's the protective. And that's the other thing we're going to talk about is is the nervous system, you know, uh and and how they how it views threat. But let's stick in this perfect perfectionistic qualities piece for a bit. I've worked with students that have worked really hard on, let's say, an essay, and um so many hours put on it, more more than more than they than than it should have. But for whatever reason, that's the the amount of time that they've put into it so that they feel good, so that they feel comfortable. And then it's like, oh, I I changed it all up. You know, it's that constant editing, it's that getting stuck in the details or having trouble even finishing it because the work never feels good enough.

Speaker 1 23:27

Yes. I was gonna say, I've got clients who um they'll work on their resume, but they won't finish their resume because it's not finished. And what I'm trying to help them understand is that get it, get something, you know, progress not perfection, which we keep talking about. And make sure you do something. You can always go back with a resume with an elevator pitch with a lot of the pieces that I help clients with, and you can continuously improve them. And this mindset of perfection, it's like a one and done versus continuous improvement, which is ongoing, and having helping them shift their mindset to to to frame things that way, as opposed to, oh, it has to be perfect, or I have to have the perfect elevator pitch or the perfect anything.

Vinita 24:15

Oh, and they may be avoiding opportunities because they're so worried about what it's gonna look like. So your example, Kay, you know, of that client that started the resume but didn't finish it, can look like procrastination, right? Exactly. Can look like procrastination on the outside, but actually is perfectionistic shutdown on the inside, right? Right. And and again, tends to look like underperformance, but it's someone who is so afraid of falling short that they can't move through that task efficiently and effectively or flexibly enough. Exactly. Right. And sometimes getting the the concept of good is good enough i is it isn't satisfactory to our perfectionistic clients.

Speaker 1 25:05

You know, and interviewing for a job. I mean, you're gonna have to interview for more than one job. Yeah. And you very likely will not get the first job you interview for. And so that learning how to take defeat, if you will, or somebody saying no when they've always had somebody saying yes, I think is also part of wrapped up in that.

Ruth 25:27

Oh yeah, because that can feel like a real rejection. Right. Like of yourself. Right.

Vinita 25:31

Right. And I wonder as well, um, these students who who tend to be perfectionistic. I keep saying students, but please just know I'm talking about students, clients, etc. Students of life. Students of life. There you go. I love that. So these individuals tend to, you know, um, I think people tend to misread them as as someone who who who don't care or and sometimes it's quite the opposite. It's because they care so deeply enough about what they put out there into the world doesn't equate to I'm disengaged. Right. Yeah. It equates to, I don't think my work is good enough. And so at that point, then you really have to think about, you know, is there a higher level or a different level of intervention there? You know, is that more of an emotional anxiety piece that you need to get work through with, say, a therapist or someone in the clinical field? Um, but again, these are all reasons to to dig deeper into why the underperformance is happening. Okay. All right. So the fourth one we want to talk about is the nervous system, as we've talked about before, experiences certain tasks as threats, not just work. And we talked about this, I believe, in two or three episodes ago. When our nervous system encounters a threat like a hard assignment or a tough interview or, you know, completing that resume so I'm ready to send it out to the world, we can tend to treat that signal as something that's uncomfortable and something that's going to harm me, not in the traditional sense, but something that, you know, can can make me feel unpleasant. And so what do we do? What do we tend to do? We tend to find security, safety, we avoid, we procrastinate, we create a narrative that's different from what's really happening.

Ruth 27:28

Exactly. And it's true, like I've I've heard the um analogy that your body thinks that an assignment you have to do on Monday is the same thing as a saber-toothed tiger chasing you. And obviously, if the saber-toothed tiger is chasing you, the logical thing to do is hide from it. But if you hide from the paper, you're going to be in trouble. Right.

Vinita 27:46

I've never heard of that analogy before. That gave me a Yeah. And so on the inside, think about what's happening. That students, that student is having a real stress response. Yeah. Right. About doing something that, you know. Um, and their brain isn't reading the task as simple work. They may be reading it as something loaded, emotionally wrought, something risky. So again, pay attention to your nervous system.

Speaker 1 28:10

Yeah, because there are ways around that. The the fear, I mean, it's fear-based. And people might have a fear of success, they might have a fear of failure. And so a lot of times I work with clients and I'm like, let's identify the fears.

Vinita 28:22

Yeah.

Speaker 1 28:23

Because that could be one of the roadblocks.

Vinita 28:25

Absolutely. Identify the fears, identify the anxiety, identify the threat, quote unquote, so that you can put when you put language and words to something, there there is somewhat of a cathartic release there. You can almost start doing something about it.

Speaker 1 28:43

Start dismantling it or at least being curious about it and figuring out how did it get constructed in the first place.

Ruth 28:48

Right. Yeah. And to your point, Vinita, I feel like it's moving it away from your nervous system and into your executive functioning system, right? When you can kind of talk about because one thing I'll do with students is just ask them to completely catastrophize. Okay, what's the absolute worst that can happen, right? Your PowerPoint starts a fire and you're like shunned from the community forever or something. And then you kind of work backwards from it. When you can kind of get yourself to that ridiculous place, it really helps you to say, okay, now I can move through it. And just like breaking through that um shield of panic to get to the actual work, I think that can really help with it.

Vinita 29:21

I think that's a great idea. And and oftentimes, you know, the question to ask is is it possible that your PowerPoint can go completely in disarray when you're in the middle of the most important presentation in your life? Sure, it's possible, really. Anything's possible, but is it probable?

Speaker 1 29:36

Yes. Well, and I always ask clients, what's the absolute worst that can happen and the least you can learn? Yeah, yeah, that's a good one. So again, back to the catastrophizing. And then if so, what can you learn from that?

Vinita 29:49

Right, right. And then the fifth one is shame and identity begin to interfere with performance. So when we talk about our um, another reason that some of our bright students underperform is that over time, shame and identity start to interfere with their performance in the sense that they've been known as the smart person or the one that, you know, has it together. And then what that ends up doing is that in case there's a struggle, um, that gap gap that or that the thought of that potential gap or that thought of um that potential quote unquote failure is deeply painful. And so they tend to keep themselves in this like protective place, right?

Speaker 1 30:34

And I've even seen with clients something maybe completely unrelated to their homework or their career search or anything else, there might be some other trauma or event that is somehow blocking them. And I know that that it's out of my lane. So that's what I suggest and refer them to professionals. And I would venture to guess at least 50% of my clients have, you know, have therapists that they're seeing. And I always say, hey, feel free to share the recaps on your career with your therapist because sometimes they're actually intertwined. The therapist, and I've had therapists call me saying, I'm really trying to help them with X, Y, and Z, but I can't help them with their career. So I help with the career, therapists can help with another piece. But there's there's an emotional component that can sometimes really cloud their perspective.

Vinita 31:27

Definitely. And we see it, we see this a lot with the um the gifted population in that um in general things have come easy academically, you know, things have come fairly easy. And then they get to a place where they're surrounded by other gifted people and they're not big fish anymore. They're they're kind of like, you know, doing what everyone else is doing, blending in more. And then there's an identity crisis. Like, wait a minute, I thought I was always the top dog. I thought I was always, you know, the the the smart one. It goes back to, you know, what we talked about earlier is is is is identity. And they don't quite know where they fit anymore.

Ruth 32:11

Yes. And I think that's, you know, all this is kind of all of our lane, but just as people, I think that's part of the development you go through in that, you know, that 20 to 25, like, you know, career launch time is developing a sense of yourself outside of what things you're achieving. Um, because I think up until, you know, even when you graduate college, a lot of what you would even say about yourself if someone asks about you in your life is, well, I've done this, I graduated from that, I got this award, I did that. And I think there's a shift that happens in those years to having a more intrinsic motivation. So, yes, I'm not working towards a degree anymore, but I care about these things in life. I care about these things in the world, and I'm working towards them. Um, and I have value because of and towards that, even if I'm not doing everything perfect.

Vinita 32:58

Right, right, yeah, yeah, yeah. The identity pieces, I mean, there are these are all big ones, and we're gonna recap all five of the reasons why we believe um bright individuals underperform. But the identity piece is really a big one because to your point, when people ask you, well, who are you? What do you do? Like, how many times have you been asked, you know, what do you do? Like that's if the question one is what's your name and what do you do? Right. Yeah. And it's so tied to and and what you do. I mean, it it was a roadmap. I went to this school, I studied this, and this is my job, you know, when in reality we're so much more, right?

Ruth 33:37

That's why I think copies are so important. You know, like you can't just be in the lab, like learn to sew, do something else.

Vinita 33:44

Yeah, yeah. And and strengths, you know, like just focus on focus on your strengths. So, okay, so let's break down again very briefly why bright students underperform. Intelligence and our cognitive skills are not the same as our executive functioning skills, they develop at different timetables. So, what you may be seeing is not a lack of strengths in the traditional sense, but more um gaps within our executive functioning skills. Okay. And please listen to our previous episodes on what executive functioning skills are and what the skills are within our executive functioning system. Okay. Second one is for many of our bright students, they've tend to overcompensate for years until the stakes became high and they no longer can. And we see that especially during big transition, life transitions. The third is many of our bright students have perfectionistic qualities, and it's really hard for them to break through to get to understand that good is good enough. The fourth is our nervous system. Our nervous system experiences certain threats or tasks as certain threats, and so therefore we go into protective mode. And then the fifth one, which we just talked about, is identity. Who are you? Um, and then some of the shame that's wrapped around, you know, um, when you don't perform to the level that you have seen yourself in for all of these years, um and that just becomes more of a struggle and you start to question who you are.

Speaker 1 35:17

To me, one of the biggest takeaways when we talk through this whole list is that you have to look for the patterns and figure out the why. Why is somebody maybe not performing where or how you might expect them to? And then however you approach it, if you are part of their sphere and their orbit, doing it with empathy and helping them uncover and get the resources that they do need, and not to feel bad about it, but to feel curious about it maybe about why is this happening? And then can you help them move forward?

Vinita 35:51

The why is such an important question, Kay, is is it's it's it is important to to do some type of an analysis or you know, like a work autopsy or whatever we're calling it, is ask those deeper questions, like what really is getting in the way for me? You know, is it the task initiation? Is it my perfectionism? Is it the anxiety? Is it shame? Is it that I don't quite think I am who everyone has told me that I am? You know, where is the gap? And and look for those patterns.

Speaker 1 36:23

And you've got to be honest with yourself and look in the mirror, and that's gonna bring up vulnerability. The more vulnerable I think you can be and honest with yourself and with the people that are willing to help you, the more likely you are to figure out how to tackle it.

Vinita 36:39

Right. And it because and and if because if we don't understand our bottlenecks, and what I mean by bottleneck is that that part of us that are where we're getting stuck, right? When you think of a bottle that's like the smallest part of the, you know, so when we're likely um to understand where we're getting stuck, we can actually start making steps to do something about it. And it may not be as simple as some of the previous executive functioning strategies we've talked about. It may be something much more or less tangible. It may be, you know, getting a full-on neuropsychological assessment to see is there something there that's not been covered in the past? Do I need to see a therapist? Do I need to go into more of a higher level of um intervention? Okay. So figure out what your bottleneck is. And then you had said something else about approaching things with empathy and kindness and and warmth and and staying away from words like laziness and you know, um anything that's demeaning.

Ruth 37:41

Yeah, exactly. Because that just makes it harder. You withdraw more and more into that protective shell if you feel like someone who's quote unquote helping you with it is just kind of um attacking. Right, right.

Vinita 37:53

And and so so then that's an opportunity to reframe the struggle, right? So instead of saying, I'm not good at this, I've never been good at this, instead say my performance is inconsistent because certain demands overload my system. And I need better tools, clearer conditions, and a different environment. But I know I'm good at this, this, this, and this. Yep. Okay. Um, and then, you know, I think it's important to build an identity around the process, not their smarts. Because again, we're so much more than our abilities or what we put out there, you know, in terms of academics, right? So rather than being considered the smart one, you know, go go get to the human side of who you are. Exactly. Right? So when bright students underperform, the answer is rarely as simple as laziness or lack of effort. It's it's a deeper story. And it's our job as people who work with them to help them uncover what that story really is. And it's not the oftentimes, it's really not the absence of potential, it's the presence of some type of interference. And um, once we understand that interference, we can finally begin to unlock how to best help our clients. Great. Okay. Thank you. Thanks for joining us. And and this, as we know, is um part of such a huge conversation, and we will continue to revisit this particular um topic.

Ruth 39:26

Onward. If today's conversation resonated with you, please share this episode with anyone who may need it and follow us at netcollective.org or wherever you get your podcasts so you won't miss what's next. We are Net Collective. Navigating everything together, one conversation at a time. Thanks for listening.