#244 When Capable Isn’t Enough with Mark Talaga Transcript

THIS IS AN AUTOMATED TRANSCRIPT… PLEASE FORGIVE THE TYPOS & GRAMMAR! xo-Lisa.

Lisa Marker-Robbins  00:44

Have you ever looked at your young person and thought, You’re so capable. Why is this so hard for you? That question is at the heart of today’s conversation. Every young person has superpowers, areas where things just come naturally, and every young person has growth edges too. And by the way, so do you. The problem comes when we focus so much on what we can do that we might miss where our kids need support, development, or simply a better understanding of how they’re wired. My guest today, Mark Talaga, works specifically with gifted and twice-exceptional or 2e young people. He is the owner of the Center for Identity Potential, where they offer counseling and consultation services for gifted, talented, and exceptional young people, along with mental health counseling. But you do not need to have a gifted or 2e young person for this conversation to matter for your family. In this episode, we’re talking about why highly capable young people can sometimes struggle with things that seem like they should be easy, why those challenges often become more apparent during transitions to college, career, or greater independence, and how parents can help young people develop the self-awareness and agency they’ll eventually need to advocate for themselves. If you want your young person to eventually become a happy, independent adult—who doesn’t?—one of the greatest gifts you can do is give them an accurate understanding of both their superpowers and their growth edges, without shame attached to either one. I’m Lisa Marker Robbins, and I want to welcome you to College and Career Clarity, a Flourish Coaching production. Let’s dive right in to another great conversation. Mark, welcome to the show.

 

Mark Talaga  02:27

Oh, thank you for having me. I am so excited to be here.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  02:30

I am too. We talked about this earlier in the summer, and we’re like, We gotta bring it to the people! So let’s start with, what do you do? Like, tell us a little bit about how you support families, because that’s who our listeners are—they’re families.

 

Mark Talaga  02:44

For sure. So, I am I am the director and owner of the Center for Identity Potential. We are a mental health counseling practice that focuses on working with the gifted. And, just to back up a little bit, giftedness isn’t like this idea that we’re working with only the smartest, best, brightest, you know, scoring the highest numbers on all the fancy tests. What I am typically dealing with is kids that have some level of extreme in their development, and it could be anywhere. And it could, yes, be a cognitive extreme development academically. They’re doing calculus at 9 years old, but it also could be extreme in the sense of they’re gifted athletes, gifted artists, gifted sense of moral justice. You know, giftedness is not a number. It is more, Wow, this kid does not seem to fit in on some level compared to their peers. And that creates some level of difficulty, challenge, and, you know, joy as well. But that that’s who we focus on working with.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  03:44

I love that. I love that broad definition because you’re right. Everybody is focused on the test score, the grade. Did my kid get into honors math? Are they accelerated? And that is not what we are talking about here. And, you know, I mean I love that the name of your practice has identity in it because the work that we’re doing on the career side is all rooted foundationally in self-awareness.

 

Mark Talaga  04:13

That’s why we get along so well. It’s all about identity.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  04:15

That’s why you’re here! I love it. So, we’ve taken this definition, but what does it mean to be a 2e learner? Because that is something that we want to talk about even more specifically. So you just you just wowed us with like, Okay, gifted is not what you think it is. Let’s redefine.

 

Mark Talaga  04:36

Yep. So 2e is the you know the abbreviation for twice-exceptional, meaning a child is designated as gifted with something else alongside it, typically a learning challenge or disability. So you can have gifted with ADHD, gifted with dysgraphia, gifted with dyslexia. That’s that’s the typical widely accepted version of, Oh, this kid’s really smart, but they have these challenges. Now, once again, I don’t follow the rules. I don’t believe in that’s all there is to it. 2e and gifted to me are the same in a sense. Meaning, whenever you’re dealing with somebody that has an extreme in their development, somewhere else in their profile you will have areas that are not up to that level, right? So you’ll have more normative areas of development, or areas of development that are delayed, or maybe through executive functioning, or processing, or math skill, or whatever it is. And so ultimately, you are dealing with a child that typically has a lot of scatter in their profile, and you don’t always see it. You don’t always know it’s there because typically these really bright kids can just show what they know, school’s not that hard, and so you might not see it until later in life when they’re maybe looking to jump into a career, or go to college, or these other points. And so, yes, twice exceptional is a very helpful term because it means, hey this kid needs support as much as they need challenge and acceleration in certain levels, but to me give it it’s the same thing. You you need to look through that lens for every single kid. And then to make it even more complicated, it’s not just 2e usually, it’s like 10e. There’s many areas of exceptionality that you have to account for and pay attention to and come up in specific contexts. So it’s never a straightforward, oh, all 2e kids need this, or all gifted kids need this. That’s that’s not going to work without some proper assessment and evaluation.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  06:37

I have okay, so something came to mind as you were defining this, and I have no idea, and I don’t even know if you have the stats on this.

 

Mark Talaga  06:43

Love it already.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  06:44

But anecdotally, even if you don’t have real data, is for gifted kiddos, do we know like what percentage of them are just oh, you’re academically gifted, or you’re gifted in some other way, and what percentage of them are 2e?

 

Mark Talaga  07:02

I no, I don’t have any hard numbers for you, but you know, the majority of time, anytime I’m working with a kid that has some level of extreme, right? You know, you can just kind of tell. You think of this kid in your head like they’re quirky, they’re out there, they start to quote Faust at you for some reason, and you never asked for it. I will always look at that kid as being incredible and amazing, but I will always say that there is something that that kid is going to be struggling with. There’s there’s no way—it happens very rarely where you have a kid that is accelerated across the board, or they’re just born into a life where the support structures they need and the scaffolding just happen to be there in just the right way, where their issues never come out. For most kids, that’s not the case. You are going to have some level of developmental challenge where the kid knows how brilliant they are, or the parents are like, I know what you’re capable of, but some reason or another, they just can’t seem to do it. And then the lens we try to look through is where are they asynchronous in their development that is causing that to be such a challenge?

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  08:06

You know, having worked with families for 30 years, one of the things that’s coming to mind for me is we get focused on the the gifted part, right? Because we celebrate—society celebrates—and I, I’ll even remove the gifted part from it. I always say when we’re looking at personality, hey, we all have superpowers.

 

Mark Talaga  08:28

Yes.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  08:29

Stuff that we’re great at. And let’s please normalize that we all have limitations. You know, I know we’re also recording for me on your show, and one of the the lies that we’re going to dispel over there is, you know, can do doesn’t mean should do, or this lie of you can be anything, right? And so, what I start to get curious about, and I think would be helpful for parents to hear from you, is if you have this gifted kiddo in whatever area, are you celebrating it so much that you might be missing where they they need better structure or supports? Like Yeah,

 

Mark Talaga  09:08

absolutely. Right. So, how

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  09:10

would we encourage parents to like get real and look holistically for what’s going to best support their kiddo?

 

Mark Talaga  09:19

Well, you really have to look at what is, not what should be, right? If you, you know, let me give you an example of a good example of asynchronous development in action. I’ll have parents where I’m evaluating their child’s ability to write, and they’ll say, Oh, they’re an incredible writer. They write the most amazing stories. It’s amazing. I love it. You should read them. I’ll bring them in. I’m like, Sure, that sounds great. I would love to read it. No problem. Then I’ll ask, Is it creative writing, or is it something that they’re writing expositorily? And they’ll say, Well, it’s creative. They just make up the story. Perfect. How about writing in school, when they have to write a paragraph, when they have to meet some level of criteria, or they have to write off a prompt? Oh, well, they hate that, but I know they’re a good writer. And right then and there, I’ve seen the asynchrony. They are in certain contexts, around certain areas of their brain, where they can do it in a way that’s comfortable for them, they’re interested in it, they like it, but when they’re forced to do it in a way that’s not so comfortable, the developmental delay around their writing shows up. It’s different parts of their neurology that aren’t as strengthened. And so, I’m not so willing to say, Oh, they’re a good writer, full stop. I want to say, is there still a challenge around writing? Do they still struggle with writing? How is it that they’re so good over here, but this becomes pulling teeth when we need to write a couple extra sentences in school? And that to me is where parents need to to have the nuance of saying just because they’re good at some dynamic of it in this context does not mean it always translates. And so you have to be able to say there’s a reason that they’re fighting against it, or pushing back, or using their superior reasoning to explain why it’s a quote-unquote dumb assignment that they shouldn’t have to do. And you as a parent need to be like, Well, maybe you’re just being challenged, rather than, Oh, you’re right, and let’s tell the teacher to make it more interesting for you.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  11:09

It’s interesting as you’re saying this, because I’m thinking back to another recent episode with a guest, and Jason Rabinowitz and I were talking, and he was one of those 2e learners. He’s a dad now, very successful guy. He was a 2e learner, and he’s like, I needed a ton of supports, and my mom was smart enough to, like, get them for me: dyslexic, but gifted, like great guy. Went on to become a an attorney, but he said, and here’s where I’m thinking, when we get to the workplace, so I, you know, I’m sitting here going, If we want these kids out and thriving independently, which is ultimately every parent’s goal, right? I want them happy, independent, and thriving. We’re really a lot less focused on some of the other stuff that we’re distracted by right now when they’re younger. And it’s going to mean they’re going to have to have a well-paying job, right? They got to be able to pay the bills. That’s the reality. And so Jason and I were talking about how you’re not going to get all those accommodations and the extra support once you’re in the workplace, right?

 

Mark Talaga  12:17

Correct. No. No. And it it’s it’s unrealistic to believe that, you know, it it needs to look a certain way in order for you to thrive. It is more so understanding where your vulnerabilities are and how you are going to creatively get them supported. And yes, maybe the workplace can meet you halfway, but in a lot of cases, it’s something that you’ve got to work with in your own life to build up so that you can do the thing that you want to do, feel purposeful in doing.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  12:45

Right. Well, and it’s also building, and I and I want to get into, like, age-wise, when you start, how can parents at the right age start to have the right supports in, put and then slowly, maybe start to wean them off? But we’ve got to build agency, because here’s the deal: when they get to college, you cannot call their professors to check in on all the things. I’ve raised some kids myself, and my oldest, I I wanted to be able to. You can’t do that, right? And so this piece of agency, they’ve got to learn how to advocate for themselves. They’ve got to learn how to, when we’re doing career exploration and validation, they have to be the one to ask somebody for a job shadow or an informational interview. And unless we teach them how to have courage and agency, they’re not opting in. You know, we’re helping opt them in when they’re in our homes, or we’re pushing them to opt themselves in, but once they’re outside, whether it’s at college or they’re in an apprenticeship, they’re in employment, they have to have the agency and the courage to be able to do it on their own.

 

Mark Talaga  13:55

Absolutely, and where parents can help the most is making sure that a child that knows how to advocate will always be a child that really understands themselves, that really understands where the vulnerabilities are, and they understand that the vulnerabilities. Remember, I don’t call them weaknesses; they’re vulnerabilities because they can be developed. These vulnerabilities are and how they play out and how they need to be seen in a way that’s almost universal, meaning like you can’t just go to a professor and be like, Well, I have really bad anxiety, so I can’t blank, right? Now, that may be true,

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  14:28

but

 

Mark Talaga  14:29

your job as a student at that age is to say, The anxiety is coming from somewhere. We always treat anxiety as a symptom at our practice, meaning anxiety is an alarm system that goes off in your body that is saying there is a challenge presented to you that you do not know how to deal with, or you feel unprepared to deal with at the level you’d like to deal with it, and so it comes back down to skill. Where are you struggling in that skillset? And so it’s this thing that we’re looking at, if yes, if we get too seduced by a child’s gifts and their strengths, and we only support that, we are probably missing that area where it’s like, what does it mean to say, you know, I am the kind of person that will need that in writing, or else it’ll be out of my brain, and I got to make sure that I get that, and that a professor knows that about me, and that we have a plan and a framework to make sure that happens, so that I don’t have to come begging to them as an apology for, you know, Can you please excuse this issue? right? That’s that’s the self-awareness where advocacy becomes a lot easier when you really know what’s going on with you.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  15:32

I love One of the things I love about your practice and how you guys are supporting people is the positiveness or the out-of-the-box definitions, like you said, we’re not going to call them weaknesses, We’re going to call it a vulnerability. I always say from, you know, we use the Birkman assessment as our personality assessment tool to build the self-awareness, then go out and connect it to the career piece. But when you see something in yourself that you would call a vulnerability, we say it’s your growth edge.

 

Mark Talaga  16:05

Love it. It’s your

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  16:06

opportunity.

 

Mark Talaga  16:07

Yep.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  16:08

I think I one of the things that’s coming up for me is it you know, as we I said earlier, like we over-index on the giftedness and we’re ignoring some of this other stuff. So if we can if we can normalize this, but I think we as the adults need to change our vernacular, change our language around how we’re talking about these things because the way I see a lot of adults talking about this type of stuff is in a negative or shame-producing way.

 

Mark Talaga  16:38

Right, and it doesn’t need to be at all. That’s where people get really stuck. You know, the idea that everything can make sense and that your struggles are opportunities, and if it really bothers you on some level that you can’t do some of these things and advocate in the way you want to advocate, that typically tells us that you have potential. If it if it didn’t bother you, you wouldn’t care and it wouldn’t be purposeful and you don’t really need to bother growing it, cuz who cares? But if it bothers you deeply, it’s in you, but you don’t know how to scaffold it, develop it yet. And you’ve got to be okay with, well, why am I 20 years old and I still can’t write an email? You got to get out of that mode. There’s reasons for it. Let’s lose the the shame behind it and deal with what is and not what should be.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  17:20

Well, I also think normalizing so those things, I really believe that our hardwired personality is there from birth. Now, that doesn’t mean that we cannot develop tools and strategies to help support us, right? But I’m the mom of twins, like the second time, I thought I was only having a second child, and I had number two and three in that. And I’m like, I used to just marvel at how am I I’m the same parent, the the household’s the same, and they were different from the womb and still are radically different. Any listener who knows Sydney and Caleb knows how radically different they are, and they’re they’re both fantastic, but they’re very different, right? But we’ve got that in us. So, the idea here that the vulnerability or the growth edge isn’t going away, but accumulating tools in your toolbox to help you navigate it better.

 

Mark Talaga  18:20

Absolutely. And the more adults in that kid’s life, whether it’s the parents or the teachers that start to understand them and help that kid feel understood, yes, a lot of this gets a lot easier as they get older. But, you know, back to the basics of helping a child, you know, learn some of the executive functioning skills that are very tricky for a lot of these gifted 2e kids. You know, what it means to initiate, what it means to sustain, what it means to transition and prioritize and organize and all these things, and helping them understand that’s not just something they should learn how to do, but it’s something that they need to be aware of where they’re really good, where they might need help, and where they can get better, depending on if that’s something that they’re, you know, feeling purposeful in doing.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  19:04

You you just brought up that word transition again. Can you share your own story? Because I think our listeners need to hear it. Your own career journey and transition to where you are now, because it’s a good story and I think it helps us think more concretely about how what this looks like.

 

Mark Talaga  19:24

For sure. And I have a very windy story, as far as my career goes. But yeah, I I was one of these gifted kids that school was very easy, never had a challenge with it. And again, that’s a double-edged sword. If you’ve always find it easy and you can intuit the answers, you never learn real skills of how to study, how to take notes, how to process information effectively into long-term memory, and so you get to a certain challenge at life where things get hard. For me, that was in college. And so I went, you know, kind of major-hopping from one thing, I was music and then music business and then, you know, interdepartmental. But the idea I had in my head was, I’ll do video games. I’ll go work in the video game industry, because I care about it. I love it. I play them all the time. It’s my whole life. It’s my whole identity. I thought if it was interesting That’s

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  20:11

a lot of young people.

 

Mark Talaga  20:12

Yes. Oh, yeah. You’re right. There’s probably a lot of people like, oh yeah.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  20:15

Even more now than when you were at, right?

 

Mark Talaga  20:16

Yeah, right. Exactly. It’s even more now or now it’s more like I want to be a streamer or influencer, whatever. Yes. But the idea was if I could create my interest level as high enough, I shouldn’t have any problem doing the work. Boy, was I wrong. I got into the industry through sheer will, and I found myself overwhelmed by the executive functioning. I was in the production side of things, meaning I had to manage people’s schedules and times and who was working with who and communication. And it was a lot of things that I had never developed. And so I I constantly was making mistakes. I jumped from one job to another. People really liked me, so they kind of gave me a chance, and I probably lasted longer than I should have. But around year four of, you know, me working in the industry, they said, Look, you’re not doing what we need you to do, and we have to let you go. Mm. And I was pretty lost because I put my whole identity in this is who I am, and now who am

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  21:12

I? Right.

 

Mark Talaga  21:12

And it was a lot of soul-searching of maybe it’s not about what I want; maybe it’s about how I can help others. And so I thought about how I received mental health counseling when I was a teenager. It was very helpful for me. What if I did that? So I went and got my master’s in counseling psychology, and nobody would hire me for my clinical practicum because I had zero psych background. Everybody was like, Who’s this video game kid that wants to be a counselor? You know, it makes no sense. And so I started cold-calling a bunch of just mental health practices, be like, Hey, I need a a site to get my hours. and Andy Mahoney, who ran the center before I took over, said, Look, I like your story. I like where you’re coming from. You’re an interesting dude. Let’s let’s bring you on board. And he works with the gifted. He actually created the field along with some of his colleagues back in the 80s of counseling to the gifted specifically. And so the more he was teaching me about how to work with these kids, the more I was like, Oh, that’s me. Oh, no. Like I’m becoming very aware that that’s where my struggles were, and that’s why that was happening, and that’s why, you know, I have this chip on my shoulder that maybe I don’t need to have anymore. And really opened up my eyes, and it it allowed me to do really good work because I could relate to these kids very, very well and what it’s like to go through this. Yeah. And you know, 12 years later, here I am now running the show and trying to preach the good word because it was so helpful to me. But, yeah, it was it was never my intention to be doing the work I’m doing today, but I’m glad I am.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  22:48

Well, you know what? Two things jumped out from a career perspective there: A, had you done a job shadow, informational interviews on the video game piece and realized some of those mismatches, might have saved you some time.

 

Mark Talaga  23:03

Might have. Might have.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  23:03

Because we preach that all the time. But I also see your growth edge with there’s no way you were running the show now if you hadn’t like gotten the tools in the toolbox on your areas of vulnerability. and so career development, executive functioning, it’s lifelong building this stuff.

 

Mark Talaga  23:22

Absolutely, and there’s no timeline for it, right? People say, Oh, well, once your brain develops at 25, then you’re good to go. Not necessarily. You know, for some people it’s longer; for some people it is sooner. But the reality was, it always bothered me that I couldn’t be the one in charge. And so it it had a lot of potential. I wanted to create something. But what I had to learn more than executive functioning was how to get support from others, how to say what I needed from people. Kind of

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  23:47

agency again.

 

Mark Talaga  23:48

And the it comes back to the advocacy and the agency, and to be okay with that. You know, my executive functioning on a great day is still maybe like a C plus, and that’s okay because I have a lot of people that take care of me, and sometimes Yeah, I’ve surrounded myself, and that’s okay. And, you know, nobody looks down on that. But for kids, sometimes that’s what they need. I need to surround myself with people helping me do the stuff because I’m not there yet, and can we make that okay? And we can make that a part of a longer journey that eventually they’ll get where they need to go.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  24:17

Ah, I love this. What are What are your parting words of advice to parents?

 

Mark Talaga  24:22

Sure. Well, I, you know, to me, whenever you’re working with very complicated cases and giftedness, 2e, all that, neurodivergence, all that stuff, you want to keep this phrase in mind: For these kids, the complex is simple, and the simple is complex. If you can hold that in your mind, it will help you understand those kids a lot better and help you teach them to understand themselves, because that’s mostly the challenge they’re faced with: Why can’t they just [blank]? Well, it may seem simple and they may be able to do amazing things in other areas, but for that kid, for some reason that we need to discover, it is incredibly complicated and it is more involved than you think. And so help them figure out what’s what’s, you know, the glitches and where they need that support. Yeah,

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  25:06

what the what the complication is.

 

Mark Talaga  25:07

Right, exactly.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  25:08

Yeah. because they are so capable, I think we just I think too society is so just go.

 

Mark Talaga  25:14

Right.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  25:15

Right? In this Instacart society that we have, it’s like we just got our foot on the gas, let’s just go. And that takes slowing down.

 

Mark Talaga  25:23

Yes. Oh, yeah, and think about that, because these kids, and even as they get older and go into the career, they don’t want to slow down. They want to go fast, fast, fast. And so the biggest challenge is teaching them, you have to slow down. You have to be in a process. You have to be paying attention to more and more things and then eventually you’ll get to the speed you want to go to. But it is it is a conscious slowing down of who am I? What do I need? Why is this as hard as it is? You know, and so on and so forth.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  25:52

We Every week in my newsletter, we do a conversation cue to use with your family, and the one You and I are this will drop weeks after this conversation cue goes out, but the one I just wrote was, what was something that you learned this summer about yourself? As we were like cuz it’s In real time, this is mid-August when we’re hitting record. It’s going to come out in September. But but like, let’s slow down and reflect. And I said in there, the reason is we need to model reflection for our kids, cuz we also, as adults, have our foot on the gas all the time, and we need to model that reflection and the value that can come out of that instead of just doing all the time.

 

Mark Talaga  26:34

1,000%. I would I couldn’t agree more.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  26:36

Hm. Okay. I know you’re coming back another time because we can talk about all these things a lot, so.

 

Mark Talaga  26:42

100%. I’d be happy to. I It’s such a joy. So, yes, anytime.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  26:47

So, Mark, tell people where they can follow along with your journey, get in touch, all the things, in case they want to know more.

 

Mark Talaga  26:54

Well, if you’re interested in the center and the services we provide, you can go to centerforidentitypotential.com. We have a lot of resources up there: books, videos, things like that. You can also listen to me on my podcast, Hopelessly Gifted, which Lisa will be a guest on very soon. You can hear her there, and that is on Spotify and Apple Podcasts at Hopelessly Gifted.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  27:21

Perfect. Okay, and we’ll put all of that in the show notes. Mark, thank you so much.

 

Mark Talaga  27:26

Thank you. One

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  27:32

idea I really hope that you latch on to from this conversation is that can do doesn’t mean should do. Your young person may be capable of succeeding in many different majors or careers, but capability alone doesn’t tell us whether a path fits how they’re wired or what kind of work will ultimately be satisfying. So, if you’ve been thinking about your young person’s future primarily through the lens of what they can do, I want to offer you a more reliable process for figuring out what’s worth exploring. Start with my career identification compass video. It’s at flourishcoachingco.com/video. I’ll walk you through the framework I’ve used with thousands of young people, starting with self-awareness as the foundation and then moving into career exploration and real-world validation. Remember, the goal isn’t simply to find something your young person is capable of doing. It’s to help them discover a direction that actually fits and supports their eventual launch. And if you also think that Mark and his services could be a help to your family, go to the show notes and find all the ways to follow him or reach out to him. Okay, I’ll see you again next week.