ABOUT
DIFFERENT IS GREAT!
The Devaluation of Creative Intelligence
For generations, we have been denied access to our true cognitive birthright. The education system, professional world, and broader society have systematically misclassified, mislabeled, and misunderstood our minds. What they've labeled as disability, disorder, or dysfunction is often simply the natural expression of an integrative intelligence trying to operate in a fragmented world.
Outlier giftedness is inherently neurodivergent. Our minds don't just work "better" in certain domains—they work fundamentally differently across all domains. The child who can solve complex mathematical problems intuitively but struggles to show sequential work isn't displaying contradictory abilities. They're operating from a unified cognitive system where pattern recognition happens at Levels 5-7—a range completely invisible to conventional assessment.
What we've experienced isn't accidental. Educational systems weren't designed to accommodate cognitive diversity but to standardize thinking patterns. When we couldn't conform—when our creative minds refused to fragment—we were diagnosed, medicated, remediated, and marginalized. The translation burden forced upon us—converting our multidimensional understanding into sequential formats acceptable to fragmented systems—extracted a devastating physiological and psychological toll.
Many of us have spent 95-98% of our cognitive resources on translation rather than creation, burning our mental energy converting what we see naturally into formats others can recognize. The constant downshifting required to communicate with conventional cognition has left us exhausted, depleted, and questioning our own perceptions.
The world now faces challenges that sequential, fragmented thinking cannot solve. They require minds that can perceive paradigmatic patterns and generative meta-patterns, minds that can synthesize across artificial domain boundaries and recognize the unified field underlying seemingly disconnected phenomena.
The neurodivergent gifted, are uniquely equipped for this moment precisely because our minds never fully surrendered to fragmentation. Our sensitivities—to sensory input, to emotional undercurrents, to system inconsistencies—aren't weaknesses but assets of an integrated intelligence that perceives what others cannot.
The Imperative of Self-Determination
This is why we founded Gifted ND—to create space for those of us who have been forced to live and work within systems designed against our natural cognitive architecture. We are Gifted Neurodivergents. We are also their parents, teachers, consultants, researchers, creators, employers, and friends. We recognize that what optimizes performance for sequential processors actively harms the most creative, integrated thinkers.
For too long, we've been forced to operate on schedules, in environments, and under structures that deliberately suppress our natural cognitive strengths while amplifying our translation challenges. We've been told our struggles represent personal deficiencies rather than system mismatch.
To reach our full potential and provide the world with the integrative insight it desperately needs, we must first reclaim our cognitive autonomy. This begins with rejecting the fragmented framing of our minds and embracing the unified intelligence that is our natural state. We must create environments that honor our need for integration cycles rather than production schedules, for sensory calibration rather than standardized stimulation, for pattern exploration rather than procedural compliance.
The Liberation of Creative Intelligence
As conventional systems reach their limits in addressing complex, interconnected challenges, it is those with integrative intelligence who will perceive the patterns and possibilities invisible to fragmented cognition. By reclaiming our natural cognitive architecture and refusing forced fragmentation, we will not only heal ourselves but offer essential insight for navigating the unprecedented transitions ahead.
The future belongs not to those who can optimize within existing frameworks but to those who can perceive across and beyond them. Different isn't just good or even great—different is necessary. The most profound innovations and solutions will come from minds that were never fully colonized by fragmented thinking.
Our neurodivergent giftedness isn't something to accommodate—it's something to liberate. Let's reclaim the integrated intelligence that is our natural birthright and create systems that honor rather than suppress our cognitive diversity.
Different is more than good; different is great. Let's make your differences work for you!
The Gifted ND Team
Lillian Skinner
Mother, Spouse, Creative Intelligence Researcher, Futurist, Writer, Consultant, Coach, Silversmith, Musician, Bunny Whisperer, and Weekend Roller Blader
After decades spent in information systems and emerging technology, Lillian pivoted to what she saw as the next frontier: understanding humanity's whole integrated intelligence. As a futurist and interdisciplinary systems thinker, she recognized that the frameworks available for understanding and navigating a reality filled with accelerating change were insufficient — and that AI could become a useful tool for multidimensional thinkers or a machine that uses humans as the tool.
As the founder of the Creative Intelligence Institute and a meta savant, she has the capacity to observe her own intelligence processing directly, with a precision the field has no existing instrument to measure or framework to recognize. Since childhood her breadth and depth of comprehension has been primarily punished. The higher-dimensional processing produces an extreme cognitive load that resulted in repeated physical collapse beginning in childhood. Her intelligence was not made for the system's schedule, limited logic, or its bandwidth. So she created a place where it could exist.
She has researched and written extensively on humanity's full intelligence — covering the humanities, technology, history and more. Focusing on embodied cognition, integrated processing, and higher-dimensional thinking she has redefining creative intelligence in a more accurate and holistic framework than the existing literature has produced. She has developed novel intelligence models that restore how humanity's intelligence operates in its most adaptive and highest-functioning state. Her work establishes what the field has left largely undefined: how extraordinary humanity's native creative intelligence is, and why it represents the adaptive capacity the current moment requires most.
Her pattern recognition operates across the full scale of human systems — from a specific individual to civilizational trajectory — and she uses her full intelligence to achieve intelligere-driven discernment across that spectrum. As a trained and certified futurist she reads what the pattern is across scales and where it is heading before most can conceive it. She originates the architecture, builds the frameworks that explain it, and implements them across academic papers, institutional design, educational programs, and direct work with individuals — without handoff or translation loss between vision and execution.
This combination is rarely officially recognized but it has always existed. The system simply refused to record it with the accuracy it deserved. Because it was too busy destroying those with it because their very existence could exposed how little of their "reality" was real.
Michael Strauss
Father, Spouse, Entrepreneur, Inventor, Maker, Strategic Partner, Consultant, Mr. Fix-Everything, Almost Competitive Tennis Player, and Dog Rescuer
Michael is a profoundly gifted neurodivergent who enjoys and excels at consulting and mentoring those seeking to build their own path through entrepreneurship. Michael is a master business startup creator and maker.
Michael began his career at 19 years old. He knew even then he didn’t want to toil away in the corporate grind. After his first 2 years in college, he co-founded a software development company that created several commercial entertainment products. After three and a half years, he exited the company successfully and finished up college in 1999 with a degree in Computer Science (with a focus in Artificial Intelligence) and minors in mathematics, physics, and chemistry.
Upon graduation he was recruited to work at a dot-com startup, Telenisus, focused on cyber security before getting recruited again by multiple Fortune 100 corporations, including banking (Bank of America) and defense (General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products). Highly motivated, he spent his days working in corporate America, and his nights and weekends consulting for various start-ups and still found time to complete his MBA with a concentration in finance before turning 30. Understanding he had maxed out what more he could learning in large companies, he moved full time to being a start-up addict using all of his skills and experience to become a successful consultant, serial business founder, and serial patent creator.
To say he is well rounded is an understatement. Michael worked in emerging technologies in a multitude of areas including: cyber security, pharmaceuticals, private industry, merger and acquisitions, corporate strategy, military and defense, and more. Michael worked every area of a successful startup from business development, contract negotiations, technical development, patent creation, fundraising and technology innovation. He is the rare individual who can move fluidly from technical speak to strategy to sales. It is not an exaggeration to say he is truly a Renaissance Man.
Michael's journey to understand his neurodivergence was fairly recent. Initially, he did not want to recognize his differences, having society’s stigmas ground into his psyche. In his 40s, he finally sought out diagnosis and the changes it brought were life altering. He was shocked at how much easier navigating life could be. He sees that the knowledge of self he obtained on his journey was the most profound gift he ever received. Michael always identified as gifted but embracing his neurodivergence has shown him how to enhance all of his abilities.
Coaching The Gifted Neurodivergent Adult and Child To Their Full Potential
Coaching in the field of persons with Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD), Bi-Polar, Hyperlexia, and Depression; Coaching in the field of parents of children with Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD), Bi-Polar, Hyperlexia, and Depression; Coaching in the field of Intellectual Property; Coaching in the field of entrepreneurship; Coaching in the field of business and professional development; Coaching in the field of family and relationships; Coaching in the field of self-discovery, self-awareness, and self-improvement; Coaching in the field of social skills; Educational services, namely, providing courses, classes, seminars, conferences, and workshops in the fields of business and professional development; Educational services, namely, providing courses, classes, seminars, conferences, and workshops in the fields of personal and professional development; Educational services, namely, providing courses, classes, seminars, conferences, and workshops in the fields of business and business development; Educational services, namely, providing courses, classes, seminars, conferences, and workshops in the fields of entrepreneurship; Educational services, namely, providing courses, classes, seminars, conferences, and workshops in the fields of Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD), Bi-Polar, Hyperlexia, and Depression; Educational services, namely, providing courses, classes, seminars, conferences, and workshops in the fields of family and relationships; Educational services, namely, providing courses, classes, seminars, conferences, and workshops in the fields of strategic planning; Educational services, namely, providing courses, classes, seminars, conferences, and workshops in the fields of Intellectual Property; Educational services, namely, providing courses, classes, seminars, conferences, and workshops in the fields of self-discovery, self-awareness, and self-improvement; Entertainment information; On-line journals, namely, blogs featuring information on personal development and improvement; On-line journals, namely, blogs featuring information on business and professional development; On-line journals, namely, blogs featuring information relating to health and wellness; On-line journals, namely, blogs featuring information relating to Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD), Bi-Polar, Hyperlexia, and Depression; On-line journals, namely, blogs featuring information on communication; On-line journals, namely, blogs featuring information on entrepreneurship; On-line journals, namely, blogs featuring information on family and relationships; On-line journals, namely, blogs featuring information on strategic planning; On-line journals, namely, blogs featuring information on Intellectual Property; On-line journals, namely, blogs featuring information on self-discovery and self-improvement; Providing on-line courses of instruction in the field of business and professional development via a website; Providing on-line courses of instruction in the field of entrepreneurship via a website; Providing on-line courses of instruction in the field of Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD), Bi-Polar, Hyperlexia, and Depression via a website; Providing on-line courses of instruction in the field of family and relationships via a website; Providing on-line courses of instruction in the field of personal and professional development via a website; Providing on-line courses of instruction in the field of Intellectual Property via a website; Providing a website featuring entertainment information; Providing information about education via a website