Talented Young Men Overcoming Tough Times

Book excerpt: Talented Young Men Overcoming Tough Times features the life stories of five gifted, high-achieving young men who overcame serious adversity in their lives. Their stories, captured through qualitative interviews, help us to better understand the factors that shaped their resilience and enabled them to overcome difficult challenges, including learning disabilities, homelessness, poverty, bullying, dysfunctional families, and abuse. The five young men succeeded in overcoming their difficult circumstances in adolescence and met strong success in higher education, obtaining advanced graduate degrees and moving on to productive professional careers. The author presents the five life stories by dedicating an individual chapter to each young man featured in the book and concludes by synthesizing the consistent themes that are woven throughout the five inspirational life stories.